AI War 2:Cheats

Are There Cheats In The Game?

A: As of version 2.040 of the game, yes there are. At the moment, cheats do not have to be explicitly enabled in order to be used.

You simply have to type the cheat into the chat textbox (hit Enter/Return while playing) and it will happen. The capitalization of the cheats does not matter, nor does spacing. The other players will be able to see cheats that you have entered like any other chat message, along with the result (error or success). If a cheat has been used during this campaign by any player, then achievements will no longer be logged for this game.

Cheat/Command Format

This is a bit different from AI War Classic, which did not take arguments (at first) and which also just took specific phrases as cheats. If you happened to say "bombs away" to a friend during multiplayer, with no capitalization, you were activating a cheat potentially by accident (assuming you had cheats enabled). This sequel doesn't require specific enabling of cheats (for your convenience), so to make sure you don't accidentally conversationally cause a cheat, it now requires the prefix "cmd:" to let us know you mean to have a cheat or command.

• Your cheat or command must start with the characters cmd:.
• Whitespace and capitalization doesn't matter.
  • EXCEPT that the very first few characters must be cmd:, exactly like that.
  • And in cases where it is asking you for something else, like the name of an entity type, that might be case-sensitive.
• Commas (,), are used to separate a cheat from its arguments, if it has any.

Examples

• An old example would be Give Me K in the first game.
  • Typing that exact phrase would give you 10,000 knowledge immediately.
• In this game, however, you need to start out by typing cmd:For Science instead.
  • But then you also need to tell it how much. Remember, capitalization and whitespace also don't matter.
    • You can thus say cmd:forscience,10000 to get 10,000 science like in the first game.
    • Or cmd: FoR sCience , 4000 to get 4000 science.
    • Or you can even take away science from yourself and all players by typing cmd:For Science,-1000 to lose 1000.
  • It's worth noting that cheats in this game usually work on all human players rather than just whoever did it. But each cheat or command specifies.

Entering Repeat Commands

• In order to make entering commands more rapid, particularly if you're doing many at once -- or have a small typo you need to fix -- it remembers the last 50 commands you've entered in the chat window.
  • To cycle through past commands you've entered, hit the up arrow on your keyboard. If you passed what you wanted, hit the down arrow.
  • This only works with commands, not with actual general text chat, which it excludes on purpose.
  • So if you want to spawn some ships (or do whatever else), you can now enter the command for that once, then just hit up arrow and enter repeatedly to keep repeating what you just said.

Base Game

• For Science, [number]
  • All players gain or lose the [number] amount of science.
  • Does NOT count as a cheat if you are reducing science with this. Feel free to inflict that on yourself.

• grantalltech
  • All techs are immediately upgraded to their highest levels.

• Riches, [number]
  • All players gain or lose the [number] amount of metal.

• I Don't Even See The Code, [number] or Hacking, [number]
  • All players gain or lose the [number] amount of hacking points.
  • Does NOT count as a cheat if you are reducing hacking points with this. Feel free to inflict that on yourself.
  • If you omit the number as the second parameter, you just are granted 400 HaP.

• I Heart Energon
  • All players gain a free Zenith Power Generator.

• Anger Management, [number]
  • Gain or lose the [number] amount of AI Progress
  • Does NOT count as a cheat if you are increasing AIP with this. Feel free to inflict that on yourself.

• I Can See My House
  • All Planets Are Explored. Is a lifestyle choice, and doesn't count as a cheat. So common it has its own button in the debug menu.

• I'm Watching Your House
  • All Planets Are Watched. Is a lifestyle choice, and doesn't count as a cheat. So common it has its own button in the debug menu.

• Concede
  • The game is immediately lost. Sometimes you don't want to wait for it to happen. Does not count as a cheat.

• Table Flip
  • The game is immediately "won." This is obviously a cheat, and it calls you out on that, but shows you the victory screen without giving you any achievements from winning.

• Brain Death
  • The higher functioning of all the NPC threads shuts off, leaving only autonomic functions in place. This essentially gives their ships the same level of intelligence that your own unattended ships would have. It's a lot like the NPC players went AFK.
  • Useful for testing certain things without having the noise of all the things the NPCs are thinking about and asking the game to do.

• Multiply Strikecraft, [float number]
  • All player strikecraft-type ship lines in fleets are multiplied permanently by the amount you type in. Use coarse numbers like 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, etc.
  • This will also apply to capturable fleets that you would encounter in the wild but have not found yet.
  • Does NOT count as a cheat if you are decreasing ship counts with this. Feel free to inflict that on yourself.

• Multiply Frigates, [float number]
  • All player frigate-type ship lines in fleets are multiplied permanently by the amount you type in. Use coarse numbers like 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, etc.
  • This will also apply to capturable fleets that you would encounter in the wild but have not found yet.
  • Does NOT count as a cheat if you are decreasing ship counts with this. Feel free to inflict that on yourself.

• Multiply Turrets, [float number]
  • All player turret lines in fleets are multiplied permanently by the amount you type in. Use coarse numbers like 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, etc.
  • This will also apply to capturable fleets that you would encounter in the wild but have not found yet.
  • Does NOT count as a cheat if you are decreasing turret counts with this. Feel free to inflict that on yourself.

• Multiply Drones, [float number]
  • All player drone-type ship lines in fleets are multiplied permanently by the amount you type in. Use coarse numbers like 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, etc.
  • This will also apply to capturable fleets that you would encounter in the wild but have not found yet.
  • Note that the frigate and strikecraft multipliers specifically skip drones.
  • Does NOT count as a cheat if you are decreasing ship counts with this. Feel free to inflict that on yourself.

• scrub foes
  • Kills all enemy ships on the planet the issuing player is on.

• hurry up
  • Finishes all construction projects instantly on the planet the issuing player is on.

• scan for life
  • Causes a tachyon pulse on the planet the issuing player is on, revealing any cloaked enemies.

• instacpa
  • One random AI gets a significant boost to its CPA budget, then launches a CPA in 30 seconds

• instaexo
  • One random AI sends an exostrike against you.
  • This does NOT count as a cheat, as it makes the game harder.

• instaexow
  • One random AI gets the budget for it's next exowar unit filled instantly and spawns the unit immediately.
  • This does NOT count as a cheat, as it makes the game harder.

• insta waves
  • All AI factions immediately get as much "wave budget" as they need in order to launch a wave immediately. As soon as the game is unpaused, they will do so.
  • This does NOT count as a cheat, as it makes the game harder.

• alter AI,[ai number], [difficulty number]
  • Lets you increase or decrease the difficulty of a specific AI.
  • Always counts as a cheat code, because of its impact on achievements even if you're increasing the AI difficulty.
  • ai number: Which AI to alter the difficulty for? The first AI in a game is 1, if there are two AIs the second is 2, etc.
  • difficulty number: 0 would be no change. 1 would increase the difficulty by 1, -2 would decrease the difficulty by 2.
  • Example usages:
    • cmd:alter AI,1,3
      • Increase the difficulty of the first AI by 3.
    • cmd:alter AI,2,-1
      • Decrease the difficulty of the second AI by 1.

• AI budget,[ai number], [budget type], [amount]
  • Lets you increase or decrease the budget of a specific part of a specific AI. Budgets are what are used to do various things, like your metal stockpile, etc.
  • Does NOT count as a cheat if you are increasing a budget with this. Feel free to inflict that on yourself.
  • ai number: Which AI to alter the difficulty for? The first AI in a game is 1, if there are two AIs the second is 2, etc.
  • budget type: can be one of the following values: Reinforcement, Wave, CPA, SpecialForces (Warden), Reconquest, HunterFleet, PraetorianGuard, WormholeInvasion,
  • amount: 0 would be no change. 1000 would increase the budget by 1000, -500 would reduce it by 500.
  • Example usages:
    • cmd:AI budget,1,CPA,1000
      • Increase the cross planet attack budget of the first AI by 1000.
    • cmd:AI budget,1,SpecialForces,-3000
      • Decrease the warden budget for the first AI by 3000.

• player potluck OR use the short form pp
  • All human players get a random grab bag of ships spawned on their home planet in a new fleet named "Potluck [Something]." Many of the ships will not be ships that a player could normally get.

• my potluck OR use the short form mp
  • The issuing human player gets a random grab bag of ships spawned on the center of the planet they are viewing in a new fleet named "Potluck [Something]." Many of the ships will not be ships that a player could normally get.

• ohmu
  • The issuing human player gets a new fleet named "Ohmu [Something]." The fleet flagship will be an armored golem variant called Invincible Ohmu which is powerful and literally invincible.
  • This is incredibly useful for testing hacks, since it can't die like others often do when testing in enemy territory.

• heal me
  • The issuing human player gets all of their deployed ships on the planet they are currently view completely healed in terms of shields, hull, and cloaking points.
  • This is incredibly useful for testing, if you're trying to accomplish something but your test ships are getting shot to bits.

• destroyp, [search string]
  • Works just like findp, but it destroys the first planet that matches your search string
  • Example usage: Example: destroyp,Murdoch

• destroycurrentp
  • Destroys the planet that the issuing player is currently at.
  • Example usage: cmd:destroycurrentp

• decimate or decimation
  • Destroys 90% of all non-leader, non-contained, non-guardpost, non-AIP-related units in the galaxy, for all factions (including yours).
  • Example usage: cmd:decimate

• duplicate or duplication
  • Make a duplicate copy of all non-leader, non-contained, non-guardpost, non-AIP-related units in the galaxy, for all factions (including yours).
  • Example usage: cmd:duplicate

• Grant All Outguard
  • All outguard are immediately considered contacted and show up on your sidebar, whether they were included in any beacons in the galaxy or not.
  • cmd:grantalloutguard

• Voice Lady
  • A random voice line is played, with the associated text. Useful for testing the voice lines, or griefing your friends in multiplayer.

Multiplayer

• resync
  • Send a fresh copy of everything from the host to all clients. Previously, the only way to really do this was to disconnect and reconnect. This should prove to be a much quicker way of accomplishing the same thing.
  • Example usage:
    • cmd:resync

• log fast blast
  • The host and all the clients will log their fast-blast data to the PlayerData/FastBlastLog file until this command is entered again. Only run this for short periods for diagnostic purposes.

• dump all ship info or dump ships
  • The host and all the clients will log the state of all ships that they have any know about into PlayerData/FullShipStatsLog.

Helper

• findp, [search string]
  • Search for planets! It tells you how many results there are, and if there is more than one result, then repeat entering of the same command (just press up and enter) will cycle you through them. It tells you that it will cycle you through them if there are more than one.
  • If you are on the planet view, it switches you to the planet view of that other planet. If you are on the galaxy map view, it centers the galaxy map on that planet.
  • Note! There is now a Find Planets function on the galaxy map that is now much easier to use! But if you prefer this version, you can still use it.
  • Thanks to cml for the initial implementation of this as a mod.
  • Example usage:
    • cmd:findp,gear
    • This example would search for the text "gear," and would bring up results "Geary" and "Gearworld" and "geaRson" if all three of those existed in one galaxy.

• rename campaign,[New Name]
  • Rename the current campaign Whatever you enter after the comma -- including spaces and capitalization -- will be the new name of the campaign.
  • It helpfully removes any starting spaces you might have added in there, and any invalid characters become underscores.
  • Example usage:
    • cmd:renamecampaign, My New Campaign Name
    • This example would make any further saves go in the campaign folder "My New Campaign Name".

Make Your Own Quick Start!

• makequickstart, [folder name], [quickstart name]
  • Causes a new quickstart to be saved to the quickstarts folder in the new ultra-brief quickstarts format.
  • This quickstart format is required if you want to have future-proof data that does not break with future versions of the game.
  • Example usage:
    • cmd:makequickstart,1-Basic,Helping Hands
      • This would make a replacement for the basic helping hands quickstart.
  • Please note that you need to still add a .tooltip file next to any quickstart. You'll have to do that in your filesystem on your own, but it's just an ASCII text file with narrative information inside it about what the quickstart is about. Otherwise that tooltip will come up blank.
  • When you do this process, it also gives you a note telling you which dlc and mods are going to be required for someone to play that quick start. We had lots of cases in the past of accidentally requiring more than we meant to.

Debugging

• journal, [name or blank], [groupID or blank], [related faction partial name], [related planet partial name], [related unit type]
  • Causes a journal entry to immediately be logged to the sidebar, based on the parameters above.
  • name or blank: This is the unique ID / name that it should try to log. Must be exact, including capitalization.
  • related faction partial name: This can be blank, but otherwise it will return the first faction that has part of this text in the name. Capitalization matters.
  • related planet partial name: This can be blank, but otherwise it will return the first planet that has part of this text in the name. Capitalization matters.
  • related unit type: This can be blank, but otherwise it will return the exact GameEntityTypeData named. Capitalization matters.
  • Example usage:
    • cmd:journal, CP_FullTest,, AI, ex, VWing
      • Works infinite times.
    • cmd:journal, ,CP_GTest, AI, ex, VWing
      • Works three times, three different messages in random order.
    • cmd:journal, CP_CTest1,, AI, ex, VWing
      • Works twice, two different messages in specific order.

• forget the past
  • Remove all of your local achievements (won't affect Steam or GOG) so that you can achieve them again.
  • Never considered a cheat.

• dump data tables
  • This causes all computers involved in the current game (so not just the local machine in multiplayer) to immediately dump all their data in the same way that happens from "Dump All Data Tables After Load" from the debug section of the settings menu.
  • Please be advised that this will cause all of the computers involved in this game to freeze for something like 20-60 seconds, depending on their relative speeds, how many expansions and mods are installed, and so on. It's a good idea to warn people before you run this command.'
  • Aka, this writes a text file for each in-memory data table into a DataTableExports subfolder in the PlayerData folder.
    • The purpose of this is mainly to use with diffing tools between one run of the game and another, to see what sort of data changes happened. If you are modding and made changes to some ships and want to see how those changes cascaded, this would be one way to do that. This is also a way for us to verify correctness when we make structural changes internally.
    • In multiplayer, this can also be used to compare the contents of these folders between the host and various clients, to check for things that might be amiss thanks to mods or other local changes.
    • To compare folders at a time, you'd need to share the contents of these folders between machines (zip and email, etc), and then run a folder-wide diffing tool like WinMerge to find any discrepancies.
    • Lastly, if you're a mod author and concerned that your mod is adding to the data tables incorrectly over time, then you can use this to get snapshots of what those look like as you are playing. Normally this data should not be changing after the initial load of the application.
  • Never considered a cheat.

• dump external data
  • This causes all computers involved in the current game (so not just the local machine in multiplayer) to immediately dump all their 'external data' from all entities (World, Factions, Planets, Player Accounts, and Ships) into the ExternalDataExports subfolder in the PlayerData on each machine.
  • Please be advised that this will cause all of the computers involved in this game to freeze for a nontrivial amount of time (maybe just a second or two, maybe more), depending on how many ships there are and how complex the data is for the factions in question. It's a good idea to warn people before you run this command.'
  • Any files that come out empty are not broken, they just don't have any data on them, which is a reflection of the types of factions you are using (and how far you are into the game) and nothing more.
  • Aka, this writes a lot of text files relating to faction-specific and mod-specific data. This data is vulnerable to getting bloated on the clients in multiplayer, or otherwise out of sync.
    • The purpose of this is mainly to use with diffing tools between the client and the host, to see what sort of differences there are, or to search for absurdly-too-large collections.
    • You can also use this to make sure that the data makes sense, given that there's no real other way to check on your data if you're authoring a mod, etc.
  • Never considered a cheat.

• stop sim
  • Stop the simulation. This halts the simulation on your machine until you enter the command a second time. This can be useful for artificially inflicting "very behind" status on an MP client and then seeing if it can catch up.
  • Example usage: cmd:stop sim
  • Never considered a cheat.

• empty quarantine
  • Any objects (ships or otherwise) that are in quarantine (and thus not valid yet for being put back in the central pools for redistribution into the game) get dumped back into the central pools immediately.
  • This is something that should not be done unless you're specifically testing some aspect of the game and potentially trying to make it goof up.
  • Example usage: cmd:emptyquarantine
  • Never considered a cheat.

Expansion 1: The Spire Rises

• lucky relic
  • If the fallen spire faction is enabled, spawns a relic for the invoking player on the planet the invoking player is looking at.
  • This is one of those rare cheats that only works for one player, but every player could control it anyhow. And too many relics all at once would be chaos.

• warheads
  • The issuing human player gets a new fleet named "Puffin War[Something]." The fleet flagship will be a basic transport, but it then has two of every kind of warhead, and a single one of every Interplanetary Device.
  • This one is specifically for testing warheads, but can be quite powerful and fun as a toy, as well!

Expansion 2: Zenith Onslaught

• chainlight
  • The issuing human player gets a new fleet named "Ohmu [Something]." The fleet flagship will be an armored golem variant called Invincible Ohmu Chain Lightning which is powerful and literally invincible.
  • This one is specifically for testing out chain lightning's effects in the second DLC.

• zeus cc
  • The issuing human player gets a new fleet named "Zeus CC[Something]." The fleet flagship will be a basic transport, but it then has a ton of cruisers (all the ones created by Zeus Almighty).
  • This one is specifically for testing cruisers, but can be quite powerful and fun as a toy, as well!

• zm here
  • A Zenith Miner probe will be spawned at the planet at which the issuing human is looking.

Expansion 3: Neinzul Abyss

• zeus ds
  • The issuing human player gets a new fleet named "Zeus DS[Something]." The fleet flagship will be a basic transport, but it then has a ton of cruisers (two of each created by Zeus Almighty).
  • This one is specifically for testing destroyers, but can be quite powerful and fun as a toy, as well!

• essence, number
  • Gives the player that much essence

• templarwave
  • Launches a templar attack wave. If the templar aren't in the game then it does nothing

• elderling, Name or Tag of Elderling here
  • So HighElderling or EnviousElderling would both work. It is case sensitive. Spawns one for every elderling faction in the game