AI War 2 News

New beta build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Multiplayer_Alpha_And_Beta#Beta_2.765_The_Hunt_For_Frigates_And_Civilians

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.

This one is huge! It starts off the frigate buffs that everyone has been feeling we need, although more is coming. This also sees the return of the Civilian Industries mod to functional status. StarKelp, the mod author, is stepping away for a time, and I'm taking responsibility for keeping it running as our API grows, but not for any extensions. This is one of our most popular mods, and one of the few defensive allies that is just kind of a gentle presence versus a Big Brother who changes the dynamic entirely, so this makes a lot of sense to me.

Multiplayer also got a metric ton of bugfixes in this build, and should run better than ever. You can search by sidebar short name on the galaxy map filter, too. More System Defenders mod has seen a bunch of frigate buffs. AMU mod has a bunch of extensions and bugfixes, as well as some new features to collaborate with other mods.

I am also working on the art for DLC2 at the moment, which includes a LOT of figuring out pipeline details for the Zenith in particular. I want them to look amazing, so I'm making sure to take the proper time. You can watch the process unfold in screenshots and text here: https://discordapp.com/channels/240637654717300736/825178033500848149/826211731737935912 If you're curious about how a lot of things work behind the scenes with 3D art in a realtime environment in general, I am basically showing the process from initial sculpt to final shader work and LODs. Currently with this process I'm to the point of trying to choose how I prefer to paint the sculpts. More on that tomorrow, likely; feel free to follow along at any time, or ask questions.

More to come soon, including MP performance work.

New beta build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Multiplayer_Alpha_And_Beta#Beta_2.764_Command_Station_Hotfix

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.

This one is a pretty key hotfix, since the last build wound up being unplayable thanks to you not being able to build command stations. Sorry about that!

This also reimagines the X map to be way more interesting, courtesy of Badger, and it prevents it from being a crazy unbalanced and unfun map compared to all the other varieties.

There's also a buff to the number of forcefields that economic and military command stations get. Thanks to ArnaudB for getting that sorted, and more is coming later.

Additionally, there was a pretty funky bug that was either extremely old or relatively new, and which caused issues based on you being able to accidentally give clicks to do... various things, to be honest... through the left-hand sidebar. These clicks were potentially the longstanding reason why occasionally some folks would see their ships "randomly" go to the upper left of the gravity well, seemingly of their own accord -- it was probably actually a player click on the GUI getting translated to that in a funky way. Anyhow, I haven't heard much about that issue in a lot of months, but there was a new rash of the same sort of problem when placing command stations, so hopefully this just fixes all of what we were seeing.

Knock on wood, this should now be nice and stable for the weekend.

Enjoy!

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!