AI War 2 News

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.785_Just_Bugfixes

This one just has some bugfixes, none of them TOO serious. That's kind of the idea for the period leading up out of beta. Hopefully if things are looking good, then Monday might be the day. I guess maybe Tuesday if the winter storm coming up knocks out my power, or if there are enough bugs that we need one more day of testing at that time.

More to come soon!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.784_Tractor_Recursion

Lots and lots of bugfixes, a few DLC3 additions, and some quality of life tweaks. I typed up most of a longer post, had to step away for a bit to take care of something, and discord ate it when I got back. Nice. So I'll be super brief, instead.

We need to keep an eye on this for a bit longer before we let it out of beta, clearly, but I'm quite encouraged in the main. Thanks to everyone for all your bug reports.

More to come soon!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.783_The_Return_Of_Multiplayer.21

Multiplayer is BACK, folks. There were a lot of beta-branch-specific bugs since the great refactor started, because I needed to get singleplayer working first, and then get multiplayer going.

I am very very happy to report that this should be the most stable and most performant version of multiplayer yet, beating out the stable branch most likely, knock on wood. There are still some things that I'm sure will come up in testing, but the ghosts issue seems to finally be fully resolved, which means the "my stuff explodes for no reason" issue, in other words.

There are some other small bugfixes here, but mainly this is MP stuff. There are also a number of notable balance adjustments to DLC3 content, mostly thanks to Zeus.

This feels really good, although it did take me a day longer than I originally expected. I've been able to play 10-20 minutes of multiplayer gametime at once without issues now, though (and I just didn't test further than that).

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.782_Smooth_Reloading

Hopefully we are in the last few days before this comes back out of beta. I have some known issues I need to fix in multiplayer, but once again we've cleaned up the full (I think?) list of known bugs of any seriousness that are afflicting multiplayer.

This build also makes it so that when you reload the xml for the game by changing enabled mods or dlc, it now does so in a smooth way with actual interface feedback about what is happening. This is how it was prior to the beta period, but since the beta period it's been jerky and slow and seems like the program is frozen at times. All fixed now!

This build sees tractor beams able to drag ships around again properly, tachyon beams no longer over-negating cloak, invulnerable ships truly being invulnerable again, necromancy working again, stacks splitting less aggressively, ships no longer losing orders when going through wormholes, no "infinite threat spawn" situations anymore, and so on.

Improvements-wise, this includes a feature where ship lines transferred between fleets now take on the orders of the fleet they are being transferred to. And some work on vassals in DLC3, though that doesn't have its control interface yet. Necromancers also got a number of balance improvements and tweaks.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:The_Great_Refactor#Beta_3.781_Tachyon_Healing_Reversal

This one... fixes all of the really major bugs that I'm aware of in single-player! So heap on some more, see what you can find! ;)

I still have some known multiplayer bugs that I need to fix before we're able to leave beta, but beyond that and whatever new is reported... that's where we are. So that's quite exciting!

Also exciting? Your own tachyon beams (you know, the ones for revealing clocked enemies?) will no longer accidentally heal enemy cloaking devices, making them perma-cloaked no matter how much the enemy shoots you. Yes... in the past build, I made an error and tachyon beams were your own worst enemy, creating invisible unhittable terrors of enemies who could shoot you with impunity. Seeing that was actually pretty menacing, and I understand it cut a swath through several player empires. Uh... my bad!

This new version has some performance improvements (again), and also a lot of improvements to how notification hovers work. If a notification talks about things on multiple planets, it now highlights all the planets of relevance.

The necromancer got a number of new powers in this build thanks to Badger, and also got a bit of a nerf to the very late game since they were getting absurd apparently. Finding the ideal power curve for that new player faction is a work in progress, but sounds like it's coming along. I particularly like that the Neinzul Elderlings have sanity that they lose, and are losing it faster now. That's fun.

The build yesterday also had some bugs in the new hull system from SirLimbo, which is understandable for something so huge. Those are fixed now, although it sounds like there are a few final gasps from other bugs in that bit of code.

Thanks to everyone who has been testing, and hopefully the next few builds are uncommonly clean for how things have been the last half year. We're finally nearing the exit of beta, and the end of the great refactor, which is a milestone I will really relish.

More to come soon.
Enjoy!