AI War 2:Early Access Starts!

Known Issues

• The lobby interface is currently temporary, and undergoing a complete overhaul.
  • It's suggested that you use the quick start option instead.

• Various bugs on mantis: https://bugtracker.arcengames.com/view_all_bug_page.php

• Multiplayer is temporarily disabled while we focus on tightening up the single-player loop.

• There are a variety of ships/units that don't have final graphics at the moment, though they all have their icons.

What's this phase all about?

After 2+ years of development, we've finally reached the point where we're ready for Early Access! There's still more polish and bugfixing that we want to get done in these early weeks of EA, and the lobby redo is desperately needed (but quick starts are an awesome alternative), but we're feeling good about the game. We do need to also finish some graphics for the existing ships, but they all have their icons.

More content will be added during Early Access, but in the earliest weeks we're going to be balancing that against polishing what is there first. There's already quite a lot!

Version 0.807

(Not yet released -- we're still working on it!)

Balance Tweaks

• Concussion Corvette base damage mulitplier decreased from 8x to 6x.

• Pike Corvette damage decreased from 40 to 20.

• Raptor cost increased from 1800 to 3000.

• Space Plane cap increased from 60 to 120.

• Metabolizing Gangsaw damage increased from 150 to 400, reload time increased from 1s to 3s.
  • Meant to have been a bit snappier before, but...instead caused weirdness. So back they go.

• AI Overlord, both phases, now have a large Tachyon system to counter cloaking cheese.

• AI Overlord phase 2 now has stronger weapons.

• AI Overlord phase 1 can only be damaged when all Guard Posts on its planet are destroyed.
  • Identical to the current Eye mechanic, but with no alert.

• Dire Guard Posts now increase AIP by 10 upon death.

• Dire Guard Posts have fairly noticable damage bumps.

• AI Command Stations now give only 15AIP, instead of 25.

• Ion Cannons now fire every 2 seconds, instead of 3.

• Devourer Golem damage increased from 16000 to 30000 per shot.
  • Om Nom Nom Nom.

• Destruction Point requirements have gone up drastically.
  • These were meant to be a barrier preventing late tech units from appearing until...well, really late into a long game.

• Ark Point requirements have also gone up drastically, but the science cost has went down as well.
  • Bit more experience based.

• All Arks move 50% faster, have much lower health, but are no longer the top target priority of literally everything.

• Normal and Area Minefields damage increased from 2500 to 5000, self damage adjusted to compensate.
  • Still self destruct in 5 hits.

• Widow Minefields now paralyze for 3s instead of 2.

• * Instigator Bases that spawn Guardians to attack you now include Fortified Tesla and Plasma Guardians.
  • Thanks to Avenger1649 and Mac for suggesting greater variety.

Version 0.806 Sabre Company

(November 9th, 2018)

• Fix a bug where we were allowing the AI to over-diversify its waves. Waves are now capped at 8 different unit types
  • Thanks to Puffin for reporting

• Tutorial now teaches how to set ships in Pursuit Mode using the hotkey for it.
  • Thanks to DiamondDuty for the inspiration!

• Devourer Golem will now push Forcefields out of the way.
  • Thanks to HeartHunter7 for...uh, trying this.

• Fix a bug where some minor factions could generate unhelpful error messages after you lost a game
  • Thanks to HeartHunter for reporting

• Put a cap on the number of Marauder outposts that can spawn on allied planets
  • Thanks to Avenger1649 for suggesting

• Start work on Notifications for Instigator Bases. Probably still needs work, but arcenui keeps breaking for me so I can't really test it
  • Thanks to wm46 for the suggestion

• Instigators will consider a planet 'defeated' when they outnumber the defenses 10 to 1, and then move to the next planet on the way to the player King
  • Thanks to HeartHunter for observing a case where instigators got stuck

• Correct the description of the Superterminal to no longer request the player to capture the planet.

• Allows enter/return to confirm Yes/No popups, and close Okay popups
  • Thanks Kaleopan for reporting!

Balance Tweaks

• Tractor Arrays and Focused Gravity Generators now have cheaper tech costs.
  • Way too expensive!

• Tachyon Arrays now get cloaking at Mark 2 instead of Mark 4.
  • Not sure why you'd ever upgrade these that much.

• Pulsar Tanks, Tantruming Guardian, Dyson Bastion, Vanguard albedo increased to 0.7.
  • Make Ablative Gatlings less useless!

• Ambush Turrets now have their effect last 15s instead of 9, at Mark 4 and above.
  • Thanks to zeusalmighty for suggesting this...too long ago. Bah.

• Tethuida Guardians, Parasites, Astro Trains and the whole Nanocaust can no longer be captured by another faction.
  • While it was very amusing to have the AI steal Nanocaust ships, the Nanocaust steal it back, I steal those, etc, it has to go. Also stops the case of "to me, to you" back and forth of capturing the same unit over and over.

New Mercenary Groups

• Adds "Sabre Company" - uses Pulsar Tanks as its only unit, is hireable anywhere and can be done twice.

Version 0.805 Mercs, Hacks, and, Drones, Oh My

(Released October 30th, 2018)

• Fixed typo on performance tooltip.
  • Thanks sOvr9000 for reporting!

• Fixed Turret Schematic Servers mentioning Starships in their description.
  • Thanks to donblas for reporting!

• Allow Beam Cannons, Tractor Arrays, Gravity Turrets, and Tachyon Arrays to be built on hostile planets.
  • Thanks to AtomTheBomb for reporting!

• Sidebar now collapses when you click on a tab that is already opened.
  • Thanks darkarchon for reporting in Discord!

• Added objective for when you are below 40k energy

• Improve the tooltip for Marauder Outposts

• Science Labs, Hackers, and Space Docks no longer upgrade to Mark 2 - existing ones will degrade, unfortunately.
  • Lots of confusion - Labs and Hackers have no upgrade purpose, and Docks weren't upgraded at all. Thanks to Feudal Wulf and FFace for talking about this.

• Science Labs can no longer be built on enemy planets.
  • Lots of people thinking this meant you could get science from them - then being confused as to when it didn't work.

• Added prompt for unlocking or upgrading ships.
  • Thanks PACKRATXXXNASTY for the suggestion on Steam.

• Fixed the Quick Start Category buttons so they don't go off the screen.

Bug Fixes

• Drones should no longer idle, and will charge into glorious combat! At least, testing so far has them doing so every time, when before they just fell asleep.
  • Thanks to HeartHunter7 for reporting, and Aero182 for reporting, and guessing what the solution was, and finally Kasslerkryssi for inspiring me, with a report about Marauders, to go look at their entries, and finding the line that possibly fixed this at last.

• Drones are no longer eligible to be repaired
  • I've seen a few complaints about this but I don't remember names.

• Fix a bug where hacking Schematic Servers would not do anything
  • Reported by a lot of people

• Fix a null reference exception in Reprisal Wave code. This had a lot of nasty side effects, including making the game appear to freeze
  • Explicitly reported by T-Pond and Kaleopan, but I suspect many other people saw it, and this is potentially behind other issues people saw.

• Fix a typo on reprisal wave tooltips
  • Thanks to AtomTheBomb for reporting

• Fixes the Instigator base that spawns units never appearing - duplicate ID. You may notice some bases that said "Boost AIP" now say they'll spawn units - they will eventually, have to finish their current timer, then it'll swap to normal. Boost AIP bases can still spawn, though, and work as they should.
  • Thanks to HeartHunter7 for reporting this.

Hacking Changes

Major thanks to Badger for the heavy lifting on this!

• Hacking response is now based only on how many hacking points you've used against a given faction, not AIP.

• Each AI difficulty level has a different base response strength - higher the difficulty, the more the AI will send against you during hacks.

• Every hack, other than Science Extraction and the Super Terminal take more time to do, with the Decode Nanobots taking a full 10 minutes.

• All hacks now send a more or less constant stream of small responses at you, with the occasional larger response, very similar to what was used previously.

• The Super Terminal now increases its response over time, so you can't hold it forever.

• Design Backup hacks now have proper responses as well.

Balance Tweaks

• Vampire Guardian health leech halved.

• Assault Starship now has a secondary weapon, "Point Defense", which is a 3s reload, 8 shots per salvo weapon, dealing 800 damage per shot.

• Warbird Starship damage doubled from 200 to 400 per shot.

• Tritium Sniper Starship railgun damage increased from 330 to 495, reload time reduced from 4s to 2s.

• Siege Starship now damages up to 10 targets per shot instead of 5, and explosion size increased from 500 to 600.
  • Thanks to APhoenixSoaring for asking the question "What's the point of Starships?", zeusalmighty and Kesseleth for feedback on Discord on changes related to every Starship mention here.

• Human and AI Raid Starships shield points reduced from 40k to 30k.

• AI units should now give half the energy they used to when being killed by the Dark Spire.

• Metabolizing Gangsaw speed increased from 1200 to 1600, damage reduced from 350 to 150, reload time decreased from 3s to 1s, cap increased from 60 to 120, energy cost down from 500 to 350, self damage amount halved.

• Metabolization death effect now gives 20% of the targets cost, up to a maximum of 5,000 metal, up from 10%.

• V-Wing range increased from 3800 to 4200.

• All AI related hacks now send less frequent responses, generally about half, to a third as many.
  • Possibly overkill, but given the horror stories...

• Adds a short range Tachyon system to Marauder Raiders - currently they have no means of detecting AI cloaked ships hiding on a planet, and thus wouldn't actually capture it. Hopefully this means as they attack, they'll happen to snag any.
  • Thanks to Kasslerkryssi for reporting the baffled Marauders.

• Spire Lost Frigate hull increased from 150k to 500k, shields from 450k to 750k, Beam Damage increased from 3000 to 5000.
  • Thanks to mrmud for suggesting this thing get a boost.

• All time based mercenaries last 20 minutes instead of 10, with the below exception.

• Xenophon no longer has the behaviour of warping out after a battle, and instead simply brings a much larger group, that leaves after 10 minutes.

• All mercenary groups have different starting strengths and scaling with AIP. The character themed ones in particular are much stronger initially, often doubling or more.

• All "Automated" groups, both "War" groups, and Anvil Securities cost 5 hacking points to hire.

• War Siegers and War Harvesters have had major weapon upgrades.

• Anvil Securities can no longer be hired on AI held planets.
  • Thanks to Lord of Nothing for noticing this.

• Nucleophilic Turrets fire 1 shot instead of 3, but damage per shot tripled. Base damage multiplier increased from 3x to 4x.

• Dark Spire units have their strength values at least doubled - one tripled, one quadripled - so less should spawn.
  • An unfortunate consequence of the pre-Early Access automatic strength calculation - made the Dark Spire have really cheap as chips ships.

• V-Wing damage increased by 50%.
  • To be an actual fighter, instead of an ankle biter.

• Ablative Gatling damage doubled, but base multiplier halved to 5x, and only gains 1x per mark.
  • To make them still nasty vs their preferred targets, but not quite as useless otherwise.

• Dire Paralysis Guardian now only tractors things with albedo less than 0.4, instead of 0.5.
  • Thing seemed to prioritise Starships, making it incredibly frustrating to ever fight. Now it can't tractor them.

• Tethuida and Shredder drones speed increased from 1200 to 1600, damage doubled on both.
  • Sorta wimpy, hardly did anything.

• Carrier Guardians starting build rate reduced from 2500 to 1500.
  • Meaning they rebuild their drones slower - a group of these was a bit...absurd?

• Space Tank is now called the Pulsar Tank, is now cap 30, stats adjusted accordingly (twice as much health, damage, etc), Augmented weapon has a dramatic damage increase.

• Armor Ship is now called the Vanguard, and has the same treatment as above in being cap 30, twice the health, damage, etc.

• Etherjet loses cloaking entirely (for now), damage increased from 12 to 30, weapon range is drastically increased.
  • These are meant to tractor while cloaked, but until that functionality can be put in, they'll be like this for now.

• Normal Minefields are available for free at game start, instead of being unlocked.

• Normal Minefields lost their damage multiplier, health decreased to 2500, self damage multiplier is now -0.2.
  • So they'll self destruct in 5 hits still, but won't be as...tanky, when detected. The AI was getting stuck. Multiplier was also causing weird things with their self destruction.

• Area Minefields lost their multiplier as well, damage up to 2500 per hit, now spreads damage evenly among all targets in range, health decreased to 2500, self damage multiplier also -0.2.
  • Similar to the normal - except these were killing themselves near instantly, due to some hidden change in self damage with multi-shot salvos, I think. Same thing with the self destruction.

• Widow Minefields health increased to 2500 to match the others, now spreads damage evenly among all targets in range, self damage multiplier is now -5.

• All Minefields cost 1000 metal, down from 3000.
  • Metal Status: Depleted.

• A bunch of AI non-combat structures, like Wormhole Sentinels, now have insignificant strength values, while Ion Cannons are drastically reduced.
  • Meant to help factions decide to attack, instead of being partially scared off from things that can't fight back, as well as players not overestimate how strong a planet is.

• Economic and Military Command Stations have increased salvage percentage, going up to 5% per Mark for Economic, and 4% for Military.
  • They are now like their Classic incarnations.

• Player salvage income is increased...to 1000% of current. Because really, destroying thousands of ships and you only get 31 metal per second? On the Homeworld?!
  • This might not even be enough.

• The amount of strength the Nanocaust can add to a Frenzy, that is given by holding planets, is increased to 400%.
  • So essentially, it would have about 1 strength it could send in a frenzy, for every planet it held. This...meant after the initial attack, it would fizzle out as it could never actually take over anything if the planets were higher Marks. Now, it has 4 strength for each planet it holds that it can decide to send.

• Instigator bases have had their scaling with AIP generally doubled, with one being tripled. The base that gives AIP now gives 1, but every 450s instead.
  • These were being ignored. Conservative for now...

• Astro Trains have had their scaling with AIP also generally doubled, with some having their flat, non scaling effect amount bumped up a fair bit.
  • Rare to have one actually complete its effect - should be more...well, noticeable.

• Macrophage Harvesters now move at speed 200 instead of 150, and will go to feed their telium the metal they have collected, at 7500 instead of 10000.
  • Just to help them actually harvest - they always seemed to die long before returning once. Enraged Harvesters are still speed 150 though.

• All Drones now self attrition without their parent being on the same planet, at a rate of 35% per second, instead of 1%.
  • So now when you move Carriers from planet to planet, the drones'll actually die so the Carrier can build them on the next planet. Also, sniping Carrier Guardians is an actual thing, as their drones'll die very quickly.

• Rorqual Hegira, Shield Generators and Shield Starships have their shield size increased from 1.3 to 2.
  • Not able to protect much. Also means you can now cover the Command Station AND the Energy Collector reasonably!

Version 0.804 Hack Me Quickly

(Released October 17th, 2018)

• Fixed a bug caused by typo in the prior version that led to the brand new attack-move interface button actually turning on and off pursuit mode instead of attack-move. Blah! The hotkey for it works fine, and the highlighting for the buttons is also correct (showing which mode is active). The button simply activates the wrong ability, though.
  • Thanks to Viss Valdyr, VentoreX, and Segolia for reporting.

• The various bugs with tooltips getting stuck to the mouse cursor should be well and truly gone now.
  • These were a regression based on some code we introduced to try to stop a flicker that tooltips had pre-EA, but then we found the true cause of the flicker and it was something else. Now we've taken the code back out that didn't help the flicker, but did cause the tooltip-sticking, and so all should be well now.
  • Thanks to Phantazmagor, rkfg, and others for reporting.

Game Speed Options

• The default simulation speed controls are now able to make the simulation speed go into slow motion (below 1), unlike before. It can go down to half speed, now.
  • Thanks to Bou for inspiring this change.

• Instead of having the second, confusing speed setting that made the game run slower if you used it, we've now introduced new "Game Speed Styles," which is kind of like something we had in the first AI War.
  • The controls for setting these are the same as it was to set the old confusing speed setting (hold ctrl and click the arrows by the clock, or use ctrl and plus or minus).
  • The settings are defined in xml here, so you can define your own custom ones if you want. The default ones are:
    • Epic (0.6x attack power, 0.6x ship move speed)
    • Stately Ships (1x attack power, 0.6x ship move speed)
    • Slower Battles (0.6x attack power, 1x ship move speed)
    • Default (normal stats)
    • Faster Ships (1x attack power, 2x ship move speed)
    • Faster Battles (2x attack power, 1.3x ship move speed)
    • Cheetah (2x attack power, 3x ship move speed)
    • Insane (3x attack power, 5x ship move speed)
    • Plaid (4x attack power, 8x ship move speed)
  • Thanks to Bou for inspiring this change.

• In the tooltip for the clock in the bottom left, it now explains what the red number means when there is too much load. It also now shows what the Game Speed Style is, and if there is fast-forwarding or slow-motion going on.
  • Thanks to Bobtree for suggesting.

Balance Tweaks

• Sabot and Dire Sabot Guard Posts range reduced from 18,000 to 10,100.
  • Overlapping with Mass Drivers.

• Both Human and AI Fortresses have 150k Hull health at Mark 1, and minor damage increase of 20%.

• All AI responding hacks have a 5th of the response, both on interval and in completion.
  • Thanks to Deo and AtomTheBomb for reporting, and likely others.

• Tractor and Gravity Guardians now have Tachyon Emitters whose range matches that of their other effects, but is otherwise the same as the Sentinels found at Wormholes. Range of the Tractor Guardians...er, Tractor, increased to match its gun so it actually grabs stuff without having to hug it, but only grabs 60 ships, down from 90.

Version 0.803 The New Attack-Move

(Released October 16th, 2018)

Clarity

• Added a note to the tutorial that explains to use the galaxy map to send movement orders to planets that are not next door.
  • Thanks to Yindiram the FaerieDragon for inspiring this change.

• When you build a command station on a planet, it now takes you out of the build command station mode, and won't let you enter back into it.
  • Thanks to Ovalcircle for reporting the confusion this could cause.

Control/Interface Additions

• The text and icons on the galaxy map intentionally hide themselves after a certain amount of zooming-out. Previously, it felt like they were disappearing a little bit too soon; so now it allows them to keep showing for 1.5x as far out in zoom.
  • That said, you can also now configure that to make them disappear even faster, or last even longer, or go back to how they were last release, using two new options at the top of the Galaxy Camera section of the settings menu.
  • Thanks to Tzarro for suggesting.

• Previously, the planet tooltips in the galaxy map were only showing the amount of metal and energy you were producing at them, and only showing that if you held ctrl to see the full text for that planet.
  • NOW it shows the total amount of metal or energy generation happening on the planet, regardless of whether or not you own them. This shows you capture opportunities, aka which planets have more metal to capture or where there is a giant energy source to capture, etc.
  • On your own planets it continues to hide those by default unless you press ctrl, but on planets you don't own it will show them so long as their values aren't zero.
  • Thanks to Viss Valdyr for suggesting.

• Holding the ctrl key while clicking to build units such as turrets now works like it did in the first game, and builds 5 at a time.
  • Thanks to Wegadin and Dbrn for suggesting.

• In the tooltips over player ships, you can now see if they are in group-move, stop-to-shoot, or pursuit modes.

• All ships can now be in any combination of group-move, stop-to-shoot, and pursuit mode.
  • This is more like the first game, and has a variety of useful purposes.
  • Thanks to Terrarius for suggesting.

• Added a new "Attack-Move" mode:
  • While in attack-move mode, military ships will make their own choices about who to go attack that they see in range of themselves, and then will kite them and potentially chase them. Unlike in pursuit mode, they will not start chasing something that is out of their range, however.
  • There is a new button for this in the interface, or you can press the X key. The older "stop-and-shoot" mode is still useful, but has been moved to the C key.
  • This is actually a pleasingly sophisticated hybrid new mode that hasn't previously existed in this game or the original game.
  • Thanks to Terrarius for inspiring this addition!

Bugfixes

• Fix a bug where the hacking sidebar would show you the available hacks on planets you hadn't yet explored (so you could tell if, say, there was a Schematic Server there)
  • Thanks to Regdren for reporting

• Fixed an issue where, on startup, the game was connecting to unity's servers to submit anonymous hardware statistics.
  • Apologies for that, as we didn't notice it. We have those servers whitelisted in our own firewalls, so it slipped completely past.
  • More info: https://forum.unity.com/threads/turn-off-hardware-stat-collection-from-unity.467751/
  • Thanks to lonetrav and Demerzel for bringing this to our attention.

• Fixed a surprising bug with the "start with units queued" option in the lobby that was making it impossible to ever de-queue those units!
  • Thanks to Epic The Incandescent for reporting.

• Put in a further fix to prevent tooltips from ever getting stuck to your mouse cursor.
  • Thanks to rkfg and Phantazmagor for reporting the issue.

• Fixed a bug where it was not possible to save your game during the tutorial! It did not have a campaign name. Now it saves under the campaign name "Tutorial."
  • Thanks to nnothead31 and UFO for reporting.

• Fixed a bug where hold fire mode made ships unable to re-cloak!
  • Thanks to Crisp for reporting.

Balance Tweaks

• Hacking Points gained per planet now 30, down from 40.

• AIP gained per destroyed Command Station now 25, up from 15.

• Ambush Turrets cap increased from 10 to 30, cost and health reduced accordingly. Base damage reduced to be more in line with some other turrets, making them worse generalists, but the bonus is increased to keep them similar. Range also reduced to 5600.

Version 0.802 Hold Your Fire!

(Released October 15th, 2018)

• Allow multiple space docks to be handled by the tutorial.

• Add a 'build energy collector' requirement to the Tutorial, and mention that you can use Settings -> Automation for it.

• Increase both AI and player Salvage income.

• Fixed an issue introduced in todays earlier hotfix that caused unit placement to be annoyingly slow (you could only click 3x per second at most).
  • Thanks to Mckloshiv, RocketAssistedPuffin, ZEBEAST OF SLAVIC TERRITORIES, and la_nague for reporting.

• Fixed a bug that was causing the keybindings to not be properly saved/applied when you changed them through the game.
  • Thanks to Mitvailer and la_nague for reporting.

• Added the "hold fire" mode that folks have definitely been missing! Aka, "Toggle Ship Systems Enabled"
  • Press the N key to enable it, by default.
  • Switch the selected ships into or out of functioning. While disabled, military ships will not attack anything they see. This is very useful for ships that are cloaked that you want to keep stealthy. When disabled, engineers will not spend metal doing work, and space docks will not run, etc.
  • Thanks to Ovalcircle, zeusalmighty, HeartHunter7, RocketAssistedPuffin, and la_nague for reminding us about this.

Version 0.801 Hotfix

(Released October 15th, 2018)

• Fixed all our menus with lists of items being broken by a last-minute change prior to 0.800. Very sorry about that! It was most noticeable on the Objectives screen.
  • Thanks to pango and la_nague for reporting.

• Fixed the longstanding issue with double-clicking units not working properly unless shift was held. This was a casualty of our switching input systems back in July.
  • Thanks to Kahuna, BadgerBadger, RocketAssistedPuffin, vinco, and la_nague for reporting.

Version 0.800 Early Access Launch

(Released October 15th, 2018)

• Settings and controls categories no longer run off screen

Tutorial Tweaks

• Added a note to the tutorial that each dock can rally separately.
  • Thanks to th_Pion for reporting, and Sizzle for transcribing.

• If your assault starship dies during your attack on the third planet in the tutorial, it should no longer take you back to the prompt that asks you to build one.
  • Thanks to RocketAssistedPuffin for reporting.

• Added in the usual starting 2 human home settlements, and 10 human cryo pods, for an extra 560 metal per second and 50k energy during the tutorial.
  • Thanks to RocketAssistedPuffin for suggesting.

• Added in the standard two engineers right from the start of the tutorial, so that building the first engineers isn't extra slow.

• The tutorial now has a nicely colored header, which also says what step you are on out of the total number of steps.
  • This is useful for making it clear that you're in the tutorial, and how far in you are.

• Additionally, when you complete the tutorial it now has a nice message telling you so, and advice on what to do next (start a Quick Start game, don't stress, etc).
  • Thanks to RocketAssistedPuffin, th_Pion, Sizzle, and Josh Bycer for suggesting.

• In the window that shows the tutorial information, there is now an "Other Notes" section down at the bottom that shows any other notes that are popping up into that usual window.
  • Thanks to Bobtree and Badger for pointing out how confusing this was.

• If the game is paused, colored text saying so now shows up in the tutorial.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where Astro Train Stations would spawn without limit.

• Fixed a bug that we introduced in the last build that would occasionally lead to a tooltip getting stuck to your cursor.
  • Thanks to vinco for reporting.

• Fixed an issue introduced in the prior build where it was now basically impossible to tell the difference between dock items in your queue and not in your queue.
  • Thanks to Badger for reporting.

Prior Release Notes

AI War 2: Pre-Early Access Polish