AI War:Light of the Spire

What exactly is added in the Light of the Spire expansion?

A: This expansion is still in beta: beta means it's not finished, and that you should expect bugs and balance issues until it gets out of beta. But we're making it available to folks early, because there's already some seriously cool stuff in here that we think you'll enjoy, and we'd also love feedback on it all. Light of the Spire will be released in the first week of December or thereabouts, so the development time schedule is very short on this one -- we're leveraging a lot of groundwork that we put in place in 4.0, as well as picking the features that go into this very carefully, in order to make this possible.

But, even so, we're obviously concerned about scope creep and want to avoid having to go back on a feature we promise. So with that in mind, we're being rather uncharacteristically secretive about the features in this expansion until they come out. Basically, the only stuff we'll talk about in concrete terms in advance are things we know we can without a doubt accomplish in this timeframe. Stay tuned over the next three weeks or so, and all will be revealed as that time passes. If you want to wait until after that period to order or preorder this one, we quite understand. We think you'll agree that this is the best expansion yet to AI War when you see it, though. Again: stay tuned!

New Alien Race

Ravaged by their recent encounters with the same AIs that pushed humanity to the brink of extinction, the Spire are an alien race that have also been all but destroyed. However, while the AIs were successful in their surprise attack against the Spire, the Spire are far more powerful than even the AIs seem to have realized. The Zenith were broken-down and ancient when humanity encountered them, but the Spire were at the height of their deadly power until quite recently.

Now the splintered remains of their race are regrouping, and entering the galaxy with a vengeance. Their attitude toward humanity, who after all spawned the AIs that harmed the Spire so, is unclear. Proceed with caution.

New Bonus Ship Classes

At this time it is undecided if there will be new bonus ship classes added as part of this expansion. While that has been a major focus in past expansions, this time our focus is mainly elsewhere.

New Minor Factions

• Fallen Spire
  • "Minor" faction is something of a misnomer with this one. The fallen spire minor faction adds in a scripted progression of events (sort of like a "quest") that players can opt to pursue or not in any game with the minor faction turned on. While the scripted progression is always the same, it interacts with the dynamic components of the game in such a way that that the experience should be satisfyingly different for many playthroughs.
  • This is one of the anchor features of the expansion, but as it's still heavily inwork we're keeping quiet on a lot of the planned features for this until we've got them implemented.

New AI Plots

At this time it is undecided if there will be new AI Plots -- probably not, our focus is elsewhere.

Other New Ships Available For Direct Unlock By Players

At this time it is undecided if there will be new ships for direct unlock by players -- probably not, our focus is on ships unlocked via a new mechanism unique (so far) to this expansion.

New Ship Class: Spirecraft

This is to be another anchor feature of the expansion, and it's really cool, but we're keeping a bit quiet on the specifics until we have the first ones implemented. But the general idea is that you'll have to go on missions into AI territory, and then construct these ships inside AI territory, which is a new dynamic. Then the ships themselves have powerful and exciting abilities, putting them partway between a starship and a golem in terms of power. Though there will be far more of these available to players in general, and in any given campaign, than there are golems.

Stay tuned for more details, but in the meantime we are actively looking for player suggestions for spirecraft ideas in our Idea Tracker. There's a lot of cool stuff planned already, but players always surprise us with things we never would have thought of.

Campaign Types

In the past, the only way to play the game was in what we're now calling "Conquest" mode: in other words, you play until the AI kills your home command stations or you kill theirs. An anchor feature of this expansion is the addition of new campaign types that completely change how that works.

• Defender
  • An alternate ruleset for AI War, where your goal is to survive for a certain length of time instead of conquering the AIs. You can select as many starting homeworlds as you want, and then you must defend them from brutal AI aggression (the No Waves AI modifier won't help you here). It is HIGHLY recommended that you select multiple planets to start if you want any chance of survival (unlike in Conquest, this won't affect ship caps). As long as at least one of your homeworlds is standing when the timer runs out, you win! In trial mode, the max trial time is 1/3 of the time limit.
  • There are variants for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes, 2 hours, and 4 hours. We don't allow more flexibility in the time limits because each one requires a specific balance to be playable.
  • There are a lot of changes that come into play with the game when you use this mode. Among them:
    • Most of the good capturables are not seeded into the galaxy for players to capture. It's not expected that you'll be doing any capturing of AI planets.
    • There are no AI homeworlds, and all of the AI planets are mark V brutes.
    • Depending on combined the difficulty level you select for the two AIs, and what time limit variant you select, you'll have a lot of AI Progress right at the start of the game (in some cases 1000 or more), and the AI Progress automatically jumps upwards with every AI wave that is declared.
    • AI Waves are ever-present: the instant as one arrives, the next is declared. Depending on the time-limit variant you choose, though, the waves are spaced further apart.
    • Players start with 3x more resources, including knowledge, and Mark III Economic command stations on all their planets. However, colony ships, mercenary space docks, and missile silos are unavailable -- so when you lose a planet, you can't re-take it.
    • There are 16 possible starting home planets that confer bonus ship types to players, rather than just 8 (assuming the map is large enough to contain them all). However, there is no other way for players to get more bonus ship types during the course of the game.
    • All of the planets on the map can be chosen as starting home planets for players, whether or not they give a bonus ship type to them. Players can select literally every planet on the map if they like, or just one or two.
    • Unlike in conquest mode, having multiple planets at the start does not affect player ship caps (though it does still affect the number of AI Waves at a time). It's expected that usually players would choose a couple of planets with bonus ship types, and then a number without, to have a chance of surviving. The lower-time variants are particularly brutal, as they're basically a cage match with a very angry AI.
    • Most everything else from the Conquest campaign type is still in place, including multiplayer support, minor factions, AI plots (though not all would function, given that the Avenger would never have a chance to come out, for instance), AI types, map styles and planet counts, and so forth.

• Constructor
  • Details on this one aren't quite available yet, but the basic idea is that it's like Defender mode except without the time limit, and instead you have to build a certain number of a certain kind of structure in order to win.

New AI Special Weapons

This is going to be another big focus for the game, as usual for expansions. Expect around 10 each of new guard posts and guardians, for one thing, along with other special AI weapons and guardians.

Core AI Guard Posts

• AI Core Raid Engine Guard Post
  • Launches brutal mark V waves against its own planet or any adjacent planets, if those planets are not controlled by AI players, or if the human players have a significant fleet there. If human players don't have warp sensors on these planets, the waves may well arrive unannounced. These waves arrive around every four minutes and contain a broad mix of AI ships.

• AI Core Cross Planet Attack Guard Post
  • Launches brutal galaxy-wide cross planet attacks as soon as the human players bring military ships to this post's planet. These CPAs happen around every 13 minutes and are heavily influenced in their size by both the current AI Progress and the difficulty level of the AI controlling this post.

• AI Core Heavy Beam Guard Post
  • A massive long-range beam cannon can vaporize very many smaller craft in one blast, or do extreme damage to a larger target.

• AI Core Booster Guard Post
  • Middling weaponry, but significantly boosts both the munitions and the armor of all nearby AI ships.

New AI Types

The base game included 26 AI types, the Zenith Remnant added 14 more, and Children of Neinzul added an additional 6. Light of the Spire will add a few more AI types, but it's not yet decided how much of a focus that will be compared to the anchor features.

Easier

• Vanilla
  • Has absolutely no unusual powers. Just a plain old basic AI, with whatever unlocks happen to come with the map seed.

Harder

• Everything
  • Has absolutely every fleet ship and core ship type unlocked from the start.

New Map Styles

We're expecting to add two new map types in this expansion, but that is not yet a concrete promise. The anchor features are our first concern, and then these would be something to round out the expansion if there is time.

New Music Tracks

In all, this expansion is expected to add several new in-game music tracks, although the exact number and length has not yet been determined. Tracks that are already complete are listed below.

• During-play tracks:
  • Light of the Spire

Other Miscellaneous Additions

• There may be a few new cheats.
• There will likely be some new achievements, just considering the new AI types and minor factions.

AI_War:Fleet_Command