AI War 2 News

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.905_Release_Candidate_2

This one has a number of bugfixes, some balance fixes to DLC3 in particular, and then a split to the campaign types so that Expert is now split between Expert and Logistician. This release also includes a minor new "Civil Authority" metal gifting and repayment mechanic, although it's a fairly small detail.

Tomorrow I hope to get through more of the relevant bugs that are left and preventing beta exit, and then Wednesday for release? That seems like good distance from Elden Ring, but it's all about the feedback on these builds. Some folks were really put off by their experience with Expert, and handling that a bit better should hopefully be a thing that makes it more enjoyable for more folks, rather than frustrating.

More to come soon.
Enjoy.

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.904_Release_Candidate_1

Happy Elden Ring Day, I guess? We'll just post this as a release candidate for now, and hop off the beta branch on Monday unless something dramatic comes up over the weekend.

This build puts even more finishing touches on multiplayer, and it's now truly the best it's ever been in this title, which is really gratifying to see.

This build also fixes a bug with our random number generator in general, which was causing mapgen in the lobby to not give you consistent results given the same seed.

"Pull" shots (reverse knockback) and attractant fields also both work again. And the Dark Zenith better at linking their planets.

There are some various other bugfixes, and balance adjustments for DLC3 and also DLC2.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.903_Multiplayer_Polish

We're getting SO close to being out of beta. The plan was tomorrow, although it's International Elden Ring Day, so maybe that's not the wisest move? Regardless, there are a lot of major strides here. We might come out of beta tomorrow but not fully announce until Monday, we'll see.

New in this build, factions now have an icon next to their name in the lobby when you're choosing one to add, which adds a lot to making them easier to choose and tell apart. Does not apply to the DLC3 factions just yet.

Lots more balance to DLC3 in general.

Lots of bugfixes across the board, too. Some particularly notable ones:

A number of notable multiplayer stability improvements. Multiplayer client-side ship jitter/lag gone. Multiplayer clients no longer have disappearing ships. (These were the most major remaining MP issues!)

Tachyon beams and similar now show up properly in tooltips again, unlike the last few builds.

If you weren't playing with distributed economy on, it was erroneously still giving you metal harvester bonus income if you were using any command station type other than military. This is now fixed, which prevents players in the more basic game modes from having an excess of income to the same degree.

The game now properly calculates overall power level, which means that exowar units will actually show up again.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.902_Spire_Onslaught

The Chromatic Spire Dyson Sphere, Gray Spire Dyson Sphere, and Splintering Spire factions (all in DLC1) are now available for everyone with that DLC! Previously, these were gated to just DLC3 testers while we ironed out the most notable kinks in them.

These are very interesting factions, because they can be used a few different ways. For a very low impact method, you can simply enable the new dyson spheres and they'll have some minor impact on their local neighborhood, and not much else. Low impact factions can be quite nice for adding flavor!

On the other hand, if you add the Splintering Spire faction, then a whole bunch of things happen: the dark spire, plus all the dyson spheres, are automatically added. The chromatic and gray spire are busy harvesting some dark spire remains that they are slingshotting in from outside the wormhole network, and in general they have a bit of a war going on with that. If you help one side become suitably powerful, this unlocks the ability to hack for either warheads (Gray Spire) or Interplanetary Weapons (Chromatic Spire). This is an exciting new war front that you can turn on in your game, and it unlocks some powerful new tools for you, as well, if you engage with it. Major thanks to StarKelp for the excellent implementation of this, and to Ovalcircle for a lot of early feedback on it.

Also regarding spire, the fallen spire have gotten a bit of a nerf compared to what they've been since gaining modular capabilities. Their power had roughly quintupled, but now it should be more back in line with what it is supposed to be. Big thanks to CRCGamer for fixing that up.

Lots more DLC3 updates, some bugfixes, and a variety of new pieces of art. The new DLC1 spire features now all have proper icons, and the last of the base-game art updates that I had planned (command stations, data centers, battlestations, and more) are now in place. Additionally, some more DLC2 are is implemented.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.901_Modular_Forcefields

Lots is happening around here these days!

The modular units feature is now feature-complete, mainly needing bug reports and testing now. Any weapons can be set up and used in whatever combination, and the same with a variety of features like cloaking and tachyon and tractor beams. The game now supports modular hull and shield health, and also bubble forcefields. It's possible that at some point more types of modules will be added, but realistically this is plenty and quite large already; it matches everything that AIWC could do, I believe, except that it's easier to use and can support (a lot) more modules per ship.

Expert mode and the others like it now have fancy new introductions thanks to Strategic Sage, and a few more balance items tweaked in them.

DLC2 now has a new Prototype Assault Frigate that is CRCGamer's first modular unit, and quite cool to see. Additionally, his Riot Control Cruiser was always intended to be modular, but was just waiting for the modular code to arrive. Now that it has, the RCC is also fully modular! This only applies to new games, but old ones will still function, just minus the modular RCC.

Zeus and Badger have been working hard on DLC3's factions, with lots happening in the Necromancer, Templars, and Elderlings in particular today.

And then the bugfixes... so many bugfixes! Bonus Random Factions working again is one of the big ones, but forcefields also are up properly instantly when you load from savegames, versus having to unpause for a moment first to see them. Actually, in the area of forcefields there are a number of quality of life improvements (like showing their boundaries, built or unbuilt, when you are in construction mode).

Beta exit will hopefully happen this Friday, and at the moment we seem on schedule for that. It's less about new stuff and more about polish and fixes at this point, for the remainder of the week.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!