AI War 2 News

New beta build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Multiplayer_Alpha_And_Beta#Beta_2.763_QoL_Explosion

You need to use the current_beta branch on Steam or GOG to play this one. If you have trouble with it, there is a most_recent_stable_beta, now, too.

I am indescribably proud of this new build, I have to say. It feels like an entirely different game in a variety of areas -- all just interface conveniences, really -- and it's entirely due to various folks pushing me on areas that I didn't think were important. It turned out that they were important, and the results are just... wow. I didn't think it would work out this well, which is why I hadn't done this in the past.

There's a heck of a lot here, so let's break it down. First of all, the default sidebar view is now one that blends text and icons, and it so much easier to see what is happening via. In truly giant battles, it's better to switch to the icon view sometimes, or you can if you just prefer the old style. But this new style works super well, and that's entirely to my surprise.

All units now have a full name and abbreviation now; lists are much easier to read. Many screens got tiny touches to make them more readable and more informative in general.

There's a bunch of stuff on the selected ships panel that people have wanted for ages.

There's an "advanced mode toggle" that hides huge number of settings that are superfluous for 99% of the time. But you can easily see where settings are hidden, and even unhide them with one click. The feeling is transformative, as information overload goes way down in the settings and lobby, and you can just see what you need. As part of this, we also now have a way of setting the four AI difficulties via one dropdown by default (though you can turn that off and set individually if you want).

Scourge is smarter! UI more responsive to clicks! Multi-swap fleet members! Swap fleet leaders! Two new mods! Metric ton bugfixes!

Enjoy!

New beta build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Multiplayer_Alpha_And_Beta#Beta_2.760_Xenophiles_And_Overlords

You need to use the current_beta branch on Steam or GOG to play this one. If you have trouble with it, there is a most_recent_stable_beta, now, too.

Lots of things in here! I mean -- a LOT.

Player command station balance is adjusted to encourage play with more types and have a few less extreme situations. Overlord Phase 2 has been completely overhauled, and it now makes a concerted counterattack against your own home command station. It has harmonics to get through forcefields, it's slower than before, and it solo-phases away while on its own homeworld or bastion planets. Prepare for impact or for a chase, or both.

ArnaudB updated a TON of alien-themed factions so that you can hack them for way more interesting stuff, more times. Overall the balance there is now such that you can actually hack them and have a lot of useful stuff from doing so.

Superterminal, Polarizer, Botnet Golem, Watchman Frigates, and Imperial Spire all got substantial balance adjustments.

Tons of bugfixes. One of the biggest is that if you play with dyson sphere on, you won't be getting hit with giant waves of anti-dyson hunter anymore. And if your save was in the middle of you getting hit by such, loading that save will now show those being discarded and you can actually continue playing properly.

We also moved the release date for DLC2 back again, from April 15th to May 18th. We all need that extra time to finish really doing all the factions justice in terms of art and unit design and mechanics, and there's still so much going on in the beta that this was unavoidable. We have constant substantial forward momentum, but the inherent scope of things can make the release date itself feel a bit like a treadmill. We are actually getting closer on it, despite needing that extra time.

Enjoy!

New beta build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Multiplayer_Alpha_And_Beta#Beta_2.758_Threat_Explanation

You need to use the current_beta branch on Steam or GOG to play this one. If you have trouble with it, there is a most_recent_stable_beta, now, too.

Badger has gone in and made some tweaks to my sidebar display to make it even more awesome. I am very pleased with his results!

Plasma Guardian's have gotten a nerf from ArnaudB, which I think is a big sigh of relief for everyone, heh.

I fixed a whole lot of random bugs, most of which were relating to accurately and clearly explaining information to the player.

The most notable new thing is that it is now making is super clear when hunter forces aren't threat, and aren't a cause for you to give up in despair. We were having multiple people with situations where the hunter fleet was 600+ strong, and just seemed to be an insurmountable obstacle. But the interface was showing them a far lower number for threat (a quarter or less of that hunter value). This seemed like a display bug (and actually there were some, but the widest view of it was not actually a bug).

So, here's a fun thing that was never clearly shown in the interface of the game before now: sometimes some Hunter units just don't care about you. Instead, they REALLY super hate someone else. These hunter ships are not counted in threat, but when you filter for hunter ships you will shoot them. If you go fly into range with them, they will happily pass the time by murdering you. But they aren't hunting you, they won't come to the aid of some other planet of the AI, they won't do anything other than hunt whoever it is they are after (unlucky dyson sphere? Marauders? It varies.)

This is pretty awesome, because there's this large force out there, and you probably should make a point to go around, but they are no danger normally. The real hunter danger was usually 1/10th the total shown. Now you can see it in game clearly!

New beta build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Multiplayer_Alpha_And_Beta#Beta_2.757_Super_Mega_Exciting_Sidebar

You need to use the current_beta branch on Steam or GOG to play this one. If you have trouble with it, there is a most_recent_stable_beta, now, too.

Wow! This one hits some bucket list items for me, in one manner of speaking. The planet sidebar tab has been a bear and not my favorite interface for like three years now. And yet it's the most primary interface you use for finding ships and such. I probably should have done this sooner.

At any rate, lots of quality of life improvements. First of all, the sidebar is just plain sorted better (it's subtle but immediately applicable), and it also never blends units from different factions together. Secondly, there are two new filter modes that you can toggle on in a new options section right on the sidebar, which lets you break things out either just by faction, or by (mobile and station) per faction. This can be a great alternate view to check relative faction strengths, or a view you use all the time.

Additionally, the game now shows you the fleets of the local planet on the planet tab, not the fleets tab. This is vastly more clear (you can still see them on the fleets tab, but it doesn't double them up anymore). There's slightly different/more info in these new fleet displays on the planet tab, in that it shows you the health of the flagship if it is damaged. It also shows crippled flagships way more clearly. You can also much more quickly click into and edit local fleets.

You can also Watch fleets, to keep an eye on them even when they are distant from you!

The crippling mechanics have been simplified WAY back down. Bail out is now off by default, as are hacking point costs. Repair cost multipliers are a flat 2x. Ships now cripple at 1 HP, not 10% health. You can adjust these settings during gameplay.

Superterminal hack is still weak, but I ran out of time. Enjoy!

New beta build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Multiplayer_Alpha_And_Beta#Beta_2.756_Choice_OF_Injury

You need to use the current_beta branch on Steam or GOG to play this one. If you have trouble with it, there is a most_recent_stable_beta, now, too.

Right now the most_recent_stable_beta points to 2.753 still, because both last builds were not great. There were some invincible ships happening in the last build, but that's fixed now.

More exciting is the new stuff. The way that ship crippling works is finally revamped, like I've been talking about for a week or so. Essentially, all of the new mechanics are optional, though; you can turn literally all of them off, and make crippling just be "it doesn't work until it's repaired back to full health." By default, though, it uses the most friendly version of the new "bail out" system (Trigger On!) to warp the crippled ship back to the nearest friendly space. It also costs more to repair until it is no longer crippled (which means 100% health now, not 10%), but it's not in a way that should bankrupt your metal. And that can be tuned. It also now costs you a few hacking points when ships get crippled; more for bigger stuff. Again that can be turned off or tuned. We wanted a variety of consequences, to have people avoid getting crippled carelessly if possible, but not to the point where people want to reload saves.

Superterminal and Dark Spire VG hacks should be way more tame now. They were too rough.

Citadels have gotten a rework, being more cheap (in AIP) and more effective in some ways, but not coming with built in turrets to start with.

Forcefield harmonics let certain very large ships fly through enemy forcefields as if they are not there, but they still can't fire at the ships under them.

If you scrap some units on planets that are friendly to you, you get back a percentage of the metal now. 15% by default, but you can customize.

Enjoy!