AI War 2 News

Release notes here.

More refinement! Lots of good stuff here.

• The intel sidebar has a bunch of colorization improvements, as well as difficulty estimates based on things like what ships are at the planets on the way to the objective. These sorts of things really should help new players (and frankly, anyone) choose ideal targets. Huge kudos to Badger for thinking of and implementing this.
  
• Logistical command stations now automatically watch adjacent planets to them, now further differentiating them from military and economic command stations -- as well as making it so that you don't have to spend hacking points to watch every planet on your hinterland.
  
• There's a fifth tutorial in place now, thanks to Puffin, as well as some improvements to the existing ones. Please do keep up with the feedback on these, we really appreciate it. And I did notice folks starting in and adding in guides in the wiki -- DemocracyDemocracy in particular -- so huge thanks there, too!
  
• Fixed a fairly long list of bugs and minor balance issues.
  
• Added three new ship variants, two of which are new citadel types.
  
• A variety of galaxy map improvements and other ui improvements, including the control group number still being visible but no longer replacing the count of contents in the fleet leaders.
  

As an aside, I've been personally having a rough time coming up on this release, so a lot of this content is developed by the volunteers (ever increasing in number, to my extreme gratitude). I haven't been nearly as productive this week as I'd have liked, although I do tend to discount things like marketing work and whatnot as not being "real work," so some of it's just that.

But there's a very palpable sense of fear that I have coming into this release, just because... well, it's been a rough few years, and the market is so saturated now, and the original game was something that people loved so much and expected us to surpass with this title. It feels like expectations are super high, the noise in the market is super high, and I have no idea if that will translate into actually being able to make a living making games again; I say "again," because despite laying off all the staff, I haven't been break-even (let alone profitable) on making games for... oh, four years now, I suppose. That's hard.

So I'm really heartened by all the various positive Steam reviews lately and over the last year, and I'm hoping the press has a similar reaction. I'm heartened by all the folks saying how they are finally feeling like the sequel is so much better than the original, and personally I agree, but it's hard to not let people for whom the sequel doesn't live up to their expectations set up camp in my head. I knew going into this that I could never please everyone, but the question is if I can please enough people, and keep pleasing them over time with more free additions and paid expansions, that I get to keep doing my dream job. Right now I don't have an answer to that, and I won't until the 22nd, so it's setting off my anxiety something fierce.

To compensate, I'm trying to get enough sleep, focus on specific tasks ]that I know need doing rather than the big picture, and in general just tidy up. It doesn't help that the Early Access release last year was by all accounts a big success and then I immediately got asked for a divorce and things spiraled down for a few months where I couldn't work. Things are incredibly much better now, and I'm actually really grateful for the turn my life took despite that temporary huge hardship, but that stuff still gets into parts of my brain and sits there.

You know, I'd really like to do this for a long time. It's been 10 years so far. I'd enjoy just making a living and making more games for another 10 or 20 or even 30 years. Hopefully with a lot less stress than the first 10 years had. Fingers crossed. Things honestly look to be heading that way, but it's hard not to be worried about it nonetheless.

More to come soon. Enjoy!

Problem With The Latest Build?

If you right-click the game in Steam and choose properties, then go to the Betas tab of the window that pops up, you'll see a variety of options. You can always choose most_recent_stable from that build to get what is essentially one-build-back. Or two builds back if the last build had a known problem, etc. Essentially it's a way to keep yourself off the very bleeding edge of updates, if you so desire.

The Usual Reminders

Quick reminder of our new Steam Developer Page. If you follow us there, you'll be notified about any game releases we do.

Also: Would you mind leaving a Steam review for some/any of our games? It doesn't have to be much more detailed than a thumbs up, but if you like a game we made and want more people to find it, that's how you make it happen. Reviews make a material difference, and like most indies, we could really use the support.

Enjoy!

Chris

Release notes here.

Mostly this one is about refinement, but it has some major quality of life additions on the galaxy map, most of those thanks to Asteroid.

• You can now adjust the scale of icons on the galaxy map (this one I added), and the default is a bit bigger. The smaller size was nice last version, but a little TOO squint-causing on most monitors. Now the default is larger and you can tune to taste.
  
• You can now hover over the links between planets and see intel about them, which explains all the various things that you otherwise had to memorize (why a dashed line, why red, etc, etc). Huge thanks to Asteroid for implementing this.
  
• Also, linkages that are having an actual wormhole wave coming now show up with an animation. Again thanks Asteroid!
  
• Nanocaust ships and Macrophage ships can now stack! Hooray for performance in those games that have those factions in huge numbers. Big thanks to Badger, this required a hefty extension to the core mechanics there.
  
• The stacking code was not working well at ALL with transports, causing all sorts of problems. Thanks to a lot of folks for help there, but particularly to WeaponMaster for figuring out the problem areas.
  
• The colors of some of the factions are now clearer in the quick starts -- big thanks to Puffin for that one.
  
• Several other bugfixes, balance tweaks, UI improvements, quick start improvements, and so on thanks to all of the above folks. Everybody has been really busy. Thanks all!
  

More to come soon. Enjoy!

Problem With The Latest Build?

If you right-click the game in Steam and choose properties, then go to the Betas tab of the window that pops up, you'll see a variety of options. You can always choose most_recent_stable from that build to get what is essentially one-build-back. Or two builds back if the last build had a known problem, etc. Essentially it's a way to keep yourself off the very bleeding edge of updates, if you so desire.

The Usual Reminders

Quick reminder of our new Steam Developer Page. If you follow us there, you'll be notified about any game releases we do.

Also: Would you mind leaving a Steam review for some/any of our games? It doesn't have to be much more detailed than a thumbs up, but if you like a game we made and want more people to find it, that's how you make it happen. Reviews make a material difference, and like most indies, we could really use the support.

Enjoy!

Chris

Release notes here.

Oh good grief this one is huge. From one day's work, too. Let's get down to it!

The Title Feature: Commanding From The Galaxy Map

Okay, so a funny thing happened when I added fleets to the game a few months ago: people started expecting to be able to select them on the galaxy map. It was a completely natural thing to expect, but it wasn't something I'd ever thought of, and the first game certainly didn't work like that (ships didn't even appear on the galaxy map).

I also didn't realize for a while how crippling it felt not to have this ability. To be able to SEE those fleets of yours, but then you click them and it just does... nothing. The galaxy map had always been for information, and generally the ships shown there were for enemy structures you might consider capturing. What was to interact with? Until fleets.

So, yes: now we have the ability to select fleets, drag a band-box around them, use alt and shift for subtractive and additive selection, and so on. This all pairs nicely with the cross-planet move orders stuff that Badger has done more recently.

You can't issue direct attack or assist orders from the galaxy map at the moment, and I'm not sure I want to add that. Generally the things shown are your own fleets and then enemy capturables; rarely something of an enemy that you'd want to directly attack. Even if it is something you'd directly attack, it's usually something defended by a bunch of other stuff you should deal with first rather than charging directly at.

What you can do is select stuff with ease from the galaxy map, and then click over to a planet (double click takes you in), and then right-click to move to a specific spot on the planet or give an attack order there. OR you can select stuff on the galaxy map, and give them move orders at a planetary level from there.

Will we need more refinement on this? Almost certainly. I imagine there are various modifiers and conveniences people will be looking for. But this is a huge step up already, so we'll slot those other things in as we have time. I'm mostly probably going to be gunning for the sidebar and for achievements, next, personally.

Galaxy Map Visuals

It's not quite an overhaul, per se... but everything feels very different now. You can see more ship icons at each planet, but they aren't as large and in the way. Planets themselves are smaller. There are dotted lines between enemy planets and your planets where they can't attack you via wormholes (wow this feels amazing to see).

The way planets are selected looks better, and their text is positioned and sized better. You can see selected fleets on the galaxy map even if you didn't select them directly here. You can see what kind of command stations you've built on each planet at a glance based on the planet icon.

The intel tab highlights just the specific relevant planet for the thing you might want to capture or hack, not ALL the things of its type. You can hover over the planet/local/ships tab icons again and highlight which planets have THOSE things.

Oh, yeah: and the galaxy map stays where you put it. Zoom and positioning and so on, as you move between planets, rather than recentering you over and over again. Wow that one feels huge, too.

Hey, We Have Four Tutorials Now!

I actually feel like this is a big disservice that I'm only getting to this at this point in the release notes. This is huge news! We do have more tutorials needed, and the last two of these in particular are hot off the presses and Puffin was feeling as tired as I am I think, so please be understanding of that and helpful in your feedback.

But boy, this is such a huge relief to me, personally, to have some solid tutorials in there again. We've had the written "How to Play" bits, but some people just want the interactive stuff. I get that, so now we have both. Video tutorials will come soon, but I've kinda lost my voice at the moment and I'd rather have all the new GUI improvements and general quality of life improvements in there.

I really have to say, enormous thanks to Puffin on this.

Badger took the hit the first time around and did the very big long tutorial that was available at the start of Early Access. And it was good! People seemed to really like it. But then I went and Changed Everything (tm) with fleets and so on, and the tutorial that he made just became about 80% obsolete.

This time around, Puffin has stepped up and saved my bacon and is doing a series of smaller bite-size tutorials on the same general subjects, but in the new mechanical framework of the game. Back when Badger added the first one, we could only HAVE one tutorial, so he had to make his big and cover all the stuff. But from a design standpoint, we decided this time around it made much more sense to have smaller bite-size ones on specific topics so that people could skip the bits they already understand, or don't want to learn about right now... or revisit some specific topic they forgot, as the case may be.

Thanks to Puffin, I'm able to work on all these things like the galaxy map improvements while he's doing those tutorials. And frankly, I'm not the best one for explaining the game since I know it so well and tend to be either too detailed or not detailed enough. I did the tutorials for the first game -- AI War Classic -- and everyone has been raving about how much better Badger's ones were for AI War 2. This makes sense to me, but has tended to add to my anxiety when trying to do tutorials myself. Not that I wouldn't have done them... but boy it has been a huge relief to have someone else do that so that I could focus on concrete polish stuff.

Bugfixes, Balance, and UI Improvements!

There's a hefty number of these, too! Badger and Asteroid and I have been busy, and WeaponMaster has pointed out several things for this one after sifting through code, too.

The strength/weakness code gives a more succinct and readable result now, and more changes are planned -- thanks Asteroid! Decollision has had a few things fixed up, thanks to items WeaponMaster found. NRSirLimbo made some excellent suggestions that led to Badger finding some substantial bugs in the metal tracking code, and that also lets you view metal flows while paused.

And... a bunch of other little stuff. This release was nuts. I'm really happy with where the game is getting to. Puffin also did a bunch of internal achievements work that isn't visible yet because I have yet to do the UI for it, but that was also a big win. I'm heading off for the weekend, now, so hopefully folks enjoy!

Repeat Notice: Tutorial and Scenario Designers Wanted!

We're going to be working on our own tutorials based on this system, but I'd definitely love to see a really robust number of scenarios from other folks, too.

Everybody has a different perspective, and maybe you want to teach some specific tactic or even set up kind of a small contained puzzle-like challenge cage-match with 5 planets against the dark spire and nanocaust with a quest you design with unusual victory conditions.

I think that sort of thing is just super fun, and it's a way to play the game in a more bite-sized fashion. Some of those sorts of things aren't even really tutorials, they're more advanced challenges or puzzles.

But anyway, the tutorials system is a pretty robust framework that allows for all sorts of different scenario designs that I'd love to see people really lean into. I've been explicitly trying to make this as easy as possible for non-coders to do -- all you need is a text editor -- and the idea of seeing what creative things people come up with to both teach and test players is exciting.

It's more or less the same idea behind modding, where people add various map types or ship types or whatever else, except this time it's custom scenarios for teaching or testing.

Back Monday!

More to come soon. Enjoy!

Problem With The Latest Build?

If you right-click the game in Steam and choose properties, then go to the Betas tab of the window that pops up, you'll see a variety of options. You can always choose most_recent_stable from that build to get what is essentially one-build-back. Or two builds back if the last build had a known problem, etc. Essentially it's a way to keep yourself off the very bleeding edge of updates, if you so desire.

The Usual Reminders

Quick reminder of our new Steam Developer Page. If you follow us there, you'll be notified about any game releases we do.

Also: Would you mind leaving a Steam review for some/any of our games? It doesn't have to be much more detailed than a thumbs up, but if you like a game we made and want more people to find it, that's how you make it happen. Reviews make a material difference, and like most indies, we could really use the support.

Enjoy!

Chris

Release notes here.

This one has a lot of little UI improvements, many of which center around hotkeys.

• Some of the sidebar hotkeys are more natural now (F for fleets, etc).
  
• A number of the controls in the controls configuration menu have been recategorized or clarified.
  
• You can now hold the R key while looking at ship stats in order to see either the strengths or weaknesses of that ship type versus other ship types. This is a preliminary sort of thing, but it's something a lot of people have been wanting and getting started with it is good. Big thanks to Asteroid for that!
  
• The mercenaries have been renamed to Outguard instead, and coming up before too long we're going to be changing how they work. Basically to make them both more thematic (end of the world for humans we'd see more natural cooperation, seems like), and something that people use more frequently.
  
• Ships should hopefully no longer wiggle back and forth when they're doing slight kiting movements.
  
• You can now tell if an AI has a warp gate adjacent to a planet of yours based on the thickness of the line between your planet and theirs.
  

Overall this was a pretty small release, but it lays the groundwork for more stuff coming soon.

Repeat Notice: Tutorial and Scenario Designers Wanted!

We're going to be working on our own tutorials based on this system, but I'd definitely love to see a really robust number of scenarios from other folks, too.

Everybody has a different perspective, and maybe you want to teach some specific tactic or even set up kind of a small contained puzzle-like challenge cage-match with 5 planets against the dark spire and nanocaust with a quest you design with unusual victory conditions.

I think that sort of thing is just super fun, and it's a way to play the game in a more bite-sized fashion. Some of those sorts of things aren't even really tutorials, they're more advanced challenges or puzzles.

But anyway, the tutorials system is a pretty robust framework that allows for all sorts of different scenario designs that I'd love to see people really lean into. I've been explicitly trying to make this as easy as possible for non-coders to do -- all you need is a text editor -- and the idea of seeing what creative things people come up with to both teach and test players is exciting.

It's more or less the same idea behind modding, where people add various map types or ship types or whatever else, except this time it's custom scenarios for teaching or testing.

Other Fixes And Improvements

There are a number of bugfixes and balance tweaks that seemed to be the highest-priority items that people had brought to our attention. Thanks to Badger on the bulk of those. And the build menu now has icons thanks to Asteroid!

More to come soon. Enjoy!

Problem With The Latest Build?

If you right-click the game in Steam and choose properties, then go to the Betas tab of the window that pops up, you'll see a variety of options. You can always choose most_recent_stable from that build to get what is essentially one-build-back. Or two builds back if the last build had a known problem, etc. Essentially it's a way to keep yourself off the very bleeding edge of updates, if you so desire.

The Usual Reminders

Quick reminder of our new Steam Developer Page. If you follow us there, you'll be notified about any game releases we do.

Also: Would you mind leaving a Steam review for some/any of our games? It doesn't have to be much more detailed than a thumbs up, but if you like a game we made and want more people to find it, that's how you make it happen. Reviews make a material difference, and like most indies, we could really use the support.

Enjoy!

Chris

Release notes here.

This one actually has some key bugfixes as well, including a change to how stacks work that really has an enormous impact on balance. The AI may be too weak now, since more of your shots actually hit stacks now since that bug was fixed.

There are also some new hotkeys for placing multiple ships at once when constructing them, and some on-screen indicators for what those hotkeys are when you go into build mode.

We've also built out a TON of the stuff for the tutorial framework itself, although there's still plenty more to do. But we did get enough that...

First Tutorial Is Ready!

This is a very small tutorial that just focuses on how to move around and things like that, but it's similar to what was in the old tutorial (for this game) as part of a larger tutorial.

This version is a little bit cleaner and slightly more informative since we're able to cover more in more steps with less work, and we were able to easily adjust it to do some colorization to aid in readability.

But one thing that's really notable here is that this is a micro-tutorial on a specific topic, by design. This way we can have a variety of small tutorials of this sort that are topical and that you don't have to play again and again (or even at all) if you want to skip ahead a bit.

In talking to folks, it became clear that they really want to be able to just "get on with things," and that means different things to different people. So by making it really seamless and convenient and a series of micro tutorials, we're able to hopefully meet the desires of a lot of you at once.

And of course we'll also do some videos later on, kind of in a Let's Play style. And we have the in-game wiki with lots of written explanations already. And the game is full of tooltips to help you contextually learn in general.

So hopefully whatever your learning style is, we'll be hitting it. We don't want anyone to feel forced into a style of tutorial they don't like (whether that's reading, interactive, or video; everyone seems to want different things, which is okay).

Repeat Notice: Tutorial and Scenario Designers Wanted!

We're going to be working on our own tutorials based on this system, but I'd definitely love to see a really robust number of scenarios from other folks, too.

Everybody has a different perspective, and maybe you want to teach some specific tactic or even set up kind of a small contained puzzle-like challenge cage-match with 5 planets against the dark spire and nanocaust with a quest you design with unusual victory conditions.

I think that sort of thing is just super fun, and it's a way to play the game in a more bite-sized fashion. Some of those sorts of things aren't even really tutorials, they're more advanced challenges or puzzles.

But anyway, the tutorials system is a pretty robust framework that allows for all sorts of different scenario designs that I'd love to see people really lean into. I've been explicitly trying to make this as easy as possible for non-coders to do -- all you need is a text editor -- and the idea of seeing what creative things people come up with to both teach and test players is exciting.

It's more or less the same idea behind modding, where people add various map types or ship types or whatever else, except this time it's custom scenarios for teaching or testing.

Other Fixes And Improvements

There are a number of bugfixes and balance tweaks that seemed to be the highest-priority items that people had brought to our attention. Thanks to Badger on the bulk of those. And the build menu now has icons thanks to Asteroid!

More to come soon. Enjoy!

Problem With The Latest Build?

If you right-click the game in Steam and choose properties, then go to the Betas tab of the window that pops up, you'll see a variety of options. You can always choose most_recent_stable from that build to get what is essentially one-build-back. Or two builds back if the last build had a known problem, etc. Essentially it's a way to keep yourself off the very bleeding edge of updates, if you so desire.

The Usual Reminders

Quick reminder of our new Steam Developer Page. If you follow us there, you'll be notified about any game releases we do.

Also: Would you mind leaving a Steam review for some/any of our games? It doesn't have to be much more detailed than a thumbs up, but if you like a game we made and want more people to find it, that's how you make it happen. Reviews make a material difference, and like most indies, we could really use the support.

Enjoy!

Chris