AI War 2:The Refinement of Fleets

Known Issues

• The old-style tutorials are gone, and we're still in progress with replacing that with three different styles of other help/onboarding in-game mechanisms.

• 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.

• We're in progress with refining things with fleets more to remove things that are annoying or tedious about them. More info on that is here.

What's this phase all about?

After 3 months of Early Access and 2+ years of development, we've reached a point where we know what we want the 1.0 version of the game to look like. SO very much about this game already works well, but there are some major deficits coming into this phase when comparing this sequel to the original game. The aim of this phase is to close those gaps and make this clearly the superior product in terms of playability, fun factor, the amount of fun thinking-about-interesting-challenges you do during gameplay, and so on.

There's also of course still more polish and bugfixing that we want to get done, and the lobby redo is still scheduled of course (but quick starts are an awesome alternative, and have helped us to defer a final design for the lobby as we formed up some other bits of the game first), but we're feeling really good about this final sprint toward 1.0. We still do need to also finish some graphics for the existing ships, but they all have their icons.

There is some more content coming as part of this phase, kind of by definition -- fleets as a concept Change Everything in a good way -- but the focus is on taking what is a pretty awesome game with a lot of depth and pushing it to a level that we hope beats the pants off the original, finally. Stay tuned.

Version 0.872

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

• Add a setting for FRD mode available via GalaxySettings; if you disable it then your ships will spread out a bit more in FRD. It's a pretty subtle difference.

Tractor Changes

• The AI will now have tractor ships actively try to kidnap your ships and drag them off planet. This includes AI Black Widow Golems, Tractor Guardians, Etherjet Tractors and their variants.
  • Feedback on how intelligent this behaviour is would be appreciated (ideally with a save game)
  • Thanks to ptarth for suggesting

• Tractor Systems can now be configured to tractor more things at higher mark levels. I'm not sure what mischief Puffin is going to use this for, but I look forward to finding out
  • Requested by Puffin

• Ships caught in a tractor beam are always allowed to shoot at the tractor source that has caught them. Also they will be more likely to shoot at said tractor source
  • Requested by Puffin

Bugfixes

• Remove some duplicated logic in the GameEntity HoverText. No functional change

• AI Drones will now fight to the death instead of retreating from the planet; they would just attrition to death anyway once they left the planet
  • Thanks to WeaponMaster for the bug report

• Make Clusters: Small and Clusters: Medium map types work
  • Thanks to UFO for the bug report

• Mobile Combat Factories (and Gyrn) are no longer allowed to build ships while crippled.

• Fix a bug where reprisal waves were double-sized. Also the notification now shows the "time till wave is sent" in the icon itself. The hovertext for the notification also explains that the waves are 1.5x normal wave size.
  • Thanks to WeaponMaster for the report

• Fix a null reference exception in the EntityHover code

• Fix a bug where ships deployed from guard posts against minor factions (in particular, the Dyson Sphere) would just go after the player
  • Thanks to Puffin for the report and TechSY730 for some additional saves. Possibly other people reported it as well?

• The "Debug: Kill Enemies" button now kills all units hostile to the player on a planet, not just AI units
  • Thanks to Oval for requesting

• Fix (or at least significantly improve) a bug where your units would stutter as they moved toward enemies to fight. This has the pleasant side effect of making autobombs and the like suck slightly less.
  • Reported by a lot of people, including Puffin and Ecthelon

• Make Autobombs and other melee units no longer fire shots sequentially; this improves the delay before Autobombs go off. It's still not great, but it's an improvement.

• Hopefully fix a rare null reference in the Decollision code

• Improve the Incoming Damage Detection code to take multishot ships into account. This should (hopefully) make your units better able avoid overkilling targets.

• Ships dragged through a wormhole via tractors will now pop out a short distance from the tractoring unit, instead of stacked right on top of the tractor
  • Thanks to ptarth for the bug report

• Fix a bug where a hostile-to-player only or hostile-to-AI only devourer golem would no longer try to kill the zenith trader
  • Thanks to Ovalcircle for reporting

• Fix a bug where ships could go through wormholes while the game was paused
  • Thanks to hawk for reporting

• Scrapping units on planets with Dark Spire Vengeance Generators now correctly generates energy for the VG
  • Thanks to Ovalcircle for reporting

Balance Tweaks

• Greatly increased many of the Instigator Base effects.
  • Strengthen Waves and Strengthen Hunter Fleet are quadrupled.
  • Strengthen CPA and Strengthen Wormhole Invasion are doubled.
  • Strengthen Warden Fleet is tripled.
  • Unit Spawner now spawns every 90s instead of 20, but spawns significantly more each time. This means it is a much more consolidated force, rather than a trickle.
    • Thanks to Badger for reporting these aren't something to be bothered with at all.

• Pike unit high hull health bonus reduced from 4x to 2x.
  • Unlike MLRS, which operate on low health and thus effectively had a cap on how much the effect could do, Pikes could often one shot units entirely with this bonus. Coupled with the fact they already have another damage bonus, this was a bit much in practice.
  • The bonus is still cool, so it's preferred to keep it. Want to keep an eye on it though, since that's a nasty result of it that was only just spotted and may have contributed to the feel of Strikecraft being mere chaft.

• A minor nerf to reprisal waves

• Military Command Station damage boost 50% -> 25%, increase per mark 50% -> 25%.
  • This was likely far too much beforehand, but with Experience allowing these to rank up, it needs to come down.

• Military Command Station metal production 60 -> 20.

• Added a bunch of mono-type AI Ship Groups for Guard Posts and Turrets.
  • So now a bunch of AI planets will have only one type of Post, and one type of Turret. There is still the possibility of having an utter mishmash, but far less.
  • Thanks to ptarth and Annoying Orange for bringing the point up separately that this mess forces generalist compositions and the old conundrum of "anti-bomber Post under a Forcefield" from Classic, in a way.

• Tractor Arrays, Ensnarer Battlestation, Black Widow Golem Ark, Tractor Guardians and Ensnarer Turrets now all gain some tractor count per Mark.

• Cloaking and Tachyon Systems now increase their Points by 50% of their base value each time they Mark up.
  • Now upgrading Tachyon Arrays and Sentry Frigates actually does something beyond health, and this lets sneaky units last longer around lower tier detectors.

AI income increase

• Previously each AI's strength was "Strength of a single AI" / "Total number of AIs in galaxy". Now the logic is as follows
  • For difficulty < 5, keep the old logic
  • For 2 or 3 AIs, each AI is 75% as strong as a single AI (this is up from 50% as strong and 33% as strong)
  • For 4 or more AIs, each AI is 50% as strong as a single AI (this is up from < 25%)
    • This will be a sudden jump in AI difficulty

Strikecraft

• Space Plane and Mirages now only take 1% damage from enemies beyond their range, down from 50% and 25% respectively.
  • This is more like their Classic incarnation, with the change of they can be hurt by the thing they're targeting, as there is no way to bypass radar dampening here.

• Mirages now have the same health as Space Planes, damage 65 -> 40, bypasses personal shields completely, and has a damage bonus against anything with healthy hulls.
  • Essentially, it's now terrible at actually killing something outright, but amazing at weakening it for something else to clean up.
  • Thanks to StarKelp for developing this idea!

• Etherjet Cloak re-enabled, damage and reload time quadrupled on all variants, albedo 0.3 -> 0.7, speed 1,200 -> 1,600.
  • For some reason, they were able to Tractor while Cloaked for some time now, so that system is re-enabled, and the weapon is adjusted to slow the rate they drain their own Cloaking Points.
  • Coupled with the new AI behaviour with Tractor units, these should hopefully behave more like their Classic incarnations.

• Adjusted numerous Strikecraft strength values, and also their ai_cost_to_purchase values to better fit how powerful they actually are.
  • A lot of these were overpriced for the AI, so now there'll be quite a few more of them when found.

• Vanguard health increased 30%.

• Vanguard Hydra Head damage 60 -> 140, speed 400 -> 600, now spawns in groups of 5 and are invulnerable for 8 seconds after being spawned.
  • Some poking showed these to not really work as originally intended. The normal Vanguard is pure tanking, so to help diffentiate Hydras, their Heads are now much more offensive orientated.
  • Spawning more Heads also helps to emphasise that particular trait (and adds more offense), and the invulnerability guarantees they get some damage done instead of being picked off due to such low health.

• Ablative Gatling/Troll health increased 30%.

• Agravic Pod damage 80 -> 100.

• Concussion Corvette damage 70 -> 96.

• Porcupine damage 50 -> 80.

• Grenade Launcher Corvette/Molotov health increased 30%.

• Dagger health increased 50%.

• Eyebot health increased 25%.

• Zapper shields 2,000 -> 3,000.

• Parasite/Persuader health increased 50%.

Frigates

• Brawlers lose all shields, gain it in hull. Their missiles now cause knockback, some engine stun, and also have a damage multiplier against anything slower than its base speed. Damage 300 -> 200, reload time 3s -> 2s.
  • It's now kind of like the Translocator Starship? Shove little guys around and slow them down with some damage as a bonus.
  • Also thanks to StarKelp for developing this idea! It's a little different, but the spirit is there I think.

• Forcefield Frigate shield size increased, size of the ship itself decreased, shields 200k -> 250k.
  • So it covers more, and isn't taking up as much of that space itself. Also lasts a bit longer, since it'll probably be hit more often.

• Siphoner shields 120k -> 160k, damage 2,000 -> 250, reload time 4s -> 1s, now does 5x the damage to a target if it has more than 50% personal shields left. Vampirism gain changed from 5HP per 1 damage to 7HP per 1 damage.
  • Lasts a bit longer for the same reason, shoots faster so it's a more constant regeneration, and better suited to breaking down things like Guard Posts and...well, siphoning the shields off stuff.

Flagships

• Armored Golem damage 2,000 -> 1,000, Sabot damage 3,000 -> 2,000.
  • This thing by far dominates its Fleet, and was really pushing the smaller units out of the game, since things had to be balanced for the player having these.
  • It was actually pretty absurd, being the toughest and best damage dealer of the bunch so...no surprise people felt it was dominating.

• Cursed Golem damage 1,250 -> 700, Sabot damage 2,000 -> 1,500.
  • A similar case. This thing is much longer ranged than the Armored, and has paralysis to boot (including the very rare ability to paralyse bigger targets), and so also dominated the Fleet.

• Botnet Golem damage 500 -> 450.
  • Really minor, but just brings it in a tad more.

• Black Widow Golem damage 500 -> 200, tractor count 350 -> 250.
  • Same deal with the above ones. This thing has a lot more shots than normal for the purpose of engine stun, so the damage is definitely low per shot.
  • Tractor count is lowered since it now gains some with Mark.

Guard Posts

• Stealth Guard Post albedo 0.4 -> 0.7.
  • Missed it long ago.

• Pike Guard Post damage 1,200 -> 600.
  • This thing had far too high a generalist damage. Coupled with the high hull health bonus, it was capable of slaughtering things it really shouldn't have been.

• Moved half of Guard Post hull into shields.
  • In a previous update, Guard Post durability was doubled. This unfortunately really hurt Fusion Bombers, coupled with the fact you generally have less of these specifically than you used to early on.
  • By shifting the hull over, they retain their overall durability, but are weaker to Fusion Bombers, letting them be the experts of Post demolition again.

• Moved two thirds of Dire Guard Post hull into shields.
  • They now follow the same hull/shield ratio as the normal Posts.

Prior Release Notes

AI War 2: The Arrival of Fleets