Difference between pages "AI War:Current Post-5.000 Beta" and "AI War:Current Post-6.000 Beta"

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m (Fix link to 7.001)
 
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== Release 6.001 ==
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== Statistics For The Curious ==
  
* Patch notes for game version 6.001 and up can be found at [http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI War:Current_Post-6.000_Beta Current Post 6.000 Beta].
+
* Between 6.000 and 7.000, we pushed out 50 distinct public releases over 238 days.  
  
== Release 6.000 ==
+
* Community contributors were (as always) a huge help. 123 Players were thanked over the course of the 500 individual changes that were made.
(Released October 19th, 2012)
 
  
* Updated the player-community credits to reflect contributions during the 5.0-to-6.0 run.  Thanks everyone!
+
== Prerelease 7.001 ==
  
== Prerelease 5.097 Release Candidate 2 ==
+
* Patch notes for game version 7.001 and up can be found at [[AI War:Current_Post-7.000_Beta|Current Post 7.000 Beta]].
(Released October 17th, 2012)
 
  
* Fixed a bug in the last version where the list of available modules wasn't showing on the ship design at all, if your monitor (not resolution) was above a certain size.
+
== Release 7.000 ==
** Thanks to Cinth and Toranth for the report.
+
(Released June 17th, 2013)
  
== Prerelease 5.096 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/10/ai-war-beta-5096-release-candidate-1.html Release Candidate 1] ==
+
(No changes other than the version number, compared to 6.050)
(Released October 17th, 2012)
 
  
* Previously, when your ships exploded anywhere in the galaxy it played the same audio cue. Now if they are on a different planet from your view, it plays a much more muted, distant-sounding, quieter explosion sound effect.  And there was much rejoicing.
+
== Prerelease 6.050 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/06/ai-war-beta-6050-release-candidate-3.html Release Candidate 3] ==
 +
(Released June 16th, 2013)
  
* Added 25 champion-related achievements.
+
* The "Starfleet Commander" AI Type is now categorized as a "Harder" type.
 +
** Thanks to Kahuna, LordSloth, and Bognor for the suggestion
  
* Fixed a bug that was letting the buy menu (with MODS button and abilities) show when multiple champions (of the same hull) type were selected.  In some ways this was convenient but it's just asking for bug-trouble because of differences in what unlocks each player might have.
+
* Zenith Hydra Heads are now immune to repair.
** This also prevents some genuinely bizarre behavior when the multi-player selection is opened for modification in the ship design window, since they can no longer be opened in that window now.
+
** Note: the hydras themselves can still be repaired just fine.
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
+
** Thanks to Diazo for the suggestion.
 
 
* Each champion/normal+champion player now starts with 100 shadow capacitor charge so that the champion-only players can immediately spawn rather than waiting 20 seconds or so to build up the initial charge.
 
 
 
* Ship Design Window: changed the positioning of the list of available modules for the selected slot so that it's always the same horizontal distance from the right edge of the window.  Previously the "floating" behavior sometimes made sense but more recently it's just made it look buggy in some cases.
 
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed several errors and misleading bits in various unit descriptions.
 
** Thanks to Bognor, RCIX, Draco18s, KingRaptor, and KDR_11k for the reports.
 
 
 
* Reduced the quantity of nemesis champions the AI gets to defend itself against champion assassination, since it seemed like even dislodging a non-respawning population (after raising AIP a bit) would be inappropriately difficult.
 
 
 
* Added the higher-mark-version images for most of the champion module lines.
 
** Thanks to HitmanN for the art.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.095 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/10/ai-war-beta-5095-apply-core-sanding.html Apply Core Sanding Machine] ==
 
(Released October 17th, 2012)
 
 
 
* Fixed a longstanding bug where attack-move units with no other orders would auto-target stuff that should not be auto-targeted (wormhole guard posts, AIP-on-death structures, etc) if the unit in question shot them first.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report and save.
 
  
* Fixed a typo in the kill-second-AI-homeworld objective text that made it nonsensical.  It had said you had to destroy the CSG network Second instead of first... real cute; obviously the AI shouldn't have been assigned to proofread that part.
+
* The Zenith Hydra Head (not the main body, just the spawnable) now starts in FRD automatically.
** Thanks to Bognor for the report.
+
** Thanks to Cinth for the suggestion.
  
* Now when a champion respawns, it automatically queues up the highest eligible mark of each module instead of just keeping exactly the modules that were on it before dying/warping.
+
== Prerelease 6.049 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/06/ai-war-beta-6049-release-candidate-2.html Release Candidate 2] ==
** Also, there is now a "Switch To Best Module Versions Available" button on the ship design interface (only shows when there's actually a module on the design that has an eligible higher-mark version available) which switches in the eligible higher-mark versions.  It doesn't actually apply the changes (we can make it do that if preferred, but this seemed more flexible), but the apply-to-selection button is just above.
+
(Released June 15th, 2013)
*** In theory it could just do this automatically, but that would cause apply-to-selection to make changes the player did not consciously make, in some cases, so this seemed safer.
 
** Thanks to LordSloth, Eternaly_Lost and TechSY730 for inspiring this change.
 
  
* To provide a counterbalance against the player's ability to build up a powerful champion (and nebula-ally fleet) without increasing AIP much (if at all, depending on map layout and tolerance for deepstrikes), each AI homeworld now gets "nemesis" champions in proportion to the number of human champions, the highest champion hull size unlocked for human players, and that AI's difficulty.
+
* Set metal and crystal cost of Lightning Torpedoes to minimal values to prevent efficient resource farming by scrapping them (producing them doesn't cost resources anyway).
** Critically, the "population cap" of these nemesis spawns actually goes _down_ as AIP increases (bottoming out at 150 AIP) to simulate the AI having less to invest into its nemesis spawns as AIP increases and waves, special forces, strategic reserve, and other responses are being given more and more resources.  More importantly, this allows the nemesis spawns to counter an "early AIP" champion rush without making a more "normal AIP" approach massively harder to the point of stalemate.
+
** Thanks to Niwantaw for the report.
** Nemesis spawns are not immediately replaced up to the population cap (takes a little over 10 minutes to go from zero to the cap), and spawns remain even if the cap drops below the current population (but once you kill them off the extras don't come back).
 
** Nemesis spawns never go through wormholes, so they won't ever leave the homeworld they're defending.  This is good and bad for the player, but good all around for their intended purpose.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater,chemical_art, Faulty Logic, TechSY730, Cinth, Wanderer, Dichotomy, LaughingThesaurus, Volatar, and Winge for inspiring this change.
 
  
* Champion module unlock costs from 1/1/2/3/3 => 1/1/2/2/2, so upgrading a mkI module to mkV now costs 7 points instead of 9, allowing for a bit more flexibility with the two larger champion hull sizes.
+
* Fixed a bug that allowed more shadow-projection units to be placed by a champ than the available shadow charge would permit, by holding shift and clicking repeatedly without moving the mouse at all.  This could allow infinite shields while paused, in fact.
** Thanks to Cinth, Dichotomy, Eternaly_Lost, chemical_art, and orzelek for inspiring this change.
+
** Thanks to MasterSJT and Spikey00 for the report.
  
* Previously if a player champion entered a nebula and no scenario was eligible to be seeded, it would duplicate a previous scenario since the beta was ongoing and more scenarios were being added.  Since the 6.0 set of scenarios is complete, this duplication now no longer happens and such a nebula will simply stay empty.
+
* Fixed a bug where the SpecialForces and ThreatFleet logic could pick "staging point" planets that were human planetsNothing quite like the SF deciding to "stage" from your homeworld.
** The first time this "empty nebula" logic is encountered in a game, it will trigger a short journal entry explaining the situation, so that it doesn't look like a bug.
 
** If later on a scenario is eligible to seed there and the player has a champion there (or brings one there), one of the now-eligible scenarios will spawnThe emptiness won't prevent that from happening.
 
** If you really want more than 9 scenarios in a game, you may use the "cmd:allow duplicate nebula scenarios" command from the chatline to re-enable the old behavior.
 
*** Note: this is not a cheat! It does not require that cheats be enabled, and does not flag the game as having had cheats used.  This is because the additional scenarios still use the proper balancing scaling based on your hull size, number of previous victories, etc.  It's up to the player if they want to do more scenarios after 9, though hopefully we'll eventually have enough defined that even the largest galaxy (120 planets, 15 nebulae) won't run out and this command will become moot.
 
** Thanks to Cinth for inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Added a note to the Dark Spire description indicating it's intentional chaoticity (by way of warning the player).
 
** Thanks to Dichotomy for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where strategic reserve ships could be freed as threat while attacking.
 
 
** Thanks to Kahuna for the report.
 
** Thanks to Kahuna for the report.
  
* Dark Spire minor faction ships will no longer kill warp gates.
+
== Prerelease 6.048 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/06/ai-war-beta-6048-release-candidate-1.html Release Candidate 1] ==
** Note: the rationale with these is that they're supposed to have a chaotic and uncontrollable effect on the game if included and triggered.  If you want minor factions that don't cause AIP or other badness, those factions already exist :)  But the DS still won't kill command stations or warp gates because those: 1) Increase AIP substantially.  AND 2) Are very common (i.e. on every planet).  There's no strategy in avoiding DS spawns near those, because they're everywhere.
+
(Released June 14th, 2013)
*** So something that is merely common, but does not increase AIP much (Special Forces Guard Post, +1 AIP) is fair game.
 
*** And something that substantially increases AIP, but is rare (Black Hole Generator) is fair game.
 
*** And something like a counter-attack-guard-post is also fair game.  If you play with Dark Spire on you'll want to pay close attention to things like that which are in striking distance of a DS spawner.
 
 
 
* Fixed a textual error in the captive human settlement description.
 
** Thanks to Volatar and KingRaptor for the report.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.094 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/10/ai-war-beta-5094-apply-mkiv-sanding.html Apply MkIV Sanding Machine] ==
 
(Released October 16th, 2012)
 
 
 
* Zenith Reprocessors are now immune to reclamation, because otherwise the player could have zombie reprocs giving them m+c which just seemed weird.
 
** Thanks to rabican for the report.
 
 
 
* Zenith Medic Frigates are now immune to reclamation, because zombies healing other zombies doesn't really work right (on many levels).
 
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where the large starbases were repairing the champion about 100x faster than they should have been due to a testing flag being left on.
 
** Note that the module construction part is unaffected.
 
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed several minor issues with the tutorials, in preparation for 6.0.
 
 
 
* Added a welcome message (referencing the tutorial and the "Beginner Game" setup script) to the lobby for the first time it is opened under a given profile (this is suppressed if the game detects that the profile has already started playing a real game at least once).
 
 
 
* Adjusted the energy-surplus-achievement trigger thresholds to better fit the current model's numbers (and not trigger any achievements immediately upon starting the game).
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where minifortresses had a ship-cap of zero in defender games.
 
** Thanks to Gith for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where the Spire Corvette was still available in some games with starships off.
 
** Thanks to X14U2NVX for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where hacking an ARS, capturing the planet, saving, quitting, and reloading could cause another ARS to spawn somewhere in the galaxy.
 
** Thanks to Cinth for the report and save.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where the fallen spire campaign could spawn two of the same shard-signal.
 
** Thanks to contingencyplan for the report and save.
 
 
 
* Nebulae are no longer considered by the "Knowledge Found" galaxy map display mode.
 
 
 
* Fixed several bugs that could cause the new "large starbases can repair/assist champions" rule to not work sometimes.
 
** Thanks to Underfot, Faulty Logic, Cinth, chemical_art for reporting, and to chemical_art again for the save that demonstrated yet another bug with this.
 
 
 
* Fixed a fairly longstanding bug where disabling an expansion from within the lobby would not properly remove several expansion-specific options (map types, setup scripts, minor factions, etc), which could lead to very odd behavior.
 
** Thanks to LordSloth for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a couple longstanding bugs that would cause very old saves to not load properly.
 
 
 
* The AI Core Grav Reactor Post now no longer receives protection from the Core Shield Generator network, to avoid generating maps (mainly snake ones) that were literally impossible due the homeworld having an invincible black-hole-generator-effect unit.
 
** Thanks to vortexion for the report.
 
 
 
* Champion respawn rebalance:
 
** Now, if a "dead" champion's shadow capacitor charge is lower than 100, it does not respawn until the charge reaches 100.
 
** Respawning now completely discharges the champion's shadow capacitor.
 
** The confirm prompt for scrapping now displays alternate text if only champions are selected, since it's actually a "warp home" function rather than a "scrap" one.  Follows exactly the same rules as normal respawning, either way.
 
** Also amended the opening champion journal entry to note the respawn rules.
 
  
* Added "Champions" galaxy map display mode so you can see where your champion(s) are from the galaxy map.
+
* MLRS Guardians (normal and Dire) hull type from medium => artillery, so that they don't counter their triangle counter (was fighters, is now bombers).
** Thanks to Toranth for the suggestion.
+
** Thanks to zleorg for pointing this out.
  
* Fixed a bug where the resource bar metal/crystal/energy/knowledge mouseover tooltips would show lines for champion-only players.
+
* Bumped all non-dire guardians up 2 exo cost tiers; partly because it was kind of silly to have Raid and Infiltration guardians start 1 tier lower than the Raid Starship (while being 50% to 150% more effective than it), but really all the guardians are pretty buff right now.
  
== Prerelease 5.093 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/10/ai-war-beta-5093-apply-mkiii-sanding.html Apply MkIII Sanding Machine] ==
+
* Added a tooltip to the Master Sound Volume slider that it does not impact the Music levels (only the Sound effects levels).
(Released October 13th, 2012)
+
** Thanks to Tridus for inspiring this change.
  
* The large allied starbases in nebula missions can now (slowly) repair your champion and assist it in constructing new modules, allowing you to switch loadouts mid-mission without keeping an engineer team on the other side of the wormhole.
+
* Fixed some bugs where normal AI retreat or target-priority logic could interfere with exo "galaxy-wide-chase" logic and cause dancing and indecisiveness, etc.
** To make this work, champions and all nebula units are now free to repair (minor faction bases having no m+c reserves of their own to draw upon), which now makes the player-buildable versions of the nebula faction ships a bit more attractive to use.
 
** Thanks to Cinth, Marmel, and other players for inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where hybrids, exo ships, and the like could switch to threat-fleet behavior.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report.
 
 
 
* Military Command Stations:
 
** Fixed a bug where the mkII and mkIII versions no longer had a unit cap (leaving it that way was entertained, but ultimately would require more sweeping changes to command stations than is a good idea right now, if it would be a good idea at all).
 
** Fixed a bug where the mkII and mkIII were still showing the mkI descriptive text, despite that now not being the same.
 
** The knockback logic now launches stuff 2000 range units outside the station's effective range rather than 2000 range units inside, to help the autotargeting not get stuck on a few targets when its main use is best served by spreading shots out.
 
** Thanks to Winge, TechSY730, rabican, and Kahuna for reports/suggestions on these.
 
 
 
* AI Strategic Reserves:
 
** Fixed a bug where the spawns were only considering the first player's available ship types (so if the second player's core planet was under attack, nothing would spawn).
 
** Fixed a bug where non-homeworld spawns were not trying to leave the correct percent-of-max-reserve remaining.
 
** Thanks to Toranth for the report and save.
 
 
 
* Significantly rebalanced how the ally and enemy large-starbase "how fast do these build units?" rates are computed in the nebula scenarios, notably:
 
** Most of the modifiers are now applied additively, not multiplicatively, so that the numbers stay under control longer.
 
** The base-vs-base scenarios are now more consistent in how losses of small starbases impact ally/enemy production concentration into the large bases.
 
** Ally production now scales up with the factor based on number of champions, number of won scenarios, and biggest available champion hull.  It doesn't scale up as much as the enemies do (as otherwise the overall challenge wouldn't really change, where it does need to get harder as the player progresses), but it should keep it from feeling quite so one-sided in highly scaled scenarios.
 
** If you have advanced logging on, each multi-ship group spawn in an offroad scenario will log an entry to OffroadScenarioLog.txt giving info on what was spawned and how frequently spawns are happening at that point.
 
** Thanks to Cinth, Winge, chemical_art, Histidine, Mermel, and others for inspiring these changes.
 
 
 
* The earlier base-vs-base scenarios now use similar autotargeting-logic-modifications to what is used in some of the later scenarios, to keep the enemies and allies from getting near an objective and then haring off to the other corner of the map because they could get better damage against some target.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where the Dark Spire minor faction could kill AI command stations indirectly through plasma-siege splash damage.
 
 
** Thanks to Histidine for the report and save.
 
** Thanks to Histidine for the report and save.
  
* Fixed several display bugs with champion hulls on the ship design screen.
+
* Fixed some bugs where normal AI retreat/attack/etc orders were being sent to hybrids, which could cause dancing and indecisive behavior, etc.
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
+
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report and saves.
  
* Nebula scenarios can now grant both a new hull-race and a new hull-size at once.  Previously a new hull-size would override, which could lead to not having all races by the end.
+
* Modernized the Refugee Outpost's HBC-IV.
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.092 ==
+
* Added seven new AI taunts for various occasions.
(Released October 10th, 2012)
+
** Thanks to Cyborg, LordSloth, Hearteater, Faulty Logic, and others for the inspiration.
  
* Nebula seeding:
+
== Prerelease 6.047 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/06/ai-war-beta-6047-activating-vengeful.html Activating Vengeful Sanding Machine MkIII] ==
** Every map now always seeds at least 9 nebulae; though 80+ planet maps seed more (up to 15 on 120 planets, as before).
+
(Released June 13th, 2013)
** Nebulae try to seed 4 hops apart, falling back on seeding closer together if there winds up not being enough room later on in the seeding.
 
*** This helps with the fact that nebulae have to be seeded before homeworlds are chosen, by generally avoiding large concentrations of or gaps between nebulae.
 
  
* Added "Nebula Wormholes" galaxy display mode that shows all planets with a wormhole that leads to a nebula.
+
* Updated the Spider Guardian description to reflect that it doesn't fire sniper shots anymore (so scout starships aren't gonna help).
** The "Unexplored Wormholes" galaxy display mode no longer counts these wormholes, to avoid confusion.
+
** Thanks to relmz32 for the report.
** This display mode doesn't work (and doesn't show up in the list on the galaxy map) if there are no champion or normal+champion players.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where a cpa deploying could cause unhandled errors.
 
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
 
  
* Fixed a bug in the previous version that was interfering with group moves through wormholes.
+
* Fixed a bug in recent versions where the Spire Maw was not doing attrition damage to its contents.
** Thanks to Histidine for the report.
+
** Thanks to Ricca for the report.
  
* The Neinzul Mourner large starbase can now also spawn the player-gift facility after you win a scenario with the mourners in it, instead of just the small starbase (possibly the small starbase being able to do so will go away later, since it's the only faction that can happen with). In any event, it should still be true that at most one player-facility per splinter faction per nebula will spawn.
+
* Updated the tutorials to reflect changes since 6.0.
  
* The IMT player-gift facility now responds to the D hotkey.
+
* Added new per-control-group toggle to the CTRLS window: Batch Auto-Explore
** Thanks to Cinth for the reminder.
+
** The idea here is to automatically build and send batches of scouts to get initial scout intel on planets you've never seen before.  This is not at all optimal (you'll lose a _lot_ of scouts, and they won't generally concentrate their paths in an optimal fashion) but it can be great for picking up intel on a bunch of planets that are accessible with minimal micro.
 +
** Suggested usage:
 +
*** 1) Pick a control group you're not using, and turn this toggle on for it.
 +
*** 2) Build a separate Space Dock, and assign it to that control group.
 +
*** 3) Set the space dock to loop build, and pause it.
 +
*** 4) At that space dock, queue up the number and type of scouts you want in a batch (presumably all you can build, but if you've got some scouts stationed permanently elsewhere they won't be available for this so set the number accordingly).
 +
*** 5) Make sure no other space docks are building those types of scouts.
 +
*** 6) When you're ready to start building the scout batches, unpause the space dock.  Having engineers on hand to speed-build the scouts is helpful but not required.
 +
** And that's basically it.  The dock will build scouts until it has a full batch (according to the numbers you set) and then when the last scout is built it will automatically set the "auto explore" behavior on those scouts.  As the scouts die the dock will build more and once it has a full batch again it will set those to auto-explore too.  And so on.
 +
** This can actually cost a fair bit of metal and crystal, so once your scouts have stopped making progress you'll want to pause that dock again.
  
== Prerelease 5.091 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/10/ai-war-beta-5091-apply-mkii-sanding.html Apply MkII Sanding Machine] ==
+
* Lightning Torpedoes (spawned by Lightning Torpedo Frigates) can now be given direct commands from the player. Mainly this is to make sure you can scrap them if desired (so they don't set off an AI Eye) since they have a much longer lifetime than most spawned "drone"-type units.
(Released October 9th, 2012)
+
** Thanks to ZaneWolfe for the suggestion.
  
* Removed energy cost from Logistics and Military command stations, since the cost was pretty minor and the units certainly aren't in danger of overshadowing the econ station at this point, and the costs were interfering with the logic for rebuilding their remains in some cases.
+
* Fixed some issues that made non-packed-line line-place... really wonky.
** Also removed it from warp-jammer stations, but since that wasn't so minor also increased that station's direct per-second m+c cost.
+
** Thanks to MaxAstro, Kahuna, and others for reporting this.
** Thanks to Diazo for reporting that interference.
 
  
* Military Command Stations:
+
* Toned down the mapgen initial unit seeding for planets adjacent to a human homeworld; goes easier on starships, fortresses, etc.
** Base Health from 500k/1.5M/3M => 1M/4M/9M. (puts it on the low end of a fleet ship or starship with a cap of 10, but with the mkII/mkIII versions much stronger to help justify knowledge cost)
+
** Thanks to... probably everyone for suggesting this.
** Metal,Crystal production from 16,16/32,32/64,64 => 24,24/48,48/96,96 (the same as logistics stations).
 
** Now do not suffer damage reduction when firing from under a normal human-tech forcefield.
 
*** Yes, it's now just an obvious move to put a shield on these; presumably that was already true if you cared about keeping the planet.  And it still costs shield cap, so not 100% obvious.
 
** Base Damage per shot from 3200*mk => 5k*mk. (puts it on par with a fleet ship or starship with a cap of 10, but since shots-per-salvo is also mark-based this makes mkII/mkIII versions much stronger to help justify knowledge cost)
 
** Is now immune to radar dampening.
 
** Shot type changed from translocating lightning to a new "knockback railgun" mechanic.  So the shots are now insta-hit, and actually still do the translocation code path but instead of sending the target to a random angle and random distance from the planet center they send the target directly away from the military station out to a distance about 2000 units short of the station's maximum firing range (assuming it wasn't further out than that already).
 
** MkII and MkIII versions now do 200 engine damage per shot.
 
** MkIII versions now apply 5 seconds of paralysis per shot.
 
** Thanks to chemical_art for inspiring these changes.
 
  
* Miniforts:
+
* Made counter-shot-range drawing use a similar optimization as normal firing range drawing (that if two circles of the same radius have centers within a certain zoom-based threshold of each other, only draw one of them) to cut down on Attractor-Drone-related lag.
** Now immune to translocation
+
** Thanks to Kahuna for the report and save.
*** Thanks to Diazo for reporting what a clever AI shadow frigate did with that fact.
 
** No longer provide counter-dark-matter coverage.
 
** Can now receive up to a +100% munitions boost.
 
  
* Fixed some bugs where special forces and strategic reserve spawns could result in an AI player controlling a type of ship only available to the other AI.
+
* Updated the tip-of-the-day section of the main menu.
** And a related bug where some of the special forces spawn logic could only access the special ship types of the first AI player.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report leading to these discoveries.
 
  
* Overhauled how line-place determines space between points to be closer to how the game will actually accept or reject a given placement.  Hopefully this will avoid "skipping every other one" bugs without adding excessive padding between points on a packed-line pattern.
+
* Bumped the MkI Flagship up one exo-cost sub-tier so that they were no longer the only always-available "Heavy Frigate", as this was resulting in many exos having a _lot_ of MkI flagships.
** Thanks to Kahuna for reporting that there were still issues here.
+
** Thanks to nitpik, TechSY730, and many others for reporting this.
  
* Fixed a bug where Youngling Fireflies were eligible to be picked as AI reinforcements.  Maybe it was for entertaining bored guard ships.
+
=== One Last Round Of Buff Polls Before The Official Version ===
** Thanks to rabican for the report.
 
  
* Fixed some remaining cases where giving a group-move order to an all-teleporter group would cause them to use normal engines instead of teleporting.
+
* Thanks to the players participating in the nominations and voting for the recent [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,13340.0.html buff-for-humans] and [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,13341.0.html buff-for-ai] polls.
** Thanks to Eternaly_Lost for the report.
 
  
* Fixed a bug where changing per-planet settings on one planet, then opening the CTRLS window from another planet would do the confirm-discard-changes check, which led to various other tomfoolery.
+
* Grenade Launcher, in honor of winning BOTH polls:
** Thanks to TechSY730, Toranth, Kahuna, and Cinth for reporting.
+
** From having no vs-hull bonuses to having 3x vs Light, Composite, CloseCombat, and Swarmer (same as the Flak Turret, which is basically a stationary grenade launcher).
 +
** From 80k+20k cap-m+c cost => 70k+10k.
 +
** From 30k cap-e cost => 20k.
  
* The nebula faction structures that produce ships for the player will now send their ships to a starship-constructor intragalactic warp gate, if you have one active.
+
* Armor Booster, in honor of coming second in the for-humans poll and doing decently in the for-ai poll:
** This seemed a better way of handling the request for a warp gate for these than a whole new dedicated gate type, as that could be a bit tricky to know when to include in the buy menu.
+
** Now increases the armor of all boosted ships to a minimum of 1000, before piercing and the multiplicative part of the boost are applied.
** Thanks to TechSY730 and many other players for inspiring this change.
+
** Base Cap Health from 4,921,000 => 7.5M (so about 50% of fighters, though the armor boosters have a much lower cap and thus higher effective durability).
 +
** Base Cap DPS from 28.5k => 40k (so about 80% of a fighter, since it also has 6x bonuses).
  
== Prerelease 5.090 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/10/ai-war-beta-5090-fish-or-cut-bait.html Fish Or Cut Bait] ==
+
* Etherjets in honor of doing well in both polls:
(Released October 6th, 2012)
+
** Base Cap Health from 4,939,200 => 10M (about 2/3rds of Fighters, and jets are a high caps ship, so effective durability is much lower).
 +
** Base Cap DPS from 58.8k => 80k (about 60% more than Fighters, but makes Bonus DPS only about 9% higher than Fighters)
 +
** Cap M+C cost from 9k+27k => 9k+18k.
 +
** Cap E cost from 30k => 20k.
 +
** So the point of these is still the tractors and the cloaking, but they should hold their own a bit better in a fight now.
  
* Now when you give a group-movement movement command to a group containing only teleporting units, it ignores the group-movement part so that the teleporters do not use their normal engines.
+
* Anti-Armor Ships, in honor of doing well in both polls:
** Thanks to contingencyplan and Valorian_Nova for pointing out the undesirable side effect of the change in the last version.
+
** Base Ship Cap from 392 => 240 (Fighters have 192).
 +
** Base Cap Health from 5,488,000 => 15M (so near Fighters, but with somewhat higher cap means somewhat lower effective durability).
 +
** Base Armor from 150*mk => 0.
 +
** Bonuses (vs Heavy, UltraHeavy, Polycrystal, and Structural) from 2.4 => 5 (base dps is already 52% higher than Fighters, this makes bonus dps 26% higher than Fighters).
 +
** Armor Piercing from 10k*mk => Max (kinda in the name, right?).
 +
** Base Move Speed from 24 => 28 (so now same speed as Bombers).
 +
** So the point is that it ignores armor and is effective vs heavily fortified stuff, while no longer being curiously flimsy.
  
* Made the Youngling Vulture's description more clear about how its damage is computed, and copied the details of that to the Doom Accelerator module rather than just referencing the vulture.
+
* Raptor, in honor of doing well in both polls:
** Thanks to idont for pointing out how unclear the descriptions were for this purpose.
+
** Base Ship Cap from 192 => 96 (so half fighters).
 +
** Base Cap Health from 4,939,200 => 7.5M (so half fighters, but with the lower cap has somewhat more effective durability).
 +
** Added Bonus vs Artillery (already had Light, UltraLight, and Refractive).
 +
** Bonuses from 1.8 => 6 (base DPS was 33% more than fighters, but bonus dps was 60% lower, now will be 11% higher).
 +
** Armor Piercing from 500*mk => 0.
 +
** Base Engine Health from 50 => 100.
 +
** Cap M+C cost from 16k+80k => 16k+40k.
 +
** So the point is still the speed and the cloaking, but more up to date in terms of combat stats.
  
* Removed the initial prompt to import settings from 3.x, since that hasn't been current in over two years.
+
* Raider, in honor of doing well in both polls:
** The importer is still available from the settings menu, if anyone for some reason actually needs it.
+
** Base Ship Cap from 392 => 240 (so 25% more than Fighters).
 +
** Base Cap Health from 10,290,000 => 15M (so like Fighters, but slightly lower effective durability due to cap).
 +
** Armor from 150*mk => 0.
 +
** Base Cap DPS from 49k => 65k (so now 32% more than Fighters).
 +
** Vs-hull bonus types from Heavy, UltraHeavy, Artillery, Swarmer => Light, UltraLight, Artillery, Medium,
 +
** Bonuses from 4 => 5 (so bonus DPS now 10% more than Fighters).
 +
** Armor Piercing from 10k => 0.
 +
** Base Move Speed from 36 => 60 (so quite a bit faster than the normal 30-40 range of fighter-likes but nowhere near the 130+ league of Raptors and Raid Starships).
 +
** Cap M+C cost from 16k+47k => 12k+30k.
 +
** So these have be re-imagined a bit to be fast high-ish-cap raiders but not cloaked, with increased durability (since they're not cloaked) and designed to take down non-hardened targets.
  
* Since "make the threatballs fish or cut bait" was #1 on the second round of the 6.0 poll:
+
== Prerelease 6.046 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/06/ai-war-beta-6046-activating-vengeful.html Activating Vengeful Sanding Machine MkII] ==
** Threat ships behave as they used to for about 30 minutes after being freed, but after that they are switched to an alternate "Threat Fleet" behavior that is somewhat similar to the new Special Forces mechanic.
+
(Released June 12th, 2013)
*** Note: this only happens on Difficulty 6+, as it's not the AI getting anything extra, it's just behaving more intelligently (in theory) with what it has.
 
** If an AI homeworld or core world is under attack, the threat fleet will rally to defend it.
 
** Otherwise, if it sees an accessible non-AI planet with a significant human presence that it thinks it can take out, it goes to attack that (it will still pool up at the entry wormhole in some cases, until enough of them are there to pass the threshold, so they don't march in to the grinder one-by-one).
 
** Otherwise, it picks a planet in AI territory to hang out at until either of the two above conditions are met.
 
** If a carrier is spontaneously formed from ships that have a significant threat-fleet population, the carrier (and anything it spawns) is also considered threat-fleet.
 
** When a special forces alarm post is triggered it converts all special forces in the galaxy directly into threat-fleet, and then blows up the alarm post (not causing AIP, unless it was triggered because it was shot to death).
 
** For the curious who have advanced logging on, the target-planet selection process is logged in the special forces log file.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer, TechSY730, Faulty Logic, Hearteater, many other players over the months, and the 6.0 poll voters for inspiring this change.
 
  
* CPAs are now partly "funded" from the AI's strategic reserve if the reserve is over 50% full.  Also, if that plus cpa-freed ships does not fill out the proper number of ships the strategic reserve will contribute even beyond the 50% line to try to fill it up.
+
* Enclave Guardians base speed from 40 => 24 (fighters are 32, for reference, and the triangle counter to said guardians).
** If you're curious about the math of how the strategic reserve contributes to CPAs, the actual sending of the CPA will add an entry to the special forces log (where the rest of the strategic reserve logging goes) detailing what it did.  Assuming advanced logging is on, of course.
+
** Thanks to chemical_art for inspiring this change.
** Thanks to Trandrin for reporting some circumstances where the barracks population was running out relatively soon in games.
 
  
* The issue of multi-ingress being so much harder than single-ingress came in #2 on the second round of the 6.0 poll, so here's a start: The time-between-waves adjustment for the number of player-territory ingress points has been adjusted to narrow the random range somewhat and to be somewhat more forgiving on multiple-ingress-point cases.
+
* Spire Civilian Leader Outposts now use the normal irreplaceable-capturable seeding (to put it way the waaaay out away from wormholes).
** Thanks to Diazo for the suggestion, and the poll voters for emphasizing how important this was to them.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  
* Also for helping with the multi-ingress/satellite-worlds thing: added a new "Mini-Fortress" unit to the SUP tab of the command-station/mobile-builder buy menu (this is a base-game unit, not tied to an expansion).
+
* Dire Guardian Lairs now seed no closer than 4 hops from human homeworlds, instead of no closer than 2 hops.
** These are basically a MkI fortress on a 1/10th scale (stat-wise), and you can only build 2 per planet (per player, also scales with multiple homeworlds), but there's no galaxy-wide cap so putting them on your satellite worlds does not take away any cap your main defenses could be using.
+
** Thanks to chemical_art for inspiring this change.
** Unlocking these costs 1000 knowledge (for reference, MkI forts cost 3000 knowledge to unlock, and provide 25x as much firepower at cap for your main line but not the per-planet-cap flexibility of these).
 
** These don't have the penalty vs polycrystal (or scout) hulls, making them actually able to deal with bombers.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer and the other poll voters for inspiring this change.
 
  
* Fixed a bug where minor faction and zombie ships could be affected by the player auto-kite controls.
+
* Distribution nodes no longer have the 20% chance of causing a savescum... I mean, of being trojan.
** Thanks to TechSY730 and Faulty Logic for reporting this.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic, Kahuna, and others for inspiring this.
  
* Fixed a bug where auto-knowledge-gather and auto-scout would sometimes still consider nebulae.
+
* Fixed a typo in the Core Starship description.
** Thanks to TechSY730 and Vinco for the report and save.
+
** Thanks to The Silent Watcher for the report.
  
* Fixed a bug where line-place would try to pack things in too closely on certain angles, which would lead to every other spot being skipped.
+
* Added Bradley Smith to the Special Thanks section of the credits roll, for the source code we adapted to develop the map untangler released in 6.044.
** Thanks to Kahuna for the report.
 
  
* Command station remains can now be rebuilt even when energy is negative, to avoid the "you need power to get power" catch-22.
+
* Zenith Hydras, since their implementation was adequate but not particularly inspiring:
** Thanks to motai for the suggestion.
+
** Base Ship Cap from 128 => 64 (cap stats maintained).
 +
** Regen Rate from 9/8/7/6/5 minutes to 30 seconds.
 +
** Base Cap DPS from 150k => 100k.
 +
** Gains build points as it takes damage, and spawns a Hydra Head when its build points are >= (max health)/(1+mark), in other words every 50%/33%/25%/20%/17% of health.
 +
*** Hydra heads have about 50% the health and 75% the DPS of a mkI Hydra, fire 2 shots every 2 seconds (instead of 8 shots every 8 seconds), and self-attrition to death in 30 seconds (or less, if damaged).
 +
*** Note: the spawn check does not happen immediately upon taking damage, so a killing shot will not generally cause spawns.  So if you can one-shot hydras it really cuts down on the pain they cause.  If you can't... well, they can get pretty aggravating.
 +
** Thanks to chemical_art, TIE Viper, Wingflier, and Tridus for inspiring these changes.
  
* Fixed several bugs that were preventing champions (and their assisting engineers) from building modules while the controlling player's energy was negative.
+
* Fixed a bug that was causing Astro Trains to stall when their route would take them through a strongly-held human world.
** Normally this would be fine, but since champions are supposed to function as independent players, no player's energy budget should impact them directly.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report and save.
** This also fixes some issues where 0-energy things could not be built during negative energy.
 
** Thanks to motai for the reports.
 
  
* Spire Tractor Platform:
+
* Fixed a few bugs that were causing Special Forces and Threatfleet ships to try to rally (when idle) to planets they could not reach without going through stronger human worlds than they were willing to actually enter.  This would lead to said fleets "camping" right next to human territory instead of 3 hops back from it.
** MkI-Cap-Health from 10.5M => 8M.
+
** There are still some issues that can happen if you cut the AI homeworlds off from each other, but that will have to persist for now.
** Base move speed from 18 => 15.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report and save.
** Thanks to Kahuna for inspiring these changes, and other player for their feedback on what happens when the AI gets Dire Honeycombs.
 
  
* Most champion modules (basically everything except paralyzer) and the champion main guns are now better at not spreading out their fire too much, and thus at staying focused on the preferred target designated by the player.
+
* Renamed the Artillery Guardian to the Missile Guardian because it shoots missiles instead of the actual "Artillery" ammo type (which is fired by the Artillery Golem and Dire Artillery Guardian, etc).
** Thanks to orzelek for the report and save leading to this change.
 
  
* Changed champion paralyzer module:
+
* Fixed a bug where the new starship-disassembling units (the expansion has a guard post, a dire guardian, and a core guard post with that ability) were not actually attrit'ing the swallowed starships.
** Shots per salvo from 11 => 1.
+
** Thanks to SNAFU for the report and save.
** Seconds per salvo from 8 => 2.
 
** Base MkI Attack Power from 6250 => 17k.
 
** Paralyze-seconds from 6+(2*mk) => 18+(6*mk).
 
** Mainly this is because the paralyze autotargeting logic doesn't work well with multi-shot salvos (they tend to all hit the same target).  Now it's much more efficient at spreading out.
 
** Thanks to many players for reporting the inefficiency, and orzelek for a save that helped demonstrate the problem.
 
  
* Fixed a really longstanding bug where giving a ship an attack order against something already in range would cause it to move towards the target a little bit before stopping again.  This was mildly annoying with most units but very troublesome with units like fortresses and zenith siege engines that have to recharge (either their ability or their weapon) after moving at all.
+
* The Shark-plot consequences for losing a home command station are now 5x a normal command station, instead of 100xThis is relevant to co-op.
** Thanks to... has anyone not reported this?
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.089 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/10/ai-war-beta-5089-apply-sanding-machine.html Apply Sanding Machine] ==
 
(Released October 3rd, 2012)
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where viewing a Core Spire Corvette Fabricator could cause unhandled exceptions (and the queue buttons to not show).
 
** Thanks to Niwantaw for the report and save.
 
 
 
* In honor of basically winning the "what most needs attention for 6.0?" poll, the remains rebuilders have received a logic overhaul and now:
 
** Try not to target the same thing as another remains rebuilder.  If there are fewer rebuild targets than rebuilders on the planet they'll generally spread out pretty evenly across the targets.
 
** If in FRD, they now are much less likely to "yoyo" back to the FRD-point between rebuilds until all the targets are rebuilt.
 
** Recharge time from 10 seconds => 1 second.  The recharge time wasn't particularly easy to notice before because rebuilders would all pile up on the same target and while the ones not actually doing the rebuild would not incur the 10 second recharge time they would have to wait about 1 second to retarget.  With a pile of 20 rebuilders it was hard to notice the one that did the initial rebuild took 10 seconds before it could actually rebuild something.
 
*** This is actually a fairly significant buff to the unit, but it's probably not a big balance impact to start the rebuilding faster.  Let us know if we're wrong about that.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer and the other voters for inspiring these changes.
 
 
 
* Another high-scorer from the 6.0 poll: Advanced Fabricators and Fabricators now use the same "don't put this near a wormhole" logic as human home command stations.
 
** Thanks to Kahuna and the other voters for inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Also from the 6.0 poll: Fixed a bug where MkV Spider fabricators were still considered experimental fabricators instead of core fabricators, which incidentally handles an issue where there was a very high chance of there being 2 of these per map.
 
** Thanks to Minotaar for reporting this.
 
 
 
* Changed the seeding quantity calculations of fabricators a bit; should be a similar amount as before but now there are somewhat more core fabs and somewhat fewer experimental fabs (should be same number of experimental-starship fabs).
 
** Mainly, this is because there's so many more types of core fabs that more variety can be had there.
 
 
 
* Another popular one from the 6.0 poll (and mantis voting) : Human-player teleporting units now use normal engines when group-moving.
 
** Along with this, increased the normal-engine speed of all teleporting units to the speed of a fighter, for those lower than that.
 
** Thanks to FunnyMan for the suggestion and many players for supporting it on mantis and in the 6.0 poll.
 
 
 
* Since it also did very well in the 6.0 poll: engineers have had a "what to assist" logic overhaul such that:
 
** If is Prefer-Non-Military toggle is on, and one is military and the other is not, prefer the non-military one.
 
** If one has more currently assisting engineers than the other, prefer the one with less.
 
** If the repairer is not a teleporter and the difference in distance to each unit is larger than about 4000 range units, prefer the nearer.
 
*** Also, distance is now considered zero if the target is already within range, which helps a lot because previously it was masking other considerations.
 
** If one object is a damaged irreplaceable unit and the other is not, prefer the damaged irreplaceable.
 
** If one object is in stand-down and the other is not, prefer the one not in stand-down.
 
** If one object's remaining-health-percent is less than half the other's, prefer the lower-health one.
 
*** This was being considered before (it always went for the lowest percent-health), but only by teleporting repairers.
 
** If one object has taken more than 25% engine damage and the other has not, prefer the engine-damaged one.
 
** If one object's metal+crystal cost is more than twice the other's, prefer the more expensive one.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer and the other voters for inspiring these changes.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.088 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/10/ai-war-beta-5088-strategic-reserve.html Strategic Reserve] ==
 
(Released October 1st, 2012)
 
 
 
* The AI now has a "strategic reserve" it can deploy to defend critical planets (the homeworld, the core worlds, and the superterminal world; though it still holds onto most of it when defending the latter two) and pulls back up (off the board) if the attack goes away.
 
** Reserve ships are basically just normal mkV fleet ships, but they are not allowed to leave the planet so they can't be easily baited to their doom.
 
** The reserve starts at zero and increases periodically, so it can be whittled away.
 
** The max size of the reserve and its increase rate are proportional to the difficulty of the AI player in question (each AI has its own reserve) and AIP.  On Diff 7 with non-insane AIP it's pretty tame.  Higher up, it gets more intense.
 
** If you're curious about the numbers, with advanced logging on they go into the special forces log (since the concept is somewhat similar, and didn't seem to need a separate log; might change that).
 
** Thanks to Faulty Logic and others who voted on [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11578.75/viewresults.html this poll] for inspiring this change (more coming eventually in response to that, for that matter).
 
 
 
* A longtime favorite on the mantis voting: Added a mouseover tooltip to the game clock in the upper-left corner that displays:
 
** "Game Time", the clock that's already there, which speeds up or slows down with the simulation and stops while the game is paused.
 
** "Local Time", as in real-world, according to your computer.
 
** "Real Time Spent In Game", which is the amount of real time you've spent playing that particular game (i.e. that particular savegame), and ignores simulation speed and pausing, etc.
 
** Thanks to Prezombie and many others for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* Added a "Control-Group-Specific" tab to the CTRLS window, similar to the "Planet-Specific" tab:
 
** Instead of selecting a planet on this tab, you select one of your 10 control groups from a dropdown.
 
** Currently the tab has:
 
*** Auto-FRD Military
 
**** When this is set to "On", all your military units in this control group will be set to Free-Roaming Defender.  Note: certain ship types (like fortresses that multi-repair, and zenith siege engines) never auto-FRD.
 
**** When this is set to "Default", the global Auto-FRD toggle will govern.
 
**** When this is "Off", this behavior will not happen for ships in this control group even if the global Auto-FRD toggle is on.
 
**** If a ship is in multiple control groups with conflicting settings for this, the priority order is as follows: Off, On, Default.
 
*** Auto-FRD Engineers
 
**** When this is set to "On", all your engineer/rebuilder units in this control group will be set to Free-Roaming Defender.
 
**** When this is set to "Default", the global Auto-FRD toggle will govern.
 
**** When this is "Off", this behavior will not happen for ships in this control group even if the global Auto-FRD toggle is on.
 
**** If a ship is in multiple control groups with conflicting settings for this, the priority order is as follows: Off, On, Default.
 
*** Auto Kite
 
**** When this is set to "On", all your non-melee, non-sniper ships in this control group will automatically pull away from their target so that they are (effective range - 500) range units away.  Note: certain ship types (like fortresses that multi-repair, and zenith siege engines) never kite, and certain other ship types (like raptors) always kite.
 
**** When this is set to "Default", the global Auto-Kite threshold will govern.
 
**** When this is "Off", this behavior will not happen for ships in this control group even if the global Auto-Kite threshold would apply to them.
 
**** If a ship is in multiple control groups with conflicting settings for this, the priority order is as follows: Off, On, Default.
 
** Thanks to kezziny and many others for the high-on-the-mantis-votes suggestion that inspired this change.
 
 
 
* The Galaxy-Wide, Per-Planet, and Per-Control-Group tabs of the CTRLS window now notify you if you're about to discard unsaved changes when you try to close the window, switch to another tab, or switch to a different target for the same tab (for the per-planet and per-control-group ones).
 
 
 
* Answering another longstanding top-of-the-mantis-voting request: the shard seeding in Fallen Spire now only cares about how far from the human homeworlds a planet is, rather than the current border of AI territory.  This can make it easier depending on how much territory you've taken (particularly on something like a snake map, but that's something of an edge case), but in light of various recent changes this may not be a bad thing, and the seeding being relative to what you'd conquered was pretty annoying and encouraged some strange playstyles.
 
** The last shard is an exception: it still doesn't pay attention to what you've conquered, but it always tries to seed on an AI core planet (so bordering a homeworld, but never on a homeworld).
 
** Thanks to Sunshine! TyberZann, Draco18s, and many others for inspiring this change.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.087 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/09/ai-war-beta-5087-brawl-royale-released.html Brawl Royale] ==
 
(Released September 27th, 2012)
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the previous version where EER missions were rewarding with IMT facilities (and last time the problem was the other way around, ha; now they each give the right one).
 
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where player-built IMT ships were basing their caps on EER facilities.
 
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
 
 
 
* Added the last "main" nebula scenario.
 
** And the largest champion hull size.
 
 
 
* Added better graphics for the champion (and corvette) plasma siege cannon.
 
** Thanks to HitmanN for the art (for this and all the other champion module graphics, though most of them have not been individually announced).
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where the available-module-list button set on the ship design window wasn't fitting horizontally within the window.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.086 ==
 
(Released September 24th, 2012)
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the previous version that would grant a ton of stuff to champions as soon as you loaded the game (a bit of test code that had been disabled, but had a bug that applied to other cases, sigh...).
 
** Thanks to Arkillion for the report.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.085 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/09/ai-war-beta-5085-shady-carriers-released.html Shady Carriers] ==
 
(Released September 24th, 2012)
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the most recent scenario where the new splinter faction was giving an EER reward building instead of the right one.
 
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
 
 
 
* Added two more nebula scenarios.
 
 
 
* Made "what can I autotarget?" logic more consistent so that player-ally minor factions don't pop AI carriers.
 
** Thanks to Trandrin for inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug that could cause Dark Spire spawns on AI planets at the beginning of the game.
 
** Thanks to Trandrin for the report and save.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug that was causing champion ships to still be able to get into a transport.
 
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report.
 
 
 
* The special-difficulty scaling (used for exos and other superweapon stuff, mainly, but some other stuff as well) is now higher on higher difficulties.
 
** Thanks to Faulty Logic and others for inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Combat Guardians rebalance:
 
** This just focuses on the base-game guardians (the guardians added in LotS are more special-purpose) and doesn't touch the Tachyon guardian since it's not really focused on combat.
 
** Basically balancing these to be fairly powerful offensively (roughly like a starship with a cap of 4), but defensively much lower health than that (roughly that of a fleet ship with a cap of 20).
 
*** If this proves too tame, can always ratchet it up later, but wanted to bring the threat levels from the different guardians closer together.
 
** Laser Guardian shots-per-salvo from 15 => 8 (previously these things had really high dps for also having 5x bonuses vs light and polycrystal).
 
** Sniper Guardian:
 
*** Base damage per shot from 12k*mk => 19k*mk (yielding a cap-dps a bit below where the laser guardian now is, with 4x bonuses).
 
*** Health from 1/3th normal guardian health to 1/2.
 
** Spider Guardian:
 
*** Base damage per shot from 600*mk => 3k*mk (cap-dps is now 80% that of the sniper guardian).
 
*** Health from 1/3th normal guardian health to 1/2.
 
** Tractor Guardian base damage per shot from 3600*mk => 35k*mk (bonus cap-dps now around that of the sniper guardian, but it only gets bonuses vs turrets)
 
** Lightning Guardian:
 
*** Base damage per shot from 2400*mk => 6000*mk (base cap-dps when hitting at least 40 targets is a little lower than the bonus cap dps of the laser guardian)
 
*** All vs-hull-type bonuses removed.
 
** Flak Guardian:
 
*** Shots-per-salvo from 31 => 5 (previously the dps on this thing was way up there, able to hit 155 targets per salvo).
 
*** Seconds-per-salvo from 8 => 10.
 
*** Multiplier vs CloseCombat from 8 => 5.
 
*** Multiplier vs Refractive from 8 => 5.
 
*** Multiplier vs Turret from 0.1 => 1.
 
*** Multiplier vs Composite from 3 => 5.
 
*** Multiplier vs Heavy from 0.3 => 1.
 
*** Multiplier vs UltraHeavy from 0.2 => 1.
 
*** Base damage per shot from 1500*mk => 5.5k*mk (base and bonus cap-dps now in range of laser guardian's new numbers).
 
** Beam Guardian:
 
*** Beam can now hit a maximum of 9 targets instead of everything on the line (that is, it now uses the same rules as the zenith beam frigate).
 
*** Base damage per shot from 4500*mk => 33k*mk (base cap-dps when hitting 9 targets is a bit higher than the lightning guardian's ideal dps; neither has bonuses)
 
** Artillery Guardian:
 
*** Multiplier vs UltraHeavy from 3 => 5.
 
*** Multiplier vs Heavy from 2 => 5.
 
*** Multiplier vs Turret from 2 => 5.
 
*** Fixed bug where it had a multiplier vs Artillery of 0.1, now that's a multiplier vs Scout.
 
*** Base damage per shot staying at 160k*mk (base and bonus cap-dps now in range of laser guardian's new numbers).
 
*** Health from 1/5th normal guardian health to 1/2.
 
** Raider Guardian:
 
*** Multiplier vs CommandGrade from 3 => 5.
 
*** Multiplier vs Structural from 2 => 5.
 
*** Multiplier vs UltraHeavy from 2 => 5.
 
*** Multiplier vs Turret from 0.2 => 1.
 
*** Base damage per shot from 36k => 11k (base and bonus cap-dps now in range of laser guardian's new numbers).
 
*** Health from 1/8th normal guardian health to 1/2.
 
 
 
* The logic for when a carrier is popped early now tries a lot harder to produce something similar to what's actually in the carrier, and tries to avoid exo-like spawning logic.
 
** Regardless of what it winds up spawning, it no longer scales up with difficulty level (since the ship numbers that led to the generation of the carrier were already a result of difficulty level).
 
** If its contents fit under a certain threshold (under 150 if there are < 2000 AI ships on the planet, under 50 if there are < 3000 AI ships on the planet, etc), it just spawns whatever is in the carrier.
 
** Else, it promotes all triangle/bonus fleetships in the carrier to max mark (mark 5 for most types, mark 4 for some) and scales down the quantity accordingly (mkI to mkV divides quantity by 5, etc).
 
** If that's still not enough to get the quantity under the threshold, it divides the quantities in the carrier by some number (determined by how badly over-count it still is) and uses that extra strength to add mkV guardians to the carrier insteadSince a single mkV guardian is worth about the same as ~2.2 full caps of mkI fighters, that's pretty good compression.
 
** If that's somehow still not enough, it falls back on the exo-like population it's used in the past, but without the extra multiplier from difficulty.
 
** For the curious, having advanced logging on when a carrier does early-pop logic like this will generate a log entry in the corresponding log file in your RuntimeData directory, explaining the computation.
 
** Thanks to Faulty Logic, Hearteater, and others for inspiring these changes.
 
 
 
* Fixed military tutorial to expect you to build half your mark I cap of the ARS-granted unit, instead of 20, since 20 could be higher than the cap.
 
** Thanks to Honknatter, Arkillion, and ElOhTeeBee for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a number of other issues with the military tutorial (the other tutorials will be getting a full go-over closer to the next official release).
 
 
 
* Changed the rewards scaling for the IMT scenario to be based primarily on how well the allied bases survived (in count and health %), instead of primarily on the number of surviving enclaves.
 
** Thanks to Cinth for the feedback inspiring this change.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.084 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/09/ai-war-beta-5084-diplomatic-incident.html Diplomatic Incident] ==
 
(Released September 20th, 2012)
 
 
 
* Added a new nebula scenario, with a somewhat different kind of gameplay than the previous ones, and includes a couple old friendly foes (hence the release title).
 
** Includes the last splinter faction, incidentally it is a human one.
 
 
 
* Nerfed the champion/corvette plasma siege cannons because they were really a bit much as it was.
 
 
 
* Exos now get less bonus from the presence of human Champions in the game.
 
** Thanks to Cinth, Faulty Logic, and others for the feedback inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Kills by the Devourer Golem or Enemy-to-all Roaming Enclaves (or their squadrons) no longer contribute to the Dark Spire counter when on the same planet as one of the vengeance generators.
 
** Thanks to Sunshine and other players for reporting how badly that could go.  Hilarious but... a bit much.
 
 
 
* Champions can no longer be loaded into transports.
 
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the feedback (read: record of a jumpship made out of limburger) inspiring this change, and Soyweiser for also pointing it out.
 
 
 
* Champion main weapon ranges normalized so they don't exceed the range of their modules (and thus cause the auto-movement logic to not close to the proper range).
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for reporting that this was happening.
 
 
 
* Dark Spire spawns no longer get stronger based on the number of previous dark-spire-spawns, because this was still causing things to get out of control even at a very low value (+1% per previous spawn, so additive and not exponential), and this is probably inevitable in some situations like FS shard-chase-exos.
 
** Thanks to Arkillion for the feedback and save inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Dark Spire vengeance generators now only get 1/10th the normal charge from a ship dying if it belongs to an exo attack.
 
 
** Thanks to Arkillion for inspiring this change.
 
** Thanks to Arkillion for inspiring this change.
  
* Put in some save-game repair logic to deal with a case where the next-exo-size variable was being saved as a really large number in version 5.078 (and propagated for those particular savegames since then), which would effectively disable the affected exo source.
+
* Updated the Objectives screen with... a whole lot of stuff.
** Thanks to orzelek for the report and save.
+
** Thanks to Bognor, Tridus, Histidine, Mick, LaughingThesaurus, LordSloth, TechSY730, Burnstreet, Aeson, Kahuna, Qatu, and Aklyon for helping figure out what should be changed/added/etc.
  
* Zenith Reprocessor:  
+
* Core Turret Controllers: halved core turret caps. We knew they would be OP in their last iteration, just wanted to figure out how much.
** MkI-base-cap-dps from 30k => 45k (for reference, Acid Sprayers have 58.8k, and the same bonuses).
+
** Now they'll be a straight upgrade over mkI turrets but not over mkI+mkII turrets. Except for the Sniper/Spider ones (which only have mkIs), but that's only for when you can actually take and hold them, etc, so we'll deal with that later.
** Now immune to tractors.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion
** Now have cloaking (and thus will not be included in future games with cloaking turned off, but will still be present in games already created with cloaking turned off).
 
** Thanks to LordSloth for the experiments and feedback that inspired these changes.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.083 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/09/ai-war-beta-5083-core-values-released.html Core Values] ==
+
== Prerelease 6.045 ==
(Released September 18th, 2012)
+
(Released June 10th, 2013)
  
* Added roughly (there's some randomization) one "brutal pick" to each AI homeworld on difficulties 7+.
+
* Made some slight modifications to the VotM logo to better line up with the other expansion logos.
 +
** Thanks to... quite a few of you, for the suggestion.
  
* Added new "brutal pick" Core Guard Post for Ancient Shadows: The Wrath Lance.
+
* Struck the infamous Rotting Cow (and its nefarious associates) with the Planet Cracker.
** As long as it detects hostile military ships on the planet, fires several massive long-range continuous beam weapon cannons in different directions. Does not actually aim, but the beams move as the post rotates.
+
** In other words: refined the selection of background planets somewhat to focus on the better ones, and go with larger-res versions where available.
 +
** Note that since the updater cannot delete files from your installation, you'll still have planet images numbered above 37 but the game won't actually use them.
 +
** Thanks to Kahuna for inspiring this change.
  
* Added new "brutal pick" Core Guard Post for Ancient Shadows: The Teuthida.
+
* Added "cleanup aisle three" cheat for destroying ALL units on a planet.
** An AI/Neinzul hybrid experiment gone wrong.  When hostiles are present, this post continuously generates nanoswarm-like drones.  Instead of merely doing reclamation damage, however, the organisms released by these drones instantly transform the targets into "zombie" vessels.
 
** Ships immune to reclamation are spared this fate, but are not spared from the extremely powerful cluster of railcannons mounted on the post itself.
 
  
* Added new "brutal pick" Core Guard Post for Ancient Shadows: The Grav Reactor.
+
* Added support for a sixth parameter to the "ilostit" cheat that specifies the player number to spawn the ships for.  0 through 7 are human players, 8 and 9 are the two AI players.
** An enormously powerful reactor based on some kind of gravitational energy manipulationGenerates a strong gravity well that prevents most enemy ships from leaving the system, and greatly slows enemy ships that stray too near the reactor itself.  Also builds gravity drones that rush hostile ships to slow them down and damage them upon detonation.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.082 ==
+
* Added new chat command "load_script:(filename)" where you replace (filename) with the name (without extension) of a .txt file in your RuntimeData/ChatScripts/ directory. When run, this command will treat each line in that file as a chat line from you, including commands and cheats.
(September 17th, 2012)
+
** So for example you could have a file named "test.txt" in the ChatScripts directory, with the lines:
 +
***cmd:enable cheats
 +
***cleanup aisle three
 +
***ilostit,FighterII,-12300,6700,84,0
 +
***ilostit,BomberII,-10300,4700,84,8
 +
** And then execute that by entering "load_script:test" (without the double quotes, of course) in the chat box and pressing enter.  The result is that it would wipe the currently viewed planet and spawn a group of fighters versus a group of bombers.  This is probably useful for balance testing, among other things.
 +
** Thanks to Cyborg for inspiring this command.
  
* Fixed a bug that could cause basically all buy menus to be emptyWhoops.
+
* The lobby "Untangle Map" button now applies the untangling to all alternate layouts, not just the official oneMakes sense, since the alternates should begin the game in the same state as the official.
** Thanks to ussdefiant for the report.
+
** Thanks to MaxAstro for the suggestion.
  
== Prerelease 5.081 ==
+
== Prerelease 6.044 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/06/ai-war-beta-6044-so-thats-what-vines.html So That's What A Vines Map Looks Like] ==
(Released September 17th, 2012)
+
(Released June 10th, 2013)
  
* Spire Corvette shield modules now cost 2000*mk each of metal, instead of 1m+1c to avoid the ship being effectively invincible due to immediately rebuilding its own shield.  As it is a mkI shield can be "brought back online" in less than 20 seconds, but as normal engineers cannot assist if the ship has taken damage in the past few seconds.
+
* Honeycomb maps now space their planets out more if there's room (won't affect old saves).
** Thanks to Lancefighter for noting the effective-invincibility problem.
 
  
* Fixed a bug in the previous version that could cause unhandled exceptions when opening the buy menu of a core fabricator.
+
* Removed the 3-fighter "advanced scout" sent by each AI wave.  It was an effective way to soak some turret alpha (particularly AOE alpha) and it could mess with counter-wave defenses... but ultimately the player could defeat this effect with some trivial-but-annoying-to-execute micro.
** Thanks to Battlecrydnx for the report and save.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic, chemical_art, and others for the suggestion.
  
* Fixed a bug where some toggles on the CTRLS screen were taking up more horizontal space than necessary, causing it to not quite fit on a 1024-wide resolution.
+
* The new title screen is now dimmer.
** Thanks to Cyborg for the report.
+
** Also added a new "Disable New Title Screen" toggle to the graphics tab of the settings window (the toggle defaulting to on, at least for now).
 +
** Thanks to Kahuna, Faulty Logic, doctorfrog, and many others for feedback on the new image.
  
* Human Cryo Pods and Home Settlements (the buildings that start next to a human home command station) are now immune to aoe (but not to beam weapons, i.e. not immune to linear-aoe), to avoid excessive-frustration issues with units like the firefly.
+
=== Map Untangling! ===
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the feedback inspiring this change.
 
  
* Youngling Firefly death-explosion base power cut to 25% of what it was; can still get multiplied by up to 20 (so 5x of what the base power used to be) by getting a lot of shots in before dying.
+
* Thanks to Dr. Zoidzerg for putting us on the trail of the force-directed-graph method, and special thanks to [http://www.brad-smith.info/blog/archives/129 Brad Smith] for previously publishing a C# implementation (and permissive license thereof) that we were able to adapt and extend for AI War.
** This may be too low, in which case we'll buff these again, but these were really brutal in the hands of the AI in the previous version with a couple dozen fireflies basically able to vaporize an early-game human fleet.
 
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the feedback inspiring this change.
 
  
* Corrected a balance-math problem where the game was counting the 14 "secondary hits" of siege plasma without considering the fact that they only hit for 1/16th of normal strength.  This means that the zenith siege engine's mkI-cap-base-dps is 45k instead of 360k.
+
* Added an "Untangle Map" button to the lobby (just under the big New Map Seed button), here's the in-game tooltip for description:
** The actual attack power of the unit is unchanged, this is just fixing a bug in the internal balancing model.
+
** Some map types (notably Vines, Spokes, and Tree) produce maps that are difficult to read due to the links between planets being very long and crossing over each other a lot.  You can use this button to run a "Force-Directed Graph" physics simulation that will generally result in a more readable map in those cases.  This is certainly not guaranteed to fully untangle a map, in any event.
** But since it's now clear that the numbers are more reasonable than previously thought, the siege engine's multipliers have been increased from 5 back up to 10.
+
** Untangling is not really recommended for map types that already don't have much link-overlap, but you're welcome to give it a try.  The results are generally interesting, if nothing else. Maze maps usually remain readable but look more organic after this process.
** Thanks to chemical_art for the feedback inspiring these changes.
 
  
* Fixed a bug where a bunch of science ships on auto-knowledge-gather but with no eligible targets could "clog" the auto-explore throttle such that auto-explore for scouts would stop workingNow auto-knowledge-gather has its own separate throttle.
+
* Also added two new related chat-line commands:
** Thanks to mithrandi for the report and save.
+
** cmd:untangle map
 +
*** This is basically the same as clicking the "Untangle Map" button in the lobby, but can be used in-game (and thus on old saves).
 +
**** PLEASE NOTE! This only applies to your alternate layout (accessed via the alt+right-click context menu on the galaxy map), not the official layout, as we very much want to avoid modifying that after game-startSo if you're looking at the official layout (or someone else's alternate) when you trigger this command, you won't see the results until you switch to your alternate layout.
 +
**** Also, this change to your alternate layout is not sync'd to other machines in multiplayer; we may add that later but it's a little tricky because the untangling is happening on a separate thread, etc.
 +
** cmd:stop untangling
 +
*** This simply stops the process started by the other command.
  
* AI Type reinforcement/wave multipliers, since some of these are really old and the reinforcement ones in particular can have a disproportionately large impact on the feel of the game (to the extent that picking a particular AI type can make reinforcements look "broken", as in barely happening) :
+
== Prerelease 6.043 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/06/ai-war-beta-6042-controllers-out-of.html Controllers Out Of Control] ==
** Mad Bomber reinforcement multiplier from "you get one ship" on non-core-worlds (and 0.25 on core worlds) => 0.7, on all worlds.
+
(Released June 8th, 2013)
** Neinzul Youngster reinforcement multiplier from 0.25 => 0.8.
 
** Vicious Raider, Extreme Raider, and Technologist Raider multiplier from 0.3 => 0.8.
 
** Attritioner, Zenith Descendant, Spireling, Starfleet Commander, Experimentalist, and Grav Driller reinforcement multiplier from 0.4 => 0.9.
 
** The Tank reinforcement multiplier from 0.3 => 0.9, and wave multiplier from 1.0 => 1.25 (same as the attritioner, zd, etc group above).
 
** Feeding Parasite, Thief, Technologist Parasite, Bully, Assassin, and Speed Racer reinforcement multiplier from 1.0 => 0.9 (since they already had a 1.25 wave multiplier).
 
** The Core reinforcement multiplier from 0.3 => 0.5 (same as its wave multiplier).
 
  
* Removed the AI-Type-inherent effects where reinforcement and/or waves would act like AIP was a certain number of points higher than it actually was, since this tended to make the early game much harder for no obvious reason, but not have much impact on the balance later in the game.
+
* Neinzul Railpod cap m+c from 5k/10k => 5k/5k.
 +
** Thanks to chemical_art for the suggestion.
  
* Made the wave alert-text logic better handle mixed-tech waves: if it's 100 mkI fighters and 100 mkII fighters, it will now stay "Fighters" instead of just enemy ships as if it were truly a mixed wave.
+
* Fixed a bug where railpods were sometimes doing way more than half their health in self-damage per shot, when they should have been doing 50% + 1.
** Thanks to pheonix89 for reporting that it was frequently not giving a ship type for waves like that.
 
  
* Removed the wave-calc rule that was preventing more than 1 of a specific starship type from being added; normally it wouldn't make much difference but it was impairing the Spire Hammer, Heroic, Starfleet Commander, and Extreme Raider AIs from scaling up their extra wave components.
+
* Fixed a few bugs where sniper units would neglect to close on radar-dampened targets even if this meant they could not fire on them.
 +
** Thanks to Toranth for the report and save.
  
* Made the AI-Type-specific units added to waves (Spire Hammer, Heroic, and Extreme Raider AIs do this) scale up quantity-wise with AIP (based partly on AI Difficulty) as well as wave size, but also scale down with higher-tech-level variants.
+
* Fixed a bug where it was possible for a unit to get partially "stuck" with a "set by the player" destination when that destination was actually just "no destination".  So it would ignore any "implicit" destinations like moving towards a target of opportunity that was out of range.
** Thanks to Cinth and Dazio for pointing out how these could be punishing in the early game but nearly irrelevant later on.
+
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report and save.
  
* Fixed a bug in the previous verion's addition of automatic gradual engine self-repair where anything with less than about 250 max engine health was not being impacted at all.
+
* Fixed a number of bugs where AI guard ships would try to come after targets further away from their guard posts than the normal "do not go more than X range away from your station" logic (combined with their own effective firing range) would allow.  This tended to result in a bit of dancing back and forth when chasing radar-dampened stuff, etc.
 +
** Thanks to Burnstreet for the report and save which led to discovering these.
  
== Prerelease 5.080 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/09/ai-war-beta-5080-bonus-round-released.html Bonus Round] ==
+
* Added a "Decolonize" button to the scrap-confirmation popup when trying to scrap a (non-home, obviously) command station AND the Shark plot is active. The only differences from scrapping are:
(Released September 15th, 2012)
+
** Starts 2 minute countdown (which cannot be cancelled), and at the end of that the station is destroyed.
 +
** Does not cause shark-related penalties (though these still happen if the station is killed or scrapped normally before the countdown triggers the actual decolonization) or AI taunts, but does cause all other normal on-station-death things like the stall timer.
 +
** Does not refund any resources (not that this really matters, but it is a difference).
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  
* Fixed several bugs where some ways of killing a ship were not even checking for "should this ship be reclaimed?".
+
* Replaced the main menu background.
  
* Fixed a bug where the most common way of killing a ship was not checking for "should this ship be reprocessed?" (meaning that it took damage from a Zenith Reprocessor and should grant m+c to the player who did that damage).
+
=== Core Turret Controller Rework ===
** Thanks to LordSloth, Nic, Lancefighter, KDR_11k, and others for reporting the... lack of effect.
 
  
* Fixed a bug where reclamation damage and reprocessing damage were not persisting across save/load.
+
* So Core Turret Controllers were cool, but they weren't really accomplishing their main goal (make distributed defense easier and more desirable, without significantly buffing chokepoints) as well as we wanted.  So we're trying something... a little different, you could say, if you were given to understatement.  As part of this, we also changed the core-game mkII and mkIII turret costs and redefined the Spider Turret's relationship to the Sniper Turret.
 +
** Thanks to chemical_art, Tridus, Faulty Logic, Toranth, and others for inspiring these changes (whether they wanted to or not).
  
* Added new Ancient Shadows bonus ship type: Youngling Firefly.
+
* Higher-mark turrets (except the HBC) now use the mkI metal and crystal costs (yea, kind of a big change, but mainly just makes the higher-mark turret unlocks and core turret controllers more attractive).
** Small, shortlived ship that builds up a charge as it successfully attacks other units.  When it dies it explodes violently to damage up to 20 nearby enemy units.  The explosion damge done to each victim starts at about the same strength as the Firefly's normal shot, but increases with the charge the ship has accumulated, up to a maximum of 20 times that.
 
** Thanks to soMe_RandoM for the suggestion that inspired this ship.
 
  
* Added new Ancient Shadows bonus ship: Saboteur.
+
* Spider Turret:
** Fires hostile nanites at enemy ships.  Unlike reclamation nanites, these focus on overloading the target's power systems with the goal of causing it to explode violently.  This target does not go critical until its health is reduced to zero normally, but once that happens it will explode and damage up to 40 nearby friendly (to the exploding ship) units.  The damage done to each victim of the explosion is based on how much damage the exploding ship took from overload-nanites, and generally cannot exceed one-tenth the maximum health of the exploding ship.
+
** Damage from what the Sniper does => half that.
** Thanks to Spikey00 for the suggestion that inspired this ship.
+
** M+C costs from (really big) => the Sniper's (which are still high, but not nearly as much).
 +
** K Cost from 3000 => 2000.
  
* Added new Ancient Shadows bonus ship: Spire Corvette.
+
* Core Turret Controllers:
** A starship-sized vessel developed by retrofitting the smallest Imperial Spire combat design with human technologyHas a moderately powerful photon lance, but can also mount a small number of modules.
+
** Now all 8 are seeded in new VotM-enabled maps (sorry, old saves), instead of just 3 (or 4 on multi-HW games), to avoid situations where it gives you just Lightning, Flak, and Sniper and not much that can really fill the main combat role, and also to increase the total per-planet firepower available.
** Built from the SCRV tab of the Starship Constructor.
+
** Now give full-caps instead of quarter-capsThis is pretty huge in terms of increasing that total possible per-planet firepower.
 +
** _Very_ importantly: Now a core turret cannot be placed on the same planet as a turret of the same type (needler, mlrs, laser, missile, etc) of a lower mark, and vice versa.  This includes turret remains (cheese prevention).
 +
*** So you can have Core Laser Turrets on the same planet as MkI, MkII, and MkIII Missile turrets (or needler turrets, or mlrs turrets, etc), but you could not have Core Laser Turrets on the same planet as MkI, MkII, or MkIII Laser Turrets.
 +
*** The end result is that core turret controllers no longer really increase the total ceiling of turretry firepower you can pack onto a single chokepoint; they're still a benefit there if you weren't already unlocking mkII and mkIII of that particular turret type (as 1 cap of core turrets is better than a cap of mkIs plus a cap of mkIIs, but not better than mkIs + mkIIs + mkIIIs all together), but massively increase the amount of firepower you can put on any planet you want to defend (if you have the energy) without taking away from what's available for the chokepoint.
  
* Corrected some omissions to the Hybrids drone-preference logic, to reduce the likelihood of their picking up a ton of Spire Tractor Platforms, Spire Stealth Battleships, and/or Spire Railclusters. The Super Hybrid actually prioritizes these and similarly devastating escorts, however.
+
== Prerelease 6.042 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/06/ai-war-beta-6042-activating-vengeful.html Activating Vengeful Sanding Machine] ==
 +
(Released June 5th, 2013)
  
* Fixed a bug with the display of the champion decoy ability.
+
* Ship Design tab of Controls window: now,
** Thanks to Jeffersn for the report.
+
** If you have one slot selected, hold shift, and click on another slot:
 +
** Then instead of selecting that other slot, it copies the module type from your selected slot to this clicked slot.
 +
*** If the clicked slot cannot hold that type of module, nothing happens (nor does which slot you have selected change).
 +
** Thanks to Toranth, Aquohn, Eternaly_Lost, and others for inspiring this change.
  
* Ships with engine damage now automatically repair their own engines, such that it takes a bit over four minutes to go from 0% engine-health to 100% engine-health.
+
* Champion module upgrades: now,
** Basically, until now it's been too easy to long-term-disable AI ships via engine damage.  Not many players abused this thoroughly, but some definitely did, to hilarious (and disappointing, from a challenge perspective) results.
+
** If you unlock a higher tier of a module:
** But tactical usage should still be very viable for kiting around a planet, spreading out an incoming attack, etc.
+
** Then any saved ship designs (of that player) with a lower-mark version of that same module type will upgrade to use the new higher mark.
** Thanks to many players (who may wish to remain nameless) for feedback over the past several months pointing to this being necessary.
+
*** Unless the newly unlocked mark is too high for the base hull, of course, in which case nothing happens for that slot in that design.
 +
** The same update is done for that player's list of "modules to immediately queue on champ respawn".
 +
** Note that this update only happens at the time of the new mark being unlocked, so it won't immediately impact old saves.
 +
** Thanks to Aquohn, Eternaly_Lost, Toranth, and others for inspiring this change.
  
* Corrected a balance-math error with Zenith Medic Frigate attack power, mkI-cap-dps from 446,250 => 100,000 (for reference, the spire stealth battleship has 90,000, with 1.4 multipliers; the medic frigate has no multipliers).
+
* Build times of Core Sniper Turret and Core Spider Turret from 50 => 150 to be more like most other core turrets, and be less drastic on the per-second economic impact.
 +
** Thanks to Toranth for the suggestion.
  
* Zenith Siege Engine:
+
* Special Forces Alarm Posts:
** MkI-cap-health from 16.8M => 10M.
+
** Chance of triggering on death from 50% => 0%.
** Corrected an... interesting balance-math error where it had 720k mkI-cap-dps AND 10x multipliers (against structural, heavy, ultraheavy, and turret):
+
** Seeding frequency halved.
*** Multipliers from 10x => 5x.
+
** Alarmist AI half as likely to pick these when seeding an alarm (if it doesn't pick this it just does a normal Alarm Post).
*** MkI-cap-dps from 720k => 360k (which is still really, really high for a base-dps even with no multipliers, but the must-reload-after-move mechanic is still really new, etc).
+
** AIP on death from 5 => 15.
** Reload time from 15 => 10.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring these changes.
*** Damage adjusted to maintain dps.
 
** Now pay no attention to auto-FRD or auto-kite.
 
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring these changes, as little consolation as that may be to the many ships (including spire capital ships)
 
* All modular forts now pay no attention to auto-kite (previously some did, and some didn't).
 
  
* Zenith Reprocessor:
+
* Fixed a bug from the last month or so where some galaxy map display configurations would display allied units as if they were in a transport (that is, in parentheses).
** MkI-cap-health from 8.4M => 15M (now in the neighborhood of fighters).
+
** Thanks to Kahuna for the report and save.
** MkI-cap-dps from 17.2k => 30k (has 8x multipliers).
 
** Thanks to LordSloth, Kahuna, and others for inspiring these changes.
 
  
* The Shards in the Fallen Spire campaign now move 4x as fast (still immune to all forms of speed-boosting, combat style, etc) and the response "chase spawns" now happen about 4x as often.
+
* Improved the performance throttling logic for "should I let this ship request a new target list now?" to let ships with absolutely no target list check more than once every 2 seconds for a list if they are:
** Thanks to Eternaly_Lost and others for periodically raising laments at the length of time it can take to get one of those things back home.
+
** An aggregate-targeting leader with followers.
 +
** Or an aggregate targeting follower with a leader who does have a target list.
 +
** This will particularly help ships in Attack-Move actually start firing on targets (and stop moving) as they come into range rather than waiting a while and in some cases simply sliding right past the target.
 +
** This may also reduce performance in some cases, though generally in the bigger battles (where performance is most problematic) the ships in question have targets fairly soon anyway.
 +
** Thanks to Burnstreet for the report and saves that demonstrated the need and provided a testbed for this change.
  
== Prerelease 5.079 ==
+
* AI Missile Guard Post seconds-per-salvo from 3 => 6, so DPS has been halved. This puts it at 2/5ths of many other guard posts, hopefully actually compensating for its huge range and such now.
(Released September 10th, 2012)
 
  
* Fixed a bug in the recent change to remains-rebuilder logic that could cause a null exception.
+
* The FRD-Engineers Toggle (both the global and the per-control-group ones) have been split out into FRD-Engineers and FRD-Rebuilders.  The former no longer applies to Remains Rebuilders, and the latter applies exclusively to them.
** Thanks to Lancefighter for the report.
+
** Thanks to Wingflier and others for the suggestion.
  
* Fixed a savegame/gamestate corruption bug that could happen when the Dark Spire faction was enabled.
+
* Fixed a bug where engineers in FRD would not prioritize a player-given go-to-another-planet order over assisting local build queues (or whatever), even with the Multi-Planet-Patrol-FRD toggle off (if it's on then they should prioritize local assistance, etc).
** Very sorry about that, actual corruption bugs are quite rare.  Apparently a zombie apocalypse wasn't the only thing the Dark Spire had planned!
+
** Thanks to Wingflier for the report and save.
** This could also impact new games (probably just in multiplayer; the same code that does savegames is used to send gamestates over the network), cause nebulae to be empty, etc.
 
** Thanks to Jeffersn, Toranth, Lilli, eduran1984, and Lancefighter for providing reports and saves leading to this being discovered.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.078 ==
+
* Now when a player unit enters a planet with a redirector post that would send them right back out through a nearby wormhole (generally the one they came in through), they set a quick movement waypoint about 2k-3k distance away, move to that, and then move to the target wormhole and get underway.  This gives a chance for FRD or other logic to fire in case there's something on the planet that the ship should be dealing with rather than ducking right back in the wormhole without checking.
(Released September 4th, 2012)
+
** Thanks to Wingflier for the suggestion and testbed save.
  
* Fixed a bug in the cap-overhaul where microparasites and translocators had a ship cap of 1.
+
* Fixed some bugs with the carrier auto-deploy logic where it wasn't actually considering all human/ai strength on the planet when making the call on whether to do a pre-emptive partial (or full) deployment.
** Thanks to Nic for the report.
+
** Also made the "only auto-deploy one carrier every 2 seconds" rule per-planet instead of galaxy-wide.
 +
** Thanks to Tridus, Cinth, and others for providing reports and saves where carriers were being too reticent.
  
* Fixed a bug in the previous version where the AI had stopped respecting unit-cap-scale when sending waves.  Clever girl.
+
* Fixed another bug that was preventing core fabricator ships from showing up in the Ship Design list (this is just the Core Spire Corvette and Core Protector Starship, currently).
** Thanks to Cinth for the report and logs.
+
** Thanks to Burnstreet for the report and save.
  
== Prerelease 5.077 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/09/ai-war-beta-5077-cap-tectonics-released.html Cap Tectonics] ==
+
* Fixed a bug where SF carriers considered themselves exempt from the "FINAL" cpa.
(Released September 4th, 2012)
+
** Thanks to Toranth for the report and save.
  
* After thinking about it for about a month: removed the rule where fleet ships have lower caps at higher marks.  So instead of 98 MkI fighters (on normal caps), 88 MkII fighters, etc, it's now just 98 for each mark of fighter.
+
* Fixed a bug where Hunter-spawned Special-Forces H/Ks and guardians could be packed into an SF carrier... and then forgotten by the hunter plot, which would then happily spawn more of those units to fill in the gaps.  Which in turn could very likely get packed away into carriersSuch an unfortunate malfunction.
** Hopefully this will make the higher-mark unlocks, and fabricators, more attractive.
+
** Note, this won't remove H/Ks from SF carriers in old saves so in those saves you may get another round of hunter spawns, but it won't just keep packing the new ones away.
** This does increase how much the AI gets too, though as it turns out the mark level of a ship was being factored into wave sizes _twice_ (so MkII waves were about 10% smaller than they should have been, etc), which wasn't really good anyway.
 
** Thanks to many players for weighing in with votes and discussion on [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11244.0.html the poll], and Faulty Logic for starting said.
 
 
 
* Previously on Diff 9+ if you were part of the way from one AI-tech-level to the next, each wave would have a proportionate percentage of its ships "promoted" to the next tech level to make the transition in difficulty feel smootherNow this happens on difficulty 5+ 
 
** Mathematically speaking this makes the game somewhat more difficult and that's why it was restricted to 9+.  In practice it seems to make the game easier because you're testing your defenses against waves more like the ones you're going to get at the next tech level, rather than getting the jump all at once.
 
** The main motivation for changing this now is that since the double-application of the mark-level downwards-multiplier on wave sizes has been changed to only applying it once (as mentioned above), the higher-mark waves will be larger and the feeling of a "challenge cliff" between AI tech levels greater.  This really helps avoid those cliffs.
 
** Still not applied on difficulties under 5 since the waves are so small there anyway.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where the spire blade, tackle drone, and various other drones were valued far higher than intended for purposes of the amount of energy their death provides dark-spire generators.
 
 
** Thanks to Toranth for the report.
 
** Thanks to Toranth for the report.
  
* All fleet ship caps have been adjusted to be multiples of 8 (generally by rounding down, unless something was 1 away from the next higher multiple, in some cases), except for those fleet ships which don't change caps at different unit cap scales.
+
* Updated the ancient (on multiple levels) description of the toggle that causes ships repaired by a Mobile Space Dock to stay with the Dock rather than try to go back to where they were (given the lack of tugs, I'm not sure that even happens anymore).
** This involved about 5 metric tons of relatively minor changes to health, attack power, metal cost, crystal cost and energy cost.  Mostly cap-health and cap-dps didn't change by more than 1% in either direction; cap-m,c,e costs vary a bit more but nothing earthshaking.  The numbers are internally arranged in a much better fashion now which should help with other changes going forward.
+
** Thanks to Bongor for the report.
** The main immediate benefit of this is that the ultra-low-caps setting no longer impacts the balance of fleet ship types whose caps are not multiples of 8, because, well, they are now.
 
** Turrets still need to be done, of course, but I've had enough swimming-in-numbers for one day.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater and others for the suggestion.
 
  
* Fixed a bug which could occasionally cause unhandled errors when trying to spawn a barracks/carrier.
+
* Updated the Neinzul Enclave Drone descriptions to no longer mention a dependency on turret tech (as it's no longer true).
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
+
** Thanks to Aklyon and Bognor for the report.
  
* Dark Spire minor faction toned down to avoid it causing a "zombie apocalypse" in the first hour:
+
* Turns out that the Sledgehammer AI type has basically been "vanilla" for a while.  Now it sends waves 2.5x slower than other AI types, but gets a 2.0x wave size multiplier (would have gone higher, but it is an "easier" type). Also updated its description to reflect the new meaning.
** Number of spawners from (FactionIntensity+1)*2 => FactionIntensity*2.
+
** Also modified the Technologist Sledgehammer the same way; previously it was just Vanilla with an extra tech level.
** Spawners can no longer be placed on planets with an advanced factory, super terminal, or dyson sphere.
+
** Thanks to Bognor for pointing out the unclear description.
** Base spawn intensity is now 1/4th of what it used to be.
 
** Spawn intensity is now doubled on the planet actually triggering the spawn (so it's 1/2 of what it used to be, total).
 
** The increase in spawn intensity from previous spawns from +10%-per-previous-spawn => +1%-per-previous-spawn.
 
** Fixed a bug where the spawns were giving champion XP.
 
** Thanks to Toranth for reporting the... apocalyptic nature of the first implementation.
 
  
* Fixed a bug where clicking an "allied ship" group on the planetary summary (right sidebar of planet view) would only actually select those ships if the controlling player(s) were disabled (e.g. loading a multiplayer save and disabling the other players so you can play it in singleplayer).  Now it will work whenever you are allowed team-control of those ships, for whatever reason.
+
* Fixed the technologist AI type descriptions implying that they all got max-tech, instead of just higher tech.
 +
** Thanks to Bognor for the report.
  
* Added new toggle to the Galaxy-Wide tab of the CTRLS window: Brave Cloaker Starships.
+
* Changed the objectives tab of the stats window to only show the "Scout For Points Of Vulnerability" objective if:
** If this toggle is checked, your Cloaker Starships will suppress their normal self-preservation instincts to avoid being included in a selection with military ships.
+
** There are no currently scouted Data Centers, Coprocessors, or Super Terminals.
** Note: this applies to the cloaker starships of the player who's brave-cloaker-starships toggle is checked, regardless of who is trying to control them in a multiplayer game with Allow Team Control on. Allied Cloaker Starships will still be wimps unless their owners check this toggle too.
+
** At least one of the above still exists somewhere in the galaxy.
 +
** Thanks to Bognor for pointing out that this objective line would show up at odd times.
  
* Fixed the health and damage of the neinzul viral swarmer (only used by one AI type) and the neinzul bomber (used by roaming enclaves and preservation wardens) to not be abysmally low.
+
* Fixed the Gravity Drill Station description still claiming to reduce speeds to 8.
 +
** Thanks to Histidine for the report.
  
* Spirecraft Rams, Martyrs, Siege Towers, Ion Blaster, and Implosion Artillery can now be placed into stand-down mode to keep them from firing (or, in the case of a ram, blowing itself up; thankfully martyrs already didn't try to do that automatically).
+
* Removed the mention of mobile repair stations from the Support Corps AI Type description.
 +
** Thanks to TechSY730 and Bognor for the report.
  
* Spirecraft Ram far-zoom icons now rotate according to their facing.
+
* Fixed a misspelling in the Retailatory AI Type description.
 +
** Thanks to Spikey00 for the report.
  
* Fixed a bug where a remains rebuilder could target the remains of an energy-producer before the command station went down, be unable to actually rebuild the energy-producer due to the command station being down, and keep trying to perform the rebuild.  Now when it notices that the command station is down while trying to rebuild, it will abort the rebuild and look for something else to do.
+
* Corrected the Zenith Spacetime Maniplulator's description claiming it was a stationary ship.
** Thanks to Sigma7 and Lancefighter for the report.
+
** Thanks to Spikey00 for the report.
  
* Fixed a bug where it was possible to start placement of an item (like an engineer or turret) and switch to another planet via control-group-selection and still be in the middle of placing that item (and if you had supply, actually be able to place it).
+
* Added a note to the Hybrid Hive Spawner description that destroying one reduces the hive pop-cap.
** Thanks to Drin for the report.
+
** Thanks to Bognor for the suggestion.
  
* Fixed a bug where the addition of Microcosm Clusters had caused Simple Clusters to be generated the same way as the new variant.
+
* Updated the Beam Starship description to note that the beam only hits up to 9 targets on the line, not all of them.
** Thanks to Lancefighter for the report.
+
** Thanks to Bognor for the report.
  
* Fixed a bug where hybrids were considering nebulae for the purposes of eligible planets to defend, attack, etc.
+
== Prerelease 6.041 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/06/ai-war-beta-6041-brutalizing-new.html Brutalizing Expansion Features] ==
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report.
+
(Released June 4th, 2013)
  
* Fixed a really longstanding bug where shots on a planet were sometimes visible even through the fog of war.
+
* By popular demand, "The Core" AI type now no longer has penalties to wave size or reinforcement size, since the AI already always gets a 0.5 multiplier when getting mkV ships in those contexts to begin with.
** Thanks to chrism, Nice Save, Tssbackus, zharmad, and others for reporting.
+
** Thanks to MaxAstro, Kahuna, and others for inspiring this change.
  
* Fixed a bug where Helper players could not switch to the Champion-only role (they could already switch to Normal and Normal+Champion).
+
* Foldouts can no longer be scrapped.
** Thanks to LordSloth for the report.
+
** Thanks to Sundew for reporting that these could be scrapped for resources... infinitely.
  
== Prerelease 5.076 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/09/ai-war-beta-5076-clusters-of-pain.html Clusters Of Pain] ==
+
=== New expansion Core Brutal Guard Posts ===
(Released September 1st, 2012)
 
  
* Added new Ancient Shadows Map Style: Microcosm Clusters:
+
* Thanks to the community members participating in the nominations and voting for [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,13094.0.html this poll] from which these ideas came.  In practice we had to make some adjustments, but hopefully the results will still be pleasing (or is it deadly? I often confuse the two).
** Similar to Clusters in overall structure, but each cluster picks from a set of different methods of placing and connecting the intra-cluster planets.
 
  
* Added new Ancient Shadows Minor Faction (this is not related to nebulae or champions, just another "Minor Faction" that can be enabled from the lobby): Dark Spire
+
* Core Shredder Drone Guard Post
** Several mysterious, ancient structures exist on AI planets throughout the galaxyThey cannot be harmed, and do not have any weapons, but they absorb energy when a ship dies on the same planet.  What happens when they absorb too much?
+
** This guard post is armed with a powerful shotgun weapon, but its main danger lay in the fact that when damaged, it spawns "Shredder Drones" which then attack human units.  If one of these shredders does enough damage it replicates itselfFurther, after a shredder has existed for 30 seconds it will automatically scrap itself and restores a chunk of health to the Shredder Drone Guard Post (if the post is still alive).
** The intensity of this faction can be set from 0 to 10; 0 is disabled, 1 is trivial-impact, 4 is normal, 10 is potentially-dominating.
+
** Thanks to Hearteater for suggesting The Nanoswarm Fortress, which this came from.
** The structures are marked as "DaS" on the immobile-minor-faction galaxy filter (similar to how it shows the dyson sphere, rocketry corps silos, etc), so you can see their known locations pretty quickly.
 
** Balance is ongoing on these, if you think it's out of line please:
 
*** Turn on advanced logging.
 
*** Play for a bit until it does what you think is out of line.
 
*** Send us the DarkSpireMinorFactionLogicLog.txt from your RuntimeData directory, along with a description of what seems off to you. Thanks!
 
  
* Fixed a bug where the application of the reinforcement-focus logic to the initial ship seeding was crashing the tutorial.
+
* Core Hunter/Killer Factory Guard Post
** Thanks to DrGonzo for the report.
+
** This guard post is armed with powerful Energy Wave cannons, but a far greater danger lies within: if an AI unit dies on its planet or any adjacent planet, or if any adjacent planet is not AI-held, this factory deploys the fearsome Hunter/Killer unit it has constructed.  After deploying the H/K, the factory builds another in 30 minutes.
 +
** Thanks to Kahuna for suggesting the Hunter/Seeker Factory, from which this came.
  
== Prerelease 5.075 ==
+
=== Revising/Polishing Expansion Stuff ===
(Released August 30th, 2012)
 
  
* The reinforcement-focus concept from the previous version is now also applied to the initial seeding of guard ships onto AI planets.
+
* The above brutal core guard posts are the last new content being added for the expansion, so now we're turning more directly to dealing with the feedback on what hasn't been well received thus far (or in some cases was well received, but there were still significant issues).
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the suggestion.
 
  
* Fixed an array-index-out-of-bounds error on the AI thread from the reinforcements-focus logic.
+
* The Youngling Shrike has been promoted from "the unique unit built by the Neinzul Combat Carrier" to the replacement for the Neinzul Combat Carrier in the expansion's roster of new bonus types.
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
+
** The Neinzul Combat Carrier still exists in the unit definitions, and will still exist in old games which have them (bear in mind that they don't get the Shrike for free anymore), but will not be seeded into new games.  Perhaps some day we'll find an implementation of them that won't suffer from the chronic-dissatisfaction that plagued the old Neinzul Enclave Starship (which the NCC was honestly pretty similar to).
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  
== Prerelease 5.074 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/08/ai-war-beta-5074-focused-forces-released.html Focused Forces] ==
+
* The Lightning Torpedo Frigate is now player-only (the AI can't get it anymore) and has had its stats reverted back to what they were before 6.040 (except for the change that lets the torpedoes live a lot longer and thus have a longer effective range).
(Released August 30th, 2012)
+
** Note: loading an old save with AI-controlled LTF's should result in those being quietly removed from the game.
 +
** Thanks to orzelek for the suggestion.
  
* Fixed a bug where the fifth direct-use champion ability was never being given as a scenario reward.
+
* Protector Starship counter-modules rule change:
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
+
** Shots which does 100,000 damage or more now take multiple counter-shots to stop (specifically, damage/50,000 shots, rounding down).
 +
** Shots cannot be partially stopped, so a counter-module will not fire on an incoming shot that it cannot fully stop.
 +
** Only one counter module can fire on a particular enemy shot (though it can fire multiple counter-shots to do so).
 +
** So, for example:
 +
*** A counter-energy module has 100 shots at fully-loaded, and reloads 10 per second.
 +
*** An AI Mothership fires 80 shots per salvo, 4 seconds per salvo, each shot doing 800k.
 +
*** Previously, that counter module would totally shut down the mothership's initial salvo, take out 75% of the second salvo, and 50% of every salvo after that.  In other words, you could say it did 4M "counter-DPS".  And you get 2 counter-modules per mk*cap of protector starships, so full caps of mkI/II/III could stop 96M damage every second (actually more, against combatants with more "concentrated" shots than the Mothership).
 +
*** Now, that counter module would have to put 16 "charges" into stopping each mothership shot, and so fully loaded would only stop 6 mothership shots.  That's still 4.8M damage stopped from the initial salvo, which isn't bad.  But for each follow-up salvo it would only be able to stop 2 or 3 shots (2.5 actually, on average).  So its "sustained" counter-dps would be 2M per salvo or 500k per second.  So 1M counter-DPS per mk*cap, or 6M counter-DPS for full I/II/III caps.  Note that said full I/II/III cap can thus actually shut down a few mothership salvos entirely and stop 75% of the damage of the rest of them, which is pretty impressive (but finite).  This gets much less effective if there are other energy-firing AI ships in the area soaking up counter-shots, of course.
 +
*** For reference, a mk*cap of protector starships can mount 4M HP worth of wide-area forcefields, and a standard mkI forcefield can stop 20M damage (the full cap stopping 200M).  So Prot Starships are still up there, but depending on the situation (i.e. how long the fight lasts, how many counter shots are being soaked by high-ROF ships, etc) don't necessarily add a whole lot more durability to a setup than a small/medium pile of forcefields.
  
* Fixed a bug where one of the scenario-reward ship production facilities was not responding to the D hotkey.
+
* The Shark plot has been split into Shark-A (only increases AIP on command station death) and Shark-B (only does the non-permanent AI bonuses: the immediate mini-exos and the later buff-to-CPA).
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  
=== Special Forces made more interesting ===
+
* The strength of "waves" sent by Exotic and Vicious Exotic AIs has been reduced to about 1/5th of what it was, as Exotic was waaaaay stronger than even the Mad Bomber type.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  
* AI Special Forces:
+
* The counter-post-heavy AI Subcommander type now seeds its first four posts as counter-posts, instead of all of them.  The rest are picked from a very small set of types that, while annoying, do not involve a counter-wave.
** Now get periodic extra spawns (in addition to the usual trickle from reinforcements) if under a "special forces population cap" determined by difficulty, AIP, etc.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
*** The spawns are spread out among all special forces posts (and special forces guardians) in the galaxy, except those in non-AI territory.  Each post in non-AI territory instead increases the special-forces-population-cap by about 5%.  So there's a reason to kill them, in tension with the +1 AIP from killing them.
 
*** If you're curious about the math, etc, turn on Advanced Logging and check SpecialForcesLogicLog.txt in your RuntimeData directory after the game has run for a bitThere's some minor spoilers in there about what ships each AI has, but nothing you probably won't find out looking at a few AI planets anyway.
 
** Will now rally to defend an AI planet that is under significant attack and at least mildly important (AI Homeworld, core world, or a planet with a CSG, ARS, Advanced Factory, Super Terminal, or Broken Golem on it, giving priority to HWs/core-worlds).
 
** Now keep the special-forces flag even when they have encountered the enemy, so that rallying to a planet does not just dump all the special forces there as normal threat.
 
** When not rallying to defend a planet, will select a staging planet about 3 hops deep into AI territory and rally there until an eligible AI planet is attacked.
 
** To prevent a player's first attack from running into several hundred AI ships out for blood, as entertaining as it was during testing, special forces ships are no longer seeded during the initial map seeding.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater, Faulty Logic, Martyn van Buren, Diazo, TechSY730, Lancefighter, Sunshine!, Bossman, Draco18s, Ozymandiaz, Wingflier, and chemical_art for feedback inspiring these changes.
 
  
=== Combat Starship rebalance ===
+
==== Showdown Refinements ====
  
* By "Combat Starship" we mean: Flagship, Zenith Starship, Spire Starship, Bomber Starship, Plasma Siege Starship, and Leech Starship.  The Raid and Riot lines are not considered here since they have very different roles and/or stat baselines (the Raid is largely for independent raids, and the Riot does hardly any damage).  The Cloaker, Enclave, and Scout lines are all not directly involved in combat.  The Leech is borderline but fits well enough.
+
* Thanks to Toranth, Cyborg, Faulty Logic, chemical_art, orzelek, Cinth, and others for inspiring these changes.
  
* Not making any extreme changes here, just refinements based on feedback from the last several months' changesSome of those changes have been pretty substantial, so some of these are too.
+
* Showdown Response:
** Thanks to Lancefighter, chemical_art, TechSY730, Diazo, Faulty Logic, Hearteater, Draco18s, sol_ilya, and others for inspiring these changes.
+
** Exo base sizes halved.
 +
** Superweapon-provoked multipliers halved.
 +
** Final exo "base" multiplier (what you get before adding the superweapon multiplier) reduced from 1 to 0.1, since the GSC is added on top of thatBasically if you have no superweapons the final exo should be just the GSCs with a smallish (about the size of 2.5 minute exos) escort each.
  
* Plasma Siege Starship ship cap from 5 => 4. Most of the others here were at 4 already, and it's been pretty widely considered the best of the combat starships lately.
+
* The superweapon-based increases to the response multiplier are now all conditional on the actual presence of said superweapons:
 +
** FS's was already conditional on the number of city structures you had.
 +
** The one for champs was already conditional on the number of champs you had, but is now also conditional on your highest available champ hull size.
 +
** Broken-Golems previously was not conditional, but is now conditional by the number of golems you have actually running (not counting broken ones yet to be activated), capping out at 4.
 +
** Botnet-Golem previously was not conditional, but is now conditional by whether or not you have an active Botnet Golem.
 +
** Spirecraft previously was not conditional, but is now conditional by the number of spirecraft you have actually running (not counting asteroids), capping out at around 24.
  
* Leech Starship:
+
* The "FINAL" CPA really does launch everything now.
** Ship cap from 3 => 4.
+
** Thanks to Toranth for providing a good save to test this with.
** Seconds Per Salvo from 4 => 2.
 
** Shots Per Salvo from 3= > 6.
 
** Base Attack Power from 30k => 2k (24k base-cap-dps, parasite has 12.25k)
 
*** Previously Leech Starships had nearly _five times_ the base-cap-dps of the equivalent fleet ship type (the Parasite).  That parasite has 4x multipliers where the leech has none, so they don't need to be all that close, but the leech having a higher base dps than the parasite's bonus dps... no.
 
**** This change was done rather than buffing the parasites because the parasites seem to be reclaiming at a good rate already; further feedback on this is quite welcome.
 
** Base Armor Piercing from 0 => 750*mk (same as parasite).
 
  
* Knowledge costs:
+
* Showdown GSC:
** Flagship was 0/2000/5000.
+
** Armor back down to levels that don't break "max armor piercing".
** Zenith Starship was 1000/2500/6000.
+
** Range cut to about 1/5th of what it was.
** Starship Starship was 1000/2500/6000.
+
** Speed cut to about 1/3rd of a missile frigate's (on normal combat style, but not changing on epic or blitz even though said missile frigate's speed would change on those).
** Bomber Starship was 0/5000/7000.
+
** Now uses more appropriate graphics.
** Plasma Siege Starship was 0/5000/7000.
 
** Leech Starship was 0/5000/6000.
 
** MkI costs (or lack thereof) unchanged.
 
** MkII costs are now all 2500.
 
** MkIII costs are now all 4000.
 
** The idea being that you're paying for 1x/2x/3x the raw stats, with a 0/500/1000 "surcharge" for the fact that 2x health and 2x attack power is more than 2x as useful, etc.
 
  
* Health:
+
== Prerelease 6.040 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/06/ai-war-beta-6040-kindler-gentler-sort.html The Kinder, Gentler Sort Of Core Guard Post] ==
** "Normal" cap-hp for a fleet ship type is about 15M (ranging from 10M to 30M), Normal for a starship type is about 22.5M (but normal cap-dps is lower).
+
(Released June 1st, 2013)
** Flagship from 3.75M*mk => 5M*mk (20M cap-hp).
 
** Zenith from 4.5M*mk => 6M*mk (24M cap-hp).
 
** Spire from 3M*mk => 4M*mk (16M cap-hp).
 
** Bomber from 4.7M*mk => 7M*mk (28M cap-hp)
 
** Plasma Siege unchanged at 5M*mk.
 
** Leech from 3.2M*mk => 4M*mk (16M cap-hp).
 
  
* Metal+Crystal/Energy costs:
+
* Arachnid Guard Posts now use Artillery ammo.
** Cap-m+c for fleet ship types varies widely, from about 40k for fighters to about 160k for bombers even just within the triangle.  Starships are supposed to be substantially more expensive than fleet ships in exchange for being easier to keep alive.  Also, the econ part of the game has been a lot easier since changes to the energy system and harvesters. So targeting about 400k m+c for a mkI cap here.
 
** Cap-e is more consistent for fleet ships, typically about 20k (halved for mkI types).  So targeting about 40k for a mkI cap here.
 
** The m+c costs listed are for mkI, mkII are 2x, mkIII are 4x.  E costs do not change with mark.
 
** Flagship from 40k+24k / 4k e => 60k+40k / 10k.
 
** Zenith from 24k+40k / 4k e => 40k+60k / 10k.
 
** Spire from 30k+34k / 4k e => 45k+55k / 10k.
 
** Bomber from 80k+8k / 2k e => 85k+15k / 10k.
 
** Plasma Siege from 8k+80k / 2k e => 15k+85k / 10k.
 
** Leech from 60k+40k / 5k e => 60k+40k / 10k.
 
  
* Spire Starship:
+
* Lightning Torpedo Frigates:
** Hull type from Neutron => Medium.
+
** Now costs the AI 1.5 as much in most contexts.
** Base Attack Power from 120k*mk => 600k*mk.
+
** Torpedo Base speed from 50 => 30 (so slightly slower than a fighter on epic speed, now).
*** The previous number was the result of multiple math errors during the balancing process. Specifically: its dps was computed using a seconds-per-salvo of 8 when it's actually 10 due to the photon lance's firing time, and its base dps was balanced as if it had 4x bonuses despite not having any bonuses.
+
** Torpedo Base health from 30k => 100, so most things should be able to shoot it down in one shot now.
 +
** Torpedo Lifetime from 20 seconds to 180 seconds, to extend its effective range.
 +
** Torpedo Explosion radius from 1500 => 1000.
 +
** Torpedo Base Attack Power from 1k => 5k, so it will hit _hard_ when it hits (a group of 40+ targets), but with the above it will be much easier for the player to prevent them from hitting.
 +
** Thanks to chemical_art, ZaneWolfe, and others for inspiring these changes.
  
* Bomber Starship renamed to Heavy Bomber Starship.
+
* Fixed a longstanding bug where:
** This is obviously the most important change of the batch.
+
** A ship that is all of the below:
 +
*** AI
 +
*** Zombie
 +
*** Cloaked
 +
** Would often essentially become "stuck" because they would not get targeting orders from the AI because they were a zombie, but they would not get targeting orders from the main thread because they were both AI and Cloaked (main thread avoids giving target orders in that case to avoid disrupting AI sneakiness, much the same way you might with putting cloaked units in stand-down).
 +
** Thanks to Wingflier for the report and (most importantly) a save where this was really easy to reproduce, and to many players throughout the months (years?) for reporting it.
  
=== Fighter/Bomber role adjustment ===
+
=== New Core Guard Posts (Non-Brutal) ===
  
* In general, nothing earthshaking, but hopefully making life a bit more dangerous for the bombers of the galaxy, and a bit more interesting for the fighters.
+
* Added the 3 expansion Non-Brutal Core Guard Posts that won [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,13095.0.html this poll].
** Thanks to Minotaar, Wingflier, Diazo, chemical_art, Martyn van Buren, RCIX, doctorfrog, Winge, Wanderer, zebramatt, Nodor, relmz32, Kahuna, rchaneberg, LaughingThesaurus, Drjones013, Eternaly_Lost, MaxAstro, and Irxallis for feedback inspiring these changes.
+
** Thanks to the community members participating in the nominations and voting.
  
* Fighter (including tachyon-micro and bulletproof variants):
+
* Core Implosion Drone Guard Post
** Base Move Speed from 28 => 32.
+
** This guard post is armed with several high-power implosion cannons that are extremely dangerous to large targets, but are thankfully relatively shorter-ranged than most implosion weapons.  Unfortunately, this post also launches "Implosion Drones" which (while much shorter-ranged still, and the drone self-destructs when it fires) charge at enemy ships to fire several lower-power implosion rounds.
** Multiplier vs Polycrystal from 5 => 6.
+
** Thanks to zharmad for the suggestion.
** Multiplier vs CloseCombat from 2.4 => 6.
 
** Multiplier vs Medium from 2.4 => 6.
 
** Base Attack Power from 1200 => 1000 (similar for the variants).
 
  
* Bomber Base Move Speed from 28 => 26.
+
* Core Arachnid Guard Post
 +
** This guard post is armed with massively powerful artillery cannon designed to cripple or destroy larger targets.  It can't even shoot at smaller units.
 +
** Also swallows enemy starships that get too close.
 +
** Thanks to Histidine for the suggestion.
  
* The following guardians now have the medium hull type:
+
* Core Riot Control Guard Post
** EMP (was Neutron)
+
** This guard post fires many shells that aren't massively powerful but do significant engine damage. Also, the post mounts many tractor beams which paralyze their victims.
** Heavy Beam (was Heavy) 
+
** Thanks to Histidine for the suggestion.
** Laser (was Swarmer)
 
** Lightning (was Composite)  
 
** Special Forces Rally (was Heavy)
 
** Spire Implosion (was Artillery)
 
** Starship Disassembler (was UltraHeavy)
 
** Tachyon (was Refractive)
 
** Tractor (was Neutron)
 
** Vampire (was Artillery)
 
  
=== AI Reinforcement Focus ===
+
== Prerelease 6.039 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/05/ai-war-beta-6039-carrying-combat.html Carrying The Combat] ==
 +
(Released May 31st, 2013)
  
* AI planets now pick a primary, secondary, and tertiary type of ship to focus their reinforcements on. 
+
* Added updated far-zoom icons for the 7 expansion AI (non dire) guardian types.
** It's not purely random, sometimes it picks ships that fit certain roles.
+
** Thanks to HitmanN for the pixelart.
** When picking a new reinforcement ship for the central pulse or a non-special-forces guard-post-pulse, it has a 10% chance to pick any available ship like usual, and a 90% chance to pick one of its focus types.  When picking a focus type, it has 3 times as much chance to pick the primary as the secondary, and 3 times as much chance to pick the secondary as the tertiary.  If that doesn't make sense, don't worry about it.
 
** Whenever the AIs unlock new ship types due to AI progress, all AI planets "reroll" their focus types.
 
** Thanks to... basically everyone in the list for the fighter/bomber changes :)  The point that "everything, everywhere" is at least as practically-homogenous as "one thing, everywhere" came up during that discussion.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.073 ==
+
* Added final new Bonus Ship Type for this expansion: Neinzul Combat Carrier.
(Released August 28th, 2012)
+
** Lightly armored and armed for a starship, but can internally produce any type of Neinzul Youngling you have unlocked (includes Commandos, Tigers, Vultures, Weasels, Nanoswarms, and Fireflies) and is also the only thing that can produce the unique Youngling Shrikes.
 +
** Built from the Starship Constructor (or from the Advanced Starship Constructor, for the MkIV).
 +
** Shrikes are fast-attacking cloaked raiding ships, and you get basically "half a cap" of them with the combat carrier itself (whose dps isn't great, but the combined effect is fairly useful).
 +
** Thanks to pheonix89 for the suggestion.
  
* Fixed a bug where the modular zenith fortress was trying to load the wrong far-zoom icon.
+
* MkV Youngling types now have self-attrition again, as they lost it solely to facilitate the use of Youngling-producing fabricators, but more recently it was changed such that those fabs teleport their units to the corresponding intragalactic warp gate (if any) with no paralysis time.
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report.
+
** Thanks to Hearteater and others for inspiring this change.
  
== Prerelease 5.072 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/08/ai-war-beta-5072-revised-experience.html A Revised Experience] ==
+
* Youngling Tiger now uses energy-bomb instead of shell ammo.
(Released August 28th, 2012)
+
** No, this really doesn't matter much, I just felt like it.
  
* Nebula minor faction ships are now a bit more focused on getting the job done:
+
* Fixed up the ARS-tab tech menu tooltips to show the stats for the mkIs instead of the mkIIs, and to no longer claim that an ARS unlocks both mkI and mkII.
** All use focus-fire, thus indirectly more likely to shoot at the stuff that will take the most damage.
+
** Thanks to Vyndicu and... rather a lot of you jumped on this one, actually.
** All the "bomber-role" ships will heavily prioritize enemy starbases, and thus are more likely to make progress towards scenario conclusion one way or another.
 
** All no longer prefer mobile targets to immobile targets.
 
  
* Fixed a longstanding bug in FRD target sorting that was sometimes being overly sensitive to differences in how far away two targets were.
+
* Showdown Device tweaks:
 +
** Showdown-device-related counterwaves now give 180 seconds instead of 30 seconds warning before the wave launchers, and no longer get the base 2x multiplier.
 +
** The Showdown-Device-related AI response scalings based on Broken Golems and/or Botnet Golems being on has been reduced and the scaling based on Spirecraft has been increased.
 +
** The Showdown-Device-related waves and counterwaves are now sized as if the AIP were 400 regardless of current AIP, since the SD mechanic is thematically setting aside the normal "guerilla war" concept and the AI is hitting back with everything it can (under the circmustances) rather than scaling with a certain perceived threat.
 +
** Thanks to Toranth for the inspiring these changes.
  
* Knowledge rewards from offroad scenarios have been substantially reduced.
+
== Prerelease 6.038 ==
** Thanks to Cinth for reporting how... intense they could be.
+
(Released May 30th, 2013)
  
* Fixed omission in the new CPA-size logic that was making it not consider one of the later parts of the wave-size calculations (making it a bit too high on lower difficulties and not as high as intended on higher difficulties).
+
* Fixed a bug from several versions ago (when Guardian types became AI-unlockables instead of always-have-all-available) that was preventing new Defender-mode games from being started at all.
 +
** Thanks to Toranth for the report.
  
* Reverted the change in the last version that applied the special difficulty modifier to forced carrier pops; it now applies only a difficulty-based modifier and doesn't factor in the number of homeworlds or champions.
+
* Fixed a bug where the colony ship's menu would be blank until you clicked the CMD button, instead of defaulting to behaving as if it were on.
** Thanks to Eternaly_Lost for feedback about how brutal that change had made things.
+
** Thanks to Wingflier for the report.
  
* Added a new scenario that can seed in a nebula.
+
* Fixed a bug where having a command station build another command station could trigger an AI taunt (that wasn't appropriate to the occasion).
** Introduces the second Zenith splinter group, along with another old acquaintance.
+
** Thanks to Orelius for the report.
** Added 3 new module lines and 1 new ability the rewards you can get from some nebula scenarios.
 
** Implemented the Modular Zenith Fortress and added it to the rewards you can get from some nebula scenarios.
 
  
* Fixed a bug where abilities that had not been unlocked yet were showing on the champion ability menu.
+
* Added a different tooltip when mouseovering the command station CMD tab to say that it's for switching to another station type without on-station-loss penalties.
 +
** Thanks to Aquohn for pointing out the confusion.
  
* Changed Engineer II and Engineer III caps from 0.75 and 0.5 of the Engineer I cap to 1.5 and 2.0 of the Engineer I cap, respectively.
+
* Fixed a bug where something whose shot was countered by a Protector Starship module would get a free reload (as it normally does when there's an overkill).
** Gives a bit more motivation to unlock the higher engineer marks, if you're having trouble getting enough assistance/repair out.
+
** Thanks to Spikey00 for the report and save.
** Thanks to LordSloth for inspiring this change.
 
  
* Changed how champion hull unlocks are handled in nebula scenario rewards:
+
* Finally fixed a bug where it was still possible for a Ship Design Hacker to trigger a counter-hacking response when on a planet with no available bonus types (and thus could not be hacked).
** As before, you can't get destroyer hulls until the second scenario is over, and can't get cruiser hulls until the fifth scenario is over.
+
** Thanks to Minotaar and Wingflier for the reports.
** But now when you get a new size, you get the new size in all the races you've already got access to.
 
** On scenarios where you are not given a new size, and you do not already have the race-tech-base-form corresponding to the faction you just helped, you get that form in all sizes you've already got access to (though it only announces the largest one).
 
*** If you've already got that racial-tech-base-form it just gives you an extra module line instead.
 
** Since there really isn't a point in using the smaller forms after you've got a larger one, only the largest ones will be shown (in an old save if you have, say, human frigate, human destroyer, and zenith frigate, it will show the H-DD and the Z-FF).
 
** Thanks to Shrugging Khan for inspiring this change.
 
  
* Changed main way to gain XP as a champion:
+
* Amended the Grav Driller AI Type description to better reflect the quantity of drills seeded.
** Nebula ships now only grant 1/10th as much XP as they did.
+
** Thanks to LordSloth for the suggestion.
*** Starbases and anything outside a nebula give the same as they used to.
 
** Winning a scenario now rewards a substantial amount of XP that:
 
*** Scales up with the level of the highest level champion in the game, though significantly slower than the xp-required-to-level scales up.
 
*** Scales up the better you do:
 
**** On the Neinzul Mourner and Gray Spire scenarios, this isn't directly related to time as those scenarios are basically over one way or another after a certain period of time anyway.
 
**** On the other scenarios where it's possible to drag it out to "farm" kill-based XP, this is now tied to how quickly you finish the scenario.  So you can still farm if that's what entertains you, but you won't really get an XP advantage.
 
** Thanks to chemical_art, orzelek, and others for inspiring this change.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.071 ==
+
* Fixed a bug where the military home station foldouts could trigger the shark plot logic when removed.
(Released August 27th, 2012)
+
** Thanks to ZaneWolfe for the report.
  
* Fixed some bugs with the Fortress King's modular fort command stations:
+
* Fixed a bug where the military home station foldouts required supply.
** Previously they did not have the "+15 AIP on death" attribute.  Heh.  Fixed.
+
** Thanks to Toranth for the report.
** Previously they used the wrong "requires supply" flag.  Fixed.
 
** Previously they were auto-targeted by human ships.  Fixed.
 
** Previously they did not function as warp-gate-reinforce.  Fixed.
 
** Also made the homeworld versions get most of the home-command-specific attributes.
 
** Made the Fortress King command forts no longer limit themselves to mark 2 modules (instead accepting that they then proceed to 3).
 
** Fixed a bug where Fortress King command forts were using champion shield modules instead of fort shield modules.
 
** Thanks to Toranth for reporting most of these.
 
  
* Fixed a bug where a forcefield that just turned on would sometimes take a long time to actually apply protection to a unit inside it (generally more likely with minor-faction allies than player-controlled ships).
+
== Prerelease 6.037 ==
** Thanks to Tssbackus for the report and save leading to this discovery.
+
(Released May 29th, 2013)
  
* Fixed a bug where Fallen Spire events would spawn the recoverable objects (and thus anything they go on to build) as belonging to the first player even when the first player was champion-only.  Now it gives them to the first normal or normal+champion player.
+
* Fixed a bug in the last version where some saves from the version before that would throw errors during load.
** Thanks to Battlecrydnx for the report.
+
** Thanks to Toranth for the report and save.
  
* CPA size calculations ares now structured more like the wave size calculations, in order to make sure they produce results bigger than wave size calculations, without being too crazy on Diff 7 and thereabouts.
+
== Prerelease 6.036 ==
 +
(Released May 29th, 2013)
  
* Barracks are now seeded on some AI planets at the start of the game (and retroactively into old saves):
+
* Fixed a bug where AI reinforcements sent to a human-controlled planet (due to a troop accelerator still being there or whatever) sometimes spawning on top of the (human) command station.
** The higher the difficulty, the more planets get them.
+
** Thanks to Toranth for the report and save.
** The higher the difficulty, the more ships in them.
 
** None are placed closer than 3 hops from a human homeworld, to not be too cruel.
 
** These serve two purposes:
 
*** Making it far less likely that the AI will simply not have enough ships for a CPA, while still letting players whittle away at "the reserve" if they want to.
 
*** Making the AI's defensive response to the loss of a planet (with a barracks on it) something more of an event.
 
** Thanks to many players for feedback about underwhelming (still) CPAs and underwhelming AI defensive behavior.
 
  
* Fixed a longstanding bug where the AI would only produce carriers if the target planet already had 2 barracks, instead of 1.
+
* Fixed a bug in the last version that was causing some old saves to act as if the new "Fast Drones" toggle was disabled.
** Thanks to the players who reported this, regrettably mantis doesn't seem interested in telling us who right now.
+
** Thanks to Wingflier and Vyndicu for the reports and saves.
  
* Fixed a graphical bug with the border drawn around barracks icons in some contexts.
+
* Reverted a target sorting optimization from a few releases ago in case it was responsible for the recent rash of out-of-memory errors we've been hearing about.
  
* Popping a carrier such that it has to "combine" ships due to high AI population on the planet already will now produce somewhat more... enthusiastic results on higher difficulties.
+
== Prerelease 6.035 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/05/ai-war-beta-6035-dire-protector-released.html Dire Protector] ==
 +
(Released May 29th, 2013)
  
== Prerelease 5.070 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/08/ai-war-beta-5070-once-and-fortress-king.html The Once And Fortress King] ==
+
* The Neinzul Railpod now does not suffer damage reduction when firing out from under a normal human forcefield.
(Released August 23rd, 2012)
+
** Thanks to Spikey00 for the suggestion.
  
* Fixed a bug in recent versions where self-exploding units (autobombs, nanoswarms, etc) were not updating their destination to match the target's current location frequently enough.
+
* Added new expansion Bonus Ship Type: Protector Starship.
 +
** Small Starship-class modular vessel designed to defend other ships via passive and active defense systems.
 +
** Specifically, each protector starship (shipcap is 2) gets 1 slot per mark, and each slot can take one of the following:
 +
*** Counter-Missile Module
 +
**** This module allows the Protector Starship to shoot down a finite number of incoming enemy missiles per second.
 +
*** Counter-Laser Module
 +
**** This module allows the Protector Starship to shoot down a finite number of incoming enemy laser shots per second.
 +
*** Counter-Shell Module
 +
**** This module allows the Protector Starship to shoot down a finite number of incoming enemy shells per second.
 +
*** Counter-Energy-Shot Module
 +
**** This module allows the Protector Starship to shoot down a finite number of incoming enemy energy shots (which is a broad definition including negative energy, energy waves, implosion shots, impulse reactive shots, flame waves, etc) per second.
 +
*** Protector Shield Module
 +
**** This module allows the Protector Starship to provide protection to any allied ship within range.  The generator itself is relatively weak and cannot hold up under intense fire, but does protect a much wider area than most mobile shield generators.
 +
**** Generally speaking the Protector's counter modules are much more efficient, but the shield module certainly has its uses.
 +
** Thanks to KDR_11k for the suggestion.
  
* New Ancient Shadows Bonus Ship Type: Zenith Siege Engine:
+
* On the lobby section where you can disable Swallowers, Core Shield Generators, etc, you may now also disable "Fast Drones", which for now simply disables the Spire Blade Spawners and the Tackle Drone LauncherThe idea being that slow drones (like from the enclave starship and Lightning Torpedo Frigate) can be dealt with more easily.
** Moderately large vessel built around an outsized plasma siege cannon.  The ship does not have enough power to both move and keep the weapon online, so it must remain immobile for a full reload cycle before it can fireWhen it fires, however, the enemy will feel it.
+
** Thanks to Kahuna for, um, "inspiring" this change.
** Thanks to Sunshine! for the suggestion inspiring this unit.
 
  
* New Ancient Shadows Bonus Ship Type: Zenith Reprocessor:
+
* Zenith Devastators:
** A larger, specialized version of the Acid Sprayer, this ship's shots actually "metabolize" the enemy target.  When the target dies, a percentage of the target's metal+crystal construction cost will be granted to the player that did the most reprocessing damage to it. The more reprocessing damage the ship has taken, the larger the percentage of resources reprocessed.
+
** Reload time from 10 => 5; dps maintained.
** Can damage ships immune to reclamation, but cannot reprocess them.
+
** Now has 1.2x bonus vs heavy and ultraheavy, base-cap-dps from 200k => 170k so the bonus dps is now slightly higher than before, but the base is a bit lower.
 +
** Now cannot shoot at small targets.
 +
** Thanks to chemical_art for inspiring these changes.
  
* New Ancient Shadows Hard AI Type: Fortress King.
+
* The Custom (Narrow) and Custom (Broad) galaxy display modes now count enemy ships that are immobile and were there the last time the planet was scouted (unless the galaxy display filter excludes all enemy ships, of course).
** Generally solid AI that has Modular Fortresses in place of most command stations.  Expect grievous pain.
+
** Thanks to Bognor, onyhow, and many other players for inspiring this change.
  
* Removed a "go for the command station over everything else when AI" behavior from a number of units, including:
+
=== Dire Guardians ===
** Leech Starships.
 
** Flagships.
 
** Zenith Starships.
 
** Spire Starships.
 
** Riot Starships.
 
** Thanks to Prezombie for the report of the CC-ramming leech starships.
 
  
* Fixed a bug where Neinzul Rocketry Corps silos could be antagonized by stuff in an adjacent nebula.
+
* Thanks to Wingflier, Cyborg, chemical_art, Hearteater, and many other players for inspiring these.
** Thanks to motai for the report and save.
 
  
* Fixed a bug where shadow charge was not persisting across save/load.
+
* New games with the new expansion enabled will now seed a number of "Dire Guardian Lair" objects throughout the galaxy.
 +
** These will not be retroactively seeded into existing games, as if it puts one next to a non-AI planet things could get... rough.
 +
** You can prevent these from seeding by disabling the "Dire Guardian Lair" ship type in the lobby (on the same screen where you can disable Swallowers, Core Shield Generators, etc).
 +
*** And they're never seeded below diff 7, at least for now.
  
* Fixed a bug where shadow-charge-created projections were being affected by the champion's controlling player (a normal+champion player) having a negative energy balance (shields shutting off, etc)In theory that could work as a balancing mechanism but it wouldn't work because champion-only players have no energy balance.
+
* When a dire guardian lair's planet is on alert (or simply not controlled by the AI at all anymore) it will gradually construct a "Dire Guardian" over about an hour and a half.  Once launched they will try to find the best way to hurt you.  These are very nasty units and will succeed in hurting you particularly if you are unpreparedBut if you catch it by itself with enough firepower the fight should be pretty quick.
** Thanks to motai for the report.
 
  
* The "Zenith Descendant" and "One Way Doormaster" AI Types have been promoted from the "easy" category to the "moderate" category, due to sustained player feedback that they are not, in fact, easy.
+
* You may also opt to simply destroy a lair to prevent it from building more dire guardians, but when it is destroyed it will spawn 3 dire guardians in a "last gasp".  3 at once will be uncomfortable, but can be dealt with if you're careful.
** Thanks to the many players who died to bring us this information.
 
  
* New Ancient Shadows Map Style: Clusters
+
== Prerelease 6.034 ==
** Planets are organized into a small number of clusters, each of which has only a few wormholes that lead to other clusters.  Planets within a cluster each have a moderate number of connections to other planets within that cluster.
+
(Released May 27th, 2013)
** Thanks to shugyosha for the suggestion.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.069 ==
+
* Added a note to the Zenith Devastator description that it is built at the Starship Constructor.
(Released August 22nd, 2012)
+
** Thanks to Mick for inspiring this change.
  
* Reworked the CPA formula to be more aggressive on higher difficulties, since it's been sadly anemic lately.
+
* Fixed a bug that could cause unhandled exceptions when a CPA launched and would previously have dropped a carrier on a planet with no warp gate and no command station at all (still works fine as long as there's either an AI or human command station there).
** Also added cpa-size calculations to the wave logs, when advanced logging is enabled.
+
** Thanks to leb0fh for the report.
** Thanks to many players for reporting the embarrassing CPA sizes they've been seeing.
 
  
* Fixed a bug where only one type of nebula scenario was seeding.
+
* The planet-select dropdown in the per-planet controls window is now sorted alphabetically.
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
+
** Thanks to Wingflier for the suggestion.
  
* Fixed a bug where minor-faction ships with plasma-siege shots could hurt/kill AI command stations that happened to be under forcefields.
+
* The showdown-device-activation-related counter-waves now have a "depth" of 4 instead of 90.
** Thanks to Jeffersn for the report and save.
+
** Thanks to Cinth for inspiring this change.
  
* Fixed a bug where champion ships were not causing AI planets to go on alert.
+
== Prerelease 6.033 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/05/ai-war-beta-6033-bonus-tricks-released.html Bonus Tricks] ==
** Thanks to LordSloth for the report.
+
(Released May 27th, 2013)
  
* Champion module unlock costs from 1/2/3/4/5 => 1/1/2/3/3.
+
* Fixed a bug where disabling the latest expansion could still carry the hunter plot setting into the next game.
** Note that there's only one module (missile) you can pay to unlock the mkI version of, and no currently available champion hull can use the mkV versions.
+
** Thanks to Akylon for the report and save.
** Note also that this is tentative and the balance may not stay here.  It's probably too generous, but the previous setup appeared to be too stingy.
 
** Thanks to Cinth, orzelek, Nodor, LaughingThesaurus, and others for feedback inspiring this change.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.068 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/08/ai-war-beta-5068-old-enmity-reclaimed.html Old Enmity Reclaimed] ==
+
* Increased the minimum size the target list sorting tries to generate, as last version's optimization apparently took it too far down.
(Released August 21st, 2012)
 
  
* Added a new nebula scenario.
+
* Fixed a bug from recent versions where the counterattack posts were basically back to just sending waves everywhere.
** Introduces a second Spire splinter faction.
+
** Thanks to SNAFU for the report and save, and Cinth for bugging me incessantly about it.
** Reintroduces an old foe/friend in a new context.
 
** Added 3 new possible reward champion hulls (different race, nothing bigger than what was previously available, yet).
 
** Added 4 new possible reward module lines.
 
** Added 2 new possible reward champion abilities.
 
  
* Put in new graphics for the needler, laser, mlrs, and missile modules used by champions and modular forts.
+
* Various units that do auto-unit creation that just dumps the new unit out into the game rather than internal transport space (including the Spire Blade Spawner, Neinzul Enclave Starship, etc) now do not do their unit creation if:
** Thanks to HitmanN for these (and many other) module graphics.
+
** As before, when no enemy units are present at all.
 +
** Now, if all enemy units present are cloaked.
 +
** Now, if the spawner is controlled by the player (and not the AI) and all non-cloaked enemy units present are flagged "not dangerous" (i.e. has no attack) or are flagged "never include in threat or attack count" (i.e. a special forces guard post or a core shield generator).
 +
** Thanks to... well, this is another one of those "who has _not_ asked for this?" issues, but particularly thanks to Toranth for a save showing what happens when 16 HWs of Enclave Starships get bored (answer: total performance kill).
  
* The champion hulls now have slightly different movement speeds, based on which racial tech-base they use.
+
* The Modular-fort version of the Insanity Inducer module has had its shots-per-second halved and its seconds-per-salvo doubled, because previously it could make the fort into a botnet all its own.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  
* Heroic AI type balance changes:
+
* FS Exos are now included in the diff 8+ cpa/exo syncing logic introduced recently.
** Is now considered a technologist type for the purposes of lobby logic and display (specifically, being displayed in RED), though it does not get higher tech levels than usual.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
** Its non-wave champion spawns now start at Frigate-level at tech-level 1, not Destroyer-level.
 
** Thanks to Kahuna and Nodor for inspiring these changes.
 
  
* Neinzul champion hulls are now immune to black hole machines.
+
* Fixed a bug that's been around for a couple of months that was basically causing reinforcements to ignore the reinforcement population cap rule.
** Thanks to MaxAstro for inspiring this change.
+
** Thanks to Bossman for the report and save.
  
* Champion XP gain from being near enough to a dying AI command station or guard post doubled.
+
* The good news is that Core Eyes no longer have infinite tachyon.  The bad news is that now the AI Home Command Station has it.
** Thanks to TechSY730 for inspiring this change.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  
* Fixed a longstanding bug where buy menu buttons were showing up red outside supply even when the ship doing the building can build fine outside supply.  These specific ships now have the flag that suppresses the redding out (let us know if we missed one) :
+
* The CPA deployment logic will no longer drop carriers on planets with no "wave" warp gates (so a non-home command station isn't enough, but a warp gate is).
** Champions.
+
** Thanks to Burnstreet for the suggestion.
** Spire Capital Ships.
 
** Riot Control Starships.
 
** Neinzul Enclave Starships.
 
** Spire Mining Ships.
 
** Nebula faction structures the player gets after winning a scenario.
 
** Thanks to Spikey00, ArcDM, Kemeno, and others for reporting this.
 
  
* Added four new keybinds, each like: Use First Champion Ability
+
=== New AI Toys/Tricks ===
** Shortcut to the first item on the selected Champion's Ability menu.  Does not actually uses the ability, just puts your interface into "placement mode" so you can click the place to use the ability without moving your mouse cursor down to the Ability menu itself.
 
** Only works if you have a single champion selected.
 
** There's also a second-ability, third-ability, and fourth-ability version, though as of this version no champion has more than two abilities.  The ability descriptions themselves tell you which keybind can be used to trigger them.
 
** The default bindings for these are Ctrl+Q, Ctrl+W, Ctrl+E, Ctrl+R, and all will override other non-context-menu keybinds (if you have a single champion selected) if you rebind them to something that conflicts.  For instance, if you change the first one to Q instead of Ctrl+Q, and leave Q's default keybind alone then if you have a single champion selected Q will trigger the first-ability keybind and if you do not have a single champion selected Q will do the normal "zoom in really close" function.
 
** Thanks to Lancefighter for inspiring this change.
 
  
* Tackle Drone Launcher rebalance:
+
* Added seven new expansion-only types of AI Guardian for normal use and exos:
** Tackle Drone speed halved, and is no longer affected by combat style (so its effective speed is now what it was in the previous version on Epic comat style).
+
** Infiltration
** Tackle Drones are now immune to speed boosting.
+
*** Be afraid.
** Tackle Drone Launchers time to produce a drone from 3 seconds => 6 seconds.
+
** MLRS
** Thanks to Nodor, Coppermantis, and others for feedback on these.
+
** Munitions Boosting
 +
** Needler
 +
** Widow
 +
** Plasma
 +
** Shield
 +
** Note: as before, each AI only initially unlocks 3 guardian types, and gets more as AIP goes up.  So you won't be seeing all of these types right from the start of every game or anything like that.
  
* Neinzul Scapegoat:
+
* Added the concept of AI "subcommanders" to the expansion: each mkIII+ non-home AI planet has a chance (with higher marks having a higher chance) of getting a "subcommander personality" which allows it (during mapgen) to pick from a special set of new AI command stations, a special set of new AI guard posts (sometimes mixed with the existing ones), and place both station and guard posts according to its own whims.
** Ship cap halved.
 
** Health doubled.
 
** Attack doubled.
 
** M+C cost doubled.
 
** Energy cost doubled.
 
** Ship cap now scales UP (instead of down) with ship cap, so that you can have 2x as many MkIIs as MkIs, 3x as many MkIIIs as MkIs, etc.
 
*** This corrects the main problem with the previous design: higher marks didn't get more of the unit's actually-important ability (one-shot regen) than mkIs, and in fact got less.
 
** All other its stats that used to scale up with mark level no longer do.
 
** Thanks to soMe_RandoM, Hearteater, Cinth, and others for feedback on these.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.067 ==
+
=== New Bonus Ship Types ===
(Released August 20th, 2012)
 
  
* Fixed a bug in the last few versions where only the first 3-4 nebulae were generating scenarios.
+
* Many thanks to the community members discussing and voting in the [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,13096.0.html poll] from which these were drawn.  Still two more winners to add in a later release, but wanted to go ahead and get these into the game.
** Thanks to Irxallis, vadatajs, and RCIX for reporting.
+
** Also thanks to community member HitmanN for the far-zoom icons and borders for the bonus ships.
  
* Spire Blade and Tackle Drone speed halved, since their being changed to not need to accelerate (which helps them make consistent use of their time-to-live when time to get a target is variable) increased their effective distance travelled substantially.
+
* Added new expansion Bonus Ship Type: Lighting Torpedo Frigate.
** Thanks to RCIX for inspiring this change.
+
** Has modest firepower in its own right, but primarily attacks by launching miniaturized versions of the Lightning Warhead (that do not increase AIP when detonated, of course).
 +
** Thanks to pheonix89 for the main suggestion behind these.
  
* Tackle drones now automatically self-destruct when at or beyond the outer grav-well ring.
+
* Added new expansion Bonus Ship Type: Zenith Devastator.
** Note: this applies to player and AI tackle drones, even though AI ships are not affected by the outside-grav-well speed debuff.
+
** A powerful starship designed by the Zenith during their ancient wars against the Spire (who heavily rely on shields).  Its shots completely ignore forcefields (though the devastator itself does not ignore forcefields).
** Thanks to Battlecrydnx, platinawolf, and RCIX for inspiring this change.
+
** Thanks to chemical_art for the main suggestion behind these.
  
* Offroad scenario enemy scaling:
+
* Added new expansion Bonus Ship Type: Neinzul Railpod.
** Per scenario previously successfully completed, from +30% => +15%.
+
** Mature Neinzul organism without the time-limited lifespan of a Youngling.  The railpod is basically an organic railcannon, with effectively infinte range.  The downside is that firing the cannon does tremendous damage to the railpod itself, generally destroying itself after only two shots. Despite this limitation, railpods can contribute significantly to "burst" damage either defensively or offensively, and a group of space docks loop-building these with engineer support effectively becomes a large artillery battery.
** Per extra champion present, from +50% => 25%.
+
** Thanks to Hearteater and TechSY730 for the main suggestion behind these.
** Thanks to Cinth, bonesbro, and orzelek for inspiring this change.
 
  
* Fixed a bug where nebulae were being considered by the rule that a spire city hub cannot be built on a planet with only one wormhole
+
* Added new expansion Bonus Ship Type: Zenith Hydra.
** It couldn't really be left as-is because a game started with Ancient Shadows enabled always generates the nebulae even if you can't see them, which would lead to inconsistent results from the player perspective.
+
** A potent short-range combatant that breathes (plasma) fire and can regenerate its own health over time.
** Thanks to Toranth for the report.
+
** Thanks to Hearteater for the main suggestion behind these.
  
== Prerelease 5.066 ==
+
== Prerelease 6.032 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/05/ai-war-beta-6032-tumbleweeds-in-stars.html Tumbleweeds In The Stars] ==
(Released August 18th, 2012)
+
(Released May 22nd, 2013)
  
* Fixed inadvertent change to bomber drone speed, so that it's now the same as it was on normal-combat-style a few versions ago.
+
* Fixed a longstanding bug (which also affects more recent map types) where there was a very predictable pattern of "which AI owns which planet?" in several map types.
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
+
** Thanks to Toranth for pointing this out.
  
* Fixed a bug where using Ctrl+M or the Mods button to open a champion in Ship Design could sometimes result in a blank ship design window if the selected champion was controlled by a different player than the interface you were using at the time.
+
* Core CPA posts now schedule a CPA for 10 seconds out rather than using the normal timing, because generally that would result in the CPA coming too latePost description updated to accurately reflect the change (the description having been part of why it was shifted to the normal timing before).
** Thanks to Cinth for the report and save.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.065 ==
 
(Released August 18th, 2012)
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the Ship Design tab where it wouldn't show any modules for a line where the highest unlock mark was not usable by the selected champion hull.
 
** Thanks to Kemeno for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where Shadow Charge was not actually being prevented from accumulating past the maximum storage amount.
 
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where opening the ship design tab to edit a champion, selecting a different hull type, switching to another tab, and switching back to the ship design tab would... do weird things.
 
** Thanks to Kemeno for the report.
 
 
 
* Bomber Drones:
 
** Seconds-per-salvo back from 3 => 5.
 
** Seconds it takes a bay module to produce one from 3 => 2.
 
** Time to live from 20 => 21.
 
*** Just to make it less likely that they'll lose the last shot because of not instantly targeting.
 
** In short, this should maintain the same total shots produced over a given minute, but with more drones in the air at any given time.
 
** Thanks to Cinth for the feedback that the drones' numbers were more important than the total number of shots produced.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.064 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/08/ai-war-beta-5064-abilities-unlocked.html Abilities Unlocked] ==
 
(Released August 18th, 2012)
 
 
 
* A new Ancient Shadows bonus ship class has been added: Neinzul Scapegoat (Mark I-V).
 
** Mature Neinzul organism without the short lifespan of a Youngling.  Capable combatant in its own right, but also sacrifices itself to regenerate military fleet ships on the same planet when they take critical damage.
 
** Thanks to soMe_RandoM for the idea that inspired this.
 
 
 
* Another new Ancient Shadows bonus ship class has been added: Spire Railcluster (Mark I-V).
 
** Large Spire fleet ship mounting multiple short-range railcannonsHighly effective against very small ships.
 
** Thanks to superking for the idea that inspired this.
 
 
 
* Fixed bug where Extreme Raider and Spire Hammer were not adding their AI-type specific extra ships to non-schizo waves.
 
 
 
* Improved the extra-homeworld/champion scaling for Extreme Raider and Spire Hammer AI-type-specific wave-add-ons.
 
 
 
* Added new Hard AI Type: Heroic.
 
** Generally solid AI that can also add a powerful Champion ships to each wave (in addition to the normal starship).  Also periodically spawns a Champion ship on one of its own planets that joins the general AI forces threatening you. At higher tech levels it uses bigger Champion ships.
 
** Note: these AI-version Champions are not exactly like human-controlled ones: they cannot traverse blue wormholes, they do not gain experience, and they do not respawn when killed.  They're just big nasty modular ships.
 
** Added 3 achievements for beating a Heroic AI, beating one on 7+, and beating one on 9+, respectively.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where remains currently in the process of rebuilding could get "stuck" at 1 hp despite being under very heavy fire until its actual stored resources were exhausted.
 
** Thanks to Toranth for the report and save.
 
 
 
* The rule that "if a forcefield-projecting unit is fully cloaked, it turns off its forcefield" now no longer applies to player-controlled modules.  It was messing with modular-fort shield modules pretty effectively.
 
** Thanks to Cinth for inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Nebula scenario buildings that let you build units now respond to the D (default for selecting space docks and similar) keybind.
 
** Thanks to Twinge for inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Fixed bug where core/starship/experimental fabricators were not being considered by the D keybind.
 
** Thanks to Twinge for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed bug where Insanity-Inducer and Translocator champion modules were not scaling up at all at higher marks.  They now gain an extra shot-per-salvo per mark above 1.
 
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
 
 
 
* Champion Bomber Drones, to make them less likely to score kills outside the champion's XP-gaining envelope and otherwise extend its reach beyond the intended:
 
** Speed no longer scales with combat style (it's now always like it was on normal combat style).
 
** Is now immune to speed-boosting.
 
** Time-to-live from 30 seconds => 20 seconds.
 
** Seconds-per-salvo from 5 => 3 (so it can still fire 6 times before dying, and is now more likely to get that last shot in).
 
** Effective Range from 8000/8400/8800/9200/9600 => flat 8000.
 
** Thanks to Cinth for the report of the xp-gathering issue.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where saving a design on the Ship Design tab of the CTRLS window would switch you to a different tab (the save would work, but it could be very annoying).
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where nanoswarms, autobombs, spire blades, and tackle drones could be slowed down artificially (to very low speeds) due to changing targets in midflight.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater for the report and save.
 
 
 
* Added new resource to champion and normal+champion players: Shadow Charge.
 
** Consumed by the new direct-use abilities added in this version.
 
** Current and max charge is displayed on the champion UI.
 
** Regenerates over time.
 
 
 
* Added "ABILITY" tab to the champion's build menu.  Only two are currently implemented:
 
** Human and Zenith champions can "Project Shadow Shield":
 
*** Creates an immobile forcefield at the target point for 20 seconds (taking damage reduces the duration).
 
*** Must be initially placed within 4000 range of the champion.
 
*** Consumes 200 Shadow Charge.
 
** Neinzul champions can "Project Shadow Repair Field":
 
*** Creates an immobile generator at the target point for 20 seconds (taking damage reduces the duration).
 
**** Repairs all friendly units in range (except golems), at no m+c cost.
 
*** Must be initially placed within 4000 range of the champion.
 
*** Consumes 500 Shadow Charge.
 
 
 
* Changed the existing "MODS" tab of the champion build menu to not have the buy buttons for the modules but instead say "Click "MODS" to change Champion modules.".
 
** And clicking MODS again when it is already showing now opens the Ship Design menu just like pressing Ctrl+M.
 
** The reason for the change is that the normal buy-menu interface for modular ships to build their modules has always been a bit wonky, and the Champion stuff is only making that moreso.  One of the big problems is that there's not really a way to infer from normal buy menu operations what module loadout the game should "save" to be redone after a respawn (the Ship Design screen knows to do this when you use Apply To Selection).
 
** Since this may turn out to not be the best way to go (though we will try to make it work) : Added new toggle to the Advanced tab of the Settings window: Show Module Build Menu For Champion Ships.
 
*** If this toggle is enabled, selecting a champion ship's modules tab displays the old-style build menu that works just like other queue-builders (space dock), etc.  This mode has a number of quirks due to the differences between producing modules and producing separate ships, and the Ship Design window is much better at communicating what you're doing, but some players may find the old menu more convenient for certain use cases.
 
 
 
* Added new "Champion Unlocks" tab to the CTRLS window:
 
** Previously the "modules available for this slot" list on the Ship Design tab would, for champions, display all available modules plus the next locked module in each line if the selected champion hull could use it.  Unlocks were performed by clicking on those locked options.  This functioned but is increasingly unwieldy as the number of modules increases.
 
** Now the Ship Design tab's list of available modules (when viewing a champion) only displays the highest-usable-on-that-hull module in each line that is unlocked, and does not display anything locked.
 
** Now, to unlock a higher module for your champion, you go to the Champion Unlocks tab where each available module line is displayed with the currently unlocked mark, and how many points it costs to unlock the next-higher mark.
 
** Thanks to Lancefighter for the suggestion to create a separate interface for unlocking this stuff.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where bomber drones launched from champion hangar bays could be scrapped (and resources gained from it).
 
** Thanks to Drin for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a longstanding (since March 2011) bug where several per-unit computations were being done every frame instead of every 6 or so frames as designed.  Please let us know if you run into weirdness, as the game's gotten pretty "used" to that bug and it may be that something was inadvertently made to rely on it.  Things look fine in our tests, though.
 
 
 
* Offroad Scenarios now scale up somewhat in difficulty with the number of champions present in that particular nebula.  The amount of increase is low enough that it's still always a significant advantage to bring more champions, but it's hopefully no longer a situation where a scenario is tough if you bring 1 champion and trivial if you bring 2.
 
 
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
 
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  
== Prerelease 5.063 ==
+
* The Core CPA Post logic now uses the same size calculations as normal CPAs.
(Released August 16th, 2012)
 
  
* Fixed some typos in some of the champion ship hulls' short-names.
+
* Corrected the CoN Neinzul Youngster AI Type's description to include that it launches waves 2x as frequently, and often (rather than always) sends pure-youngling waves.
** Thanks to Toranth for the report.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report.
 
 
* Fixed a bug where tackle drone explosions could damage friendly targets.
 
** Thanks to Draco Cretel for the report.
 
 
 
* The following units are now omitted from control group selection since control groups for them are just part of getting newly constructed ships assigned to the right control group and moved to the right spot:
 
** All human intragalactic warp gates.
 
** Human Rebel Colony (base game).
 
** Spire Refugee Colony (Fallen Spire).
 
** Spire Shipyard (Fallen Spire).
 
** All splinter-faction construction facilities (Ancient Shadows).
 
** Thanks to jerith for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* Tackle Drones no longer make an explosion sound on death (they already had the same muffling flag as the spire blades, but their actual damage-causing explosion-on-death was a separate code path).
 
** Thanks to MaxAstro and Draco Cretel for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where inherently-cloaked ships were not decloaked by their modules firing (externally-cloaked ships were already working properly).
 
** Thanks to Kemeno for the report.
 
 
 
* Spire Civilian Leaders now do their first "pulse" of AIP change at one hour into the game, instead of one minute into the game, to avoid skewing the very-early difficulty of a high-diff game.
 
** Thanks to motai for the suggestion, and many others for similar thoughts.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.062 ==
 
(Released August 15th, 2012)
 
 
 
* Includes the language file updates accidentally omitted from 5.061.
 
** Thanks to Minotaar, phoenix89, Eternaly_Lost, and others for reporting.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.061 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/08/ai-war-beta-5061-tackled-medic-released.html *Tackled*, Medic!] ==
 
(Released August 15th, 2012)
 
 
 
* A new Ancient Shadows bonus ship class has been added: Zenith Medic Frigate (Mark I-V).
 
** Moderately large frigate with capable weaponry, but the main point of a medic frigate is the multiplex repair beam emitter that allows it to heal nearby ships (note: cannot heal a ship for a few seconds after that ship has taken damage).
 
** Thanks to RCIX for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* Another new Ancient Shadows bonus ship class has been added: Tackle Drone Launcher (Mark I-V).
 
** Has guns of its own but primarily attacks by launching small tractor-equipped drones.  The drones fly in a straight line dragging any enemy they can tractor along with them and explode when they reach their maximum range, dealing damage to up to (5*drone level) nearby targets.  The drones are thus very effective at taking smaller craft out of a fight, but cannot damage tractor-immune ships in any way.
 
** Give these a try, they're hilarious.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where nebulae were being counted as human territory for deepstrike checks.
 
** Thanks to Toll for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where super-hybrid logic for determining which planets were the right distance into AI territory for a dyson antagonizer was considering nebulae to be non-AI territory.
 
** Thanks to Kahuna for the report leading to this discovery.
 
 
 
* Reduced the distance-into-AI-territory super-hybrids try to plant dyson antagonizers by 1, hopefully making them less excruciating to find.
 
** Thanks to quite a lot of players for public lamentations regarding this.
 
 
 
* The initial seeding of AI fleet-ships during mapgen now pays more attention to ship cap.
 
** Thanks to Kahuna for the report of a planet starting with ~43 Spire Stealth Battleships.
 
 
 
* The game now tries to seed human home command stations further away from wormholes and tries harder to find such a spot.  This should help prevent "AI says: I have a plasma siege starship, gg" situations.
 
** Thanks to Diazo, Toll, and others for bringing the need to our attention.
 
 
 
* Nebula-faction units and champions now have the same speed on all combat styles (equal to their prior speed on Normal combat style).
 
** Thanks to Eternaly_Lost for pointing out that scenarios taking 30 to 60 minutes on normal took... a really really long time on Epic.
 
 
 
* Spire Refugee Ship (the starship recovered in the second stage of Fallen Spire) can no longer be put in a transport, since the chase logic doesn't work right with stuff in transports and jumpships make it pretty trivial.
 
** Thanks to Faulty Logic and others for pointing out the oddness of it being transportable.
 
 
 
* Now nebulae don't pick a scenario type during mapgen, but instead when first entered by a champion.  Earlier in development it was possible for nebulae map placement to be different depending on the scenario, but this is no longer the case.
 
** This won't impact games already in progress before 5.061, but games started in this version or later will adjust more gracefully to the addition of new scenario types, and this helps in some other areas too.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the question inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Amended the paralyzer module's tooltip to not call it "low base damage", since it isn't really.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report.
 
 
 
* Added Neinzul Modular Fortress:
 
** Quite similar to the normal modular fortress, but with different specialized modules available (when they're implemented, anyhow), and instead of the repair ability it has cloaking and cloaking-superboost (same ability as the cloaker starship).
 
** Right now the only way to unlock this is via nebula-scenario reward in the soon-to-be-released third type of scenario, but that will change to at least some extent.
 
  
* The Core (mark 5) variants of the youngling ships no longer self-attrition.
+
* The new expansion's Exotic and Vicious Exotic AI Types now show a timer for when their next exo "wave" will launch, with a lead time similar to normal waves.  They no longer announce the moment of launch, since this would be redundant (and normal waves and such don't bother with it).
** Mainly this is to make the fabricators that produce them more useful.
+
** Thanks to ZaneWolfe for inspiring these changes.
** Thanks to the players who participated in the [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,10871.0.html poll] where this came up, and to Wingflier for organizing that.
 
  
* Fixed a bug in previous versions where it was possible for a nebula to reward a champion hull when you didn't already have the smaller size-steps of that line.
+
* Added the new expansion's "minor" faction: Showdown Devices.
 +
** Won't spoil the details for now; the in-game journals you get from capturing them should point you in the right direction for now.
 +
*** But we will mention the ultimate point of the faction: alternate way to win, and ultimate stalemate-breaker.
  
* Added a new nebula (offroad "planet") scenario for champions.
+
* Somewhat reduced the number of target comparisons necessary when building a target list in the normal auto-targeting logic, which should help performance in big battles.
** Includes 1 new neinzul splinter group.
 
** Added 5 new possible unlock-champion-hull-type rewards, including the next size step up for the human and zenith lines and a new neinzul line (that gets fewer modules but a key special ability at each size step).
 
** Added 4 new possible unlock-module-line rewards, some given only from this new scenario, some also eligible to be given from the existing one.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.060 ==
+
== Prerelease 6.031 ==
(Released August 13th, 2012)
+
(Released May 20th, 2013)
  
* Fixed a bug where various Fallen-Spire seeding logic was considering nebulae.  Spawning a shard-signal there is cute, but wrong.
+
* Fixed a bug in the wave-substitute-exo logic where Vicious Exotic wasn't getting any bonus over Exotic at all.
** Thanks to Eternaly_Lost for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a longstanding but very intermittent null-exception in tech-menu-button rendering.
 
** Thanks to Kahuna for the report and log.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the past couple of versions where non-minor-faction photon lances (spire capital ship main weapons, etc) were considering a smaller subset of enemy units as targets.
 
 
** Thanks to Toranth for the report.
 
** Thanks to Toranth for the report.
  
* Fixed a bug where photon lances fired at forcefields overlapping the firing ship could wind up firing in a totally wrong direction.
+
* Fixed a bug introduced a few weeks ago where the "The Core" AI Type was not getting its traditional mkV ships (in any case).
** Thanks to Lancefighter for the report and save.
+
** Thanks to Kahuna, tmm, and Coppermantis for the report.
  
* Dark Spire starbases now fire more rapidly (but with less power) to better deal with attacking enemies and juking champions (the latter will still have an advantage, that's fine, not all starbases should require the same tactics).
+
* Human command stations (other than the Home one) can now construct another command station within 2000 range of themselves.  Just like with building a new station via colony ship this destroys the original station and the new one must be built up from 1 health, BUT ''unlike'' using a colony ship this does NOT trigger the on-death "command station building stall", and so can be used to upgrade a station without incurring that penalty.  At the same time, it has limited cheese value because you can't put the station way on the other side of the planet and thus play "monkey in the middle" with AI attackers.
 +
** Using the new station-upgrading-itself method also avoids the effects the expansion's Shark plot normally has when a human command station dies.  It's unlikely that the new station will survive if the old one would not have, however.
 +
** Thanks to Toranth and many other players for inspiring this change.
  
* The Devourer can no longer attack champion ships.  The Devourer camping the auto-respawning champion at a human home command station was... hilarious, but we don't want the Devourer to get a nutritional imbalance.
+
* The exo "substitute waves" launched by the expansion's Exotic and Vicious Exotic AI Types now come with an initial announcement in the chat log that the wave has launched.
** Thanks to soMe_RandoM for the report.
+
** Thanks to Toranth and chemical_art for inspiring this change.
  
* Fixed another bug that was letting auto-explore scouts consider nebulae and thus getting stuck.
+
* The expansion's Chivalric AI Type now also considers Spire Civilian Leaders to be non-targetable.
** Thanks to fflaguna and Draco Cretel for the report.
+
** Thanks to Tridus and tmm for inspiring this change.
  
* Switching from the Normal role to Normal+Champion in mid-game is no longer rejected as an invalid role switch.
+
* The prefix for "Strength" in most places is now Str instead of S, since S looks a bit like 5 in that font.
 +
** Thanks to Toranth for the suggestion.
  
* Opening the ship design window by clicking the CTRLS button and then the Ship-Design tab now tries to enable the "Apply To Ship(s)" button (which is now called "Apply To Selection" to be clearer)Previously it would only try to do this if opened through the context menu "View Ship Modules" or Ctrl+M.
+
* Fixed a bug in recent versions where the "offensive nemesis" component of the AI's response to human champions could spawn too many nemesis champs because the previously spawned ones were dropping out of threatfleet due to being cut off from the AI HW's, and the "how many should I spawn?" logic for that particular bit counted TF nemesis units against its capNow it will count normal-Threat ones too.
** Thanks to Cinth for pointing out that it was confusing for 2 out of three ways to get to this screen would do this, but the other would not.
+
** Thanks to Tridus for the report.
  
== Prerelease 5.059 ==
+
* Fixed a bug in recent versions that could cause AI thread errors if an AI threat ship no longer had a current planet (were swallowed by a maw or whatever, there's a few different ways this could happen).
(Released August 11th, 2012)
+
** Thanks to vinco for the report and save.
  
* Fixed a bug where offroad planets (nebula) were counting as non-AI-controlled-worlds for the purposes of determining how many worlds the AI could reinforce.
+
* Fixed a bug with the expansion dual-type AIs where several "negative" flags (like "does not send waves" from Turtle or Support Corps) basically never had an impact on a dual-type AI even if present on both types.
 +
** Thanks to Coppermantis for the report.
  
* Fixed a bug in the recent changes to the reinforcement logic causing N guard posts on a single planet to get reinforced with (Strength*1)+(Strength*2)+(Strength*3)+...+(Strength*N) total strength, rather than just (Strength*N).
+
* Fixed a bug where the "# of aggressive ships on this planet" alert control was only counting "threat" ships, not "attack" ships, when an "attack" ship is usually just a threat ship which happens to be on a human-held planet.
** Thanks to TechSY730 for spotting this in the reinforcement logs, and to LordSloth for providing logs.
+
** Also changed the alert text color from green to red.
 +
** Thanks to Cyborg for the report/suggestion.
  
* Fixed a bug in the reinforcement logging where it wouldn't list alerted planets in the "this is the order planets will be reinforced in". The order was correct, the logging was not (and it really helps for it to be right when finding problems like the above).
+
* The expansion's Vengeful AI Type's response to CSGs B through E being blown up has been adjusted downward to account for the fact that multiple generators are dying all at once because popping one pops that whole network.
 +
** Thanks to Wingflier for bringing the multiplying-pain effect of the above to our attention.
  
== Prerelease 5.058 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/08/ai-war-beta-5058-further-shadows.html Further Shadows] ==
+
== Prerelease 6.030 ==
(Released August 11th, 2012)
+
(Released May 18th, 2013)
  
* When playing as the Normal+Champion role it now only shows the Champion UI (XP/Hull/Shields) instead of the Normal UI (Metal/Crystal/Energy/Knowledge) when you have the champion selected and are in planet view on the same planet as the champion.
+
* Fixed a bug where human champions were still increasing the size of CPAs somewhat.
** Thanks to LaughingThesaurus and Volatar for the suggestions.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report.
  
* Fixed a couple more bugs where the modular fortress was on the tech and buy menus even when Ancient Shadows was not enabled.
+
* Fixed a bug in the Vengeance-expansion AI Type "Vengeful" where its tantrum attacks would not happen if Vengeful was the secondary type of that AI instead of the primary.
** Thanks to Draco Cretel and Draco18s for reporting.
+
** Thanks to Aklyon for the report.
  
* Added support for the chatline command "cmd:activate expansion 4", which lets you turn on the expansion midway through the game. Notes:
+
* Fixed a typo calling a unit the mk5 variant the "Flak Turret Mk VV".
** This will not add the nebulas (offroad "planets") to the game, so while you could in theory add champions to the game after enabling the expansion it would be a truncated experience.
+
** Thanks to Kahuna for the report.
** Any expansion-specific special structures that have a chance of being seeded onto planets will have a chance to seed at this time, but there's nothing like that implemented yet.
 
** What this will do, as of this writing, is give you access to research and build modular forts.
 
  
* The Z+X keybind combo now shows NPC/minor-faction ranges as well as enemy ranges.
+
* Fixed a bug in the expansion Hunter plot where turning it all the way up to intensity 10 would cause unhandled errors periodically. This may have been an effort to shield you from what that plot does on intensity 10.
** This is particularly helpful in the nebula/offroad areas when playing with champions.
+
** Thanks to Toranth for the report and save.
** Thanks to Kahuna for the suggestion.
 
  
* Fixed a longstanding (back to the unity port) bug where the buy/tech menus would also draw the buttons from the menus above them, commonly resulting in "ghosts" of build queue buttons, etc.
+
* Fixed a couple bugs in the "x out of y in service" display for the expansion's per-planet-cap core turrets.
** Thanks to... is there anyone who has NOT reported this?  Anyway, thanks for making sure we knew :)
+
** Thanks to Tridus for the report and save.
  
* Fixed relatively recent issue where photon lance beams would not actually draw all the way to the end of the beam (either the natural range or the poor thing it was currently incinerating).
+
* Added some bits of the expansion's Shark plot that weren't implemented in 6.029.
  
* Added a new nebula (offroad "planet") scenario for champions.
+
== Prerelease 6.029 ==
** Includes 3 new splinter groups: one zenith, one neinzul, one spire.
+
(Released May 14th, 2013)
** Total of 16 new units from those groups, 3 of which have player-usable variants.
 
** Added 2 new possible unlock-champion-hull-type rewards (not bigger than the existing ones, that's for later), only given from this new scenario right now.
 
** Added 5 new possible unlock-module-line rewards, some given only from this new scenario, one also eligible to be given from the existing one.
 
  
* Champion shields now regen twice as fast (the delay between last-damage-taken and the start of regen is the same, though).
+
* Fixed a bug where AI threat ships could get stuck on a planet because there was a target that was marked VeryLowPriority (meaning that the AI cannot shoot at it) but nonetheless caused it to consider the enemy presence interesting enough that it didn't want to reassign the threat to a different planet.  The only example we're aware of right now is the Core Warhead Interceptor, which is often not captured by the player anyway, but the problem has been fixed in general.
  
* Fixed a bunch of places where the existence of champions was not increasing AI response.
+
* Fixed a bug from a few versions ago where giving an auto-load command to ships in a control group with the control-group-uses-control-group-move toggle, it would generate unhandled errors and fail to actually auto-load.
 +
** Thanks to Burnstreet for the report and save.
  
* Fixed a bug where multiple human homeworlds (in SP or MP) were not increasing the guard post part of reinforcements.
+
== Prerelease 6.028 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/05/ai-war-beta-6028-so-i-rewired-it.html So I Rewired It] ==
 +
(Released May 14th, 2013)
  
* Made the guard post part of reinforcements start increasing at a lower AIP.
+
* Fixed a bug in recent versions that was causing a dramatically different distribution of guard post types. Notably, it was causing a ''ton'' more counterattack guard posts than normal.
** Before it was basically stuck to the floor until 270 AIP or so, which was fine in the older system but appears to have been dragging things down since the AI started not getting blade spawners and laser gatlings in the same proportions.
+
** Thanks to ussdefiant and others for reporting.
** Thanks to many players for pointing out how underwhelming reinforcements have been recently; this may or may not help much, we'll see.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.057 ==
+
* The Tachyon Guardian has been renamed to the Tachyon Sentinel
(Released August 9th, 2012)
+
** They also no longer show up under the count of "Guardians" but rather the count of "Sentinels". You can use the Custom Broad filter to just get one or the other, now.
  
* Zenith Reserves and Distribution Nodes no longer grant stuff to champion-only players, but instead to the first normal or normal+champion player in the game.
+
* Guardian seeding changes:
** Thanks to TyberZann for reporting that these were working for champions.
+
** Since guardians were made more, well, "interesting" a few things have come to light:
 +
*** Having Wormhole Guard Posts get them makes some map types a lot harder than others, due to highly variable numbers of wormholes.
 +
*** Having all planets start with their maximum number of guardians is both painful and somewhat diminishes the importance of the guardian each planet can get in a reinforcement (if it's below its cap).
 +
** We're:
 +
*** Making wormhole guard posts not get guardians during initial seeding or reinforcements.
 +
*** Making the initial seed of guardians only get a certain % of the actual max per planet:
 +
**** If Diff <= 7 then 25%, else if Diff <= 8 then 27.5%, else if Diff <= 9 then 30%, else if Diff <= 10 then 32.5%.
 +
**** If it's a homeworld, core world, or superterminal planet this is multipled by 3.
 +
**** If it's not one of the above, but does have an ARS, AdvFact, ASC, CSG, or Broken Golem, this is multiplied by 2.25.
 +
**** If it's not one of the above, but does have a Fabricator of some sort, this is multiplied by 1.5.
 +
**** So if a planet has 4 non-wormhole guard posts and a fab (but nothing more important), then on diff 7 it gets to seed at (4*0.25*1.5)=1.5 locations, which means the command station will get a guardian (it would be more on higher difficulties, but 1 on diff 7) and that's it.  But the next planet will start with that extra 0.5, so if it's the same exact situation it will wind up getting to seed at 2 locations (command station and first post) with nothing left over.
 +
*** Now when checking for adding a guardian during a reinforcement, it no longer skips the chance if the planet happens to be controlled by the other AI player than the one sending the reinforcement (if it does indeed do a spawn it will be based on the planet owner's difficulty and unlocked guardian types and controlled by the planet's owner, however).
 +
** Thanks to chemical_art, Hearteater, and others for inspiring these changes.
  
* Fixed a bug where auto-explore and auto-knowledge-gather ships would consider offroad/nebula "planets", which could lead to odd behavior and stalling out since they cannot enter those areas.
+
* Fixed a bug in recent versions where the Spire Corvette IV could not be built at an ASC unless you had an AdvFact too (and had unlocked the Corvette III, of course).
** Thanks to Draco Cretel for the report.
+
** Fixed a related bug where the MSD could only build mkIV stuff if you personally held an AdvFact, the foldouts given to other players were not sufficient for them, but are now.
 +
** Thanks to Shadowsand for the report.
  
* Champion ship, champion modules, and the NPC nebula combatant's have all had their base ranges doubled, but now being in a nebula acts as if there's always a radar jammer present (which halves effective ranges).
+
* The Advanced Hybrids "mobilization" mechanic has been disabled until we can find an implementation that is neither negligible (in its first implementation it garnered a highly-voted bug report for not doing anything at all, though it was actually working) nor overpowering (in its current implementation it was... ow).
** The result is that the in-nebula ranges are the same (as they are intentionally shorter than folks are used to since it's easier to make something tactically interesting with shorter ranges) but the champion and NPC ships aren't so nearsighted in the rest of the galaxy.
 
** Thanks to phoenix89 for the suggestion.
 
  
* Champion ship effective speed has been doubled and the NPC nebula combatant speed has been increased to maintain a smaller margin over the champion ship, but now being in a nebula acts as if there's always a speed-halver present.
+
* The golem build times have been adjusted so that all of them cost the same rate per second to build, and thus have different build times. This helps for instance with not having to grab every engineer in existence to build the Cursed Golem in a reasonable time because its costs are actually fairly low.
** The result is that the champion's in-nebula speed is the same and the NPC in-nebula speed is a little lower (as they are intentionally slower than folks are used to since it's easier to make something tactically interesting with slower speeds) but neither is so slow in the rest of the galaxy.
+
** Thanks to chemical_art for the suggestion.
** Thanks to Varone for the suggestion.
 
  
* The facility that spawns in the current nebula scenario when it is successfully completed now provides scout intel on the nebula.
+
* Tackle Drone Launcher cap health from 17,850,000*mk => 10M*mk.
** Thanks to Toll for the suggestion.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  
* Fixed a bug in the prior version where playing a normal+champion player with multiple homeworlds would cause you to start the game with multiple champion units.
+
* Enclave Guardian health from 8M*mk => 4M*mk.
** Thanks to phoenix89 for the report.
+
** Thanks to Kahuna, Hearteater, chemical_art, and others for inspiring this change
  
* Fixed bug with the new Normal+Champion role where viewing the modules of an existing non-champion modular ship (like a Riot or a Mod-Fort) would let you use the switch-to-ship button.  That button's only supposed to work for heroes, and caused odd things when used on other stuff.
+
* Changed the total-AIP thresholds at which the AI gains new bonus ship types from 100/200/300/etc to 100/250/400/550 (100 and +150 for every one after that, instead of just every 100).
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
 
  
* Fixed bug with the ship design screen where you could apply a design from a different ship type to your selected ship.  Result = Hilarity.
+
* Remains Rebuilders now lose their cloak briefly after a friendly command station dies on that planet.  This gives the AI a chance to prevent the human from trivially rebuilding everything from scratch out in the middle of nowhere.  Though if you have a tachyon-free path from one of your other planets to the one you just lost, it's still quite easy (just FRD-move the rebuilders to the lost planet) to get everything back on line once the AI forces are gone.
  
== Prerelease 5.056 ==
+
* Special Forces Guard Posts and Core Shield Generators are now never counted as Attack or Threat on the top bar, since players commonly leave them as-is and they're (relatively) innocuous.
(Released August 9th, 2012)
+
** Bear in mind that an SFGP is a valid SF rally point if the planet is (or suddenly becomes) neutral.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  
* Added "Normal+Champion" to the player role dropdown:
+
* Added a "i c u" cheat to temporarily tachyon the currently viewed planet.
** In this role you get both your normal starting units (home command station, etc) AND a champion.
 
*** Notably, this lets you put your champion ship in the same control group as other of your units (though if the champion ship dies it does get removed from control groups), and prevents confusion when using your science lab to unlock something from another player's interface, etc.
 
** It displays the champion UI (XP/hull/shields) while you have the champion ship selected, and the normal UI otherwise.
 
** Hopefully this will greatly simplify the process of starting a singleplayer game with a champion.  Several tooltips and messages have been amended to gently shepherd people trying to use a champion in this direction ;)
 
** The existing "Champion" role has been retained so you can still have champion-only players in MP and "extra" champions beyond the number of extra players.
 
*** Old saves started with Champion players will still be using this role.
 
** The "Reserved For Champion" slot state has been renamed to "Extra Champion" to emphasize that it is no longer the main way to add a champion to a singleplayer game.
 
** The "Open (Can Add Champion)" text has been changed back to "Open" everywhere since it was at least as confusing as it was helpful.
 
** Thanks to contingencyplan for the specific suggestion that inspired this, and to many players for pointing out the tons of problems of the "1 Normal Player + 1 Champion Player" approach being the way to use champions in singleplayer.
 
  
* Champion ships now have a build rate of zero, making it more explicit that they require a friendly engineer drone nearby.
+
* Added a "did i break your concentration" cheat to temporarily EMP the currently viewed planet (both friend and foe).
** Thanks to TyberZann for reporting what was happening when a champion somehow got its hands on m+c, and to TechSY730 for inspiring the specific fix.
 
  
* There's now also a line shown in the alert box if a champion has a module in its queue that it could mount (slot is not full) and it doesn't currently have support from an engineer drone.
+
=== AI Improvements ===
** Thanks to orzelek and others for helping us understand that it was really not clear why the champion modules were not building.
 
  
* Champion module upgrade clarification:
+
* The AI code itself has been largely unchanged for years and has served quite well.  But as various additions and changes have been made to the game some things have gotten a bit strange with the existing AI code, so as part of the major "base game" work for 7.0/Vengeance we've put a lot of work into renovating the AI code, digging in to find out exactly what's going on in there, fixing some longstanding bugs, improving the AI's response-time and actual decision-making.
** The "champion has unlock points to spend" alert now ends in the text "(click to spend)" (clicking it was already taking you to the unlock screen)
+
** Due to the sheer volume of changes, it's possible something really got messed up ;) We've done many hours of testing (both singleplayer and multiplayer, if you're curious) and the AI seems to be working fine.  Actually more dangerous than before, in some ways.  But if you run into bugs please let us know!
** On the ship-design/unlock screen for a champion, instead of displaying "LOCKED" modules that are "in reach" but not unlocked now display "NEED MORE UNLOCK POINTS" or "CLICK TO UNLOCK" depending on whether you have enough points to unlock them.
+
*** Though do keep in mind that some things that ''look'' like "units dancing back and forth" are actually just the AI making legitimate reactions to changes in the situation (new enemy ships entering the planet and/or leaving it, changing between moving towards a wormhole or its wait-point because the balance of power on the other side changed, etc), but making them more quickly than it used to.
** Thanks to Varone for pointing out how not-friendly-to-new-users the system was.
+
** Thanks to TechSY730, Faulty Logic, Cyborg, and many other players for inspiring these changes.
  
* Fixed a bug where the modular fortress could be researched without Ancient Shadows enabled.  It still couldn't be built, though.
+
* Replaced the "Firepower" metric (which was basically just BaseDPS, not considering other stats) with the "Strength" metric (which, while not perfect, has been used with success elsewhere and seems to be a much better measure for comparing groups of units to see which one is stronger; something that the game does rather a lot in AI logic, as well as some other placess).
** Thanks to Minotaar for uncovering our nefarious (albeit unintentional) marketing ploy.
+
** You're likely to see situations where the AI is undervaluing/overvaluing some things and making... "questionable" decisions about when to commit to an attack, etc.  Your reports (and save games) will be helpful in fixing these cases.
  
== Prerelease 5.055 ==
+
* Converted several AI checks that were based purely on ship count to determine force-levels to instead use the "Strength" metric.
(Released August 8th, 2012)
 
  
* Fixed a bug that caused unhandled exceptions when you had a saved modular fortress design and opened the SUP build tab.
+
* Drastically reduced the number of individual "GameCommand" messages generated by the AI thread by making it send similar orders as a single command.  So if 200 of one AI's ships on one planet all decide they want to attack a particular unit in the same "tactics cycle", that will be sent as one command instead of 200. This really cuts down on the round-trip time between when the AI makes a decision and when it hears back on the results.
** Note that it was never intended that the designs show up on the build tab as the ship cap for the forts is 1 and even if you have more than one (in a multi-HW game) you can fairly simply apply a template to them all right after placement using Ctrl+M or the context menu View-Ship-Modules option to Apply Design to Ship(s).
 
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
 
  
* Fixed a bug that could cause unhandled exceptions in some cases after a champion respawn due to it trying to place modules in slots that don't exist.
+
* Significantly improved the syncing of unit updates from the main thread to the AI thread to be more "fair" when choosing which updates to send when there are too many to send at once so that the AI doesn't have to wait as long (on average) for updates on a particular unit, without increasing the max updates per frame (just slamming more data across the queue isn't going to help, in general).
** Thanks to TyberZann for the report and save.
 
  
* Fixed a bug where the lobby was not clearing a specific champion-related flag when the user quit out of the lobby, potentially causing erroneous color conflicts on later attempts to start a game from the lobby.
+
* Fixed some race conditions where:
** Thanks to Kalias for the report.
+
** If:
 +
*** 1) The AI sends a command on a particular unit.
 +
*** 2) There are a ton of unit updates needing to be sent to the AI such that it takes many cycles for that particular unit's update to actually get through and processed by the AI thread.
 +
*** 3) The main thread's acknowledgement of the command gets back to the AI thread before that particular unit update gets there.
 +
*** 4) The AI thread gets back to another "tactics cycle" after that command acknowledgment but before that unit update.
 +
** Then the AI thread could look at the same unit, see what it saw before, and (due to other things being different, or simply some of the logic randomization) issue a second command to the same unit that's different and possibly contradictory of the first.
 +
*** In the case of "go to a different planet" orders this could easily produce the kinds of "dancing back and forth" behavior reported several times in the past.  It also wasn't particularly effective.
 +
** So now we've changed it to not try to give commands to a unit until it has received ''both'' the command acknowledgment and the unit update reflecting the last command given to that unit.
  
== Prerelease 5.054 ==
+
* Significantly reduced the processing load of the AI thread (mainly the "individual ship tactics" logic, which is most of what that thread does) so that it can react faster to changes in the game-state.
(Released August 8th, 2012)
 
  
* Further clarified the lobby situation by changing the "Host cannot start the game until at least one player selects the "Normal" role." message to "Host cannot start the game until at least one player selects the "Normal" role.  If you are trying to play a singleplayer game with a Champion player (a feature of the Ancient Shadows expansion) just keep player 1 as a "Normal" player and set the player 2 slot to "Reserved for Champion"You'll be able to control Player 2's units (the champion) just fine."
+
* Improved the AI's handling of "wait points", where it delays a ship's entrance into a wormhole in order to better concentrate forces against the humans.
 +
** Previously when asking "is it safe to move this threat to its next destination planet?" it would only consider the strength of the threat on that group's current planet (and anything actually on the target planet), but now it also considers any other threat (on other planets adjacent to the target) waiting to go through.
 +
** It now asks that question (is it safe, blah blah) even when moving on to other AI-held planetsUnless it's a special forces ship, which is just supposed to charge in if it's an AI planet.
 +
** If it decides a ship needs to wait, the ship now waits somewhere not directly on top of the wormhole leading to the target planet, because that position is far too vulnerable to tractor shenanigans and such.
 +
*** Thanks to a suggestion by LordSloth, if the Lazy AI toggle is on it will use the old sit-on-top-of-the-wormhole behavior.  Interesting correlation with the username...
  
* Amended the lobby logic so that the slot text only says "Open (Can Add Champion)" on the slot itself, and still "Open" on the expanded dropdown list.
+
* The "where should this threat ship go next?" logic has been significantly improved to consider both the difficulty of reaching a target planet and the desirability of doing so.
** Thanks to x40-wait, he works here, nevermind.
+
** Also, a threat ship enroute to a planet can now cancel that path if the target planet becomes no longer desirable (meaning that it has no human command station or human-controlled irreplaceable, i.e. something else got there first and took it down).  The ship can then pick a new destination.
  
* The lobby player slot state dropdowns (the ones that can be Open, Closed, or Reserved for Champion) now have tooltips to explain the setting under the mouse cursor.
+
* If a ship is in a part of the galaxy that the AI cannot reasonably easily gather forces from (meaning there's some nasty human chokepoint cutting it off from the AI homeworlds), the AI will no longer try to enlist that ship into the Threatfleet.  The "local threat" logic is better in those cases.
 +
** Note that ships already in threatfleet behavior (from previous saves, or before you cut it off from the AI HWs, etc) will stay that way.
  
* Fixed a bug where various champion-related player data was not getting cleared between games, leading to crashes and some cases (and inevitably desyncs in others).
+
* The individual-AI-ship-tactics logic no longer considers golems an "irreplaceable" target unless it has local superiority on the planet, so the presence of a golem won't override retreat behavior or general targeting priorities unless the AI has a decent chance (in theory) of actually taking it down.
** Thanks to Kalias for the report.
 
  
* The GalaxyWideSelectChampion keybind (which defaults to Ctrl+H) has been changed to also switch UIs to the player controlling the champion.
+
* The individual-AI-ship-tactics logic now considers harvesters, engineers, etc to be lower priority than enemy military vessels if the total enemy strength on the planet is over a certain absolute threshold, unless the AI has better than 10:1 superiority.  It will still shoot at those other targets if they're the best "targets of opportunity" in range at a particular moment, but it will no longer cause a huge fleet to voluntarily diminish its own concentration-of-power to go after harvesters when the player fleet is roaring down with blood in its eyes.
** Thanks to LaughingThesaurus for the suggestion.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.053 ==
+
* The individual-AI-ship-tactics logic now considers most forms of "drones" (enclave drones, spire blades, tackle drones, champion bay drones; but not deflector/attractor "drones" or ordinary younglings) to be lower priority than most other things regardless of the local balance of power.  It will still shoot at them if they're the best "targets of opportunity" in range at the particular moment, but it won't break off to chase something moving 50 times faster than it could ever dream of and/or is going to die in 5 seconds anyway.
(Released August 8th, 2012)
 
  
* Fixed a bug where several of the champion modules were having their close-zoom images loaded using the wrong path (backslashes instead of forward slashes, OSX no likey).
+
* Certain AI ships (like Carriers, H/K's, etc) now use a new "Bullheaded targeting" flag which makes them ''heavily'' prioritize going after military command stations, logistics command stations, modular forts, forts, heavy beam cannons, and other command stations (in basically that order).  This is a bit more heavy-handed than we typically are in the AI logic and we wouldn't want to do it for the bulk of the AI forces, but it seems this is more effective at dealing with the most serious threats on the battlefield than the previous logic (which could sometimes see a fully loaded carrier going after a single missile frigate while a Mod-Fort was field-refitting the entire AI fleet with supplementary exhaust ports, etc).
** Thanks to relmz32 for the report.
 
  
* Unoccupied human player slots in the lobby now say "Open (Can Add Champion)" instead of just "Open" when the Ancient Shadows expansion is enabled.
+
* Spire Civilian Leaders and Zenith Power Generators are now considered full "irreplaceables" when under human control.  Previously they were not given that level of priority in all areas and the AI would sometimes pass up an opportunity to kill them.
** Thanks to many players for expressing consternation at how the feature might be enabled (particularly in single-player).
 
  
== Prerelease 5.052 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/08/ai-war-ancient-shadows-betapreorders.html From The Shadows] ==
+
* Fixed a bug where the AI would consider an irreplaceable target "unshielded" if it was protected only by non-movement-blocking forcefields. Given the power of Spirecraft Shield Bearers (or even just normal Shield Bearers) that wasn't a safe assumption.
(Released August 8th, 2012)
 
  
* The graphics of planets 3, 8, 11, and 16 have been substantially improved so that they have better borders and look more convincing as planets.
+
* Fixed a bug (introduced back in the days when we tried to implement paint-attack, probably) where the AI sending a list of targets for a particular ship would actually result in it being set to go after the last ship in the list (because the commands were not being queued, but overriding each other).
** Thanks to doctorfrog for reporting the issues with them previously.
 
  
* Building modular ships with a template or using the ship-design window to apply a design (whether or not that design is a saved template or just ad-hoc) will now try a lot harder to put the modules in the specific assigned slots instead of just any slot that can hold the module at the time.
+
=== Cross Planet Attack Refinements ===
** This is basically just a cosmetic difference, but it's nice.
 
** Note that now you'll probably want to not manually add to a build queue of a modular ship that's received its current build queue from a template (just built) or the ship design window (the Apply button); later we may make it physically impossible to do so, we'll see.  Basically the interaction would be very difficult to define.
 
** Thanks to chemical_art and others for periodically reminding us that it didn't really try to do this before.
 
  
* Removed the "Reserved" option that was recently for player-slot-state in the lobby. It doesn't really work well in conjunction with either of the available roles (helper because a reserved helper does nothing, normal because you can't pick their homeworlds).
+
* CPA changes:
 +
** Now when a CPA is launched:
 +
*** If all these conditions are true:
 +
**** Difficulty is 8 or higher.
 +
**** Elapsed game time is 5 hours or more.
 +
**** A broken-golems-hard, botnet-golem-hard, and/or spirecraft-hard exo (notably, not FS exos) is charged to at least 60%.
 +
**** The CPA's actual number of freed ships is over a certain minimum threshold (in general, on diff 8+ it will be).
 +
*** Then those exo(s) will launch within 90 seconds after the CPA does.
 +
**** Please note that the strength of these exos will be whatever it was built up to, NOT necessarily 100% (unless it just happened to be 100% at the right moment).
 +
** CPAs now deploy all their units via carrier, to help its initial push have a similar velocity across the map and to cut down on the significant slowdown that often happens right after a CPA launch where the AI is shoving thousands of threat ships into carriers.
 +
*** Also, to avoid cases where CPA ships were being put into a carrier containing only two ships or something silly like that, if a planet doesn't have enough ships to justify a carrier of its own those are "rolled over" on to the next planet that's launching CPA ships, and it will keep doing this until it has enough for an at least decently-sized carrier load.
 +
** CPA units no longer start as Threatfleet, just normal Threat.  With the AI improvements listed above Threat is actually more immediately dangerous in some ways, where Threatfleet is still probably better at dealing with situations where the game-state at that particular moment just doesn't have a good way to hit the player.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring these changes.
  
* The blue "shield health" bar that shows on ships with module-generated forcefields now has more internal contrast and is easier to read.
+
* This has an impact outside CPAs, but probably impacts them most: Carriers now automatically deploy some (but not necessarily all) of their units when they reach an area where the human has some presence.
 +
** The number deployed is based on an internal idea of the minimum number of AI ships the carriers should try to keep "in the air" on that planet at once.  This ranges from 250 when the human presence is fairly trivial compared to AI strength there, up to 2000 when the AI thinks human forces pose a significant danger to the carrier fleet.
 +
** When a carrier deploys units in this particular way, it is forced to simply deploy the ships that are actually inside; no combining into higher-marks or core guardians or whatever.
 +
** Note: despite the fact that the AI's not getting any extra ships out of this, or stronger ships or whatever, this actually ''substantially'' increases the danger posed by carriers in many cases.  It also makes them less annoying to fight because as long as you kill everything they deploy they'll eventually fully deploy (and thus disappear) even if you leave the auto-target carriers toggle off.
 +
** Thanks to Cinth, Eternaly_Lost, and others for inspiring this change.
  
* Changed it so that planets are no longer hue-shifted.  This was causing artifacts on some client computers, and the added variety provided by the hue shifts was not substantial enough to be worth the planets looking markedly bad on some machines.
+
=== New Debug/Logging Commands ===
** Thanks to martyn_van_buren and Draco18s for reporting.
 
  
=== ---------------------------- First Beta Of Ancient Shadows Expansion ---------------------------- ===
+
* In the course of the AI renovations mentioned above we had to improve our tools for telling exactly what was going on inside "the black box" and we figured that some of you are curious (or strange) enough to want to see this info too.  More importantly, the ability to gather this info yourself will help in case of strange AI bugs that don't reproduce after save/load, because you can record the logic as it happens and send us the logs so we don't have to rely entirely on being able to reproduce the bug itself (which sometimes just isn't possible or feasible).  So these new debug commands are available for any player to use.
 +
** Note 1: naturally, this information can be exploited to find stuff out about your game-in-progress that will give you an advantage.  Up to you if you want to do that, but consider this your "spoiler warning".
 +
** Note 2: Unlike Advanced Logging, which generally does not have a big impact on performance, these forms of logging can cause signficant slowdown on the AI thread.  It will generally still be faster than it was before (though unit-ai-logging something with 4000 potential targets could get hairy) but it will degrade the AI's response time and thus degrade its effectiveness to some extent.  There's probably at least one of you who will exploit that.
 +
** Note 3: Much of the info is human-readable, particularly if you're used to code variable naming conventions, but some of it can be a bit... dense ;)
  
* You can get the Ancient Shadows expansion installer [http://www.arcengames.com/w/index.php/aiwar-downloads here].
+
* Added a debug chat command: "cmd:log ai wait"
 +
** If used in MP this only affects the host, since only the host runs the AI thread.
 +
** If you're in planet view when you give the command, this tells the AI thread to generate a "LogicLog_AICheckForClearingWaitPointsAgainstSpecifiedPlanet_AIThread.txt" log file in your RuntimeData directory whenever evaluating whether to clear wait points (i.e. charge!) against that planet.
 +
** If you're in galaxy view when you give the command, this tells the AI thread to stop said logging.
  
* Added new player role: Champion.
+
* Added a debug chat command: "cmd:log ai threat choice"
** You can set a populated player slot (one with a connected player in it) to this using the role select dropdown.
+
** If used in MP this only affects the host, since only the host runs the AI thread.
** You can also just mark a slot as "Reserved For Champion" using the slot-state select dropdown (previously just said Open or Closed) and that champion can be controlled by any human player.
+
** Toggles a debug flag which defaults to false, but when true writes entries to "LogicLog_AIChoosingThreatAttackTarget_AIThread.txt" whenever the AI is trying to pick a new planet-to-attack for normal threat.
*** Notably, this is the easiest way to add a champion when starting a new singleplayer game.  Note that there always has to be at least one human player with the "Normal" role for a game to be started.  Various changes have been made over the previous months to make controlling both a "normal" player and a "champion" player (in either SP or MP) easy.
 
** What?  Oh, what ARE Champions?  Ah, right.  A champion player starts with only one unit: a modular super-starship.
 
*** The champion gains XP when in the vicinity (20,000 range) of certain kinds of units when they die.  This includes AI guard posts and command stations, but that's not the main source of XP.
 
**** To see how much XP you have, switch to the champion player's UI.
 
*** When the champion gets enough XP to level up they get an unlock point.  Unlock points can be spent to get more powerful modules on the ship design screen.
 
*** If the champion dies it respawns (for free) at a human home command station.  It will need engineer assistance to rebuild its modules, but that's a quick process.
 
*** The presence of a champion player increases AI response in most of the same ways that another normal player would, but not to the same degree.  Balance is ongoing.
 
*** Champions are the only units that can fly through special wormholes (colored blue, and act much like normal ones do when "Show Unexplored Planets" is off, unless FOW is set to complete visibility) to the new nebula "planets".
 
*** In those nebulae the champions will encounter splinter factions of the 4 races (right now there's just 2 splinter factions, both human) and be able to help potential allies.  Journal entries will provide details when you enter a nebula.
 
*** The enemies you encounter in nebulae will all (generally) give XP.
 
*** Completing a nebula's objectives successfully (permanent failure is possible) rewards some or all of the following:
 
**** Bonus XP to all champion players in the game.
 
**** Bonus Knowledge to to all normal human players in the game.
 
**** New lines of equipment modules (which you can then upgrade with unlock points).
 
**** New champion hulls (each champion player can only control one at a time, but you can switch and you'll respawn as the new one), both of larger sizes and of different racial tech-bases (human is all that's implemented right now).
 
**** Ongoing assistance from the splinter faction you just helped, if applicable.
 
  
* Added some new keybinds to help playing both a normal player and a champion player in the same game:
+
* Added a debug chat command: "cmd:log ai for unit,(ObjectNumber)" (so an example usage is: "cmd:log ai for unit,4270993", without the quotes)
** Galaxy-Wide Select Champion.
+
** If used in MP this only affects the host, since only the host runs the AI thread.
*** Defaults to Ctrl+H.
+
** Sets a debug variable to the object number specified.
*** Selects and centers your view on a Champion unit you can control (owned by you or by a team member who is allowing team control of units).  If you already have one selected (with nothing else selected) it tries to cycle through other such units.
+
*** If this number does not correspond to an actual unit (for instance, -1, which is the default value) then this effectively disables this bit of logging.
** View Ship Modules (this already existed in the context menu, but this keybind works outside that)
+
*** Probably the easiest way to get the number of a particular unit:
*** Defaults to Ctrl+M.
+
**** Pause.
*** Opens the Ship Design tab of the Controls window so you can see and modify the current module configuration of this ship.
+
**** Zoom in far enough to be sure you're looking at just that unit and not a group of them.
*** If you have multiple distinct designable ship types chosen, this option is not available, but it does work for groups of the same designable type.
+
**** Press F3 to turn on the game's normal debug-output mode.
*** If the ship is controlled by a different player (as in the case of a champion unit, often) than the UI you're looking at, it switches your UI to that player.
+
**** Hover your mouse cursor over the ship.
** Switch Back To Local Player UI.
+
**** The tooltip's first number is the FGObjectNumber ("Foreground Object Number"), and that's what you use as the parameter to this command.
*** Defaults to Ctrl+L.
+
** Anyway, when this is set, when the AI is considering that particular unit or giving it any commands it will generate entries in "LogicLog_AILogicForIndividualShip_AIThread.txt".
*** If you've switched to the UI of another player (through the switch-to-UI buttons in the Stats window or by viewing the modules of another player's ship) this keybind will switch you back to the UI of the player slot in which you actually connected to the game.
+
*** Note: this log can be pretty voluminous, particularly if the unit is a military ship with a lot of targets to pick from because it records all the decision-making on what targets are eligible and the sorting between them (thankfully that does not actually involve comparing every ship to every other ship, but it could involve up to 5 comparison-lines for every single enemy ship, every time it runs the individual-ship-logic).
  
* Added new researchable unit to the normal command-station/mobile-builder build menu: Modular Fortress.
+
* Added a debug chat command: "cmd:log ai commands"
** Ship Cap of 1 (normal fort has cap of 5).
+
** If used in MP this only affects the host, since only the host runs the AI thread.
** 5x as much health as a MkI fort.
+
** Toggles a debug flag which defaults to false, but when true writes entries to "LogicLog_AIIssuedCommands_AIThread.txt" whenever the AI generates commands for the main thread.
** Has 8 light module slots that can hold Needler, Laser, MLRS, and Missile modules.
+
** Note: the info in this is often not really human-understandable because the GameCommand objects are in a fairly generic form at the time the log is generatedMainly you'll see the name of the command type and a bunch of numbers following it which usually indicate which ship(s) the command is to and what ship(s) or planet(s) the command concerns (ships to attack, planets to travel through, etc).
*** Each of those has mkI, mkII, and mkIII variants.  The first is already available and the second two are unlocked by corresponding turret research (Needler = Basic).
 
** Has 4 heavy module slots that can hold Shield and Heavy Beam modules.
 
*** Each of those has mkI, mkII, and mkIII variantsThe first shield is already available, and the second two (and all the heavy beam ones) are unlocked by corresponding forcefield (non-hardened) and turret research.
 
** Right now it's balanced so that having mkII modules in all the light slots and mkII HB modules in all the heavy slots gives a total dps (including the modular fort hull itself) in the overall ballpark as a cap of MkI forts.  With mkIII modules it's even higher.  It's pretty beastly, all told.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.051 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/07/ai-war-beta-5051-optical-repair-released.html Optical Repair] ==
+
* Added a debug chat command: "cmd:log ai cpu time"
(Released July 30th, 2012)
+
** If used in MP this only affects the host, since only the host runs the AI thread.
 +
** Toggles a debug flag which defaults to false, but when true writes entries to "LogicLog_AIProfiling_AIThread.txt" at the end of each AI "overall cycle" (which includes three executions of individual-ship-tactics, three executions of ship-waiting-logic, and one execution each of several more minor routines, as well as a number of half-second waits, etc).
 +
*** Each line includes the sample name, the total milliseconds recorded against that sample during the overall cycle, the number of times the sample was hit during the overall cycle, and the average milliseconds per hit (just the first number divided by the second).
 +
** Note: at the end of the cycle it actually writes the results twice: once in rough "chronological order" of when the samples were started/stopped, and once in descending order of how much time the samples took.  Subsamples are always grouped under their parent samples in both cases.
  
* When human ships are told to go through a wormhole and they aren't able to because of a black hole machine, it will now tell the owner in a chat line that this happened (the chat window isn't visible on the galaxy map, but it's a step in the right direction).
+
== Prerelease 6.027 ==
 +
(Released May 6th, 2013)
  
* Fixed a bug in recent versions where mk3 nukes wouldn't actually destroy anything (aside from you, via +5000 AIP).
+
* Hid some for-next-expansion AI Types that were peeking out.
** Thanks to Kalias for the report and save.
 
  
* Fixed several issues where units with "infinite engine health" were not being handled consistently.
+
* The nebula starships and non-human modular forts that can be built as champion rewards now scale up with the number of champions in the game if that's more than the number of human homeworlds.
** For example, a neinzul enclave starship had an internal engine health value high enough to be listed as "infinite" but not high enough to actually refuse to set engine damage to a value > 0.  This could lead to protracted (and expensive, in previous versions) periods of trying to repair engine damage.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic, Cinth, and others for inspiring this change.
** Thanks to bongotron2000 and Minotaar for the reports and saves leading to this discovery.
 
  
* Removed the sprite pooling, including the sprite pooling option in the settings menu, and greatly improved both RAM use and CPU load with this and related underlying functions.
+
== Prerelease 6.026 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/05/ai-war-beta-6026-guard-before-storm.html The Guard Before The Storm] ==
 +
(Released May 6th, 2013)
  
* In particular, improved the batching of things like destination lines, ship-to-ship beams, and so forth.  These should now perform better than they did before we even started the backporting (which then caused a performance hit on these operations).
+
* Fixed a bug where an ARS would still give mkII for free when hacked.
 +
** Thanks to kasnavada for the report.
  
* Improved the various lines in the game for repair and such things so that they no longer seem to blip around like they were in the recent few versions.
+
* Fixed a bug in recent versions that caused most AI guard posts to seed 1 mark higher than the planet they were on.
** Thanks to TechSY730 for suggesting.
+
** This does not retroactively apply to games created during those versions, since the bug was in mapgen itself.
 +
** Thanks to LordSloth for the report.
  
* Previously, some planets were not attractive when hue-shifted to certain values.
+
* Hero and Modular Fort Photon Lances now have reload times of 1 second (so 3 seconds total cycle time with the beam duration).
** The images for 14 and 31 have been adjusted so that they now will be.
 
** Numbers 1, 4, 5, 7, 13, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 48, and 49 are now barred from doing hue shifts at all.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for starting the complaining about this. ;)
 
  
* Fixed a bug in the last few versions where if you had a textbox selected, then clicking a button would not register properly the first time (it would just deselect the textbox and not click the button). Now it clicks the button without deselecting the textbox.
+
* Fixed a bug where the Ship Design window would not show the Spire Corvette IV or Spire Corvette V even if you could build them (due to holding the ASC or the Core Spire Corvette Fab).
 +
** Thanks to resonence for the report.
  
* We _think_ the issue with the explosions not appearing properly the first time they are shown in a new run of the game has been resolved, but if you see that or any other explosion-related bugs again, please let us know.
+
* Fixed a bug where if you were playing FS where your only neighboring AI planets are mkIV (causing the first two recoverables to spawn on your HW) and you started building either the subspace receiver or the refugee outpost before the actual very first second of the recoverable's existence (due to the auto-pause upon scanning, probably), the next signal would not spawn.
 +
** Thanks to Vyndicu for the report and save.
  
=== Repair Rebalancing/Retweaking ===
+
* Fixed a bug where coordinated AI ships (exo followers and hybrid escorts) could get "stuck" moving very slowly if too far from their leader but still on the same planet as their leader.
 +
** Thanks to TechSY730 and Hearteater for the reports and saves.
  
* Repairing engines now does not cost m+c (if health is also being repaired at the same time that costs m+c).
+
* Fixed a bug where some AI units that should wait with a threatball were not actually waiting and just cruising through the wormhole to an ignominious demise.
** Thanks to Minotaar for inspiring this change.
+
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report and save.
  
* Repair cost in general is now based off half the construction cost instead of the full construction cost.
+
* Since the AI's not used them effectively (or consistently, or really anything-positively) for quite some time, the AI no longer gets Engineer Drone or related units.
** Thanks to sarudak, TechSY730, Kahuna, and MaxAstro for inspiring this change.
+
** Thanks to TechSY730 for inspiring this change.
  
* MkI Engineer repair multiplier from 6 => 2; this isn't because it needs a nerf but because with the repair fix people need time to adjust to how much stuff costs to repair when the math isn't bugged and it's easier to do that when the repair happens over more than a couple seconds.  If this is a problem an alternate approach can be found, but our understanding is that repair _time_ (as opposed to repair cost) hasn't really been a problem for folks, but vanishing economies have been.
+
* Fixed a bug where some units like Nanoswarms could get "stuck" at "just exiting a wormhole" speed even after fading fully in, until their next full recalculation.
** MkII Engineer still has a multiplier of 9 and MkIII still has a multiplier of 12, the idea being that if you're unlocking those you specifically want them to do things quickly.
+
** Thanks to Hearteater for the report and save.
** Thanks to Diazo for inspiring this change.
 
  
* Golem construction costs adjusted due to the recent fix in repair cost computation (bear in mind that golems are never built, only repaired, so these numbers only impact the cost of repairing one, which jumped about 6 fold due to that fix) :
+
* The order of turrets on the build and tech menus has been rearranged to keep all the combat turrets together and to put the "core 4" types (needler, laser, mlrs, missile) first.
** Armored golem from 30M+30M m+c => 10M+10M.
+
** Thanks to Bognor for inspiring this change.
*** Combined with the halving of base repair costs in this release, this means that the armored golem now costs the same to repair as it used to take with engie 1s since those used to have a 6x repair multiplier.  The difference is now it doesn't matter if you use MRS's or EngieIIIs except in terms of how fast it happens.
 
** Artilery golem from 10M+10M => 8M+8M (lots of feedback that these are OP lately).
 
** Black Widow golem from 25M+25M => 10M+10M (ditto).
 
** Regenerator golem from 60M+60M => 20M+20M (note that the regenerator's post-reactivation repair cost is 10% of what it would normally be, due to an earlier change).
 
** Cursed golem from 10M+10M => 3M+3M (a slight buff, but these aren't all that popular in general).
 
** Hive golem from 20M+20M => 7M+7M (a slight nerf, but these are quite strong).
 
** Botnet golem from 40M+40M => 20M+20M (in keeping with last version's changes, trying to make the cost of these more closely equal the benefit; let us know if this is still off)
 
** Thanks to sarudak for bringing the unintentend consequence to our attention and TechSY730, zharmad, Kahuna, Cinth, MaxAstro, Hearteater, Diazo, Draco18s, Eternaly_Lost, and Minotaar for further feedback.
 
  
=== AI Eye Rework, Round 1 ===
+
* Enclave Starships:
 +
** Higher-mark drones no longer require turret research.
 +
** Drone spawning counts doubled.
 +
** Drone health from 2000*mk => 40k*mk (so about half a fighter, now).
 +
** Drone DPS increased by 50%.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic and others for inspiring these changes.
  
* The AI Eye won our first "Aim the nerfbat (AI-side)" poll by a landslide, but it's taken a bit to figure out how exactly to best handle that request. Thanks to many players for weighing in on that.  Below are the first additions of new eye types to make them less monotonous.  More changes/variants will follow but the other changes above warranted a release before the rest of this was done.
+
* Advanced Factory and ASC health from 440k => 4M.
 +
* Fab health from 1M => 4M.
  
* The Sentry/Ion Eye alert text now says how many human ships over the triggering threshold the planet was when that particular pulse triggered.
+
* The AI now unlocks new bonus types at every 100 total AIP instead of every 200 total AIP, and the unlocks are rolled separately for each of the two AI types instead of for the AI team as a whole.
  
* Renamed the AI Eye to the Sentry Eye.
+
=== Making Guardians More Interesting/Varied ===
** Thanks to Hearteater for the specific suggestion, and many players for voicing frustation trying to pronounce the unit name (though often "Aieeeee!" was a perfectly appropriate pronunciation).
 
  
* Added new type of AI Eye: the Ion Eye.
+
* A lot of this is prep work for the expansion where we're planning to add more guardian types and to have the AI not have every guardian type in every game.
** Has same trigger conditions.
+
** Thanks to Radiant Phoenix, Hearteater, Wingflier, TechSY730, Lancefighter, chemical_art, Histidine, and LordSloth for inspiring these changes.
** When seeding an eye, the game has an equal chance of seeding each type of eye, and only one eye is seeded per planet that's supposed to get one.
+
** Special thanks to Hearteater for a lot of the numeric work that went into this.
** But when triggered, instead of spawning ships it powers on (it's in stand-down except when actively triggered) and starts firing.  You don't want that to happen.  It has the firepower of four MkV Ion Cannons.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater for the suggestion.
 
  
* Added new type of AI Eye: the Parasite Eye.
+
* Each AI player now no longer has all guardian types available to it, but instead has tachyon guardians (which are basically unchanged from before) plus 3 of the other guardian types chosen at randomAt 50 total AIP and every 100 AIP thereafter (so 50/150/250/etc) it will unlock an additional guardian type, similar to how it unlocks additional bonus ship types for the AI.
** Has same trigger conditions. 
 
** Instead of spawning ships it powers on (it's in stand-down except when actively triggered) and starts firingYou really don't want that to happen.  Multiple hyper-powerful railcannons that reclaim what they hit.
 
*** Standard "what can be reclaimed" rules apply.
 
*** Has the extra flag to prevent it from firing on non-reclaimable targets thanks to a test where multiple starships were dying every two seconds.
 
*** Note that this has a kill rate about 1/2 that of the Ion Eye, so the overall rate of "evening the field" should be similar.
 
*** In case you're curious, the results are not zombies and can be re-reclaimed if you're so inclined.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater for the suggestion.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.050 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/07/ai-war-beta-5050-botnet-escape-released.html Botnet Escape] ==
+
* For-planet-guarding Guardians are now seeded one mark lower than the planet they're seeding on, but their stats have been adjusted upward to maintain the same general level of power in these cases, and the AI-core and AI-HW planets still get mkV guardians.  This allows a greater range of power between "guardians you run into on low-mark planets" and "guardians you run into in the endgame".
(Released July 26th, 2012)
+
** Note especially that this means that a guardian's DPS or health being doubled in the stats below indicates "staying the same" for most of the guardians you encounter in new games generated from this version onward.
 +
** They've also all been shifted up one level in exo-budget-cost, so their increase in individual stats won't as drastically increase their utility to the AI in exos.
  
* The Zenith Starship and Spire Starship (previously mkIII and mkIV of the "flagship" line), in honor of tying for second in our seventh "worst unit" poll, have each been made into a separate line of combat-focused starships and made distinct from their previous role and each other.
+
* The blanket Guardian immunity to fusion cutters has been removed.
** Both lines have 3 marks.
 
** Neither has munitions boosting (the main feature of the flagship line).
 
** The Zenith Starships are now basically brawlers with quite a bit of health and mount 25 short/medium-range missile launchers each.
 
** The Spire Starships now mount a single photon lance (the continuous beam weapon used by the Fallen Spire capital ships, etc, but much weaker in this instance) and are a bit longer ranged than the Zenith Starships and a bit less durable.
 
** Also adjusted the remaining "flagship" line to fit the new structure:
 
*** The Light Starship has been renamed Flagship.
 
*** The former Flagship has become Flagship MkII.
 
*** A new Flagship MkIII has been added.
 
** Thanks to many players for feedback on what these had become (not so interesting) over the past months and for participating in the poll.
 
  
* As an honorable mention from the seventh worst-unit poll, the Golemite-AI-type golems (as distinct from human golems and exo golems), except for the Golemite-Botnet, have had their health increased from 0.1 times the normal version of that golem => 0.5 times that normal value.
+
* The blanket MkV Guardian immunities to orbital mass drivers, artillery ammo, and sniper shots have been removed.
** Specifically, this means the Golemite-Armored, Golemite-Artillery, Golemite-Widow, and Golemite-Regenerator golems.  There are no golemite versions of the other types (except the botnet, which was purposefully skipped in this instance; Botnets are terrors upon the galaxy).
 
** Thanks to the players for participating in the poll.
 
  
* The exos from BrokenGolemsHard and SpirecraftHard are now more aggressive:
+
* Artillery Guardian:
** The threshold for the first exo of each has been doubled, which means (all else being equal) it would take twice as long to happen and be twice as powerful.
+
** Health from 400k*mk => 1M*mk.
** The accumulation (which is AIP-based, unlike Fallen Spire exos) now acts as if effective AIP is always at least 50 + (game_second/360).  In other words, the minimum starts at 50 and goes up by 10 each hour (1 every six minutes).
+
** Armor from 200*mk => 0.
*** This minimum stops going up at 250 (20 hours). (thanks to TechSY730 for suggesting that)
+
** Damage per shot from 160k*mk => 482k*mk.
** Thanks to Faulty Logic, Kahuna, rabican, and others for playtesting examples where even on high difficulties these exos were fairly underwhelming, at least early on.
+
** Armor piercing from 320k*mk => 0.
  
* Since the Botnet Golem won (by a landslide) our first "aim the nerf bat" poll, a plan was set in motion.  The Botnet, however, saw it coming.  Pulling a koolaid-man, it busted out of its former niche into a whole new minor faction, to wit: Botnet Golem.
+
* Beam Guardian:
** This is basically like the Broken Golems faction except:
+
** Health from 800k*mk => 2M*mk.
*** It only seeds the Broken Botnet, and it only seeds one of them (Broken Golems no longer seeds any botnets, needless to say).
+
** Armor from 300*mk => 0.
**** It tries to seed on a planet 4 or 5 hops from the human homeworld(s); if it can't it tries 3, 2, and then 1.  This is a far more controlled distance than normal golems (which is just 3+ from human homeworlds) because it's best that the challenge of having this faction on not vary so widely as a simple 3+ distance seeding would.
+
** Damage per shot from 33k*mk => 38k*mk.
*** The botnet's energy cost on Moderate went from 400k => 800k.
 
*** The broken-botnet's AIP-on-metamorphsis on Moderate went from 40 => 100.
 
*** The exo response on Hard is the same as Broken Golems, but it's separate from that so you're really getting all that pain just for the one unit.
 
** Also increased the Botnet's health from 36M to 100M (still 1/5th of an Armored Golem) to make it less likely you'll lose the sole advantage granted by this faction to a silly mistake.
 
*** Note: the golemite AI's version of the Botnet's health is still what it was.
 
** We're still very open to further balance changes; the main thing this move enabled was balancing the botnet separately from the other golems: we could have brought it down to the level of the other ones, but where's the fun in that?
 
*** Note: none of this affects the old saves except the change in base energy from 40k to 80k (and potentially the Moderate numbers for the Botnet will automatically go up, not sure).
 
** Thanks to Faulty Logic, Kahuna, and others for showing how overpowered the Botnet was.  Thanks to Cyborg, chemical_art, and others for showing how this was awesome.  And thanks to the poll participants, of course.
 
  
* Fixed a longstanding bug where repairing units with a repair boost (which is most of the ones that can repair) were repairing units faster but still "spending" metal and crystal at the rate they would have if they had no repair boost. The cost difference between repairing with an MRS and with an EngieIII was pretty big. No longer.
+
* Carrier Guardian:
** If this causes economic hardship, let us know ;)
+
** No longer allows AI ships to take refuge in it, but instead generates drones internally up to a load of 100, to be unleashed upon the unsuspecting human forces.
** Thanks to Spikey00 for the report leading to this discovery.
+
** Renamed the Enclave Guardian.
 +
** Ammo type from Dark Matter => Energy Burst.
 +
** Armor from 300*mk => 10k flat.
 +
** Damage per shot from 600*mk => 4.5k*mk.
 +
** Shots per salvo from 31 => 12.
 +
** Seconds per salvo from 10 => 4.
 +
** Bonuses from 3 vs Heavy => 5 vs CloseCombat, Refractive, and UltraLight.
  
* Fixed a bug in the new lobby-setup-script grammar where the AddAIModifier, RemoveAIModifier, AddOptionalShipCategory, and RemoveOptionalShipCategory commands were not being recognized.
+
* EMP Guardian:
** Thanks to Kahuna for the report.
+
** Health from 1.12M*mk => 2M*mk
 +
** Armor from 300*mk => 0.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 0 => 10k.
 +
** Shots per salvo from 31 => 24.
 +
** Seconds per salvo from 10 => 6.
 +
** Damage per shot from 600*mk => 6k*mk.
 +
** Now EMPs a planet both on entrance and exit, instead of just entrance.
  
* The Cryogenic Pods and Human Home Settlements that start next to each human home command station are now immune to the splash effect from being under a forcefield net hit by a plasma-siege shot. Previously it was possible to be in an early-game situation where it was nearly impossible to keep them from being destroyed by Plasma Siege Starships coming in with waves on a wormhole within firing range of the home command station.
+
* Flak Guardian:
** Thanks to Hearteater, Wanderer, and others for inspiring this change.
+
** Health from 1.12M*mk => 2M*mk
 +
** Armor from 100*mk => 1k*mk.
 +
** Get immunity to fusion cutters (other guardians are losing it).
 +
** Seconds per salvo from 10 => 6.
 +
** Shots per salvo from 5 => 8.
 +
** Damage per shot from 5.5k*mk => 6.6k*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Composite replaced by Bonus vs Polycrystal (other bonuses left as is).
  
* The Human Home Command Station now costs 1% as much to repair as it used to, so the repair cost falls below the default threshold where engineers won't auto-assist something because it's expensive.
+
* Gravity Guardian:
** Thanks to Spikey00, TechSY730, doctorfrog, and topper for inspiring this change.
+
** Health from 800k*mk => 1M*mk.
 +
** Armor from 300*mk => 0.
 +
** Damage per shot from 40k*mk => 175k*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs Heavy replaced by Bonus vs UltraLight (other bonuses left as is).
  
* The Player Home Forcefield Generator, in honor of tying for second in the seventh "worst unit" poll (seriously, it's a freebie unit, but if it floats your boat...) :
+
* Laser Guardian:
** Now projects a grav well of 6600 radius (3 times its forcefield radius, 1600 more than the MkI Grav turret's radius) that allows a max speed of 8 (same as the MkI Grav turret).
+
** Health from 880k*mk => 1.5M*mk.
** Now projects tachyon coverage of 6600 radius (3 times its forcefield radius, 600 more than a MkIII Scout Starship).
+
** Armor from 300*mk => 1k flat.
** Thanks Hearteater and Diazo for the suggestion, and to the poll participants for the feedback.
+
** Armor Piercing from 300*mk => 1k flat.
 +
** Damage per shot from 3.4k*mk => 10k*mk.
 +
** Instead of 5x vs Polycyrstal, Light, and Refractive it now gets 5x vs Polycrystal, Artillery, and Medium.
  
* Previously any youngling type used in a wave would have its quantity doubled to compensate for the short lifetime. That made sense at the time but younglings have received many buffs (particularly the tiger, which is much like a bomber) since then. So the multiplier has been changed from 2 => 1.5.
+
* Lightning Guardian:
** Further balance feedback, in either direction, is quite welcome.
+
** Health from 1.12M*mk => 2.5M*mk.
** Thanks to Wanderer for reporting an... unfortunate incident involving 4 digits worth of youngling tigers.
+
** Armor from 600*mk => 1k flat.
 +
** Seconds per salvo from 18 => 10.
 +
** Damage per shot from 6k*mk => 3.7k*mk.
  
* Spire Shield Guard Posts (the normal ones, not the Core ones), in honor of tying for second in our first "Aim The Nerfbat (AI-Side)" poll, have had their health changed from 56M*mk => 28M*mk.
+
* Raider Guardian:
** Galactic Sandpaper Incorporated has already filed for bankruptcy.
+
** Health from 400k*mk => 2M*mk.
** Thanks to the poll participants for the feedback.
+
** Armor from 375*mk => 1k flat.
 +
** Damage per shot from 11k*mk => 32k*mk.
 +
** Bonus vs UltraHeavy replaced by Bonus vs Turret (other bonuses left as is).
  
* Spire Stealth Battleship, in honor of tying for second in our first "Aim The Nerfbat (AI-Side)" poll:
+
* Self-Destruct Guardian:
** Radar Dampening from 8000 => 10000.
+
** Health from 20k*mk => 750k*mk.
** Base Move Speed from 18 => 16. (for reference, a fighter's is 28, this is before a variety of other calculation steps)
+
** Armor from 0 => 10k.
** Thanks to the poll participants for the feedback, and to TechSY730, Cyborg, and barryvm for specific suggestions in this direction.
+
** Damage from 100k*mk => 75k*mk.
 +
** Armor piercing from MAX => 0.
 +
** Added bonuses vs Light and Polycrystal.
  
== Prerelease 5.049 ==
+
* Sniper Guardian:
(Released July 25th, 2012)
+
** Health from 400k*mk => 1M*mk.
 +
** Armor from 150*mk => 0.
 +
** Seconds per salvo from 6 => 8.
 +
** Shots per salvo from 5 => 4.
 +
** Damage per shot from 19k*mk => 64*mk.
 +
** Bonuses from 4x vs Medium and Polycrystal => 4x vs Medum, Refractive, Ultra-Light, Composite.
  
* Fixed a bug from 2 versions ago where it would starting a new game could try to seed a spire archive on an invalid planet and crash the start-game process.
+
* Special Forces Rally Guardian:
** Thanks to death2cupbots for the report leading to this discovery.
+
** Health from 800k*mk => 2M*mk.
 +
** Seconds per salvo from 10 => 5.
 +
** Shots per salvo from 1 => 5.
 +
** Damage per shot from 10k*mk => 50k*mk.
 +
** Gained 5x bonus vs Turret.
 +
** Any planet one of these is on is considered a valid target for the AI's Special Forces, even if it is a neutral or human planet.
  
== Prerelease 5.048 ==
+
* Spider Guardian:
(Released July 24th, 2012)
+
** Base speed from 12 => 60.
 +
** Health from 400k*mk => 1.5M*mk.
 +
** Armor from 150*mk => 1k flat.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 0 => 1k.
 +
** Removed auto-kite behavior.
 +
** Now has infinite engine health.
 +
** Range from Infinite => 15k.
 +
** Ammo from Railgun => Shotgun.
 +
** Seconds per salvo from 6 => 4.
 +
** Damage per shot from 3k*mk => 4k*mk.
 +
** Bonuses from 4 vs Medium and Polycrystal => 5 vs Artillery.
  
* Removed the "periodically clear the sprite pool" optimization from the last version as it was causing something very like a memory leak.
+
* Spire Implosion Guardian:
** Thanks to amethyst, platinawolf, and Cinth for the reports and saves.
+
** Health from 800k*mk => 2M*mk
 +
** Range from 7000+1000*mk => 30k.
 +
** Seconds per salvo from 1 => 4.
 +
** Shots per salvo from 1 => 4.
 +
** Damage per shot from 0.25%/0.5%/1%/2%/4% => 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%.
  
== Prerelease 5.047 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/07/ai-war-beta-5047-archived-memory.html Archived Memory] ==
+
* Starship Disassembler Guardian:
(Released July 24th, 2012)
+
** Renamed to simply "Disassembler Guardian".
 +
** Health from 2.4M*mk => 1.5M*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 8k*mk => 100k flat.
 +
** Ammo from Antimatter Bomb => Dark Matter.
 +
** Seconds per salvo from 2 => 3.
 +
** Damage per shot from 4k*mk => 175k*mk.
  
* Added new slider to the Advanced tab of the Settings window: Sprite Pool Size
+
* Tractor Guardian:
** This option was mainly added to help players find some memory-crash and performance-regression problems and in general you shouldn't change it unless you know what that means.
+
** Health from 1.12M*mk => 3M*mk.
** Low pool sizes will keep possible memory footprint lower and help keep the pool from causing excessive memory use, but will also substantially reduce performance when there are not enough objects in the pool to handle all the things being drawn in a given frame.
+
** Armor from 450*mk => 10k flat.
** High pool sizes have the opposite advantage/disadvantage.
+
** Bonuses from 3x vs Turret => 3x vs Swarmer and Medium.
** The default of 5000 should handle most sane cases but shift-clicking around with a bunch of selected ships can pile up a bunch of lines (and thus sprites) in a hurry.
+
** Damage per shot from 35k*mk => 54k*mk.
** Thanks to Cinth, BlackCobra, vadatajs for providing reports and saves of the memory and performance problems.
 
  
* Made the sprite pool periodically release the memory its holding (at the same times the game trims other parts of heap usage).
+
* Tachyon Guardian:
 +
** Armor from 150*mk => 0.
 +
** Didn't change these to make them more durable or more dangerous to fit the others since these aren't following the others into "not always on in every game".  There's been requests to make them less ubiquitous but that would require an overhaul of the scouting game so it's just being left as-is for now.
  
* Fixed the spire-shard-reactor close-zoom sprite having an invalid height.
+
* Vampire Guardian:
** Thanks to platinawolf for the report.
+
** Health from 800k*mk => 1M*mk.
 +
** Armor from 50*mk => 1k flat.
 +
** Bonuses from 3x vs Polycrystal, Medium, and Neutron => 3x vs Refracfive, Neutron, and Swarmer.
 +
** Seconds per salvo from 3 => 2.
 +
** Shots per salvo from 4 => 8.
 +
** Damage per shot from 4k*mk => 9.5k*mk.
  
* Warheads killed by warhead interceptors no longer cause AIP-on-death.
+
* Warp Gate Guardian:
** Thanks fo Faulty Logic and others for suggesting/reporting.
+
** Attack Range from 6k => 30k.
 +
** Ammo from Minor Electric => Antimatter Bomb.
 +
** Seconds per salvo from 2 => 30.
 +
** Shots per salvo from 1+3*mk => 4 flat.
 +
** Damage per shot from 4k*mk => 125k*mk.
 +
** Gained 3x bonus vs Structural, UltraHeavy, and Heavy.
  
* Spire Archives, in honor of winning our seventh "Worst Unit" poll:
+
* Zombie Guardian:
** Now try to seed on a non-home, non-core planet adjacent to an AI core planet.  So taking one doesn't mean taking or alerting a homeworld, and doesn't mean taking a core world, but does mean alerting a core world (unless you claim the archive planet with a warp jammer, at least).
+
** Health from 266k*mk => 2M*mk.
** Knowledge gain rate from 1/sec => 5/sec.
+
** Armor from 300*mk => 0.
*** So to get the full 9000 knowledge takes 1800 seconds = 30 minutes; can cut that down a bit by having science ships help on the first 3000 (theoretical minimum total time of 20 minutes because the science ships can't help you on the last 6000 knowledge).
+
** Seconds per salvo from 2 => 4.
** When their planet is exhausted of all 9000 knowledge, they automatically die without causing AIP.
+
** Shots per salvo from 2 => 4.
** In short: instead of being literally "during the homeworld assualts" plays for knowlegde these are a mid/late-game high-risk-for-knowledge plays, but if you pull them off (holding the planet for 20-30 minutes to get all the knowledge) you get 3 planets worth of knowledge for only one planet's worth of AIP and without a permanent possible +80 AIP hanging over your head if something slips through.  If you were going to take that planet anyway, all the better.
+
** Damage per shot from 60k*mk => 55k*mk.
** Thanks to Minotaar, Faulty Logic, and others for the suggestions/votes in this direction.
 
  
* Fixed some bugs with the Spire Archive gain-knowledge logic producing erratic display results (and not displaying how much it had gathered out of the total 9000, etc).
+
== Prerelease 6.025 ==
 +
(Released May 1st, 2013)
  
* Zenith Electric Bomber is now immune to insta kill, like other low-cap fleet ships.
+
* Fixed a bug preventing most foldouts from spawning in multiplayer.
** Thanks to Hearteater and others for periodically asking for this.
+
** Thanks to darkarchon for the report and save.
  
== Prerelease 5.046 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/07/ai-war-beta-5046-ai-is-not-amused.html The AI Is Not Amused] ==
+
* Fixed a bug in recent versions where winning any game would give you all the "beat AI Type X" achievements you met the difficulty requirements for, instead of just the ones for the AI Types you were playing against.
(Released July 21st, 2012)
+
** Thanks to Histidine for the report.
  
* Planets are no longer hue-shifted when the nebulas are disabled, as that could look bad out of context.
+
== Prerelease 6.024 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/04/ai-war-beta-6024-squeaky-wheel-gets.html The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Buff (or Nerf)] ==
** Thanks to Kahuna and TechSY730 for suggesting.
+
(Released April 29th, 2013)
  
* Added a "Nebula Intensity" slider to the graphics tab of the settings window, that controls how faded-out the background nebulae are.
+
* Added a unique identifier (ObjectType) to the ShipDataFull.xls and ShipDataStatsOnly.xls exports.
** The default is about 80% of the intensity in the previous version; if you want it back there you can turn it all the way up.
+
** Thanks to Diazo for the suggestion.
** Thanks to doctorfrog for the suggestion.
 
  
* Added a memory optimization to the aggregate-targeting system to only initialize the data structures as it needs them rather than all up front.  This may cause some slowdown when fighting on a planet for the first time or with a bunch of new ship types at once, etc, but in general that shouldn't be too bad and will "work itself out" during the early phase of a battle.
+
* The AI's main carrier-creation logic now no longer redeploys ships to a carrier on a different planet (generally it put everything on its homeworld) but instead to carriers on their own planet.  This can result in more carriers than before and thus not quite the same "unit count savings", but in practice it works (in testing it still condensed a 45,000 ship CPA down to a level that ran smoothly on +10 on a decent machine, at least until the shooting started).
** Memory had been pretty ok, but every time we add new ship types that's more memory footprint all around so it was good to counterbalance that a bit.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
** Thanks to Cinth for reporting recent out of memory exceptions.  Not that playing 16-Homeworld games on a 120-planet map is going to be able to always avoid those, but we'll see.
 
  
=== High (and not so high) Difficulty Rebalance, Round 2 (Subtitle: the AI Launches A Wave) ===
+
* The "try to synchronize new waves with an announced CPA" rule that applies on diff 8+ now aims for launching the waves 90 seconds after the CPA "launches" instead of at the same time, to make actual attack-overlap more likely.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  
* People are [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11118.msg111832.html#msg111832 still] [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11130.msg111125.html#msg111125 beating] [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11152.msg111762.html#msg111762 up] on the 10/10 AI (even in non-superweapon cases) and it's getting kind of annoyed, so:
+
* Fixed a bug in recent versions where the radar dampening on mkII/mkIII turrets was... awry.
 +
** Thanks to Winge for the report.
  
* Data Center AIP-reduction-on-death is now reduced by 25% on Diff 8+, and by 50% on Diff 9+ (so 15 and 10, respectively). If the two AIs are different difficulties, the higher is used in this case (tried using the difficulty of the AI player that owns the data center but that leads to some display inaccuracy problems as the game is pretty used to units not having stats that vary between players).
+
* Added new per-control group toggle: Suspend Spending If Resources Less Than.
** Along with this, Took out the change that reduced the number of Data Centers seeded on Diff 9+ (as pointed out, this did reduce total AIP reduction available but also reduced the challenge of getting it).
+
** If your combined metal+crystal reserve is less than this number, units in this control group will temporarily cease the following activities (even if specifically ordered to do them) :
** Thanks to Hearteater for suggesting this approach.
+
*** 1) Spending resources on its own build queue (for Space Docks, Starship Constructors, etc).
 +
*** 2) Spending resources on its own self-building (for Turrets, Forts, etc that are still under construction).
 +
*** 3) Accepting assistance from engineers on its build queue or self-building.
 +
*** 4) Providing assistance to another unit's build queue or self-building.
 +
*** 5) Repairing other units.
 +
*** 6) Accepting repairs from other units.
 +
** If a ship is in multiple control groups, the highest value of this setting takes precedence.
 +
** One important use of this is for "use excess resources" assignments, so if you want your merc space dock to turn anything over a total of 1.5M resources into merc fighters, you can do that with this new toggle with minimal micro.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this addition.
  
* Net AIP reduction for killing all the coprocessors is now reduced by 25% on Diff 8+ and by 50% on Diff 9+ (so 45 and 30, respectively; that's 105 and 90 total reduction but killing all the coprocessors costs +60 AIP). If the two AIs are different difficulties, the higher is used in this case.
+
* Added new global toggle to controls window: Harvester Autobuild Ignores Cloaked And Immobile Units
 +
** If this toggle is checked, your command stations will automatically build harvesters on empty resource spots even if there are AI ships present, as long as all of those AI ships are either cloaked or immobile (a Special Forces Guard Post is a good example of an immobile unit you may choose to not destroy but don't want to prevent harvester auto-building).
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic and many other players for inspiring this addition.
  
* AIP floor no longer has a cap of 300 (not that this should impact games where you were caring about AIP anyway, that requires really high total AIP to reach).
+
* To address widespread player feedback that the recent buffs to starships went too far, as well as some other longstanding starship-related feedback:
 +
** Flagship Radar Dampening from 8,000 => 12,000.
 +
** Zenith Starship Radar Dampening removed.
 +
** Zenith Starship base capHealth from 36M => 32M.
 +
** Zenith Starship base capDPS from 40k => 36k.
 +
** Spire Starship Radar Dampening removed.
 +
** Spire Starship base capHealth from 24M => 22M.
 +
** Spire Starship base capDPS from 180k => 160k.
 +
** Bomber Starship base capHealth from 36M => 33M.
 +
** Bomber Starship base capDPS from 150k => 135k.
 +
** Plasma Siege Starship engine health from 3k => 100k (which is much more normal for a starship).
 +
** Plasma Siege Starship base capDPS from 90k*mk => 100*mk.
 +
** Plasma Siege Starship base move speed from 12 => 14.
 +
** Thanks to TechSY730, Zeyurn, _K_, Aquohn, chemical_art, Zeyi, Hearteater, Diazo, Wingflier, Radiant Phoenix, Faulty Logic, Aklyon, Dichotomy, and others for inspiring these changes.
  
* AIP floor was previously total-AIP-gained / 5. Under Diff 8 that's still trueNow on Diff 8+ it is TotalAIP / 4, and on Diff 9+ it is TotalAIP / 3If the two AIs are different difficulties, the higher is used in this case.
+
* Advanced Research Stations now no longer give MkII of their bonus type for free, but:
** This effectively reduces the return on superterminal hacking since it does +1 and -2 AIP per trigger.
+
** They now grant 500 extra Knowledge immediately upon capture.
** Thanks to TechSY730 for inspiring this change.
+
** Not directly related to ARS's, but related to Knowledge balance: researching a MkIII triangle or bonus ship type now costs 4000 instead of 6000.
 +
*** The idea being that we're no longer going to count "You get MkIVs of this type if you also have an advanced factory" when computing the cost of theseIn theory that yields a cost of 3750 but we went with 4000 since mkIII units are slightly more than 1.5x as useful as MkIIsWe're not yet sure of whether to apply this same philosophical change to MkIII starship costs, as the balance of those is still very much in flux.
 +
** Thanks to kasnavada, TechSY730, Hearteater, Cinth, LaughingThesaurus, Wingflier, Winge, chemical_art, Kahuna, Faulty Logic, Zeyurn, and others for inspiring these changes.
  
* AIP floor minimum is now 10 instead of 1.
+
* The AI's response to K-hacking and Ship-Design hacking now has a few new tricks, getting progressively trickier as the overall hacking-antagonism "category" (listed in the alert box) gets higher.
** Thanks to rabican for the suggestion.
+
** Also educated the AI that it is not, in fact, efficient to attempt to cook food at interplanetary distances with tachyon radiation.  Judging by its past frequency of counter-hack tach bursts, it apparently thought this was feasible.
 +
** Haven't added the trickiness here to ST hacking yet, we'll see how it goes here first.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring these changes.
  
* The schizo wave modifier now only causes waves to be mixed 75% of the time.  The other 25% of waves will be normal.
+
=== The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Buff, Part 2 ===
** Thanks to Wanderer and other players for feedback that schizo all-the-time is actually somewhat easier than games with the occasional all-bombers wave.  Can't have that!
 
  
* Previously it was very easy to keep an AI from ever reinforcing its homeworld until the very end during the assault upon it. This is generally desirable as part of the game is not stirring up that hornets nest until you've got the extermination squad in position. But the complete lack of reinforcements there may be letting that end-challenge get a little too tame against careful players. So now there's a 0.25%/0.50%/1% chance on Diffs 7+/8+/9+ (respectively) of a homeworld receiving high reinforcement priority per reinforcement pulse.
+
* Continuing the work from the previous version: mostly responding to a [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12864.0.html recent community poll] with these, specifically with an eye to making some lesser-taken unlocks more worth their knowledge cost (by increasing usefulness, decreasing K cost, or both).
** Let us know if this results in excessive hilarity.  The reinforcement logs (if enabled) will record when it happens.
+
** Thanks to TechSY730, Hearteater, Zeyurn, Faulty Logic, Vyndicu, Winge, chemical_art, Toranth, Kjara, zharmad, KDR_11k, and the poll voters for inspiring these changes.  
  
* Buffed reinforcements a bit in generalJudging by CPA size and other indicators since the major rework of reinforcements this has been lower than it was by a significant margin.
+
* The researchable Command Station Upgrades (mkII/mkIII of econ, logistical, and military stations), in honor of doing quite well in that poll, now also create (after a few seconds when the foldout logic fires) a "sub station" next to your Home Command Station that basically provides all of the benefits of one of the corresponding stations.  This is cumulative, so unlocking econ II and econ III will cause your home command stations to have both the econ-II and the econ-III sub stations.
 +
** Note: in case there's confusion, these are not modules but totally separate unitsThey're permacloaked, even the military ones that can fire while cloaked (the idea being that the AI doesn't have to kill it, just the home station).
  
* When an AI gets 2 "brutal" picks for its homeworld (only happens on high difficulty), it now cannot pick 2 AI Eyes, since that's too nice.
+
* As part of responding to the Enclave Starship doing very well in the poll, added new global toggle to controls window: Brave Enclave Starships.
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for reporting a case where this happened.
+
** If this toggle is checked, your Enclave Starships will suppress their normal self-preservation instincts to avoid being included in a selection with military ships.
 +
** Note: this applies to the enclave starships of the player who's brave-enclave-starships toggle is checked, regardless of who is trying to control them in a multiplayer game with Allow Team Control on.  Allied Player Enclave Starships will still be wimps unless their owners check this toggle too.
  
=== Core Guard Post Rebalance, Round 1 ===
+
* In honor of doing very well in the poll, and in order to assist in plans for revising the Enclave Starship:
 +
** The Mobile Repair Station:
 +
*** Now has the capacity to build mkI-III ships that you've unlocked.
 +
*** Now also has the capacity to build mkIV ships that you've unlocked mkIII of, if you ALSO control an Advanced Factory.
 +
*** Now has a Radar Dampening range of 8000.
 +
*** Now has a brave toggle on the Controls window.
 +
*** Has been renamed to "Mobile Space Dock".
 +
** The Enclave Starship no longer has a build queue (see below, it's being repurposed to produce drones in another fashion).
  
* Did a balance pass on most of the core guard posts.
+
* Neinzul Enclave Starships, in honor of doing very well in the poll (and past polls of this nature...) :
** This is going to hurt.
+
** The MkIV version is no longer unlocked by K but instead built at the Advanced Starship Constructor if you've already unlocked MkIII.
** Many things have been suggested to help bring the "multi-part boss battle" theme out better, but this at least brings the math into a more reasonable range for now.
+
*** K cost from 0/2000/2000/14000 => 0/1000/3000 (like the flagship, leech starship, heavy bomber starship, etc).
 +
** Base Cap HP from 6M*mk => 20M*mk.
 +
** Build menu has been removed.
 +
** Instead of a build menu, this ship now automatically produces a group of drones every 10/9/8/7 seconds.  That group will contain 1 of every drone type you have unlocked via turret research:
 +
*** MkI Needler/Laser/MLRS/Missile drones are now automatically available.
 +
*** MkII drones can only be built by MkII+ enclaves and are unlocked with MkII turret research (into Basic/Laser/MLRS/Missile turrets, respectively).
 +
*** MkIII drones can only be built by MkIII+ enclaves and are unlocked with MkIII turret research.
 +
*** MkIV drones can only be built by MkIV enclaves and are unlocked with MkIII turret research (there being no MkIV turret research).
 +
** Enclave Drones now automatically start in FRD.
 +
** Enclaves themselves can no longer be cloaked (for the same reason the Spire Blade Spawner cannot be cloaked).
 +
** The Mercenary Enclave Starship is now equivalent to a MkIV, instead of a MkII.
  
* Previously there was a fair bit of variance in how many core guard posts would go on a homeworld, and there tended to be quite a few (like 15 on Diff 10).  Now it will always try for 8 (including the 0-2 "brutal" picks).
+
* The MkII Transport, in honor of doing quite well in the poll:
 +
** Has been renamed to the Assault Transport.
 +
** Cap from 20 => 10 (metal cost, crystal cost, and build time doubled accordingly).
 +
** Unload rate from 20/sec => 200/sec (so effectively instant.
 +
** Where the normal Transport causes all unloaded ships to do a full reload cycle before firing, the Assault Transport unloads them at halfway through the reload cycle (or wherever they were in the reload cycle when they loaded into the transport, whichever is greater).
 +
** The Assault Transport has cloaking.
 +
** The Assault Transport has an attack.  Unloaded, the cap of Assault Transports has a little over half the bonus-cap-dps of the mkI fighter so it's not very impressive (particularly considering the K cost).  But every 10 ships in an assault transport gives it an additional shot-per-salvo, so a fully loaded cap of these is actually fairly powerful (but nowhere near as powerful as that many normal combatants).  And before you ask, yes, Science ships (and other unarmed things) count for this, but 2,000 science ships involves a... rather prohibitive economic cost, considering the payoff.
 +
*** This attack can be suppressed by putting the unit in stand-down mode; everything else it does (loading, unloading, cloaking, etc) will continue to function just fine but this will prevent it from unilaterally breaking its own cloak.  At the same time, the attack behavior can be used (while not in stand-down) to suppress the cloak so you can use the transports' traditional "damage sponge" role.
 +
** Health from 2x a normal transports => 4x.
 +
** Knowledge cost from 4000 => 3000.
  
* All Core Guard Posts:
+
==== Turret Rebalance ====
** Base Energy Cost from 500 => 10000 (doesn't matter except for IRE fire).
 
  
* Core Heavy Beam Guard Post:
+
* This general category did well in the poll, and much feedback followed on what to do about it. Ultimately we went with a general proposed set of numbers from Hearteater, omitting some of the proposed changes and making a few extra ones.
** Total base attack power (this is divided amongst all its beams) from 8M => 4M.
 
** Multiplier vs Swarmer from 4 => 3.
 
** Multiplier vs Refractive from 3.5 => 3.
 
** Multiplier vs UltraLight from 3.25 => 3.
 
** Multiplier vs Medium from 2.5 => 3.
 
** Multiplier vs Heavy from 1.75 => 3.
 
  
* Core Electric Guard Post:
+
* Basic Turret:
** Basically balancing this against a cap of theoretical-mark-V electric shuttles, but still only about half that power with less than a quarter of the health.
+
** Base Cap Health from 14.7M => 38.4M.
** Can now hit a maximum of 200 units per shot
+
** Base Armor from 300 => 10k.
*** This is the same mechanic as the electric shuttle and it can multi-hit targets up to 5 times each if hits are left over from the first pass. So it gets more-or-less optimal DPS as long as 40 ships are in range.
+
** Shots-per-salvo from 3 => 1.
** Base Health from 6M => 12M.
+
** Seconds-per-salvo from 10 => 3.
** Multiplier vs Artillery from 4 => 1.
+
** Base Cap DPS from 235,200 => 168k.
** Multiplier vs Neutron from 2 => 1.
+
** Armor Piercing from 150 => 0.
** Seconds Per Salvo from 13 => 20.
+
** Bonuses from 2.4x => 3x.
** Damage Per Shot from 3k => 50k.
+
** Penalty vs CommandGrade removed.
** Base Attack Range from 13k => 8k.
+
** K-Cost from 0/500/1500 => 0/1000/1750.
 +
*** Each step is now 250 less than the new "standard" turret K costs; historically this has been a very low-priced turret because historically it was a much weaker turret than the others.  It's been in the same league as the others performance-wise for some time, however.
  
* Core Missile Guard Post:
+
* MLRS Turret:
** Basically balancing this against a cap of MkV missile frigates, but with way less durability.
+
** Base Cap Health from 19.6M => 39.6M.
** Base Health from 6M => 18M.
+
** Base Armor from 450 => 0.
** Multiplier vs UltraLight from 8 => 4.
+
** Seconds-per-salvo from 8 => 10.
** Multiplier vs Medium from 6 => 1.
+
** Base Cap DPS from 205800 => 216k.
** Multiplier vs Light from 1 => 4.
+
** Bonuses from 2.4x => 3x.
** Multiplier vs Swarmer from 1 => 4.
+
** Penalty vs CommandGrade removed.
** Multiplier vs Neutron from 1 => 4.
+
** K-Cost from 0/2000/3000 => 0/1250/2000.
** Multiplier vs Composite from 1 => 4.
 
** Multiplier vs Refractive from 1 => 4.
 
** Effective Attack Range from 36000 => 12000.
 
** Seconds Per Salvo from 5 => 1.
 
** Damage Per Shot from 80k => 200k.
 
  
* Core Sentinel Guard Post:
+
* Flak Turret:
** Basically balancing this against a cap of MkV Zenith Beam Frigates, but with maybe half the power and way less durability.
+
** Base Cap Health from 24.5M => 60M.
** Can now hit a maximum of 20 targets per shot.
+
** Base Armor from 750 => 0.
*** Using the same mechanic as the Zenith Beam Frigate: the line attack does full damage to each target hit, but gets no compensation for not hitting the full number of targets.
+
** Seconds-per-salvo from 7 => 6.
** Base Health from 3M => 18M.
+
** Base Cap DPS from 420k => 315k.
** Damage Per Shot from 4k => 100k.
+
** Attack Range from 4500/5500/6500 => 5000/6000/7000.
** Effective Attack Range from 9000 => 8000.
+
** Bonuses from 2.4x => 3x.
** Multiplier vs Light from 16 => 1.
+
** Bonus against Refractive removed and replaced with bonus against Light.
** Multiplier vs Swarmer from 8 => 1.
+
** Penalties vs CommandGrade, Heavy, and UltraHeavy removed.
** Multiplier vs Neutron from 4 => 1.
+
** K-Cost from 0/2500/3000 => 0/1250/2000.
  
* Core Leech Guard Post:
+
* Missile Turret:
** Basically balancing this against a cap of MkV Parasites, but with way less durability.
+
** Base Cap Health from 9.8M => 28.8M.
*** Interestingly, the attack power was basically already spot-on.
+
** Base Armor from 150 => 0.
** Base Health from 6M => 12M.
+
** Base Cap DPS from 264,600 => 171k.
** Multiplier vs Medium from 3 => 4.
+
** Armor Piercing from 90k => 0.
** Multiplier vs Neutron from 1 => 4.
+
** Bonuses from 2.4x => 3x.
** Effective Attack Range from 5000 => 6000 (slightly further out than its radar dampening range).
+
** Penalty vs CommandGrade removed.
 +
** K-Cost from 0/3000/4000 => 0/1250/2000.
  
* Core Zenith Bombard Guard Post:
+
* Laser Turret:
** Basically balancing this against a cap of MkV Zenith Bombards, but with way less durability and about half the attack power.
+
** Base Cap Health from 29.4M => 36M
** Base Health from 6M => 12M.
+
** Base Armor from 300 => 1000.
** Damage Per Shot from 60k => 900k.
+
** Shots-per-salvo from 3 => 1.
** Effective Attack Range from 53k => 34k.
+
** Seconds-per-salvo from 4 => 8.
** Multiplier vs Heavy from 1.75 => 2.
+
** Base Cap DPS from 220,500 => 180k.
** Multiplier vs UltraHeavy from 1 => 2.
+
** Armor Piercing from 750 => 1000.
** Multiplier vs Structural from 1 => 2.
+
** Bonuses from 2.4x => 3x.
** Multiplier vs Swarmer from 4 => 1.
+
** Penalty vs CommandGrade removed.
** Multiplier vs Refractive from 3.5 => 1.
+
** K-Cost from 0/2500/3500 => 0/1250/2000.
** Multiplier vs UltraLight from 3.25 => 1.
 
** Multiplier vs Medium from 2.5 => 1.
 
  
* Core Zenith Fortress Guard Post:
+
* Heavy Beam Cannon:
** Was going to balance this against a cap of MkV Fighters (but without the hull-type-bonuses), but with way less durability and maybe 1/2 to 2/3rds the attack power... but it's actually already there.
+
** Base Health from 850k/2.55M/7.65M/40M (at caps 12/8/4/1) => Base Cap Health of 36M*mk (this probably makes the mkIV an unspeakable monster of a turret, we'll see).
** Shot type from (default? it doesn't appear to be set?) => Flamewave.
+
** Base Armor from 800 => 0.
  
* Core Spire Shield Guard Post:
+
* Lightning Turret:
** Base Health from 392M => 200M.
+
** Base Cap Health from 19.6M => 48M.
 +
** Base Armor from 800 => 10k.
 +
** Seconds-per-salvo from 18 => 15.
 +
** Base Cap DPS from 435,600 => 337,500.
 +
** Bonuses from 8x vs Refractive, 4x vs Artillery, 2x vs Neutron => 3x vs Refractive, Neutron, UltraLight, and Polycrystal.
 +
** Penalty vs CommandGrade removed.
 +
** K-Cost from 0/1500/2000 => 0/1250/2000.
  
* Core Neinzul Melee Guard Post:
+
* Sniper & Spider Turrets:
** Basically balancing this against a theoretical cap of MkV cutlasses, but with way less durability.
+
** Base Cap from 232 => 192.
** Base Health from 6M => 36M (it's a self-damaging melee unit, it needs it).
+
** Base Cap Health from 23.5M => 19.2M.
** Base Move Speed from 30 => 44.
+
** Base Armor from 1000 => 0.
** Damage Per Hit from 106k => 300k.
+
** Seconds-per-salvo from 6 => 8.
** Multiplier vs Neutron from 3 => 4.
+
** Base Cap DPS from 141k => 112,500.
** Multiplier vs Light from 3 => 4.
+
** Bonuses from 5x vs CloseCombat, 4x vs Medium, 4x vs Polycrystal, 6x vs UltraLight => 5x vs same types.
** Multiplier vs Scout from 2 => 1.
+
** Penalty vs CommandGrade removed.
** Multiplier vs Composite from 1 => 4.
 
  
* Core Booster Guard Post:
+
* Tractor Turret K-Cost from 0/2000/4000 => 0/1250/2000.
** Base Health from 6M => 18M.
 
** Munitions Boost and Armor Boost range from 8k => 16k.
 
** Intentionally leaving the attack alone here: that's not really the point of the unit.
 
  
* Thanks to Hearteater and many other players for their thoughts on making core guard posts more interesting; they will probably need more than this but it's a start.
+
== Prerelease 6.023 ==
 +
(Released April 23rd, 2013)
  
== Prerelease 5.045 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/07/ai-war-beta-5045-its-full-of-something.html It's Full Of Something Other Than Stars!] ==
+
* Fixed a bug in the previous version where the new control-group-specific sticky-formation toggle wasn't working.
(Released July 19th, 2012)
 
  
* An all-new, much higher-quality starfield/nebulae background effect is now drawn behind planets.  These are vastly more varied and interesting, and require a similar amount of CPU/GPU processing to render as the old ones did.
+
* Fixed an unhandled-errors bug in the last version with auto-load.
** Thanks to [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/994920323/indie-graphics-builder-create-your-own-sprites Eldon Harris] for creating the nebulae effects used.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report and save.
  
* The game no longer scrolls the nebulae at the start of the game, instead giving you a really good static look at a really interesting nebulae background.
+
=== The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Buff, Part 1 ===
  
* A completely new method for rendering the planets has been put in place, and they are now more a part of the background starfield/nebula than anything else.
+
* Mostly responding to a [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12864.0.html recent community poll] with these, specifically with an eye to making some lesser-taken unlocks more worth their knowledge cost (by increasing usefulness, decreasing K cost, or both).
** As part of this, 14 of the pre-existing planets have been kept although scaled down, and 40 new planet graphics by Eldon Harris have been added to the game. It makes quite a difference when combined with the new nebulae!
+
** Thanks to TechSY730, Hearteater, Zeyurn, Faulty Logic, Vyndicu, Winge, chemical_art, Toranth, Kjara, zharmad, KDR_11k, and the poll voters for inspiring these changes.
  
* Updated the description of the Counter Dark Matter Turrets to be more clear about how they actually work.
+
* Human Raid Starships, in honor winning a recent community poll:
** Thanks to doctorfrog for reporting this one.
+
** MkIIs and higher now have immunity to missiles.
 +
** MkIIIs and higher now have cloaking.
 +
** MkIVs and higher now have immunity to gravity.
 +
** K cost from 0/4000/4000 => 0/2000/3000.
  
* Unlike in AVWW, the game now returns to precalculating its materials rather than pooling them, since this may have been adversely affecting performance in recent versions.
+
* Mobile Repair Station K cost from 4000 => 3000.
  
== Prerelease 5.044 ==
+
== Prerelease 6.022 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/04/ai-war-beta-6022-honored-bugs-released.html Honored Bugs] ==
(Released July 19th, 2012)  
+
(Released April 23rd, 2013)
  
* Fixed the close-zoom image for the AI Core Neinzul Spawner Guard Post having a height that wasn't a power of 2.
+
* The Diff > 8 escalation of the "Alternative Minimum AIP" rule that's used for computing how fast golems/spirecraft exos are "grown" has been toned way down to make the first exo less of an "I Win" button for the AI on the highest difficulties.
** This would only impacted you if you were all the way zoomed in on one of these, and would have led to it looking stretched or (on older graphics card) looking gibberish-like.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic and Kahuna for inspiring this change.
** But in the recent backporting we added some extra sanity checks that catch this when the player tries to look at it.
 
** Thanks to Fleet for the report.
 
  
* Removed the usage of Graphics.DrawMesh (which helped performance in AVWW, but seemed to harm performance in AI War for some people) in favor of Graphics.DrawMeshNow (which is what we've been using in AI War up until the last couple of releases). If you were seeing performance problems in the last few versions, please let us know if you continue to do so.
+
* Nebula Detail now defaults to 60%.
 +
** When loading from a version from before 6.022 you have it set to 100% (the previous default) it will be set to the new default.
 +
** Thanks to Kahuna and TechSY730 for inspiring this change.
  
* Made a minor improvement to the Spirecraft Ion Blaster's behavior: in FRD it's now much better about going after stuff that's outside of its range (previously it was only really doing that while it was reloading).  The improvement is "minor" in that there are still problems with its behavior (dancing back and forth during FRD with valid targets it could be chasing, after it fires, etc) but we needed to get the attempt at fixing the recent performance problems out in a hotfix asap.
+
* Fixed an error in a recent release preventing it from actually giving cloaker starships mine immunity.
** Thanks to TechSY730 for reporting the "not chasing in FRD" problem.
+
** Thanks to onyhow for the report.
  
== Prerelease 5.043 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/07/ai-war-beta-5043-dubious-honor-released.html A Dubious Honor] ==
+
* Fixed some weird bugs with pathing through planets bordering unexplored nebulae in a game with hide-unexplored-planets.
(Released July 18th, 2012)
+
** Thanks to MaxAstro for the report and save.
  
* In honor of it winning the latest worst-unit poll, Zenith Reserves:
+
* Fixed a bug where human intragalactic warpgates could not be placed on a planet with an AI warp gate (for instance, an exogalactic wormhole on the human homeworld due to a backdoor-hacker AI).
** AIP cost on death from 5*mk => 1*mk.
+
** Thanks to Tie-Viper for the report and save.
** Amount of ships granted increased roughly 33%.
 
** Thanks to many players for telling us for months how the AIP cost made these not much of a choice in harder scenarios, and to the voters in general.
 
  
* In honor of coming in second in the most recent worst-unit poll, the Decloaker:
+
* Removed the rule in the wave-size calculation where it used "(AIP * 0.8 ) ^ 1.1" instead of just AIP on diff >= 8.
** In general, moving this from a mobile tachyon unit with outdated stats to a mobile tachyon unit with roughly mkI-starship stats.
+
** Thanks to... everyone? ... for the suggestion.
*** Note the tachyon range of 20k was already huge, no buff seemed necessary there.
 
*** Also note that it isn't really a starship from the perspective of starship disassemblers, etc, it's just beefed up because it has a ship cap of 4.
 
** No longer has the IsBlind flag.
 
** Now has cloaking.
 
** Base Damage-per-shot from 36k => 50k.
 
** Seconds-per-salvo from 10 => 2.
 
** Effective Attack Range from 18k => 8k (the only reason they had such a long range was that we hadn't revisited this one since the last major range changes).
 
** Base Health from 40k => 2M (again, in the general range of mkI starships).
 
** Base Energy Use from 100 => 1000.
 
** Base Metal Cost from 5000 => 10000.
 
** Base Crystal Cost from 7500 => 20000.
 
** Now has most common-to-starship immunities.
 
** Thanks to players who voted on the worst-unit poll and provided their feedback.
 
  
* Captive Human Settlement, in honor of coming in third in the "worst unit" poll: AIP-on-death from 100 => 15.
+
* More nebula balance stuff:
** As was understood in the discussion in the nomination/poll threads, these are supposed to be a "penalty" unit, but players had a very good point that 100 AIP was just gameshattering for something like that (rebel colonies have the same AIP-on-death, for instance).
+
** The recently-added "small base death causes one-time surge in large base production" rule:
** Thanks to players who voted on the worst-unit poll and provided their feedback.
+
*** Is now not applied to the GraySpire-vs-Dysons, HumanResistance-vs-RavenousShadow, or Explosive-colony-ships nebula scenarios.
 +
*** Fixed a bug where it wasn't applying to the neinzul bases in the early 3-way sceanrios.
 +
*** On the scenarios where it does apply, is now about 1/5th as strong as it was (it is still multiplied by champion hull size).
 +
** Champion missile module attack power from 60k*mk => 50k*mk.
 +
** Ravenous Shadow, due to feedback that the last nerf was excessive (though the reduction in move speed and attack range were well received) :
 +
*** Base Health from 700M => 750M.
 +
*** Base Damage per shot from 54k => 65k (5k more than pre-nerf).
 +
*** Shots-per-salvo from 40 => 45 (back to pre-nerf).
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic, zharmad, Aquohn, Toranth, Cinth, Poko, Vyndicu, and others for inspiring these changes.
  
* Spire Armor Rotter, in honor of coming in fourth in the latest "worst unit" poll:
+
* Added new per-control-group-control, Ship Movement Defaults To Group-Move:
** The general idea is to make these pretty good combat ships in their own right, at least until armor matters more in the general case and armor rot thus means more.
+
** When this is set to "On", all your ships in this control group slow down to match the slowest ship in your selection at the time the order is given (disregarding engine damage) so that they don't get farther apart while moving.  Normally all ships move at top speed regardless of other ships in the selection.
** Base Health from 14,500*mk => 23k*mk (this gives them a similar cap-health as fighters).
+
** When this is set to "Default", the global group-move policy will govern.
** Multiplier vs UltraHeavy from 2 => 3.
+
** When this is "Off", this behavior will not happen for ships in this control group even if the global group-move toggle is on.
** Multiplier vs Heavy from 2 => 3.
+
** Note: the group speed only cares about ships in the selection; if there are other ships in this control group but not in your selection then their top speed will not be factored in to the group's top speed.
** Multiplier vs Polycrystal from 1 => 3.
+
** Also, if your selection contains ships from other control groups then those ships will follow the group-move policy of that control group (or just your global group-move setting, if they are not in a control group), and thus may go at a different speed.
** Thanks to players who voted on the worst-unit poll and provided their feedback.
+
** If a ship is in multiple control groups with conflicting settings for this, the priority order is as follows: Off, On, Default.
  
* Microparasite, because it (like other experimentals we need to get back to) had really outdated stats:
+
* CPA ships now go straight to threatfleet rather than spending 30 minutes in normal threat behavior, as that was allowing them to be more easily intimidated (by forts, for example) into just sitting on the other side of a wormhole from a huge human chokepoint. Certain humans are too good at arranging accidents for threatballs for that to work well.
** In general, rebalancing these to be something like the MkV Parasite while maintaining their distinguishing characteristics (like having twice the cap and firing 4 times as fast).
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
** Metal Cost from 1800 => 1400.
 
** Crystal Cost from 240 => 3400.
 
** Base Health from 7200 => 36k.
 
** Base Armor Rating from 500 => 1500.
 
** Base Damage-per-shot from 8000 => 2000.
 
*** Previously they had 6.4x the dps of a mkV parasite, even though they were considered mkIII!  This is still 1.6x the dps of a mkV parasite.
 
** Base Armor Piercing from 0 => 3000.
 
** Effective Attack Range from 4600 => 6000.
 
** Multiplier vs Polycrystal from 20 => 4.
 
** Multiplier vs Artillery from 1 => 4.
 
  
* Special Forces Guard Posts no longer count as reinforcement-warp-gates and are no longer autotargeted (by player or player-ally-minor-faction ships).
+
=== Honored (and now dead) Bugs ===
** They still get reinforcements when their planet is reinforced, and those reinforcements use the special forces behavior, but they can no longer make a planet eligible for reinforcement all by themselves. 
 
** This removes the "cheese" that was possible by keeping them alive to trick the AI into reinforcing a planet with nothing but a special forces guard post on it (generally a waste).
 
** With the cheese gone, there's no longer a need to make it hard to keep these alive, so the autotargeting could go away.
 
** Which in turn removes the annoyance of getting +1 AIP from actions over which you did not have direct control (particularly with minor faction allies).
 
** We may do something more clever with the special forces ships themselves in the future, we'll see.  In the meantime these two changes seem to be a net improvement.
 
** Thanks to Faulty Logic, Wanderer, rabican and others for inspiring this change.
 
  
* Fixed a longstanding bug where Decloakers in waves (only possible by having 1 wave-sending AI and 1 support-corps AI) were not having their ship cap multiplier applied and thus were appearing in vastly larger numbers than they should have beenWasn't a big deal before, but would have been devestating with their new stats.
+
* In honor of it winning the "bug of the year" poll, we've fixed the one (several bugs, actually) where Advanced Research Stations, Super Terminals, Broken Golems (normal and botnet), Fabricators (all three categories), Dyson Spheres, Neinzul Rocketry Silos, and Dark Spire Vengeance Generators were only seeding on planets belonging to the first AI playerDepending on which type that player was (scorched earth, notably) this was capable of being very... interesting.
** Thanks to rabican for the preemptive report and wave-calc logs uncovering the decloaker plot to conquer the galaxy before it could be set in motion.
+
** Note: this is not retroactive for old saves, since the seeding has already happened there.
 +
** Thanks to amethyst, Winge and the poll voters for bringing this (and its importance) to our attention.
  
* Adjusted the last version's addition of radar dampening to mkII+ basic, laser, mlrs, and HBC turrets:
+
* In honor of it coming in fourth for the "bug of the year" poll, we've fixed how the scaling turret types were still using the old ship caps and not the ones adjusted to work on ultra-low caps without rounding errors (so they've been moved from the base of 196-on-high to a base of 192-on-high, with their cap-health, cap-dps, cap-m, cap-c, and cap-e kept very similar, though not necessarily exactly the same).  Specifically this applies to:
** MkII's from Attack Range - 1000 => Attack Range - 2500.
+
** Basic Turret
** MkIII+'s from Attack Range - 1000 => Attack Range - 4000.
+
** Laser Turret
** Thanks to Wanderer for showing how the previous values did not accomplish the stated goal of preventing wormhole-exit-alpha-strike by waves on those kinds of turrets.
+
** MLRS Turret
 +
** Missile Turret
 +
** Flak Turret
 +
** Lightning Turret
 +
** Sniper Turret
 +
** Spider Turret
 +
** Tractor Turret
 +
** Note that this does not apply to the counter turrets, the grav turret, the tachyon emitters, or the HBC, as those don't scale with unit caps anyway (the counters and gravs and tachyons because their usefulness varies much more if cap is changed, the HBC because it's already low cap).
 +
** Thanks to TechSY730, orzelek, and the poll voters for inspiring this change.
  
* Fixed some missing-loca errors in the previous version.
+
* In honor of it coming in second in the "bug of the year" poll, we've fixed a number of bugs that were preventing the preferred-target rules (and to some extent the focus-fire rules) from working on hybrids or other units with a modular forcefield.
 +
** The Focus-Fire toggles and preferred-target rules have also been made somewhat more enthusiastic about their jobs in general (specifically, when looping over secondary targets in range after reaching overkill-saturation on the primary target).
 +
** Thanks to KDR_11k and the poll voters for bringing the importance of this to our attention, and specifically to orzelek for providing a save where the problem could be reproduced.
  
* The Zenith Trader has finally yielded to the threat of sanctions and now only sells no-AIP-on-death versions of structures to the AIThe toys will still annoy you when the AI gets them (indeed, a new toy has been added to the AI-only list to maintain annoyance equilibrium) but the Trader will no longer be an indirect source of AIP.
+
* In honor of it coming third in the "bug of the year" poll, we fixed the "Defensive Hybrids are Mobilizing" condition appearing to do nothingIt was actually working as intended in our tests, but since you wanted it to do more, well, it does more now.
** Note that this will not affect stuff the AI has already bought off the trader.
+
** Thanks to TechSY730 and the poll voters for bringing the importance of this to our attention.
** Thanks to Wanderer and others for periodically reminding us that this was putting a cramp on their desire to include the trader, particularly in harder scenarios.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.042 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/07/ai-war-beta-5042-pay-no-attention-to.html Pay No Attention To The Man Behind The Curtain] ==
+
== Prerelease 6.021 ==
(Released July 17th, 2012)
+
(Released April 16th, 2013)
  
* The textbox improvements from AVWW have been backported to AI War.
+
* Fixed a null-exception bug in the AI code caused by the recent fix to the retreat logic.
** Note that since we can't backport the entire AVWW GUI at this time (AI War has some controls that are simply not compatible with the AVWW-style GUI at the moment), there may still be some wonkiness with the textboxes in some cases.  If you see any that are reproducible, please do let us know.
+
** Thanks to fuzz_head and Chthon for the reports and saves.
** However, in the most-annoying-cases of things like the chat box losing focus, the hope is that these changes have fixed that issue. Knock on wood!
 
  
* Backported the ability to do hue shifts via shader from AVWW.
+
* Put a bandaid on a bug where one of the 3rd expansion's units is being redirected to look for some of its buy-button images in the 4th expansion's directory.  Need to fix the underlying problem but that proved to be a major rabbit hole.
 +
** Thanks to rickynumber24 for the report.
  
* Backported an enormous amount of the new render pipeline from AVWW; this doesn't involve much of the sorting that AVWW was doing, because AI War already had its own highly-evolved and engine-appropriate way of doing its graphical sorting.
+
== Prerelease 6.020 ==
** However, this does decouple most of the graphics from the main CPU processing such that if your GPU is having trouble keeping up, it will impact the speed of gametime much less or not at all.
+
(Released April 15th, 2013)
** Additionally, as we saw with AVWW, we're now making more efficient use of GPU time in general by parallelizing some of that work, which leads to various gains (not really higher framerates here, but less likely of a drop in framerate and more flexibility about what target framerate you select, since that's something that can be manually set in this game).
 
  
* Neinzul enclave drones are now immune to reclamation.
+
* EMP Guardian pulses no longer get announced if you do not at least have basic vision (at least one non-blind unit) on the planet where the pulse occurs.
** Thanks to Tssbackus for reporting oddities when the AI reclaimed drones.
+
** Thanks to Hearteater for the suggestion.
  
* Made the clamp/repeat status of images explicit rather than implicit inside the code, which lets us do a number of new visual effects when needed.
+
* Fixed a bug in recent versions where scouts could not be directly sent through unexplored wormholes when the everything-starts-unexplored toggle was on.
** The immediate effect is that the various beams (repair, cloaking, etc) now have a slightly higher fidelity to themselves.
+
** Thanks to MaxAstro for the report and save.
  
* Non-square images are now supported by the game (more backporting from AVWW).
+
== Prerelease 6.019 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/04/ai-war-beta-6019-nebulous-diligence.html Nebulous Diligence] ==
 +
(Released April 15th, 2013)
  
* Sprite dictionaries are now supported by the game (again more backporting from AVWW).
+
* Offensive Nemesis champions now do not start unless the player has completed a nebula (win or loss) or the game clock has reached 3 hours.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  
* All of the explosion effects in the game now use sprite dictionaries, which makes the initial game load quite a bit faster as it has to load 140ish fewer files (though the amount of data is roughly the same, it's still faster).
+
* Normal AI reinforcements now have an "effective AIP cap" of (AIDifficulty^2)*5.
 +
** So, for example, a Diff 7 AI's normal reinforcements will not increase from AIP increases past 245 (on Diff 8 it'd be 320, on Diff 9 405, and on Diff 10 500).
 +
** The main reason for this is that reinforcements tend to produce stalemates rather than player-loses outcomes.  If the player really oversteps the viable AIP range then waves or CPAs or something like that should step in to kill them, but reinforcements generally aren't going to do that.
 +
** Thanks to kasnavada for inspiring this change.
  
* Backported the draw order sorting from AVWW after all.  This should help with the performance of lots of shots, lines, forcefields, or similar being on the screen at the same time. Or far zoom icons for ships, for that matter.  It won't help for the ships themselves when you are very zoomed in, but that's comparably rarer.
+
* The Lazy-AI toggle now also disables the AI's counter-spawns when a human deepstrike is detected.
 +
** Thanks to Cyborg for inspiring this change.
  
* Fixed a bug in the new energy model where if you had zero home command stations (even in MP, where losing your home command isn't game-over) the energy collectors would produce 15k energy instead of 150k.
+
* Fixed a bug in recent versions where counterattack posts actually had an effective range one less than their mark level, rather than equal to their mark level.
** Thanks to Kalias for the report.
+
** They're also more likely to target "deeper" than they were previously, as targeting the "surface" planets is something waves can generally already do.
 
+
** Thanks to Cinth for the report and save.
* Invincible modules now don't show some of the irrelevant data about them (health, armor, certain immunities, etc).
 
  
* Fixed bugs where several of the seeding frequencies of some things were based off the total number of "planets" in the game, including black holes and some other stuff that is solely tracked for the purpose of where-not-to-put-planets-or-links-in-mapgen and display on the galaxy map.  Some map types don't even have those cosmetic bits, making them somewhat different from those that did.
+
* If a modular ship is immune to EMP, it now also protects its modules from EMP.
** This included special forces guard posts, astro train stations, and AI Eyes.
+
** Thanks to KDR_11k for inspiring this change.
  
* Added "Reserved" slot type in the lobby; just makes it so that that player is in the game at the start even if there's no human to fill the spot. Doesn't really do anything right now, though possibly it would allow creating singleplayer Multi-HW games that play like normal MP games, but the other player names would probably be "???".
+
* Cloaker Starships are now immune to mines.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  
* Fixed a bug in the last version where right-clicking the units-to-place button in the line-place context menu would close the menu instead of reducing the amount of units-to-place.
+
* Astro Trains now no longer inherently have tachyon emission (so the Tachyon train still has a planet-wide tachyon effect, but that's it).
** Thanks to vadatajs and Eternaly_Lost for reporting.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  
* Fixed some missing-loca bugs with the parts of the view-controls window pertaining to the line place context menu.
+
* Finally fixed a longstanding bug where the "Attacking AI ships should wait at least 30 seconds before retreating" rule was not working.  It's possible there are other behaviors which may cause retreat-like results, but this fixed the reproducible case we had.
 +
** Thanks to Diazo for the report and save, and many others who reported it through the months/years.
  
* Shield Bearers (the normal ones; this was already true of the spirecraft ones) are now immune to insta-kill.
+
* Made the normal-offensive-nemesis part of the champion counterbalance check roughly every 5 minutes instead of roughly every minute.  So they won't respawn quite so quickly after dying, on average.
** Thanks to Varone for the suggestion.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  
* All non-shield modules are now immune to armor boosting (they're invincible, it'd be a waste).
+
* For the base vs base nebula scenarios, the old "rubberbanding" effect of increasing both sides' production for each dead small starbase (the side that lost the base would get more of an increase) has been entirely removed.  Instead, killing a small starbase causes an immediate spawn at the corresponding large base (but has no further impact on production).  The size of this counter-spawn is partly determined by the highest size champion you've unlocked at the time.
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report.
+
** This will probably need some further balancing, let us know about your experiences with it.
 +
** Thanks to Aquohn, Zeyi, TechSY730, LordSloth, Toranth, chemical_art, Histidine, and others for inspiring this change.
  
* AI Carriers:
+
* Spire Champion beam cycle time from 4 seconds => 3 seconds.  Previously it had the same "optimal" dps as the Zenith champion, but with the additional quirks of the photon lance mechanic. Now it has 33% higher optimal dps than the Zenith one.
** Effective range from 6000 => 3000.
+
** Thanks to Radiant Phoenix and Cinth for inspiring this change.
** Base Health from 3M*mk => 2M*mk.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for inspiring these changes.
 
  
* MkII+ Basic, Laser, MLRS, and Heavy Beam Cannon turrets now have radar dampening equal to their range minus 1000 to prevent them being inevitably alpha-striked by really substantial waves.
+
* Core Guard Posts:
** Thanks to Wanderer for inspiring these changes.
+
** AIP-on-death from 2 => 1.
 +
*** Would have just removed it altogether, but keeping it helps make sure it will avoid various autotargeting and aoe related considerations that might result in these being unintentionally killed.
 +
** If Lazy-AI is off, killing one of these now causes an immediate one-time AI counter-attack from one or more warp gates in the galaxy.
 +
** Thanks to chemical_art and TechSY730 for the suggestions.
  
== Prerelease 5.041 ==
+
== Prerelease 6.018 ==
(Released July 11th, 2012)
+
(Released April 9th, 2013)
  
* Added "Line Place" context menu option for when you open the context menu (defaults to alt+right-click) while you have the build menu open and an item selected for direct placement.
+
* Fixed a bug in the previous versions (and possibly earlier, but unlikely) where it was impossible to send a champion through to a previously-unexplored nebula unless you were playing on complete-vis.
** From the line-place menu instructions:
+
** Note: a side effect of the fix is making nebulae follow the same visibility rules as other planets on the map, so they'll no longer be hidden in non-complete-vis games.
*** Step 1: Click where you want one end of the line segment to be.  This line segment doesn't actually set the final location of anything,  Instead it tells the game the length and angle of the segment.
+
** Thanks to Poko for the report.
*** Step 2: Click where you want the other end of the line segment to be.
 
*** Step 3: Specify the maximum number of units you want to place below (left click the number to increase, right click to decrease, and the usual keys for multiplying by 5, 10, or 50), pick whether you want a packed line (good for mines), and then left-click where you want to place the units.
 
** The main use case in mind for this was efficient use of mines, but can also be helpful for many defensive emplacements, or simply for aesthetic appeal.  The interface could be cleaner but this is what we had time for right now.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for inspiring this addition.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.040 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/07/ai-war-betas-5036-5041-released.html Reenergized] ==
+
== Prerelease 6.017 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/04/ai-war-beta-6017-defending-ais-front.html Defending The AI's Front Lawn] ==
(Released July 10th, 2012)
+
(Released April 9th, 2013)
  
* AI Guardians energy cost from 500*mk => 1250*mk; this is basically irrelevant (AI players don't have an energy model, really), but does help Impulse Reaction Emitters hurt them, giving the IRE another situation in which they are useful that isn't dependent on superweapons or something like that being enabled.
+
* AI-controlled speed boosting units still have their speed-boosting effect even in stand-down mode.
** Thanks to Wingflier for the suggestion
+
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the suggestion.
  
* Added some extra logging on the calculation of wave-time-intervals (when advanced logging is enabled).
+
* Fixed a grammatically incorrect apostrophe in one of the ending journals.
 +
** Thanks to Bognor for the report.
  
* Fixed a moderately longstanding bug where if while starting a new game you select a planet as a homeworld, then deselect it (in favor of some other homeworld(s) ) before actually starting the game, and that planet happens to have the superterminal on it, the superterminal would start the game in "active mode".  Needless to say, that would be a short game.
+
* Fixed a bug where units that fire counter-missiles did not note it in their description.
** Thanks to Mick for the report and save.
+
** Thanks to Bognor for the report.
 
 
* Forcefield-protection no longer prevents a cloaked unit from being revealed by tachyon beams.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for pointing out that this was happening, and wasn't much fun if the cloaked unit in question was a guard post.
 
 
 
* Grenade Launcher grenade explosion radius from 200/300/400/500/600 => flat 500.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater for pointing out that at 200 the MkI was frequently not hitting max targets even when fired into a relatively dense group.
 
 
 
* Flak grenade (from guardians and turrets) radius from 300/350/400/450/500 => flat 500.
 
 
 
=== Energy System Rework ===
 
 
 
* The motivation here:
 
** The previous energy system was settled on after a series of different models were tried, and has been around for over 2 years, and has served pretty well.
 
** But there were a number of problems pointed out by players over the years, the most bothersome being:
 
*** There's significant motive to maintain as close-to-zero positive net energy balance because energy costs metal+crystal per second and a positive net energy balance provides no real benefit.
 
**** A positive balance did protect against having your forcefields shut off in case of losing a reactor, but that could be easily protected against by a big pile of low-powered reactors that you can bring up as needed; or you can go low-power a hundred spider turrets, or whatever.
 
*** And maintaining that low-wasted-energy state involved _tons_ of micro.  A couple of "automated energy hamster" hotkeys were added to greatly reduce that micro (by making the "low-power least efficient 'on' reactor" and "power-on most efficient 'off' reactor" operations a single keystroke instead of minutes of scrolling and clicking), but that was really just a bandaid.
 
** Many people have requested automated energy management as a solution to all this, but whenever the game is simulating something that it then turns around and plays optimally without your involvement... that means something is wrong.  In this genre, anyhow.
 
** Thanks to Cyborg and other players for making this point, and being patient as we tried to find a better model.
 
 
 
* The overall result is that the energy/econ game should actually be easier, unless you were relying on low-efficiency reactors or low-powering tons of stuff to make ends meet.  In those cases it shouldn't be much harder.
 
** But please let us know if the new model really messes you up in some way, or if you have other feedback.  It's not like this model can't be changed, it just seemed a definite step in the right direction from where we were.
 
** If you're curious about the comparison math, check out this post: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11031.msg110117.html#msg110117
 
** Anyway, on to the specific changes:
 
 
 
* Removed the Energy Reactors (all of them, MkI, MkII, MkIII).
 
 
 
* Added the "Energy Collector", which is like the energy reactors were except:
 
** Produces 150,000 energy.
 
*** For reference, in the previous model an EnergyI+EnergyII+EnergyIII produced 125,000.
 
** No ongoing m+c cost.
 
*** For reference, in the previous model an EnergyI+EnergyII+EnergyIII cost 57m+57c per second to run.
 
** Can only build one per planet per player.
 
** Output scales up with that player's number of homeworlds (to scale up for the extra stuff multi-HW players can build, similar to how reactors used to do it but without spamming lots of them).
 
** Cannot be low-powered (there'd be no point).
 
 
 
* Added the "Matter Converter", which is like the energy reactors were except:
 
** Produces 50,000 energy.
 
** Costs 100m+100c per second to run.
 
** No construction cap, and also no efficiency penalty for stacking.
 
*** Yes, this does mean that for now it's best to just pile these all up in a defensible place (much like manufactories); that will probably change in the future but probably not through an efficiency penalty.
 
** Cannot be low-powered, since the main point of this rework is to avoid "player-time-tax" micro.
 
*** This can still result in mid-battle micro if you just lost a collector or whatever and need to build another converter, but that's real in-game costs at a critical moment rather than the only difference between optimal and sloppy play being how much wall-clock-time you personally want to spend "making change for a dollar" throughout the game.
 
** In general, these are very inefficient compared to the old reactors, but more efficient than deeply-stacked low-efficiency reactors.  The idea is that the collectors replace the output you used to get from normal-efficiency reactors, and the converters fill the role of the low-efficiency reactor piles.
 
 
 
* Putting units in low-power mode now no longer reduces their energy use.
 
** Again: removing the motive to micro stuff for energy purposes is one of the driving motivations here.
 
** Renamed "Low Power mode" to "Stand Down mode", since it's no longer for the purpose of reducing energy.
 
** The mechanic for reducing energy use in stand-down mode is still there, just unused.  It may be used for golems or stuff like that later, we'll see.
 
 
 
* Removed energy costs from Human Home Settlement and Cryogenic Pod structures, since you can't low-power the settlements anymore (and 8000e a pop isn't much fun in a tight early-game situation).
 
 
 
* Removed the auto-build-energy-reactors controls, and added toggles at the galaxy-level and planet-level for autobuilding collectors, and sliders at the galaxy-level and planet-level for autobuilding converters.
 
 
 
* Added new slider to galaxy-wide per-player-controls screen: Energy Buffer To Maintain
 
** If this is set above zero, the game will try to maintain that amount of "buffer" energy above zero.  A few examples:
 
*** Docks will not build ships that would take you below the buffer amount.
 
*** Ships will not be reclaimed if it would take you below the buffer amount.
 
*** Broken Golems will not be activated if it would take you below the buffer amount.
 
** This can be restrictive, but it can also help if you're deliberately trying to keep all your defenses operational in the event of the AI destroying one or more of your energy producing units.
 
** Note that this will not stop you from scrapping energy producing units (however low that may take your net energy), so be careful.
 
*** This is because going negative energy never stopped scrapping before, so that part wasn't changed.
 
** Thanks to chemical_art for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* When upgrading saves from 5.039 and earlier:
 
** For all EnergyI, EnergyII, and EnergyIII units:
 
*** If that player already has an Energy Collector on that planet, the reactor is replaced by a Matter Converter.
 
*** Otherwise, the reactor is replaced by an Energy Collector.
 
** After that, while the player has > 60,000 spare energy and any remaining Matter Converters:
 
*** Scrap a Matter Converter on the planet with the most remaining Matter Converters controlled by that player.
 
** The result should be that:
 
*** If you had a positive energy balance before this version, you will have a positive energy balance when you load the save in 5.040+.
 
*** It won't give you a lot of Matter Converters you don't need.
 
*** You'll still want to look at your energy situation and make adjustments for the new model.  Particularly if this version-upgrade logic somehow messes up in your case ;)
 
 
 
* The automated energy hamsters have taken off without giving notice, but we suspect they're on vacation in Bermuda.
 
 
 
* In case you were wondering, all the tooltips and relevant tutorial components have been updated for the new model, but please let us know if we missed something.
 
 
 
* Thanks to many, many players over the years for weighing in with feedback on the energy model.  Keep it up, we know this one isn't perfect either ;)  Particularly:
 
** Cyborg, for originally getting through to us that the old model was no more challenging than "making change for a dollar", and a lot more time-consuming.
 
** Hearteater, for proposing multiple alternate models (including the one that inspired the one we ultimately went with above).
 
** chemical_art, Diazo, Wingflier, Wanderer, TechSY730 for lots of participation in the discussions/debates/etc.
 
** And many others I'm sure I'm forgetting; the forum search engine appears to have forgotten about the relevant threads to avoid further trauma.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.039 ==
 
(Released July 8th, 2012)
 
 
 
* Remains Rebuilders no longer require supply, to make rebuilding a "satellite" planet at least possible.
 
** If this makes some wild exploits possible please let us know, but since most of the stuff that can be rebuilt requires supply anyway...
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for pointing out the tension between these requiring supply and the newly added rebuildable-ness of command stations.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where neinzul drones (which cannot go through wormholes) could inherit a go-through-wormhole order from the enclave starship building them, and would actually go through the wormhole.
 
** Now they'll generally _move_ to a point near the target wormhole, but they won't try to traverse the wormhole itself.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a longstanding omission preventing low-power ships under a forcefield protecting a passive guard post (and perhaps other guard posts) from coming out of low-power when the forcefield/post/guards were attacked.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report and save.
 
 
 
* Fixed the colony ship tooltip which was still saying it had to be near the target construction point, and also amended its hint about replacing existing command station to reflect recent changes.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where beam and warbird starships were still in the "Starship mk III" buy-group for the AI; they're now in the mkV group where they're actually balanced to be now.
 
** Thanks to zharmad and TechSY730 for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a longstanding bug where the "prevent construction of new command station by a different player than the current controller of the planet" rule was preventing gifting of command stations.
 
** Thanks to iob for the report.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.038 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/07/ai-war-betas-5036-5041-released.html If You Rebuild It They Will Come]==
 
(Released July 7th, 2012)
 
 
 
* Fixed a longstanding bug where the AI fortresses in the tutorial were the mkIII _human_ versions, not the AI versions.
 
 
 
* Human Fortresses now drop remains and can be rebuilt (and due to the 50% discount on a rebuild vs. a fresh build it's more than just a convenience).
 
** Note that this does not impact AI fortresses at all.
 
** Thanks to chemical_art and many other players for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* Human Forcefield generators (including hardened ones) now drop remains and can be rebuilt.
 
** Note that the normal under-construction-forcefield-generator restrictions still apply; namely that it cannot receive construction assistance if it is close to another forcefield that has recently taken damage (this was added a few months ago to prevent forcefield+engie stacks that were effectively immortal).
 
** Still, the fact that the rebuild starts at 50% instead of 0% (and is automatic if there are remains rebuilders nearby, as opposed to requiring player intervention) is a buff.
 
** Also note that this does not apply to the "player home forcefield generator" that starts next to each human home command station: those are supposed to be irreplaceable.
 
** Thanks to chemical_art and other players for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* Human command stations (other than the home command station) now drop remains and can be rebuilt.
 
** Also removed the rule where colony ships and mobile builders on the planet (or in a transport on the planet) when a human command station dies also die.
 
** That rule (and the lack of rebuildable command stations) was there to prevent exploits based around very rapidly rebuilding command stations.  It could often tie up AI attack forces much longer than would normally be possible, etc.
 
** However, one of the most unnecessarily-micro-intensive operations in the game was rebuilding lost planets because you have to build a colony ship, select it, give it a move order to the lost planet, switch to that planet, select the colony ship, select the command station type you want, and place it.  Way more player interaction than should be necessary for "rebuild what was there".  But we couldn't make it a lot easier without making those exploits possible again.
 
** So, to replace the previous exploit-prevention, now when a non-home human command station dies then it "stalls" the construction of any human command station on that planet for 4 minutes (1 minute if the station that died was a military station); during that time a new station can be placed or the previous one's remains rez'd by a remains rebuilder, but the resulting under-construction station will not actually make any progress on construction until the stalling timer has expired.
 
*** Note that all ways of removing a human station will trigger this timer: being destroyed by enemy fire, being scrapped, and being replaced by another human command station.  The latter is something of an inconvenience but the thought is that it is far less than the convenience gained by being able to automatically rebuild command stations.  If this is wrong, let us know :)
 
** Thanks to buttons840 and many other players for pointing out how much micro this could be.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where remains-dropping-units destroyed by the forcefield-cascade-splash-damage from a siege plasma shot would not drop remains.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the last couple versions where the detect-loss-of-focus-windowed-mode (on windows) logic was causing the game to stop rendering a lot of stuff just because the window didn't have focus, though the window could actually still be visible.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed several bugs in the rule that changed possible wave time based on number of entry points, and added info on that computation to the wave logging logic.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for the report that led to this discovery.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.037 ==
 
(Released July 7th, 2012)
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the last version where the new neinzul drones were not being selection-filtered the same way as most mobile military ships (it was because they can't go through wormholes, incidentally).
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report.
 
 
 
* Now when a unit is actively making progress on a build queue it loses the ability to be cloaked until 2 seconds after the last build queue activity.
 
** Notably, this prevents neinzul enclave starships from spamming a planet with drones (and whatever else) with impunity.  Can still FRD built non-drones through a wormhole to a target planet, though, and that's fine.
 
** Also this will break the cloak on modular ships that are building new modules, but since modules mostly can't die in combat anymore (except shield modules) and their internal build queue is disabled while they're in low-power mode, and if they're not in low-power mode and they're on an enemy planet they've probably lost cloak due to shooting at something... all told, shouldn't be a big change for them.
 
** Thanks to RogueThunder and others for (reluctantly) notifying us of how exploitative this was.
 
 
 
* Fixed a typo in wave size calculation logging.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the last version where the laser turret upgrades could show the stats on laser drones instead of... laser turrets.  Similar for other turret techs that also unlock drones.
 
** Thanks to Minotaar and Wanderer for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a longstanding bug where a unit could both be reclaimed and regenerated, which would sometimes lead to an AI unit being reclaimed, zombified, and warped off somewhere deep in AI territory.  Not great for threat management.
 
** Fixed a related bug where a unit that had swallowed other units or was tractoring other units would take them with them when regenerated.  Now those units simply cannot be regenerated unless they have no such "load".
 
** Thanks to HTL2001 and TechSY730 for the reports.
 
 
 
* Further improved the maw swallow-target logic to not get stuck on invalid targets (like if it's shooting at a starship, etc, it will now try to swallow valid targets on its target list).
 
** Fixed a related bug where maws could try to swallow-target a starship (which it cannot swallow).
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for reporting that they were still getting stuck.
 
  
* Nuanced the new wave-time-calculation rule added in the last version such that it is not in effect at the very beginning, and gradually phases in so that it is fully in effect at the two-hour mark. So at the 30 minute mark it has about 25% impact, giving you a chance to expand the number of "entry points" before the AI starts throwing max time waves at you automatically.
+
* Thanks to Bognor and others for reporting a number of textual errors:
** Thanks to Wanderer for reporting a test game where this rule rather... decisively concluded the game early.
+
** Corrected the Core CPA post's description saying the CPAs were launched immediately.
 +
** Corrected several Plasma-Siege unit/module descriptions not noting that they could not target small ships.
 +
** Corrected Bomber Starship description still saying it cannot target small ships.
 +
** Corrected Modular Fort descriptions not noting that the more exotic module types become available with champion upgrades.
 +
** Corrected Logistical Command Station descriptions implying a different level of armor compared to other command station types.
 +
** Corrected Zenith Power Generator description claiming to have an operating cost and claiming to increase AI waves against the planet.
 +
** Corrected Tachyon Beam Emitter and Stealth Tachyon Beam Emitter description claiming to be "stronger" (technically, stronger than a tachyon drone, but it doesn't really matter).
 +
** Corrected Spire Teleporting Leech description claiming that the unit is "large", when it's not targetable by stuff that cannot target "small" units.
 +
** Corrected Cloaker Starship description claiming to be "fast".
 +
** Corrected Spire Blade description claiming the wrong duration before self-destruct.
 +
** Gave the Armored Warhead Armor so that it's, well, Armored.
  
* Carriers now display "x(Variable, see below)" next to their attack power to make clearer that their salvo size varies (by the number of contained ships).
+
* Wormhole Guard Posts are now listed as such in the planetary detail window when mousing-over a planet on the galaxy map.
** Thanks to Wanderer for the suggestion.
+
** Thanks to Hearteater for inspiring this change.
  
* Carrier hull type from Scout => Ultra-Heavy.
+
* Minor Faction enclave ships no longer get the massively-high collision priority that human-controlled ones get.
** Thanks to Wanderer for inspiring this change.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic, TechSY730, and others for inspiring this change.
  
== Prerelease 5.036 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/07/ai-war-betas-5036-5041-released.html The Wandering AI] ==
+
* Added note to the Spire Shard Reactor description explaining that it can power 1 Spire Shipyard AND 1 Spire Habitation Center, anywhere in the galaxy. This was already explained elsewhere in the game, but not here.
(Released July 3rd, 2012)
+
** Thanks to Fealthas for inspiring this change.
  
* Vampire claws are now immune to being camouflaged by the Camouflager AI Type because the combination of melee and cloaking didn't work very well there (could wind up with non-decloakable enemy vampire claws just sitting on your planet for a long time).
+
* Fixed a bug preventing the "Avoid Pathing Through This Planet" control from working in many cases.
 
** Thanks to Wingflier for the report and save.
 
** Thanks to Wingflier for the report and save.
  
* Made Maws try to vacuum their shoot-at target if for some reason vacuuming their "assist" target failed.
+
* Added a "Lazy AI" toggle to the AI Modifiers section of the lobby.
** Thanks to Wanderer and Eternaly_Lost for providing saves where Maws had lockjaw.
+
** If this is on (off by default), the AI will not care enough to be bothered with the following (newly implemented) self-preservation measures:
 +
*** Maintaining a powerful strategic reserve to defend the AI homeworlds, even when it does not feel threatened.  Instead, its strategic reserve will be proportional to AIP (capping out around 200 AIP).
 +
*** Increasing the AIP floor by 10 for every homeworld-guarding Core Guard Post that is killed.
 +
** Decreased AIP-on-death of AI Home Command Stations from 100 to 20.
 +
*** This applies to Lazy-AI games too, but is intended to counterbalance the increase the core posts give to the floor on Non-Lazy.
 +
** The overall point of these changes is actually to make AIP feel less restraining: if you're playing a Non-Lazy AI you're going to need a certain amount of power to take down the homeworlds due to the strategic reserve, and if the core posts are going to bump up your AIP-floor anyway you may as well be above the floor before that happens.  At the same time, it's not actually forcing you "off the floor" until that final assault on the HWs, so it's up to you whether you want to start ramping up earlier or "just-in-time". Of course, on high difficulty levels you may not be able to survive the escalation, but that's kind of the point of the high difficulty levels :)
 +
** Thanks to chemical_art, Cyborg, Histidine, Hearteater, Faulty Logic, Diazo, TechSY730, Toranth, Winge, _K_, Wingflier, and others for inspiring these changes.
  
* Amended the reinforcement logging to better reflect the impact of alert on the order that planets are checked for reinforcement.
+
== Prerelease 6.016 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/04/ai-war-beta-6016-deflecting-attraction.html Deflecting Attraction] ==
** Thanks to Wanderer for pointing out that what it was saying was not what was happening.
+
(Released April 3rd, 2013)
  
* Fixed a bug where when the AI picked engineers or remains-rebuilders for reinforcements, it was "spending" too much on them.
+
* To fix a problem in recent versions where some guard posts were countering their triangle counters:
** Thanks to Wanderer for submitting the log that showed this.
+
** Needler Guard Post hull type from Light => Medium (so now countered by fighters, which they do not counter).
 +
** MLRS Guard Post hull type from Medium => Heavy (so now countered by bombers, which they do not counter).
 +
** Missile Guard Post hull type from Artillery => Light (so now countered by missile frigates, which they do not counter).
 +
** Laser Guard Post hull type from Heavy => Neutron (so now countered by missile frigates, which they do not counter).
 +
** Thanks to TechSY730, Kahuna, Space Cowboy, and many others for inspiring this change.
  
* Fixed a fairly longstanding bug where player ships would not autotarget an AI ship that was under a (non-module) forcefield and guarding something because that ship had not set its "angry" flag (to avoid leaving the protection of the forcefield).  Now it considers the ship eligible for shooting if either it or its guard post has been angered recently.
+
* New maps will now seed quantities of guard posts more appropriate to their planet's internal "AIStrengthLevel" (something that's been part of mapgen since 2009, but its factor into guard post count was obscured on any diff >= 7 for the most part) and the AI's difficulty level.
** Thanks to Wanderer for the report and save of player Spire Blades having this problem.
+
** This will generally result in a significantly smaller galactic population of guard posts on diff 7 and thereabouts, which should help lessen the blow of the recent guard post buffs on the folks who don't intentionally play the really punishing difficulty levels.
 +
** Thanks to Space Cowboy for inspiring this change.
  
* Core CPA Guard Posts now start a timer-for-CPA instead of instantly triggering a CPA.
+
* Exos from golems-hard and spirecraft-hard are now more aggressive on diffs higher than 8, with 8.3 getting a very slight boost, 9 a modest one, and 10... well, it's likely to hurt.
** Thanks to Wingflier for the suggestion.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  
* Core CPA Guard Posts now trigger in response to >= 1 enemy human military ship being present, rather than > 1.
+
* To prevent an exploit providing massive "brownout insurance" without the intended ongoing costs for said, Matter Converters can no longer be paused while under construction (they already could not be paused after construction).
** So that Artillery Golem won't get by on the ol' "But I'm just *one* ship!" excuse anymore.
+
** If this is a problem an alternate fix would be for its ongoing m+c consumption to happen even while it's still under construction.
 +
** Thanks to Wingflier and Toranth for the suggestion.
  
* Since the recent mine rebalance it's become apparent that the EMPs were made a bit too strong, and the Area mines hadn't been given enough to justify the 4k Knowledge cost.
+
* AI forts and superforts no longer self-regen.
 +
** Thanks to eRe4s3r for the suggestion.
  
** EMP mines:
+
* Fixed a longstanding bug where Neinzul Youngling Weasels were not attracting missile shots aimed at nearby allies.
*** Health halved, which halves the number of times a single one will go off before needing to be rebuilt.
+
** Their coverage is still not completely perfect; when a weasel dies any units that it was "covering" may temporarily be susceptible to missile lock, and once the missile is locked on it will go after them. But the weasels will attract most of the incoming fire.
*** Knowledge cost from 1500 => 1000.
+
** Thanks to Cyborg for the report and save.
** Area mines:
 
*** Knowledge cost from 4000 => 2000.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for inspiring these changes.
 
  
* Spire Maw vacuum-recharge-seconds from 2 => 5/4/3/2/1.
+
* Fixed a bug in recent versions where lots of units trying to do cloaking boosting in the game could cause others to have temporary "interruptions in service", so to speak.
** Thanks to Wanderer for the suggestion.
+
** Thanks to Toranth for the report and save.
 
 
* Knowledge Hacker and Ship Design Hacker collision priority set to 890 (below only stationary objects, standard/hardened forcefield generators, command stations, command station cores, and rally posts).
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for pointing out that trying to cover these with Riot starship forcefields could lead to a Riot displacing the hacker and resetting the timer.
 
  
* Fixed a longstanding bug where an Ion Cannon killing a warhead would cause it to not properly detonate as if it had been killed by a Warhead Interceptor.
+
* Fixed a longstanding (back to the beginning of Ancient Shadows) bug where some minor faction ships could get stuck on a planet's central point because they were trying to path to a nebula (but obviously could not actually do so).
 
** Thanks to Wingflier for the report and save.
 
** Thanks to Wingflier for the report and save.
  
* Fixed a bug where the AI would not attack armored warheads (due to a "very low priority target" flag on those unit definitions).
+
* Deflector Drones, in honor of developing quite a reputation for being, um, "usefulness-challenged" among a substantial portion of the playerbase:
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report and save.
+
** Base mkI cap-health from 5,213,600 => 10,880,000.
 +
** Base mkI cap-dps from 54880 => 76160.
 +
** Base move speed from 24 => 32 (so now same as fighters).
 +
** Base radius of the protection effect increased from 1000 => 9000.
 +
** No longer reduce the damage done by laser weapons to nearby allies; instead they now attract laser fire against nearby allies to target them instead (much as the Youngling Weasel does with missiles).
 +
*** Please, if you know a physicist please prevent them from thinking too much about this: it could pose serious health risks.
 +
** Has been renamed to "Atrractor Drone".
 +
** Thanks to Kahuna, Diazo, and others for inspiring these changes.
  
* The rest of the "official" lobby setup scripts have been updated to use the new grammar.
+
* Added new per-planet control to the CTRLS window: Avoid Planet During Auto-Pathing
 +
** If this is on, the game will try to avoid including this planet in the path when you give a move order on the galaxy map to a non-adjacent planet.
 +
** Note that this only applies to newly created paths: orders you've already given will remain unchanged, including "standing orders" on space docks and redirector rally posts, etc.
 +
** Thanks to Wingflier for the suggestion, and many others for feedback over the years leading to this.
  
* Fixed a bug with the do-not-auto-pause-on-lost-focus toggle where the lost-focus logic was still suppressing basically all game logic even though it wasn't entering a formally paused state.
+
* On new maps, Advanced Factories, Advanced Starship Constructors, and Fabs will now be fairly aggressively seeded far away from the planet center, while maximizing the distance from the nearest wormhole, to make defending these irreplaceables at least somewhat more feasible.
** Thanks to amethyst for the report.
+
** Thanks to Kahuna for inspiring this change.
  
* Put in an experimental method of detecting that the game has lost focus in windowed mode (our recent solution for this only works in fullscreen mode). Once loss-of-focus is detected, the existing logic for that state will apply (not scrolling, resetting input afterward to clear stuck keys, autopausing unless the no-autopause toggle is on).
+
* Intra-Galactic Warp Gates:
** For now it only works on Windows (the new method is not even tried on Mac), sorry about that, but if this works out we can probably get something similar to work on Mac too.
+
** The post-warp-paralysis time for units using a "Intra-Galactic Warp Gate - Mercenaries" or a "Intra-Galactic Warp Gate - Advanced Production" (which routes units from an AdvFact or ASC) has been reduced from 60 seconds (120 on non-friendly planets) to 4 seconds (8 on non-friendly planets).
 +
** The post-warp-paralysis time for units using a "Intra-Galactic Warp Gate - Fabricators" has been completely removed.
 +
** Thanks to Hearteater for inspiring these changes.
  
* Previously Core CPA Guard Post spawns were scaling with Floor(AIP/50) instead of actually AIP/50 due to the data type used to store the result; now that part does not get floored, allowing a more granular factoring-in of AIP.
+
* Allied Roaming Enclave logic:
 +
** The enemy-power threshold at which it considers a planet worth its attention (based on total allied enclave strength) has been raised by about 25%.
 +
** The enemy-power threshold at which it considers a planet too dangerous to attack (based on total allied enclave strength) has been raised by about 100%.
 +
** Thanks to Wingflier, TechSY730, and others for inspiring this change.
  
* Spirecraft Shieldbearers:
+
== Prerelease 6.015 ==
** Can now be put in low power mode (shutting off their projected shield).
+
(Released March 27th, 2013)
** Now their projected shield no longer shrinks as the shieldbearer loses health.
 
*** Something more like shrinking-to-90% had been considered, but that would still have resulted in stacks of them getting whittled down all at once (while still taking up ship cap) rather than dying one at a time while leaving the remaining ones at high health (depending on how they were stacked).
 
** Now have AI-only variants that can be chosen for exos.
 
*** To make them actually work with exos, this variant actually has normal guns.  They're only moderately powerful (about 1/4 as much DPS as a same-mark siege tower), but they avoid the logical problems the gunless ones had in exos.
 
*** These still have the shrink-when-damaged behavior, to make them a bit easier to handle.
 
*** Adding shieldbearers may make exos significantly harder, but that may not be a bad thing.  Let us know if you find it particularly fun or unfun; adjustments can be made.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 and others for inspiring these changes.
 
  
=== Rebalancing High (and-not-so-high) Difficulties ===
+
* Fixed a bug in the last version that could cause unhandled errors when launching some exos.
 +
** Thanks to orzelek for the report and save.
  
* Since the many changes to high-difficulty wave calculations a few months ago the 9+ difficulty range has gotten a fair bit of play and generally looks easier than it has been.  And just recently the game was [http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=8373 beaten fair-and-square on 10/10].  In response to that bug:
+
* Fixed several bugs with cloak-boosting in the last version.
** A Diff 9+ player will seed 1 less data center than normal (but no fewer than 1 if it would have seeded any).
+
** Also added a rule where something unloading from a cloaked transport is now also cloak-boosted for about 2 seconds so a nearby cloaker starship has a chance to pick it up for boosting and avoid a "blink".
** On Diff 8+ the first step of the [[AI War:Why Do Enemy Waves Get So Large%3F#How_Wave_Sizes_Are_Calculated|wave size formula]] has been changed from:
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report and save.
*** ( AIProgress * AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - AIDifficulty )
 
*** to ( ( ( AIProgress * 0.8 ) ^ 1.1 ) * AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - AIDifficulty )
 
*** This produces very similar sizes in the early game but adds a gradual exponential increase as AIP gets higher, having both the effect of making later planet captures not feel as much less significant (in terms of wave size) than early planet captures and increasing the overall "throw weight" of the AI's attacks on these higher difficulties.
 
** On Diff 7+ the randomization of wave intervals (which feeds directly into step 5 of the wave size formula) has been changed to consider the number of planets that the AI can send waves against (and thus the probable defensive power of those worlds, i.e. chokepoints, and the viability or lack thereof of smaller waves):
 
*** If there are 6+ wave-targetable planets it uses the normal (pre-5.036) formula of adding a random number from (AIDifficulty*-60) to (AIDifficulty*120).
 
*** If there are 5 wave-targetable planets the random is from (AIDifficulty*-30) to (AIDifficulty*120).
 
*** If there are 4 the random is from 0 to (AIDifficulty*120).
 
*** If 3, from (AIDifficulty*30) to (AIDifficulty*120).
 
*** If 2, from (AIDifficulty*60) to (AIDifficulty*120).
 
*** If 1, from (AIDifficulty*90) to (AIDifficulty*150) (making it actually able to hit single-chokepoints harder than it used to).
 
*** The upshot is that it makes the AI a little "smarter" about figuring out that it may as well not bother sending small waves against concentrated defenses and should just save up for stronger attack forces.  Accordingly, since the AI on <7 is intentionally a bit dumb it doesn't get this new rule at all.
 
** Thanks to many players (including zoutzakje, Diazo, Wanderer, rabican, Orelius, chemical_art, and probably others I can't remember right now) for the past few months of 9+ playtesting and related suggestions.  No good deed goes unpunished.
 
  
* Previously, an AI of difficulty 9.3 or higher would automatically be one tech level higher than normal.  This was generally fine but did cause a pretty massive difficulty cliff between 9.0 and 9.3, and we prefer to keep each step a relatively smooth progression from one step to the next.  Now:
+
== Prerelease 6.014 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/03/ai-war-beta-6014-de-faulting-logic.html De-Faulting The Logic] ==
** That automatic tech level increase has been removed.
+
(Released March 27th, 2013)
** AI's with difficulty > 9 get an additional reduction to their tech thresholds (on top of the normal difficulty*10 one) of ((difficulty-9)*200). So the threshold for reaching tech 2 is:
 
*** 9 = 210 (same as before).
 
*** 9.3 = 148.
 
*** 9.6 = 85.
 
*** 9.8 = 43.
 
*** 10 = 0 (so diff 10 starts at tech 2).
 
*** Of course, that makes the thresholds for tech 3 and tech 4 much higher since it's using the normal base of 800 and 1200 for those instead of 300 and 800 (which they used to use due to automatically being one tech level higher), thus actually making things a lot easier for those higher AIPs.  See next change.
 
** To add back some of the difficulty but in a more granular fashion than before, on diff 9+ (not just 9.3+) waves will have a portion of their fleet ships "promoted" to the next tech level according to how close AIP is to the next tech level.
 
*** So if you're playing on 9.6 and have 50 AIP, approximately 50/85= 58% of the mkIs fleet ships in a wave will be promoted to mkII.
 
*** Of course, they'll also run into the tech level multiplier which will reduce their actual numbers significantly, but roughly 58% of the wave's "strength" of that ship type was spent on the higher tech level.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for the suggestion.
 
  
* Previously carriers were way less dangerous than the ships they contained, tending to make a wave + a stack of carriers feel a lot more like that many back-to-back waves.  This is better than the pre-carrier condition of waves capping out at 2000 ships, but still tends to cause the actual difficulty of waves to increase much much slower with the size of the wave than is desirable.  So:
+
* Fixed a bug in the last version where counterattack posts were mostly just sending ships on AI planets rather than human ones.
** Now gets +1 shots-per-salvo per 16 ships inside the carrier (that's on high caps; per 8 ships on normal, 4 on low, 2 on ultra low).  So a carrier containing 1000 ships on a high caps game has 63 shots per salvo.
+
** Thanks to Vyndicu for the report and save.
** Base Attack Power from 1400*mk => 19200*mk (the base strength of 16 fighters on high caps, but without the fighter's bonuses).
 
** Seconds-Per-Salvo from 2 => 4 (same as fighter, cuts down a bit on shot-spam).
 
** Can no longer fire as though ignoring through forcefields, but it can still move through them.
 
** Shot type from dark matter => energy bomb as the idea is not for these to be easily counterable via counter-dark-matter turrets.
 
** Hull-bonus against Turret from 0.1 => 1.
 
** Hull-bonus against Structural from 0.1 => 1.
 
** Hull-bonuses against Scout and Command-Grade staying at 0.1.
 
** In summary, a full carrier is now pretty dangerous, but the firepower is still significantly lower (by about 3x, probably) than its total contents.  That's fine as they'll probably still feel more powerful than you want them to be.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for inspiring this change.
 
  
* Previously it was possible for AI Homeworlds to get really brutal combinations like an AI Eye + 3 (or more) Core Raid Engine guard posts (which is pretty much the RNG saying "good game" on higher difficulties but you don't know until you scout it), or nothing really all that threatening at all.  Randomization is core to AI War, but this particular bit of it could literally be the difference between a fairly easy endgame and a mathematically-impossible-to-win situation.
+
* Fixed an unhandled-exception bug with the resource auto-conversion logic when player resources would overflow to other players.
** Now, for AI Homeworlds, it randomizes the three most brutal structures (Core Raid Engine, Core CPA, and AI Eye) separately from the rest of the structures:
+
** Thanks to Bronzite and Fleet for reports and saves.
*** On Diff 9+ it always gets two picks from this new set.  So you could get an Eye + a Core Raid, or two CPAs, or two Eyes (which is actually kind of nice to you since they don't really stack), or whatever.  But not 3 Core Raids.  And not none of the above.
 
*** On Diff 8+ it randomly rolls (per homeworld) between one and two picks.
 
*** On Diff 7+ it always gets one pick.
 
*** Below Diff 7 it randomly rolls between zero and one picks.
 
** As the set of core guard posts expands in the future (expansions, mainly), this "brutal" set can also be added to.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for inspiring this change.
 
  
=== New Drones For The Neinzul Enclave Starship ===
+
* Fixed an unhandled-errors bug with the nemesis logic in Defender mode (it was assuming the game started with an AI HW, which is technically not true in Defender).  This could also cause a desync in MP.
 +
** Thanks to Cowinatub for the report and save.
  
* Didn't want to let the AI have _all_ the fun, so: Added 4 new drone ship types that only the Neinzul Enclave Starship can build:
+
* Cloaking boosting (both the normal variety some cloaking ships can do for other cloaking ships, and the type the cloaker starship can do for all not-immune-to-cloaking units) now has a residual effect for at least 1 second after the boost goes away.
** Neinzul Laser Drone I-IV
+
** This effectively prevents "cloak blinking" when escorting warheads through wormholes and so forth, where a unit with more than ample cloak-boosting support right next to it could still become very briefly uncloaked while the cloaker starships shuffled around.
*** MkI and II require Laser Turret II technology.  MkIII and IV require Laser Turret III technology.
+
** This also serves as a buff to cloak-boosting in general, for keeping scouts alive and whantot.
*** Has 5x bonuses against the hull types that Laser Turrets have a bonus against.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
** Neinzul Needler Drone I-IV
 
*** MkI and II require Basic Turret II technology.  MkIII and IV require Basic Turret III technology.
 
*** Has 5x bonuses against the hull types that Basic Turrets have a bonus against.
 
** Neinzul MLRS Drone I-IV
 
*** MkI and II require MLRS Turret II technology.  MkIII and IV require MLRS Turret III technology.
 
*** Has 5x bonuses against the hull types that MLRS Turrets have a bonus against.
 
** Neinzul Missile Drone I-IV
 
*** MkI and II require Missile Turret II technology.  MkIII and IV require Missile Turret III technology.
 
*** Has 5x bonuses against the hull types that Missile Turrets have a bonus against.
 
** A Neinzul Enclave Starship can build any of these up to its own mark level once you have the corresponding turret technology, just select an enclave and click the "DRONE" tab on the buy menu (similar to how the Starship Constructor has a "RIOT" tab for the Riot Control Starships).
 
** Stat wise:
 
*** Each drone only lives 30 seconds; no repair, no attrition-stops-on-low-power, no regeneration chambers, nada.  It's got 30 seconds to hurt something.
 
*** Drones do not have the lightning speed of the normal Youngling types (not wanting these to horn in on what makes the younglings special).  One consequence is that the "mothership" has to be within a certain range of the stuff you want hurt.
 
*** Drones are pretty flimsy, but dying from enemy fire isn't much of an event for these.
 
*** Ship cap is about 25% of normal because these aren't supposed to be like a whole new ship unlock, they're just a bonus on top of what you already get for turret (and enclave starship) research.
 
*** Drones cannot traverse wormholes.
 
*** Drones are super, super cheap in both metal/crystal and energy.
 
*** Attack-power-wise on an individual basis they're about as strong as a normal fleet ship with 5x bonuses, making them fairly effective against the stuff with those hull types.
 
** The motivation behind these:
 
*** High-difficulty play can make it feel very painful to spend knowledge unlocking something that doesn't give an offensive boost.  That's fine, but turrets in particular could get very little love due to their... very limited offensive use, shall we say.  So having turret research provide a modest amount of offensive boost (if you have CoN and thus the Neinzul Enclave Starship, anyhow) seemed like a fun way to do things.  And we've already done the cross-tech thing with having turret research unlock spire capital ship modules in LotS, so doing a bit more of it seemed fine.
 
*** Despite the fairly massive buffs Neinzul Enclave Starships received not long ago there's still been a lot of feedback that they're underwhelming and that they don't have a lot of point.  Well, now they can build lots of little sharp points that will really annoy the AI for you, and they're the only way to build them.
 
*** But this is also not so powerful that you have to do turret research or even use the enclaves at all, it's just making it nicer if you do.
 
** Thanks to many players for feedback on a variety of issues that inspired this addition.
 
  
=== Better Scaling For Multi-Homeworld Games ===
+
* Fixed a longstanding bug where the rule "a ship is always considered in firing range of something that is tractoring it, or the forcefield guarding said tractor" was actually inverted.  So AI fighters (for example) could be stuck in a tractor+FF trap without firing on anything if its other desired targets were out of range.
 +
** Thanks to Hearteater for the report and save.
  
* Previously CPA size was multiplied by the number of (non-Helper-role) human players, fixed to be multiplied by the (starting) number of human homeworlds.
+
* In honor of being in the top-10 in the mantis vote tallies: Since a rule was added more recently that makes it so engines automatically repair themselves, we've removed the rule that makes ships with zero engine health have a minimum speed of 1.
 +
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the suggestion and... a whole lot of players for supporting that mantis record.
  
* Previously if there were multiple human homeworlds (and thus human ship cap was much higher) each AI player would send that many extra waves (and various threats like normal CPAs and exo-attacks would be multiplied in size accordingly, though not always linearly). 
+
* In honor of being in the top-10 in the mantis vote tallies: Units that cause AIP-on-death no longer do so if they are destroyed while still under construction.
** This was generally fine but:
+
** Thanks to vinco and a bunch of supporters for inspiring this change.
*** Particularly on high homeworld counts that could lead to a ton of waves all smaller than the carrier threshold that would nonetheless add up to larger than the max number of AI ships that the game generally allows on a planet (5000), causing those extra AI ships to just disappear. 
 
*** Also, now that carriers will be more of a threat, it would be nice for them to see use in those circumstances.
 
*** Some important varieties of AI strength were not being increased at all, like: Reinforcements, Counterattack Guard Post spawns, Raid Engine spawns, Core Raid Engine spawns, Core CPA Guard Post spawns,
 
** So now:
 
*** If there are one or two human homeworlds, the number of waves per AI player is calculated the same way as before: one and two, respectively.  But if there's more than that it still doesn't go above two and instead increases the size of the individual waves proportionately.
 
**** So 3 HWs means twice as many waves as single-player (instead of three times as many) but they're 1.5x as large as they would have been. 4 HWs means twice as many waves that are 2x as large, and so on.
 
*** Reinforcements, Counterattack Guard Post spawns, Raid Engine spawns, Core Raid Engine spawns, and Core CPA Guard Post spawns now use the same scaling-with-HW-count as is used for normal CPAs: multiply by 1 + ((HW_count-1)*0.33).
 
**** This isn't 1:1 because the power increase from multiple homeworlds isn't (closer in MP, but the problems of coordination and efficiency are in play there).
 
** Thanks to Wanderer, Eternaly_Lost, and others for feedback on multi-HW play (notably the lots-of-non-carrier-waves thing).
 
  
* When Spirecraft are enabled and there's more than one human homeworld, the number of asteroids seeded will go up.
+
* CPAs have been made a bit more ferocious in some circumstances on diff 10 (with a lesser impact on other greater-than-9 difficulties)Waves and exos have also been buffed somewhat in that range.
** The main reason is that on Hard you're facing much harder exos on multi-HW, but weren't getting any additional benefit to matchMedium was not as much of a concern, but it could use it too.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for... "inspiring" this change.
** The increase is 50% for each additional human homeworld, so 2 HHWs => 150% asteroids, 3 HHWs => 200%, 4 => 250%, etc. A straight-up 1:1 was also possible but seemed excessive. In general multi-HW isn't really a 1:1 increase, but let us know if this scaling feels like too much or too little.
 
** Thanks to chemical_art for inspiring this change.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.035 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/05/ai-war-beta-5035-teleport-battle.html Teleport Battle Stations And The Return Of The Dyson Sphere] ==
+
* On Diff 8+ the AI may now choose to delay a wave when there's a CPA already in the announcement box. Not that there'd be any particular reason for it to want to do that. No, not at all.
(Released May 24th, 2012)
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  
* Fixed bug where the new pop-cap mechanic for the dyson sphere was setting the population cap properly according to faction-intensity... and then setting it to 2.  Yeaaaaah.  Dyson's on vacation in 5.034, boys and girls!
+
* Increased cost-to-the-AI for including a spire starship or zenith starship in an exo.
** Thanks to platinawolf for the report.
+
** Thanks to Diazo and many others for inspiring this change.
  
* Fixed an omission in the previous version where the variable intensity of the Advanced Hybrids plot did not do anything (all values 1-10 did exactly the same thing as Advanced Hybrids being on before variable-intensity was implemented).
+
* AI Home Command Stations are now immune to AOE (including warhead detonations).
** At intensity 1, hybrids get access to the more advanced modules and maturity classes normally granted by Advanced Hybrids.
+
** Would have done this for human home command stations too, but inevitably someone would get overwhelmed by an electric shuttle wave and then file a bug report when said shuttles just kind of stared helplessly at the human home command station.
** At intensity 2, the super hybrid can execute the first stage of the Hybrid-Dyson plot.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
*** Note that said plot no longer happens at all with Advanced Hybrids off; the super hybrid can still spawn but it'll just be a beefier hybrid in general.
 
** At intensity 4, the second stage of the Hybrid-Dyson plot becomes possible.
 
** At intensity 7, the third stage of the Hybrid-Dyson plot becomes possible.
 
** Fixed a bug in the previous version in the computation of how much each maturity gain contributed to the hybrids' "central dirty tricks bank" where it was doubling it if Advanced Hybrids was _off_, not when it was on.
 
*** Also adjusted the computation so that instead of simply doubling it when Advanced Hybrids is on, it adds 25% of the original amount per point of the Advanced Hybrid plot's intensity (if the AI's have different intensities for it, picks the higher of the two).  So on 4 it just doubles it, like before the variable-intensity thing.
 
** More can and probably will be done with the different intensities, but it's a start.
 
  
* Now if you use the mid-game Manage Players interface to switch a player from the Normal role to Helper and then save that, it properly tells you that you can't do that rather than trying (and generally causing a desync).
+
* Now when a carrier is nuked, all its not-immune-to-nukes units are destroyed rather than deployed.  This makes them more consistent with transports (which use a different internal mechanic, but the player doesn't really see the difference usually).
** Thanks to Cyborg for the report.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for reminding us that fridges are not, in fact, going to protect you from a nuclear explosion.  Even very large fridges with guns.
  
* The Lobby now has a "role" dropdown for each occupied human player slot.  The only options are Normal and Helper, but that makes it possible to have someone join from the start as a Helper. A few notes:
+
* Normal (non-homeworld) guard posts:
** At least one human player has to be in the "Normal" role for the game to be started. This does not have to be the first player (i.e. host).
+
** Needler, Laser, MLRS, and Missile guard posts have had their shots-per-salvo multiplied by 5, and damage adjusted downward to maintain DPS.
** Helpers cannot select homeworlds (and are not given any units or planets at the start of the game).
+
** Missile guard post DPS down 25%.
 +
** Anti-starship guard post DPS doubled.
 +
** Thanks to TechSY730, Hearteater, and many others for feedback on the new guard post stats.
  
* Fixed a bug in the handicap modifier computations that caused negative handicaps to be far harsher than they were supposed to be in some circumstances (like making CPA size zero when it was supposed to be, say, 24, because the multiplier was about 51x smaller than it was suppposed to be).
+
== Prerelease 6.013 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/03/ai-war-beta-6013-core-foamhammer.html Core Foamhammer] ==
** Thanks to Minotaar for the report and save.
+
(Released March 19th, 2013)
  
* CPAs now don't get queued up if the result based on difficulty, AIP, etc would be way too small (under 200 ships, for high caps, adjusted appropriately) (once a CPA is announced, however, it will happen).
+
* Heavy Bomber Starship:
 +
** Is now able to hit fleet ships again.
 +
** Base CapDPS from 120k*mk => 150k*mk.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic (most recently; probably dozens of players over the past several months) for inspiring this change.
  
* Fixed a longstanding bug where AOE "canister" shots (flak, grenade, plasma-siege) were not properly hitting forcefields when targeting a ship protected by them, unless the targeted ship was also in range of the explosion from the point where the shot hit the forcefield.
+
* Regeneration Golem:
** Thanks to Dazio for the report and save.
+
** Instead of having self-attrition (100% to 0% in 2 hours) it now has self-regeneration (0% to 100% in 4 hours).
 +
** AIP-on-activation (for golems-medium) from 25 => 15.
 +
** Base Health from 200M => 400M.
 +
** Metal/Crystal "build" cost (these are never built, but this impacts repair costs) from 20M/20M to 10M/10M.
 +
** Now has vampirism (heals itself by the damage it does).
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic, Hearteater, Aeson, onyhow, Jonz0rz, ZaneWolfe, Vyndicu, Wingflier, chemical_art, TechSY730, and the voters in the community poll that inspired these changes.
  
* Marauders and Resistance Fighters can now be targeted by ships that cannot target small units (Bomber Starship, etc).
+
* Spire Corvette II/III knowledge cost from 2500/6000 => 2000/5000 because the module upgrades require separate knowledge expenditure (you get something else for that other spending, which is why the reduction here is not bigger).
** Thanks to Wanderer for pointing out that the Marauder Frigate wasn't already like this.
+
** Thanks to ZaneWolfe and others for inspiring this change.
  
* Since the Riot Starship MkIII did pretty well in the last worst-ship poll:
+
* To make the Astro Train plot a bit less "Automatic Death On Wheels":  
** Gave them tachyon coverage matching the MkIII scout starship.
+
** The Regenerator, Nuclear, EMP, Shield, and Cargo trains are now autotargeted.
** Added a couple additional options for its highest-level hardpoint:
+
** Cargo train health from 400M => 20M.
*** Grav Tazer
+
** Cargo train armor from 10k => 1k.
**** Similar to the Riot IIs tazer but also applies the "halt" effect (same as the grav ripper) to everything hit, making it take longer for even paralysis-immune ships to get away.
+
** Nuke train health from 40M => 10M.
**** Note that these share the same planet-wide stagger category as Riot II tazers, to prevent these making permanent tazer lock possible again.
+
** EMP train health from 40M => 10M.
*** Grav Generator
+
** Thanks to Hearteater, Diazo, and many others for inspiring these changes.
**** Basically a ship-mounted grav turret, requires research of Grav Turret Is.
 
** Thanks to many players for feedback indicating that they didn't really see a reason to upgrade from Riot IIs to Riot IIIs.
 
  
* This doesn't really impact the player at all, but some may care: Implemented another, far saner grammar for the Lobby Setup Scripts.
+
* Removed the "can only get at most a 20% munitions boost" rule from starships, so they now have the default cap of +400% that everything (that doesn't have a specific cap) has.  Can tweak this back downwards if it's too much, but since starships now have much lower average cap-dps than fleet ships and fleet ships have the +400% cap, in theory this should be at-least-not-totally-insane.
** Only BeginnerGame.xml, BeginnerGame2.xml, and RandomFactions1.xml have been updated to use it, but that covers all the unique syntax necessary to re-implement the others, too.  Currently the game will still parse the old grammar, but that will go away when the rest of the "official" scripts have been converted.
+
** Thanks to chemical_art, Lancefighter, Winge, and TechSY730 for inspiring this change.
  
* Teleport Battlestations, in honor of doing pretty well in the last worst-unit poll:
+
* Fixed a bug in the last version where having the Spire Corvette bonus ship type and switching to the SCRV tab of an Advanced Starship Constructor could cause the ASC's build menu to be "stuck" on that tab.
** Base Max Health from 14k*mk => 28k*mk (bringing it from 4.8M cap-hp, which is basically the minimum for a fleet ship, to 9.6M cap-hp where about 18 other types will be lower than it).
+
** Thanks to Wingflier for the report and save.
** Base Attack Power from 400 => 700 (bringing it from 39.2k cap-base-dps and 94k cap-max-dps, where some ships have a base dps higher than that max-dps, to the midst of the respectable-attack types).
 
** Thanks to many players for feedback on these.
 
  
* Added new toggle to Interface tab of Settings window: Disable Pause On Lost Focus.
+
* MkII Transport health-lost-on-hop-outside supply from 35% => 26%, so instead of "can go 2 hops outside supply and have 30% health left to deal with normal damage" (like the MkI) it "can go 3 hops outside supply and have 22% health left to deal with normal damage".
** Normally the game will automatically pause if it detects that the game has lost focus (it can only detect this in fullscreen mode, not windowed mode).
+
** Thanks to... well, a lot of players asked for this but it was a long time ago and I'm not seeing anything in Mantis when I look... let me know who you are if you want to show up here :)
** Enabling this toggle will suppress that auto-pause behavior, which may be helpful for multiplayer games and some other situations.
 
** Thanks to amethyst for the suggestion.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.034 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/05/ai-war-beta-5034-is-it-really-minor.html Is It Really A 'Minor' Faction If You Scale It That High?] ==
+
* The chase-exos for the recover-first-city-shard and building-first-city parts of the Fallen Spire progression have been toned down somewhat, and the later chase-exos increased somewhat. Player feedback seems to consistently indicate that those first-city ones were too strong, and the later ones (the chase exos, not the pre-announced ones) relatively underwhelming.
(Released May 7th, 2012)
+
** Thanks to Diazo and others for inspiring this change.
  
* Fixed a bug in the previous version where Neinzul Rocketry Corps lightning warheads were causing AIP-on-death (despite saying they don't).
+
=== Congratulating The Winners Of The "Aim the Nerfbat of Damocles: Player-side (III)" Poll ===
** Thanks to dragon95046 for the report.
 
  
* Amended the "if base max health >= 1,000,000, then immune to fusion cutters" rule to exclude fleet ship types whose mkI versions don't pass that >= 1,000,000 threshold (to prevent situations where fusion cutters were getting way less useful against higher-mark AI planets, etc).  The fleet ship types that still have the immunity due to health:
+
* Thanks to Hearteater, TechSY730, Faulty Logic, Histidine, Dichotomy, Wingflier, chemical_art, Diazo, Toranth, Eternaly_Lost, Radiant Phoenix, Marmu23, laughingman, Winge, Aeson, Bognor, ZaneWolfe, and the poll voters for inspiring these changes.
** Spire Stealth Battleship
 
** Spire Blade Spawner
 
** Spire Maw
 
** Spire Tractor Platform
 
** Thanks to chemical_art and other players for inspiring this change.
 
  
* Ships killed by a zombie-reclamator no longer spread any excess reclamation damage they have to other ships.  The spreading mechanic was intended to make non-zombie-reclamators more reliable; the zombie reclamators were already plenty powerful enough :)
+
* Metal Manufactories and Crystal Manufactories, in honor of winning the poll, have been removed from the game!  Instead: The Automated Energy Hamsters have returned from retirement, seeing an opportunity to synergize their unique skillset and capitalize on the market created by player dissatisfaction with the Manufactories.  Specifically:
** Thanks to amethyst and Minotaar for reporting.
+
** If something you're building requires either more metal or more crystal than is available, the Automated Resource-Conversion Hamsters will perform Just-In-Time conversion of the other resource into the needed one.  The process is inefficient, however, and consumes 1.5 times as much of the converted material as it produces of the other.
 +
*** If the new "Max Resource Conversion" galaxy-wide control is set to -1 (the default), then there is no limit to how much this as-needed conversion will convert per second.  Otherwise, it will not convert more than the specified amount per second.  If it is set to zero, the automatic conversion is effectively disabled.
 +
** If something causes you to gain either more metal or crystal than the resource cap will let you hold, the extra amount tries to convert into the other resource (at a 1.5:1 ratio, like with conversion-on-spending).  If the other resource also hits cap, it then does the normal logic for the excess (first tries to distribute it to other human players, and if that doesn't work just dumps it all over the floor).
  
* Fixed a bug where the Dyson Sphere itself was alerting its planet and neighboring planets on the AI thread, but not on the main threadIt now does not alert on either (but the actual enemy-to-all gatlings and player-ally gatlings count for alert purposes, of course).
+
* In honor of coming in third in the poll, the Spirecraft Scout:
** Thanks to zoutzakje and others for reporting.
+
** Removed normal attrition while on higher-mark enemy planets.
 +
** Instead limited the range of these like we do with transports:
 +
*** When hopping out of supply, they take 50/34/25/20/17% of max health in damageThis gives it a maximum effective range of 2/3/4/5/6 hops outside supply.
 +
*** They cannot be repaired by another unit under any circumstances.
 +
*** While on a friendly planet they auto regenerate fairly quickly (from 0% to 100% in 30 seconds).  So if you're ok with roughly half the effective range you can reuse them.
  
* There's now a galaxy-wide population cap on each of the three types (enemy-to-all, player-ally, and ai-ally) of Dyson Gatling, equal to the current effective AIP.
+
=== Congratulating The Winners Of The "Aim the Nerfbat of Damocles: AI-side (III)" Poll ===
** So if AIP is 80, there could be 80 enemy-to-all gatlings, 80 AI-ally gatlings, and 79 player-ally gatlings and if the Dyson was currently player-ally it would still spawn another player-ally gatling before ceasing to spawn until either the player-ally gatling count went down or the AIP went up.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer (and others, more recently) for pointing out how dominating the Dyson Sphere could be.
 
  
=== New Variety for Existing Minor Factions ===
+
* Thanks to Hearteater, TechSY730, Faulty Logic, Histidine, Dichotomy, Wingflier, chemical_art, Diazo, Toranth, Eternaly_Lost, Radiant Phoenix, Marmu23, laughingman, Winge, Cinth, Aeson, onyhow, and the poll voters for inspiring these changes.
  
* Human Resistance Fighters:
+
* Ravenous Shadow, in honor of tying for second:
** Now instead of being an on/off toggle in the lobby, it can be set to a value from 0 to 10.  0 is disabled, 4 is the previous "normal" increment frequency, 1 is way less frequent than that, and 10 is way more frequent than that (it's not linear).
+
** Base Speed from 84 => 75.
** Don't use a high value unless you want to see these happening a LOT.
+
** Base Attack Power from 60k => 54k.
 +
** Shots per salvo from 45 => 40.
 +
** Base Attack Range from 17k => 15k.
 +
** The combination of those 4 roughly-10% nerfs should be pretty significant.  It's supposed to be a pretty nasty combatant, and you really have to pull out the stops with distracting fire and providing shielding (both from your modules and your projected-shield-ability) for the enclaves to save many of them. But it should be substantially easier now.
  
* Marauders:
+
* Interplanetary Munitions Booster, as an honorable mention (4th place, if it matters):
** Now instead of being an on/off toggle in the lobby, it can be set to a value from 0 to 10.  0 is disabled, 4 is the previous "normal" increment frequency, 1 is way less frequent than that, and 10 is way more frequent than that (it's not linear).
+
** AIP-on-death from 20 to 5.
** Don't use a high value unless you want to see these happening a LOT.
 
  
* Human Colony Rebellions
+
* Gravity, in honor winning this poll (and coming in second on the player-side) ... well, actually, we can't nerf gravityBut we can nerf all the artificial gravity units!
** Now instead of being an on/off toggle in the lobby, it can be set to a value from 0 to 100 is disabled, 4 is the previous "normal" frequency, 1 is way less frequent than that, and 10 is way more frequent than that (it's not linear).
+
** All grav-well units except the player home forcefield generator (but including the grav drill) have had the "speed ceilings" they enforce upon victims multiplied by 4.  So the mkIII grav turret used to slow things down to 2, but now slows them down to 8 (the old ceiling on the mkI, incidentally), and so on.
** Don't use a high value unless you want to see these happening a LOT.
+
** Grav Turret knowledge unlock cost from 750/3000/4000 => 500/1500/2500.
 +
** Since gravity is no longer as game-changing, immunity to Gravity has been removed from the following units:
 +
*** Hunter/Killer
 +
*** Spire Starship
 +
*** Raptor
 +
*** Spire Corvette
 +
*** Super Hybrid
 +
*** All Golems (except the Devourer)
 +
*** All Spirecraft (except the Spirecraft Scout; all scouts are immune to gravity)
 +
*** Resistance Fighter ships (from the base game minor faction)
 +
*** Marauder ships (from the base game minor faction)
 +
*** Most of the units retaining this immunity do so because they need to travel at a consistent speed to make sense (Zenith Trader, Devourer Golem, Astro Trains, etc), rather than to counter the grav-well units.
  
* Dyson Sphere:
+
* In honor of tying for second in the poll, Counterattack guard posts:
** Now instead of being an on/off toggle in the lobby, it can be set to a value from 0 to 10.  0 is disabled, 4 is the previous "normal" spawn-check frequency (one check per 20 seconds), 1 is 1/4th of 4 (one check per 80 seconds), 8 is 2x what 4 is (one check per 10 seconds), and 10 is insane (one check per 6 seconds).
+
** Can no longer just send a wave anywhere, the target must be within X hops of a warp gate, where X is the mark level of the counterattack guard post in question.
** The galaxy-wide population caps on each of the three gatling types are modified by this 0-10 value.  4 is cap = AIP; 1 is cap = AIP / 4, 8 is cap = AIP * 2, etc (it's linear).
+
** Wave timer down from 14 minutes => 10 minutes, due to player complaints that it was annoying to have to wait that long.
** So if you want a game-dominating dyson sphere, you can still get it :)
 
  
* Zenith Miners
+
=== Core Versions Of 18 Additional Fleet Ship Types ===
** Now instead of being an on/off toggle in the lobby, it can be set to a value from 0 to 10.  0 is disabled, 4 is the previous "normal" frequency, 1 is way less frequent than that, and 10 is way more frequent than that (it's not linear).
 
** Don't use a high value unless you want to see these happening a LOT.
 
  
* Broken Golems (Hard)
+
* Added Core (MkV) versions of the 18 fleet ship types (15 base game, 3 TZR) that did not already have them:
** Now instead of being an on/off toggle in the lobby, it can be set to a value from 0 to 10.  0 is disabled, 4 is the previous "normal" strength, 1 is way less than that, and 10 is way more than that (it's not linear).
+
** Space Tank
** Note: the only thing impacted by the intensity value for Broken Golems (Hard) is the strength of the exogalactic strikeforces sent by the AI as a response to this faction being on.  The benefit you derive from it (number or strength of golems, etc) is not affected.
+
** Sniper
** Don't use a high value unless you want to see VERY strong exogalactic strikeforces (their frequency does not change).
+
** Electric Shuttle
 +
** Vorticular Cutlass
 +
** Infiltrator
 +
** Eye Bot
 +
** Autocannon Minipod
 +
** Deflector Drone
 +
** Ether Jet
 +
** Shield Bearer
 +
** Anti-Armor Ship
 +
** MLRS
 +
** Munitions Booster
 +
** Teleport Raider
 +
** Teleport Battle Station
 +
** Zenith Auto Bomb
 +
** Armor Booster
 +
** Zenith Viral Shredder
  
* Neinzul Preservation Wardens:
+
* Core Fabricators for all of the above are now eligible for seeding as fabs during mapgen.
** Now instead of being an on/off toggle in the lobby, it can be set to a value from 0 to 10.  0 is disabled, 4 is the previous "normal" increment frequency, 1 is way less frequent than that, and 10 is way more frequent than that (it's not linear).
 
** Don't use a high value unless you want to see these happening a LOT.
 
  
* Neinzul Roaming Enclaves:
+
* Since the available variety has increased, the number of Core Fabs seeded during mapgen has been increased by 2.
** Now instead of being an on/off toggle in the lobby, it can be set to a value from 0 to 10.  0 is disabled, 4 is the previous "normal" increment frequency, 1 is way less frequent than that, and 10 is way more frequent than that (it's not linear).
 
** Don't use a high value unless you want to see these happening a LOT.
 
  
* Neinzul Rocketry Corps:
+
== Prerelease 6.012 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/03/ai-war-beta-6012-darkened-sky-altered.html Darkened Sky, Altered Starship] ==
** Now instead of being an on/off toggle in the lobby, it can be set to a value from 0 to 10. 0 is disabled, 4 is the previous "normal" number seeded at the beginning of the game, 1 is way fewer than that, and 10 is way more than that (it's not linear).
+
(Released March 12th, 2013)
** Don't use a high value unless you want to see a LOT of these (Would you like to play a game of... ?).
 
  
* Fallen Spire
+
* Fixed a bug where Hive-Golem wasps were contributing way too much charge to a vengeance generator on death.
** Now instead of being an on/off toggle in the lobby, it can be set to a value from 0 to 10.  0 is disabled, 4 is the previous "normal" strength, 1 is way less than that, and 10 is way more than that (it's not linear).
+
** Thanks to Vyndicu for the report.
** Note: the only thing impacted by the intensity value for Fallen Spire is the strength of the exogalactic strikeforces sent by the AI as a response to this faction being on.  The benefit you derive from it is not affected.
 
** Don't use a high value unless you want to see VERY strong exogalactic strikeforces (their frequency does not change).
 
  
* Spirecraft (Hard)
+
* Fixed a bug in the previous version where the AI could get a single (non-respawning) offensive nemesis champion even if the human players had no champions.
** Now instead of being an on/off toggle in the lobby, it can be set to a value from 0 to 10.  0 is disabled, 4 is the previous "normal" strength, 1 is way less than that, and 10 is way more than that (it's not linear).
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report.
** Note: the only thing impacted by the intensity value for Spirecraft (Hard) is the strength of the exogalactic strikeforces sent by the AI as a response to this faction being on.  The benefit you derive from it (number of asteroids or strength of spirecraft, etc) is not affected.
 
** Don't use a high value unless you want to see VERY strong exogalactic strikeforces (their frequency does not change).
 
  
* Note that the Trader, Devourer, Easy and Moderate Golems (which don't fit into this idea of "faction intensity", they're really just different things than Hard Golems), Spire Civilian Leaders, and Easy and Moderate Spirecraft are all still just on/offThis isn't because we don't have any ideas on how they might be made so, just none that were very simple to implement at this stage.
+
* Now when starting the game your initial metal/crystal stockpiles are 200k/200k instead of 20k/20k.  It may sound like a lot but even just a homeworld's starting resource generation amounts to the difference in only a few minutes, so it's not much of an advantageBut it does help the first few minutes of the game not drag on so much (due to running a zero'd out economy - that will still happen to a lot of players but it won't be as bad).
 +
** Thanks to Wingflier, Moonshine Fox, LaughingThesaurus, Diazo, Winge, TechSY730, and Aeson for inspiring this change.
  
=== New Variety For Existing AI Plots ===
+
=== Starship Rebalance (Later-game power, role compared to fleet ships) ===
  
* Hybrid Hives
+
* We got a lot of feedback about last version's changes to the Spire and Zenith starships, and much of it pointed to starships in general being pretty good in the early/mid game but falling off the pace compared to fleet ships in the later parts of the game due to the Advanced Factory making mkIV fleet ships available and starships having no real parallel to that.  So let's see what happens if we change that.
** Now instead of being an on/off toggle in the lobby, it can be set to a value from 0 to 10.  0 is disabled, 4 is the previous "normal" number of hive spawners seeded at the beginning of the game, 1 is way fewer than that, and 10 is way more than that (it's not linear).
+
** Note that this shouldn't have much of an impact on the early game at all; mainly it comes into play when you're in a position to actually take-and-hold the new capturables and have the resource income to use them.
** Don't use a high value unless you want to see a LOT of these.
+
** Also note that starship-only games will still generally not be viable in harder scenarios because the resource costs are so high.  These aren't intended to be able to replace fleet ships in all roles.
 +
** Thanks to chemical_art, TechSY730, Winge, Faulty Logic, Diazo, onyhow, Hearteater, Dichotomy, Jonz0rz, Wingflier, and others for inspiring these changes.
  
=== Lobby Setup Scripts ===
+
* Amendments/Fixes to some of the Spire/Zenith Starship changes from last version
 +
** The change in the last version where the Spire Starship and Zenith Starship were effectively mkII/III/IV instead of mkI/II/III has been reverted.
 +
** The AI now pays more for these in exos than it did before, since the cap reduction made them individually stronger than they used to be.
 +
** Waves including these now get one mark lower than they used to, due to the lower ship cap and higher individual strength.  This can result in a wave not having Spire or Zenith starships available to it at all.
  
* Preface: over the years we've had requests accumulate on a number of different fronts that couldn't easily be handled the way things were, like:
+
* Added a new type of important capturable structure: the Advanced Starship Constructor.
** Numerous new players asking "What's a good setup for my first game?"
+
** These are very similar to Advanced Factories, but instead of mkIV fleet ships these can produce the mkIV version of a starship you already have the mkIII of.
** Variable-strength minor factions and AI plots (which could be handled just by the above changes, but read on)
+
** The Scout Starship and Enclave Starship already have mkIV versions at the normal starship constructor and are not on this one's menu.
** Randomized minor factions and AI plots, particularly combined with variable-strength.
+
** The Cloaker Starship and Riot Starship do not have mkIV versions (the former because it didn't seem necessary, the latter because otherwise no AI ship would ever have working engines again).
** Randomized and hidden minor factions and AI plots (so you don't know what's there until you run into it in the game, with potentially hilarious results).
+
** But all the other types (Flagship, Zenith Starship, Spire Starship, Heavy Bomber Starship, Plasma Siege Starship, Leech Starship, and Raid Starship) now have mkIV versions.  Like with fleet ships, they are not unlocked directly but are available at the advanced production structure when mkIII is unlocked.
** Some kind of overall "difficulty ranking" for a particular game setup.
+
** These try very hard to not seed on the same planet as an Adv Fact.
 +
** In new games with CSGs on, a planet with an ASC will get a CSG-B generator like a planet with an AdvFact would.
  
* So, from a small scripting language that was written for (and actually not ultimately used for) AVWW, a Lobby Setup Scripting system has been cobbled together.  The actual scripting language is likely to completely change in the next version (it's really verbose, cumbersome, etc, but it does work), but the short story is it's now possible to define external scripts which populate the settings in the lobby.
+
* Added Core Fabricators (specifically, in the "Experimental Starship" category) for producing the mkV versions of the Flagship, Spire Starship, Zenith Starship, Plasma Siege Starship, Leech Starship, and Raid Starship.
** Please note, those of you with scenario-building aspirations, that this really only sets stuff in the lobby.  It cannot directly influence mapgen (placement of planets, units, etc) in any way.
+
** Also, the experimental starship category of fabricators now seeds an extra fab at the beginning of the game (so from 2 => 3, on single-HW games).
** To use a script, start a new game, and in the lobby on the Map tab pick an option from the Setup Script dropdown. It will then immediately execute the script and apply the changes to the lobby.
 
** The following scripts are available in this version:
 
*** Beginner Game
 
**** A fairly simple, fairly easy scenario that may be a good next step for new players who have just completed the intermediate tutorial.
 
*** Beginner Game 2
 
**** A bit harder than the scenario generated by the Beginner Game script.  May be a good next step for new players who have just completed the intermediate tutorial and are feeling confident.
 
*** Random Factions 1
 
**** This script sets up some randomized minor factions and AI plots from the base game (no expansions required).
 
***** Note (this goes for the rest of these scripts, too): it's not purely random, it starts with a certain number of "points" and randomly picks factions/plots to allocate them to.  Friendly factions (in this case, human resistance fighters) actually increase the point total when chosen, rather than decreasing it.  The point is that while there's simply no way to get any kind of overall "difficulty score" of a particular scenario, it is possible (with significant effort) to make a script which produces scenarios within a particular range of difficulty.  Which, hopefully, scratches the real itch behind the "difficulty score" request.
 
*** Random Factions 2
 
**** This script sets up some randomized minor factions and AI plots from the base game and The Zenith Remnant expansion.
 
*** Random Factions 3
 
**** This script sets up some randomized minor factions and AI plots from the base game and the The Zenith Remnant and Children Of Neinzul expansions.
 
*** Random Factions 4
 
**** This script sets up some randomized minor factions and AI plots from the base game and the The Zenith Remnant, Children Of Neinzul, and Light Of The Spire expansions.
 
*** Unknown Factions 1
 
**** This script sets up some randomized minor factions and AI plots from the base game (no expansions required), and then hides them so that you cannot see what has been selected either in the lobby or in the game.  If you then pick another script (or none) the hidden status will be reset.
 
*** Unknown Factions 2
 
**** This script sets up some randomized minor factions and AI plots from the base game and The Zenith Remnant expansion.  It then hides them so that you cannot see what has been selected either in the lobby or in the game.  If you then pick another script (or none) the hidden status will be reset.
 
*** Unknown Factions 3
 
**** This script sets up some randomized minor factions and AI plots from the base game and The Zenith Remnant and Children Of Neinzul expansions.  It then hides them so that you cannot see what has been selected either in the lobby or in the game.  If you then pick another script (or none) the hidden status will be reset.
 
*** Unknown Factions 4
 
**** This script sets up some randomized minor factions and AI plots from the base game and The Zenith Remnant, Children Of Neinzul, and Light Of The Spire expansions.  It then hides them so that you cannot see what has been selected either in the lobby or in the game.  If you then pick another script (or none) the hidden status will be reset.
 
  
* Thanks to HitmanN, Chris Fifty-Two, KDR_11k, Vinraith, Sunshine (and probably others) for suggesting randomized minor factions and AI plots.
+
* The Heavy Bomber Starship mkIV is now produced at the Advanced Starship Constructor, and no longer produced at the bomber-star fabricator (that now produces the mkV variant).
* Thanks to zebramatt and others for advocating for scenario difficulty-scores, even though we can't quite do that.
 
* Thanks to topper and others for requesting some kind of "suggested settings" or "presets" for the lobby, particularly for new players.
 
  
=== Major Improvements Relating To Loss Of Window Focus In Fullscreen Mode ===
+
* Spire Corvette:
 +
** MkIV is no longer researchable or buildable at a normal starship constructor, but instead can be built at an Advanced Starship Constructor if you've unlocked the MkIII version.
 +
*** Knowledge cost of mkIII from 3500 => 6000 now that you get the mkIVs "for free" with an ASC.  This makes the knowledge costs of the corvette identical to other bonus types.
 +
** Base Cap DPS of the main weapon from 120k*mk => 300k*mk (same as Spire Starship, and the corvette's modules are its extra boost for being a bonus type rather than a core type).
 +
** Beam cycle time from 10 seconds => 3 seconds (so an actual reload of 1 second, plus the 2 second firing time), damage adjusted to maintain DPS.
 +
** Note that these are really considered a "bonus fleet ship" for balance purposes, they're just built like a starship.
  
* Some recent breakthroughs with the unity engine from A Valley Without Wind have now been backported to AI War.  Specifically:
+
* Another important point about starships that's really come to light that starships have been competing with fleet ships more-or-less directly in terms of Knowledge-costs and thus players are seeing them as replacements for fleet ships when they're really supposed to be more of a supporting category (like, for instance, turrets: turrets are great, but they don't displace the role of fleet ships)So we're trying something new with that too:
** The game now knows if it has focus or not if you're running in fullscreen mode (not windowed, sorry).
 
** If the game does not have focus, it now stops doing any edge scrolling (so you don't return to find yourself out in the middle of nowhere.
 
** If the game does not have focus, it issues a pause command just one time -- that way, in solo or multiplayer, accidental clicks onto a secondary monitor out of fullscreen now pause the game without spamming pauses at other players.
 
** IF the game does not have focus OR if the Steam Overlay is brought up, it now does a better job of resetting all the inputThis should finally resolve that stupid "stuck keys" thing with alt-tabbing and shift-tabbing.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.033 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/04/ai-war-beta-5033-and-other-times-there.html And Other Times There Are A Few Too Many Ponies] ==
+
* The knowledge costs for the Flagship, Heavy Bomber Starship, Plasma Siege Starship, and Leech Starship are now 0/1000/3000 and the the costs for the Zenith Starship and Spire Starship, are now 500/1000/2500, for a total of 4000 to unlock mkIII (and thus mkIV if you have an ASC), compared to the 8500 K needed to do the same for a triangle fleet ship type.
(Released April 17th, 2012)
+
** In return, the overall dps of starships is coming down: you'll still be getting a good deal in terms of DPS-per-K return, but you won't be able to "buy" all your DPS that way because there's only so much total starship cap available.
 +
** Overall, the effect is to make starships "as a category" more explicitly a support-role compared to fleet ships "as a category", while still emphasizing them as individually-powerful (and very durable, relative to fleet ships) units.  You can probably still go "starship-only" in easier scenarios, or in the early (and maybe mid, with an ASC) game in a harder scenario, but in general going "starship-only" is just not going to give you the needed core of firepower to replace fleet ships.  But you won't be paying fleet-ship-levels of K to get them, either, which is the main thing.
  
* Metal/Crystal Harvester Upgrades:
+
* Flagship:
** MkII production from 31 => 30.
+
** Ship cap from 4 => 2 (health and damage adjusted to maintain cap values).
** MkIII production from 73 => 55.
+
** Munitions boost range from 2000+(1000*mk) => 4000+(2000*mk) (which also increases the "total ship area" it can boost simultaneously) to compensate for fewer individual boosting platforms.
** Results/Rationale:
+
** Base CapDPS from 50k => 30k.
*** Assuming 12 resource spots on the homeworld and 4 resource spots per captured planet (the latter is a well-attested average, to the author's surprise).
+
** Cap m/c cost from 240k/160k => 120k/80k.
*** MkII upgrades are better than EconII if you have 1, 2, 3, or greater than 12 planets, but are worse from 4 to 11.
+
** Cap e cost from 40k => 20k.
*** MkIII upgrades are better than EconIII (plus EconII since it's unlocked on the way) if you have 1-4 or greater than 13 planets, but are worse from 5 to 12.
 
*** Harvesters still have the advantage of not occupying the command station "slot" but also still have the disadvantage of being at the mercy of mapgen: sometimes you don't have the luxury of picking a planet with 4+ resource spots instead of a planet with 1-2.
 
*** All in all, the question of "do I upgrade harvesters or econ stations?" should now be more situational and map-based.
 
** Thanks to many players for feedback on the recent harvester buffs, including strident efficiency graphs and amusing anecdotes of overrunning the galaxy with unending waves of constant production.
 
  
* Fixed a null exception that happened when gifting a spirecraft mining enclosure to another player.
+
* Zenith Starship:
** Thanks to topper for the report and save.
+
** Ship cap from 2 => 1 (health and damage adjusted to maintain cap values).
 +
** Base CapDPS from 50k => 40k.
 +
** Cap m/c cost is 80k/120k (has been since last version, but worth mentioning).
 +
** Cap e cost is 20k (ditto).
  
* Neinzul Enclave Starships, in honor of winning the fifth "Worst Unit" poll.
+
* Spire Starship:
** Base Armor Rating from 1000 flat => 1000*mk.
+
** Ship cap from 2 => 1 (health and damage adjusted to maintain cap values).
** Base Health from 500K*mk => 3M*mk.
+
** Base CapDPS from 300k => 180k.
*** This gives an individual one 80% the health of an individual corresponding fleet-boosting starship; not using cap comparisons here since these are not military ships (i.e. ships with an attack), but for reference those fleet-boosting starships have 2x as much cap.
+
** Cap m/c cost is 90k/110k (has been since last version, but worth mentioning).
** Now have radar dampening of 8000/7500/7000/6500.
+
** Cap e cost is 20k (ditto).
*** Between this, the armor, and the health it should be a lot more reasonable to keep these alive unless you get overwhelmed, in which case these should die (cloaking was experimented with, but was way too exploitable; that much cheese requires cloaker starships).
 
** Knowledge Costs from 0/3000/5000/10000 => 0/2000/2000/14000.
 
*** This is because the first two upgrades are purely for in-the-field construction (which is worth something) and the last is a game-changing ability to have mkIV production capacity without an advanced factory.
 
** The rate at which they construct ships used to be the same as a space dock, and is now 4*mk as fast as a space dock (so 16x for a mkIV).
 
*** This is because previously using these efficiently basically required engineer support (specifically, engineer mkIII support).  Engies still help, but it's not as critical.
 
** Thanks to many players for providing feedback on these in recent months, and for voting in the poll.
 
  
* Armored Warheads, in honor of placing second in the fifth "Worst Unit" poll:
+
* Heavy Bomber Starship:
** Base Attack Power from 300k/1.5M/2.4M => 1M*mk.
+
** Ship cap from 4 => 2 (health and damage adjusted to maintain cap values).
** Explosion Size from 1500/1250/750 => 1500*mk.
+
** CapHealth from 28M => 36M.
** Now do 10k*mk armor damage, enough to strip all the armor off most units that aren't some kind of boss fight.
+
** Base CapDPS from 140k => 120k (would have dropped it more, but generally getting a feel that these felt underpowered previously).
** In general you still aren't going to want to use these a lot, it's still a "rot your teeth" sort of unit where heavy use is rarely a good sign for how well your game is going.  But these should be more useful than they were, for sure.
+
** Cap m/c cost from 340k/60k => 170k/30k.
** Thanks to many players for providing feedback on these in recent months, and for voting in the poll.
+
** Cap e cost from 40k => 20k.
  
* Lightning Warheads:
+
* Plasma Siege Starship:
** Base Attack Power from 300k/1.5M/2.4M => 800k*mk.
+
** Ship cap from 4 => 2 (health and damage adjusted to maintain cap values).
*** Just keeping up with the armored warhead changes; only a significant change to the mkI, really.  So the armored ones pack about 25% more punch, for whatever that's worth.
+
** Base Cap DPS from 100k => 90k (would have dropped it more, but generally getting a feel that these felt underpowered previously).
** Explosion size changed to match the new armored warheads: 1500/1250/750 => 1500*mk.
+
** Cap m/c cost from 60k/340k => 30k/170k.
 +
** Cap e cost from 40k => 20k.
 +
** Base move speed from 8 => 12 (now same as missile frigate, the slowest triangle ship).
  
* Metal/Crystal manufactory input and output scale multiplied by 10 (so consumes 200 of a resource to produce 140, instead of 20 for 14), in honor of placing 3rd in the fifth "Worst Unit" poll.
+
* Leech Starship:
** Thanks to many players for suggesting an increase in scale for these, and for voting in the poll.
+
** Ship cap from 4 => 2 (health and damage adjusted to maintain cap values).
 
+
** Base Cap DPS from 72k => 40k.
== Prerelease 5.032 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/03/ai-war-beta-5032-then-pendulum-swung.html Then The Pendulum Swung Back] ==
+
** Cap m/c cost from 240k/160k => 120k/80k.
(Released March 30th, 2012)
+
** Cap e cost from 40k => 20k.
 
 
* Fixed an omission in the previous release; nanoswarm attack power was supposed to be doubled and their reclamation double-efficiency flag removed.  The latter happened, but not the former.  Now both are in.
 
** Thanks to Dazio for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a really, really longstanding bug where the AI got 1 bonus reinforcement at diff 8, 1 bonus reinforcement at diff 9, and 2 bonus reinforcements at diff 10, but no bonus reinforcements at any of the non-integer difficulties between those.  Now it's 2 for 10 and 1 for >= 8
 
 
 
* Fixed a longstanding bug (since ship cap scales were added, roughly) where the ship-cap-scale multiplier was being applied twice to reinforcement calculations (so high got the normal amount, normal got half as much as it should have, low got 1/4 as much as it should have, etc).
 
** The effect isn't as severe as it probably sounds, because most of the calculations ended in "if less than 1, set to 1" and other bugs (see below) were letting the AI get a lot more mileage than was mathematically sanitary out of that 1.
 
 
 
* Corrected some longstanding issues where reinforcements were frequently getting stuff like Spire Blade Spawners in roughly the same proportion as Fighters; the ship cap multipliers were being used, but if a particular individual group of spawns in a reinforcement (there could be over 10 in a single reinforcement-of-planet event, and multiple such events can happen on a single planet per overall reinforcement) only had 1 ship to pick it could freely pick either a fighter or a spire blade spawner (or whatever it had unlocked) and the fact that it had just gotten something like 30x as strong as what "1" normally means was simply ignored.  If it had 20 ships to pick and picked a blade spawner that would be the end of the pick, though, so it wasn't totally ignorant of that dynamic.
 
** Now it does a bit of arithmetic "carrying" so that if one individual spawn really picks something low-cap like that (and it still can do that, otherwise stuff like blade spawners just won't happen in most reinforcements) then it remembers that for further spawns in that reinforcement event, which can make certain reinforcements a little lopsided but in general is at least a balanceable situation now.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 and many other players reporting odd and/or brutal populations of these kinds of units from reinforcements over the past year and some months.
 
 
 
* Now that the AI is no longer able to get a ton of low-cap ships where it should only be getting a few of them, the AI-specifc per-guard-post caps on those low-cap types have been removed (and some per-planet ones, but the ones on stuff like engineers): those had just been bandaids to prevent massive swarming by those ship types because we didn't know what was going on there or how to fix it.
 
** This is particularly important because the bandaid was pretty brutal about making sure it was enforced, so the AI would wind up sending a reinforcement and part/most of it would be ditched without spawning because it would violate the caps, etc.
 
 
 
* Just under "Enable Advanced Logging" on the Advanced tab of the Settings window, added a "Enable Reinforcement Logging" toggle.
 
** Similar to Enable Advanced Logging, this enables logging of AI reinforcements to the ReinforcementsLog_MainThread.txt and ReinforcementsLog_AIThread.txt files in your RuntimeData directory.
 
** This is off by default because:
 
*** This is really only for when you want to see if there is some problem with the reinforcement logic (short of logging, it is very hard for anyone to tell) and want to show evidence to the developers
 
*** Reading one of these logs in midgame will give "spoilers" about what the AI has, etc.  It's not considered a cheat, however, because all the actually-important info it gives you would be available if you had turned off fog-of-war in the lobby before the game.
 
*** Lots of disk I/O during the game causes instability on some systems.
 
** All that said, if you're curious about the numbers, and especially if you think something is wrong (there certainly was plenty wrong for a while now, though it worked ok in most scenarios), have a look and let us know :)
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in multiplayer where hacking an ARS and having the first player pick an unlock on that planet would cause the other human players to be given a random unlock about a game-second later.
 
** Thanks to Niccus for the report and save.
 
 
 
* Added new button to Galaxy Layout context menu: "Reset My Layout To Official"
 
** Prompts you to confirm the action, and if you confirm it sets the positions of all planets in your alternate layout to the official positions.
 
** Thanks to Nodor (and others, previously) for pointing out the need for this in case the planet positions get messed up (as can sometimes happen on load and/or changing resolutions).
 
 
 
* Made the "signal markers" in Fallen Spire invincible in the same sense as the Dyson Sphere (well, without a certain caveat which applies to the Dyson).
 
** Thanks to Tharrick for reporting that it was actually possible for one of these to get destroyed if the AI did a tachyon burst during hacking to drop the marker's perma-cloak.  "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" apparently wasn't sinking in.
 
 
 
* Changed the targeting logic for AOE units (that don't already use the alternate logic for engine damage, paralysis, reclamation, or insta-kill) to prefer non-AOE-immune targets.  This is necessary because of the recent change to let flaks and some other aoe units be able to damage an aoe-immune ship they fire directly at, but since an aoe-immune ship is likely to be in a pile of other aoe-immune ships most of the dps is wasted when there are non-aoe-immune targets available.
 
** Note that if the flaks are already locked on to something aoe-immune (like a missile frigate) and something non-aoe-immune (like a fighter) comes into range, the flaks will probably take a few seconds to retarget since the game only does the target logic every so often.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for reporting the highly-sub-optimal behavior.
 
 
 
* Mobile Repair Stations, in belated honor of doing well in the last "worst unit" poll
 
** Maximum simultaneous repairs from 100 => 20.
 
** Repair rate reduced.
 
** Time it must remain stationary before starting repairs from 60 seconds => 5.
 
** Now has cloaking.
 
*** This doesn't break when repairing, but beware AI tachyons.
 
** Thanks to many players for feedback on how this unit just didn't seem worth the trouble; hopefully now it will be worth 4000 K but also not be so "insta-heal entire fleet" overpowered as it was before the last rework (but if you have all 9 in range of a fleet not much will stay damaged unless it is under ongoing fire).  If there are still problems please let us know :)
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where if the AI had a pile of over 2000 zombie threat ships (and over 4000 total threat) it was possible for it to try to redeploy those zombies to carriers, and the carrier would be created with the appropriate contents, but the zombies would not actually be scrapped.  Causing the AI to redeploy them again, creating still more carriers, and failing to scrap the zombies again.  It was just carriers all the way down, leading rapidly to tens and hundreds of thousands of threat.  Fixed so that the scrapping works, and thus the duplicate redeployments no longer happen.
 
** Thanks to mlhibou for providing a report and save of this apocalyptic situation, and to Niccus for a similar report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a regrettably longstanding bug where it was possible for modules (notably hybrid modules) to become "stranded" without a parent ship and to basically act as somewhat buggy (and, recently, the non-forcefield ones are now invinicible) turrets.
 
** Thanks to Draco18s, SpaceBrotha, and Caseycc for providing reports and saves.
 
 
 
* The Tech buttons on the ARS tab of a science ship on an ARS planet are now sorted so that the leftmost one is the one that would be unlocked by capturing without hacking.
 
** This is more info than it really should give, but getting the info is a simple savescum operation so we may as well shortcircuit that.
 
 
 
* Added new galaxy display mode "Detected Immobile Minor Factions".
 
** This shows "DS" next to the planet with the Dyson Sphere, "RC" for a Neinzul Rocketry Corps Silo, and "HC" for a Rebelling Human Colony.
 
 
 
* Mostly as a visual improvement (via more variety of shot speed) and somewhat to make some weapons a little more effective:
 
** Laser shot speed tripled (wait, why does a laser shot have a speed?)
 
** Minor electric shot speed doubled.
 
** Shell shot speed increased to 1.5x what it was.
 
** Ion shot speed doubled.
 
** Combat style now applies to all shot speeds, not only artificially-increased ones.
 
** Note: shots will always move at least 40 faster than their target.
 
** Feedback is very welcome on whether these changes make combat more interesting, or are a detriment; just an experiment, really.
 
 
 
* Missile shots (from the missile frigate, MLRS fleet ship, MLRS turret, Missile Turret, Anti-Armor Ship, etc) now can acquire a new target from their firing ship's target list if their current target is destroyed or otherwise no longer available (note that all shots insta-hit a ship trying to leave the planet, but missiles now won't "overkill" them in that case).
 
** Bear in mind that the parent ship's target list does not necessarily include all viable targets, and is often limited to 50 nearby targets, but this still significantly decreases DPS wastage for missiles (which generally move fairly slowly).
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where a superterminal could be "paused" by scrapping your command station, saving, and reloading.
 
** Thanks to Niccus for the report and save.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.031 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/03/ai-war-beta-5031-harvest-of-unloved.html Harvest Of The Unloved] ==
 
(Released March 21st, 2012)
 
 
 
* The hacking-response wild-roll for "short range warp jump" can now generate a much wider range of spawn points.
 
** Thanks to Toranth for reporting that it was always picking points in two relatively small areas.
 
 
 
* Now when a unit dies while under the influence of a parasite infestation ("reclamation damage"), those parasites will behave far more efficiently:
 
** If there are enough of them on the ship to take it over (that is, reclamation damage is >= half the ship's max health) then enough will remain to perform the takeover.
 
** Any remaining parasites (which means all of them, if there aren't enough to take the dying ship over) will spread to nearby (within 2000 range units) valid targets that have not been fully infested.
 
** The end result is that while the exact same amount of reclamation damage is being done, the efficiency of it actually doing something in condensed fighting is way more satisfactory, particularly towards the end as all the partially-reclaimed ships die off and the parasites all pile up on the survivors.
 
*** In fact, it's possible that reclamators are now back to being OP, but not nearly as much as in the days when a single leech-starship salvo could "tag" 40 ships for guarunteed reclamation.  Your feedback on the new balance will be appreciated.
 
** Thanks to many players over the past year or so for reminding us that reclamators are more fun when it's easier to get some kind of reliable reclamation-rate out of them (even if said rate is not OP).
 
 
 
* Youngling Nanoswarm:
 
** Base attack power from 400*mk => 800*mk.  Still not much at all, but it allows:
 
** Inherent "damage does 2x as much reclamation damage" rule removed.  So it does the same amount of RD as before, just without the fiddly rule (which is now completely gone, the  nanoswarm was the only thing using it).
 
 
 
* Mines:
 
** Base Health is now 16 times the damage done, to allow 16 detonations before "wearing out" instead of the 2/3 that were probably common before.  There are 16 mines in the graphic: the logic is unassailable, no?
 
** Standard Mines:
 
*** Base Metal+Crystal cost from 360+1200 => 20+40, which puts them at about 2x the cap m+c cost of zenith autobombs (which are in many ways simply mobile mines).
 
**** Note that the build time for all 3 mine types is still 90 seconds.
 
** Area Mines:
 
*** Base Metal+Crystal cost from 1080+3600 => 40+80.
 
*** Now hit a maximum of 10 targets with their aoe.
 
*** Base Damage per hit from 7500 => 52500 (half as much damage as a normal single-target mine).
 
** EMP Mines:
 
*** Base Metal+Crystal cost from 720+2400 => 60+120.
 
*** Fixed an error in the tooltip: it said the paralysis was 60 seconds long, but it's really only 10 seconds.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 and several other players for recent feedback on mines, leading to these changes.
 
 
 
* Harvester Exo-Shields, in honor of winning the 4th "Worst Unit" poll (and the first one for which it was eligible) :
 
** Now has cloaking.
 
** Now cloaks the protected harvester.
 
** No longer halves production of protected harvester.
 
** Energy Use from 1000 => 5000.  At maximum non-ZPG energy efficiency (running everything off mkIIs) that's a bit under 4 (m+c)/s to run, or 1/5th of a mkI harvester.
 
** The result is that:
 
*** They have a much lower operational cost which no longer scales up with higher harvester marks or with your energy efficiency.
 
*** More importantly, they allow a new tactical choice: do you want attacking enemies to potentially be distracted some/all of the harvesters in the system, or do you want to make sure they stay focused on the command station or some other objective?  Some defensive setups get much higher efficiency when the enemy stays focused in a particular radial or linear area, and this can help with that.  On the other hand, sometimes the AI's tendency to split up after harvesters is a big help.
 
** Thanks to many players for their feedback on why this unit was very rarely an interesting choice.
 
 
 
* Metal/Crystal Harvester II/III, in honor of getting 2nd place (by one vote) in the first "Worst Unit" poll in which they were eligible:
 
** A bit of background:
 
*** Unlocking Econ Station II costs 4000 knowledge and gives a total of 576 m+c above the "standard" command station (econ I) if you build all 6, and that bonus is still relevant if you unlock Econ III. That's about 0.144 (m+c)/s per knowledge point.
 
*** Unlocking Econ Station III costs 5000 knowledge and gives a total of 1536 m+c above the "standard" command station.  Benefit/K Ratio is about 0.3072.
 
*** Previously, unlocking mark II of either metal or crystal harvester cost 3250 knowledge and, assuming a mid-game situation of 13 total planets (i.e. all 6 of econ II and econ III could be placed) with an average of 2 spots of that resource per planet (ymmv, but it's probably not far off) gave a total of 208 resources above mkI harvesters.  Benefit/K Ratio was about 0.064.
 
*** Previously, unlocking mark III of either harvester cost 4000 knowledge (but really 7250 since you don't get the benefits of mkII and mkIII at the same time like you do with econ stations) and, across 26 ressource spots, gave a total of 416 resources above mkI harvesters.  Benefit/K Ratio (assuming 7250 "real" K cost) was about 0.0574.
 
** So, to do something about this pretty vast disparity:
 
*** Harvester II:
 
**** Knowledge cost from 3250 => 2000.
 
**** Production from 28 => 31 (so +8 => +11).
 
*** Harvester III:
 
**** Knowledge cost from 4000 => 2500 (so 4500 total).
 
**** Production from 36 => 73 (so +16 => +53).
 
***** Yes, that's a lot, but that's what parity with econ III looks like.  And nerfing econ III would have been an outrage considering how much waiting-for-resources happens on challenging games _with_ econ IIIs.
 
** In short, harvester upgrades should now be competitive with econ station upgrades.  Getting mkIII in both harvesters also now costs the same amount of knowledge as getting mkIII econ stations, but has a somewhat lower "barrier to entry" in that the individual knowledge costs are smaller.
 
*** Further balance feedback is, of course, welcome.  This change will have a fairly dramatic impact in favor of harvesters on multi-HW games, for one, but it's primarily important that choices be interesting in single-HW games and adjustments can be made for the less common scenarios (as long as multi-HW doesn't become excruciating, of course).  Of more concern is the impact on multiplayer games if all players gift all their harvesters to one player who upgrades to mkIII harvesters (and gives resources back) and other such tomfoolery, but that can also be adjusted for as the need arises.
 
** Thanks to Cyborg and many other players for pointing out the fact that harvester upgrades were basically just universally inferior (with some small exception) to econ station upgrades.
 
 
 
* Warp Jammer Command Stations, in honor of tying for third in the first "Worst Unit" poll it was eligible for:
 
** Now prevent their planets from putting adjacent AI planets on alert. 
 
*** Those adjacent planets can still be put on alert any other way (for example, but another bordering human world without a jammer or by a significant human presence on the planet or a different adjacent planet).
 
*** But this still allows a new strategic choice in shaping the AI's response to your presence.
 
*** Notably, this could be used on a planet adjacent to a particularly hard-to-crack AI planet to allow you to get supply on the target planet and thus deploy turrets and such without putting the target planet on permanent alert (which is normally a distinct no-no for core worlds and homeworlds).  But beware, if the jammer is destroyed, its effects go away.  Also, jammers are far from free.
 
** Also fixed a longstanding bug where these counted (for display purposes only, apparently) as an AI reinforcement warp gate.
 
** Thanks to chemical_art for broaching the subject of how to make these more interesting, and to many other players for confirming the idea that the jammer needed something more.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.030 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/03/ai-war-beta-5030-refined-hacking.html Refined Hacking] ==
 
(Released March 14th, 2012)
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the wave-mouseover-to-show-ship-info feature in the last version that would display a blank info window and throw some (thankfully harmless) errors if the ship-type-info window had last been used to display an unlocked ship type with a "(x out of y in service)" addendum (like from mouseovering the buy queue items on a space dock).
 
** Many thanks to zoutzakje, Cyborg, and Ranakastrasz for the reports and saves to track this one down, it was pretty elusive.
 
 
 
* The "AI is responding to your hacking on (planet name)" messages now specify whether it's knowledge-hacking or ship-design hacking, to avoid confusion.  If both are actually happening on one planet, it will display both messages.
 
** Thanks to Cyborg for inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Previously if a planet had multiple AI Advanced Research Stations on it then doing a ship-design-hack on the planet and then capturing the planet would only let you unlock 1 bonus type (capturing it without sd-hacking led to the normal multiple types being unlocked) out of the normal set of 3.  Fixed it to let you unlock n bonus types out of a set of n*3, where n is the number of AI Advanced Research Stations on the planet.  In general multi-hacking like this is more advantageous, but it's very much an edge case due to the small planet counts necessary to get more than 1 ARS on a planet.
 
** This change applies retroactively to uncaptured ARS's from old saves, but could not be applied to already-captured ARS's, sorry about the inconvenience.
 
** Thanks to Nic for the report.
 
 
 
* Now the tech menu's ARS tab (which is used to view and select what bonus type you want to unlock after hacking and capturing an ARS) displays even if no hacking has been done, so you can make a decision about whether you want to hack or not without savescumming (not that anyone would do that).
 
** The tab still won't show if there were never AI-controlled ARS's on the planet, since then the planet has no bonus types to show.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Superterminal-hacking response:
 
** Surges no longer automatically set the recharge time for the next pulse to 1 second (15 seconds is the normal time), as chain-surges were entertaining to the developer but not so much to the players.
 
*** Thanks to Wanderer for inspiring this change.
 
** Fixed a bug where multiple surges could happen on the same spawn; two surges on the same spawn on diff 7 would multiply spawn strength by 12.25.  Ow.  This wasn't intended, but a flag wasn't being set right.  Now surge-rolls after the first on a spawn are treated like a "multiply by 1.5" roll, similar to how the short-range-warp-jump roll is treated as a x1.5 roll if it's already happened for that spawn.
 
** When spawn strength is over the cap (500), the way it "trades" strength for higher-mark-level-spawns and shorter-recharge-to-next-pulse has been significantly changed:
 
*** Instead of trading for tech until <= 200 and then trading for recharge until <= 500, it randomly picks one to trade for if over 500; if it's still over 500 it randomly picks again, etc.  Max tech level is 5, of course, and minimum recharge is 1 second.
 
*** When trading for tech, it now multiplies strength by current_mark/next_mark instead of deducting a flat 150, to better represent the linearly-increasing power that typically happens with higher marks.
 
**** Thanks to Hearteater for inspiring this change.
 
*** When trading for lower recharge time, it now multiplies strength by new_time/old_time instead of deducting a flat 33, to better represent the increasing impact of multiple cooldown reductions.
 
 
 
* Changed the Ship-Design-Hacker's description to be a bit clearer.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater and Wanderer for suggestions on how to reword it.
 
 
 
* Previously hacking response wild-rolls that increased spawn strength did so by multiplying the current strength value by some x%.  The exponential growth this caused with higher numbers of rolls was intentional but turned out to get wildly out of control, doing things like spawning 4000 raid starships (heh) or arithmetic overflow, etc.  So it's been changed to be an additive boost instead, adding x% of the pre-rolls strength to the current strength value.
 
** To compensate, the now-additive bonuses are a bit higher in magnitude than they used to be.
 
** The one exception to this is the superterminal's "surge" roll, which is still mutiplicative, but can only happen once per spawn.  Still, it can put on some real hurt if it happens after a bunch of additive boosts (but nothing that will challenge the domain of the datatype storing the strength value).
 
** (posthumous) Thanks to Toranth for warning us of the 4000+ raid starship spawn.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where the "spawn raid starships" wild-roll was giving the AI the kind of raid starship reserved for human use.  Now gives the AI-variant.  Already-created ones will probably remain as they are, but it shouldn't be a big deal.
 
** Thanks to Toranth for the report.
 
  
* Previously hacking responses continued after the hacking was "done" (all knowledge gathered by a knowledge hacker, or the planet successfully sd-hacked by a ship-design hacker).  This was intentional, to motivate getting the hacker out of there or in a transport or whatever, but it's a reasonable request to have the responses stop without player intervention, so that's what will happen now.
+
=== Dark Spire Revamp ===
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the suggestion.
 
  
* The "spawn raid starships" wild-roll no longer creates "zombie" raid starships that blindly agress upon whatever humans are in vision, but rather non-zombies that are coordinated like an exo and go charging after some juicy human target.
+
* The Dark Spire minor faction is a lot of fun, at least for players who like that kind of thing.
** Thanks to Wanderer for the suggestion; please direct your rotten fruit in his direction (assuming it doesn't have a bonus vs. Ultra-Light hulls, you'll need those).
+
** But over the months two key problems have been identified:
 +
*** It doesn't take much of a spawn-spiral to lead to 50k+ of the things in the game, which is kind of a deathblow to the cpu.  Minor factions taking over the galaxy is fun (if you asked for it in the lobby settings), but it needs to still run on your machine.
 +
*** Particularly once there are a lot of Dark Spire spawned, they don't really do much.
 +
** So we're making several changes to keep the cpu cost of these under control while retaining their overall power, and giving them a little bit of extra logic to keep them from behaving in an ineffective manner.
 +
** Thanks to Jefferson, chemical_art, Cinth, Vyndicu, Faulty Logic, and others for inspiring these changes.
  
* The grav well display circles now use much more subtle colors and rotate 1/8th as fast as they used to.
+
* The Dark Spire Wraith has had its health, damage, and strength-cost (used when computing how many to spawn) doubled.
** Thanks to clone, doctorfrog, Wanderer and others for suggestions on how to make these less Yeargh!-inducing.
+
** Effectively this halves the size of their spawns while keeping the overall power of those spawns the same.
  
* Previously there was no way to know how ticked off the AI was at previous hacking attempts and thus what to expect in future onesThis was somewhat by design, as this isn't another AIP or whatever, but if the player is to make strategic decisions about hacking some kind of feedback (other than angry-ships-to-the-face) is important. So now once there's been any hacking antagonism actually generated (note: ship-design hacking doesn't actually increase that value until the hack is complete, since you haven't gained anything until then) an alert will display with a general descriptor ("Very Low", "Low", "Moderate", etc) of where things are.
+
* The Vengeance Generators now spawn different versions of the 3 Dark Spire minor faction ships, with different stats to better facilitate spawn "packing":
** The numeric ranges represented are pretty broad and somewhat guesses, so let us know if the AI hacking response just roflstomped the galaxy at "Low", etc.
+
** Normal Combat Ship: 5 times as powerful as the Wraith.
** Thanks to Hearteater and others for inspiring this change.
+
** Advanced Combat Ship: 5 times as powerful as the Normal Combat ShipSo like 25 Wraiths.
 +
** Command Ship: 5 times as powerful as the Advanced Combat Ship. So like ''125'' Wraiths.
 +
** Note that already-spawned Dark Spire ships in old saves will have the old stats and not really be affected by any of these changes (so if you've already got 50k of the guys running around, this isn't going to help your cpu).
  
* Previously the bonus-type selection buttons on the ARS tab of the tech menu for ship-design-hacked planets would still show the "KNWL" indicator over the top of buttons for which you didn't have enough knowledge to do the unlock if you were unlocking mkII of that type normally.  Except you aren't spending knowledge by clicking them, so it shouldn't show the KNWL thing, and now it no longer does.
+
* The chance of what ship it will pick in a spawn is now weighted by the number of vengeance-spawned Dark Spire ships in the galaxy already; below 100 it's more heavily weighted towards Wraiths, above 1000 it picks the command ship a lot more often, etc. This tends to make its numerical explosion slow down rapidly as the milestones are passed, without really slowing down the overall power growth of the faction.
** Thanks to HTL2001 for the report.
 
  
* Now picking a bonus type from the ARS tab of the tech menu after a ship-design-hack is a per-player decision in multiplayer (and in singleplayer, but the difference isn't noticeable unless other players join).
+
* Since the individual spawns can now be much more expensive, the game tracks a "debt" for the spawns that delays the next trigger accordingly.  So if it picks a command ship it's going to need more "fuel" to get the next spawn than if it had just picked exactly the right number of Wraiths to fill its budget.
** If you think you might have players joining later, don't forget which planets had the ARS unlocks :)
 
** Note that normal (no hacking) capture of an ARS still gives the same bonus type to all players, which gives ship-design hacking an additional advantage in multiplayer (though remember there's still only 3 types to pick from per ARS, so it's not all that much of an advantage).
 
** Thanks to Cyborg for inspiring this change.
 
  
* Dyson Antagonizer/Converter alert messages now contain the planet name if you've scouted the planet since that unit came into existence, not just when you've actively got a scout on the planet.
+
* About every 5 minutes:
** Thanks to Shrugging Khan for the suggestion.
+
** All non-command vengeance-spawned dark spire ships without a leader will look for a command ship on that planet to pick as a leader (if there are multiple such command ships, they split roughly evenly).
 +
** All command ships without a chase target pick one.  Each command ship is hardwired to either go after the humans (picks a human command station), the AI (picks a non-invincible AI guard post that isn't a counterattack or special forces post), or just kind of wander (doesn't pick a chase target). The command ships will be roughly divided evenly between those three categories.
  
* Fixed a bug where helper players were getting the overflow from other players resources income-past-cap.
+
* All the vengeance-spawned dark spire ships (not the ones from the nebula) are now immune to the black hole generator.
** The resources were basically being lost since helpers cannot gift resources, which is intentional as otherwise this overflow case would represent an in-game bonus from having slots devoted to "helper", which would invalidate the assumption that the game can be balanced as if they weren't there and thus the AI's strength doesn't have to go up due to the presence of helpers, etc.
 
** Along with this: apparently in the past overflow was going to ALL human player slots, even those that had never had any players in them, causing the resources to be split more ways than necessary in MP games with fewer than 8 human players.  Fixed now.
 
** Thanks to Mercatio for the report.
 
  
* Reference tab of stats window:
+
== Prerelease 6.011 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/03/ai-war-beta-6011-nemesis-of-dubious.html Nemesis of the Dubious Honor] ==
** The label on the "Display Comparisons For Ship" dropdown has been changed to "Target Ship".
 
** The labels on the columns have been changed from "Them > Me" to "Opponent Attacking" (note: the header of the first column on the table is "Opponent") and from "Me > Them" to "Target Attacking".  Also, "Result?" has been changed to "Opponent Wins?" and the Win/Loss text switched.
 
** The Opponent-Attacking columns have been swapped with the Target-Attacking columns so that the Opponent-Attacking ones are first.
 
** The overall idea behind the above changes is that the reference comparison is most often used to see "what do I have that can efficiently kill a bunch of the target type?", and not often used to see "what can the target type kill efficiently?".
 
** Thanks to Ragnorak for reminding us about this.
 
 
 
* The mouse wheel will no longer do affect zooming of the main game window while the stats window is visible (previously it was a real pain when trying to mousewheel-scroll through the various tables and dropdowns, etc).
 
** Thanks to many players for repeatedly reminding us about this.
 
 
 
* Fortresses (mkI, II, and III; human and AI) now have a radar dampening range of 30000.  Since most ships have ranges lower than that it doesn't affect them, but this prevents sniping them (notably with zenith-bombards and sentinel frigates) from way out of range.
 
** Thanks to chemical_art for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the reference export where flak guardians were showing as firing only one shot per salvo.
 
** Thanks to Dazio for the report.
 
 
 
* Spirecraft-Medium and Broken-Golems-Medium no longer have a score penalty.
 
** Thanks to many players over the months pointing out that medium's counterbalance is at least as effective as hard's.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where the hacking data (how much you'd done, and thus how annoyed the AI was) was not getting reset between games (the logic was there, but the wrong function was getting called).
 
** Thanks to Toranth for the report leading to the discovery of this.
 
 
 
* Added a sanity check preventing QueueAnotherSpawnAfterThisOne wild-rolls from causing an theoretically infinite loop on spawns with a very high number of rolls. This probably wasn't happening, but it was probably happening enough to bog things down if you hacked all 5 Advanced Research Stations or whatever.
 
** Thanks to Toranth for reporting a hang during hacking, which was probably due to this (and the multiplicative spawn strength stuff).
 
 
 
* Knowledge-Hacking / Ship-Design-Hacking responses now honor the last "mutate" roll instead of the first, and can now roll to switch back to a normal-ship spawn.  Previously as roll count got high basically all the spawns would be mutated (raid or zombie guardian, currently) and this wasn't as fun as genuine variety.
 
** Thanks to _K_ for inspiring this change.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.029 ==
 
 
(Released March 5th, 2012)
 
(Released March 5th, 2012)
  
* Fixed a critical data-loss bug in 5.028 where mkII/mkIII unlocks of bonus ship types would be lost upon loading the game (i.e. don't save in 5.028!)
+
* MkI-MkIV carriers are no longer immune to nuclear explosions (mkV still are, but you basically have to have an AI at tech level V for them to show up, and that's not easy to do in a game you plan to win).
** Many thanks to Physical Original for the report and save.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  
== Prerelease 5.028 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/03/ai-war-beta-5028-hacker-revolution.html Hacker Revolution] ==
+
* Fixed a bug in the last version where the friendly-enclave-pop-cap was computing as if all planets were non-AI (so the base of the calculation was generally at least 4 times as big as it should have been.
(Released March 5th, 2012)
+
** Thanks to Aziphos for the report and save.
  
* Added new toggle to CTRLS window: Brave Scout Starships.
+
* Added a column to the reference export which lists all the types of modules that the ship on that row can mount.
** If this toggle is checked, your Scout Starships will suppress their normal self-preservation instincts.  Specifically:
+
** Thanks to Diazo for the suggestion.
*** They will not evade (run to a far-off spot) upon exiting a wormhole under any circumstances.
 
*** They will not avoid being included in a selection with military ships.
 
** This will tend to reduce the effectiveness of their automatic behavior for the purpose of scouting, but may make them much more useful for providing tachyon and counter-sniper coverage for a fleet.
 
** Note: this applies to the scout starships of the player who's brave-scout-starships toggle is checked, regardless of who is trying to control them in a multiplayer game with Allow Team Control on.  Allied Scout Starships will still be wimps unless their owners check this toggle too.
 
** Thanks to many players for requesting a way of making their scout starships not imitate Sir Robin.
 
  
* Scout Starship:
+
* Minor faction neinzul younglings (generally launched from roaming enclaves) now give far less "charge" to a Dark Spire Vengeance Generator when they die.
** Base Health from 120k/480k/960k/1.2M => 300k*mk.
+
** Thanks to Vyndicu for reporting where this was causing problems.  If by "problems" you mean a galaxy completely overrun by Dark Spire.
** Base Armor Rating from 1500 flat => 1500*mk.
 
** Tachyon Range from 750/950/1150/1550 => 2000*mk.
 
** Ship Cap from 5/4/3/2 => 5/5/5/2.
 
** Energy Use from 2000/4000/6000/6000 => 2000/2000/2000/5000.
 
** Base Move Speed from 224/464/704/704 => 240/480/720/720.
 
** Now can cloak-boost up to 20*mk allied cloaked ships (range: 4k/5k/6k), except the MkIV which isn't being given cloak-boosting due to potential issues with a tachyon-immune ship having a lot of cloak-boosting.
 
** The MkIV Scout Starship:
 
*** Now provides counter-missile coverage.
 
*** Will now not use the evade-after-exiting-wormhole logic at all, since it is permacloaked (the non-starship MkIV Scout has the same attribute already).
 
** Thanks to many players for feedback leading to these changes.
 
  
* Fixed a longstanding bug (ever since starships were allowed to be loaded into a transport) where putting a ship with modules into a transport, saving the game, and loading the game would cause the modules to be removed from the game because the game thought they were no longer accessible (the "has a parent ship" link wasn't being checked).
+
=== Congratulating The Winners Of The 9th Worst-Unit Poll ===
** Thanks to ArcDM for the report and Solarity for a more recent report and save.
 
  
* Fixed some longstanding (since introduction of group move trying to handle immune-to-speed-boosting units) bugs with group move:
+
* Decoy drones, in honor of tying for first in the latest what-needs-a-buff poll:
** Previously, for example, a speed-boostable 140-speed unit group-moving with a non-speed-boostable 152-speed unit would result in the boostable ship going 152, and the non-boostable ship going 140 (_below_ its normal speed!).  This was because the non-boostable one was taking the minimum speed of it's boostable friends, and then setting its speed limit as if those friends were not actually boostable.
+
** Ship cap from 9 => 40 (but the AI pays about the same for them as it used to, since these were already strong enough for the AI).
*** This bug has been captured, stuffed, and placed in the museum. It couldn't get away fast enough.
+
** Base energy cost from 1000 => 250.
** Thanks to HellishFiend and Spikey00 (among others) for reporting.
+
** Base speed from 14 => 26 (so now same as bombers).
 +
** Base health from 200k => 1M.
 +
** Thanks to Dichotomy, Faulty Logic, LintMan, Vacuity, Diazo, and the voters for inspiring these changes.
  
* Fixed a few longstanding bugs where ships were able to fire on targets significantly out of their range because in a few places the range checking was early-out'ing with max(dx,dy).  This would have been fine if the target's current-forcefield-radius (and possibly other factors, none confirmed) were applied before the range check instead of after, but that wasn't the case and so the early-out threshold was wrong. Well, it's right now.
+
* AI Guard Posts (not the core ones, the normal ones), in honor of tying for first in the latest what-needs-a-buff poll (after many months of feedback that these were not threatening enough) :
** Thanks to Draco18s for the (initial) report and save.
+
** Short Range Guard Post:
 +
*** Renamed To Needler Guard Post.
 +
*** Hull Type from Medium => Light.
 +
*** Base Health from 700k*mk => 3M*mk (about 1/5th a cap of fighters).
 +
*** Base Attack Range from 6000 => 7500 (same as needler turret).
 +
*** Shots-per-salvo from 1 => 5.
 +
*** Base DPS from 1267*mk => 50k*mk (right around a cap of fighters).
 +
*** Vs-Hull-Type bonus list from "Heavy (2x), Artillery (3x)" => "Heavy, UltraHeavy, Structural, Artillery (all 6x)" (same types as needler turret, same multiplier as fighter).
 +
** MLRS Guard Post:
 +
*** Hull Type from Heavy => Medium.
 +
*** Base Health from 700k*mk => 3M*mk.
 +
*** Base Attack Range from 7000 => 12000 (same as MLRS turret).
 +
*** Shots-per-salvo from 11/21/31/41/51 => 30.
 +
*** Base DPS from 1700*mk => 50k*mk.
 +
*** Vs-Hull-Type bonus list from "Light (16x), Swarmer (8x), Neutron (4x)" => "Light, Swarmer, Neutron, UltraLight, CloseCombat (all 6x)" (same types as MLRS turret).
 +
** Missile Guard Post:
 +
*** Base Health from 700k*mk => 3M*mk.
 +
*** Seconds-per-salvo from 7/6/5/4/3 => 3.
 +
*** Base Attack Range from 17k/27k/37k/47k/57k => 27k (same as Missile turret).
 +
*** Base DPS from 13k*mk => 50k*mk.
 +
*** Vs-Hull-Type bonus list from "UltraLight (8x), Medium (6x)" => "UltraLight, Medium, Polycrystal, Neutron, Composite (all 6x)" (same types as Missile turret).
 +
** Passive Guard Post:
 +
*** Renamed To Laser Guard Post (hey, at least it's not now the Passive-Aggressive Guard Post).
 +
*** Hull Type from Structural => Heavy.
 +
*** Base Health from 1.4M*mk => 3M*mk.
 +
*** Shot type from flare => laser.
 +
*** Base Attack Range from 8000 => 9000 (same as Laser turret).
 +
*** Shots-per-salvo from 1 => 4.
 +
*** Base DPS from (negligible) => 50k*mk.
 +
*** Vs-Hull-Type bonus list from (well, nothing) => "Refractive, UltraHeavy, Polycrystal, Heavy (all 6x)" (same types as Laser turret).
 +
** Anti-Starship Arachnid Guard Post:
 +
*** Hull Type from Light => Polycrystal.
 +
*** Base Health from 1.4M*mk => 3M*mk.
 +
*** Base Attack Range from 10k/12k/14k/16k/18k => 14k.
 +
*** Seconds-per-salvo from 15 => 5.
 +
*** Base DPS from 10k*mk => 500k*mk (bear in mind these cannot target small stuff, it's an anti-starship sort of thing).
 +
*** Vs-Hull-Type bonus list still empty, but now has 0x multiplier vs Scout hull so it doesn't just gank your transports.
 +
*** Shot type from laser => energy wave (so now like a sentinel frigate shot; just aesthetic for the most part, makes it stand out better).
 +
** Stealth Guard Post: didn't actually need a buff, but:
 +
*** Renamed to Cloaker Guard Post.
 +
*** Are now un-cloakable; they still cloak stuff near them but will always be revealed themselves.
 +
** Special Forces Guard Post: also didn't need a buff (the SF ships are the important part of SF, really), but these no longer count for purposes of the "if no AI guard posts are present, an AI Eye self-destructs" rule.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic, LaughingThesaurus, Vacuity, TechSY730, Diazo, Hearteater, chemical_art, and the voters for inspiring these changes.
  
* Knowledge Raiding:
+
* Spire Starships, in honor of coming in third in the poll:
** Now scales more granularly with difficulty (for example,previously 9.3, 9.6, and 9.8 all had the same intensity of response as 9; no longer).  This somewhat increases the difficulty of k-raids on non-integer difficulties.
+
** Ship cap from 4 => 2, with health and damage adjusted to maintain same cap-health and cap-dps.
** Now considers the ship cap of ships being spawned when deciding how many to spawn, so a laser gatling doesn't "cost" as much as a fighter, but a Maw "costs" quite a lot more.  This makes the difficulty of k-raids not nearly as variable based on what bonus ship types the AI has, or the unit-cap-scale being used.
+
** Effective mark level from 1/2/3 to 2/3/4, so that the mkI is balanced like a mkII starship, the mkII is balanced like a mkIII starship, etc.
** Now only the AI controlling the planet spawns response ships, but spawns twice as many, rather than both AIs spawning ships separately.  This makes the composition different if the AIs have different bonus types.
+
** Knowledge cost from 1000/2500/4000 => 1500/3000/4000, in accordance with their effective mark promotion (this makes the cost of getting to mkIV the same as with a triangle fleet-ship type, though this is without the benefit of having mkIs and without the need to get an advanced factory).
** Now the spawns happen every 10 seconds instead of (11 - Difficulty) seconds, and the strength is multiplied by 2.5 to roughly normalize it to what diff 7 was doing.  The base strength of the spawn is still linearly proportional to difficulty, but this second difficulty-based factor which made it heavily higher-than-linear is no longer there.  That really steep ramp-up at the end was good before, but would be excessive with the other changes below.
+
** Beam cycle time (from the beginning of one beam to the beginning of the next, so including the 2 seconds the beam is actually being fired) from 10 seconds => 3 seconds, damage adjusted to maintain DPS.
** Now, the more knowledge you raid for, the more intense the response.  Up to 1 planet's worth of knowledge there is no change, after a full 2 planet's worth of knowledge the response is 1.5x as intense (having increased linearly during the raids after the first planet's worth), at 3 planet's two times as intense, at 4 2.5x, and so on.
+
** Base Cap-Health from 16M*mk => 24M*mk.
*** In multiplayer games this ramping-up is adjusted, e.g. if 3 players have raided 9000 total knowledge (3000 each), the ramp-up is the same as in a single-player game where that player has raided 3000 knowledge.  Multi-homeworld players only count as 1 for this purpose.
+
** Base Cap-DPS from 240k*mk => 300k*mk.
*** Now each spawn makes a number of "wild rolls" which apply various effects to what happens.
+
** Thanks to Diazo, Faulty Logic, Winge, chemical_art, Dichotomy, TechSY730, and the voters for inspiring these changes.
**** These range from "nothing" to "make it spawn around the planet edge" to "multiply it by 1.5" to "make it all raid starships" to "make it spawn on a neighboring planet", etc.
 
**** At first there is only 1 roll per spawn, but this goes up by 1 for every 1500 knowledge raided.
 
** If you have Advanced Logging enabled, each spawn will generate an entry in the "CounterSaboteurSpawns.txt" log file; it may not make sense to players but is very helpful to us if you submit it with your feedback.
 
** For the detailed discussion see http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,9906.0.html , but in brief the rationale is:
 
*** K-raiding's main purpose is to let players dig themselves out of a hole by gaining power without increasing AIP.
 
*** K-raiding also needs to not be a way of circumventing normal AIP-gain on a wide scale.  To some extent it's good; avoiding 200 AIP via it is a bit much.
 
**** If a player gets in a hole multiple times in a row, it's ok if the k-raiding gets harder and eventually either they die to it (sparing them a longer game) or they have to bite more AIP (making progress, probably towards sparing them a longer game).
 
*** If possible, K-raiding also needs to not be boring.  Partly that means making it so that "playing optimally" doesn't involve 10+ k-raids in a game, and partly that means making the actual AI response to the raids more interesting.
 
*** In general, the balance of all this is tentative.  It looks right in our testing, but it may be too easy or (perhaps more likely) too hard. Please give us feedback and we will continue to refine towards better balance and more fun :)
 
** Thanks to Hearteater, Wanderer , techsy730, chemical_art, and others for feedback on how k-raiding was (still) exploitable and boring, and on proposals to improve it.
 
  
* Science Lab III:
+
* Zenith Starships, as an honorable mention from the poll:
** Has been renamed to "Knowledge Hacker"
+
** Ship cap from 4 => 2, with health and damage adjusted to maintain same cap-health and cap-dps.
** Is now mobile, cloaked, and significantly more durable.
+
** Effective mark level from 1/2/3 to 2/3/4, so that the mkI is balanced like a mkII starship, the mkII is balanced like a mkIII starship, etc.
** Now has a 15-second setup-after-moving time (similar to the MRS's 60-second setup time before it can repair) during which it cannot gather knowledge.
+
** Knowledge cost from 1000/2500/4000 => 1500/3000/4000, in accordance with their effective mark promotion.
** Since you can now build them off-planet where they're not triggering spawns, these changes significantly reduce the amount of player-hassle and wall-clock-time spent on a single knowledge raid; the raids themselves (beyond the first raid) are far more dangerous so it should balance out difficulty-wise, but be less annoying.
+
** Base Cap-Health from 24M*mk => 36M*mk.
 +
** Seconds-per-salvo from 8 => 4, damage adjusted to maintain DPS.
 +
** Thanks to chemical_art, Faulty Logic, TechSY730, Diazo, and the voters for inspiring these changes.
  
* Superterminal Hacking:
+
=== Reworking The AI's Counterbalance To Champions ===
** Now the superterminal never seeds on an AI homeworld or core world (can still seed next to a core world which is mean, but not nearly so mean as having to permanently alert a homeworld, or capture one, in order to use the superterminal).
 
** Also, the superterminal's response is now based only on the reduction achieved through the superterminal, not total AIP-reduction, so it's no longer very important to do the ST before getting reduction from other sources.
 
** Now the antagonism generated by knowledge raiding feeds into the strength of superterminal spawns, and the number of times a superterminal has "ticked" feeds into that same antagonism (thematically, they're both "hacking" and the AI dinnae like it).
 
*** Reducing AIP via superterminal hacking is significantly more "efficient" than knowledge raiding in terms of what you gain in return for making future hacking efforts more dangerous.  The disadvantage is that this requires the superterminal, and doesn't stop if you lose control of the system (unless you destroy the superterminal).
 
** Now also uses a "wild roll" system like what k-raiding uses, but it's somewhat more tame in terms of what kinds of crazy it can throw in there.  Right now all it can do is surges (10% of the time, the same effect that was added in the previous version), and the "short range warp jump" (15% of the time, spawns the units away from the superterminal itself) wild-effect that the k-raid spawns can get.
 
** If you have Advanced Logging enabled, each spawn will generate an entry in the "CounterSaboteurSpawns.txt" log file; it may not make sense to players but is very helpful to us if you submit it with your feedback.
 
** The rationale for this is trying to make both k-raiding and superterminal-hacking more interesting and more of a strategic choice (since now using one makes the other more dangerous), but also to make it harder to use the superterminal for arbitrarily-high AIP reductions (we've seen cases where players could kill 400 AIP with it without even being in much danger).
 
*** As with k-raiding: In general, the balance of all this is tentative.  It looks right in our testing, but it may be too easy or (perhaps more likely) too hard.  Please give us feedback and we will continue to refine towards better balance and more fun :)
 
** Thanks to Wanderer and others for various feedback over the past year showing how much people could run away with the game using the superterminal, generally stopping due to boredom rather than threat.  Now you'll die of something else before you die of boredom :)
 
  
* Advanced Research Station Hacking:
+
* Now, when the humans have champions, the AI gets some offensive nemesis champions.
** Added the "Ship-Design Hacker" (for lack of a better name, let us know if you think of one): a 4th ship to the "science lab" line, very similar to the "Knowledge Hacker". It gathers no knowledge, but has another ability.
+
** It doesn't check for this until 60 minutes into the game.
** If you keep a Ship-Design Hacker on an AI-controlled planet with an AI-controlled ARS for 10 minutes (it must remain stationary during this time; it's one of those kinds of countdowns), it will "hack" the Advanced Research Station and reprogram it such that when you capture the planet:
+
** After that, it checks roughly every minute.
*** Instead of being immediately granted a new bonus ship type, you will be able (from the tech menu of the ARS, or of a Ship-Design Hacker) to select one of three bonus ship types.
+
** The target quantity is = (number of human champions * highest human champion hull size * (AI Difficulty / 7)) / 2, with a minimum of 1 for the first AI player (there must be at least one human champion to trigger this, though).
*** Note the hacker does not have to survive after the hack has been completed, and the ARS does not have to survive after the planet is captured, but you will need a science lab, ARS, or SDH (anything with a tech menu that normally lets you unlock II/III versions of fleet ships, basically).
+
** If the current number of offensive nemesis units is less than the target, it randomly picks one of the four champion frigate hulls and does a spawn of those on that AI's homeworld.
** However, the AI will react to Ship-Design Hackers the same way they react to Knowledge Hackers.  Also, the number of previous ship-design-hacks you've pulled off will increase AI response to future hacking (of all 3 kinds).  Each subsequent ship-design-hack makes things a lot worse than the previous one did, such that 1 isn't a big deal, 2 is a big deal, 3 is a huge deal, 4 is probably death if you hack seriously again, and 5 is really going to mess you up if you so much as look like you're hacking the rest of the game.
+
*** The count spawned is 1/10th the target number of champions or 1, whichever is greater.
** In summary: if you don't "use" your opportunity to hack for k-raiding, or for the super-terminal, you can use it here to get more flexibility in your fleet composition.  You can also do all three activities, but remember that they each make the others more dangerous.
+
*** The spawned nemesis champions start in Threatfleet behavior (and there's no rule that can take it out of that).
 +
** Overall this is a bit more similar to the Heroic AI type's special feature than we're entirely comfortable with, but that AI type is still the only way you'll see enemy champions larger that frigate-size, etc.
 +
** Thanks to Wingflier, Histidine, Faulty Logic, Dichotomy, Confirmation_Bias, and others for inspiring this change.
  
* Amended Bomber Starship description to note that it is unable to hit small targets.
+
* Now when there are human controlled champions, the AI is gradually given a supply of points to spend on responses.  Right now that's just "special forces nemesis unit" and "threatfleet nemesis unit" (above and beyond the perpetually respawning ones mentioned above).  More responses were planned but time for working on this release (this week at least) is running out.
** Thanks to rabican for reminding us that it wasn't admitting to this particular limitation.
+
** Thanks to Wingflier, Histidine, Faulty Logic, Dichotomy, Confirmation_Bias, and others for inspiring this change.
  
* Fixed a bug where aoe shots would do fail to hit a forcefield they detonated against unless the actual forcefield-generating unit was in range of the explosionNow the collision check is done against the forcefield's current radius rather than its center point.
+
* Now that the above two counter-balances are in place the previous 20%/8%/4%-of-a-normal-player increase that each champion was adding to pretty much all other threats (20% for waves and 4% for exos, etc) has been removedThe overall effect may be too kind to the player, but the above counter-balances can be augmented and adjusted accordingly.
** Specifically, this deals with plasma siege starships firing upon but being unable to damage an AI forcefield (when it was high enough health, at least).
+
** Thanks to Toranth and others for inspiring this change.
** Thanks to TechSY730 and rabican for reporting and providing saves.
 
  
* Dyson Antagonizer (hybrid plot) :
+
== Prerelease 6.010 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/02/ai-war-beta-6010-back-from-valley.html Back From The Valley] ==
** Now tries to be built somewhat closer to the AI's border.
+
(Released February 22nd, 2013)
** Health from 80M => 40M.
 
** The more dangerous values may be restored for Advanced Hybrids or some other option in the future, but the previous string of buffs to this plot was proving too much for normal.
 
** Thanks to various players for feedback on this.
 
  
* The "Detected AI Progress Reducers" galaxy map display used to just show "DC " followed by the total number of reducers on the planet (for planets with any).  Now it shows "DC", "CP", "ST", or "CL" (Data Center, Co-processor, SuperTerminal, Civlian Leader) and if there are multiple on a planet it shows them with spaces inbetween (so potentially something like "ST DC DC").
+
* Fixed a bug where allied roaming enclaves would sometimes launch all their squadrons in the first sim cycle after the game was loaded, even if there was no reason whatsoever for them to launch.
** Thanks to Spikey00 for pointing out that the previous display left something to be desired.
+
** Thanks to Wingflier for the report and save.
  
* Impulse Reaction Emitter, in recognition of winning the 3rd "worst ship" award:
+
* The main special forces population logic now tracks its "strength debt" from buying more than its budget on a particular spawn.  The overspending happens due to random selections picking high-strength individual ships, and previously was simply ignored but will now count against the budget of the following spawn(s).
** Effective Range from 4200 => 6000.
+
** The result is that it still tends to overspend on every pulse (every pulse that actually happens, anyway) but the actual total spawn over time is effectively controlled by total strength spent, ending the low-cap-ship loophole.
** Base Move Speed from 20 => 30.  This makes it slightly faster than a fighter.
+
** Thanks to Minotaar, TechSY730, Hearteater, Kahuna, and others for anecdotal and log-based evidence of the problem.
** Base Metal+Crystal cost from 300+300 => 250+250That's mkI; other marks use normal progression.
 
** Minimum multiplier from 5 => 8.
 
*** The base-cap-dps was already high at 73k and is now in the top 10 among fleet ships (including self-destructing ships and ships with no bonuses) at 117k, but this helps counterbalance the fact that it doesn't get more than the minimum multiplier against most fleet-ship targets.
 
** Multiplier from (target energy use)/1024 => (target energy use)/256.  So it starts getting a higher-than-minimum bonus against ships using 2049+ energy, up to the max multiplier of 30 against targets using 7680+ energy (note that the IRE is not any better damage-wise against max-multiplier targets, since it was already very powerful there).
 
** Thanks to the poll voters for bestowing this dubious honor, and for more specific feedback on what the unit actually was lacking.
 
  
* Space Plane, in recognition of doing really well in the 3rd "worst ship" poll:
+
* Friendly roaming enclaves (the normal-space ones; not the ones temporarily in a nebula scenario) now have a population cap based on the number of non-AI-controlled planets (i.e. planets you've killed the AI command station on) and the intensity of the roaming enclave faction.
** Vs-Hull multipliers from 2.4 => 3.2.
+
** So there's not a hard-cap per se, in that you can increase it by taking more territoryAnd who wouldn't like to get more AIP, right?
*** For reference, that's against Light (Fighter), Polycrystal (Bomber), Heavy (... a lot of things), and UltraHeavy.
+
** Mainly this is to prevent lag, but also helps bring the friendly enclaves a bit down from their previous overpowered-ness.
*** Eyebots have 3.2, and a somewhat lower base-dps, but can shoot through forcefields.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
** Seconds-per-salvo from 3 => 9.
 
** Base Attack Power from 600*mk => 1800*mk.
 
*** So that's the same dps as before (aside from the multiplier increase), but higher alpha capacity for hit-and-run using their radar dampening, etc.
 
** Base Energy Use from 100 => 50, because with the 1.75x ship cap the default energy use (100) was kind of excessive.
 
** Base Metal+Crystal cost from 90+90 => 75+75 (that's mkI)More in keeping with the dies-due-to-light-breeze-when-it-can-catch-them nature of the ship.
 
** And the AI is really happy about this part: the Space Plane is now immune to AoE damage.  That's bargained down from immune-to-gravity, so be happy.
 
** Thanks to the poll voters for their feedback on this unit.
 
  
* Vampire Claw, also in recognition of runner-up-for-worst-ship:
+
* The individual ships in the friendly enclave launched-squadrons now have 4x the health and 4x the dps, but the enclaves produce them 1/4th as fast and can hold a maximum load 1/4th as numerous.
** Base Health from 5000*mk => 10000*mk. 
+
** Just trying to keep the CPU impact of these down in the more extreme situations.
*** Previously they only had 4M cap-health, which was below even stuff like eyebots.  Kind of rough for a melee ship even with self-regen.  Now at 8M they're still really low compared to most fleet ships.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
** Now have cloaking.  Be afraid.  Bring tachyons.  And garlic.
 
*** Note that this means that games with cloaking ships disabled won't have claws.  But any game already started that has them will continue having them, regardless of that setting.
 
** Base Energy Use from 200 => 160.
 
** Base Attack Power from 650 => 850.
 
** Added Artillery to the hull types this has a bonus against (om nom missile frigate tasty).
 
** Now has a 0.3x multiplier against the command-grade hull type.
 
** Thanks to the poll voters for their feedback on this unit.
 
  
* Youngling Tiger:
+
* Rebalance of the Ancient Shadows "brutal pick" core posts:
** Base Metal+Crystal from 40+40 => 25+25, same as commandos and weasels.
+
** Teuthida
 +
*** Drone lifetime from 240 seconds => 60 seconds.
 +
*** Spawner health halved.
 +
** Wrath Lance
 +
*** Rotation speed halved.
 +
*** Health halved.
 +
** Grav Reactor
 +
*** Drone lifetime from 240 seconds => 60 seconds.
 +
*** Spawner health halved.
 +
** Thanks to Diazo, TechSY730, and others for inspiring these changes.
  
* Youngling Vulture:
+
* AI Strategic Reserves:
** Base Metal+Crystal from 40+40 => 25+25, same as commandos and weasels (and tigers, now).
+
** Replenishment rate down to about 2/3rds what it was.
 +
** Now homeworld-defense spawns only happen if the reserve is at least 25% full, so the follow-up reserve spawns will be much more spaced out.
 +
** Thanks to Kahuna for inspiring these changes.
  
* Spire Gravity Drain:
+
== Prerelease 6.009 ==
** Base Metal+Crystal from 0+3000 => 500+1000.  These were tied for most expensive fleet ship, and 2x (or more) as expensive as all but 6 other fleet ship types.  Wasn't really anything to justify that.
+
(Released November 21st, 2012)
** These need more rebalancing attention, but ran out of time for that in this release.
 
  
* Spire Gravity Ripper:
+
* Fixed a longstanding but rare bug that could "eat" a carrier during the loading of the game if the conditions were such that a carrier was eligible for deploying its contents ''immediately''.
** Base Metal+Crystal from 1800+1200 => 1000+500.  Was similar to the grav drain's situation.
+
** Further, this would happen on the host and then again on the client when the client received the game data, leading to a desync-on-load.
** These need more rebalancing attention, but ran out of time for that in this release.
+
** Thanks to Zebreu for the report and save.
  
* Spire Armor Rotter:
+
== Prerelease 6.008 ==
** Base Metal+Crystal from 800+1900 => 450+900.  Was 3rd most expensive.
+
(Released November 21st, 2012)
** These need more rebalancing attention, but ran out of time for that in this release.
 
  
* Space Tank:
+
* Fixed a null exception bug that could happen in some cases in the ally-enclave logic.
** Base Metal+Crystal from 1100+0 => 600+100.  Was 5th most expensive, and more expensive than bombers, now slightly less expensive than bombers.
+
** Thanks to ussdefiant for the report and save.
** Base Attack Power from 2600*mk => 2300*mk.
 
** Vs-Hull-Type multipliers from 3.2 => 6. 
 
*** Bombers have 6.  Space Tanks now have a roughly 30% higher base-dps, since the general idea is for bonus ship types to be 30-50% more useful than triangle types.
 
** Effective range from 4800+200*mk => 6300+200*mk.  Since they're so slow.
 
  
* Grenade Launcher:
+
* Fixed the logic generating the LogicLog_AIMechanic_CounterHacking.txt file when Advanced Logging is on to use the proper platform-specific newline instead of just \n (which makes it look like all one line on windows).
** Base Energy Use from 400 => 150.  It had twice the cap-energy-use of the next highest fleet ship type.
+
** Thanks to ussdefiant for the report.
 
 
* Sentinel Frigate:
 
** Base Attack Power from 14000*mk => 31000*mk.  It had a cap-dps (base=max for this one) of 44k, which was really laughable. 100k is bit on the low end for a type with no bonus of any kind, but it is an infinite-range ship.
 
 
 
* Made end-of-Fallen-Spire spawns yet more enthusiastic, due to the opposition they sometimes face on 10/10.  That AI sure is stubborn...
 
  
* On planet view, the game now draws two circles representing the key zones of the planet's "gravity well". These will generally only be seen when zoomed very far out. The inner circle (60000 range from planet center) represents the bounds of the area within which stationary structures may be built and transports may unload. The outer circle (80000 range from planet center) represents the boundary beyond which ship engines are unable to maintain a useful velocity.
+
== Prerelease 6.007 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/11/ai-war-beta-6007-burying-hatchet.html Burying The Hatchet] ==
** The underlying rules have been there for over a year, but seeing the ranges involved the minimap.
+
(Released November 20th, 2012)
** To go with this, added new toggle: Disable Planet Area Display, which disables this new drawing behavior.  If there's a bunch of complaints this toggle may be changed to default to "on", but we'll see :)
 
** Thanks to clone for reminding us how little clue the game gave (particularly to new players) about the existence and importance of these two ranges.
 
  
* Now for wave alerts that list the actual ship type being sent at you: moving your mouse cursor over a wave alert will bring up that ship's data, similar to mousing-over a ship of that type.
+
* Fixed a bug where the Armor Booster Astro Trains were not actually having the armor boost effect.
** Thanks to clone for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* Science Labs I/II/III, the Survey Ship, and the new Ship Design Hacker are now all immune to the maw's swallow effect.  This has nothing to do with a recent test going unexpectedly and terribly awry, of course.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.027 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/02/ai-war-beta-5027-superterminal-overload.html SuperTerminal Overload] ==
 
(Released February 23rd, 2012)
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where the stages of the hybrid-dyson plot that were supposed to only happen when Advanced Hybrids were on were happening when only Normal Hybrids were on.
 
** Note: the antagonizer is part of what should happen with normal hybrids, but we're working towards more flexibility there too.
 
** Thanks to orzelek for the report.
 
 
 
* AI Super-Terminals:
 
** Previously these became active after you finished building a command station on the planet, and went dormant again as soon as your command station was destroyed.  Now they never go dormant after becoming active: now, the only way to shut down an active superterminal is to destroy it.
 
*** Thanks to Atomjack for pointing out that it was too easy to keep turning the terminal on and off previously.
 
** Now each super-terminal "pulse" has a 10% chance to be a "surge":
 
*** It puts a message in the chat log letting you know there was a surge.
 
*** It intensifies the pulse by (highest AI difficulty / 2) (so diff 7 means that pulse will be 3.5 as strong in terms of enemy ships generated).
 
*** It sets the time until the next pulse to 1 second instead of the usual 15.  "Chain surges" are therefore possible, albeit fairly unlikely.
 
** Previously when the super terminal reached a certain size of mkV pulse it simply didn't get any more dangerous; now it will start shortening the time between pulses as the strength goes past that point.
 
** In all, super terminals were being a little too tame.  It's great that proper playing of an ST can make the difference between winning and losing, but they seemed to need more danger and unpredictability to balance out their fairly powerful advantages.  It's more like "riding the bull" now, and if it gets out of control it can kill you.
 
 
 
* Mapgen will no longer put the dyson sphere adjacent to an AI core world, because having a core world on alert the whole game was nearly an automatic loss on some more intense scenarios.  It's better if you die because of something you actually had influence over.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for reporting a game where the dyson sphere was bordering 3 core worlds.  Ouch.
 
 
 
* Riot Tazer:
 
** Paralysis Time from 1 => 3 (internally 2 => 4, but the first second generally gets eaten due to processing order).
 
** Reload Time from 2 => 8.
 
** Per-planet stagger from 2 seconds => 6 seconds.
 
** This helps prevent some transient (and difficult to reproduce) stunlocks due to processing order, while maintaining the ability to keep things locked down 50% of the time.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for reporting the transient stunlocks.
 
 
 
* Anti-Starship Arachnid V:
 
** Has become Spider Bot V, which it has been internally since the beginning but had a bunch of special changes to make it an anti-starship unit.
 
*** Long ago this was a really important unit for the AI because it would spawn them in response to human usage of starships, but that hasn't been the case for rather a while.
 
*** In the meantime, they generally only see service if a human player captures a fabricator that produces them, and while the AI does use some starships generally these units are very, very low on usefulness to a human player because they literally can't hit anything that isn't a starship.  So now they're just Spider V.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for reporting that he shot his monitor after finding 2 Anti-Starship V fabricators.  At least, that's what's on the police report.
 
 
 
* Spider Bots:
 
** Engine Damage per shot from 15 => 60.
 
*** This brings mark I cap-engine-damage-per-second to about 30% of a cap of Spider Turrets; a cap of mkII (which has fewer ships) to 50-55%, and so on.
 
** Base Health from 3600*mk => 7200*mk.  They were right at the flimsiest end of fleet ship cap-health (5M), now just in the lower 3rd (10M).
 
 
 
* Beam Starship:
 
** Rebalancing as a MkV starship, since the fleet ship fabricators produce MkV stuff.
 
** Base Move Speed from 14 => 22.
 
** Base Health from 4.5M => 22.5M.  Now on par with the Core Starship for cap-health.
 
** Max targets hit per shot from infinite => 9.  Same as Zenith Beam Frigate.
 
** Seconds-per-salvo from 5 => 2.  Not the same as Zenith Beam Frigate.
 
** Base Attack Power from 28k => 44k.  If it hits 9 targets every 2 seconds, that puts cap-dps at about 3/4 that of the Core Starship's bonus cap-dps.
 
** All vs-hull-type multipliers removed; the "bonus" for ships like this is typically obtained by hitting more than one ship; max bonus is against large clumps where you can always hit the max.
 
** Energy and m+c costs looked ok; energy a bit high, m+c rather low for mkV but since you have to get a fabricator to build these we can let it slide unless it becomes a problem.
 
** Thanks to zharmad for the reminder that these have needed a rebalance since before 4.0.
 
 
 
* Warbird Starship:
 
** Rebalancing as a MkV starship, since the fleet ship fabricators produce MkV stuff.
 
** Made eligible for spawning in exos again; were originally removed from that because if they were lead ships they made the whole group go terrifast.  Well, Raid Starships are even faster and are still eligible, so these are going back in.  Generally these won't be picked to lead all but relatively early exos with lighter overall firepower.
 
** Base Health from 3M => 17M.  Now about 70% of Core Starship for cap-health (or: a bit over 10M*mk, where 7.5M*mk is about as low as any combat starship should go in the current approach).
 
** From no vs-hull-type multipliers => 4 vs polycrystal, heavy, ultra-heavy, and structural.
 
** Seconds-per-salvo from 5 => 2.
 
** Shots-per-salvo from 40 => 16.
 
** Base Attack Power from 2k => 8k.  This brings non-bonus/bonus cap-dps to a bit under 200k/800k, very similar to the core starship in that regard.
 
** Energy and m+c costs looked ok; energy a bit low, m+c rather low for mkV but since you have to get a fabricator to build these we can let it slide unless it becomes a problem.
 
** Thanks to Spikey00 for the reminder that these needed a rebalancing.
 
 
 
* Paralyzers (specifically, zenith paralyzers, but also nanoswarms to some extent) are now much more aggressive about spreading out their fire across available targets to make better use of the paralysis effect.
 
** It still will focus more than is optimal in cases where a group of more than 100 paralyzers (of the same mark, controlled by the same player, relatively near one another) has more than 100 non-paralyzed targets in range (they'll generally all focus on 100 of the targets in the first volley, and spread out afterward) due to our desire to not have target lists longer than 100 for RAM-consumption reasons.  But it's a lot better than it used to be.
 
** Thanks to soMe_RandoM and (more recently) zharmad for bringing to our attention how sub-optimal the targeting used to be.
 
 
 
* Reference tab balance export:
 
** Removed a lot of no-longer-relevant columns.
 
** Added columns for base shot strength, targets hit per shot, shots per salvo, seconds per salvo, minimum and maximum special multipliers (for vulture/IRE/polarizer), short name, wave name, etc.
 
** Improved computation of non-bonus and bonus dps to be right in more cases (still off for autobombs/minirams/nanoswarms, etc).
 
** Thanks to Dazio for suggestions on what would be helpful for working on the new wiki pages for each ship (and thanks to him and others for that work, of course!)
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where the minimum special multiplier wasn't working for Zenith Polarizers against targets that literally had zero armor, so their dps was 1/4 the intended value in those cases.  Fixed a related bug for Impulse Reaction Emitters, but that probably wasn't affecting any significant cases.
 
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report.
  
* Acid Sprayers:
+
* Fixed longstanding bug where it was possible to tractor a hostile ship through a wormhole, even if it was a cannot-go-through-wormholes unit type.
** Base Attack from 450 => 600.  This puts the non-bonus cap-dps pretty exactly at the fighter's.
 
** Base Movement Speed from 40 => 50.  Now same as the ether-jet; this is a very short range ship and needs to be able to close the distance.
 
** Vs Hull Type Multipliers from 6 => 8.  The fighter's vs-polycrystal bonus is 5, for reference.
 
** Base Metal/Crystal cost from 0/300 => 40/180.  So 10% more expensive to build to cap than a fighter (though it's still twice as much energy).
 
** Thanks to the many players weighing in the poll naming the Acid Sprayer as the second winner of the "worst ship" award.  In honor of these changes, the award has been optimistically confiscated.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.026 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/02/ai-war-beta-5026-pay-attention-exos.html Pay Attention, Exos!] ==
+
* Fixed a bug where AI threatfleet ships could get stuck on a planet with human-controlled remains on it because it made the AI think there were still enemies to kill there.
(Released February 15th, 2012)
+
** Thanks to Wanderer for the report and save.
  
* Fixed a bug in the previous version where broken-golems-hard and spirecraft-hard exos could sometimes pick any human-controlled unit as their main target.
+
* Over time the number of files generated by Advanced Logging under various circumstances has grown a fair bit and it could be difficult as a player to know what to delete when you wanted to clean out old logs, etc.  To cut down on this we started combining some related logs (the SF-like mechanics into the SF log file) but this just caused confusion.  The naming conventions were also pretty variable and frequently one half of the wave log would get submitted and not the other, etc.  These logs are obviously not something players need to worry about, but it's very helpful when players submit them in cases where logic problems are suspected, so it'd be nice if they were easier to find.  So the names of the generated files are being changed to something that's much easier to make sense of in your file system:
** Thanks to dotjd for the report and save.
+
** (listed as "new name" <= "old name")
 +
** LogicLog_AIMechanic_CarrierEarlyPopCombination.txt <= CarrierEarlyPopComputationLog.txt
 +
** LogicLog_AIMechanic_CounterHacking.txt <= CounterSaboteurSpawns.txt
 +
** LogicLog_AIMechanic_Reinforcements_AIThread.txt <= ReinforcementsLog_AIThread.txt
 +
** LogicLog_AIMechanic_Reinforcements_MainThread.txt <= ReinforcementsLog_MainThread.txt
 +
** LogicLog_AIMechanic_SpecialForces.txt <= SpecialForcesLogicLog.txt
 +
** LogicLog_AIMechanic_StrategicReserve.txt <= SpecialForcesLogicLog.txt (so it's no longer combined with the SF log)
 +
** LogicLog_AIMechanic_ThreatFleet.txt <= SpecialForcesLogicLog.txt (so it's no longer combined with the SF log)
 +
** LogicLog_AIMechanic_Waves_AIThread.txt <= AIThreadWaveComputationLog.txt
 +
** LogicLog_AIMechanic_Waves_MainThread.txt <= MainThreadWaveComputationLog.txt
 +
** LogicLog_AIPlot_AstroTrains.txt <= AstroTrainLogicLog.txt
 +
** LogicLog_AIPlot_HybridHives_AIThread.txt <= HybridHyjinksLog_AIThread.txt
 +
** LogicLog_AIPlot_HybridHives_MainThread.txt <= HybridHyjinksLog_MainThread.txt
 +
** LogicLog_EventAttackPopulation.txt <= EventAttackCompositionInfoLog.txt
 +
** LogicLog_MinorFaction_DarkSpire.txt <= DarkSpireMinorFactionLogicLog.txt
 +
** LogicLog_OffroadScenarios.txt <= OffroadScenarioLog.txt
 +
** The old files are not being deleted (the game doesn't know if there's anything in there you still want), but you can use the above list as a reference to find and remove them if desired.
 +
** Thanks to Wanderer for inspiring this change.
  
* Vorticular Cutlass:
+
* Command Station rebuilding behavior:
** Base Health from 7000*mk => 10500*mk.  This puts them at the top of the target fleet ship range with 30M*mk cap-health (Armor Ships and Shield Bearers were the only other ones up there before this).
+
** Now when the stall timer is running because the previous human station on the planet was destroyed, the remains rebuilders cannot do anything with the command station remains until the stall timer is up.
** Base Speed from 16 => 54.  So from slower than a fighter to slightly faster than an etherjet.
+
** Once the stall timer is over, Remains Rebuilders looking for something new to rebuild will give command station remains absolute priority.
** Base Metal/Crystal cost from 200/50 => 30/30.  Now the same price as infiltrators, a bit lower than tele-raiders, etc.
+
** The stall timer on non-military command stations from 4 minutes => 2 minutes (military ones still get 1 minute).
** Base Energy use from 100 => 20.
+
** Thanks to Sunshine, DrTall, TechSY730, Varone, Hearteater, Lancefighter, KDR_11k, and Astilious for inspiring these changes.
** Thanks to many players for ongoing feedback about these being, possibly, [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,9820.0.html the least useful fleet ship in the game] since its last major changes.
 
  
* Fixed bug where autobombs/nanoswarms/etc could now target and fly into an aoe-immune ship but couldn't actually do anything to itThey'll now do damage and their other effects as normal, though if it's just a big pile of aoe-immune targets you'll probably want to hold them off for efficiency reasons: they'll only hit the direct target, unless there's something aoe-able in range.
+
* Fixed a longstanding bug where the modules of the imperial spire minor faction ships were not minor faction (and simply owned by the first player)Not much impact gameplay-wise, but it was weird.
** Thanks to techsy730 for the report.
+
** Thanks to Lancefighter and others for the report.
  
* Youngling Nanoswarm:
+
* In response to ongoing occasional reports that the imperial spire fleet still sometimes stalemates vs the AI at the end of FS on 10/10, the non-player-controlled ships and modules have been substantially buffed again (the biggest ships are approaching 32-bit arithmetic limits here, folks) and if things drag on it starts sending in more ships each spawn.
** Paralysis time from 1*mk seconds to 3*mk seconds.  Partly because really short paralysis times work a bit oddly, partly because these needed to be more useful.
+
** Thanks to Eternaly_Lost for the report.
** Engine damage from 2*mk => 10*mk.
 
  
* The "The Tank" AI-type wave multiplier from 0.5 => 1, as the intent behind it is that it be actually stronger on offense than usual, rather than weaker. The average should be fine, but possibly another increase can come later.
+
* Logistics Stations:
 +
** Enemy Speed Reduction from 50% at all marks => 18.75% / 37.5% / 50%.
 +
** Ally Speed Increase from 100% (which all command stations give) to 200%.
 +
*** They also all still give the +40/60/80 to ally speed, which other command stations don't give.
 +
** Thanks to... well, I think a bunch of people suggested something like this to give a reason to unlock the higher marks, but I can't find records of it right now.
  
== Prerelease 5.025 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/02/ai-war-beta-5025-balance-beam-released.html Balance Beam] ==
+
* Spire Railcluster hull type from Polycrystal => Composite.
(Released February 13th, 2012)
+
** The previous setting was an experiment to see what happened if a unit was a counter to the triangle ship (fighter, in this case) that counters it. What happened is that the ship is a lot harder to kill under normal circumstances than we'd intended for something that does that much damage that quickly.
 +
** So now the triangle counter for these is the missile frigate, which may survive long enough to kill it.
 +
** Thanks to Chris_Stalis, TechSY730, and others for inspiring this change.
  
* Everything that fires Siege Plasma (Plasma Siege Starship, Plasma Siege Cannon modules), Flak grenades, grenades, or self-explodes (autobomb, nanoswarm) can now fire directly upon aoe-immune targets, but the resulting aoe will still not hit any aoe-immune targets (just the directly hit target).
+
* Fixed a bug where the new dropdown-with-text-filter controls were not triggering the "a textbox is active, don't handle most key-binds normally" logic, so pressing the P key while typing into the text-filter would pause or unpause the game, etc.
** Notably, this restores the Plasma Siege Starship's ability to target Raid Starships, which was unintentionally lost in the previous version.
+
** Thanks to contingencyplan for the report.
** Thanks to techsy730 for pointing out the error, and several players for the suggested mechanic change.
 
  
* Added new toggle to CTRLS window: "Make Multi-Planet FRD Patrol" (defaults to on).
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=== Human-Ally Roaming Enclaves Return ===
** If this toggle is checked, your FRD units will pursue and engage enemy units on the same planet even if currently under orders to proceed to a different planet.
 
** Otherwise, your FRD units will prioritize a "move to different planet order" and will not break off to pursue enemy units.
 
** Note: This used to be the default behavior but was changed during the last year.  Several requests to return to the previous behavior have led to this change, but the suppress-patrol behavior is available by unchecking this toggle, for those who want it (or to use it for a certain period of time).  More granular control could be added, but we didn't want to overbuild this.
 
** Thanks to many players for reminding us that they really like it when FRD means "Patrol".
 
  
* When computing the number of reactors of a specific mark controlled by a specific player on a specific planet for the purposes of reactor-inefficiency, that number is now divided by that player's number of homeworlds (if that player has more than 1)This allows them to get basically the same energy output per m+c cost as an equivalent number of separate players with the same total number of homeworlds.
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* Long ago the Roaming Enclaves minor faction could spawn human-ally variants in addition to the currently-possible AI-ally and enemy-to-all variants.  But they weren't very bright, and tended to get killed a lot despite many changes to make them survive betterEventually they listened to the human players saying that the enclaves were stupidly suicidal and made a very wise decision for their own survival: they left the galaxy.
** On the same note, the "auto build energy reactor" toggles on the CTRLS window (both galaxy-wide and per-planet) have been converted to sliders allowing you to specifying that more than one should be auto-built.  If both the galaxy-wide one and a per-planet one are greater than zero, that planet will auto-build the higher of the two numbers (but not the sum, unlike with engineers).
+
** But since then there have been many requests for the return of the human-ally enclaves, and in recent months we've added some logic to the game for other reasons that happens to make this kind of AI much easier to accomplish.
** The energy difference between multi-HW and multi-players has been known for a long time and not considered a priority.  However, recent scientific analysis has concluded that multi-HW AARs have significant potential entertainment value, hence the change.
+
** So, while these were re-enabled (in their dumb state) in a particular champion-related case, they've now been re-enabled generally, so you'll see them eventually if you have the Roaming Enclaves minor faction enabled.
** Thanks to many, many players asking for this over the years.
+
*** Thanks to Cyborg, Spikey00, TechSY730, Sunshine, Faulty Logic, and others for inspiring these changes.
  
* Added new unit cap scale option: Ultra Low
+
* The Control logic for these human-ally ones has been completely redone so that all human-ally roaming enclaves in the game act as a coherent fleet.  This greatly enhances survivabiltiy and coolness.
** Most large-cap ships have roughly a quarter of the standard cap (Fighter MkI = 24), and are roughly four times as expensive, four times as strong, etc.
+
** They also pay careful attention to how much firepower they have, the enemy firepower on potential target planets, and the enemy firepower on planets they're thinking of pathing through to get to the target.
** This puts the lowest possible load on the your CPU when you have the biggest-possible battles. Also helpful if you're playing a game with 8 human homeworlds (in multiplayer or otherwise).
+
** There are five basic types of behavior the coherent-fleet logic can do:
** Thanks to Wanderer for submitting a save that showed a Low-caps battle making a modern CPU cry.
+
*** Priority-defense of human homeworlds.
 +
**** If a human homeworld comes under any not-completely-trivial attack (for reference, this means "more than about 50 mkI triangle ships on high caps" or the equivalent), the next fleet-logic check will drop whatever is being done and send them all back to that homeworld.
 +
**** This takes priority over any other behavior.
 +
**** You may tell the enclaves to not consider this behavior by sending "cmd:disallow enclaves prioritize homeworld" through chat, and tell them to start considering it again by sending "cmd:allow enclaves prioritize homeworld" through chat.
 +
*** Defend human planets.
 +
**** Considers moving to any planet with a human command station and an AI presence.
 +
**** You may tell the enclaves to not consider this behavior by sending "cmd:disallow enclaves defend planets" through chat, and tell them to start considering it again by sending "cmd:allow enclaves defend planets" through chat.
 +
*** Assist human attacks.
 +
**** Considers moving to any planet without a command station or with an AI command station, if both the humans and AI have a presence there and the humans have a fighting chance (at least half the AI firepower).
 +
**** This behavior is OFF by default but you may tell the enclaves to consider it by sending "cmd:allow enclaves assist attacks" through chat, and tell them to stop considering it again by sending "cmd:disallow enclaves assist attacks" through chat.
 +
*** Attack independently.
 +
**** Considers moving to any planet without a command station or with an AI command station, and an AI presence.
 +
**** This behavior is OFF by default but you may tell the enclaves to consider it by sending "cmd:allow enclaves attack independently" through chat, and tell them to stop considering it again by sending "cmd:disallow enclaves attack independently" through chat.
 +
*** Idle rally
 +
**** If there's nothing else to do, rallies the enclave fleet to the human planet furthest from the human homeworlds that still prevents all pathing from an AI planet to a human homeworld.  If no such solid chokepoint exists, it falls back on a human homeworld (if one of the homeworlds is such a chokepoint for all the others, it picks that one).
 +
**** This behavior is always available, you can't tell them to not do nothing if there's nothing to do.
 +
** When considering behaviors other than the emergency homeworld defense and the "nothing else to do" rally:
 +
*** It won't pick a planet if the AI firepower is way lower than the enclave-fleet's, or if it's high enough to be too much of a threat to it.
 +
*** It won't consider a planet if it can't get from the human homeworlds to there without moving through a planet with enough AI firepower to threaten the enclave fleet.
 +
*** If more than one planet is found eligible by the enabled behaviors, it picks randomly between the ones nearer the human homeworlds.
 +
*** Once a planet is chosen it sticks with it as long as it remains eligible, or gets the emergency-defend-homeworld override.
 +
** A note on these enclave-related chat commands:
 +
*** They're experimental: historically we haven't done direct-human-control of minor factions for a lot of reasons and that's not really what we're doing here (it's pretty indirect and general).  But we wanted something a bit more meaty with this faction's behavior in the sense of it feeling like an ally that's fighting alongside you rather than directly under your control (we've already done that with most of the Fallen Spire stuff, and to some parts of the nebula faction stuff) or only participating in a very simple fashion (we've already done that with the human resistance and dyson spawns, etc).
 +
**** That said, it's very hard and perhaps impossible to get these enclaves to do something even moderately complex without it clashing with what some players want them to do.  So we're experimenting with these "chat directives" to see if that kind of very high-level influence is sufficient to give these a general appeal to the various kinds of player who want a "computer-controlled sidekick" in the game.
 +
**** So these commands, and potentially the new behaviors as a whole, may just go away if things are found to just not work out.  Or potentially some kind of new interface will be needed for them, in which case it would probably need to be part of an expansion if we do another one of those.  For now it's a lot like text-chatting with a human ally in multiplayer.
 +
*** These commands are not cheats (so they do not require "enable cheats", and do not flag the game as having had cheats done).
  
* Flak Turrets:
+
* An enclave will not deploy its squadrons until on the target planet determined by the fleet-logic, or it falls below half health. When just idle-rallying it won't launch squadrons even on the target planet unless that planet comes under significant AI attack.
** Effective range from 4000/5000/6000 => 4500/5500/6500 to make them a little easier to place around a wormhole.
 
** Now when under a firepower-reducing forcefield they retain 75% of their attack power instead of the customary 25%.
 
** Hopefully they'll now be closer to the general usefulness of other turrets in that they don't have to die immediately (if protected).
 
** Thanks to chemical_art, techsy730, Wanderer and other players for weighing in on the flak's recent usefulness and making suggestions.
 
  
* Lightning Turrets:
+
* The spawning logic has also been changed:
** Now when under a firepower-reducing forcefield they retain 75% of their attack power instead of the customary 25%.
+
** Time between spawns was previously based on both faction intensity and AI Difficulty, but is now based on just the intensity.  The difficulty-based factors have been changed to always use the higher-end values so that spawns will happen more frequently on lower difficulties than they used to.
 +
*** For reference: on faction intensity 4 you'll generally see the first spawn at 73 to 88 minutes into the game, and new spawns every 31 to 46 minutes after that.  Intensity 1 is about 1/4 as often (with a longer initial delay), and intensity 10 is about 4x as often (with minimal initial delay).
 +
** When spawning, instead of randomly picking between spawning enemy-to-all, ai-ally, or human-ally enclaves it does a spawn of all three (in different places).
  
* Heavy Beam Cannons (just the human standalone ones, not any of the spire variants, though the spire variants were impacted by the m+c and knowledge cost changes) :
+
* Stats-wise these have been left alone (although that's pretty buff right now, possibly OP) except for a few changes to cut down on hair-pulling:
** All marks:
+
** Now have Radar Dampening 20000, so it does't protect them from much but does help against really long-range strikes from superforts, bombards, etc.
*** All vs-hull-type bonuses removed, these are just straight damage now, which is more thematically appropriate.  Also, it's nice to have at least one turret type that doesn't have that kind of bonus.
+
*** For reference, human-built enclave starships have radar dampening of 8000 or lower, so this particular change may actually be too weak.
*** For reference, these aren't really "aoe", they're "blast-through"; a beam loses strength as it does damage.
+
** Are now immune to Orbital Mass Drivers, since the alternative was letting them kill the OMDs in self defense, which didn't seem desirable since those are not autotargeted.
** MkI
+
** May now fly through enemy forcefields, but still can't directly shoot things under them.
*** For reference, MkI unit cap is 12 for these, and each fires 3 beams every 7 seconds.  
+
** The launched squadrons can no longer traverse wormholes, to keep them from buzzing off and annoying all kinds of AI stuffThe enclaves will have new ones to launch before long anyway.
*** Base Health from 250k => 850k.  This brings cap-health a bit higher than missile turrets, which are the squishy end of turret types.
+
** Both the enclaves and their squadrons are now allowed to kill (autotargetable) guard posts and do other behaviors that free threat. since their deployment is now more regulated and they tend to clean up what they free.
*** Base Energy Use from 750 => 1650.  This brings cap-energy to just slightly above MLRS and several other turret types.
+
*** They're still scrupulous about never killing anything that causes AIP on death, or is otherwise not autotargeted (ion cannons, SF guard posts, distro nodes, etc).
*** Base Metal/Crystal Cost from 8000/14000 => 6500/11000.  This brings cap-mc to slightly below most turret types.
 
*** Base Attack Power from 50000 => 140000.  This brings cap-dps to be second highest turret non-bonus-dps (lightning being highest) but well below the any turret's bonus-dps.
 
*** Knowledge cost from 2000 => 500. The other mkI turrets are free.
 
** MkII
 
*** For reference, MkII unit cap is 8 for these, and each fires 6 beams every 6 seconds.
 
*** Base Health from 1.25M => 2.55MBasically: mkI health * (2 for being mkII) * (1.5 for smaller unit cap)
 
*** Base Energy Use from 1300 => 2500. (roughly mkI * 1.5 for cap)
 
*** Base Metal/Crystal Cost from 16000/28000 => 13000/22000.  (mkI * 2, customary for mkII)
 
*** Base Attack Power from 50000 => 180000.  Basically: mkI damage * (0.429 for rate-of-fire-difference) * (2 for mkII) * (1.5 for unit cap)
 
*** Knowledge cost from 3000 => 2500. Most other mkII turrets are 2000-3000.
 
** MkIII
 
*** For reference, MkIII unit cap is 4 for these, and each fires 12 beams every 5 seconds.
 
*** Base Health from 2.25M => 7.65M.  Basically: mkI health * (3 for mark) * (3 for unit cap)
 
*** Base Energy Use from 2000 => 5000. (roughly mkI * 3 for cap)
 
*** Base Metal/Crystal Cost from 32000/56000 => 26000/44000.  (mkI * 4, customary for mkIII)
 
*** Base Attack Power from 50000 => 225000. Basically: mkI damage * (0.179 for rof diff) * (3 for mark) * (3 for cap)
 
*** Knowledge cost from 3500 => 3000.  That's pretty normal for a mkIII turret.
 
** MkIV
 
*** For reference, MkIV unit cap is _1_ for these, and it fires 40 beams every 4 seconds.
 
*** Base Health from 3.25M => 40M.  Basically: mkI health * (4 for mark) * (12 for unit cap)
 
*** Base Energy Use from 2000 => 20000. (roughly mkI * 12 for cap)
 
*** Base Metal/Crystal Cost from 64000/112000 => 52000/88000.  (mkI * 8, customary for mkIV)
 
*** Base Attack Power from 50000 => 290000.  Basically: mkI damage * (0.043 for rof diff) * (4 for mark) * (12 for cap)
 
*** Knowledge cost staying at 3000.  Thought about 3500, but it really is just one unit.
 
** These haven't seen a real rebalance in... a long time, and had fallen behind pretty drastically through the various changes since the 3.x days.  Hopefully this will make them statistically competitive with other turret types (that have much larger caps).  Feedback on how it all actually works out in practice is very welcome.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater and others for feedback that inspired these changes.
 
  
* All modules (except those that generate forcefields) are now invincible and thus untargetable, etc.
+
* If you're curious about the spawning and high-level control logic, advanced logging will generate a LogicLog_MinorFaction_RoamingEnclaves.txt file in your AIW installation's RuntimeData directory (when any of that logic happens, of course).
** This really helps prevent a lot of fiddliness when losing modules on a Riot (or whatever), especially when you've got a build queue competing with the ship's auto-replacement logic, etc.
 
  
* Fixed a longstanding bug where modules would not always decloak their parent ship when firing.
+
== Prerelease 6.006 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/11/ai-war-beta-6006-pain-train-released.html The Pain Train] ==
** Thanks to several players for reporting that the previous fix for this wasn't working.
+
(Released November 13th, 2012)
  
* Now when a modular ship is in low-power-mode, all its modules act as if in low-power-mode.
+
* Rebel Human Colony health from 400k => 5M.
** Note that if a module was already in low power mode and the parent is made low-power and then taken out of low-power, that module will stay in low-power.  The other modules that were not in low-power before will come out of it when the parent does.
+
** Thanks to Don Carsto for reporting a situation where AOE apparently killed one of these as an afterthought.
  
* Riot Starships:
+
* Fixed some longstanding GUI issues with the handling of mouse-down (where it should have been mouse-up) with textboxes.
** Ship Cap from 4/3/2 => 4 flat.  Most of the special starship types have non-decreasing caps already.
 
** Base Health from 900k*mk => 1.8M*mk.  This brings their just-the-hull health up to just below the squishy end of the current target zone for starships (7.5M*mk cap-hp, though Raids and Leeches are currently way below that for other reasons).
 
** Shield mkI/mkII Base Health from 500k*mk => 1.8M*mk.  This brings their hull+shield health up to the middle of the target zone.
 
** Base Speed from 20/17/14 => flat 20.
 
** Base Energy Cost from 3000/4000/5000 => flat 3000.
 
** Base mkI Metal+Crystal Cost from 20k+60k => 30k+50k (mkII is 2x, mkIII is 4x).
 
** Knowledge Cost from free/3500/4500 => free/4000/5000.  DPS starships run 0/5k/7k, more specialized ones like the raid run 0/4k/4k, etc.
 
** Base Attack Power from 3600/5200/6800 => 4000*mk.  This brings their non-bonus-dps up to the very low end of the current target zone for starship (20k*mk cap-dps).  So it's really low (even with module damage), but it's a utility type.
 
** Base Engine Damage from 40/55/70 => 40*mk.
 
** Multiplier vs Medium from 2 => 4.  Its other 4 bonuses were already 4.
 
** All Modules:
 
*** No longer have an energy cost.  12k cap-e for the hulls is enough.
 
** Machine Gun Modules:
 
*** Engine Damage Percent Floor from 50%/30% => 40%/20%.
 
** Laser Modules:
 
*** Engine Damage from 17*mk => 30*mk.  The machine guns are still 3x as efficient for total EDPS but have shorter range and cannot bring engines as low as these.
 
*** Multiplier vs CloseCombat from 5 => 4.
 
*** Multiplier vs Neutron from 3 => 4.
 
** Shotgun Modules:
 
*** Base Attack Power from 40 => 400.
 
*** Engine Damage from 28 => 36.  Makes these 2x as efficient as MGs for total EDPS.
 
*** Shots per salvo from 25/49 => 25*mk.
 
*** Multiplier vs Swarmer from 6 => 4.
 
*** Multiplier vs CloseCombat from 5 => 4.
 
*** Multiplier vs Refractive from 5 => 4.
 
** Tazer Module:
 
*** Multiplier vs Medium from 3 => 4.
 
*** Multiplier vs Artillery from 3 => 4.
 
*** Now has a planet-wide stagger time of 2 seconds, to prevent permanently stunlocking 4000+ ships in a multi-hw setting with 4 Riot IIs.  They can still be used to effectively halve the attack power (due to prolonging reload time) of non-paralysis immune enemies.  Also tends to interrupt them while they try to get away.
 
*** Thanks to Wanderer for being the one to confirm the long-held suspicion that these were horribly exploitable.
 
** Tractor Modules:
 
*** Tractor Range from 1700*mk => flat 4400.  Same as mkIII tractor turrets.
 
*** Tractor Count from 10/40 => 72*mk.  Same as mkII/mkIII tractor turrets (but mobile and not needing supply).
 
**** Note that this doesn't scale with unit cap scale and really should, but that's a bit out of scope for this time frame and these would be the numbers on high caps so you're not losing anything.
 
** For reference, total cap-EDPS with all MG/SG builds firing within main-gun range is now 3080/4720/7080, compared to the spider turret's 7833 (from infinite range, insta-fire, and able to take engines down to 1%, but immobile and way more expensive).
 
** This was another long-overdue rebalancing, hence the magnitude of changes.
 
  
* Orbital Mass Drivers:
+
* On the Stats Window, Reference Tab, changed the "Target Ship" dropdown such that when you click on it, the main button (just above the dropdown list) converts into a textbox; if you type something into that the dropdown list is filtered to only contain items which which contain what you typed.
** Now when under a firepower-reducing forcefield they retain 75% of their attack power instead of the customary 25%.
+
** The dropdown has been really bad for a while due to the sheer number of items, but more recently it's become even worse to the point that some items simply couldn't be selected because "one pixel down" on the scroll bar was more than one "page" of options.
** Thanks to techsy730 for the suggestion.
+
** Thanks to Nypyren and chemical_art for inspiring this change.
  
* Leech Starship:
+
* In response to the then-#2 item on the mantis voting list: Added two new options to the Galaxy Display dropdown on the galaxy map:
** Base Energy Use from 10k/14k/18k => flat 5k. So cap-e is same now as Raids (the next highest for combat starships)
+
** Custom Search (Narrow)
** All vs-hull-type bonuses removed, to allow for a bit more of an overall damage buff and thus more general reclamation utility.
+
*** Allows you to pick a specific type of object (example: MkII fighter, MkIII Hardened Forcefield Generator), and displays the count of detected units of the specific type on each planet.
** Base Health from 1.6M*mk => 3.2M*mk. Was well below the target range for starship cap-health, is now just on the low-end (bottom is 7.5M*mk).
+
** Custom Search (Broad)
** Shots per salvo from 1 => 3.  That brings it up to the target range for starship-with-no-bonuses cap-dps (about 66k*mk), and should help it reclaim more.
+
*** Allows you to pick a category of object (example: fighter, forcefield), and displays the count of detected units of types in that category on each planet.
** Hull type from UltraLight => Heavy because UltraLight tends to be a major pain to kill when in the hands of the AI (see: raid starships) and the health just doubled.
+
** Both of these use the "text filtering" mechanism just implemented for the reference dropdown, so you you can get to the desired selection faster.
** Thanks to many players for feedback that this was an underwhelming unit.
+
** Both of these can be keybound like all the other galaxy display options, but default is unbound.
 +
** Thanks to PineappleSam for the suggestion and a whole ton of other players for supporting it on mantis.
  
* Light Starship/Flagship/Zenith Starship/Spire Starship/Core Starship
+
* In response to a longstanding request from many players to make Astro Trains interesting:
** Ship Cap from 5/3/2/2/2 => 4 flat.
+
** The plot is now like the other variable-intensity plots, with settings from 0 to 10 (can be set differently per AI player).
** Base Speed from 15/18/18/24/22 => 22 flat.
+
** The intensity controls the number of stations seeded during mapgen.
** Base Armor Rating from 1000/2500/2500/2500/2500 => 1000*mk.
+
** Trains no longer spawn during mapgen, but about every 20 minutes the game will check to see if the number of trains in the game is less than the "supplied population" of trains (which is based on plot intensity and whether the AI in question is a Train Master), and if there's room it spawns a group of trains at a randomly selected station.
** Base Energy Use from 2k/10k/20k/20k/20k => 4k flat.
+
*** This group will move together through the rest of the game.
** Base Attack Range from 1500/4800/3000/10000/500 => 3000+(200*mk).
+
*** The size of the group is based on plot intensity and whether the AI is a Train Master.
** Base Health from 2M/6M/14,625k/12,675k/25,350k => 3.75M*mkThis brings them to 15M*mk cap-health, and the target range for starships is 7.5M-40M*mk (though there aren't any "Armor Starships" or whatever that would actually use the top of that range, etc).
+
*** All told, the result is that an AI with Astro Trains on will build up to 10 groups, with the size of each group being bigger on higher intensities.
** Shots-per-salvo from 5/9/14/4/5 => 5 flat.
+
** The vanilla "Astro Train" and "Turret Astro Train" no longer get spawned into the game.  The Regenerator and Speed-Boosting trains still exist, but no longer have guns.
** Seconds-per-salvo from 4/4/2/2/5 => 4 flat.
+
*** None of the new types have guns eitherThe danger posed by these is based on other mechanics.
** Multiplier vs CloseCombat from 12/12/1/1/1 => 4.
+
** Each new train's type is picked randomly from the set of eligible types, which is based on plot intensity and weighted to favor the less dangerous trains (so the more dangerous ones still happen but are rarer).  Do note that the really nasty trains don't show up at all unless the plot intensity is fairly high.
** Multiplier vs Medium from 8/8/1/6/1 => 4.
+
** The following new train varieties have been added (brace yourself, this isn't going to be pretty) :
** Multiplier vs Light from 6/6/1/1/1 => 1/1/4/1/4.
+
*** Cargo
** Multiplier vs Polycrystal from 1/1/0.01/4/1 => 4/1/1/4/4.
+
**** Harmless in itself, but each "delivery" contributes towards a counter for that player, and when that fills up (you'll see an alert once it's past 50%) it spawns some surprises.  The spawns are unpleasant but not massively so (unless you're on intensity 8 or higher, where you're asking for it).
** Multiplier vs Artillery from 1 => 1/4/1/1/4.
+
*** Tachyon Jammer
** Multiplier vs UltraLight from 1/1/1/4/1 => 1.
+
**** Prevents human tachyon emitters from working on the planet it's on.
** Multiplier vs Swarmer from 1/1/1/1/0.1 => 1.
+
*** Gravity Jammer
*** Part of this is to make each of the mkI-IV varieties good against one triangle ship type, and the mkV good against them all (not that you can get the mkV normally, but the AI can!).
+
**** Prevents human gravity emitters from working on the planet it's on (the limited-range stuff, not planet-wide stuff like logistics stations or grav drills).
** Base Attack Power from 3600/12k/30k/60k/60k => 8k*mk. This brings them to 40k*mk non-bonus and 160k*mk bonus cap-dps, which is about right for a 4x-bonus starship.
+
*** Tractor Jammer
** Munitions boost range from 3k/6k/5k/8k = 2k+(1k*mk).
+
**** Prevents human tractor beams from working on the planet it's on.
** Most of the mark-specific quirks (flagships do a little engine damage, zeniths and up have warp detection, spires are immune to gravity, different ammo types, etc) are still there.
+
*** Forcefield Jammer
** There've been a lot of balance problems with this line for a while, and we've held off from comprehensive changes partly since they're really two separate lines (fleet starship and alien starship) and we'll probably split them up at some pointWe'll probably still split them up later since that would be cool, but for now it's easier to balance them as a cohesive line according to the guidelines used for the other combat starships.
+
**** Prevents human forcefields/shields from working on the planet it's on.
 +
*** Radar Jammer
 +
**** Acts like the unit of the same name: halves attack range of everything on the planet. There's also a MkII variant that only halves enemy (to the AI) ranges.
 +
*** Armor Booster
 +
**** Acts like the unit of the same name: boosts armor of all AI ships on the planet.
 +
*** Armor Inhibitor
 +
**** Acts like the unit of the same name: negates armor of all enemy-to-AI ships on the planet (also disables shields, like that unit does, though that may be changed in the future for both; it's a holdover from when the armor inhibitor was the shield inhibitor).
 +
*** Attack Booster
 +
**** Boosts the attack of all AI ships on the planet.
 +
*** Tachyon
 +
**** Provides planetary-wide tachyon coverage for the AI.
 +
*** Gravity
 +
**** Halves the speed of all enemy-to-AI ships on the planet.
 +
*** Tractor
 +
**** Has a bunch of tractor beams.
 +
*** Widow
 +
**** Has a bunch of paralyzing tractor beams.
 +
*** Shield
 +
**** Basically a shieldbearer (the shield does not push enemy units).  Has a lot less health than most of the other trains and is thus somewhat feasible to kill.
 +
*** Repair
 +
**** Basically a super-MRS.
 +
*** EMP
 +
**** Basically an EMP-guardian in train form.  This is another one of the train types that's got way less hp and thus more feasible to destroy than others.  If you have scouting on a planet with one of these, it shows up in the alert box.
 +
*** Nuclear
 +
**** Kinda like an EMP guardian, but only triggers on non-destroyed planets with a human command station present.  Oh, and it's a nuke instead of an EMP.  Destroys itself when it goes off.  This is one of the train types that's got way less hp and thus more feasible to destroy than othersIf you have scouting on a planet with one of these, it shows up in the alert box.
 +
*** Note: several other train varieties are under consideration, including others submitted by players in the past, but this seemed like a good set to start the mauling.
 +
** Astro Train Station AIP-on-death from 1 => 3 to make "just blow up all the stations" less of an obvious choice to train-troubled players.
 +
** Any old save with trains in them will have all trains removed (they're the wrong types of trains and wouldn't fit into the new logic due to how they spawned); the stations will spawn new ones over time until the train cap is reached.
 +
** Thanks to Sunshine, Toranth, Draco18s, TechSY730, Kahuna, Hearteater, and others for inspiring this change.  They probably wish they hadn't said anything.
  
* Golems-Hard and Spirecraft-Hard exos are now a bit more wily about what their primary objectives.  FS exos may follow suit later.
+
* Fixed a longstanding bug where gravity turrets (and other finite-gravity-well generators like Spire Gravity Drains) would continue to function even if in stand-down, paralyzed/EMP'd, or out of supply (for the turret; the fleet ship doesn't need supply).
  
== Prerelease 5.024 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/02/ai-war-beta-5024-carrier-rules-of.html Carrier Rules Of Engagement] ==
+
* Fixed a bug where a couple icons for the Spire Shadow Frigate were missing; they'd not been used for a long time but recently we started using them, but not everyone has them. This patch should fix that.
(Released February 6th, 2012)
+
** Thanks to Deus Draco for the report.
  
* Fixed an... interesting omission in the previous version: Plasma Siege Starship base range was supposed to have gone from 16k to 4k, but did not.  On further thought, the change was made to 6500/7000/7500 instead (same as mkI/II/III missile frigate).
+
* Fixed a bug with carrier early-pop unit combination that could cause desyncs in MP, and for carriers to simply not produce any units in SP.
** Thanks to TechSY730 and Wanderer for the report.
+
** Thanks to Lancefighter, Night, Lord Of Nothing, and Drin for reports and saves.
  
* Spider turrets:
+
* Special Forces now combines ships into carriers if SF non-carrier'd population gets over 3000 (aims to bring it down to 1500 or so).
** Base Metal Cost from 6000 => 1200.
+
** These carriers, and any ships they deploy, will all be Special Forces and follow that logic.
** Base Crystal Cost 15000 => 2400.
+
** Thanks to Dressari and Bruteforce123 for reporting a case where there were so many SF ships flying around it was causing massive lag just from that.
** These weren't actually changed in last patch because they weren't inheriting the sniper turret costs.  This is actually a good thing as spider turrets are substantially more useful than sniper turrets.  They now cost 2x as much m+c as the sniper turret (3600 vs 1800).
 
** Thanks to c4sc4 for pointing out that the costs hadn't changed.
 
  
* Fixed a bug in the previous version where Ally counts on the galaxy map display were higher than they should have been (specifically, it was taking the total number of friendly ships and adding the number of "my ships" instead of subtracting it).
+
* Fixed a bug where raid eyes could be triggered by enemy presence on adjacent planets.
** Thanks to dorenthas for the report.
+
** There seemed to be reports of raid eyes going off on the presence of 1 enemy ship, but upon review we couldn't find a clear report of this, or a save of it happening, nor did our tests reproduce any such behavior.  If you have one, please mantis :)
 +
** Thanks to Lancefighter and contingencyplan for reporting.
  
* Fixed a display bug where a constructor that had to stop building would sometimes still show in some places as continuing to spend resources.  They were not actually continuing to spend resources while unable to build, but it looked like it.
+
* Spire Corvette main-gun range from 3500 => 8500.
** Thanks to Cyborg for the report.
+
** This is still shorter range than its shortest-range module, last we checked, so it should still work fine there.
 +
** Thanks to Cinth for the suggestion.
  
* Fixed a bug where a constructor that had to stop a build in mid-construction due to the ship cap for that type becoming full (another constructor "won the race", so to speak) would usually fail to refund the resources it had already spent on the ship being built.
+
* Superfortress build time increased to 2.5x of what it was; still costs the same and with engie assistance you can still build one basically as fast, but now the per-second costs of unassisted construction are not quite so bleak.
** Thanks to Cyborg for the report that led to this being found.
+
** Thanks to chemical_art for the suggestion.
  
* Stats Window -> Resource Flows Tab, detail (i.e. non-summary) mode:
+
* Core Eyes, as a group, are now roughly as likely to be picked as each of the other brutal-pick AI HW structures.  Each core eye is still equally likely to be picked, compared to other eyes.
** The unit type name for each entry is now a button.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
*** Left clicks center your view on the unit (and switch to its planet, if different from your current view).
 
*** Right clicks try to toggle whether the unit is in low power mode (note that a unit in low power mode will typically not be shown in detail mode because it only shows stuff with a non-zero metal or crystal impact).
 
*** Fixed a bug where the "Reason" column always said "Normal Operation", even if it was supposed to say Assisting, Repairing, Self-Building, Build Queue, or Low Power Operation.
 
  
* After a few months of etiquette classes, player-ally zombie ships have learned to die silently. (Note: minor faction player-ally ships already knew this)
+
== Prerelease 6.005 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/10/ai-war-beta-6005-burning-candle-at-both.html Burning The Candle At Both Ends] ==
** Thanks to Red Spot for the suggestion.
+
(Released October 31st, 2012)
  
* AI Carriers:
+
* Since it was the sole winner (that beat the "none of the above" option) of the "Aim the Nerfbat of Damocles: Player-side (II)" poll, Tackle Drone Launcher:
** Are no longer invincible if there's >= 2000 AI ships already on the planet.
+
** Drone's self-attrition now happens on a per-frame basis rather than per-second, so that the distance it can travel after engaging tractors is much more consistent (for a given amount of health-left-when-starting-tractors).
*** Previously this was necessary to avoid too many AI ships on a planet at once for decent cpu/ram performance. 
+
** This deals with the tendency since the attritions-faster-when-tractoring change was made for drones to pick up their loads just after the second ticked over and thus get nearly a full second of additional flight time and go way further than intendedOverall it's a fairly big nerf, though it also makes the results look cooler in general.
** Now, when a carrier deploys (it deploys when destroyed):
+
** Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
*** If there are fewer than 1400 AI ships already on the planet, and another carrier has not deployed in the last few seconds, it deploys normally as before.
 
*** Otherwise, it "combines" its contained units into a fairly small assortment of ships and deploys those.  The population of this group uses similar logic as exo waves, but is not itself an exo wave (there's no leader, no beeline-human-homeworld logic, etc), it behaves as normal threat.
 
**** The more AI ships there are on the planet, the more "condensed" it tries to make this deployment, so in those cases you'll see more enemy starships, etc but far smaller quantity.
 
** Also, if there are less than 500 AI ships already on the planet, and it is a non-AI planet and there's at least one enemy military (non-mine) unit, and another carrier has not deployed in the last few seconds, it automatically deploys.
 
** Rationale: Previously it was possible to have carriers slip through otherwise impenetrable defenses because there were simply too many AI ships (which may have been somewhere else on the planet) to quickly kill.  This was desirable from a design standpoint because we don't want a single layer of impenetrable defenses to be the end-all defensive strategy in the game.  However, it has proved consistently frustrating (in a non-fun way) for some players so it seemed a good time to try something differentNow the presence of a ton of other AI ships doesn't make the carriers invincible, it just makes them very dangerous to destroy.  Hopefully in an interesting way :)
 
** Note: none of this impacts Barracks; they're still invincible in such cases, but we haven't heard many reports of players being frustrated by barracks invincibility.
 
** Thanks to Cyborg and others for inspiring this change.
 
  
* Added new toggle to controls (CTRLS) window: Auto-target Carriers.
+
* Improved the rendering of the planetary summary sidebar to use the same approach for drawing the ship icons and borders as the game normally does for far-zoom shipsPreviously that sidebar was blurring the icons a fair bit due to using a different method.
** If this toggle is checked, your units will consider AI Carriers normally when picking targets automaticallyOtherwise, they will not automatically fire upon an AI Carrier (it may still fire upon a carrier that it has already put on its target list, but that will last no longer than the current engagement).
+
** Thanks to HitmanN for bringing this to our attention and helping us figure out what was happening.
** Regardless of this toggle, you may still directly order your ships to fire upon an AI Carrier.
 
** This toggle is useful because killing a Carrier can be dangerous (due to what comes out), but sometimes it's more important to make sure your defenses don't ignore them.
 
** This defaults to off.  If you want your units to auto-target carriers, you will need to turn it on.
 
** Note: implementing this involved a fundamental change to the logic that controls "can this unit be targeted at all?" and "can this unit be automatically targeted?".  Specifically, that was always previously decided solely based on the potential target's type, and now it has to consider the player that owns the unit trying to do the targeting. While these changes were tested and very carefully checked it's certainly possible that a bug slipped through and will cause all manner of strange and wonderful consequences.  Mantis and enjoy.
 
  
* Plasma Siege Starship
+
* Since threat now behaves more intelligently when "stonewalled", removed the /10 modifier that turret firepower was given when evaluating whether a threatball should attackBefore it was better that they just get it over with, but now it's better that they regroup with other threat and look for an opening.
** Shot now has a traditional (lightning-type) aoe that does 6.25% of normal damage to up to 14 extra nearby targets.
+
** Thanks to TechSY730 and many other players for suggesting.
*** In order for this normal aoe to work, the restriction from firing upon fleet ships has been removed.  Previously it was there primarily to keep the autotargeting from "wasting" shots on small stuff, but this has become less important.  It still prefers targeting starships, etc.
 
** Still has the "siege" effect when hitting a forcefield, but that's been changed from 1% of the damage done to up to 200 ships to 6.25% to up to 25.  That's less total, adjusting somewhat for the addition of the traditional aoe and the greater ease of getting the whole bonus.
 
** For reference, the Siege's dps (per unit, not per cap) against a single target is about 71% that of the Bomber Starship (previous version notes said 1/3rd, that was actually inaccurate)If the traditional aoe hits the full 14 targets, that brings it up to about 133% that of the Bomber Starship.  If the shot also hit a forcefield that's protecting other units, that extra "siege" damage is just gravy on top (potentially up to a total of 245% or so).
 
*** If this proves to be too much, adjustments can be made, but typically we get more useful feedback for a new/changed unit that's stronger than it should be than if it were weaker.
 
** Thanks to many players for the feedback leading to these changes.
 
  
* Fixed a bug in the previous version where the siege splash damage from the Plasma Siege Starship could hit targets normally untargetable or direct-target-only.
+
* In honor of being one of the winners of the "Aim the Nerfbat of Damocles: AI-side (II)" poll, the autobomb-like colony ship in the nebula scenarios has received moderate nerfs to speed, health, and damage.  Combined, those three moderate nerfs are fairly severe.  Surely if we overdid it someone will let us know (yea right, not with that scenario).
** Thanks to Wanderer for the report and to the brave (if unwitting) Advanced Research Station that died discovering this bug.
+
** Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
  
* Spirecraft Shield Bearers:
+
* Fixed a bug in the past couple versions where the Spire's Frigate-level champion was using the wrong icon in the planetary summary.
** Ship cap doubled.
+
** Thanks to Jeffersn for the report.
** Amounts produced:
 
*** Reptite: from 0 => 1 mkI (so can now be built from Reptite)
 
*** Pysite: from 1 => 2 mkI
 
*** Xampite: from 1 => 2 mkII
 
*** Ebonite: from 1 => 2 mkIII
 
*** Adamantite: from 1 => 2 mkIV
 
*** Titanite: from 1 => 2 mkV
 
** Hopefully this will bring their costs more into line with their actual utility (as non-repairable shields).
 
** Thanks to techsy730 and others for inspiring these changes.
 
  
* Fixed a bug where ships with no attack power would still display hull attack multipliers if they were internally defined (such as with ships that used to have an attack, like Spirecraft Shield Bearers).
+
* Redid the far-zoom icons for the 9 LotS bonus ships:
** Thanks to techsy730 for the report.
 
 
 
* Lightning Turrets
 
** Attack changed to function like electric shuttles:  Hits up to 200 targets, and if hits are left over can hit each target up to 5 times (meaning that groups as small as 40 take the full power of the attack).
 
 
 
* Lighting Turrets/Electric Shuttles: The per-planet-per-player-per-type-per-mark delay has been reduced to a very minimal duration, generally allowing a full cap of lightning turrets to unload its full power before the first one finishes reloading. 
 
** This still prevents a total alpha strike, but that also helps avoid a situation where the entire lightning turret cluster unloads on a couple of leading fighters before the rest of the wave shows up.
 
** It also looked really cool in testing.
 
 
 
* Player-Ally Dyson Gatlings are no longer unable to shoot mkV units.
 
** In previous iterations this rule was necessary because player-ally dysons were clearing off AI homeworlds and/or core worlds.  Since player-ally dysons rarely wind up on AI planets anymore the rule no longer seems necessary, and "why are my dysons not shooting X?" questions have been happening on a regular basis for quite some time.
 
** Thanks to many players over time reminding us (sometimes unintentionally) how much they wanted their ally gatlings to shoot mkV things.
 
 
 
* Hybrids:
 
** If either player has Advanced Hybrids enabled, hybrid maturity-xp contributions to the central dirty-tricks "bank" are now doubled compared to Normal Hybrids.
 
** The first couple stages of the only such dirty-trick progression currently implemented now happen a bit faster, but the first and second nasty bits have been made less nasty.
 
** Thanks for Wanderer for the testing and feedback leading to these changes.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.023 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/01/ai-war-beta-5023-plasma-siege-starships.html Plasma Siege Starships] ==
 
(Released January 30th, 2012)
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the previous version where all tractor beams (instead of just the black widow golem tractor beams) were doing the paralysis effect.
 
** Thanks to Fleet for the report.
 
 
 
* Zombie and minor faction ships no longer count as part of the "My" counts on the galaxy map.  Those that used to count as part of that total now count as part of the "Allied" total.
 
** Thanks to BobTheJanitor for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in recent versions where the context menus never had scroll-bars and thus the galaxy-map-display select couldn't be used to select some of the further-down items.
 
** Thanks to Minotaar for the report.
 
 
 
* Removed the "press slash while mousing over an option for more info" text from the bottom of the context menu since there wasn't actually such info to be had on a lot of items in various modes of the context menu.
 
** Thanks to Minotaar for the report.
 
 
 
* Artillery Golem:
 
** Base Armor Rating from 0 => 4000.
 
** Base Recharge Time from 30 => 8.
 
** Basically: when you see an Artillery Golem you can get on your side, we want you to be happy.  When you see an Artillery Golem on the enemy side, we want you to be sad.  Previously it wasn't doing a whole lot of either.
 
** Thanks to Orelius and others for feedback on golems.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the previous version where the Black Widow paralyzing tractors would only apply a maximum of 2 seconds of paralysis, with quick gaps in the middle every 2 seconds.  Now it correctly applies 2 seconds of paralysis damage per 1 second of tractoring.
 
 
 
* Regenerator Golem:
 
** Repair cost reduced by 90% to make regeneration not "cost" quite so much more than simply producing the ships from scratch, in metal+crystal terms.
 
 
 
* Cursed Golem:
 
** Self-attrition reduced by 50% (now would go from 100% to 0% in 60 minutes instead of 40).
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the new munitions boost listing where it was displaying +70% as -31% or suchlike.  Also fixed a rounding bug (+19% instead of the actual +20%, etc) in both that listing and the maximum-personal-boost listing.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where units with no attack were showing the new maximum-personal-boost listing.
 
** Thanks to Nice Save for the report.
 
 
 
* Turret base energy costs:
 
** Basic Turret from 150 => 100.
 
** MLRS Turret from 150 => 100.
 
** Flak Turret from 300 => 200.
 
** Missile Turret from 150 => 100.
 
** Counter-Dark-Matter Turret from 4000 => 1000.
 
** Counter-Missile-Turret from 4000 => 1000.
 
** Counter-Sniper-Turret from 4000 => 1000.
 
** Sniper & Spider Turrets from 250 => 150.
 
** Grav Turret from 500/8000/10000 => 400*mk.
 
** Tractor Turret left alone (150/240/300).
 
** Laser Turret (150) and Heavy Beam Cannon (750/1300/2000/20000) left alone.  They're energy weapons.
 
** Lightning Turret from 500/1000/2000 => 400 flat.  Energy weapon, yes, but that was a bit high.
 
** These really aren't that big a deal, but it does help rein in some numbers that were set long ago, and bring the energy-per-dps ratio of the main attack turrets under the stuff that shoots and has engines.
 
** Thanks to Cyborg, Hearteater, and others for feedback leading to this.
 
 
 
* Fixed a longstanding bug where the number of spire shipyards and spire hab centers supported by a spire shard reactor was being multiplied by the number of human home command stations.  The number of spire capital ships of each type supported by a spire shipyard (or refugee outpost, for the frigates) is still multiplied by that number, as is intentional.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where a ship with an inherent kiting range (raptor, zenith bombard, etc) would not correct for the radar dampening range of its target.
 
** Thanks to Sunshine and others for reporting this.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the auto-build-energy-reactors controls where they were trying to check for remains of other energy reactors but were not checking the right list for those.
 
** Thanks to Spikey00 for the report.
 
 
 
* The Shards recovered in the Fallen-Spire events are no longer cloakable.  Previously they could be cloaked via a cloaking starship; this was not deliberate on our part and made those recoveries way easier than they really should be.
 
** Thanks to Spikey00 for reminding us about this.
 
 
 
* Zenith Beam Frigate Base Range from 7500+100*mk => 6500+100*mk.
 
** They're supposed to be long-ranged, but some marks were outranging their main triangle counter (missile frigate, which has 6500+500*mk base range), which isn't appropriate given the beam frigate's very high damage when it hits several targets per shot.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater for the feedback inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Some further adjustment to high-difficulty wave size calculation, this time not changing diff 10 much at all but making the 9.3-9.8 stretch build up more gradually rather than 10 being more than 2x as hard as 9.8.
 
** Previously in step 8 any difficulty greater than 7 received a 2.5 multiplier (7 got 2.25, and lower the lower you went).
 
** Now:
 
*** 7.3 through 9 still get 2.5.
 
*** 9.3 gets 2.75 (10% harder than before).
 
*** 9.6 gets 3.00 (20% harder than before).
 
*** 9.8 gets 3.80 (52% harder than before).
 
*** 10 gets 4.5 (would be 80% harder than before, but see next change).
 
** Previously each wave on diff 10 would actually cause 2 separate waves.  This was from an old rule where 8 through 10 got double waves, but that was changed to just 8 due to the challenge-cliff it caused between 7.6 and 8.  Now this rule has been entirely removed, since 10's waves are now so much larger than before.
 
** We're very much open to more feedback on this; basically diffs 9.3 through 10 aren't really where we expect people to play (indeed, we may need to make them harder if someone actually beats 10 in a fair fight again), but we want it to be fun for those who do.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater and others for the feedback inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Previously Sniper and Spider turrets cost 8 to 10 times as much metal+crystal to build a cap of compared to all other turret types, so:
 
** Base Metal Cost from 1500 => 300.
 
** Base Crystal Cost from 7500 => 1500.
 
** They're still the most expensive turrets, that's intentional, but they're no longer quite so punishing (before you could have built a fleet of starships for the cost of a cap of sniper turrets).
 
** Thanks to Wanderer and others for reminding us of how skewed this was.
 
 
 
* Antimatter Starship:
 
** Yes, this one is getting _another_ revamp.  Some background:
 
*** First, they were called dreadnoughts.  They did tons of engine damage.  Too much.  Nerfed.
 
*** Then, they were called useless.  For a long time.
 
*** Then, we made them hit like a train from long range, but unable to fire upon anything remotely small.  They were called Siege Starships (alias: "awesome").
 
*** But this broke a lot balance because you could just camp around your siege starships from across the planet and bomb everything to bits.
 
*** So they were given antimatter bombs that can't hit forcefields, fortresses, or... well, much of anything.  In fairness they do great against starships and guardians, but that's proven too small a niche to really please their users.  They were renamed "Antimatter Starship", which has since become a dire insult in 75% of the inhabited galaxy.
 
*** But the solution was unclear: we could shorten their range, but Bomber Starships (which were made normally available shortly after these were changed to Siege Starships) already fill the short-range big-stuff-killing niche.
 
*** And now, the next episode...
 
** Base range from 16000 => 4000.
 
** Shot type changed back from Antimatter Bomb => Energy Bomb (same basic type as bombers use, so no one is specifically immune to it like some are to antimatter bombs).  Still cannot fire on small ships, like before.
 
** If it hits a forcefield, it will also damage up to 200 units protected by that forcefield (or forcefields physically near that forcefield) with 1% (to each target) of the damage done to the forcefield.
 
*** Note: even stuff the starship itself cannot aim at (small units and cloaked units, etc) can be hit by the splash damage.
 
*** The 200-count doesn't change between low, normal, and high unit caps because that would change the dps of the unit pretty significantly.  If it proves to be a problem we can try a few things.
 
** Has been renamed to the Plasma Siege Starship.
 
** The end result:
 
*** Still longer-ranged than the bomber starship, but much shorter than before, so not worrying that it will break balance in that way.
 
*** Still only about 1/3 of the bomber starship's single-target dps, but can up to triple the total damage output in a "siege" situation against a forcefielded group of targets.  Still not the better choice in terms of raw damage, but the utility of being able to get at the protected targets should counterbalance that and create its own niche.
 
** Thanks to many players for continuing to remind us that they want this starship to be cool.
 
 
 
* Plasma Siege Cannon Modules (the ones for Fallen Spire modular stuff) now also have the forcefield-splash-damage attribute.  Thematically, the Siege starship is (using) a plasma-siege-cannon now.
 
 
 
== Prerelease [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/01/ai-war-beta-5022-minor-tweaks-and-fixes.html5.022 Minor Tweaks And Fixes] ==
 
(Released January 27th, 2011)
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug in the previous prerelease that broke all the tutorials.
 
** Thanks to Lorini for the report.
 
 
 
* Black Widow Golem:
 
** Number of tractors from 100 => 200.
 
*** Tractors on non-scaling ships do need to be made to scale with unit caps, but we don't have time to implement that just yet.  Bear in mind that when that scaling comes, the current number of tractors will be the _highest_ value: corresponding to "high" caps, because that's what the caps were before scaling was added (when the tractor numbers were established to begin with), so it won't make them any better.  For now, enjoy :)
 
** This golem's tractors now do 2 seconds of paralysis damage per second to each held ship.  Ships immune to paralysis are not affected.
 
** Base Health from 80M => 200M.
 
** Basically just trying to make this golem a lot more useful and a lot less likely to die when not baby-sat.
 
** Thanks to Orelius and others for some recent feedback on this golem.
 
 
 
* The earliest time that an AI player can even check for sending a wave has been changed to avoid both AIs sending their first waves on the exact same second on higher difficulties (which artificially increases the difficulty of the first wave, giving a false impression of how hard the second will be).  Specifically, it's still (( 14 - Difficulty ) * 100) seconds for the first AI player, and 1.5 times that for the second AI player.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for feedback that inspired this change.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.021 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/01/ai-war-beta-5021-hybrid-helper-pie.html Hybrid Helper Pie] ==
 
(Released January 24th, 2012)
 
 
 
* Added some lightweight extra debug info to GameButton.RenderSelf to help us find the bug that's causing really intermittent null exceptions in there somewhere (we can't reproduce it ourselves, and user reports don't have code line numbers, but this new info should help).
 
 
 
* Added a note to the context menu about how to get info on what a menu item does.
 
 
 
* Sentinel Frigates and Zenith Electric Bombers are now considered large enough targets for ships like the Antimatter Starship.
 
** Thanks to techsy730 for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* Now, when a Hybrid is at maximum maturity, additional "experience points" go towards a fund for ruining the player's day.  Their first funding goal seems to involve the Dyson Sphere.
 
** To clarify: this doesn't mean that they're building or spawning dyson spheres or whatever.  Something more sinister.
 
 
 
* All Hunter-Killers have been shifted up one "tier" in terms of the "cost" the AI has to pay to include them in an exogalactic strikeforce.  This should help avoid them happening unintentedly-early in MP games, etc.
 
** Thanks to several players for sharing their, um, "experiences" with early/mid-game HKs.
 
 
 
* Decoy Drone energy cost from 18000 => 1000, to let the unit's use not be obscured by the power cost.
 
** Thanks to Wanderer for reminding us of how high it was.
 
 
 
* Wave size calculation: the minimum base wave size is now 34, regardless of difficulty.
 
** The minimum base size of a wave used to be (AI Player Difficulty * 10 * AI Player Handicap).  Assuming no positive or negative handicap this generally meant that the first few points of AIP would not increase wave size and the initial wave size was prevented from being embarrassingly tiny.
 
*** This has served us well but caused the first wave on very high difficulties to be disproportionately difficult such that it's a punishing puzzle to survive the first 7 minutes and after that holding on is significantly easier (though still very tough) because then the player has had more time to actually build initial defenses and so on.  It's better for the first wave to not be way more difficult than the second wave on non-trivial difficulties, so the minimum is now just 34.  This actually makes difficulties 1-3 harder, but those are so incredibly easy to start with that it's not likely to make much difference.
 
** Now AIP increases will actually have an impact on wave size much earlier on difficulties 4+.
 
** AI handicap is still factored in (so with 300% it will have a minimum size of 102).
 
** The [[AI War:Why Do Enemy Waves Get So Large%3F#How_Wave_Sizes_Are_Calculated|wave size calculation article]] has been updated to reflect this change, and is a good reference if you want more info.
 
 
 
* The alternate-victory condition on the Fallen Spire condition has been made a bit more vigorous about winning, since the recently added AI Hunter Killers were refusing to go quietly.
 
** Thanks to a number of players for observing that the alternate victory was not always resolving in a timely fashion.
 
 
 
* Neinzul Preservation Warden spawn counts now scale up with AI Difficulty (the higher of the two is used, this is 1 at diff 7, 1.5 at 8, 2 at 9, 3 at 10) and AI Handicap (again, the higher of the two, negative handicaps don't apply to this), similar to other non-AIP-based threats.  Previously it only scaled with the number of human players/homeworlds, and of course the number of human-controlled resource extractors.
 
 
 
* Added new "Switch To UI" buttons to the Stats window (Scores tab) that allows you to switch your UI to display what another player is seeing.
 
** This only works if the target player has the "Allow Team Control Of Ships" control enabled.
 
** This is different from the already existing team-control in that:
 
*** Your resource bar will show the resources for target player, rather than your own.
 
*** Your planetary summary and so forth will display ships as if the target players ships were "yours"; any ships of your own will show like "ally" ships.
 
*** The control group keybinds will respond according to the control groups set for the target player, not your own.
 
*** The CTRLS screen will show (and allow manipulation of) the target player's control options.  Yes, that's a lot of power, and some additional "permissions" may prove necessary.  But in general: please cooperate :)  If it's a problem, just don't use allow-team-control.
 
**** To clarify: this is options like focus-fire, auto-frd, etc.  None of this has anything to do with what keys/buttons are mapped to what commands, that's all local to each machine and doesn't change regardless of whose interface you're looking at.
 
*** In general, the game's UI should work just like the target player's UI.
 
** All that said, this would be somewhat limited in usefulness, were it not for the next feature in these notes.
 
** This is in need of a lot of testing to make sure it works right, so don't be surprised by bugs, just report them :)
 
 
 
* Added new human player role: "Helper" (probably not the best description, but it's more than "Observer", which is the usual term for a non-playing "player").
 
** Currently the only way for a player to get into this role is:
 
*** Host opens "Manage Players" menu.
 
*** Host sets a previously unused player slot to:
 
**** Name = profile name of the player who wants to join as an observer/helper
 
**** Change "Disabled" to "Active"
 
**** Change "Role: None" to "Role: Helper"
 
*** Host clicks "Save"
 
*** The player who wants to join as an observer/helper connects and joins the game.
 
** A player in the "Helper" role has no (and cannot be given) units, metal, crystal, energy, or knowledge.  More generally, they have nothing in the game.
 
** However (and the resource bar tells them this, in lieu of an m/c/e/k display) they can use the new "Switch To UI" buttons on the Stats screen to "switch" to another player who has the "Allow Team Control Of Ships" control enabled, and then can play normally as if they were connected as that player.
 
** Also, they can simply observe the game as they have the same vision as the other human players.
 
** These "Helper" players do not provoke extra waves or other increased threats normally associated with a multiplayer game.
 
** Some possible uses of this feature:
 
*** If you want to play a game with other people but want to play against a single-player level of challenge with a single-player level of resources, albeit with more hands helping to control (and micromanage, if desired).
 
*** If you want to let someone simply watch a game without impacting the balance at all.
 
*** If you want to help someone learn some part of the game; they can play and you can jump in or out as needed.
 
** Like the switch-to-ui feature, this is in need of a lot of testing to make sure it works right, so don't be surprised by bugs, just report them :)
 
 
 
* Neinzul Youngling Tigers:
 
** Time-to-live from 2 minutes => 4 minutes, which is the same as other youngling types.
 
** Metal and Crystal cost from 50/50 => 40/40.
 
** Base Armor Rating from 300*mk => 600*mk.
 
** Base Health from 11k*mk => 13k*mk.
 
** Thanks to chemical_art for suggesting/inspiring these changes.
 
 
 
* Neinzul Youngling Vulture:
 
** Metal and Crystal cost from 50/50 => 40/40.
 
 
 
* Spire Teleporting Leech:
 
** Base Energy Cost from 400 => 200.
 
** Base Metal Cost from 2200 => 1200.
 
** Base Crystal Cost from 800 => 500.
 
 
 
* Science Lab MkII:
 
** Base Health from 120k => 500k.
 
** Base Armor Rating from 1500 => 5000.
 
** Now has cloaking.
 
** Long story short: they're still more expensive than MkIs, but now they actually are significantly easier to keep alive in dicey situations than MkIs.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater and others for inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* AI Superfortress:
 
** Base health from 750 million => 450 million.  This brings it from 5*human-version to 3*human-version, putting it in line with the other fortresses.
 
** Health regen halved.
 
** Thanks to several players for pointing out that superforts had not been changed in line with the other fort types.
 
 
 
* AI Fortress I/II/III: health regen halved.
 
 
 
* Fixed a longstanding bug where the galaxy-nav code of AI-ally Dyson Gatlings was getting distracted from its main purpose.
 
 
 
* Ships that generate attack (munitions) boosts now show the magnitude of the boost in the tooltip, not just the range.
 
** Thanks to SpaceBrotha for the question that reminded us that this info wasn't directly displayed anywhere.
 
 
 
* Ships that are not immune to attack boosting but have a attack-boost-ceiling below the default (which is 4, i.e. 5x or 500% of normal damage) now display their maximum receivable boost in their tooltip.
 
 
 
* Higher mark Hybrid Drone Spawners now spawn drones more quickly in addition to being capable of spawning higher mark drones (a mkIV drone spawner still only spawns mkI drones for a hybrid at the first maturity level, and so on).
 
 
 
* Hybrids: second-stage and third-stage maturity now takes less time (about half what it used to, still longer than first-stage), as previously most hybrids died either before or during the first stage.
 
 
 
* Attack Hybrids now use a variant of the behavior the standard AI free (threat) ships use to avoid charging a human planet with insufficient firepower.  Combined with other hybrid changes in this release this may result in hybrids being a lot harder (and/or a lot more annoying) than they used to be.  Which may be for the best, but feedback is welcome :)
 
 
 
* Hybrids will no longer try to take Spire Mini-Rams as drones, as generally melee drones don't work that great.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.020 ==
 
(Released November 3rd, 2011)
 
 
 
* Fallen-Spire city-provoked exogalactic strikeforces "buildup" rate (this only impacts the time between attacks, not their size or composition) redistributed a bit:
 
** Spire City Hubs now generate 1/4 the "aggro" they used to.
 
** Spire Shard Reactors, Habitation Centers, and Shipyards now, instead of generating zero "aggro", generate 1/8th what the Spire City Hub used to generate.
 
** So a city with all 6 building slots taken up causes exactly the same amount of buildup as before.
 
** But the advantage is that if your cities get really beat up in an AI attack and you lose city structures you have more time to rebuild before the next exo.  Not exactly smart of the AI, but the alternative is often a game that is fundamentally lost but just a matter of time.
 
** Thanks to chemical_art for inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Youngling Nanoswarm:
 
** Fixed bug in targeting logic that was making it focus on single targets when the intent was that they would aggressively spread themselves out across all available targets.  The new behavior still doesn't reach quite the desired behavior (they still tend to only spread out over a subset of the available targets) but it's still a significant improvement.  Hopefully more can be done later.
 
*** Note that this overrides the Non-Sniper-Focus-Fire control; there's very little reason one would ever want these the auto focus-fire since they do so very little damage.  Of course if you really want a bunch of nanoswarms to all attack the same target you can give them a normal attack order.
 
** Explosion range from 200/225/250/275/300 => flat 1000.
 
*** They still only hit a max of 3/5/7/9/11 targets when they explode, so this makes it more likely that they'll actually get multiple hits.
 
 
 
* AI Fortress health from 6x human fortress equivalents => 3x human fortress equivalents.
 
** Previously it was easy to take out an AI Fortress with just bombers (and other polycrystal stuff, since fortresses can barely scratch the paint on polycrystal) but it could take a really long time.  We want the fortresses to be challenging but not in the "how long do I have to wait before it dies" sense.  Hopefully we can find some other more interesting (and not very time consuming) way of making them more challenging.
 
** Thanks to many players for weighing in on this subject.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.019 ==
 
(Released October 5th, 2011)
 
 
 
* Fixed a divide by zero bug in the previous version.
 
** Thanks to Fleet for the report.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.018 ==
 
(Released September 30th, 2011)
 
 
 
* Spirecraft Ion normal shot damage from 700 => 14000, and armor piercing from 0 => Max.
 
** Previously their damage was just token, but this brings them up to roughly the DPS of the Spirecraft Siege Tower (which, for reference, also has max armor piercing), but can't target anything that's immune to insta-kill (which is basically anything bigger than a fleet ship).  The result is that a cap (8) of MkI Spirecraft Ions is capable of doing well against a single cap of even MkV fleet ships unless those fleet ships have a bonus against them (bombers, chameleons, raiders, IRE's, etc), and so on.  In general, a lot of these together can put some serious hurt on fleet ships (particularly low health ones) even when they can't insta-kill.
 
** Related note: since their seconds-per-salvo is higher on the lower cap scales, and since their shot damage now actually matters, and since just about everything they can target scales with the caps, their damage will now be scale upward on the lower caps.
 
** Updated the tooltip, which is reproduced here since it probably helps understand what we're doing here:
 
*** Like Zenith Ion weapons (which AI Ion Cannons use), Spire Ion weapons insta-kill most ships with a mark level equal to or lower than its mark value, and cannot fire at all on ships immune to Ion weapons (i.e. immune to insta-kill).  Unlike Zenith Ion technology, these ships are mobile, much shorter-ranged, and actually do decent damage to higher mark ships.
 
 
 
* Humorously, Ion Cannons, Core Warhead Interceptors, and Orbital Mass Drivers were previously not immune to insta-kill.  They now are.
 
 
 
* Added to the Dyson Gatling tooltip to reflect the lack of ability to shoot at Mark V targets.
 
 
 
* If an AI player has a positive handicap that is now factored into that game's TotalSpecialDifficultyModifier which is in turn used for determining the total "population cap" of Hybrids in a game with them on, and also factors in to the budget multiplier for exo waves.  Negative handicaps on AI players have no effect, and the higher of the two AI handicaps is used if they're not equal.
 
 
 
* Added a new ability to the Spirecraft Attritioner in hopes of making it more generally useful.  From the new tooltip:
 
** One unique side effect of Spire attrition technology is that when an enemy ship is destroyed by any cause all its allies (that aren't immune to attrition) take a certain percent of that ship's maximum health as feedback damage.  This feedback damage is cumulative with multiple Spirecraft Attritioners and higher mark attritioners cause a higher percentage, but this feedback damage is divided evenly across all affected targets and thus does not greatly damage any one target.
 
** Basically, this functions as a small boost to overall fleet dps (averaged out over time), and thus makes the attritioner useful in short engagements where previously its contribution would have been minimal.
 
** Current percentages are 0.5%/1.0%/1.5%/2.5%/5.0% for the 5 marks of attritioner.  Also, this effect does trigger on enemies killed by attrition/feedback (otherwise it motivates micro to make sure a triggering-source kills big targets).  In our tests this has not seemed overpowered though it is likely that further balancing will be needed.  Bear in mind that mkV attritioners require the extremely rare Titanite, and mkIVs require the not-much-more-common Adamantite.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater and many other players for weighing in with feedback that led to this change.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.017 ==
 
(Released September 12th, 2011)
 
 
 
* AI Hunter/Killers are now eligible to be chosen for exogalactic battlegroups.  The MkI is considered one notch above the Armored Golem cost-wise, and proceeding up from there.  For anyone who remembers the slaughter those things could perform before, their number of shots-per-salvo has been halved but their health has been doubled.
 
** chemical_art will probably regret making the suggestion that inspired this.
 
 
 
* Fixed an (apparently) rare array-index-out-of-bounds error in the buy-menu "tooltip" window.
 
** Thanks to Cyborg for the report.
 
 
 
* Added a second confirm step when scrapping Spirecraft mining enclosures (since scrapping them does not give you back the asteroid from which they came) and the player home forcefield generator (since it cannot be rebuilt).
 
** Thanks to Cyborg for inspiring this.
 
 
 
* Strong forcefields (the same ones that had the blocking effect in 5.015) now have their blocking effect back.
 
** The "cannot use a wormhole covered by a hostile forcefield" rule is still in to prevent the bug with teleporting stuff "sneaking" through.
 
** The collision detection between blocking forcefields and hostile ships has been refined to include a more precise check for ships that appear to be colliding to the coarse check we've used for a while.  This is because the coarse check was making it a lot more likely that AI ships would get "stuck" on a single human forcefield that just happened to be in their way.  Now they should slide around a lot more readily.
 
*** Note that you can still set up blocking walls of multiple forcefields and catch AI ships in a pocket, etc.  We aren't thrilled by this as it's basically exploiting the simplistic AI movement logic (it has no pathfinding, just straight line to target, because anything else is cpu-prohibitive for this game) but there are actually more efficient ways to slow down most serious AI assualts (grav turrets under ffs, logistics stations, etc) so this particular "exploit" isn't really breaking the challenge.  Maybe one day we'll make it so when the AI detects a blocking wall it retaliates by initiating some gargantuan pathfinding routine and thus churns your processor and framerate to a halt.  For now, knock yourselves out :P
 
** Thanks to everyone who chimed in with feedback on this!
 
 
 
* Hardened Forcefields:
 
** Now shrink with damage like normal forcefields, since the rigidity was making them much more likely to actually die rather than diminish to a point where the AI left it alone, and since they would make the "blocking walls" tactic even more effective than it used to be.
 
** Armor from 1 million to 500k, to expand the set of armor-nemesis things that can actually get through it.  If this feels too low, let us know!
 
 
 
* For the ships listed below, armor piercing increased from "really high" (6 figures) to 999,999.  They're really supposed to just flat out get through any armor, excepting maybe some of the ships so large we don't mention them in release notes because it would be a spoiler.
 
** Zenith Polarizer
 
 
** Spire Armor Rotter
 
** Spire Armor Rotter
** Youngling Vulture
+
** Spire Blade Spawner (and Spire Blade)
** Youngling Nanoswarm
 
** Raid Starship
 
** Lightning/Armored/EMP/Tachyon-warheads
 
** Botnet Golem
 
** Devourer Golem
 
** Sentinel Frigate
 
** Spire Blade
 
 
** Spire Gravity Drain
 
** Spire Gravity Drain
** Spirecraft Siege Tower
+
** Spire Gravity Ripper
** Sniper
+
** Spire Maw
** Electric Shuttle
+
** Spire MiniRam
** Lightning Turret
+
** Spire Stealth Battleship
** Sniper Turret
+
** Spire Teleporting Leech
** Spider Turret
+
** Spire Tractor Platform
** And a variety of lesser known but related types.
+
** Thanks to HitmanN for more excellent pixelart.
  
* Fixed a null exception that could happen rarely when a unit was looking for the next wormhole to move to while moving from planet to planet.
+
* Also in honor of being one of the winners of the "Aim the Nerfbat of Damocles: AI-side (II)" poll, the Zenith Bombard:
** Thanks to TechSY730 for the report.
+
** Now "costs" the AI 150% as much to spawn in all contexts (or nearly all of them, at least; hybrids wouldn't pay attention to this when picking up their escorts, they just pick zombards less often).
 +
** Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
  
== Prerelease 5.016 ==
+
* In honor of being one of the winners of the "Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (VIII)" poll, the Teleport Raider:
(Released September 6th, 2011)
+
** Ship Cap from 488 => 320. (those are high-cap-scale numbers)
 +
*** Health, Attack, M+C cost, and E cost automatically adjusted accordingly, before the further changes below.
 +
*** This just cuts down a bit on the inevitable disadvantages of being so high-cap in terms of damage loss to armor, etc.
 +
** Cap Health from 5.145M*mk => 10M*mk.
 +
** Cap Base DPS from 49k*mk => 70k*mk.
 +
** Armor Piercing from 300*mk => 750*mk.
 +
** Effective Range from 7k => 8k.
 +
** Cap Energy cost from 25k => 20k.
 +
** Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
  
* Preservation Wardens previously did not scale at all when there were multiple human homeworlds and/or multiple human players. Now each time the game spawns a warden it instead spawns 1 warden per player/human-homeworld (specifically, the number of human players or the number of human homeworlds, whichever is greater).
+
* Also in honor of being one of the winners of the "Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (VIII)" poll, the Infiltrator:
 +
** Ship Cap from 544 => 320. (those are high-cap-scale numbers)
 +
*** Health, Attack, M+C cost, and E cost automatically adjusted accordingly, before the further changes below.
 +
*** This just cuts down a bit on the inevitable disadvantages of being so high-cap in terms of damage loss to armor, etc.
 +
** Cap Health from 11,124,400*mk => 15M*mk.
 +
** Cap Base DPS from 49320*mk => 70k*mk.
 +
** Now has bonus vs medium (of 4x, like its other bonuses).
 +
** Base Move Speed from 26 => 32.
 +
** Now has cloaking (between the name and the role, it just doesn't make sense not to).
 +
** Ammo type from Flare => Dark Matter, to prevent excessive nightmare generation.
 +
** Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
  
* Human Forcefield Generators:
+
* And in honor of being third place in the winners of the "Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (VIII)" poll, the Superfortress:
** Ship-cap from 9/5/5 => 10/6/6
+
** Now being balanced as a MkV version of the MkI fort, but with a ship cap of 1 instead of that type's 5.  So roughly 25x as nasty as a FortI.  You can go hide now.
** HP from 14M/30M/56M => 20M*mk.
+
** At the same time, removing the AI version's 3x health multiplier.  It seems unnecessary now.
** Metal cost from 4k/6k/12k => 4k*mk.
+
** Base Armor from 5k => 500k.
** Crystal cost from 19k/35k/70k => 20k*mk.
+
*** This basically means it has 5x the listed health, and puts the effective cap-health at about 50% higher than a cap of theoretical MkV forts.  To compensate, it's about 3 times easier to take down than those would be if you're hitting it with stuff that ignores armor, strips it away, or somehow overpowers half a million of it.
** Energy use from 3k/6k/10k => 3k*mk.
+
** Seconds per salvo from 3 => 2.
** Build time (seconds) from 240/300/480 => 120 + (120*mk) (240/360/480).
+
** Shots per salvo from 120 => 250. (I said you could hide)
 +
** Base move speed from 3 => 12 (same as forts)
 +
** Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
  
* Added new unlockable support unit type: Hardened Forcefield Generator MkI-III.  Basically the same as normal human generators except:
+
* Fixed a bug in recent versions where the Doom Accelerator Cannon modules were largely confused into thinking they were Impulse Reaction Cannon modules.
** 1/4th the HP.
+
** Thanks to Bognor and chemical_art for the report.
** 1,000,000 Armor Rating instead of zero (this effectively reduces all incoming damage to 1/5th its normal power, unless the attacker has extremely high armor piercing or very high damage-per-shot).
 
** They do not shrink as they take damage, making it easier to know how long a given target will be protected, etc.  On the other hand this may make it harder to tell "at a glance" how long the generator has left to hold, so we might need to do something else here.
 
** The first mark is not available by default, but costs 1000 knowledge (mkII and III are 2000 and 4000 knowledge each like the normal line).
 
** Thanks to Lancefighter for the suggestion (some time ago) that led to this.
 
  
* Due to very widespread feedback that ion weaponry is very underpowered, all Ion Cannon and Spirecraft Ion Blasters now fire 4 shots per salvo instead of 1. Other changes are likely to follow, we'll see how it feels to players.
+
* Honorable mention from the "Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (VIII)" poll, the Zenith Power Generator:
 +
** Build cost (from trader) from 7.2M total m+c => 5M.
 +
** Base Max Health from 100k => 2M.
 +
** Ongoing metal+crystal cost (10 each per second) removed.
 +
** Energy production from 400k => 600k (equivalent to 4 planets' worth of energy collectors).
 +
** Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
  
* Put in a fairly radical change to the base forcefields, but bear with us on this -- if it's not workable we'll take it out.  And really, in most senses this should be equivalent to the way that things were before, but more CPU-efficient as well as fixing one bug and one exploit. With that out of the way:
+
* Another honorable mention from the "Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (VIII)" poll, the Champion Drone Bays:
** Change 1: Made it so that strong force fields no longer block enemy ships from passing through them -- on either side.  So if you have a forcefield in the way of the AI, or they have a forcefield in your way, your ships can pass right through them with no problem. As with weaker forcefields, the thematic explanation is that you're going around the forcefield in the Z axis, which makes sense.  This change has no bearing on the protection of ships under the forcefield; ships are just as well protected now as ever.
+
** Bomber Drone base movement speed increased from 70 => 84.
*** The exploit in question was a problem with players being able to block enemy ships due to those ships sometimes "sticking" against the force fields.  The reason ships would stick is because of the coarseness of the distance check we were using, which was coarse so not to take up so much CPU.  Now enemy ships can just fly past your forcefields unimpeded if they're heading to targets beyond them, which -- with one exception, see below -- is what we've always intended in the first place.
+
** Slicer Drone base movement speed increased from 140 => 168.
*** This is also where we derive our CPU gains from, as normally each ship had to check its relative position to all enemy strong forcefields on a planet every time its position changed even a little. This isn't killer, but in light of the bug and exploit relating to strong forcefields
+
** Interceptor Drone base movement speed increased from 90 => 110.
** Change 2: Made it so that when a strong forcefield is covering a wormhole, no non-forcefield-immune enemy ships can go through that wormhole from the side the forcefield is on.
+
** Champion Drone bays production:
*** Players have been using forcefields to do this very thing for a long time, and we think that's great.  However, this was taking advantage of ships not being able to move in to actually physically reach the wormhole, and that was thus not working very well for teleporting ships, which would teleport right to the center of the forcefield, then get caught in the wormhole before the forcefield could push them back out.  This is the bug we referenced above, and it was very much not in players' favor (unlike the exploit), and this set of changes now fixes it.
+
*** Interval between "batches" from 2 => 5.
** NET EFFECTS:
+
*** Batch size from 1 => 3.
*** 1. Players can't use forcefields to interrupt enemy travel on the planet they are on, nor can the AI.
+
** Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
**** Some players would set up forcefield clusters to trap enemies inside  when they come through wormholes, but that was already error-prone because enemies would tend to pop out to the other side if the forcefields weren't positioned precisely right.  These players should instead put a single forcefield (or all their forcefields, if they really prefer) on the enemy side of their wormhole and that will now provide much better protection than their older method ever did.
 
*** 2. The AI can't slip teleporting ships past your forcefields over wormholes unless those teleporting units are also forcefield immune, which should be a huge boon to players in games with teleporting enemies.
 
** Thanks to mindloss for most directly inspiring these changes, although we've been mulling it for a while based on cumulative feedback.
 
  
== Prerelease 5.015 ==
+
== Prerelease 6.004 ==
(Released August 29th, 2011)
+
(Released October 29th, 2012)
  
* Previously, the recently added ActivateHighestEfficiencyLowPowerEnergyReactor and PutLowestEfficiencyActiveEnergyReactorIntoLowPower keybinds were considering reactors that were still under construction.  Hamster re-education has taken place (bug fixed).
+
* Fixed a bug in the last version that had changed the colors of your ships in the planetary summary.
** Thanks to Ranakastrasz for the report.
+
** Thanks to Lancefighter for the report.
  
* Due to widespread feedback that the martyr is very OP, we've drastically increased the asteroid "cost" of building them:
+
== Prerelease 6.003 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/10/ai-war-beta-6003-fortress-size-it.html Fortress-size It] ==
** Previously Reptite could be used to build 2 MkI Martyrs. Now it cannot build martyrs at all.
+
(Released October 29th, 2012)
** Previously Pysite could be used to build 4 MkI Martyrs or 2 MkII Martyrs.  Now it can only build 1 MkII (can't build MkIs).
 
** Previously Xampite could be used to build 4 MkII Martyrs or 2 MkIII Martyrs.  Now it can only build 1 MkIII (can't build MkIIs).
 
** Previously Ebonite could be used to build 4 MkIII Martyrs or 2 MkIV Martyrs.  Now it can only build 1 MkIV (can't build MkIIIs).
 
** Previously Adamantite could be used to build 4 MkIV Martyrs or 2 MkV Martyrs.  Now it can only build 1 MkV (can't build MkIVs).
 
** Note that the units themselves are just as incredibly powerful as before (we really want them to be highly useful), but hopefully this change puts their real cost more in line with their utility and also puts a saner limit on the total number the players can have in a game.  More changes may follow if necessary.
 
** For reference, previously the total number of martyrs that could be produced from all asteroids in an average 80-planet galaxy was about 2200 on average (so someone holding 15% of the galaxy might reasonably field 220 over the course of the game, if they didn't use many other spirecraft).  Now that total-possible number average about 480 (so that same martyr-happy player would probably only have about 48 to use, unless they take more planets).
 
** Thanks to the many players who've weighed in on this subject.
 
  
* Zenith Viral Shredders:
+
* Fixed a longstanding (forever, basically) bug where non-wave AIs (Turtle, Support Corps, etc) would not launch waves even in a Defender-campaign game.
** Simplified the scaling of replication costs (how much damage a shredder has to do to replicate) and made it better at preventing game-breaking swarms of shredders.  Now instead of it using a linear multiplier based on the owner's number of shredders on that specific planet, it quadruples the replication cost for every full cap of that mark of shredder owned by that player anywhere in the galaxy (but if they own less than or equal to a full cap, there is no extra cost).
+
** Thanks to Gith, Cinth, and others for reporting this.
*** So if the mkI cap is 98 (normal cap scale) and you have between 99 and 195 (inclusive) mkI shredders they will have to do 4x as much damage to replicate as normal.  If you have between 196 and 293 (inclusive) mkI shredders they will have to do 16x as much damage to replicate as normal.  And so on (maximum multiplier is 1024 to avoid arithmetic overflow; at that point a mkIV on low caps would need to do over 376 million damage to replicate).
 
** Base Energy Use from 100 => 50 (note: all mkI types use half normal energy).
 
** Replication-created shredders now copy the FRD, Attack Move, and any unit commands (movement waypoints and whatnot) of their "parent".  Note that they already copy the control groups and "am I currently selected" status of their parent.
 
** The end result of all this should be that if you play your shredders well you'll be able to maintain maybe 2 or 3 caps worth of them (a pretty significant advantage over other bonus ship types) but it's going to be difficult to get into the really absurd numbers.  On the other hand, maintaining that swarm won't cost as much energy as it used to and it should require less micro due to the commmand copying.
 
** Thanks to the players who've told us about their massive abuse of absurdly large shredder swarms.
 
  
* For a very long time it's been possible to ward off almost any amount of damage through sufficient micro of a pile of forcefield generators and engineers (to repair the ff's as they collapse within the protection of other generators, or go on low power mode, or are being newly built).  While ff's are supposed to be extremely helpful in protecting stuff, it wasn't intended that they be able to do so indefinitely while under constant attack.  So:
+
* AI Home Command Stations have been taught a new self-preservation technique for dealing with a very specific threat.
** When a forcefield is damaged by enemy fire, all allied forcefields whose fields are in contact (or very close to it) with the damaged ff will take 1 point of damage from the energy conducted along the surface of the field.  The damage itself is inconsequential since the ff's have millions of hp, but it will trigger the "cannot be repaired less than 6 seconds after being damaged" logic.  This also applies to forcefields currently under construction or in low-power mode.  So it won't be possible to repair some forcefields in a ff-pile while others in the same group are under fire.
+
** Thanks to Kahuna for inspiring its new sense of humor.
** Forcefield generators now cannot be assisted during construction if they have been damaged recently.
 
** When a new forcefield is placed for construction, if it is in near any allied forcefields (low power or not) that is currently unrepairable due to recent damage, the newly placed forcefield inherits the longest assist-delay present among those neighbors.  So it won't be possible to speed-build new generators under other fields that are currently under fire.
 
** This also applies to all the "shield bearer" and module type shields.
 
** If this leaves some situations unreasonably hard other changes can be made to compensate, we just wanted to close this "micro to dodge anything" loophole.
 
** Thanks to mindloss for most recently bringing this up.
 
  
* Put in a small code change that might lead to more efficiency during really large battles with a lot of things being drawn as well as a lot of sound effects being played. It might also make no difference, but it's a good precaution either way; our tests so far have not really been clear as to whether there is any benefit.
+
* Removed the range-check when deciding whether a champion should gain experience from a kill on a planet. Now if it's on the same planet as the thing dying, it gets XP.
 +
** Note that the majority of champion XP normally comes from winning nebula scenarios, which already give XP to all champions in the game.
 +
** Thanks to contingencyplan, Moonshine Fox, Wingflier, and Cinth for the suggestion.
  
== Prerelease 5.014 ==
+
* Fixed a bug where AI spire corvettes were always spawning with MkI modules when they should have been using (corvette mark)+1 (max 5, of course).
(Released August 4th, 2011)
+
** This will not impact AI spire corvettes that already exist in savegames prior to this version; just newly-spawned ones.
 +
** Thanks to ussdefiant for the report and save.
  
* Starship costs tweaked around a bit:
+
* Adjusted Fallen Spire shard speeds again, since the increased intensities necessary to match the increased speed were a bit much early on.  Now the first shard is back at the original (1/4 of recent) speed, the first city shard is 1/2 of recent, the second city shard is 3/4 of recent, the last shard is actually 5/4 of recent, and the others are unchanged.  The intervals between chase spawns have been adjusted accordingly.
** Bomber starship metal cost reduced from 120k to 80k.
+
** Thanks to the participants of [http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11846.0.html this poll] and for their feedback on this issue.
** Fleet starship metal cost reduced from 60k to 40.
 
** Siege starship crystal cost reduced from 120k to 80k.
 
** Riot Control starships crystal cost reduced from 80k to 60k, and metal cost reduced from 30k to 20k.
 
** Enclave starship costs reduced from 30k metal and crystal to 20k each instead.
 
** Thanks to Lancefighter for suggesting.
 
  
* Zentih SpaceTime Manipulator energy costs reduced to 20k from 60k.
+
* Added modular-fort versions of the following champion modules:
** Thanks to Lancefighter for suggesting.
+
** Acid Jet.
 +
** Paralyzer.
 +
** Polarizer.
 +
** Impulse-Reaction.
 +
** Heat Beam.
 +
** Nanosubverter.
 +
** Insanity Inducer.
 +
** Translocator.
 +
** Doom Accelerator.
 +
** Photon Lance.
 +
** Rail Cluster.
 +
** Rail Cannon.
 +
** Plasma Siege Cannon.
 +
** Flak.
 +
** Bomber Bay.
 +
** Interceptor Bay.
 +
** Slicer Bay.
 +
** So that's all of them.  They follow the same racial affinities as the champion modules (spire doesn't get drones but gets the absurdly big energy weapons, etc).
 +
** Each is available to any human player's modular fortresses if any human champion has them.  Fortress modules only go up to MkIII, though (champion modules go all the way to MkV).
 +
** Thanks to Cinth for reminding us to make this happen.
  
* Removed all mention of the AIP costs on the Zenith SpaceTime manipulator text.
+
* Redid the far-zoom-icons for all the Ancient Shadows bonus ship types:
** Thanks to Zair for reporting.
+
** Neinzul Scapegoat.
 +
** Youngling Firefly.
 +
** Saboteur.
 +
** Spire Corvette.
 +
** Spire Railcluster.
 +
** Tackle Drone Launcher.
 +
** Zenith Medic Frigate.
 +
** Zenith Reprocessor.
 +
** Zenith Siege Turret.
 +
** Thanks to HitmanN for the excellent pixelart.
  
* Siege Starships renamed to Antimatter Starships for the sake of clarity, and given the following new description text:
+
* Redid the far-zoom icon for the Spire champions (the others had a fair bit of internal contrast, but this one looked pretty washed out.
** This starship is the best capital killer in your basic fleet: excellent against starships, guard posts, guardians, most turrets, and other large ships like golems or spirecraft.  It is so specialized that it can't even fire upon most small mobile targets.  That said, many targets (forcefields, most fortresses and command stations, etc) are specifically protected against its antimatter bombs.
+
** Thanks to HitmanN for this one too.
** All in-game references to them (tutorials, etc) have been adjusted.
 
** Thanks to the several dozen players who weighed in on our poll for how to rename these!
 
  
== Prerelease 5.013 ==
+
* Added two new cheat codes (entered during the game via the chatline, if cheats are enabled) :
(Released August 1st, 2011)
+
** running with scissors
 +
*** Removes all AI Eyes (sentry/ion/parasite/nuclear/etc) from the game.
 +
** revenge is best not served
 +
*** Removes all Counterattack Guard Posts from the game.
 +
**** Note, this will result in the ships guarding those posts being freed as threat.  Not generally a big deal if done early in the game after you have some defenses, however.
 +
** Thanks to triggerman602, LaughingThesaurus, and Lancefighter for inspiring these.
  
* Gravity Drills under player control can now be scrapped by that player.
+
* AI special forces growth rate is now about 0.5x what it used to be, but max strength is now about 1.5x what it used to be.  An overall nerf, in general; we'll see where we need to go from here.
** Thanks to Wingsofdomain for suggesting.
+
** Thanks to Kahuna for the suggestion.
  
* Stealth Battleships previously had a bonus of 1.4x against artillery hulls.  Now they don't, making them not so overpowered against things like siege starships.
+
* Corrected an obsolete description for the counterattack guard post saying the resulting waves were low-warning.
 +
** Thanks to Lord of Nothing for the report.
  
* Speaking of siege starships, they have now gotten doubled health -- making them no longer "glass cannons," which they haven't been in a while anyhow.  And making them substantially more useful in general.
+
== Prerelease 6.002 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/10/ai-war-beta-6002-better-than-stick-in.html Better Than A Stick In The Eye] ==
 +
(Released October 25th, 2012)
  
* All marks of Spire Stealth Battleship now have an AIPerPlanetShipCap of 8 (only applies to not-freed ships).  This is an experiment brought about by continuing feedback that the per-guard-post caps are insufficient forkeeping the populations down to a level that doesn't make the game way harder when the AI happens to roll SSBs as a bonus type.  This won't impact their numbers in waves and other offensive uses, but one thing at a time.
+
* Fixed a really longstanding bug where human rebel colony rebellions couldn't happen if the player had not conquered any mkII AI planets.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic and others for reporting.
  
* Riot Control Starships mark I are now unlocked from the start of every game.  This should help with uncertainty that players would feel about whether or not they would be useful in a given scenario.  Now players can try them out and see; and if they are useful and they want more, then the mark II and mark III versions are effectively 1500 knowledge cheaper now, since they no longer have the mark I prerequisite.
+
* Amended the tooltip that the lobby shows when you mouse over the button that disables cloaking ships to note that it does in fact disable scouts and this makes for a fairly different game.
  
* Mark II scout starships now cost 250 knowledge to unlock instead of 1500.  Mark III are now 2000 instead of 3500, and mark IV are now 3500 instead of 4500.  This brings the mark II down into the realm of "candy tech," and makes the III and IV variants not so cost-prohibitive that nobody uses them.
+
* Tackle Drones now self-attrition much faster once their tractors have engaged, which drastically reduces how far out of the fight they can throw enemy ships while not reducing their effective "get to the enemy at all" range.
 +
** In fact, their overall base time-to-live has been increased from 7 to 9, to make sure they can reach the enemy in most cases.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic, Kahuna, Hearteater, and others for inspiring this change.
  
* Mark I gravity turrets are now 750 knowledge to unlock instead of 2000, making them a lot more feasible for players to experiment with as well.
+
* The AI now has some more tricks to use when responding to knowledge hacking, only used fairly rarely except when dealing with certain recently exploited player cheeses.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for sealing the fate of many.
  
* Zenith SpaceTime Manipulators no longer have an AI Progress of 1 on their death; that made them very difficult to use. They now cost 2x more energy to use, however (from 30k to 60k). The AI also no longer cares about them at all in terms of extra priority on killing them. And lastly, they now cost 1750 knowledge to unlock instead of 1000.
+
* Deepstrike threat:
 +
** Now triggers 1/20th as often, but each spawn is 20 times as big.
 +
** Now respects relative unit strength (so 1 blade spawner != 1 fighter, cost-wise).
 +
** Now spawns on a random AI planet instead of always on an AI homeworld.
 +
** Now spawns with the ThreatFleet behavior instead of just normal threat.
 +
** Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring these changes.
  
* Mark II scouts now cost 500 knowledge to unlock instead of 1000Mark III scouts now cost 2250 instead of 2000, making the entire scout line only slightly cheaper.
+
* Fixed bug where champion-only players could try to build units from the zenith traderNot really succeed, lacking resources, but try.
 +
** Thanks to bonreu and Coppermantis for reporting.
  
* Completely rebalanced armored warheads, as they have been the unused warhead for too long:
+
* Respawning champions owned by a Normal+Champion player now respawn at that player's home command station (if alive) rather than using the "respawning command core" logic (which Champion-Only player champions still do).
** They now cost 50k energy to run instead of 2.5k.
+
** Thanks to Lancefighter for the suggestion.
** They now cost 10x more metal and crystal to create.
 
** They now cost 2/4/6 AIP rather than 10/15/20.
 
** They now have the same (much lower) attack stats of their lightning warhead counterparts.
 
  
* The attack range of mark III lightning and armored warheads has been increased by 250 -- making them not so much smaller than the mark II versions of the same.
+
* Finally got around to finishing the AI Eye changes from the poll it won some months ago.
 +
** Added the following new eye types:
 +
*** Raid Eye (like a raid engine if it's triggered too long)
 +
*** Nuclear Eye (nukes the planet, and itself, if it's triggered too long, really hurts on AIP)
 +
*** Threatening Eye (spawns threatfleet ships elsewhere in the galaxy every 5 seconds or so of being triggered)
 +
*** Translocating Eye (powered-up version of the mkIII military command station's new weapon, only fires when eye is triggered)
 +
*** Plasma Eye (massively-higher-Rate-of-Fire version of the mkIII plasma siege starship's weapon, only fires when eye is triggered).
 +
** Added "Core" variants of the Sentry, Raid, Threatening, Translocating, and Plasma eyes.
 +
*** These are only seeded on AI homeworlds, and are now the only eyes eligible for seeding on AI homeworlds (so Ion and Parasite eyes are now only seeded on non-homeworld planets).
 +
*** They are immune to nukes and a few other things normal eyes aren't.
 +
*** They emit planet-wide tachyon coverage (even when powered down, for those types that can power down).
 +
** Thanks to the many players who voted for the Eye in that poll, and to Hearteater, Faulty Logic, madcow, and others for suggesting some of the specific changes made here.
  
* Some starfield changes:
+
== Prerelease 6.001 [http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/10/ai-war-beta-6001-theres-always-at-least.html There's Always At Least One] ==
** Slightly improved the draw efficiency of the starfields by reusing a single mersenne twister rather than initializing a new one every frame.
+
(Released October 22nd, 2012)
** Changed it so that there is only now one layer of starfield, rather than three.  This makes for a more cohesive style with most of the starfields, as well as making the sky not QUITE so incredibly dense with stars. This also removes the parallax effect from the stars themselves, which made the foreground stars really look more like dust than stars.
 
*** This also is a small boost to performance, and a slight reduction in VRAM usage per frame. On most computers it won't make a substantial difference, though.
 
** Added in a parallax effect to the nebulae, making it so that they now have a slight motion and will wrap around the screen view if players scroll enough.
 
** Thanks to annikk.exe for inspiring these changes.
 
  
* Added a bit more command-queue-related debug info in for hitting F3 and hovering over ships.
+
* Fixed a bug where if player 1 had the "Engineers do not assist allies" toggle checked, the allied large starbases in nebulae would not repair champions controlled by players 2-8.
 +
** Thanks to Kronic and menzel72 for the reports and save.
  
* Fixed a bug that would cause ships to sometimes ignore their wormhole orders to instead stay and fight when they have a target.  This was most noticeable with astro trains since they are never supposed to stop to fight, but it actually was affecting all AI ships since sometime prior to 5.0 most likely.  Possibly as far back as 4.0.  This had serious implications to the AI's ability to effectively retreat; the AI should be a lot more swift-footed now, while still getting in pot-shots when it decides to leave.
+
* Fixed a bug where unlocking the MkI champion missile module would count as MkV for the purpose of the Specialist achievement.
** Additionally, a potential desync was discovered where players that were using the F3 debug menu and hovering over ships might cause a desync in multiplayer.  Fixed that.
+
** Thanks to Jeffersn for the suggestion.
*** Fixing this also reduced the per-ship memory footprint by about 8 bytes, which we're always pleased to do.
 
** Thanks to Hearteater for reporting.
 
  
* Made Cloaker Starships mark I knowledge-free now, instead of costing 1k knowledge. This helps to compensate players a bit for the generally-increased difficulty of the Zenith expansion.
+
* Fixed a localization-missing error that could happen on the high scores window.
 +
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
  
* Same with the Neinzul Rnclave Starships mark I. They were 2k knowledge, but now they are knowledge-free.
+
* The "Reduce Visual Stimulation" now suppresses the "whiteout" effect of warhead detonations, etc.
 +
** Thanks to Jeffersn for the suggestion.
  
* Mercenary Neinzul Enclave Starships, which would now be pretty well pointless, have also been revamped.  Now they are the equivalent of the mark II Neinzul Enclave Starship, rather than the mark I starship.  This is very powerful, but they are also now limited to only a single ship in their shipcap, rather than 6 ships.
+
* Fixed several potential unhandled-errors and desync situations that could happen with the scrap-wave mechanic.
 
+
** Thankfully scrapwaves basically never happen due to other AI-population-compression mechanics, so this wasn't actually a big dealGood to have fixed anyway.
== Prerelease 5.012 ==
+
** Thanks to Cinth for the report.
(Released July 21st, 2011)
 
 
 
* Added new "Activate Highest Efficiency Low Power Energy Reactor" KeyBind, InGame context, no default binding.
 
** Searches through all your energy reactors that are low power, finds the one with the highest efficiency (accounting for penalties from multiple of the same mark on the planet), and takes it out of low power.
 
 
 
* Added new "Put Lowest Efficiency Active Energy Reactor Into Low Power" KeyBind, InGame context, no default binding.
 
** Searches through all your energy reactors that are not in low power, finds the one with the lowest efficiency (accounting for penalties from multiple of the same mark on the planet), and puts it into low power.
 
 
 
* Fixed bug where the command-station foldouts each player got on each ally's planet were not executing galaxy-wide or per-planet controls (like Auto-FRD, auto-build engineers, auto-build energy reactors).
 
** Thanks to many players for pointing this one out.
 
 
 
* Added new galaxy-wide control toggle: "Prevent Auto Build On Ally Planets".
 
** If this toggle is checked, it prevents your galaxy-wide auto-building controls (for stuff like engineers, rebuilders, and energy reactors) from taking effect on ally planets.
 
** Your per-planet auto-building controls ignore this toggle.
 
 
 
* Added new galaxy-wide control toggle: "Allow Ally Rebuilders To Rebuild My Remains".
 
** If this toggle is checked, ally rebuilders will automatically consider the remains of any of your units to be valid rebuilding targets.  Note that starting the rebuilding process costs no resources,  the rebuilt unit is yours, and the rest of the rebuilding process is paid for like normal construction.
 
** Also, please note that if an ally is using the "Engineers Do Not Assist Allies" toggle, their rebuilders will not automatically consider your remains regardless of your controls.
 
** Thanks to lanstro for inspiring this change.
 
 
 
* Fixed bug where Core Starships were not immune to translocation.
 
** Thanks to Toll for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed some old tooltips referring to the expansions tab of the settings screen to correctly refer to the "License / Expansions" window (which is accessible from the main menu).
 
** Thanks to FroBodine for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug that has been causing astro-trains to not be able to attack for the last six months or so.
 
** Thanks to Prezombie, Hearteater, and ArcDM for reporting.
 
 
 
* Ships that have "temporary invincibility" (such as Core Shield Generators that are on planets you don't control, or AI Core Guard Posts and AI Core Command Stations when there are Core Shield Generators still active, or AI carriers when there are more than 2k AI ships active on their planet) now show up with a new angry red/yellow ship-style force field that is visually marking them as invulnerable.  The actual mechanics haven't changed, but now there is a more clear visual indicator of the pre-existing logic.
 
** Thanks to Elok for suggesting.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.011 ==
 
(Released June 21st, 2011)
 
 
 
* Fixed rare null exception that could happen when changing control groups.
 
** Thanks to leb0fh for the report and save.
 
 
 
* Spire Civilian Leaders are now no longer giftable, to avoid a bug whereby gifting them back and forth would repeat the AIP decrease.
 
** Thanks to dnatabar for the report.
 
 
 
* Added a new "Galaxy-Wide Select Own Science Lab" key-bind that works in both planet-view and galaxy-view (like go-to-flare does) and defaults to Ctrl+T.
 
** If you are viewing a planet and you own science labs on that planet, this drops any current selection you may have and selects one of those science labs (note that it does not center the viewport, there's another key for centering on the selection if you want that).
 
** Otherwise, if you own science labs on another planet in the galaxy, this drops any current selection you may have, switches your view to one of those planets, and selects one of those science labs on that planet, and centers the viewport on that lab.
 
** Otherwise (if you own no science labs), this does nothing.
 
** Note that this only works with your science labs, it completely ignores science labs of allied players.  Also, it does not attempt to rotate through eligible selections the way other selection functions do.
 
** The reason for all the caveats of what this doesn't do is that its SOLE purpose is to let you access the tech-research menu from anywhere in the galaxy without having to know specifically where to find a science lab.
 
** Thanks to TheDeadlyShoe for the suggestion that inspired this.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where a self-destructing aoe weapon with a limited number of secondary targets (autobomb, nanoswarm, etc) would fail to do any damage to anything in some cases where only the main target was hit.
 
** Thanks to Nalgas for the report and save.
 
 
 
* Added "Galaxy Layout" item to top-level context menu (when showing the galaxy map).  Clicking it shows these options:
 
** "Official Layout" - Switches your galaxy view to the official layout, meaning the map as actually generated.
 
** "My Layout" - Switches your galaxy view to your alternate layout.  If you have not made any changes, this will look like the official layout.
 
*** While looking at your alternate layout you can move a planet around by holding shift, left clicking the planet, and dragging it aroud while holding the left mouse button.
 
** "Player 1 Layout" - Switches your galaxy view to this player's alternate layout.
 
*** And 7 others just like it for players 2 through 8.
 
 
 
* Fixed bug where copying in your global controls from disk could lead to building engineer IIs and IIIs without the required tech.
 
** Thanks to Ranakastrasz (and others) for reporting this.
 
 
 
* Added new global control toggle "Prevent Warhead FRD".
 
** If this toggle is checked, it prevents your warheads from entering Free-Roaming-Defender mode even when something like the 'Auto-FRD Military' toggle or a slip of the finger when giving a move order would set them to FRD.
 
** If you can imagine a nuclear warhead attached to a roomba, you can imagine cases where you would use this toggle.  And cases where you would not.
 
** Please note that this will not take any warheads already in FRD out of it.
 
** Thanks to Ranakastrasz for inspiring this addition.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where Defender games were always being recorded in the high-score list as lost.
 
** Thanks to Night for the report and save.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where lightning and armored warheads were following the unit-cap-scale.
 
** One of the side effects of this is that some Neinzul Rocketry Corps silos (only the lower-mark ones, and only on low or normal caps) were "scaling down" to a maximum internal capacity of zero, effectively making them Neinzul Rocketry Bricks.  No longer.
 
** Thanks to ArcDM for the report and save that led to this being discovered.
 
 
 
* The "Hostile Warheads on (planet name)" alerts are now shown for all planets you have scouting on, not just human-controlled planets.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.010 ==
 
(Released April 14th, 2011)
 
 
 
* Spire Blade Spawners:
 
** Now have an attack again (not having an attack was causing all kinds of bugs and unintended behaviors), with a base power of 1000 per shot, 8 shots per salvo, 2 seconds per salvo, and effective range of 6000 (for reference, that's the same as the spire stealth battleship except it's 25% the base power and 1000 lower range).
 
*** Notably, this should make the BaseAIPerGuardPostShipCap flag work correctly again for them (it's set to 1 for them).
 
*** But since they were unable to guard stuff in the past due to zero attack, to correct old saves the AI ones just being completely stripped out when loading something from 5.009 or earlier.  Human ones are not affected.
 
** Have the new DoesNotMoveToPursueUnlessOrderGivenByPlayer flag, which prevents human ones from chasing an auto-targetted target (in FRD or not).  Hopefully this will deal with the complaint that lead to the original removal of their guns.
 
** Thanks to Sunshine! and techsy730 for reports and saves of the bypassing-caps problem.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.009 ==
 
(Released March 28th, 2011)
 
 
 
* The health of the non-core AI Spire Shield Spheres has been reduced by half (for all five mark levels of the non-core versions).
 
** Thanks to Vinraith for suggesting.
 
 
 
* Fixed another rare desync that would occur when the "ship to kill" logic was loaded from savegames that were saved during a big battle.  Not many people save DURING a big battle, so this one didn't come up much.
 
** Thanks once again to Fleet and Tssbackus for reporting, and for their patience.  They have all the bad luck!
 
 
 
* Added in a new "aggregate hash" that sums up a few key integer stats from non-cold-storage ships (location xy, destination xy, is destination settled, "ship to kill" object number), to provide a sort of early warning system against desyncs.
 
** This makes the game much likely to actually desync quicker when there is a desync going on under the hood, which will make them easier to find, and hopefully also easier to reproduce when a player does run into a desync.
 
** This adds a bit to the CPU load, but since it's all addition, it's nothing particularly notable, which is one of the plusses of this.
 
** We are, of course, hoping not to have to use this any time soon.  But in the event that Fleet and Tssbackus get unlucky again, this should help eliminate any ambiguities that might otherwise come up.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.008 ==
 
(Released March 25th, 2011)
 
 
 
* Zenith SpaceTime Manipulators can no longer be swallowed or regenerated.
 
** Thanks to FunnyMan for suggesting.
 
 
 
* Human-allied zombies and minor factions were not being properly limited in their pool of planets to fix, thanks to a typo in their logic.  It should now be fixed.
 
** Thanks to techsy730, Vinraith, and zoutzakje for reporting.
 
 
 
* Zenith Electric Bombers:
 
** No longer use scaled caps (due to the 0.1 ship cap multiplier, that can make the additional /2 or /4 from normal and low caps cause a more significant truncation than is desirable).
 
** Event attack cost (used for exogalactic strikeforce computations) tiers increased from "Medium Corvette" through "Heavy Frigate" to "Light Frigate" through "Medium Destroyer", since the previous placement was putting mkIII zelecs at the same place as a mkV bomber.  It's not a goal to balance the event attack costs terribly precisely, but that was a bit excessive.
 
** Thanks to Garthor for bringing the odd cost issue to light.
 
 
 
* Sentinel Frigates:
 
** Event attack cost (used for exogalactic strikeforce computations) tiers increased from "Heavy Corvette" through "Light Destroyer" to "Light Frigate" through "Medium Destroyer".
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.007 ==
 
(Released March 24th, 2011)
 
 
 
* AI ships that are spawned in response to saboteurs, such as the human mark III science lab, are now zombie bots.
 
** Thanks to Irxallis for suggesting.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug with zombie or minor faction electric shuttles, where the shuttles would just sit there.  This also should improve the behavior for any ships that explode (including warheads, etc) when controlled by a minor faction, when zombified, when in FRD or attack-move in general, and possibly when in the hands of the AI in some circumstances.
 
** Thanks to Burnstreet and BobTheJanitor for reporting.
 
 
 
* Previously, zombiefied ships were being bound by player ship caps, but they should not have been.  Fixed.
 
** Thanks to Dalden and Ozymandiaz for reporting.
 
 
 
* Previously, allied minor faction and zombie ships would just patrol around player planets endlessly, which was helpful for defense, but problematic for two reasons: first, that it could cause massive amounts of slowdown after many hours of them stacking up, and second, that it could cause massive buildups of AI stalkers, who never dare to attack the planets with so many defenders, which leads to something akin to stalemate situations.
 
** Thus the allied minor faction and zombie logic has been adjusted as follows:
 
*** Neutral planets are now considered the same as allied planets, and the ships will patrol to them like any others.
 
*** If there are more than about 100 of AI threat ships on an adjacent planet, the ships will also patrol to that planet to clean them off.
 
*** If the human-allied team has more than a token military force (more than about 10 ships) on a planet, then these ships will patrol to there, to help aid in that attack.
 
**** This allows for small raids to still happen with raid starships or whatever without assistance from these minor factions, but it enlists their help for larger-scale engagements.
 
** Thanks to many players for weighing in on this, including Burnstreet, Draco18s, TechSY730, vinco, BluePhoenix, and ArcDM for reporting various things related to this, with various suggestions.
 
 
 
* Dyson Gatlings are now immune to paralysis attacks.
 
** Thanks to Sunshine for suggesting.
 
 
 
* Slightly improved the targeting handling when a ship is targeting a teleporting ship that is out of range.
 
 
 
* Spirecraft Penetrator balance:
 
** Mark I moved from pysite to xampite.  Mark II moved to ebonite, and now produce two per asteroid.  All the other marks not moved around.
 
** Penetrator health reduced 8x.
 
** Penetrator perma-cloaking replaced with normal cloaking.
 
** Thanks to Irxallis for suggesting.
 
 
 
* Fixed a problem with too-low throttles on minor faction / zombie ships preventing them from even attacking at all in some cases.
 
** Thanks to zoutzakje for reporting.
 
 
 
* The devourer golem is now completely invincible -- it was never meant to be killable in the first place, but recent changes to the game made that so that it was possible post-5.0.  Like the dyson sphere, the devourer is more intersting when it is indestructible.
 
** Thanks to ArcDM for inspiring this, although I'm not sure if that's what he really was hoping for.
 
 
 
* Minor factions now shoot low-power ships without prejudice, which means that devourer golems actually will devourer more again.
 
** Thanks to ArcDM for reporting.
 
 
 
* Zenith SpaceTime Manipulators, like forcefields, now have the ability to move very slowly but not to go through wormholes, to allow for better repositioning of them.
 
** Thanks to vinco for suggesting.
 
 
 
* Gifting a ship now copies across its current attack recharge, cloaking recharge, and similar, preventing a few exploits related to that and penetrators in particular.
 
** Thanks to Irxallis for reporting.
 
 
 
* Fixed the bug with two buttons for mark V fighters showing up in the mark V fighter fabricator.
 
** Thanks to leb0fh, Orelius, akbr1984, and snelg for reporting.
 
 
 
* Previously, when command stations were replaced, colony ships and mobile builders were still dying even though they shouldn't have been.  Fixed.
 
** Thanks to Red Spot and TechSY730 for reporting.
 
 
 
* Improved the clarity of the colony ship description.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for suggesting.
 
 
 
* Previously, when a player was controlling an ally's ships and tried to put that ship into a control group, it would add it to the ally's control group instead of the local player's control group.  Having cross-player control groups is not possible without really expanding the control group data structure, which doesn't seem like a good idea to do at the present time, so for the time being allied ships simply won't go into control groups if a player tries to put them in there, at least cutting out the worst of the confusion.
 
** Thanks to FunnyMan for reporting.
 
 
 
* The Zenith Trader previously had incorrect line breaks.  Fixed.
 
** Thanks to doctorfrog for reporting.
 
 
 
* Previously, if there were fewer than 30 enemy-to-the-AI ships and none of them were both uncloaked and had attack strength of 0, then the planet was incorrectly being put into cold storage.  Now it's only in cold storage if there are fewer than 30 enemy-to-the-AI ships and all of them have full cloaking, which was the intended logic from the start.
 
** This should fix some issues with the devourer golem not really doing its thing, and in general some minor faction issues in general.
 
** Thanks to Fleet and TechSY730 for reporting related bugs.
 
 
 
* Previously, adding and removing ships to control groups was way slower than it should have been.  In terms of bulk add/removes, it was way, WAY slower than it should have been.  This was a past optimization that was not fully optimized -- it had one critical flaw, mainly.  This is now fixed, and it has a couple of major effects:
 
** Obviously, when editing control groups in bulk, it's hugely improving the speed of that (it could cause "Waiting For Players" messages, before).
 
** Unexpectedly, it also makes savegames load in less than half the time they used to.  As it turns out, there was a lot of "take this ship out of the control group it already wasn't in" going on in there, and that was just eating performance.
 
** Thanks to FunnyMan for reporting.
 
 
 
* AI Progress reduction messages now show up as light green instead of light red, to avoid being misleading.
 
** Thanks to sgt_deacon for suggesting.
 
 
 
* The radar dampening range of marauders and resistance fighters has been changed to be about 1000 greater than their attack range in all cases, soo that they always have to come into range of their targets in order to fire on their targets.  This makes it so that turrets and other fixed-position defenses are not completely powerless against them.
 
** Thanks to Draco Cretel for suggesting.
 
 
 
* Spire Civilian Leader Outposts are now included in the galaxy map filter for Detected AI Progress Reducers.
 
** Thanks to Orelius and c4sc4 for suggesting.
 
 
 
* Spire Civilian Leader Outposts previously did not have their minor faction stance properly set, so they could not be attacked.  Now they are properly noted as AI Allies until captured by the human team.  They are still direct-only to attack, though, so unless you accidentally mis-click on them your ships won't attack them.
 
** Thanks to chemical_art for reporting.
 
 
 
* Armored Warhead health reduced from over 2 billion to 40 million.  This is still a huge amount of health, but they are no longer infinitely survivable.  This also fixes a bug where the interface was having an overflow exception and rendering their health as 1.
 
** Thanks to rustayne for reporting.
 
 
 
* When planet-wide EMP or tachyon detonations occur, as from a warhead or an EMP guardian, a chat message is now sent to the human players telling them who detonated what, and where.  This message is also clickable.  The goal here is preventing EMP guardians from punching QUITE so impenetrable a hole in player defenses without notice.
 
** Thanks to KDR_11k for suggesting.
 
 
 
* Warhead Interceptors have been nonfunctional since slightly before 5.0 of the game (I disabled them, but never did get around to re-enabling them.  They should work once again, but I haven't had a test case to work on it to be sure.  If anyone has a save with them not working after this version, please let us know.
 
** Thanks to Orelius for reminding us of this.
 
 
 
* The efficiency of gravitational slowing (gravity drains, gravity turrets) has been greatly improved, such that big battles that previously would  grind to a halt because of them can now be played at 3x their prior framerate in one test case in particular.
 
** One major improvement was to exclude checking of gravitational slowing for ships that can't move or aren't moving at the moment (since they don't need to be slowed!), and the other was to skip redundant gravitational slowing checks for gravitational sources that are the same and which are too close together.  This last is very similar to how the speed improvements on the range data display (from way back pre-2.0 days) works.
 
** Thanks to rustayne for reporting.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.006 ==
 
(Released March 23rd, 2011)
 
 
 
* Astro Trains are now immune to translocation and gravity effects, since both of those cause more problems for players than they would ever solve.
 
** Thanks to Sunshine for suggesting.
 
 
 
* Adjusted controls window to be more likely to fit within 1024-wide resolutions; previously it was functional but didn't quite fit.
 
** Thanks to Balthier for the repot.
 
 
 
* Double-clicking a profile name in the profile list now selects it, rather than opening it for editing.
 
 
 
* When a desync is encountered, the clients are now notified of that instead of them thinking it's just a regular waiting for players.
 
 
 
* FINALLY fixed a long-standing and excruciatingly rare desync that nevertheless was reliably hit by two of our players, Fleet and TssbackusHuge thanks to them for their persistence in helping us figure this out.  For all the details, here's the mantis issue: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=3077
 
 
 
* The planetary summary now makes substantially better use of its available vertical space, thus saving horizontal space in many cases.
 
** Thanks to gamewarlord777 for suggesting.
 
 
 
* Guard posts, fortresses, superfortresses, force fields, and exo-shields are all now immune to regeneration from regenerator golems/trains.
 
** Thanks to FunnyMan for reporting.
 
 
 
* AI Motherships are now considered large ships for purposes of bomber starships and siege starships being able to hit them.
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for reporting.
 
 
 
* When an engineer is repairing a ship, and it was not set to repair that ship explicitly by the player, and it's not in free-roaming defender mode or attack-move mode, it will no longer try to chase the ship it is repairing.  Instead it will just find a better target and keep its position.  This allows for players to exercise more tight control over their engineers now that engineers have a huge repair range and no longer teleport.
 
** Thanks to Sunshine for suggesting.
 
 
 
* In recent versions, the self attrition time has been reporting a negative time.  Fixed.
 
** Thanks to Garthor for reporting.
 
 
 
* When a ship is translocated away from its current location, all incoming projectiles now are also immediately translocated to its new destination, and thus will hit it instead of fizzling.  This makes the military command stations a lot less unwieldy.
 
** Thanks to KDR_11k for suggesting.
 
 
 
* Raid starship rebalance, thanks to many players for various suggestions:
 
** Raid Starship health has been increased from 1.6 million health * mark level to 2 million health * mark level.
 
** The AI now has separate versions of the Raid Starships, which have only 1/2 the health of the human counterparts.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.005 ==
 
(Released March 17th, 2011)
 
 
 
* Savegames from 5.004 were accidentally all uncompressed, though flagged as compressed, which caused them to not be able to be read back in.  Two fixes:
 
** First, fixed the actual cause of this, so new savegames in 5.005 will be saved properly.
 
** Second, updated the load savegame process so that it can read even the "corrupt" saves from 5.004 without issue.
 
** Thanks to SpaceJelly for reporting!
 
 
 
* Spire Blade Spawner:
 
** Ship cap from 0.05 of normal to 0.03 of normal (in practice, from 9 to 5 for mkI).  Note that this impacts AI usage as well as human.
 
** BaseAIPerGuardPostShipCap from 2 => 1.
 
 
 
* Spire Gravity Drain:
 
** Grav range from 3000*mk => 8000 (flat).
 
 
 
* Spire Gravity Ripper:
 
** Attack power from 1000*mk => 2000*mk.
 
** Seconds-per-salvo from 1 => 2.
 
** So basically the gravity ripping effect is being nerfed to 50% of what it was, and the normal attack is better against armor.  We'll see where to go from there.
 
 
 
* Spire Miniram:
 
** Ship cap multiplier from 0.25 => 0.20.
 
 
 
* Spire Stealth Battleship:
 
** Effective Attack range from 6500 + (500*mk) => 7000 flat (thus, they can no longer engage while still protected by their 8000 radar dampening range).
 
 
 
* Spire Tractor Platform:
 
** Hull Type from Turret => Heavy.
 
 
 
* Previously, turtle AI types had over 13 times as many AI Eyes as "normal".  Moderately defensive ones (Shield Ninny, Grav Driller, and Peacemaker) had only 2 times as many as normal.  Turtles now have about 2.6 times as many as normal.
 
 
 
* Light Starship:
 
** Base Health from 1.5m => 2m.
 
** Armor Rating from 500 => 1000.
 
** Given Radar Dampening of 8000 (to make it harder to deny a fleet its fleet starship munitions boost by ganking the fleet starships from long range).  For reference, its munitions boost range is 3000.
 
 
 
* Flagship:
 
** Base Health From 4,875k => 6m.
 
** Given Radar Dampening of 8000.  For reference, its munitions boost range is 6000.
 
 
 
* Neinzul Youngling Commando:
 
** Base Health from 6600*mk => 8000*mk.
 
** Base Attack Power from 1000*mk => 1200*mk.
 
 
 
* Impulse Reaction Emitter:
 
** Now has a minimum multiplier of 5 (roughly what it would get vs a ship with 5,000 energy cost).  This might be excessive, we'll see, but the ship was having significant "used as a paperweight" issues against anything at all small.
 
 
 
* Zenith Mirrors:
 
** When a shot is reflected, the returned shot's power is now increased 4x.  Thought to be a perpetual motion machine until the first power bill arrived.  More seriously, this is an attempt to correct for the fact that things now tend to have a higher ratio of hp to damage (particularly against their own hull type) than when the mirrors were first added.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.004 ==
 
(Released March 16th, 2011)
 
 
 
* Added "Toggle Use-Group-Move-By-Default" In-Game key-bind (no default key, but you can set one on the In-Game tab of the input bindings window):
 
** Toggles the value of the Use-Group-Move-By-Default global control (normally changed through the controls screen, but can be set this way for convenience).
 
** Note that if you have the controls window open while using this key-bind, the controls window will not automatically update to reflect the change as that would destroy any changes made since the window was opened.
 
** To make it easier to know which way it was toggled (without having to open the controls window, which would defeat the purpose), using this toggle displays a local message on the screen noting the change.
 
 
 
* HUGE Memory breakthrough.
 
** Bad news first: the bad news is that this touched 63 different code files, and has resulted in approximately 4500 disparate lines of code being changed in a spiderweb pattern all throughout the application.  So... expect some bugs.  So far we haven't seen any, but with an organization change this drastic some are inevitable.  Why, oh why, would we do this?
 
** Well, that brings us to the good news: the baseline heap memory usage for the application has been literally HALVED, and in large savegames it's also... well, about halved in most cases.  For those players that had been experiencing the dreaded "Too Many Heap Sections" error (thanks to Unity 3D's less than stellar garbage collector bounding capping out at about 900MB), this is tremendous news.
 
** As a small ancillary bonus, this also makes both the program itself and individual savegames load a bit faster.  The older your CPU, the more you will notice this effect (on older CPUs, it could shave off multiple seconds, actually).
 
** As another not-so-small bonus, this restructuring cuts down on some confusing cases with the spirecraft and how some of the by-unit-scale stuff works.  Long-term, this should mean a lot fewer bugs related to the unit cap scales, which is also welcome news.  Some subtle bugs related to the armor rating have already been fixed as just part of making this transition, though we don't think anyone reported these specific ones.
 
 
 
* The regen ability now shows how long, in time, it will take to completely heal the ship from 0 hitpoints to full hitpoints, rather than showing the per-second gain.  Thus some mental math is removed, and the display of this can be consistent between different unit cap scales.
 
 
 
* Ever since the porting to unity, annoyingly, we've had a bug of our own making that caused the first profile to always be the one used, rather than whatever you last used.  Fixed.
 
 
 
* Player profiles are also now once again sorted by name, which they used to be but haven't been since the switch.
 
 
 
* A new "Don't Compress Savegames" toggle has been added to the Advanced tab.
 
** The only time you should turn this on is if your save process is being inordinately slow, or if you are getting "Too Many Heap Sections" crashes.  Otherwise, you'll want this on, as uncompressed savegames are pretty huge.  But enabling this will save on RAM use during savegame compression and decompression -- the larger the save, the more the savings in RAM with the compression disabled.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.003 ==
 
(Released March 8th, 2011)
 
 
 
* Updated the Unit Cap Scale "High" option's lobby tooltip to note the chance of the game simply running out of memory in the late game and that autosaving and reloading every couple hours can be necessary to get through it.
 
 
 
* Fixed a typo in the first Fallen Spire journal entry.
 
** Thanks to Neck for the report.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where the "I Have A Bad Feeling About This" achievement was not being awarded.
 
** Thanks to Tirulii for the report and save.
 
 
 
* The AI's (announced) exogalactic strikeforces provoked by the Fallen Spire stuff now also contribute points to a sort of "homeworld defense fund".  If that has any points and an AI homeworld comes under major assault, a defense force is immediately spawned on that homeworld.  This can prove... unpleasant.
 
 
 
* Minor faction Fallen Spire ships (NOT the human-controllable ones) buffed quite a bit.
 
 
 
* Previously the controls window was not fitting vertically on 1024x600 (which isn't officially supported but we try to make it playable).  Fixed to fit better.
 
** Thanks to Talaraine for the report.
 
 
 
* Courtesy of the current #1 on the mantis vote tallies: Added "Copy To Disk" and "Copy From Disk" buttons to bottom of the controls screen.
 
** Copy To File creates a copy of your global controls (excluding per-planet stuff, but including ship designs) as "copiedGlobalControlSet.dat" in your RuntimeData directory.
 
** Copy From File prompts you to confirm first, and if you confirm it overwrites all your global control (excluding per-planet stuff, but including ship designs) from what's in "copiedGlobalControlSet.dat" in your RuntimeData directory.  If you don't actually have such a file it doesn't do anything when you confirm.
 
** Thanks to Fleet for the suggestion that inspired this feature.
 
 
 
* Courtesy of the new #2 item on the mantis vote tallies list: Added "Mobile Tractors With Full Load Rally" toggle to the global tab of the controls screen.
 
** If this toggle is checked, when one of your mobile units with tractor beams (notably Etherjets, Spire Tractor Platforms, Spirecraft Martyrs, and Black Widow Golems) has a "full load" (all tractors active), it will look for a rally post to rally to.  If that rally post happens to be a redirector, that will work as it normally does, etc.
 
** When the rally trigger kicks in, all other orders (including FRD and attack-move, etc) will be canceled on the tractoring unit.  But if you give the ship an order after the rally behavior is triggered, it won't retry the rally unless it it loses one of its tractor targets and then fills up again.
 
** Note that this does not apply to Riot Control Starships with tractor modules, because the modules themselves are not mobile units.
 
** Thanks to PineappleSam for the suggestion inspiring this control.
 
 
 
* Another from the vote tallies: Artillery Golems are now immune to radar dampening.
 
** Thanks to Fleet for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* Courtesy of the new #2 item on the mantis vote-tallies: Added "Auto-Scout-Picket" command to the context menu (there's also an key bind, unbound by default):
 
** Tell all cloaking scout units in the selection to try to station themselves on a planet where you do not currently have scout intel.  Basically it:
 
*** 1) Makes a list of all scouts with cloaking in your selection.
 
*** 2) Makes a list of all planets you do not have current (less than 5 seconds ago) scout intel.
 
*** 3) Sorts that list of planets by distance (ascending) to the planet with your selection.
 
*** 4) Tells the first scout in the first list to go to the first planet in the second list, and so on.  If it runs out of planets it loops back to the beginning of the planet list and thus it will double up, etc.  When it runs out of scouts it stops.
 
** Please remember that this order (and auto-explore) are only intended to automate simple scouting situations and thus save you time giving otherwise trivial orders.  If your scouts all die before accomplishing anything that means that it's not a simple scouting situation and you'll need to take manual control to get good results.
 
** Thanks to Malibu Stacey for the suggestion that inspired this command.
 
 
 
* AI War engine upgraded to Unity 3.3, from previously being Unity 3.1.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.002 ==
 
 
 
(Released February 22nd, 2011)
 
 
 
* Fixed bug in last version where maws had no ship cap.
 
** Thanks to Orelius for the report.
 
 
 
* Removed the (somewhat jokingly named) "HasWarpEngineMufflers" UnitData flag, and replaced it with per-unit logic that looks at ActionStatus (Normal, MinorFaction, or Zombie) and tells it to not play wormhole-transition sounds for MinorFaction or Zombie ships that are allied with the player.
 
 
 
* Fixed bug on the stats window resource-flows tab where most construction/repair/etc outflows were reported as positive instead of negative.
 
 
 
* Fixed bug that was greatly delaying the onset of gravity slowdown on units entering grav range in some cases.
 
** Thanks to chemical_art for the report and save.
 
 
 
* Courtesy of being really high on the vote tallies: previously double-clicking a single unit would select all (your) units of that exact type on the screen.  Now triple-clicking will do the same thing except it will include all units of the same general type (ShipType).  Meaning that triple-clicking a fighter of any mark will select all your fighters of any mark on the screen.
 
** Caveat: the general categorization being used is sometimes more general than mark; notably remains rebuilders have the same ShipType as engineers.  Requests to make triple-clicking an engineer not also select remains rebuilders are likely to be ignored ;)
 
** Also, we have to do this triple-click detection manually, so basically it's looking for a third click within 3 tenths of a second after the double-click selection.  If this timing is problematic, let us know.
 
** Thanks to Toll for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* In response to the number-one-on-the-vote-tallies mantis issue:
 
** Added new PlanetView KeyBind: "Show Strong/Weak Info":
 
*** Defaults to Alt+W.
 
*** When this is active and the mouse cursor is over a ship, each planetary summary sidebar entry will display Win/Lose/Draw (and a % indicating intensity of win or loss, if it's not a draw) as a rough indicator of how effective a cap of the ship type under the cursor would be against a cap of the entry's ship type.  Since planetary summary entries frequently include multiple distinct types of ships, this is perhaps most useful in conjunction with the "Guide" mode of the planetary summary that shows all ships of a given mark level (the default key for switching to guide mode is F1).  However, even in normal mode this can be useful to at least get a rough feel for which of your ships on the planet are the best you have on hand against a specific target.
 
*** Caveat: this is not using a full simulation or anything like that, it uses the same simplified formula as the reference tab uses.  So stuff with modules won't really get accurate results (because it's only counting the base hull), etc.
 
*** Suggestions on text color, default keys, etc, are quite welcome; we're not totally happy with the effect right now but don't have a lot of time to fiddle with alternatives.
 
** Added new PlanetView KeyBind: "Strong/Weak => One Vs One":
 
*** Defaults to Alt+E (so the full combination would be to hold Alt+W+E).
 
*** When both this and the "Show Strong/Weak Info" keybind are active, the strong/weak info shown will use a one-ship vs. one-ship comparison instead of the normal cap vs. cap comparison.
 
 
 
* Snipers (the ship, not the turrets) :
 
** Bonus vs UltraLight from 6 => 1.
 
** Bonus vs Light from 1 => 6.
 
 
 
* On to #2 on the vote tallies list: The mouseover tooltip for the AI Progress display on the resource bar now displays each of the tech level thresholds for each AI Player.
 
** Thanks to wyvern83 for the suggestion.
 
 
 
* Fixed a moderately longstanding bug where having the first AI player at tech level 1 and the second AI player at tech level 2 would actually draw as the text "II/II" instead of "I/II" on the resource bar.
 
 
 
* The "selection description" window in the bottom right of the hud that shows the count of each type in the selection now shows two percents: the first is the average percent-of-max-health of the living ships of that type (this used to be there before the Unity port, and it's back now!), the second is the lowest percent-of-max-health of the living ships of that type.
 
** Thanks to Vinraith for reminding us about the missing average-health info.
 
 
 
* The selection description window will now try to display up to 30 entries without resorting to a scrollbar, instead of only 5.
 
 
 
* Replaced the old "if CanUseNeinzulRegenerator then multiply by 2" wave-size rule with a more general UsefulnessInAIWaveMultiplier UnitData field.
 
** Everything with CanUseNeinzulRegenerator (which is just the 5 youngling types), gets a 2 for this.
 
** As an experiment, Bombers get 0.8 and Fighters and Missile Frigates get 1.2.  Bomber waves will probably still be more dangerous (as is intended) but it might make the difference in "interestingness" less.  Not planning to touch the bonus ship types because if the AI has a particularly bomber-like bonus ship type that should just be a characteristic of the kind of difficulty you'll be facing in that game, etc.
 
 
 
* Exogalactic strikeforces provoked by the Broken-Golems-Hard or Spirecraft-Hard minor factions (but not Fallen Spire ones) now have a chance (50% for Broken-Golems, 20% for Spirecraft) of using an alternate composition distribution that heavily favors a large lead ship and a single battlegroup.
 
 
 
* Broken-Golems-Hard and Spirecraft-Hard exogalactic strikeforce initial-strength, per-minute-increment-amount, and maximum-strength all increased roughly 10%.
 
** Thanks to Shrugging Khan for pointing out that these are a bit on the easy side right now.  In other words, blame him if these slaughter you now.
 
 
 
* The Armored, Black-Widow, Artillery, and Regenerator Golems used in exogalactic strikeforces are now different than the "standard" AI golems (like those used by the Golemite AI Type).  The main difference is that they lack the 1/10th-health-of-a-normal-golem rule (but the Armored variants still have a 1/2 health modifier, since they're so buff).
 
** Thanks to Shrugging Khan for continuing to provoke the golems.
 
 
 
* Black Widow golem health and Attack Power boosted a bit (15%-ish).
 
 
 
* Regenerator Golem health doubled, in response to various concerns that they're less useful than other golems.
 
 
 
* The "shot travels at least 40 speed faster than its target's current speed" logic has been extended to include "shot travels at least 40 speed faster than its target's tractor-er's current speed", since in the "tow" case the target's current speed is almost always zero.
 
** Thanks to kjara for the report.
 
 
 
== Prerelease 5.001 ==
 
(Released February 16th, 2011)
 
 
 
* Made it possible to bind Mouse2, Mouse3, Mouse4, Mouse5, or Mouse6 to the primary key of a KeyBinding.  For reference, Mouse2 is the middle mouse button.  Mouse0 is left-click, Mouse1 is right-click, and both are excluded from this due to being used in many other ways by the main input code.  Mouse3-6 don't exist on most mice, but are available for those who have them.
 
** One example use of this is to bind OpenDefaultContextMenu to Mouse2 (middle mouse).  We're not sure if this would cause major conflicts with middle-mouse-scrolling or mouse-wheel-zooming (due to accidental click-downs during wheeling); if you try it please let us know how it goes.  Seemed ok in our testing.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where the special-move context menu's catch-right-clicks option was basically failing to do anything.  Now when it is toggled on it properly re-interprets right clicks outside the menu as "set destination to clicked point and then execute".
 
 
 
* Updated tooltips for:
 
** Armored Golem.
 
** Artillery Golem.
 
** Black Widow Golem.
 
** Cursed Golem.
 
** Regenerator Golem.
 
** Hive Golem.
 
** Botnet Golem.
 
** Military Command Stations.
 
** Captive Human Settlements.
 
** Fallen Spire lobby tooltip (reference to wiki removed due to complaints).
 
** Thanks to Burnstreet, c4sc4, techsy730, and Sunshine! for contributing suggestions about these.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where hybrids were... basically completely broken.  Sigh.  The "don't let hybrids rebuild modules if they've recently been damaged" code was inverted in such a way that they could never build modules.  And because they could never get modules, they were never satisfied that they were ready to go attack or defend or whatever.
 
** For reference, this bug went unreported for roughly 20 versions.  The Hybrids are plotting revenge.
 
** Thanks to Draco18s and Draco Cretel for reporting.  The Hybrids might spare them.
 
 
 
* Reclamators (excluding zombie-reclamators) :
 
** Replaced the "cannot do reclamation damage to ships more than one mk level higher" rule: the reclamation effect of the actual damage done is multiplied as follows:
 
*** If the reclamator is 4 mks higher than the target (mkV shooting mkI), multiply by 64.
 
*** If the reclamator is 3 mks higher than the target, 48.
 
*** If the reclamator is 2 mks higher than the target, 32.
 
*** If the reclamator is 1 mk higher than the target, 16.
 
*** If the reclamator is the same mk as the target, 8.
 
*** If the reclamator is 1 mk lower than the target, 4.
 
*** If the reclamator is 2 mks lower than the target, 2.
 
*** If the reclamator is 3 mks lower than the target, 1.
 
*** There is no 4-mk-lower case because mkV are not reclaimable.
 
** Leech Starship base attack power from 120k*mk => 30k*mk.
 
** Parasite base attack power from 4000*mk => 1000*mk.
 
** Nanoswarms inherent 16x-reclamation property down to 2x, but no reduction in actual damage.
 
** Spire Teleporting Leech base attack power also not reduced, because the general feeling is that these are pretty underpowered already.  Might nerf these later if this proves to be too much.
 
 
 
* Parasites:
 
** Effective range from 3700 => 6000.
 
** Armor piercing from 0 => 750*mk.
 
** Base Health from 7200*mk => 14400*mk.
 
 
 
* Fixed a relatively longstanding bug where AIPerPlanetShipCap and AIPerGuardPostShipCap were generally not being enforced when loading a game (either just-starting or loading later).
 
 
 
* Some triangle rebalancing:
 
** The rationale here is that bombers have been having their way with forcefields a bit too much, and having fighters be so much more "general-dps" than the other two has made them much less a natural predator of the Bomber.  Also, the Missile Frigate is still being reported as the least desirable by a significant margin.
 
** Fighters (including the tachyon and bulletproof variants) :
 
*** Bonus vs Polycrystal from 2.4 => 5.
 
** Bombers:
 
*** Bonus vs UltraHeavy from 10 => 6.
 
*** Bonus vs Structural from 10 => 6.
 
*** Bonus vs Heavy from 10 => 6.
 
*** Bonus vs Artillery from 10 => 6.
 
*** Base Attack Power from 1900*mk => 2400*mk.
 
** Missile Frigates:
 
*** Bonus vs Light from 10 => 6.
 
*** Bonus vs UltraLight from 10 => 6.
 
*** Bonus vs Swarmer from 10 => 6.
 
*** Bonus vs Neutron from 10 => 6.
 
*** Bonus vs Composite from 10 => 6.
 
*** Bonus vs Refractive from 10 => 6.
 
*** Base Attack Power from 1600*mk => 2400*mk.
 
*** Base Crystal Cost from 700 => 500.
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug with the electric shuttle "chain lightning" mechanic where it could hit a single forcefield way more times than intended.  Used to be as many as 200 per shot, but now down to 5 (anything can be hit 5 times per shot).
 
** Thanks to Draco18s for reporting.
 
 
 
* Fixed bug where electric shuttles were able to chain-hit the same target 10 times in one blast (thus getting maximum efficiency against groups 20 or larger) instead of 5 (thus needing to hit at least 40 to get full damage).
 
 
 
* Fixed a bug where Spire Blades, Spire Minirams, and Spire Rams would not actually automatically die (but just self-damage by some amount) when attacking.
 
 
 
* Tractor Beam Turrets:
 
** Base Health from 210k/840k/1680k => 560k*mk.
 
** Base Armor Rating from 1200 (flat) => 450*mk.
 
 
 
* Beam Guardians:
 
** Bonus Vs Turret from 8 => 1.
 
** Bonus Vs UltraLight from 8 => 1.
 
** Bonus Vs Artillery from 2 => 1.
 
** Base Attack Power from 4000*mk => 4500*mk.
 
** Base Armor Rating from 600*mk => 300*mk.
 
 
 
* Laser Guardians:
 
** Base Armor Rating from 1000*mk => 300*mk.
 
** Base Health from 1.4*(standard guardian health) to 1.1*(standard).
 
** Shots Per Salvo from 3 => 15.
 
** Seconds Per Salvo from 4 => 2.
 
** Base Attack Power from 17k*mk => 1700*mk.
 
** Base Armor Piercing from 500*mk => 300*mk.
 
** Base Attack Range from 7000 => 5000.
 
 
 
* Raider Guardians:
 
** Now Have Radar Dampening Range of 8000.
 
 
 
* Lightning Guardians:
 
** Base Armor Rating from 800*mk => 600*mk.
 
** Now use the same "can hit up to 200 targets max, but can do max damage to as few as 40 by hiting each target up to 5 times" logic as Electric Shuttles.
 
** Base Attack Power from 1600*mk => 2400*mk (for reference, Electric shuttles on low caps have 1600*mk, albeit somewhat slower reloading).
 
 
 
* Tractor Guardians:
 
** Base Armor Rating from 1200 (flat) => 450*mk.
 
 
 
* Spider Guardians:
 
** Base Armor Rating from 1000 (flat) => 150*mk.
 
 
 
* Sniper Guardians:
 
** Base Armor Rating from 1000 (flat) => 150*mk.
 
 
 
* Tachyon Guardians:
 
** Base Armor Rating from 400 (flat) => 150*mk.
 
 
 
* Gravity Guardians:
 
** Max Target Base Speed from 10/8/6/4/2 => 11/10/9/8/7.
 
** Grav Beam Base Range from 8k/10k/12k/14k/16k => 7k/8k/9k/10k/11k.
 
** Base Armor Rating from 100*mk => 300*mk.
 
  
* Zombie Guardians:
+
* Fixed a longstanding bug where the Stats window -> Military tab -> "# Built" column values ended in a % sign.
** Shots Per Salvo from 2/3/4/5/6 => flat 2.
+
** Thanks to Volatar for the report.
** Base Armor Rating from 5000*mk => 300*mk.
 
** Base Attack Range from 9000 => 7000.
 
  
* EMP Guardians:
+
* Fixed a bug in the CTRLS window -> Ship Design tab where changing a design and then switching templates or unit types before saving (and confirming when it asks if you're sure you want to discard the changes) would leave the display in a very confused state.
** Base Armor Rating from 1200 (flat) => 300*mk.
+
** Thanks to Faulty Logic and chemical_art for the report.
  
* Carrier Guardians:
+
* Fixed a bug where a scapegoat could regen ''any number'' of allied ships that died in exactly the same frame, rather than just one.
** Base Armor Rating from 1200 (flat) => 300*mk.
+
** Generally this wouldn't be a big deal due to the number of ships dying during a particular frame being fairly low, but when a Spirecraft Martyr goes up... let's just say that the Abominable Intelligence found a counter to the martyr.  But it's been fixed now.
 +
** Thanks to Switch for the report and save.
  
* Note: the guardian rebalancing is far from done, this was just to tone down some more obvious issues.
+
* Changed Ravenous Shadow speed to not vary with combat style (it's now always what it used to be on Normal combat style), since the champion's speed doesn't vary there.
 +
** Thanks to Cinth and Coppermants for the suggestion.
  
* Handicap now has the following effects, all of which is new unless otherwise noted:
+
* The game no longer seeds wormhole guard posts on wormholes that lead to nebulae, since this was confusing in games without champions (the wormholes are still seeded in that case, because champions can be added midway).
** AI
+
** Note: this won't affect saves from previous versions, because the posts are already seeded there.
*** Previously it affected the speed at which the AI reinforced.  It no longer does.
+
** Thanks to Volatar and other for reporting the confusion.
*** Increases the number of ships in each wave and reinforcement, and decreases when negative.
 
*** Roaming Enclaves and Preservation Wardens are spawned sooner or later into the game.
 
*** Scrap waves are scaled accordingly.
 
*** Specifically "forced waves" are scaled accordingly.
 
*** Cross planet atacks are scaled accordingly.
 
*** Saboteur and deep strike reactions are scaled accordingly.
 
*** For now, event attacks are NOT affected by this.
 
*** Initial seeding of AI planets are intentionally not affected by this -- same as human players get no starting benefit from handicaps.
 
** Player
 
*** Increases the amount of resources gathered from producers (using a new formula), and decreases when negative (also using the new formula).
 
** Thanks to TechSY730 for suggesting we revisit this.
 
  
* The tech level of the AI is now only inflated by 1 artificially when playing on greater than difficulty 9, rather than greater than difficulty 8.
+
* Brightened the "Shields" display that shows on the resource bar when using a champion.
** Thanks to TechSY730 for suggesting.
+
** Thanks to Spikey00 for the suggestion.
  
 
[[Category:AI War Release Notes]]
 
[[Category:AI War Release Notes]]

Latest revision as of 12:14, 16 September 2017

Contents

Statistics For The Curious

  • Between 6.000 and 7.000, we pushed out 50 distinct public releases over 238 days.
  • Community contributors were (as always) a huge help. 123 Players were thanked over the course of the 500 individual changes that were made.

Prerelease 7.001

Release 7.000

(Released June 17th, 2013)

(No changes other than the version number, compared to 6.050)

Prerelease 6.050 Release Candidate 3

(Released June 16th, 2013)

  • The "Starfleet Commander" AI Type is now categorized as a "Harder" type.
    • Thanks to Kahuna, LordSloth, and Bognor for the suggestion
  • Zenith Hydra Heads are now immune to repair.
    • Note: the hydras themselves can still be repaired just fine.
    • Thanks to Diazo for the suggestion.
  • The Zenith Hydra Head (not the main body, just the spawnable) now starts in FRD automatically.
    • Thanks to Cinth for the suggestion.

Prerelease 6.049 Release Candidate 2

(Released June 15th, 2013)

  • Set metal and crystal cost of Lightning Torpedoes to minimal values to prevent efficient resource farming by scrapping them (producing them doesn't cost resources anyway).
    • Thanks to Niwantaw for the report.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed more shadow-projection units to be placed by a champ than the available shadow charge would permit, by holding shift and clicking repeatedly without moving the mouse at all. This could allow infinite shields while paused, in fact.
    • Thanks to MasterSJT and Spikey00 for the report.
  • Fixed a bug where the SpecialForces and ThreatFleet logic could pick "staging point" planets that were human planets. Nothing quite like the SF deciding to "stage" from your homeworld.
    • Thanks to Kahuna for the report.

Prerelease 6.048 Release Candidate 1

(Released June 14th, 2013)

  • MLRS Guardians (normal and Dire) hull type from medium => artillery, so that they don't counter their triangle counter (was fighters, is now bombers).
    • Thanks to zleorg for pointing this out.
  • Bumped all non-dire guardians up 2 exo cost tiers; partly because it was kind of silly to have Raid and Infiltration guardians start 1 tier lower than the Raid Starship (while being 50% to 150% more effective than it), but really all the guardians are pretty buff right now.
  • Added a tooltip to the Master Sound Volume slider that it does not impact the Music levels (only the Sound effects levels).
    • Thanks to Tridus for inspiring this change.
  • Fixed some bugs where normal AI retreat or target-priority logic could interfere with exo "galaxy-wide-chase" logic and cause dancing and indecisiveness, etc.
    • Thanks to Histidine for the report and save.
  • Fixed some bugs where normal AI retreat/attack/etc orders were being sent to hybrids, which could cause dancing and indecisive behavior, etc.
    • Thanks to TechSY730 for the report and saves.
  • Modernized the Refugee Outpost's HBC-IV.
  • Added seven new AI taunts for various occasions.
    • Thanks to Cyborg, LordSloth, Hearteater, Faulty Logic, and others for the inspiration.

Prerelease 6.047 Activating Vengeful Sanding Machine MkIII

(Released June 13th, 2013)

  • Updated the Spider Guardian description to reflect that it doesn't fire sniper shots anymore (so scout starships aren't gonna help).
    • Thanks to relmz32 for the report.
  • Fixed a bug in recent versions where the Spire Maw was not doing attrition damage to its contents.
    • Thanks to Ricca for the report.
  • Updated the tutorials to reflect changes since 6.0.
  • Added new per-control-group toggle to the CTRLS window: Batch Auto-Explore
    • The idea here is to automatically build and send batches of scouts to get initial scout intel on planets you've never seen before. This is not at all optimal (you'll lose a _lot_ of scouts, and they won't generally concentrate their paths in an optimal fashion) but it can be great for picking up intel on a bunch of planets that are accessible with minimal micro.
    • Suggested usage:
      • 1) Pick a control group you're not using, and turn this toggle on for it.
      • 2) Build a separate Space Dock, and assign it to that control group.
      • 3) Set the space dock to loop build, and pause it.
      • 4) At that space dock, queue up the number and type of scouts you want in a batch (presumably all you can build, but if you've got some scouts stationed permanently elsewhere they won't be available for this so set the number accordingly).
      • 5) Make sure no other space docks are building those types of scouts.
      • 6) When you're ready to start building the scout batches, unpause the space dock. Having engineers on hand to speed-build the scouts is helpful but not required.
    • And that's basically it. The dock will build scouts until it has a full batch (according to the numbers you set) and then when the last scout is built it will automatically set the "auto explore" behavior on those scouts. As the scouts die the dock will build more and once it has a full batch again it will set those to auto-explore too. And so on.
    • This can actually cost a fair bit of metal and crystal, so once your scouts have stopped making progress you'll want to pause that dock again.
  • Lightning Torpedoes (spawned by Lightning Torpedo Frigates) can now be given direct commands from the player. Mainly this is to make sure you can scrap them if desired (so they don't set off an AI Eye) since they have a much longer lifetime than most spawned "drone"-type units.
    • Thanks to ZaneWolfe for the suggestion.
  • Fixed some issues that made non-packed-line line-place... really wonky.
    • Thanks to MaxAstro, Kahuna, and others for reporting this.
  • Toned down the mapgen initial unit seeding for planets adjacent to a human homeworld; goes easier on starships, fortresses, etc.
    • Thanks to... probably everyone for suggesting this.
  • Made counter-shot-range drawing use a similar optimization as normal firing range drawing (that if two circles of the same radius have centers within a certain zoom-based threshold of each other, only draw one of them) to cut down on Attractor-Drone-related lag.
    • Thanks to Kahuna for the report and save.
  • Updated the tip-of-the-day section of the main menu.
  • Bumped the MkI Flagship up one exo-cost sub-tier so that they were no longer the only always-available "Heavy Frigate", as this was resulting in many exos having a _lot_ of MkI flagships.
    • Thanks to nitpik, TechSY730, and many others for reporting this.

One Last Round Of Buff Polls Before The Official Version

  • Grenade Launcher, in honor of winning BOTH polls:
    • From having no vs-hull bonuses to having 3x vs Light, Composite, CloseCombat, and Swarmer (same as the Flak Turret, which is basically a stationary grenade launcher).
    • From 80k+20k cap-m+c cost => 70k+10k.
    • From 30k cap-e cost => 20k.
  • Armor Booster, in honor of coming second in the for-humans poll and doing decently in the for-ai poll:
    • Now increases the armor of all boosted ships to a minimum of 1000, before piercing and the multiplicative part of the boost are applied.
    • Base Cap Health from 4,921,000 => 7.5M (so about 50% of fighters, though the armor boosters have a much lower cap and thus higher effective durability).
    • Base Cap DPS from 28.5k => 40k (so about 80% of a fighter, since it also has 6x bonuses).
  • Etherjets in honor of doing well in both polls:
    • Base Cap Health from 4,939,200 => 10M (about 2/3rds of Fighters, and jets are a high caps ship, so effective durability is much lower).
    • Base Cap DPS from 58.8k => 80k (about 60% more than Fighters, but makes Bonus DPS only about 9% higher than Fighters)
    • Cap M+C cost from 9k+27k => 9k+18k.
    • Cap E cost from 30k => 20k.
    • So the point of these is still the tractors and the cloaking, but they should hold their own a bit better in a fight now.
  • Anti-Armor Ships, in honor of doing well in both polls:
    • Base Ship Cap from 392 => 240 (Fighters have 192).
    • Base Cap Health from 5,488,000 => 15M (so near Fighters, but with somewhat higher cap means somewhat lower effective durability).
    • Base Armor from 150*mk => 0.
    • Bonuses (vs Heavy, UltraHeavy, Polycrystal, and Structural) from 2.4 => 5 (base dps is already 52% higher than Fighters, this makes bonus dps 26% higher than Fighters).
    • Armor Piercing from 10k*mk => Max (kinda in the name, right?).
    • Base Move Speed from 24 => 28 (so now same speed as Bombers).
    • So the point is that it ignores armor and is effective vs heavily fortified stuff, while no longer being curiously flimsy.
  • Raptor, in honor of doing well in both polls:
    • Base Ship Cap from 192 => 96 (so half fighters).
    • Base Cap Health from 4,939,200 => 7.5M (so half fighters, but with the lower cap has somewhat more effective durability).
    • Added Bonus vs Artillery (already had Light, UltraLight, and Refractive).
    • Bonuses from 1.8 => 6 (base DPS was 33% more than fighters, but bonus dps was 60% lower, now will be 11% higher).
    • Armor Piercing from 500*mk => 0.
    • Base Engine Health from 50 => 100.
    • Cap M+C cost from 16k+80k => 16k+40k.
    • So the point is still the speed and the cloaking, but more up to date in terms of combat stats.
  • Raider, in honor of doing well in both polls:
    • Base Ship Cap from 392 => 240 (so 25% more than Fighters).
    • Base Cap Health from 10,290,000 => 15M (so like Fighters, but slightly lower effective durability due to cap).
    • Armor from 150*mk => 0.
    • Base Cap DPS from 49k => 65k (so now 32% more than Fighters).
    • Vs-hull bonus types from Heavy, UltraHeavy, Artillery, Swarmer => Light, UltraLight, Artillery, Medium,
    • Bonuses from 4 => 5 (so bonus DPS now 10% more than Fighters).
    • Armor Piercing from 10k => 0.
    • Base Move Speed from 36 => 60 (so quite a bit faster than the normal 30-40 range of fighter-likes but nowhere near the 130+ league of Raptors and Raid Starships).
    • Cap M+C cost from 16k+47k => 12k+30k.
    • So these have be re-imagined a bit to be fast high-ish-cap raiders but not cloaked, with increased durability (since they're not cloaked) and designed to take down non-hardened targets.

Prerelease 6.046 Activating Vengeful Sanding Machine MkII

(Released June 12th, 2013)

  • Enclave Guardians base speed from 40 => 24 (fighters are 32, for reference, and the triangle counter to said guardians).
    • Thanks to chemical_art for inspiring this change.
  • Spire Civilian Leader Outposts now use the normal irreplaceable-capturable seeding (to put it way the waaaay out away from wormholes).
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  • Dire Guardian Lairs now seed no closer than 4 hops from human homeworlds, instead of no closer than 2 hops.
    • Thanks to chemical_art for inspiring this change.
  • Distribution nodes no longer have the 20% chance of causing a savescum... I mean, of being trojan.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic, Kahuna, and others for inspiring this.
  • Fixed a typo in the Core Starship description.
    • Thanks to The Silent Watcher for the report.
  • Added Bradley Smith to the Special Thanks section of the credits roll, for the source code we adapted to develop the map untangler released in 6.044.
  • Zenith Hydras, since their implementation was adequate but not particularly inspiring:
    • Base Ship Cap from 128 => 64 (cap stats maintained).
    • Regen Rate from 9/8/7/6/5 minutes to 30 seconds.
    • Base Cap DPS from 150k => 100k.
    • Gains build points as it takes damage, and spawns a Hydra Head when its build points are >= (max health)/(1+mark), in other words every 50%/33%/25%/20%/17% of health.
      • Hydra heads have about 50% the health and 75% the DPS of a mkI Hydra, fire 2 shots every 2 seconds (instead of 8 shots every 8 seconds), and self-attrition to death in 30 seconds (or less, if damaged).
      • Note: the spawn check does not happen immediately upon taking damage, so a killing shot will not generally cause spawns. So if you can one-shot hydras it really cuts down on the pain they cause. If you can't... well, they can get pretty aggravating.
    • Thanks to chemical_art, TIE Viper, Wingflier, and Tridus for inspiring these changes.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing Astro Trains to stall when their route would take them through a strongly-held human world.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report and save.
  • Fixed a few bugs that were causing Special Forces and Threatfleet ships to try to rally (when idle) to planets they could not reach without going through stronger human worlds than they were willing to actually enter. This would lead to said fleets "camping" right next to human territory instead of 3 hops back from it.
    • There are still some issues that can happen if you cut the AI homeworlds off from each other, but that will have to persist for now.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report and save.
  • Renamed the Artillery Guardian to the Missile Guardian because it shoots missiles instead of the actual "Artillery" ammo type (which is fired by the Artillery Golem and Dire Artillery Guardian, etc).
  • Fixed a bug where the new starship-disassembling units (the expansion has a guard post, a dire guardian, and a core guard post with that ability) were not actually attrit'ing the swallowed starships.
    • Thanks to SNAFU for the report and save.
  • The Shark-plot consequences for losing a home command station are now 5x a normal command station, instead of 100x. This is relevant to co-op.
    • Thanks to Arkillion for inspiring this change.
  • Updated the Objectives screen with... a whole lot of stuff.
    • Thanks to Bognor, Tridus, Histidine, Mick, LaughingThesaurus, LordSloth, TechSY730, Burnstreet, Aeson, Kahuna, Qatu, and Aklyon for helping figure out what should be changed/added/etc.
  • Core Turret Controllers: halved core turret caps. We knew they would be OP in their last iteration, just wanted to figure out how much.
    • Now they'll be a straight upgrade over mkI turrets but not over mkI+mkII turrets. Except for the Sniper/Spider ones (which only have mkIs), but that's only for when you can actually take and hold them, etc, so we'll deal with that later.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion

Prerelease 6.045

(Released June 10th, 2013)

  • Made some slight modifications to the VotM logo to better line up with the other expansion logos.
    • Thanks to... quite a few of you, for the suggestion.
  • Struck the infamous Rotting Cow (and its nefarious associates) with the Planet Cracker.
    • In other words: refined the selection of background planets somewhat to focus on the better ones, and go with larger-res versions where available.
    • Note that since the updater cannot delete files from your installation, you'll still have planet images numbered above 37 but the game won't actually use them.
    • Thanks to Kahuna for inspiring this change.
  • Added "cleanup aisle three" cheat for destroying ALL units on a planet.
  • Added support for a sixth parameter to the "ilostit" cheat that specifies the player number to spawn the ships for. 0 through 7 are human players, 8 and 9 are the two AI players.
  • Added new chat command "load_script:(filename)" where you replace (filename) with the name (without extension) of a .txt file in your RuntimeData/ChatScripts/ directory. When run, this command will treat each line in that file as a chat line from you, including commands and cheats.
    • So for example you could have a file named "test.txt" in the ChatScripts directory, with the lines:
      • cmd:enable cheats
      • cleanup aisle three
      • ilostit,FighterII,-12300,6700,84,0
      • ilostit,BomberII,-10300,4700,84,8
    • And then execute that by entering "load_script:test" (without the double quotes, of course) in the chat box and pressing enter. The result is that it would wipe the currently viewed planet and spawn a group of fighters versus a group of bombers. This is probably useful for balance testing, among other things.
    • Thanks to Cyborg for inspiring this command.
  • The lobby "Untangle Map" button now applies the untangling to all alternate layouts, not just the official one. Makes sense, since the alternates should begin the game in the same state as the official.
    • Thanks to MaxAstro for the suggestion.

Prerelease 6.044 So That's What A Vines Map Looks Like

(Released June 10th, 2013)

  • Honeycomb maps now space their planets out more if there's room (won't affect old saves).
  • Removed the 3-fighter "advanced scout" sent by each AI wave. It was an effective way to soak some turret alpha (particularly AOE alpha) and it could mess with counter-wave defenses... but ultimately the player could defeat this effect with some trivial-but-annoying-to-execute micro.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic, chemical_art, and others for the suggestion.
  • The new title screen is now dimmer.
    • Also added a new "Disable New Title Screen" toggle to the graphics tab of the settings window (the toggle defaulting to on, at least for now).
    • Thanks to Kahuna, Faulty Logic, doctorfrog, and many others for feedback on the new image.

Map Untangling!

  • Thanks to Dr. Zoidzerg for putting us on the trail of the force-directed-graph method, and special thanks to Brad Smith for previously publishing a C# implementation (and permissive license thereof) that we were able to adapt and extend for AI War.
  • Added an "Untangle Map" button to the lobby (just under the big New Map Seed button), here's the in-game tooltip for description:
    • Some map types (notably Vines, Spokes, and Tree) produce maps that are difficult to read due to the links between planets being very long and crossing over each other a lot. You can use this button to run a "Force-Directed Graph" physics simulation that will generally result in a more readable map in those cases. This is certainly not guaranteed to fully untangle a map, in any event.
    • Untangling is not really recommended for map types that already don't have much link-overlap, but you're welcome to give it a try. The results are generally interesting, if nothing else. Maze maps usually remain readable but look more organic after this process.
  • Also added two new related chat-line commands:
    • cmd:untangle map
      • This is basically the same as clicking the "Untangle Map" button in the lobby, but can be used in-game (and thus on old saves).
        • PLEASE NOTE! This only applies to your alternate layout (accessed via the alt+right-click context menu on the galaxy map), not the official layout, as we very much want to avoid modifying that after game-start. So if you're looking at the official layout (or someone else's alternate) when you trigger this command, you won't see the results until you switch to your alternate layout.
        • Also, this change to your alternate layout is not sync'd to other machines in multiplayer; we may add that later but it's a little tricky because the untangling is happening on a separate thread, etc.
    • cmd:stop untangling
      • This simply stops the process started by the other command.

Prerelease 6.043 Controllers Out Of Control

(Released June 8th, 2013)

  • Neinzul Railpod cap m+c from 5k/10k => 5k/5k.
    • Thanks to chemical_art for the suggestion.
  • Fixed a bug where railpods were sometimes doing way more than half their health in self-damage per shot, when they should have been doing 50% + 1.
  • Fixed a few bugs where sniper units would neglect to close on radar-dampened targets even if this meant they could not fire on them.
    • Thanks to Toranth for the report and save.
  • Fixed a bug where it was possible for a unit to get partially "stuck" with a "set by the player" destination when that destination was actually just "no destination". So it would ignore any "implicit" destinations like moving towards a target of opportunity that was out of range.
    • Thanks to TechSY730 for the report and save.
  • Fixed a number of bugs where AI guard ships would try to come after targets further away from their guard posts than the normal "do not go more than X range away from your station" logic (combined with their own effective firing range) would allow. This tended to result in a bit of dancing back and forth when chasing radar-dampened stuff, etc.
    • Thanks to Burnstreet for the report and save which led to discovering these.
  • Added a "Decolonize" button to the scrap-confirmation popup when trying to scrap a (non-home, obviously) command station AND the Shark plot is active. The only differences from scrapping are:
    • Starts 2 minute countdown (which cannot be cancelled), and at the end of that the station is destroyed.
    • Does not cause shark-related penalties (though these still happen if the station is killed or scrapped normally before the countdown triggers the actual decolonization) or AI taunts, but does cause all other normal on-station-death things like the stall timer.
    • Does not refund any resources (not that this really matters, but it is a difference).
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  • Replaced the main menu background.

Core Turret Controller Rework

  • So Core Turret Controllers were cool, but they weren't really accomplishing their main goal (make distributed defense easier and more desirable, without significantly buffing chokepoints) as well as we wanted. So we're trying something... a little different, you could say, if you were given to understatement. As part of this, we also changed the core-game mkII and mkIII turret costs and redefined the Spider Turret's relationship to the Sniper Turret.
    • Thanks to chemical_art, Tridus, Faulty Logic, Toranth, and others for inspiring these changes (whether they wanted to or not).
  • Higher-mark turrets (except the HBC) now use the mkI metal and crystal costs (yea, kind of a big change, but mainly just makes the higher-mark turret unlocks and core turret controllers more attractive).
  • Spider Turret:
    • Damage from what the Sniper does => half that.
    • M+C costs from (really big) => the Sniper's (which are still high, but not nearly as much).
    • K Cost from 3000 => 2000.
  • Core Turret Controllers:
    • Now all 8 are seeded in new VotM-enabled maps (sorry, old saves), instead of just 3 (or 4 on multi-HW games), to avoid situations where it gives you just Lightning, Flak, and Sniper and not much that can really fill the main combat role, and also to increase the total per-planet firepower available.
    • Now give full-caps instead of quarter-caps. This is pretty huge in terms of increasing that total possible per-planet firepower.
    • _Very_ importantly: Now a core turret cannot be placed on the same planet as a turret of the same type (needler, mlrs, laser, missile, etc) of a lower mark, and vice versa. This includes turret remains (cheese prevention).
      • So you can have Core Laser Turrets on the same planet as MkI, MkII, and MkIII Missile turrets (or needler turrets, or mlrs turrets, etc), but you could not have Core Laser Turrets on the same planet as MkI, MkII, or MkIII Laser Turrets.
      • The end result is that core turret controllers no longer really increase the total ceiling of turretry firepower you can pack onto a single chokepoint; they're still a benefit there if you weren't already unlocking mkII and mkIII of that particular turret type (as 1 cap of core turrets is better than a cap of mkIs plus a cap of mkIIs, but not better than mkIs + mkIIs + mkIIIs all together), but massively increase the amount of firepower you can put on any planet you want to defend (if you have the energy) without taking away from what's available for the chokepoint.

Prerelease 6.042 Activating Vengeful Sanding Machine

(Released June 5th, 2013)

  • Ship Design tab of Controls window: now,
    • If you have one slot selected, hold shift, and click on another slot:
    • Then instead of selecting that other slot, it copies the module type from your selected slot to this clicked slot.
      • If the clicked slot cannot hold that type of module, nothing happens (nor does which slot you have selected change).
    • Thanks to Toranth, Aquohn, Eternaly_Lost, and others for inspiring this change.
  • Champion module upgrades: now,
    • If you unlock a higher tier of a module:
    • Then any saved ship designs (of that player) with a lower-mark version of that same module type will upgrade to use the new higher mark.
      • Unless the newly unlocked mark is too high for the base hull, of course, in which case nothing happens for that slot in that design.
    • The same update is done for that player's list of "modules to immediately queue on champ respawn".
    • Note that this update only happens at the time of the new mark being unlocked, so it won't immediately impact old saves.
    • Thanks to Aquohn, Eternaly_Lost, Toranth, and others for inspiring this change.
  • Build times of Core Sniper Turret and Core Spider Turret from 50 => 150 to be more like most other core turrets, and be less drastic on the per-second economic impact.
    • Thanks to Toranth for the suggestion.
  • Special Forces Alarm Posts:
    • Chance of triggering on death from 50% => 0%.
    • Seeding frequency halved.
    • Alarmist AI half as likely to pick these when seeding an alarm (if it doesn't pick this it just does a normal Alarm Post).
    • AIP on death from 5 => 15.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring these changes.
  • Fixed a bug from the last month or so where some galaxy map display configurations would display allied units as if they were in a transport (that is, in parentheses).
    • Thanks to Kahuna for the report and save.
  • Improved the performance throttling logic for "should I let this ship request a new target list now?" to let ships with absolutely no target list check more than once every 2 seconds for a list if they are:
    • An aggregate-targeting leader with followers.
    • Or an aggregate targeting follower with a leader who does have a target list.
    • This will particularly help ships in Attack-Move actually start firing on targets (and stop moving) as they come into range rather than waiting a while and in some cases simply sliding right past the target.
    • This may also reduce performance in some cases, though generally in the bigger battles (where performance is most problematic) the ships in question have targets fairly soon anyway.
    • Thanks to Burnstreet for the report and saves that demonstrated the need and provided a testbed for this change.
  • AI Missile Guard Post seconds-per-salvo from 3 => 6, so DPS has been halved. This puts it at 2/5ths of many other guard posts, hopefully actually compensating for its huge range and such now.
  • The FRD-Engineers Toggle (both the global and the per-control-group ones) have been split out into FRD-Engineers and FRD-Rebuilders. The former no longer applies to Remains Rebuilders, and the latter applies exclusively to them.
    • Thanks to Wingflier and others for the suggestion.
  • Fixed a bug where engineers in FRD would not prioritize a player-given go-to-another-planet order over assisting local build queues (or whatever), even with the Multi-Planet-Patrol-FRD toggle off (if it's on then they should prioritize local assistance, etc).
    • Thanks to Wingflier for the report and save.
  • Now when a player unit enters a planet with a redirector post that would send them right back out through a nearby wormhole (generally the one they came in through), they set a quick movement waypoint about 2k-3k distance away, move to that, and then move to the target wormhole and get underway. This gives a chance for FRD or other logic to fire in case there's something on the planet that the ship should be dealing with rather than ducking right back in the wormhole without checking.
    • Thanks to Wingflier for the suggestion and testbed save.
  • Fixed some bugs with the carrier auto-deploy logic where it wasn't actually considering all human/ai strength on the planet when making the call on whether to do a pre-emptive partial (or full) deployment.
    • Also made the "only auto-deploy one carrier every 2 seconds" rule per-planet instead of galaxy-wide.
    • Thanks to Tridus, Cinth, and others for providing reports and saves where carriers were being too reticent.
  • Fixed another bug that was preventing core fabricator ships from showing up in the Ship Design list (this is just the Core Spire Corvette and Core Protector Starship, currently).
    • Thanks to Burnstreet for the report and save.
  • Fixed a bug where SF carriers considered themselves exempt from the "FINAL" cpa.
    • Thanks to Toranth for the report and save.
  • Fixed a bug where Hunter-spawned Special-Forces H/Ks and guardians could be packed into an SF carrier... and then forgotten by the hunter plot, which would then happily spawn more of those units to fill in the gaps. Which in turn could very likely get packed away into carriers. Such an unfortunate malfunction.
    • Note, this won't remove H/Ks from SF carriers in old saves so in those saves you may get another round of hunter spawns, but it won't just keep packing the new ones away.
    • Thanks to Toranth for the report.
  • Updated the ancient (on multiple levels) description of the toggle that causes ships repaired by a Mobile Space Dock to stay with the Dock rather than try to go back to where they were (given the lack of tugs, I'm not sure that even happens anymore).
    • Thanks to Bongor for the report.
  • Updated the Neinzul Enclave Drone descriptions to no longer mention a dependency on turret tech (as it's no longer true).
    • Thanks to Aklyon and Bognor for the report.
  • Turns out that the Sledgehammer AI type has basically been "vanilla" for a while. Now it sends waves 2.5x slower than other AI types, but gets a 2.0x wave size multiplier (would have gone higher, but it is an "easier" type). Also updated its description to reflect the new meaning.
    • Also modified the Technologist Sledgehammer the same way; previously it was just Vanilla with an extra tech level.
    • Thanks to Bognor for pointing out the unclear description.
  • Fixed the technologist AI type descriptions implying that they all got max-tech, instead of just higher tech.
    • Thanks to Bognor for the report.
  • Changed the objectives tab of the stats window to only show the "Scout For Points Of Vulnerability" objective if:
    • There are no currently scouted Data Centers, Coprocessors, or Super Terminals.
    • At least one of the above still exists somewhere in the galaxy.
    • Thanks to Bognor for pointing out that this objective line would show up at odd times.
  • Fixed the Gravity Drill Station description still claiming to reduce speeds to 8.
    • Thanks to Histidine for the report.
  • Removed the mention of mobile repair stations from the Support Corps AI Type description.
    • Thanks to TechSY730 and Bognor for the report.
  • Fixed a misspelling in the Retailatory AI Type description.
    • Thanks to Spikey00 for the report.
  • Corrected the Zenith Spacetime Maniplulator's description claiming it was a stationary ship.
    • Thanks to Spikey00 for the report.
  • Added a note to the Hybrid Hive Spawner description that destroying one reduces the hive pop-cap.
    • Thanks to Bognor for the suggestion.
  • Updated the Beam Starship description to note that the beam only hits up to 9 targets on the line, not all of them.
    • Thanks to Bognor for the report.

Prerelease 6.041 Brutalizing Expansion Features

(Released June 4th, 2013)

  • By popular demand, "The Core" AI type now no longer has penalties to wave size or reinforcement size, since the AI already always gets a 0.5 multiplier when getting mkV ships in those contexts to begin with.
    • Thanks to MaxAstro, Kahuna, and others for inspiring this change.
  • Foldouts can no longer be scrapped.
    • Thanks to Sundew for reporting that these could be scrapped for resources... infinitely.

New expansion Core Brutal Guard Posts

  • Thanks to the community members participating in the nominations and voting for this poll from which these ideas came. In practice we had to make some adjustments, but hopefully the results will still be pleasing (or is it deadly? I often confuse the two).
  • Core Shredder Drone Guard Post
    • This guard post is armed with a powerful shotgun weapon, but its main danger lay in the fact that when damaged, it spawns "Shredder Drones" which then attack human units. If one of these shredders does enough damage it replicates itself. Further, after a shredder has existed for 30 seconds it will automatically scrap itself and restores a chunk of health to the Shredder Drone Guard Post (if the post is still alive).
    • Thanks to Hearteater for suggesting The Nanoswarm Fortress, which this came from.
  • Core Hunter/Killer Factory Guard Post
    • This guard post is armed with powerful Energy Wave cannons, but a far greater danger lies within: if an AI unit dies on its planet or any adjacent planet, or if any adjacent planet is not AI-held, this factory deploys the fearsome Hunter/Killer unit it has constructed. After deploying the H/K, the factory builds another in 30 minutes.
    • Thanks to Kahuna for suggesting the Hunter/Seeker Factory, from which this came.

Revising/Polishing Expansion Stuff

  • The above brutal core guard posts are the last new content being added for the expansion, so now we're turning more directly to dealing with the feedback on what hasn't been well received thus far (or in some cases was well received, but there were still significant issues).
  • The Youngling Shrike has been promoted from "the unique unit built by the Neinzul Combat Carrier" to the replacement for the Neinzul Combat Carrier in the expansion's roster of new bonus types.
    • The Neinzul Combat Carrier still exists in the unit definitions, and will still exist in old games which have them (bear in mind that they don't get the Shrike for free anymore), but will not be seeded into new games. Perhaps some day we'll find an implementation of them that won't suffer from the chronic-dissatisfaction that plagued the old Neinzul Enclave Starship (which the NCC was honestly pretty similar to).
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  • The Lightning Torpedo Frigate is now player-only (the AI can't get it anymore) and has had its stats reverted back to what they were before 6.040 (except for the change that lets the torpedoes live a lot longer and thus have a longer effective range).
    • Note: loading an old save with AI-controlled LTF's should result in those being quietly removed from the game.
    • Thanks to orzelek for the suggestion.
  • Protector Starship counter-modules rule change:
    • Shots which does 100,000 damage or more now take multiple counter-shots to stop (specifically, damage/50,000 shots, rounding down).
    • Shots cannot be partially stopped, so a counter-module will not fire on an incoming shot that it cannot fully stop.
    • Only one counter module can fire on a particular enemy shot (though it can fire multiple counter-shots to do so).
    • So, for example:
      • A counter-energy module has 100 shots at fully-loaded, and reloads 10 per second.
      • An AI Mothership fires 80 shots per salvo, 4 seconds per salvo, each shot doing 800k.
      • Previously, that counter module would totally shut down the mothership's initial salvo, take out 75% of the second salvo, and 50% of every salvo after that. In other words, you could say it did 4M "counter-DPS". And you get 2 counter-modules per mk*cap of protector starships, so full caps of mkI/II/III could stop 96M damage every second (actually more, against combatants with more "concentrated" shots than the Mothership).
      • Now, that counter module would have to put 16 "charges" into stopping each mothership shot, and so fully loaded would only stop 6 mothership shots. That's still 4.8M damage stopped from the initial salvo, which isn't bad. But for each follow-up salvo it would only be able to stop 2 or 3 shots (2.5 actually, on average). So its "sustained" counter-dps would be 2M per salvo or 500k per second. So 1M counter-DPS per mk*cap, or 6M counter-DPS for full I/II/III caps. Note that said full I/II/III cap can thus actually shut down a few mothership salvos entirely and stop 75% of the damage of the rest of them, which is pretty impressive (but finite). This gets much less effective if there are other energy-firing AI ships in the area soaking up counter-shots, of course.
      • For reference, a mk*cap of protector starships can mount 4M HP worth of wide-area forcefields, and a standard mkI forcefield can stop 20M damage (the full cap stopping 200M). So Prot Starships are still up there, but depending on the situation (i.e. how long the fight lasts, how many counter shots are being soaked by high-ROF ships, etc) don't necessarily add a whole lot more durability to a setup than a small/medium pile of forcefields.
  • The Shark plot has been split into Shark-A (only increases AIP on command station death) and Shark-B (only does the non-permanent AI bonuses: the immediate mini-exos and the later buff-to-CPA).
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  • The strength of "waves" sent by Exotic and Vicious Exotic AIs has been reduced to about 1/5th of what it was, as Exotic was waaaaay stronger than even the Mad Bomber type.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  • The counter-post-heavy AI Subcommander type now seeds its first four posts as counter-posts, instead of all of them. The rest are picked from a very small set of types that, while annoying, do not involve a counter-wave.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.

Showdown Refinements

  • Thanks to Toranth, Cyborg, Faulty Logic, chemical_art, orzelek, Cinth, and others for inspiring these changes.
  • Showdown Response:
    • Exo base sizes halved.
    • Superweapon-provoked multipliers halved.
    • Final exo "base" multiplier (what you get before adding the superweapon multiplier) reduced from 1 to 0.1, since the GSC is added on top of that. Basically if you have no superweapons the final exo should be just the GSCs with a smallish (about the size of 2.5 minute exos) escort each.
  • The superweapon-based increases to the response multiplier are now all conditional on the actual presence of said superweapons:
    • FS's was already conditional on the number of city structures you had.
    • The one for champs was already conditional on the number of champs you had, but is now also conditional on your highest available champ hull size.
    • Broken-Golems previously was not conditional, but is now conditional by the number of golems you have actually running (not counting broken ones yet to be activated), capping out at 4.
    • Botnet-Golem previously was not conditional, but is now conditional by whether or not you have an active Botnet Golem.
    • Spirecraft previously was not conditional, but is now conditional by the number of spirecraft you have actually running (not counting asteroids), capping out at around 24.
  • The "FINAL" CPA really does launch everything now.
    • Thanks to Toranth for providing a good save to test this with.
  • Showdown GSC:
    • Armor back down to levels that don't break "max armor piercing".
    • Range cut to about 1/5th of what it was.
    • Speed cut to about 1/3rd of a missile frigate's (on normal combat style, but not changing on epic or blitz even though said missile frigate's speed would change on those).
    • Now uses more appropriate graphics.

Prerelease 6.040 The Kinder, Gentler Sort Of Core Guard Post

(Released June 1st, 2013)

  • Arachnid Guard Posts now use Artillery ammo.
  • Lightning Torpedo Frigates:
    • Now costs the AI 1.5 as much in most contexts.
    • Torpedo Base speed from 50 => 30 (so slightly slower than a fighter on epic speed, now).
    • Torpedo Base health from 30k => 100, so most things should be able to shoot it down in one shot now.
    • Torpedo Lifetime from 20 seconds to 180 seconds, to extend its effective range.
    • Torpedo Explosion radius from 1500 => 1000.
    • Torpedo Base Attack Power from 1k => 5k, so it will hit _hard_ when it hits (a group of 40+ targets), but with the above it will be much easier for the player to prevent them from hitting.
    • Thanks to chemical_art, ZaneWolfe, and others for inspiring these changes.
  • Fixed a longstanding bug where:
    • A ship that is all of the below:
      • AI
      • Zombie
      • Cloaked
    • Would often essentially become "stuck" because they would not get targeting orders from the AI because they were a zombie, but they would not get targeting orders from the main thread because they were both AI and Cloaked (main thread avoids giving target orders in that case to avoid disrupting AI sneakiness, much the same way you might with putting cloaked units in stand-down).
    • Thanks to Wingflier for the report and (most importantly) a save where this was really easy to reproduce, and to many players throughout the months (years?) for reporting it.

New Core Guard Posts (Non-Brutal)

  • Added the 3 expansion Non-Brutal Core Guard Posts that won this poll.
    • Thanks to the community members participating in the nominations and voting.
  • Core Implosion Drone Guard Post
    • This guard post is armed with several high-power implosion cannons that are extremely dangerous to large targets, but are thankfully relatively shorter-ranged than most implosion weapons. Unfortunately, this post also launches "Implosion Drones" which (while much shorter-ranged still, and the drone self-destructs when it fires) charge at enemy ships to fire several lower-power implosion rounds.
    • Thanks to zharmad for the suggestion.
  • Core Arachnid Guard Post
    • This guard post is armed with massively powerful artillery cannon designed to cripple or destroy larger targets. It can't even shoot at smaller units.
    • Also swallows enemy starships that get too close.
    • Thanks to Histidine for the suggestion.
  • Core Riot Control Guard Post
    • This guard post fires many shells that aren't massively powerful but do significant engine damage. Also, the post mounts many tractor beams which paralyze their victims.
    • Thanks to Histidine for the suggestion.

Prerelease 6.039 Carrying The Combat

(Released May 31st, 2013)

  • Added updated far-zoom icons for the 7 expansion AI (non dire) guardian types.
    • Thanks to HitmanN for the pixelart.
  • Added final new Bonus Ship Type for this expansion: Neinzul Combat Carrier.
    • Lightly armored and armed for a starship, but can internally produce any type of Neinzul Youngling you have unlocked (includes Commandos, Tigers, Vultures, Weasels, Nanoswarms, and Fireflies) and is also the only thing that can produce the unique Youngling Shrikes.
    • Built from the Starship Constructor (or from the Advanced Starship Constructor, for the MkIV).
    • Shrikes are fast-attacking cloaked raiding ships, and you get basically "half a cap" of them with the combat carrier itself (whose dps isn't great, but the combined effect is fairly useful).
    • Thanks to pheonix89 for the suggestion.
  • MkV Youngling types now have self-attrition again, as they lost it solely to facilitate the use of Youngling-producing fabricators, but more recently it was changed such that those fabs teleport their units to the corresponding intragalactic warp gate (if any) with no paralysis time.
    • Thanks to Hearteater and others for inspiring this change.
  • Youngling Tiger now uses energy-bomb instead of shell ammo.
    • No, this really doesn't matter much, I just felt like it.
  • Fixed up the ARS-tab tech menu tooltips to show the stats for the mkIs instead of the mkIIs, and to no longer claim that an ARS unlocks both mkI and mkII.
    • Thanks to Vyndicu and... rather a lot of you jumped on this one, actually.
  • Showdown Device tweaks:
    • Showdown-device-related counterwaves now give 180 seconds instead of 30 seconds warning before the wave launchers, and no longer get the base 2x multiplier.
    • The Showdown-Device-related AI response scalings based on Broken Golems and/or Botnet Golems being on has been reduced and the scaling based on Spirecraft has been increased.
    • The Showdown-Device-related waves and counterwaves are now sized as if the AIP were 400 regardless of current AIP, since the SD mechanic is thematically setting aside the normal "guerilla war" concept and the AI is hitting back with everything it can (under the circmustances) rather than scaling with a certain perceived threat.
    • Thanks to Toranth for the inspiring these changes.

Prerelease 6.038

(Released May 30th, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug from several versions ago (when Guardian types became AI-unlockables instead of always-have-all-available) that was preventing new Defender-mode games from being started at all.
    • Thanks to Toranth for the report.
  • Fixed a bug where the colony ship's menu would be blank until you clicked the CMD button, instead of defaulting to behaving as if it were on.
    • Thanks to Wingflier for the report.
  • Fixed a bug where having a command station build another command station could trigger an AI taunt (that wasn't appropriate to the occasion).
    • Thanks to Orelius for the report.
  • Added a different tooltip when mouseovering the command station CMD tab to say that it's for switching to another station type without on-station-loss penalties.
    • Thanks to Aquohn for pointing out the confusion.
  • Fixed a bug where something whose shot was countered by a Protector Starship module would get a free reload (as it normally does when there's an overkill).
    • Thanks to Spikey00 for the report and save.
  • Finally fixed a bug where it was still possible for a Ship Design Hacker to trigger a counter-hacking response when on a planet with no available bonus types (and thus could not be hacked).
    • Thanks to Minotaar and Wingflier for the reports.
  • Amended the Grav Driller AI Type description to better reflect the quantity of drills seeded.
    • Thanks to LordSloth for the suggestion.
  • Fixed a bug where the military home station foldouts could trigger the shark plot logic when removed.
    • Thanks to ZaneWolfe for the report.
  • Fixed a bug where the military home station foldouts required supply.
    • Thanks to Toranth for the report.

Prerelease 6.037

(Released May 29th, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug in the last version where some saves from the version before that would throw errors during load.
    • Thanks to Toranth for the report and save.

Prerelease 6.036

(Released May 29th, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug where AI reinforcements sent to a human-controlled planet (due to a troop accelerator still being there or whatever) sometimes spawning on top of the (human) command station.
    • Thanks to Toranth for the report and save.
  • Fixed a bug in the last version that was causing some old saves to act as if the new "Fast Drones" toggle was disabled.
    • Thanks to Wingflier and Vyndicu for the reports and saves.
  • Reverted a target sorting optimization from a few releases ago in case it was responsible for the recent rash of out-of-memory errors we've been hearing about.

Prerelease 6.035 Dire Protector

(Released May 29th, 2013)

  • The Neinzul Railpod now does not suffer damage reduction when firing out from under a normal human forcefield.
    • Thanks to Spikey00 for the suggestion.
  • Added new expansion Bonus Ship Type: Protector Starship.
    • Small Starship-class modular vessel designed to defend other ships via passive and active defense systems.
    • Specifically, each protector starship (shipcap is 2) gets 1 slot per mark, and each slot can take one of the following:
      • Counter-Missile Module
        • This module allows the Protector Starship to shoot down a finite number of incoming enemy missiles per second.
      • Counter-Laser Module
        • This module allows the Protector Starship to shoot down a finite number of incoming enemy laser shots per second.
      • Counter-Shell Module
        • This module allows the Protector Starship to shoot down a finite number of incoming enemy shells per second.
      • Counter-Energy-Shot Module
        • This module allows the Protector Starship to shoot down a finite number of incoming enemy energy shots (which is a broad definition including negative energy, energy waves, implosion shots, impulse reactive shots, flame waves, etc) per second.
      • Protector Shield Module
        • This module allows the Protector Starship to provide protection to any allied ship within range. The generator itself is relatively weak and cannot hold up under intense fire, but does protect a much wider area than most mobile shield generators.
        • Generally speaking the Protector's counter modules are much more efficient, but the shield module certainly has its uses.
    • Thanks to KDR_11k for the suggestion.
  • On the lobby section where you can disable Swallowers, Core Shield Generators, etc, you may now also disable "Fast Drones", which for now simply disables the Spire Blade Spawners and the Tackle Drone Launcher. The idea being that slow drones (like from the enclave starship and Lightning Torpedo Frigate) can be dealt with more easily.
    • Thanks to Kahuna for, um, "inspiring" this change.
  • Zenith Devastators:
    • Reload time from 10 => 5; dps maintained.
    • Now has 1.2x bonus vs heavy and ultraheavy, base-cap-dps from 200k => 170k so the bonus dps is now slightly higher than before, but the base is a bit lower.
    • Now cannot shoot at small targets.
    • Thanks to chemical_art for inspiring these changes.
  • The Custom (Narrow) and Custom (Broad) galaxy display modes now count enemy ships that are immobile and were there the last time the planet was scouted (unless the galaxy display filter excludes all enemy ships, of course).
    • Thanks to Bognor, onyhow, and many other players for inspiring this change.

Dire Guardians

  • Thanks to Wingflier, Cyborg, chemical_art, Hearteater, and many other players for inspiring these.
  • New games with the new expansion enabled will now seed a number of "Dire Guardian Lair" objects throughout the galaxy.
    • These will not be retroactively seeded into existing games, as if it puts one next to a non-AI planet things could get... rough.
    • You can prevent these from seeding by disabling the "Dire Guardian Lair" ship type in the lobby (on the same screen where you can disable Swallowers, Core Shield Generators, etc).
      • And they're never seeded below diff 7, at least for now.
  • When a dire guardian lair's planet is on alert (or simply not controlled by the AI at all anymore) it will gradually construct a "Dire Guardian" over about an hour and a half. Once launched they will try to find the best way to hurt you. These are very nasty units and will succeed in hurting you particularly if you are unprepared. But if you catch it by itself with enough firepower the fight should be pretty quick.
  • You may also opt to simply destroy a lair to prevent it from building more dire guardians, but when it is destroyed it will spawn 3 dire guardians in a "last gasp". 3 at once will be uncomfortable, but can be dealt with if you're careful.

Prerelease 6.034

(Released May 27th, 2013)

  • Added a note to the Zenith Devastator description that it is built at the Starship Constructor.
    • Thanks to Mick for inspiring this change.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause unhandled exceptions when a CPA launched and would previously have dropped a carrier on a planet with no warp gate and no command station at all (still works fine as long as there's either an AI or human command station there).
    • Thanks to leb0fh for the report.
  • The planet-select dropdown in the per-planet controls window is now sorted alphabetically.
    • Thanks to Wingflier for the suggestion.
  • The showdown-device-activation-related counter-waves now have a "depth" of 4 instead of 90.
    • Thanks to Cinth for inspiring this change.

Prerelease 6.033 Bonus Tricks

(Released May 27th, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug where disabling the latest expansion could still carry the hunter plot setting into the next game.
    • Thanks to Akylon for the report and save.
  • Increased the minimum size the target list sorting tries to generate, as last version's optimization apparently took it too far down.
  • Fixed a bug from recent versions where the counterattack posts were basically back to just sending waves everywhere.
    • Thanks to SNAFU for the report and save, and Cinth for bugging me incessantly about it.
  • Various units that do auto-unit creation that just dumps the new unit out into the game rather than internal transport space (including the Spire Blade Spawner, Neinzul Enclave Starship, etc) now do not do their unit creation if:
    • As before, when no enemy units are present at all.
    • Now, if all enemy units present are cloaked.
    • Now, if the spawner is controlled by the player (and not the AI) and all non-cloaked enemy units present are flagged "not dangerous" (i.e. has no attack) or are flagged "never include in threat or attack count" (i.e. a special forces guard post or a core shield generator).
    • Thanks to... well, this is another one of those "who has _not_ asked for this?" issues, but particularly thanks to Toranth for a save showing what happens when 16 HWs of Enclave Starships get bored (answer: total performance kill).
  • The Modular-fort version of the Insanity Inducer module has had its shots-per-second halved and its seconds-per-salvo doubled, because previously it could make the fort into a botnet all its own.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  • FS Exos are now included in the diff 8+ cpa/exo syncing logic introduced recently.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  • Fixed a bug that's been around for a couple of months that was basically causing reinforcements to ignore the reinforcement population cap rule.
    • Thanks to Bossman for the report and save.
  • The good news is that Core Eyes no longer have infinite tachyon. The bad news is that now the AI Home Command Station has it.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  • The CPA deployment logic will no longer drop carriers on planets with no "wave" warp gates (so a non-home command station isn't enough, but a warp gate is).
    • Thanks to Burnstreet for the suggestion.

New AI Toys/Tricks

  • Added seven new expansion-only types of AI Guardian for normal use and exos:
    • Infiltration
      • Be afraid.
    • MLRS
    • Munitions Boosting
    • Needler
    • Widow
    • Plasma
    • Shield
    • Note: as before, each AI only initially unlocks 3 guardian types, and gets more as AIP goes up. So you won't be seeing all of these types right from the start of every game or anything like that.
  • Added the concept of AI "subcommanders" to the expansion: each mkIII+ non-home AI planet has a chance (with higher marks having a higher chance) of getting a "subcommander personality" which allows it (during mapgen) to pick from a special set of new AI command stations, a special set of new AI guard posts (sometimes mixed with the existing ones), and place both station and guard posts according to its own whims.

New Bonus Ship Types

  • Many thanks to the community members discussing and voting in the poll from which these were drawn. Still two more winners to add in a later release, but wanted to go ahead and get these into the game.
    • Also thanks to community member HitmanN for the far-zoom icons and borders for the bonus ships.
  • Added new expansion Bonus Ship Type: Lighting Torpedo Frigate.
    • Has modest firepower in its own right, but primarily attacks by launching miniaturized versions of the Lightning Warhead (that do not increase AIP when detonated, of course).
    • Thanks to pheonix89 for the main suggestion behind these.
  • Added new expansion Bonus Ship Type: Zenith Devastator.
    • A powerful starship designed by the Zenith during their ancient wars against the Spire (who heavily rely on shields). Its shots completely ignore forcefields (though the devastator itself does not ignore forcefields).
    • Thanks to chemical_art for the main suggestion behind these.
  • Added new expansion Bonus Ship Type: Neinzul Railpod.
    • Mature Neinzul organism without the time-limited lifespan of a Youngling. The railpod is basically an organic railcannon, with effectively infinte range. The downside is that firing the cannon does tremendous damage to the railpod itself, generally destroying itself after only two shots. Despite this limitation, railpods can contribute significantly to "burst" damage either defensively or offensively, and a group of space docks loop-building these with engineer support effectively becomes a large artillery battery.
    • Thanks to Hearteater and TechSY730 for the main suggestion behind these.
  • Added new expansion Bonus Ship Type: Zenith Hydra.
    • A potent short-range combatant that breathes (plasma) fire and can regenerate its own health over time.
    • Thanks to Hearteater for the main suggestion behind these.

Prerelease 6.032 Tumbleweeds In The Stars

(Released May 22nd, 2013)

  • Fixed a longstanding bug (which also affects more recent map types) where there was a very predictable pattern of "which AI owns which planet?" in several map types.
    • Thanks to Toranth for pointing this out.
  • Core CPA posts now schedule a CPA for 10 seconds out rather than using the normal timing, because generally that would result in the CPA coming too late. Post description updated to accurately reflect the change (the description having been part of why it was shifted to the normal timing before).
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  • The Core CPA Post logic now uses the same size calculations as normal CPAs.
  • Corrected the CoN Neinzul Youngster AI Type's description to include that it launches waves 2x as frequently, and often (rather than always) sends pure-youngling waves.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report.
  • The new expansion's Exotic and Vicious Exotic AI Types now show a timer for when their next exo "wave" will launch, with a lead time similar to normal waves. They no longer announce the moment of launch, since this would be redundant (and normal waves and such don't bother with it).
    • Thanks to ZaneWolfe for inspiring these changes.
  • Added the new expansion's "minor" faction: Showdown Devices.
    • Won't spoil the details for now; the in-game journals you get from capturing them should point you in the right direction for now.
      • But we will mention the ultimate point of the faction: alternate way to win, and ultimate stalemate-breaker.
  • Somewhat reduced the number of target comparisons necessary when building a target list in the normal auto-targeting logic, which should help performance in big battles.

Prerelease 6.031

(Released May 20th, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug in the wave-substitute-exo logic where Vicious Exotic wasn't getting any bonus over Exotic at all.
    • Thanks to Toranth for the report.
  • Fixed a bug introduced a few weeks ago where the "The Core" AI Type was not getting its traditional mkV ships (in any case).
    • Thanks to Kahuna, tmm, and Coppermantis for the report.
  • Human command stations (other than the Home one) can now construct another command station within 2000 range of themselves. Just like with building a new station via colony ship this destroys the original station and the new one must be built up from 1 health, BUT unlike using a colony ship this does NOT trigger the on-death "command station building stall", and so can be used to upgrade a station without incurring that penalty. At the same time, it has limited cheese value because you can't put the station way on the other side of the planet and thus play "monkey in the middle" with AI attackers.
    • Using the new station-upgrading-itself method also avoids the effects the expansion's Shark plot normally has when a human command station dies. It's unlikely that the new station will survive if the old one would not have, however.
    • Thanks to Toranth and many other players for inspiring this change.
  • The exo "substitute waves" launched by the expansion's Exotic and Vicious Exotic AI Types now come with an initial announcement in the chat log that the wave has launched.
    • Thanks to Toranth and chemical_art for inspiring this change.
  • The expansion's Chivalric AI Type now also considers Spire Civilian Leaders to be non-targetable.
    • Thanks to Tridus and tmm for inspiring this change.
  • The prefix for "Strength" in most places is now Str instead of S, since S looks a bit like 5 in that font.
    • Thanks to Toranth for the suggestion.
  • Fixed a bug in recent versions where the "offensive nemesis" component of the AI's response to human champions could spawn too many nemesis champs because the previously spawned ones were dropping out of threatfleet due to being cut off from the AI HW's, and the "how many should I spawn?" logic for that particular bit counted TF nemesis units against its cap. Now it will count normal-Threat ones too.
    • Thanks to Tridus for the report.
  • Fixed a bug in recent versions that could cause AI thread errors if an AI threat ship no longer had a current planet (were swallowed by a maw or whatever, there's a few different ways this could happen).
    • Thanks to vinco for the report and save.
  • Fixed a bug with the expansion dual-type AIs where several "negative" flags (like "does not send waves" from Turtle or Support Corps) basically never had an impact on a dual-type AI even if present on both types.
    • Thanks to Coppermantis for the report.
  • Fixed a bug where the "# of aggressive ships on this planet" alert control was only counting "threat" ships, not "attack" ships, when an "attack" ship is usually just a threat ship which happens to be on a human-held planet.
    • Also changed the alert text color from green to red.
    • Thanks to Cyborg for the report/suggestion.
  • The expansion's Vengeful AI Type's response to CSGs B through E being blown up has been adjusted downward to account for the fact that multiple generators are dying all at once because popping one pops that whole network.
    • Thanks to Wingflier for bringing the multiplying-pain effect of the above to our attention.

Prerelease 6.030

(Released May 18th, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug where human champions were still increasing the size of CPAs somewhat.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report.
  • Fixed a bug in the Vengeance-expansion AI Type "Vengeful" where its tantrum attacks would not happen if Vengeful was the secondary type of that AI instead of the primary.
    • Thanks to Aklyon for the report.
  • Fixed a typo calling a unit the mk5 variant the "Flak Turret Mk VV".
    • Thanks to Kahuna for the report.
  • Fixed a bug in the expansion Hunter plot where turning it all the way up to intensity 10 would cause unhandled errors periodically. This may have been an effort to shield you from what that plot does on intensity 10.
    • Thanks to Toranth for the report and save.
  • Fixed a couple bugs in the "x out of y in service" display for the expansion's per-planet-cap core turrets.
    • Thanks to Tridus for the report and save.
  • Added some bits of the expansion's Shark plot that weren't implemented in 6.029.

Prerelease 6.029

(Released May 14th, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug where AI threat ships could get stuck on a planet because there was a target that was marked VeryLowPriority (meaning that the AI cannot shoot at it) but nonetheless caused it to consider the enemy presence interesting enough that it didn't want to reassign the threat to a different planet. The only example we're aware of right now is the Core Warhead Interceptor, which is often not captured by the player anyway, but the problem has been fixed in general.
  • Fixed a bug from a few versions ago where giving an auto-load command to ships in a control group with the control-group-uses-control-group-move toggle, it would generate unhandled errors and fail to actually auto-load.
    • Thanks to Burnstreet for the report and save.

Prerelease 6.028 So I Rewired It

(Released May 14th, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug in recent versions that was causing a dramatically different distribution of guard post types. Notably, it was causing a ton more counterattack guard posts than normal.
    • Thanks to ussdefiant and others for reporting.
  • The Tachyon Guardian has been renamed to the Tachyon Sentinel
    • They also no longer show up under the count of "Guardians" but rather the count of "Sentinels". You can use the Custom Broad filter to just get one or the other, now.
  • Guardian seeding changes:
    • Since guardians were made more, well, "interesting" a few things have come to light:
      • Having Wormhole Guard Posts get them makes some map types a lot harder than others, due to highly variable numbers of wormholes.
      • Having all planets start with their maximum number of guardians is both painful and somewhat diminishes the importance of the guardian each planet can get in a reinforcement (if it's below its cap).
    • We're:
      • Making wormhole guard posts not get guardians during initial seeding or reinforcements.
      • Making the initial seed of guardians only get a certain % of the actual max per planet:
        • If Diff <= 7 then 25%, else if Diff <= 8 then 27.5%, else if Diff <= 9 then 30%, else if Diff <= 10 then 32.5%.
        • If it's a homeworld, core world, or superterminal planet this is multipled by 3.
        • If it's not one of the above, but does have an ARS, AdvFact, ASC, CSG, or Broken Golem, this is multiplied by 2.25.
        • If it's not one of the above, but does have a Fabricator of some sort, this is multiplied by 1.5.
        • So if a planet has 4 non-wormhole guard posts and a fab (but nothing more important), then on diff 7 it gets to seed at (4*0.25*1.5)=1.5 locations, which means the command station will get a guardian (it would be more on higher difficulties, but 1 on diff 7) and that's it. But the next planet will start with that extra 0.5, so if it's the same exact situation it will wind up getting to seed at 2 locations (command station and first post) with nothing left over.
      • Now when checking for adding a guardian during a reinforcement, it no longer skips the chance if the planet happens to be controlled by the other AI player than the one sending the reinforcement (if it does indeed do a spawn it will be based on the planet owner's difficulty and unlocked guardian types and controlled by the planet's owner, however).
    • Thanks to chemical_art, Hearteater, and others for inspiring these changes.
  • Fixed a bug in recent versions where the Spire Corvette IV could not be built at an ASC unless you had an AdvFact too (and had unlocked the Corvette III, of course).
    • Fixed a related bug where the MSD could only build mkIV stuff if you personally held an AdvFact, the foldouts given to other players were not sufficient for them, but are now.
    • Thanks to Shadowsand for the report.
  • The Advanced Hybrids "mobilization" mechanic has been disabled until we can find an implementation that is neither negligible (in its first implementation it garnered a highly-voted bug report for not doing anything at all, though it was actually working) nor overpowering (in its current implementation it was... ow).
  • The golem build times have been adjusted so that all of them cost the same rate per second to build, and thus have different build times. This helps for instance with not having to grab every engineer in existence to build the Cursed Golem in a reasonable time because its costs are actually fairly low.
    • Thanks to chemical_art for the suggestion.
  • Tackle Drone Launcher cap health from 17,850,000*mk => 10M*mk.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  • Enclave Guardian health from 8M*mk => 4M*mk.
    • Thanks to Kahuna, Hearteater, chemical_art, and others for inspiring this change
  • Changed the total-AIP thresholds at which the AI gains new bonus ship types from 100/200/300/etc to 100/250/400/550 (100 and +150 for every one after that, instead of just every 100).
  • Remains Rebuilders now lose their cloak briefly after a friendly command station dies on that planet. This gives the AI a chance to prevent the human from trivially rebuilding everything from scratch out in the middle of nowhere. Though if you have a tachyon-free path from one of your other planets to the one you just lost, it's still quite easy (just FRD-move the rebuilders to the lost planet) to get everything back on line once the AI forces are gone.
  • Special Forces Guard Posts and Core Shield Generators are now never counted as Attack or Threat on the top bar, since players commonly leave them as-is and they're (relatively) innocuous.
    • Bear in mind that an SFGP is a valid SF rally point if the planet is (or suddenly becomes) neutral.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  • Added a "i c u" cheat to temporarily tachyon the currently viewed planet.
  • Added a "did i break your concentration" cheat to temporarily EMP the currently viewed planet (both friend and foe).

AI Improvements

  • The AI code itself has been largely unchanged for years and has served quite well. But as various additions and changes have been made to the game some things have gotten a bit strange with the existing AI code, so as part of the major "base game" work for 7.0/Vengeance we've put a lot of work into renovating the AI code, digging in to find out exactly what's going on in there, fixing some longstanding bugs, improving the AI's response-time and actual decision-making.
    • Due to the sheer volume of changes, it's possible something really got messed up ;) We've done many hours of testing (both singleplayer and multiplayer, if you're curious) and the AI seems to be working fine. Actually more dangerous than before, in some ways. But if you run into bugs please let us know!
      • Though do keep in mind that some things that look like "units dancing back and forth" are actually just the AI making legitimate reactions to changes in the situation (new enemy ships entering the planet and/or leaving it, changing between moving towards a wormhole or its wait-point because the balance of power on the other side changed, etc), but making them more quickly than it used to.
    • Thanks to TechSY730, Faulty Logic, Cyborg, and many other players for inspiring these changes.
  • Replaced the "Firepower" metric (which was basically just BaseDPS, not considering other stats) with the "Strength" metric (which, while not perfect, has been used with success elsewhere and seems to be a much better measure for comparing groups of units to see which one is stronger; something that the game does rather a lot in AI logic, as well as some other placess).
    • You're likely to see situations where the AI is undervaluing/overvaluing some things and making... "questionable" decisions about when to commit to an attack, etc. Your reports (and save games) will be helpful in fixing these cases.
  • Converted several AI checks that were based purely on ship count to determine force-levels to instead use the "Strength" metric.
  • Drastically reduced the number of individual "GameCommand" messages generated by the AI thread by making it send similar orders as a single command. So if 200 of one AI's ships on one planet all decide they want to attack a particular unit in the same "tactics cycle", that will be sent as one command instead of 200. This really cuts down on the round-trip time between when the AI makes a decision and when it hears back on the results.
  • Significantly improved the syncing of unit updates from the main thread to the AI thread to be more "fair" when choosing which updates to send when there are too many to send at once so that the AI doesn't have to wait as long (on average) for updates on a particular unit, without increasing the max updates per frame (just slamming more data across the queue isn't going to help, in general).
  • Fixed some race conditions where:
    • If:
      • 1) The AI sends a command on a particular unit.
      • 2) There are a ton of unit updates needing to be sent to the AI such that it takes many cycles for that particular unit's update to actually get through and processed by the AI thread.
      • 3) The main thread's acknowledgement of the command gets back to the AI thread before that particular unit update gets there.
      • 4) The AI thread gets back to another "tactics cycle" after that command acknowledgment but before that unit update.
    • Then the AI thread could look at the same unit, see what it saw before, and (due to other things being different, or simply some of the logic randomization) issue a second command to the same unit that's different and possibly contradictory of the first.
      • In the case of "go to a different planet" orders this could easily produce the kinds of "dancing back and forth" behavior reported several times in the past. It also wasn't particularly effective.
    • So now we've changed it to not try to give commands to a unit until it has received both the command acknowledgment and the unit update reflecting the last command given to that unit.
  • Significantly reduced the processing load of the AI thread (mainly the "individual ship tactics" logic, which is most of what that thread does) so that it can react faster to changes in the game-state.
  • Improved the AI's handling of "wait points", where it delays a ship's entrance into a wormhole in order to better concentrate forces against the humans.
    • Previously when asking "is it safe to move this threat to its next destination planet?" it would only consider the strength of the threat on that group's current planet (and anything actually on the target planet), but now it also considers any other threat (on other planets adjacent to the target) waiting to go through.
    • It now asks that question (is it safe, blah blah) even when moving on to other AI-held planets. Unless it's a special forces ship, which is just supposed to charge in if it's an AI planet.
    • If it decides a ship needs to wait, the ship now waits somewhere not directly on top of the wormhole leading to the target planet, because that position is far too vulnerable to tractor shenanigans and such.
      • Thanks to a suggestion by LordSloth, if the Lazy AI toggle is on it will use the old sit-on-top-of-the-wormhole behavior. Interesting correlation with the username...
  • The "where should this threat ship go next?" logic has been significantly improved to consider both the difficulty of reaching a target planet and the desirability of doing so.
    • Also, a threat ship enroute to a planet can now cancel that path if the target planet becomes no longer desirable (meaning that it has no human command station or human-controlled irreplaceable, i.e. something else got there first and took it down). The ship can then pick a new destination.
  • If a ship is in a part of the galaxy that the AI cannot reasonably easily gather forces from (meaning there's some nasty human chokepoint cutting it off from the AI homeworlds), the AI will no longer try to enlist that ship into the Threatfleet. The "local threat" logic is better in those cases.
    • Note that ships already in threatfleet behavior (from previous saves, or before you cut it off from the AI HWs, etc) will stay that way.
  • The individual-AI-ship-tactics logic no longer considers golems an "irreplaceable" target unless it has local superiority on the planet, so the presence of a golem won't override retreat behavior or general targeting priorities unless the AI has a decent chance (in theory) of actually taking it down.
  • The individual-AI-ship-tactics logic now considers harvesters, engineers, etc to be lower priority than enemy military vessels if the total enemy strength on the planet is over a certain absolute threshold, unless the AI has better than 10:1 superiority. It will still shoot at those other targets if they're the best "targets of opportunity" in range at a particular moment, but it will no longer cause a huge fleet to voluntarily diminish its own concentration-of-power to go after harvesters when the player fleet is roaring down with blood in its eyes.
  • The individual-AI-ship-tactics logic now considers most forms of "drones" (enclave drones, spire blades, tackle drones, champion bay drones; but not deflector/attractor "drones" or ordinary younglings) to be lower priority than most other things regardless of the local balance of power. It will still shoot at them if they're the best "targets of opportunity" in range at the particular moment, but it won't break off to chase something moving 50 times faster than it could ever dream of and/or is going to die in 5 seconds anyway.
  • Certain AI ships (like Carriers, H/K's, etc) now use a new "Bullheaded targeting" flag which makes them heavily prioritize going after military command stations, logistics command stations, modular forts, forts, heavy beam cannons, and other command stations (in basically that order). This is a bit more heavy-handed than we typically are in the AI logic and we wouldn't want to do it for the bulk of the AI forces, but it seems this is more effective at dealing with the most serious threats on the battlefield than the previous logic (which could sometimes see a fully loaded carrier going after a single missile frigate while a Mod-Fort was field-refitting the entire AI fleet with supplementary exhaust ports, etc).
  • Spire Civilian Leaders and Zenith Power Generators are now considered full "irreplaceables" when under human control. Previously they were not given that level of priority in all areas and the AI would sometimes pass up an opportunity to kill them.
  • Fixed a bug where the AI would consider an irreplaceable target "unshielded" if it was protected only by non-movement-blocking forcefields. Given the power of Spirecraft Shield Bearers (or even just normal Shield Bearers) that wasn't a safe assumption.
  • Fixed a bug (introduced back in the days when we tried to implement paint-attack, probably) where the AI sending a list of targets for a particular ship would actually result in it being set to go after the last ship in the list (because the commands were not being queued, but overriding each other).

Cross Planet Attack Refinements

  • CPA changes:
    • Now when a CPA is launched:
      • If all these conditions are true:
        • Difficulty is 8 or higher.
        • Elapsed game time is 5 hours or more.
        • A broken-golems-hard, botnet-golem-hard, and/or spirecraft-hard exo (notably, not FS exos) is charged to at least 60%.
        • The CPA's actual number of freed ships is over a certain minimum threshold (in general, on diff 8+ it will be).
      • Then those exo(s) will launch within 90 seconds after the CPA does.
        • Please note that the strength of these exos will be whatever it was built up to, NOT necessarily 100% (unless it just happened to be 100% at the right moment).
    • CPAs now deploy all their units via carrier, to help its initial push have a similar velocity across the map and to cut down on the significant slowdown that often happens right after a CPA launch where the AI is shoving thousands of threat ships into carriers.
      • Also, to avoid cases where CPA ships were being put into a carrier containing only two ships or something silly like that, if a planet doesn't have enough ships to justify a carrier of its own those are "rolled over" on to the next planet that's launching CPA ships, and it will keep doing this until it has enough for an at least decently-sized carrier load.
    • CPA units no longer start as Threatfleet, just normal Threat. With the AI improvements listed above Threat is actually more immediately dangerous in some ways, where Threatfleet is still probably better at dealing with situations where the game-state at that particular moment just doesn't have a good way to hit the player.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring these changes.
  • This has an impact outside CPAs, but probably impacts them most: Carriers now automatically deploy some (but not necessarily all) of their units when they reach an area where the human has some presence.
    • The number deployed is based on an internal idea of the minimum number of AI ships the carriers should try to keep "in the air" on that planet at once. This ranges from 250 when the human presence is fairly trivial compared to AI strength there, up to 2000 when the AI thinks human forces pose a significant danger to the carrier fleet.
    • When a carrier deploys units in this particular way, it is forced to simply deploy the ships that are actually inside; no combining into higher-marks or core guardians or whatever.
    • Note: despite the fact that the AI's not getting any extra ships out of this, or stronger ships or whatever, this actually substantially increases the danger posed by carriers in many cases. It also makes them less annoying to fight because as long as you kill everything they deploy they'll eventually fully deploy (and thus disappear) even if you leave the auto-target carriers toggle off.
    • Thanks to Cinth, Eternaly_Lost, and others for inspiring this change.

New Debug/Logging Commands

  • In the course of the AI renovations mentioned above we had to improve our tools for telling exactly what was going on inside "the black box" and we figured that some of you are curious (or strange) enough to want to see this info too. More importantly, the ability to gather this info yourself will help in case of strange AI bugs that don't reproduce after save/load, because you can record the logic as it happens and send us the logs so we don't have to rely entirely on being able to reproduce the bug itself (which sometimes just isn't possible or feasible). So these new debug commands are available for any player to use.
    • Note 1: naturally, this information can be exploited to find stuff out about your game-in-progress that will give you an advantage. Up to you if you want to do that, but consider this your "spoiler warning".
    • Note 2: Unlike Advanced Logging, which generally does not have a big impact on performance, these forms of logging can cause signficant slowdown on the AI thread. It will generally still be faster than it was before (though unit-ai-logging something with 4000 potential targets could get hairy) but it will degrade the AI's response time and thus degrade its effectiveness to some extent. There's probably at least one of you who will exploit that.
    • Note 3: Much of the info is human-readable, particularly if you're used to code variable naming conventions, but some of it can be a bit... dense ;)
  • Added a debug chat command: "cmd:log ai wait"
    • If used in MP this only affects the host, since only the host runs the AI thread.
    • If you're in planet view when you give the command, this tells the AI thread to generate a "LogicLog_AICheckForClearingWaitPointsAgainstSpecifiedPlanet_AIThread.txt" log file in your RuntimeData directory whenever evaluating whether to clear wait points (i.e. charge!) against that planet.
    • If you're in galaxy view when you give the command, this tells the AI thread to stop said logging.
  • Added a debug chat command: "cmd:log ai threat choice"
    • If used in MP this only affects the host, since only the host runs the AI thread.
    • Toggles a debug flag which defaults to false, but when true writes entries to "LogicLog_AIChoosingThreatAttackTarget_AIThread.txt" whenever the AI is trying to pick a new planet-to-attack for normal threat.
  • Added a debug chat command: "cmd:log ai for unit,(ObjectNumber)" (so an example usage is: "cmd:log ai for unit,4270993", without the quotes)
    • If used in MP this only affects the host, since only the host runs the AI thread.
    • Sets a debug variable to the object number specified.
      • If this number does not correspond to an actual unit (for instance, -1, which is the default value) then this effectively disables this bit of logging.
      • Probably the easiest way to get the number of a particular unit:
        • Pause.
        • Zoom in far enough to be sure you're looking at just that unit and not a group of them.
        • Press F3 to turn on the game's normal debug-output mode.
        • Hover your mouse cursor over the ship.
        • The tooltip's first number is the FGObjectNumber ("Foreground Object Number"), and that's what you use as the parameter to this command.
    • Anyway, when this is set, when the AI is considering that particular unit or giving it any commands it will generate entries in "LogicLog_AILogicForIndividualShip_AIThread.txt".
      • Note: this log can be pretty voluminous, particularly if the unit is a military ship with a lot of targets to pick from because it records all the decision-making on what targets are eligible and the sorting between them (thankfully that does not actually involve comparing every ship to every other ship, but it could involve up to 5 comparison-lines for every single enemy ship, every time it runs the individual-ship-logic).
  • Added a debug chat command: "cmd:log ai commands"
    • If used in MP this only affects the host, since only the host runs the AI thread.
    • Toggles a debug flag which defaults to false, but when true writes entries to "LogicLog_AIIssuedCommands_AIThread.txt" whenever the AI generates commands for the main thread.
    • Note: the info in this is often not really human-understandable because the GameCommand objects are in a fairly generic form at the time the log is generated. Mainly you'll see the name of the command type and a bunch of numbers following it which usually indicate which ship(s) the command is to and what ship(s) or planet(s) the command concerns (ships to attack, planets to travel through, etc).
  • Added a debug chat command: "cmd:log ai cpu time"
    • If used in MP this only affects the host, since only the host runs the AI thread.
    • Toggles a debug flag which defaults to false, but when true writes entries to "LogicLog_AIProfiling_AIThread.txt" at the end of each AI "overall cycle" (which includes three executions of individual-ship-tactics, three executions of ship-waiting-logic, and one execution each of several more minor routines, as well as a number of half-second waits, etc).
      • Each line includes the sample name, the total milliseconds recorded against that sample during the overall cycle, the number of times the sample was hit during the overall cycle, and the average milliseconds per hit (just the first number divided by the second).
    • Note: at the end of the cycle it actually writes the results twice: once in rough "chronological order" of when the samples were started/stopped, and once in descending order of how much time the samples took. Subsamples are always grouped under their parent samples in both cases.

Prerelease 6.027

(Released May 6th, 2013)

  • Hid some for-next-expansion AI Types that were peeking out.
  • The nebula starships and non-human modular forts that can be built as champion rewards now scale up with the number of champions in the game if that's more than the number of human homeworlds.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic, Cinth, and others for inspiring this change.

Prerelease 6.026 The Guard Before The Storm

(Released May 6th, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug where an ARS would still give mkII for free when hacked.
    • Thanks to kasnavada for the report.
  • Fixed a bug in recent versions that caused most AI guard posts to seed 1 mark higher than the planet they were on.
    • This does not retroactively apply to games created during those versions, since the bug was in mapgen itself.
    • Thanks to LordSloth for the report.
  • Hero and Modular Fort Photon Lances now have reload times of 1 second (so 3 seconds total cycle time with the beam duration).
  • Fixed a bug where the Ship Design window would not show the Spire Corvette IV or Spire Corvette V even if you could build them (due to holding the ASC or the Core Spire Corvette Fab).
    • Thanks to resonence for the report.
  • Fixed a bug where if you were playing FS where your only neighboring AI planets are mkIV (causing the first two recoverables to spawn on your HW) and you started building either the subspace receiver or the refugee outpost before the actual very first second of the recoverable's existence (due to the auto-pause upon scanning, probably), the next signal would not spawn.
    • Thanks to Vyndicu for the report and save.
  • Fixed a bug where coordinated AI ships (exo followers and hybrid escorts) could get "stuck" moving very slowly if too far from their leader but still on the same planet as their leader.
    • Thanks to TechSY730 and Hearteater for the reports and saves.
  • Fixed a bug where some AI units that should wait with a threatball were not actually waiting and just cruising through the wormhole to an ignominious demise.
    • Thanks to TechSY730 for the report and save.
  • Since the AI's not used them effectively (or consistently, or really anything-positively) for quite some time, the AI no longer gets Engineer Drone or related units.
    • Thanks to TechSY730 for inspiring this change.
  • Fixed a bug where some units like Nanoswarms could get "stuck" at "just exiting a wormhole" speed even after fading fully in, until their next full recalculation.
    • Thanks to Hearteater for the report and save.
  • The order of turrets on the build and tech menus has been rearranged to keep all the combat turrets together and to put the "core 4" types (needler, laser, mlrs, missile) first.
    • Thanks to Bognor for inspiring this change.
  • Enclave Starships:
    • Higher-mark drones no longer require turret research.
    • Drone spawning counts doubled.
    • Drone health from 2000*mk => 40k*mk (so about half a fighter, now).
    • Drone DPS increased by 50%.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic and others for inspiring these changes.
  • Advanced Factory and ASC health from 440k => 4M.
  • Fab health from 1M => 4M.
  • The AI now unlocks new bonus types at every 100 total AIP instead of every 200 total AIP, and the unlocks are rolled separately for each of the two AI types instead of for the AI team as a whole.

Making Guardians More Interesting/Varied

  • A lot of this is prep work for the expansion where we're planning to add more guardian types and to have the AI not have every guardian type in every game.
    • Thanks to Radiant Phoenix, Hearteater, Wingflier, TechSY730, Lancefighter, chemical_art, Histidine, and LordSloth for inspiring these changes.
    • Special thanks to Hearteater for a lot of the numeric work that went into this.
  • Each AI player now no longer has all guardian types available to it, but instead has tachyon guardians (which are basically unchanged from before) plus 3 of the other guardian types chosen at random. At 50 total AIP and every 100 AIP thereafter (so 50/150/250/etc) it will unlock an additional guardian type, similar to how it unlocks additional bonus ship types for the AI.
  • For-planet-guarding Guardians are now seeded one mark lower than the planet they're seeding on, but their stats have been adjusted upward to maintain the same general level of power in these cases, and the AI-core and AI-HW planets still get mkV guardians. This allows a greater range of power between "guardians you run into on low-mark planets" and "guardians you run into in the endgame".
    • Note especially that this means that a guardian's DPS or health being doubled in the stats below indicates "staying the same" for most of the guardians you encounter in new games generated from this version onward.
    • They've also all been shifted up one level in exo-budget-cost, so their increase in individual stats won't as drastically increase their utility to the AI in exos.
  • The blanket Guardian immunity to fusion cutters has been removed.
  • The blanket MkV Guardian immunities to orbital mass drivers, artillery ammo, and sniper shots have been removed.
  • Artillery Guardian:
    • Health from 400k*mk => 1M*mk.
    • Armor from 200*mk => 0.
    • Damage per shot from 160k*mk => 482k*mk.
    • Armor piercing from 320k*mk => 0.
  • Beam Guardian:
    • Health from 800k*mk => 2M*mk.
    • Armor from 300*mk => 0.
    • Damage per shot from 33k*mk => 38k*mk.
  • Carrier Guardian:
    • No longer allows AI ships to take refuge in it, but instead generates drones internally up to a load of 100, to be unleashed upon the unsuspecting human forces.
    • Renamed the Enclave Guardian.
    • Ammo type from Dark Matter => Energy Burst.
    • Armor from 300*mk => 10k flat.
    • Damage per shot from 600*mk => 4.5k*mk.
    • Shots per salvo from 31 => 12.
    • Seconds per salvo from 10 => 4.
    • Bonuses from 3 vs Heavy => 5 vs CloseCombat, Refractive, and UltraLight.
  • EMP Guardian:
    • Health from 1.12M*mk => 2M*mk
    • Armor from 300*mk => 0.
    • Armor Piercing from 0 => 10k.
    • Shots per salvo from 31 => 24.
    • Seconds per salvo from 10 => 6.
    • Damage per shot from 600*mk => 6k*mk.
    • Now EMPs a planet both on entrance and exit, instead of just entrance.
  • Flak Guardian:
    • Health from 1.12M*mk => 2M*mk
    • Armor from 100*mk => 1k*mk.
    • Get immunity to fusion cutters (other guardians are losing it).
    • Seconds per salvo from 10 => 6.
    • Shots per salvo from 5 => 8.
    • Damage per shot from 5.5k*mk => 6.6k*mk.
    • Bonus vs Composite replaced by Bonus vs Polycrystal (other bonuses left as is).
  • Gravity Guardian:
    • Health from 800k*mk => 1M*mk.
    • Armor from 300*mk => 0.
    • Damage per shot from 40k*mk => 175k*mk.
    • Bonus vs Heavy replaced by Bonus vs UltraLight (other bonuses left as is).
  • Laser Guardian:
    • Health from 880k*mk => 1.5M*mk.
    • Armor from 300*mk => 1k flat.
    • Armor Piercing from 300*mk => 1k flat.
    • Damage per shot from 3.4k*mk => 10k*mk.
    • Instead of 5x vs Polycyrstal, Light, and Refractive it now gets 5x vs Polycrystal, Artillery, and Medium.
  • Lightning Guardian:
    • Health from 1.12M*mk => 2.5M*mk.
    • Armor from 600*mk => 1k flat.
    • Seconds per salvo from 18 => 10.
    • Damage per shot from 6k*mk => 3.7k*mk.
  • Raider Guardian:
    • Health from 400k*mk => 2M*mk.
    • Armor from 375*mk => 1k flat.
    • Damage per shot from 11k*mk => 32k*mk.
    • Bonus vs UltraHeavy replaced by Bonus vs Turret (other bonuses left as is).
  • Self-Destruct Guardian:
    • Health from 20k*mk => 750k*mk.
    • Armor from 0 => 10k.
    • Damage from 100k*mk => 75k*mk.
    • Armor piercing from MAX => 0.
    • Added bonuses vs Light and Polycrystal.
  • Sniper Guardian:
    • Health from 400k*mk => 1M*mk.
    • Armor from 150*mk => 0.
    • Seconds per salvo from 6 => 8.
    • Shots per salvo from 5 => 4.
    • Damage per shot from 19k*mk => 64*mk.
    • Bonuses from 4x vs Medium and Polycrystal => 4x vs Medum, Refractive, Ultra-Light, Composite.
  • Special Forces Rally Guardian:
    • Health from 800k*mk => 2M*mk.
    • Seconds per salvo from 10 => 5.
    • Shots per salvo from 1 => 5.
    • Damage per shot from 10k*mk => 50k*mk.
    • Gained 5x bonus vs Turret.
    • Any planet one of these is on is considered a valid target for the AI's Special Forces, even if it is a neutral or human planet.
  • Spider Guardian:
    • Base speed from 12 => 60.
    • Health from 400k*mk => 1.5M*mk.
    • Armor from 150*mk => 1k flat.
    • Armor Piercing from 0 => 1k.
    • Removed auto-kite behavior.
    • Now has infinite engine health.
    • Range from Infinite => 15k.
    • Ammo from Railgun => Shotgun.
    • Seconds per salvo from 6 => 4.
    • Damage per shot from 3k*mk => 4k*mk.
    • Bonuses from 4 vs Medium and Polycrystal => 5 vs Artillery.
  • Spire Implosion Guardian:
    • Health from 800k*mk => 2M*mk
    • Range from 7000+1000*mk => 30k.
    • Seconds per salvo from 1 => 4.
    • Shots per salvo from 1 => 4.
    • Damage per shot from 0.25%/0.5%/1%/2%/4% => 1%/2%/3%/4%/5%.
  • Starship Disassembler Guardian:
    • Renamed to simply "Disassembler Guardian".
    • Health from 2.4M*mk => 1.5M*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 8k*mk => 100k flat.
    • Ammo from Antimatter Bomb => Dark Matter.
    • Seconds per salvo from 2 => 3.
    • Damage per shot from 4k*mk => 175k*mk.
  • Tractor Guardian:
    • Health from 1.12M*mk => 3M*mk.
    • Armor from 450*mk => 10k flat.
    • Bonuses from 3x vs Turret => 3x vs Swarmer and Medium.
    • Damage per shot from 35k*mk => 54k*mk.
  • Tachyon Guardian:
    • Armor from 150*mk => 0.
    • Didn't change these to make them more durable or more dangerous to fit the others since these aren't following the others into "not always on in every game". There's been requests to make them less ubiquitous but that would require an overhaul of the scouting game so it's just being left as-is for now.
  • Vampire Guardian:
    • Health from 800k*mk => 1M*mk.
    • Armor from 50*mk => 1k flat.
    • Bonuses from 3x vs Polycrystal, Medium, and Neutron => 3x vs Refracfive, Neutron, and Swarmer.
    • Seconds per salvo from 3 => 2.
    • Shots per salvo from 4 => 8.
    • Damage per shot from 4k*mk => 9.5k*mk.
  • Warp Gate Guardian:
    • Attack Range from 6k => 30k.
    • Ammo from Minor Electric => Antimatter Bomb.
    • Seconds per salvo from 2 => 30.
    • Shots per salvo from 1+3*mk => 4 flat.
    • Damage per shot from 4k*mk => 125k*mk.
    • Gained 3x bonus vs Structural, UltraHeavy, and Heavy.
  • Zombie Guardian:
    • Health from 266k*mk => 2M*mk.
    • Armor from 300*mk => 0.
    • Seconds per salvo from 2 => 4.
    • Shots per salvo from 2 => 4.
    • Damage per shot from 60k*mk => 55k*mk.

Prerelease 6.025

(Released May 1st, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug preventing most foldouts from spawning in multiplayer.
    • Thanks to darkarchon for the report and save.
  • Fixed a bug in recent versions where winning any game would give you all the "beat AI Type X" achievements you met the difficulty requirements for, instead of just the ones for the AI Types you were playing against.
    • Thanks to Histidine for the report.

Prerelease 6.024 The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Buff (or Nerf)

(Released April 29th, 2013)

  • Added a unique identifier (ObjectType) to the ShipDataFull.xls and ShipDataStatsOnly.xls exports.
    • Thanks to Diazo for the suggestion.
  • The AI's main carrier-creation logic now no longer redeploys ships to a carrier on a different planet (generally it put everything on its homeworld) but instead to carriers on their own planet. This can result in more carriers than before and thus not quite the same "unit count savings", but in practice it works (in testing it still condensed a 45,000 ship CPA down to a level that ran smoothly on +10 on a decent machine, at least until the shooting started).
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  • The "try to synchronize new waves with an announced CPA" rule that applies on diff 8+ now aims for launching the waves 90 seconds after the CPA "launches" instead of at the same time, to make actual attack-overlap more likely.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  • Fixed a bug in recent versions where the radar dampening on mkII/mkIII turrets was... awry.
    • Thanks to Winge for the report.
  • Added new per-control group toggle: Suspend Spending If Resources Less Than.
    • If your combined metal+crystal reserve is less than this number, units in this control group will temporarily cease the following activities (even if specifically ordered to do them) :
      • 1) Spending resources on its own build queue (for Space Docks, Starship Constructors, etc).
      • 2) Spending resources on its own self-building (for Turrets, Forts, etc that are still under construction).
      • 3) Accepting assistance from engineers on its build queue or self-building.
      • 4) Providing assistance to another unit's build queue or self-building.
      • 5) Repairing other units.
      • 6) Accepting repairs from other units.
    • If a ship is in multiple control groups, the highest value of this setting takes precedence.
    • One important use of this is for "use excess resources" assignments, so if you want your merc space dock to turn anything over a total of 1.5M resources into merc fighters, you can do that with this new toggle with minimal micro.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this addition.
  • Added new global toggle to controls window: Harvester Autobuild Ignores Cloaked And Immobile Units
    • If this toggle is checked, your command stations will automatically build harvesters on empty resource spots even if there are AI ships present, as long as all of those AI ships are either cloaked or immobile (a Special Forces Guard Post is a good example of an immobile unit you may choose to not destroy but don't want to prevent harvester auto-building).
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic and many other players for inspiring this addition.
  • To address widespread player feedback that the recent buffs to starships went too far, as well as some other longstanding starship-related feedback:
    • Flagship Radar Dampening from 8,000 => 12,000.
    • Zenith Starship Radar Dampening removed.
    • Zenith Starship base capHealth from 36M => 32M.
    • Zenith Starship base capDPS from 40k => 36k.
    • Spire Starship Radar Dampening removed.
    • Spire Starship base capHealth from 24M => 22M.
    • Spire Starship base capDPS from 180k => 160k.
    • Bomber Starship base capHealth from 36M => 33M.
    • Bomber Starship base capDPS from 150k => 135k.
    • Plasma Siege Starship engine health from 3k => 100k (which is much more normal for a starship).
    • Plasma Siege Starship base capDPS from 90k*mk => 100*mk.
    • Plasma Siege Starship base move speed from 12 => 14.
    • Thanks to TechSY730, Zeyurn, _K_, Aquohn, chemical_art, Zeyi, Hearteater, Diazo, Wingflier, Radiant Phoenix, Faulty Logic, Aklyon, Dichotomy, and others for inspiring these changes.
  • Advanced Research Stations now no longer give MkII of their bonus type for free, but:
    • They now grant 500 extra Knowledge immediately upon capture.
    • Not directly related to ARS's, but related to Knowledge balance: researching a MkIII triangle or bonus ship type now costs 4000 instead of 6000.
      • The idea being that we're no longer going to count "You get MkIVs of this type if you also have an advanced factory" when computing the cost of these. In theory that yields a cost of 3750 but we went with 4000 since mkIII units are slightly more than 1.5x as useful as MkIIs. We're not yet sure of whether to apply this same philosophical change to MkIII starship costs, as the balance of those is still very much in flux.
    • Thanks to kasnavada, TechSY730, Hearteater, Cinth, LaughingThesaurus, Wingflier, Winge, chemical_art, Kahuna, Faulty Logic, Zeyurn, and others for inspiring these changes.
  • The AI's response to K-hacking and Ship-Design hacking now has a few new tricks, getting progressively trickier as the overall hacking-antagonism "category" (listed in the alert box) gets higher.
    • Also educated the AI that it is not, in fact, efficient to attempt to cook food at interplanetary distances with tachyon radiation. Judging by its past frequency of counter-hack tach bursts, it apparently thought this was feasible.
    • Haven't added the trickiness here to ST hacking yet, we'll see how it goes here first.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring these changes.

The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Buff, Part 2

  • Continuing the work from the previous version: mostly responding to a recent community poll with these, specifically with an eye to making some lesser-taken unlocks more worth their knowledge cost (by increasing usefulness, decreasing K cost, or both).
    • Thanks to TechSY730, Hearteater, Zeyurn, Faulty Logic, Vyndicu, Winge, chemical_art, Toranth, Kjara, zharmad, KDR_11k, and the poll voters for inspiring these changes.
  • The researchable Command Station Upgrades (mkII/mkIII of econ, logistical, and military stations), in honor of doing quite well in that poll, now also create (after a few seconds when the foldout logic fires) a "sub station" next to your Home Command Station that basically provides all of the benefits of one of the corresponding stations. This is cumulative, so unlocking econ II and econ III will cause your home command stations to have both the econ-II and the econ-III sub stations.
    • Note: in case there's confusion, these are not modules but totally separate units. They're permacloaked, even the military ones that can fire while cloaked (the idea being that the AI doesn't have to kill it, just the home station).
  • As part of responding to the Enclave Starship doing very well in the poll, added new global toggle to controls window: Brave Enclave Starships.
    • If this toggle is checked, your Enclave Starships will suppress their normal self-preservation instincts to avoid being included in a selection with military ships.
    • Note: this applies to the enclave starships of the player who's brave-enclave-starships toggle is checked, regardless of who is trying to control them in a multiplayer game with Allow Team Control on. Allied Player Enclave Starships will still be wimps unless their owners check this toggle too.
  • In honor of doing very well in the poll, and in order to assist in plans for revising the Enclave Starship:
    • The Mobile Repair Station:
      • Now has the capacity to build mkI-III ships that you've unlocked.
      • Now also has the capacity to build mkIV ships that you've unlocked mkIII of, if you ALSO control an Advanced Factory.
      • Now has a Radar Dampening range of 8000.
      • Now has a brave toggle on the Controls window.
      • Has been renamed to "Mobile Space Dock".
    • The Enclave Starship no longer has a build queue (see below, it's being repurposed to produce drones in another fashion).
  • Neinzul Enclave Starships, in honor of doing very well in the poll (and past polls of this nature...) :
    • The MkIV version is no longer unlocked by K but instead built at the Advanced Starship Constructor if you've already unlocked MkIII.
      • K cost from 0/2000/2000/14000 => 0/1000/3000 (like the flagship, leech starship, heavy bomber starship, etc).
    • Base Cap HP from 6M*mk => 20M*mk.
    • Build menu has been removed.
    • Instead of a build menu, this ship now automatically produces a group of drones every 10/9/8/7 seconds. That group will contain 1 of every drone type you have unlocked via turret research:
      • MkI Needler/Laser/MLRS/Missile drones are now automatically available.
      • MkII drones can only be built by MkII+ enclaves and are unlocked with MkII turret research (into Basic/Laser/MLRS/Missile turrets, respectively).
      • MkIII drones can only be built by MkIII+ enclaves and are unlocked with MkIII turret research.
      • MkIV drones can only be built by MkIV enclaves and are unlocked with MkIII turret research (there being no MkIV turret research).
    • Enclave Drones now automatically start in FRD.
    • Enclaves themselves can no longer be cloaked (for the same reason the Spire Blade Spawner cannot be cloaked).
    • The Mercenary Enclave Starship is now equivalent to a MkIV, instead of a MkII.
  • The MkII Transport, in honor of doing quite well in the poll:
    • Has been renamed to the Assault Transport.
    • Cap from 20 => 10 (metal cost, crystal cost, and build time doubled accordingly).
    • Unload rate from 20/sec => 200/sec (so effectively instant.
    • Where the normal Transport causes all unloaded ships to do a full reload cycle before firing, the Assault Transport unloads them at halfway through the reload cycle (or wherever they were in the reload cycle when they loaded into the transport, whichever is greater).
    • The Assault Transport has cloaking.
    • The Assault Transport has an attack. Unloaded, the cap of Assault Transports has a little over half the bonus-cap-dps of the mkI fighter so it's not very impressive (particularly considering the K cost). But every 10 ships in an assault transport gives it an additional shot-per-salvo, so a fully loaded cap of these is actually fairly powerful (but nowhere near as powerful as that many normal combatants). And before you ask, yes, Science ships (and other unarmed things) count for this, but 2,000 science ships involves a... rather prohibitive economic cost, considering the payoff.
      • This attack can be suppressed by putting the unit in stand-down mode; everything else it does (loading, unloading, cloaking, etc) will continue to function just fine but this will prevent it from unilaterally breaking its own cloak. At the same time, the attack behavior can be used (while not in stand-down) to suppress the cloak so you can use the transports' traditional "damage sponge" role.
    • Health from 2x a normal transports => 4x.
    • Knowledge cost from 4000 => 3000.

Turret Rebalance

  • This general category did well in the poll, and much feedback followed on what to do about it. Ultimately we went with a general proposed set of numbers from Hearteater, omitting some of the proposed changes and making a few extra ones.
  • Basic Turret:
    • Base Cap Health from 14.7M => 38.4M.
    • Base Armor from 300 => 10k.
    • Shots-per-salvo from 3 => 1.
    • Seconds-per-salvo from 10 => 3.
    • Base Cap DPS from 235,200 => 168k.
    • Armor Piercing from 150 => 0.
    • Bonuses from 2.4x => 3x.
    • Penalty vs CommandGrade removed.
    • K-Cost from 0/500/1500 => 0/1000/1750.
      • Each step is now 250 less than the new "standard" turret K costs; historically this has been a very low-priced turret because historically it was a much weaker turret than the others. It's been in the same league as the others performance-wise for some time, however.
  • MLRS Turret:
    • Base Cap Health from 19.6M => 39.6M.
    • Base Armor from 450 => 0.
    • Seconds-per-salvo from 8 => 10.
    • Base Cap DPS from 205800 => 216k.
    • Bonuses from 2.4x => 3x.
    • Penalty vs CommandGrade removed.
    • K-Cost from 0/2000/3000 => 0/1250/2000.
  • Flak Turret:
    • Base Cap Health from 24.5M => 60M.
    • Base Armor from 750 => 0.
    • Seconds-per-salvo from 7 => 6.
    • Base Cap DPS from 420k => 315k.
    • Attack Range from 4500/5500/6500 => 5000/6000/7000.
    • Bonuses from 2.4x => 3x.
    • Bonus against Refractive removed and replaced with bonus against Light.
    • Penalties vs CommandGrade, Heavy, and UltraHeavy removed.
    • K-Cost from 0/2500/3000 => 0/1250/2000.
  • Missile Turret:
    • Base Cap Health from 9.8M => 28.8M.
    • Base Armor from 150 => 0.
    • Base Cap DPS from 264,600 => 171k.
    • Armor Piercing from 90k => 0.
    • Bonuses from 2.4x => 3x.
    • Penalty vs CommandGrade removed.
    • K-Cost from 0/3000/4000 => 0/1250/2000.
  • Laser Turret:
    • Base Cap Health from 29.4M => 36M
    • Base Armor from 300 => 1000.
    • Shots-per-salvo from 3 => 1.
    • Seconds-per-salvo from 4 => 8.
    • Base Cap DPS from 220,500 => 180k.
    • Armor Piercing from 750 => 1000.
    • Bonuses from 2.4x => 3x.
    • Penalty vs CommandGrade removed.
    • K-Cost from 0/2500/3500 => 0/1250/2000.
  • Heavy Beam Cannon:
    • Base Health from 850k/2.55M/7.65M/40M (at caps 12/8/4/1) => Base Cap Health of 36M*mk (this probably makes the mkIV an unspeakable monster of a turret, we'll see).
    • Base Armor from 800 => 0.
  • Lightning Turret:
    • Base Cap Health from 19.6M => 48M.
    • Base Armor from 800 => 10k.
    • Seconds-per-salvo from 18 => 15.
    • Base Cap DPS from 435,600 => 337,500.
    • Bonuses from 8x vs Refractive, 4x vs Artillery, 2x vs Neutron => 3x vs Refractive, Neutron, UltraLight, and Polycrystal.
    • Penalty vs CommandGrade removed.
    • K-Cost from 0/1500/2000 => 0/1250/2000.
  • Sniper & Spider Turrets:
    • Base Cap from 232 => 192.
    • Base Cap Health from 23.5M => 19.2M.
    • Base Armor from 1000 => 0.
    • Seconds-per-salvo from 6 => 8.
    • Base Cap DPS from 141k => 112,500.
    • Bonuses from 5x vs CloseCombat, 4x vs Medium, 4x vs Polycrystal, 6x vs UltraLight => 5x vs same types.
    • Penalty vs CommandGrade removed.
  • Tractor Turret K-Cost from 0/2000/4000 => 0/1250/2000.

Prerelease 6.023

(Released April 23rd, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug in the previous version where the new control-group-specific sticky-formation toggle wasn't working.
  • Fixed an unhandled-errors bug in the last version with auto-load.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report and save.

The Squeaky Wheel Gets The Buff, Part 1

  • Mostly responding to a recent community poll with these, specifically with an eye to making some lesser-taken unlocks more worth their knowledge cost (by increasing usefulness, decreasing K cost, or both).
    • Thanks to TechSY730, Hearteater, Zeyurn, Faulty Logic, Vyndicu, Winge, chemical_art, Toranth, Kjara, zharmad, KDR_11k, and the poll voters for inspiring these changes.
  • Human Raid Starships, in honor winning a recent community poll:
    • MkIIs and higher now have immunity to missiles.
    • MkIIIs and higher now have cloaking.
    • MkIVs and higher now have immunity to gravity.
    • K cost from 0/4000/4000 => 0/2000/3000.
  • Mobile Repair Station K cost from 4000 => 3000.

Prerelease 6.022 Honored Bugs

(Released April 23rd, 2013)

  • The Diff > 8 escalation of the "Alternative Minimum AIP" rule that's used for computing how fast golems/spirecraft exos are "grown" has been toned way down to make the first exo less of an "I Win" button for the AI on the highest difficulties.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic and Kahuna for inspiring this change.
  • Nebula Detail now defaults to 60%.
    • When loading from a version from before 6.022 you have it set to 100% (the previous default) it will be set to the new default.
    • Thanks to Kahuna and TechSY730 for inspiring this change.
  • Fixed an error in a recent release preventing it from actually giving cloaker starships mine immunity.
    • Thanks to onyhow for the report.
  • Fixed some weird bugs with pathing through planets bordering unexplored nebulae in a game with hide-unexplored-planets.
    • Thanks to MaxAstro for the report and save.
  • Fixed a bug where human intragalactic warpgates could not be placed on a planet with an AI warp gate (for instance, an exogalactic wormhole on the human homeworld due to a backdoor-hacker AI).
    • Thanks to Tie-Viper for the report and save.
  • Removed the rule in the wave-size calculation where it used "(AIP * 0.8 ) ^ 1.1" instead of just AIP on diff >= 8.
    • Thanks to... everyone? ... for the suggestion.
  • More nebula balance stuff:
    • The recently-added "small base death causes one-time surge in large base production" rule:
      • Is now not applied to the GraySpire-vs-Dysons, HumanResistance-vs-RavenousShadow, or Explosive-colony-ships nebula scenarios.
      • Fixed a bug where it wasn't applying to the neinzul bases in the early 3-way sceanrios.
      • On the scenarios where it does apply, is now about 1/5th as strong as it was (it is still multiplied by champion hull size).
    • Champion missile module attack power from 60k*mk => 50k*mk.
    • Ravenous Shadow, due to feedback that the last nerf was excessive (though the reduction in move speed and attack range were well received) :
      • Base Health from 700M => 750M.
      • Base Damage per shot from 54k => 65k (5k more than pre-nerf).
      • Shots-per-salvo from 40 => 45 (back to pre-nerf).
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic, zharmad, Aquohn, Toranth, Cinth, Poko, Vyndicu, and others for inspiring these changes.
  • Added new per-control-group-control, Ship Movement Defaults To Group-Move:
    • When this is set to "On", all your ships in this control group slow down to match the slowest ship in your selection at the time the order is given (disregarding engine damage) so that they don't get farther apart while moving. Normally all ships move at top speed regardless of other ships in the selection.
    • When this is set to "Default", the global group-move policy will govern.
    • When this is "Off", this behavior will not happen for ships in this control group even if the global group-move toggle is on.
    • Note: the group speed only cares about ships in the selection; if there are other ships in this control group but not in your selection then their top speed will not be factored in to the group's top speed.
    • Also, if your selection contains ships from other control groups then those ships will follow the group-move policy of that control group (or just your global group-move setting, if they are not in a control group), and thus may go at a different speed.
    • If a ship is in multiple control groups with conflicting settings for this, the priority order is as follows: Off, On, Default.
  • CPA ships now go straight to threatfleet rather than spending 30 minutes in normal threat behavior, as that was allowing them to be more easily intimidated (by forts, for example) into just sitting on the other side of a wormhole from a huge human chokepoint. Certain humans are too good at arranging accidents for threatballs for that to work well.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.

Honored (and now dead) Bugs

  • In honor of it winning the "bug of the year" poll, we've fixed the one (several bugs, actually) where Advanced Research Stations, Super Terminals, Broken Golems (normal and botnet), Fabricators (all three categories), Dyson Spheres, Neinzul Rocketry Silos, and Dark Spire Vengeance Generators were only seeding on planets belonging to the first AI player. Depending on which type that player was (scorched earth, notably) this was capable of being very... interesting.
    • Note: this is not retroactive for old saves, since the seeding has already happened there.
    • Thanks to amethyst, Winge and the poll voters for bringing this (and its importance) to our attention.
  • In honor of it coming in fourth for the "bug of the year" poll, we've fixed how the scaling turret types were still using the old ship caps and not the ones adjusted to work on ultra-low caps without rounding errors (so they've been moved from the base of 196-on-high to a base of 192-on-high, with their cap-health, cap-dps, cap-m, cap-c, and cap-e kept very similar, though not necessarily exactly the same). Specifically this applies to:
    • Basic Turret
    • Laser Turret
    • MLRS Turret
    • Missile Turret
    • Flak Turret
    • Lightning Turret
    • Sniper Turret
    • Spider Turret
    • Tractor Turret
    • Note that this does not apply to the counter turrets, the grav turret, the tachyon emitters, or the HBC, as those don't scale with unit caps anyway (the counters and gravs and tachyons because their usefulness varies much more if cap is changed, the HBC because it's already low cap).
    • Thanks to TechSY730, orzelek, and the poll voters for inspiring this change.
  • In honor of it coming in second in the "bug of the year" poll, we've fixed a number of bugs that were preventing the preferred-target rules (and to some extent the focus-fire rules) from working on hybrids or other units with a modular forcefield.
    • The Focus-Fire toggles and preferred-target rules have also been made somewhat more enthusiastic about their jobs in general (specifically, when looping over secondary targets in range after reaching overkill-saturation on the primary target).
    • Thanks to KDR_11k and the poll voters for bringing the importance of this to our attention, and specifically to orzelek for providing a save where the problem could be reproduced.
  • In honor of it coming third in the "bug of the year" poll, we fixed the "Defensive Hybrids are Mobilizing" condition appearing to do nothing. It was actually working as intended in our tests, but since you wanted it to do more, well, it does more now.
    • Thanks to TechSY730 and the poll voters for bringing the importance of this to our attention.

Prerelease 6.021

(Released April 16th, 2013)

  • Fixed a null-exception bug in the AI code caused by the recent fix to the retreat logic.
    • Thanks to fuzz_head and Chthon for the reports and saves.
  • Put a bandaid on a bug where one of the 3rd expansion's units is being redirected to look for some of its buy-button images in the 4th expansion's directory. Need to fix the underlying problem but that proved to be a major rabbit hole.
    • Thanks to rickynumber24 for the report.

Prerelease 6.020

(Released April 15th, 2013)

  • EMP Guardian pulses no longer get announced if you do not at least have basic vision (at least one non-blind unit) on the planet where the pulse occurs.
    • Thanks to Hearteater for the suggestion.
  • Fixed a bug in recent versions where scouts could not be directly sent through unexplored wormholes when the everything-starts-unexplored toggle was on.
    • Thanks to MaxAstro for the report and save.

Prerelease 6.019 Nebulous Diligence

(Released April 15th, 2013)

  • Offensive Nemesis champions now do not start unless the player has completed a nebula (win or loss) or the game clock has reached 3 hours.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  • Normal AI reinforcements now have an "effective AIP cap" of (AIDifficulty^2)*5.
    • So, for example, a Diff 7 AI's normal reinforcements will not increase from AIP increases past 245 (on Diff 8 it'd be 320, on Diff 9 405, and on Diff 10 500).
    • The main reason for this is that reinforcements tend to produce stalemates rather than player-loses outcomes. If the player really oversteps the viable AIP range then waves or CPAs or something like that should step in to kill them, but reinforcements generally aren't going to do that.
    • Thanks to kasnavada for inspiring this change.
  • The Lazy-AI toggle now also disables the AI's counter-spawns when a human deepstrike is detected.
    • Thanks to Cyborg for inspiring this change.
  • Fixed a bug in recent versions where counterattack posts actually had an effective range one less than their mark level, rather than equal to their mark level.
    • They're also more likely to target "deeper" than they were previously, as targeting the "surface" planets is something waves can generally already do.
    • Thanks to Cinth for the report and save.
  • If a modular ship is immune to EMP, it now also protects its modules from EMP.
    • Thanks to KDR_11k for inspiring this change.
  • Cloaker Starships are now immune to mines.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  • Astro Trains now no longer inherently have tachyon emission (so the Tachyon train still has a planet-wide tachyon effect, but that's it).
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  • Finally fixed a longstanding bug where the "Attacking AI ships should wait at least 30 seconds before retreating" rule was not working. It's possible there are other behaviors which may cause retreat-like results, but this fixed the reproducible case we had.
    • Thanks to Diazo for the report and save, and many others who reported it through the months/years.
  • Made the normal-offensive-nemesis part of the champion counterbalance check roughly every 5 minutes instead of roughly every minute. So they won't respawn quite so quickly after dying, on average.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.
  • For the base vs base nebula scenarios, the old "rubberbanding" effect of increasing both sides' production for each dead small starbase (the side that lost the base would get more of an increase) has been entirely removed. Instead, killing a small starbase causes an immediate spawn at the corresponding large base (but has no further impact on production). The size of this counter-spawn is partly determined by the highest size champion you've unlocked at the time.
    • This will probably need some further balancing, let us know about your experiences with it.
    • Thanks to Aquohn, Zeyi, TechSY730, LordSloth, Toranth, chemical_art, Histidine, and others for inspiring this change.
  • Spire Champion beam cycle time from 4 seconds => 3 seconds. Previously it had the same "optimal" dps as the Zenith champion, but with the additional quirks of the photon lance mechanic. Now it has 33% higher optimal dps than the Zenith one.
    • Thanks to Radiant Phoenix and Cinth for inspiring this change.
  • Core Guard Posts:
    • AIP-on-death from 2 => 1.
      • Would have just removed it altogether, but keeping it helps make sure it will avoid various autotargeting and aoe related considerations that might result in these being unintentionally killed.
    • If Lazy-AI is off, killing one of these now causes an immediate one-time AI counter-attack from one or more warp gates in the galaxy.
    • Thanks to chemical_art and TechSY730 for the suggestions.

Prerelease 6.018

(Released April 9th, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug in the previous versions (and possibly earlier, but unlikely) where it was impossible to send a champion through to a previously-unexplored nebula unless you were playing on complete-vis.
    • Note: a side effect of the fix is making nebulae follow the same visibility rules as other planets on the map, so they'll no longer be hidden in non-complete-vis games.
    • Thanks to Poko for the report.

Prerelease 6.017 Defending The AI's Front Lawn

(Released April 9th, 2013)

  • AI-controlled speed boosting units still have their speed-boosting effect even in stand-down mode.
    • Thanks to TechSY730 for the suggestion.
  • Fixed a grammatically incorrect apostrophe in one of the ending journals.
    • Thanks to Bognor for the report.
  • Fixed a bug where units that fire counter-missiles did not note it in their description.
    • Thanks to Bognor for the report.
  • Thanks to Bognor and others for reporting a number of textual errors:
    • Corrected the Core CPA post's description saying the CPAs were launched immediately.
    • Corrected several Plasma-Siege unit/module descriptions not noting that they could not target small ships.
    • Corrected Bomber Starship description still saying it cannot target small ships.
    • Corrected Modular Fort descriptions not noting that the more exotic module types become available with champion upgrades.
    • Corrected Logistical Command Station descriptions implying a different level of armor compared to other command station types.
    • Corrected Zenith Power Generator description claiming to have an operating cost and claiming to increase AI waves against the planet.
    • Corrected Tachyon Beam Emitter and Stealth Tachyon Beam Emitter description claiming to be "stronger" (technically, stronger than a tachyon drone, but it doesn't really matter).
    • Corrected Spire Teleporting Leech description claiming that the unit is "large", when it's not targetable by stuff that cannot target "small" units.
    • Corrected Cloaker Starship description claiming to be "fast".
    • Corrected Spire Blade description claiming the wrong duration before self-destruct.
    • Gave the Armored Warhead Armor so that it's, well, Armored.
  • Wormhole Guard Posts are now listed as such in the planetary detail window when mousing-over a planet on the galaxy map.
    • Thanks to Hearteater for inspiring this change.
  • Minor Faction enclave ships no longer get the massively-high collision priority that human-controlled ones get.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic, TechSY730, and others for inspiring this change.
  • Added note to the Spire Shard Reactor description explaining that it can power 1 Spire Shipyard AND 1 Spire Habitation Center, anywhere in the galaxy. This was already explained elsewhere in the game, but not here.
    • Thanks to Fealthas for inspiring this change.
  • Fixed a bug preventing the "Avoid Pathing Through This Planet" control from working in many cases.
    • Thanks to Wingflier for the report and save.
  • Added a "Lazy AI" toggle to the AI Modifiers section of the lobby.
    • If this is on (off by default), the AI will not care enough to be bothered with the following (newly implemented) self-preservation measures:
      • Maintaining a powerful strategic reserve to defend the AI homeworlds, even when it does not feel threatened. Instead, its strategic reserve will be proportional to AIP (capping out around 200 AIP).
      • Increasing the AIP floor by 10 for every homeworld-guarding Core Guard Post that is killed.
    • Decreased AIP-on-death of AI Home Command Stations from 100 to 20.
      • This applies to Lazy-AI games too, but is intended to counterbalance the increase the core posts give to the floor on Non-Lazy.
    • The overall point of these changes is actually to make AIP feel less restraining: if you're playing a Non-Lazy AI you're going to need a certain amount of power to take down the homeworlds due to the strategic reserve, and if the core posts are going to bump up your AIP-floor anyway you may as well be above the floor before that happens. At the same time, it's not actually forcing you "off the floor" until that final assault on the HWs, so it's up to you whether you want to start ramping up earlier or "just-in-time". Of course, on high difficulty levels you may not be able to survive the escalation, but that's kind of the point of the high difficulty levels :)
    • Thanks to chemical_art, Cyborg, Histidine, Hearteater, Faulty Logic, Diazo, TechSY730, Toranth, Winge, _K_, Wingflier, and others for inspiring these changes.

Prerelease 6.016 Deflecting Attraction

(Released April 3rd, 2013)

  • To fix a problem in recent versions where some guard posts were countering their triangle counters:
    • Needler Guard Post hull type from Light => Medium (so now countered by fighters, which they do not counter).
    • MLRS Guard Post hull type from Medium => Heavy (so now countered by bombers, which they do not counter).
    • Missile Guard Post hull type from Artillery => Light (so now countered by missile frigates, which they do not counter).
    • Laser Guard Post hull type from Heavy => Neutron (so now countered by missile frigates, which they do not counter).
    • Thanks to TechSY730, Kahuna, Space Cowboy, and many others for inspiring this change.
  • New maps will now seed quantities of guard posts more appropriate to their planet's internal "AIStrengthLevel" (something that's been part of mapgen since 2009, but its factor into guard post count was obscured on any diff >= 7 for the most part) and the AI's difficulty level.
    • This will generally result in a significantly smaller galactic population of guard posts on diff 7 and thereabouts, which should help lessen the blow of the recent guard post buffs on the folks who don't intentionally play the really punishing difficulty levels.
    • Thanks to Space Cowboy for inspiring this change.
  • Exos from golems-hard and spirecraft-hard are now more aggressive on diffs higher than 8, with 8.3 getting a very slight boost, 9 a modest one, and 10... well, it's likely to hurt.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  • To prevent an exploit providing massive "brownout insurance" without the intended ongoing costs for said, Matter Converters can no longer be paused while under construction (they already could not be paused after construction).
    • If this is a problem an alternate fix would be for its ongoing m+c consumption to happen even while it's still under construction.
    • Thanks to Wingflier and Toranth for the suggestion.
  • AI forts and superforts no longer self-regen.
    • Thanks to eRe4s3r for the suggestion.
  • Fixed a longstanding bug where Neinzul Youngling Weasels were not attracting missile shots aimed at nearby allies.
    • Their coverage is still not completely perfect; when a weasel dies any units that it was "covering" may temporarily be susceptible to missile lock, and once the missile is locked on it will go after them. But the weasels will attract most of the incoming fire.
    • Thanks to Cyborg for the report and save.
  • Fixed a bug in recent versions where lots of units trying to do cloaking boosting in the game could cause others to have temporary "interruptions in service", so to speak.
    • Thanks to Toranth for the report and save.
  • Fixed a longstanding (back to the beginning of Ancient Shadows) bug where some minor faction ships could get stuck on a planet's central point because they were trying to path to a nebula (but obviously could not actually do so).
    • Thanks to Wingflier for the report and save.
  • Deflector Drones, in honor of developing quite a reputation for being, um, "usefulness-challenged" among a substantial portion of the playerbase:
    • Base mkI cap-health from 5,213,600 => 10,880,000.
    • Base mkI cap-dps from 54880 => 76160.
    • Base move speed from 24 => 32 (so now same as fighters).
    • Base radius of the protection effect increased from 1000 => 9000.
    • No longer reduce the damage done by laser weapons to nearby allies; instead they now attract laser fire against nearby allies to target them instead (much as the Youngling Weasel does with missiles).
      • Please, if you know a physicist please prevent them from thinking too much about this: it could pose serious health risks.
    • Has been renamed to "Atrractor Drone".
    • Thanks to Kahuna, Diazo, and others for inspiring these changes.
  • Added new per-planet control to the CTRLS window: Avoid Planet During Auto-Pathing
    • If this is on, the game will try to avoid including this planet in the path when you give a move order on the galaxy map to a non-adjacent planet.
    • Note that this only applies to newly created paths: orders you've already given will remain unchanged, including "standing orders" on space docks and redirector rally posts, etc.
    • Thanks to Wingflier for the suggestion, and many others for feedback over the years leading to this.
  • On new maps, Advanced Factories, Advanced Starship Constructors, and Fabs will now be fairly aggressively seeded far away from the planet center, while maximizing the distance from the nearest wormhole, to make defending these irreplaceables at least somewhat more feasible.
    • Thanks to Kahuna for inspiring this change.
  • Intra-Galactic Warp Gates:
    • The post-warp-paralysis time for units using a "Intra-Galactic Warp Gate - Mercenaries" or a "Intra-Galactic Warp Gate - Advanced Production" (which routes units from an AdvFact or ASC) has been reduced from 60 seconds (120 on non-friendly planets) to 4 seconds (8 on non-friendly planets).
    • The post-warp-paralysis time for units using a "Intra-Galactic Warp Gate - Fabricators" has been completely removed.
    • Thanks to Hearteater for inspiring these changes.
  • Allied Roaming Enclave logic:
    • The enemy-power threshold at which it considers a planet worth its attention (based on total allied enclave strength) has been raised by about 25%.
    • The enemy-power threshold at which it considers a planet too dangerous to attack (based on total allied enclave strength) has been raised by about 100%.
    • Thanks to Wingflier, TechSY730, and others for inspiring this change.

Prerelease 6.015

(Released March 27th, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug in the last version that could cause unhandled errors when launching some exos.
    • Thanks to orzelek for the report and save.
  • Fixed several bugs with cloak-boosting in the last version.
    • Also added a rule where something unloading from a cloaked transport is now also cloak-boosted for about 2 seconds so a nearby cloaker starship has a chance to pick it up for boosting and avoid a "blink".
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report and save.

Prerelease 6.014 De-Faulting The Logic

(Released March 27th, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug in the last version where counterattack posts were mostly just sending ships on AI planets rather than human ones.
    • Thanks to Vyndicu for the report and save.
  • Fixed an unhandled-exception bug with the resource auto-conversion logic when player resources would overflow to other players.
    • Thanks to Bronzite and Fleet for reports and saves.
  • Fixed an unhandled-errors bug with the nemesis logic in Defender mode (it was assuming the game started with an AI HW, which is technically not true in Defender). This could also cause a desync in MP.
    • Thanks to Cowinatub for the report and save.
  • Cloaking boosting (both the normal variety some cloaking ships can do for other cloaking ships, and the type the cloaker starship can do for all not-immune-to-cloaking units) now has a residual effect for at least 1 second after the boost goes away.
    • This effectively prevents "cloak blinking" when escorting warheads through wormholes and so forth, where a unit with more than ample cloak-boosting support right next to it could still become very briefly uncloaked while the cloaker starships shuffled around.
    • This also serves as a buff to cloak-boosting in general, for keeping scouts alive and whantot.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  • Fixed a longstanding bug where the rule "a ship is always considered in firing range of something that is tractoring it, or the forcefield guarding said tractor" was actually inverted. So AI fighters (for example) could be stuck in a tractor+FF trap without firing on anything if its other desired targets were out of range.
    • Thanks to Hearteater for the report and save.
  • In honor of being in the top-10 in the mantis vote tallies: Since a rule was added more recently that makes it so engines automatically repair themselves, we've removed the rule that makes ships with zero engine health have a minimum speed of 1.
    • Thanks to TechSY730 for the suggestion and... a whole lot of players for supporting that mantis record.
  • In honor of being in the top-10 in the mantis vote tallies: Units that cause AIP-on-death no longer do so if they are destroyed while still under construction.
    • Thanks to vinco and a bunch of supporters for inspiring this change.
  • CPAs have been made a bit more ferocious in some circumstances on diff 10 (with a lesser impact on other greater-than-9 difficulties). Waves and exos have also been buffed somewhat in that range.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for... "inspiring" this change.
  • On Diff 8+ the AI may now choose to delay a wave when there's a CPA already in the announcement box. Not that there'd be any particular reason for it to want to do that. No, not at all.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  • Increased cost-to-the-AI for including a spire starship or zenith starship in an exo.
    • Thanks to Diazo and many others for inspiring this change.
  • AI Home Command Stations are now immune to AOE (including warhead detonations).
    • Would have done this for human home command stations too, but inevitably someone would get overwhelmed by an electric shuttle wave and then file a bug report when said shuttles just kind of stared helplessly at the human home command station.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  • Now when a carrier is nuked, all its not-immune-to-nukes units are destroyed rather than deployed. This makes them more consistent with transports (which use a different internal mechanic, but the player doesn't really see the difference usually).
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for reminding us that fridges are not, in fact, going to protect you from a nuclear explosion. Even very large fridges with guns.
  • Normal (non-homeworld) guard posts:
    • Needler, Laser, MLRS, and Missile guard posts have had their shots-per-salvo multiplied by 5, and damage adjusted downward to maintain DPS.
    • Missile guard post DPS down 25%.
    • Anti-starship guard post DPS doubled.
    • Thanks to TechSY730, Hearteater, and many others for feedback on the new guard post stats.

Prerelease 6.013 Core Foamhammer

(Released March 19th, 2013)

  • Heavy Bomber Starship:
    • Is now able to hit fleet ships again.
    • Base CapDPS from 120k*mk => 150k*mk.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic (most recently; probably dozens of players over the past several months) for inspiring this change.
  • Regeneration Golem:
    • Instead of having self-attrition (100% to 0% in 2 hours) it now has self-regeneration (0% to 100% in 4 hours).
    • AIP-on-activation (for golems-medium) from 25 => 15.
    • Base Health from 200M => 400M.
    • Metal/Crystal "build" cost (these are never built, but this impacts repair costs) from 20M/20M to 10M/10M.
    • Now has vampirism (heals itself by the damage it does).
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic, Hearteater, Aeson, onyhow, Jonz0rz, ZaneWolfe, Vyndicu, Wingflier, chemical_art, TechSY730, and the voters in the community poll that inspired these changes.
  • Spire Corvette II/III knowledge cost from 2500/6000 => 2000/5000 because the module upgrades require separate knowledge expenditure (you get something else for that other spending, which is why the reduction here is not bigger).
    • Thanks to ZaneWolfe and others for inspiring this change.
  • To make the Astro Train plot a bit less "Automatic Death On Wheels":
    • The Regenerator, Nuclear, EMP, Shield, and Cargo trains are now autotargeted.
    • Cargo train health from 400M => 20M.
    • Cargo train armor from 10k => 1k.
    • Nuke train health from 40M => 10M.
    • EMP train health from 40M => 10M.
    • Thanks to Hearteater, Diazo, and many others for inspiring these changes.
  • Removed the "can only get at most a 20% munitions boost" rule from starships, so they now have the default cap of +400% that everything (that doesn't have a specific cap) has. Can tweak this back downwards if it's too much, but since starships now have much lower average cap-dps than fleet ships and fleet ships have the +400% cap, in theory this should be at-least-not-totally-insane.
    • Thanks to chemical_art, Lancefighter, Winge, and TechSY730 for inspiring this change.
  • Fixed a bug in the last version where having the Spire Corvette bonus ship type and switching to the SCRV tab of an Advanced Starship Constructor could cause the ASC's build menu to be "stuck" on that tab.
    • Thanks to Wingflier for the report and save.
  • MkII Transport health-lost-on-hop-outside supply from 35% => 26%, so instead of "can go 2 hops outside supply and have 30% health left to deal with normal damage" (like the MkI) it "can go 3 hops outside supply and have 22% health left to deal with normal damage".
    • Thanks to... well, a lot of players asked for this but it was a long time ago and I'm not seeing anything in Mantis when I look... let me know who you are if you want to show up here :)
  • The chase-exos for the recover-first-city-shard and building-first-city parts of the Fallen Spire progression have been toned down somewhat, and the later chase-exos increased somewhat. Player feedback seems to consistently indicate that those first-city ones were too strong, and the later ones (the chase exos, not the pre-announced ones) relatively underwhelming.
    • Thanks to Diazo and others for inspiring this change.

Congratulating The Winners Of The "Aim the Nerfbat of Damocles: Player-side (III)" Poll

  • Thanks to Hearteater, TechSY730, Faulty Logic, Histidine, Dichotomy, Wingflier, chemical_art, Diazo, Toranth, Eternaly_Lost, Radiant Phoenix, Marmu23, laughingman, Winge, Aeson, Bognor, ZaneWolfe, and the poll voters for inspiring these changes.
  • Metal Manufactories and Crystal Manufactories, in honor of winning the poll, have been removed from the game! Instead: The Automated Energy Hamsters have returned from retirement, seeing an opportunity to synergize their unique skillset and capitalize on the market created by player dissatisfaction with the Manufactories. Specifically:
    • If something you're building requires either more metal or more crystal than is available, the Automated Resource-Conversion Hamsters will perform Just-In-Time conversion of the other resource into the needed one. The process is inefficient, however, and consumes 1.5 times as much of the converted material as it produces of the other.
      • If the new "Max Resource Conversion" galaxy-wide control is set to -1 (the default), then there is no limit to how much this as-needed conversion will convert per second. Otherwise, it will not convert more than the specified amount per second. If it is set to zero, the automatic conversion is effectively disabled.
    • If something causes you to gain either more metal or crystal than the resource cap will let you hold, the extra amount tries to convert into the other resource (at a 1.5:1 ratio, like with conversion-on-spending). If the other resource also hits cap, it then does the normal logic for the excess (first tries to distribute it to other human players, and if that doesn't work just dumps it all over the floor).
  • In honor of coming in third in the poll, the Spirecraft Scout:
    • Removed normal attrition while on higher-mark enemy planets.
    • Instead limited the range of these like we do with transports:
      • When hopping out of supply, they take 50/34/25/20/17% of max health in damage. This gives it a maximum effective range of 2/3/4/5/6 hops outside supply.
      • They cannot be repaired by another unit under any circumstances.
      • While on a friendly planet they auto regenerate fairly quickly (from 0% to 100% in 30 seconds). So if you're ok with roughly half the effective range you can reuse them.

Congratulating The Winners Of The "Aim the Nerfbat of Damocles: AI-side (III)" Poll

  • Thanks to Hearteater, TechSY730, Faulty Logic, Histidine, Dichotomy, Wingflier, chemical_art, Diazo, Toranth, Eternaly_Lost, Radiant Phoenix, Marmu23, laughingman, Winge, Cinth, Aeson, onyhow, and the poll voters for inspiring these changes.
  • Ravenous Shadow, in honor of tying for second:
    • Base Speed from 84 => 75.
    • Base Attack Power from 60k => 54k.
    • Shots per salvo from 45 => 40.
    • Base Attack Range from 17k => 15k.
    • The combination of those 4 roughly-10% nerfs should be pretty significant. It's supposed to be a pretty nasty combatant, and you really have to pull out the stops with distracting fire and providing shielding (both from your modules and your projected-shield-ability) for the enclaves to save many of them. But it should be substantially easier now.
  • Interplanetary Munitions Booster, as an honorable mention (4th place, if it matters):
    • AIP-on-death from 20 to 5.
  • Gravity, in honor winning this poll (and coming in second on the player-side) ... well, actually, we can't nerf gravity. But we can nerf all the artificial gravity units!
    • All grav-well units except the player home forcefield generator (but including the grav drill) have had the "speed ceilings" they enforce upon victims multiplied by 4. So the mkIII grav turret used to slow things down to 2, but now slows them down to 8 (the old ceiling on the mkI, incidentally), and so on.
    • Grav Turret knowledge unlock cost from 750/3000/4000 => 500/1500/2500.
    • Since gravity is no longer as game-changing, immunity to Gravity has been removed from the following units:
      • Hunter/Killer
      • Spire Starship
      • Raptor
      • Spire Corvette
      • Super Hybrid
      • All Golems (except the Devourer)
      • All Spirecraft (except the Spirecraft Scout; all scouts are immune to gravity)
      • Resistance Fighter ships (from the base game minor faction)
      • Marauder ships (from the base game minor faction)
      • Most of the units retaining this immunity do so because they need to travel at a consistent speed to make sense (Zenith Trader, Devourer Golem, Astro Trains, etc), rather than to counter the grav-well units.
  • In honor of tying for second in the poll, Counterattack guard posts:
    • Can no longer just send a wave anywhere, the target must be within X hops of a warp gate, where X is the mark level of the counterattack guard post in question.
    • Wave timer down from 14 minutes => 10 minutes, due to player complaints that it was annoying to have to wait that long.

Core Versions Of 18 Additional Fleet Ship Types

  • Added Core (MkV) versions of the 18 fleet ship types (15 base game, 3 TZR) that did not already have them:
    • Space Tank
    • Sniper
    • Electric Shuttle
    • Vorticular Cutlass
    • Infiltrator
    • Eye Bot
    • Autocannon Minipod
    • Deflector Drone
    • Ether Jet
    • Shield Bearer
    • Anti-Armor Ship
    • MLRS
    • Munitions Booster
    • Teleport Raider
    • Teleport Battle Station
    • Zenith Auto Bomb
    • Armor Booster
    • Zenith Viral Shredder
  • Core Fabricators for all of the above are now eligible for seeding as fabs during mapgen.
  • Since the available variety has increased, the number of Core Fabs seeded during mapgen has been increased by 2.

Prerelease 6.012 Darkened Sky, Altered Starship

(Released March 12th, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug where Hive-Golem wasps were contributing way too much charge to a vengeance generator on death.
    • Thanks to Vyndicu for the report.
  • Fixed a bug in the previous version where the AI could get a single (non-respawning) offensive nemesis champion even if the human players had no champions.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the report.
  • Now when starting the game your initial metal/crystal stockpiles are 200k/200k instead of 20k/20k. It may sound like a lot but even just a homeworld's starting resource generation amounts to the difference in only a few minutes, so it's not much of an advantage. But it does help the first few minutes of the game not drag on so much (due to running a zero'd out economy - that will still happen to a lot of players but it won't be as bad).
    • Thanks to Wingflier, Moonshine Fox, LaughingThesaurus, Diazo, Winge, TechSY730, and Aeson for inspiring this change.

Starship Rebalance (Later-game power, role compared to fleet ships)

  • We got a lot of feedback about last version's changes to the Spire and Zenith starships, and much of it pointed to starships in general being pretty good in the early/mid game but falling off the pace compared to fleet ships in the later parts of the game due to the Advanced Factory making mkIV fleet ships available and starships having no real parallel to that. So let's see what happens if we change that.
    • Note that this shouldn't have much of an impact on the early game at all; mainly it comes into play when you're in a position to actually take-and-hold the new capturables and have the resource income to use them.
    • Also note that starship-only games will still generally not be viable in harder scenarios because the resource costs are so high. These aren't intended to be able to replace fleet ships in all roles.
    • Thanks to chemical_art, TechSY730, Winge, Faulty Logic, Diazo, onyhow, Hearteater, Dichotomy, Jonz0rz, Wingflier, and others for inspiring these changes.
  • Amendments/Fixes to some of the Spire/Zenith Starship changes from last version
    • The change in the last version where the Spire Starship and Zenith Starship were effectively mkII/III/IV instead of mkI/II/III has been reverted.
    • The AI now pays more for these in exos than it did before, since the cap reduction made them individually stronger than they used to be.
    • Waves including these now get one mark lower than they used to, due to the lower ship cap and higher individual strength. This can result in a wave not having Spire or Zenith starships available to it at all.
  • Added a new type of important capturable structure: the Advanced Starship Constructor.
    • These are very similar to Advanced Factories, but instead of mkIV fleet ships these can produce the mkIV version of a starship you already have the mkIII of.
    • The Scout Starship and Enclave Starship already have mkIV versions at the normal starship constructor and are not on this one's menu.
    • The Cloaker Starship and Riot Starship do not have mkIV versions (the former because it didn't seem necessary, the latter because otherwise no AI ship would ever have working engines again).
    • But all the other types (Flagship, Zenith Starship, Spire Starship, Heavy Bomber Starship, Plasma Siege Starship, Leech Starship, and Raid Starship) now have mkIV versions. Like with fleet ships, they are not unlocked directly but are available at the advanced production structure when mkIII is unlocked.
    • These try very hard to not seed on the same planet as an Adv Fact.
    • In new games with CSGs on, a planet with an ASC will get a CSG-B generator like a planet with an AdvFact would.
  • Added Core Fabricators (specifically, in the "Experimental Starship" category) for producing the mkV versions of the Flagship, Spire Starship, Zenith Starship, Plasma Siege Starship, Leech Starship, and Raid Starship.
    • Also, the experimental starship category of fabricators now seeds an extra fab at the beginning of the game (so from 2 => 3, on single-HW games).
  • The Heavy Bomber Starship mkIV is now produced at the Advanced Starship Constructor, and no longer produced at the bomber-star fabricator (that now produces the mkV variant).
  • Spire Corvette:
    • MkIV is no longer researchable or buildable at a normal starship constructor, but instead can be built at an Advanced Starship Constructor if you've unlocked the MkIII version.
      • Knowledge cost of mkIII from 3500 => 6000 now that you get the mkIVs "for free" with an ASC. This makes the knowledge costs of the corvette identical to other bonus types.
    • Base Cap DPS of the main weapon from 120k*mk => 300k*mk (same as Spire Starship, and the corvette's modules are its extra boost for being a bonus type rather than a core type).
    • Beam cycle time from 10 seconds => 3 seconds (so an actual reload of 1 second, plus the 2 second firing time), damage adjusted to maintain DPS.
    • Note that these are really considered a "bonus fleet ship" for balance purposes, they're just built like a starship.
  • Another important point about starships that's really come to light that starships have been competing with fleet ships more-or-less directly in terms of Knowledge-costs and thus players are seeing them as replacements for fleet ships when they're really supposed to be more of a supporting category (like, for instance, turrets: turrets are great, but they don't displace the role of fleet ships). So we're trying something new with that too:
  • The knowledge costs for the Flagship, Heavy Bomber Starship, Plasma Siege Starship, and Leech Starship are now 0/1000/3000 and the the costs for the Zenith Starship and Spire Starship, are now 500/1000/2500, for a total of 4000 to unlock mkIII (and thus mkIV if you have an ASC), compared to the 8500 K needed to do the same for a triangle fleet ship type.
    • In return, the overall dps of starships is coming down: you'll still be getting a good deal in terms of DPS-per-K return, but you won't be able to "buy" all your DPS that way because there's only so much total starship cap available.
    • Overall, the effect is to make starships "as a category" more explicitly a support-role compared to fleet ships "as a category", while still emphasizing them as individually-powerful (and very durable, relative to fleet ships) units. You can probably still go "starship-only" in easier scenarios, or in the early (and maybe mid, with an ASC) game in a harder scenario, but in general going "starship-only" is just not going to give you the needed core of firepower to replace fleet ships. But you won't be paying fleet-ship-levels of K to get them, either, which is the main thing.
  • Flagship:
    • Ship cap from 4 => 2 (health and damage adjusted to maintain cap values).
    • Munitions boost range from 2000+(1000*mk) => 4000+(2000*mk) (which also increases the "total ship area" it can boost simultaneously) to compensate for fewer individual boosting platforms.
    • Base CapDPS from 50k => 30k.
    • Cap m/c cost from 240k/160k => 120k/80k.
    • Cap e cost from 40k => 20k.
  • Zenith Starship:
    • Ship cap from 2 => 1 (health and damage adjusted to maintain cap values).
    • Base CapDPS from 50k => 40k.
    • Cap m/c cost is 80k/120k (has been since last version, but worth mentioning).
    • Cap e cost is 20k (ditto).
  • Spire Starship:
    • Ship cap from 2 => 1 (health and damage adjusted to maintain cap values).
    • Base CapDPS from 300k => 180k.
    • Cap m/c cost is 90k/110k (has been since last version, but worth mentioning).
    • Cap e cost is 20k (ditto).
  • Heavy Bomber Starship:
    • Ship cap from 4 => 2 (health and damage adjusted to maintain cap values).
    • CapHealth from 28M => 36M.
    • Base CapDPS from 140k => 120k (would have dropped it more, but generally getting a feel that these felt underpowered previously).
    • Cap m/c cost from 340k/60k => 170k/30k.
    • Cap e cost from 40k => 20k.
  • Plasma Siege Starship:
    • Ship cap from 4 => 2 (health and damage adjusted to maintain cap values).
    • Base Cap DPS from 100k => 90k (would have dropped it more, but generally getting a feel that these felt underpowered previously).
    • Cap m/c cost from 60k/340k => 30k/170k.
    • Cap e cost from 40k => 20k.
    • Base move speed from 8 => 12 (now same as missile frigate, the slowest triangle ship).
  • Leech Starship:
    • Ship cap from 4 => 2 (health and damage adjusted to maintain cap values).
    • Base Cap DPS from 72k => 40k.
    • Cap m/c cost from 240k/160k => 120k/80k.
    • Cap e cost from 40k => 20k.

Dark Spire Revamp

  • The Dark Spire minor faction is a lot of fun, at least for players who like that kind of thing.
    • But over the months two key problems have been identified:
      • It doesn't take much of a spawn-spiral to lead to 50k+ of the things in the game, which is kind of a deathblow to the cpu. Minor factions taking over the galaxy is fun (if you asked for it in the lobby settings), but it needs to still run on your machine.
      • Particularly once there are a lot of Dark Spire spawned, they don't really do much.
    • So we're making several changes to keep the cpu cost of these under control while retaining their overall power, and giving them a little bit of extra logic to keep them from behaving in an ineffective manner.
    • Thanks to Jefferson, chemical_art, Cinth, Vyndicu, Faulty Logic, and others for inspiring these changes.
  • The Dark Spire Wraith has had its health, damage, and strength-cost (used when computing how many to spawn) doubled.
    • Effectively this halves the size of their spawns while keeping the overall power of those spawns the same.
  • The Vengeance Generators now spawn different versions of the 3 Dark Spire minor faction ships, with different stats to better facilitate spawn "packing":
    • Normal Combat Ship: 5 times as powerful as the Wraith.
    • Advanced Combat Ship: 5 times as powerful as the Normal Combat Ship. So like 25 Wraiths.
    • Command Ship: 5 times as powerful as the Advanced Combat Ship. So like 125 Wraiths.
    • Note that already-spawned Dark Spire ships in old saves will have the old stats and not really be affected by any of these changes (so if you've already got 50k of the guys running around, this isn't going to help your cpu).
  • The chance of what ship it will pick in a spawn is now weighted by the number of vengeance-spawned Dark Spire ships in the galaxy already; below 100 it's more heavily weighted towards Wraiths, above 1000 it picks the command ship a lot more often, etc. This tends to make its numerical explosion slow down rapidly as the milestones are passed, without really slowing down the overall power growth of the faction.
  • Since the individual spawns can now be much more expensive, the game tracks a "debt" for the spawns that delays the next trigger accordingly. So if it picks a command ship it's going to need more "fuel" to get the next spawn than if it had just picked exactly the right number of Wraiths to fill its budget.
  • About every 5 minutes:
    • All non-command vengeance-spawned dark spire ships without a leader will look for a command ship on that planet to pick as a leader (if there are multiple such command ships, they split roughly evenly).
    • All command ships without a chase target pick one. Each command ship is hardwired to either go after the humans (picks a human command station), the AI (picks a non-invincible AI guard post that isn't a counterattack or special forces post), or just kind of wander (doesn't pick a chase target). The command ships will be roughly divided evenly between those three categories.
  • All the vengeance-spawned dark spire ships (not the ones from the nebula) are now immune to the black hole generator.

Prerelease 6.011 Nemesis of the Dubious Honor

(Released March 5th, 2012)

  • MkI-MkIV carriers are no longer immune to nuclear explosions (mkV still are, but you basically have to have an AI at tech level V for them to show up, and that's not easy to do in a game you plan to win).
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  • Fixed a bug in the last version where the friendly-enclave-pop-cap was computing as if all planets were non-AI (so the base of the calculation was generally at least 4 times as big as it should have been.
    • Thanks to Aziphos for the report and save.
  • Added a column to the reference export which lists all the types of modules that the ship on that row can mount.
    • Thanks to Diazo for the suggestion.
  • Minor faction neinzul younglings (generally launched from roaming enclaves) now give far less "charge" to a Dark Spire Vengeance Generator when they die.
    • Thanks to Vyndicu for reporting where this was causing problems. If by "problems" you mean a galaxy completely overrun by Dark Spire.

Congratulating The Winners Of The 9th Worst-Unit Poll

  • Decoy drones, in honor of tying for first in the latest what-needs-a-buff poll:
    • Ship cap from 9 => 40 (but the AI pays about the same for them as it used to, since these were already strong enough for the AI).
    • Base energy cost from 1000 => 250.
    • Base speed from 14 => 26 (so now same as bombers).
    • Base health from 200k => 1M.
    • Thanks to Dichotomy, Faulty Logic, LintMan, Vacuity, Diazo, and the voters for inspiring these changes.
  • AI Guard Posts (not the core ones, the normal ones), in honor of tying for first in the latest what-needs-a-buff poll (after many months of feedback that these were not threatening enough) :
    • Short Range Guard Post:
      • Renamed To Needler Guard Post.
      • Hull Type from Medium => Light.
      • Base Health from 700k*mk => 3M*mk (about 1/5th a cap of fighters).
      • Base Attack Range from 6000 => 7500 (same as needler turret).
      • Shots-per-salvo from 1 => 5.
      • Base DPS from 1267*mk => 50k*mk (right around a cap of fighters).
      • Vs-Hull-Type bonus list from "Heavy (2x), Artillery (3x)" => "Heavy, UltraHeavy, Structural, Artillery (all 6x)" (same types as needler turret, same multiplier as fighter).
    • MLRS Guard Post:
      • Hull Type from Heavy => Medium.
      • Base Health from 700k*mk => 3M*mk.
      • Base Attack Range from 7000 => 12000 (same as MLRS turret).
      • Shots-per-salvo from 11/21/31/41/51 => 30.
      • Base DPS from 1700*mk => 50k*mk.
      • Vs-Hull-Type bonus list from "Light (16x), Swarmer (8x), Neutron (4x)" => "Light, Swarmer, Neutron, UltraLight, CloseCombat (all 6x)" (same types as MLRS turret).
    • Missile Guard Post:
      • Base Health from 700k*mk => 3M*mk.
      • Seconds-per-salvo from 7/6/5/4/3 => 3.
      • Base Attack Range from 17k/27k/37k/47k/57k => 27k (same as Missile turret).
      • Base DPS from 13k*mk => 50k*mk.
      • Vs-Hull-Type bonus list from "UltraLight (8x), Medium (6x)" => "UltraLight, Medium, Polycrystal, Neutron, Composite (all 6x)" (same types as Missile turret).
    • Passive Guard Post:
      • Renamed To Laser Guard Post (hey, at least it's not now the Passive-Aggressive Guard Post).
      • Hull Type from Structural => Heavy.
      • Base Health from 1.4M*mk => 3M*mk.
      • Shot type from flare => laser.
      • Base Attack Range from 8000 => 9000 (same as Laser turret).
      • Shots-per-salvo from 1 => 4.
      • Base DPS from (negligible) => 50k*mk.
      • Vs-Hull-Type bonus list from (well, nothing) => "Refractive, UltraHeavy, Polycrystal, Heavy (all 6x)" (same types as Laser turret).
    • Anti-Starship Arachnid Guard Post:
      • Hull Type from Light => Polycrystal.
      • Base Health from 1.4M*mk => 3M*mk.
      • Base Attack Range from 10k/12k/14k/16k/18k => 14k.
      • Seconds-per-salvo from 15 => 5.
      • Base DPS from 10k*mk => 500k*mk (bear in mind these cannot target small stuff, it's an anti-starship sort of thing).
      • Vs-Hull-Type bonus list still empty, but now has 0x multiplier vs Scout hull so it doesn't just gank your transports.
      • Shot type from laser => energy wave (so now like a sentinel frigate shot; just aesthetic for the most part, makes it stand out better).
    • Stealth Guard Post: didn't actually need a buff, but:
      • Renamed to Cloaker Guard Post.
      • Are now un-cloakable; they still cloak stuff near them but will always be revealed themselves.
    • Special Forces Guard Post: also didn't need a buff (the SF ships are the important part of SF, really), but these no longer count for purposes of the "if no AI guard posts are present, an AI Eye self-destructs" rule.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic, LaughingThesaurus, Vacuity, TechSY730, Diazo, Hearteater, chemical_art, and the voters for inspiring these changes.
  • Spire Starships, in honor of coming in third in the poll:
    • Ship cap from 4 => 2, with health and damage adjusted to maintain same cap-health and cap-dps.
    • Effective mark level from 1/2/3 to 2/3/4, so that the mkI is balanced like a mkII starship, the mkII is balanced like a mkIII starship, etc.
    • Knowledge cost from 1000/2500/4000 => 1500/3000/4000, in accordance with their effective mark promotion (this makes the cost of getting to mkIV the same as with a triangle fleet-ship type, though this is without the benefit of having mkIs and without the need to get an advanced factory).
    • Beam cycle time (from the beginning of one beam to the beginning of the next, so including the 2 seconds the beam is actually being fired) from 10 seconds => 3 seconds, damage adjusted to maintain DPS.
    • Base Cap-Health from 16M*mk => 24M*mk.
    • Base Cap-DPS from 240k*mk => 300k*mk.
    • Thanks to Diazo, Faulty Logic, Winge, chemical_art, Dichotomy, TechSY730, and the voters for inspiring these changes.
  • Zenith Starships, as an honorable mention from the poll:
    • Ship cap from 4 => 2, with health and damage adjusted to maintain same cap-health and cap-dps.
    • Effective mark level from 1/2/3 to 2/3/4, so that the mkI is balanced like a mkII starship, the mkII is balanced like a mkIII starship, etc.
    • Knowledge cost from 1000/2500/4000 => 1500/3000/4000, in accordance with their effective mark promotion.
    • Base Cap-Health from 24M*mk => 36M*mk.
    • Seconds-per-salvo from 8 => 4, damage adjusted to maintain DPS.
    • Thanks to chemical_art, Faulty Logic, TechSY730, Diazo, and the voters for inspiring these changes.

Reworking The AI's Counterbalance To Champions

  • Now, when the humans have champions, the AI gets some offensive nemesis champions.
    • It doesn't check for this until 60 minutes into the game.
    • After that, it checks roughly every minute.
    • The target quantity is = (number of human champions * highest human champion hull size * (AI Difficulty / 7)) / 2, with a minimum of 1 for the first AI player (there must be at least one human champion to trigger this, though).
    • If the current number of offensive nemesis units is less than the target, it randomly picks one of the four champion frigate hulls and does a spawn of those on that AI's homeworld.
      • The count spawned is 1/10th the target number of champions or 1, whichever is greater.
      • The spawned nemesis champions start in Threatfleet behavior (and there's no rule that can take it out of that).
    • Overall this is a bit more similar to the Heroic AI type's special feature than we're entirely comfortable with, but that AI type is still the only way you'll see enemy champions larger that frigate-size, etc.
    • Thanks to Wingflier, Histidine, Faulty Logic, Dichotomy, Confirmation_Bias, and others for inspiring this change.
  • Now when there are human controlled champions, the AI is gradually given a supply of points to spend on responses. Right now that's just "special forces nemesis unit" and "threatfleet nemesis unit" (above and beyond the perpetually respawning ones mentioned above). More responses were planned but time for working on this release (this week at least) is running out.
    • Thanks to Wingflier, Histidine, Faulty Logic, Dichotomy, Confirmation_Bias, and others for inspiring this change.
  • Now that the above two counter-balances are in place the previous 20%/8%/4%-of-a-normal-player increase that each champion was adding to pretty much all other threats (20% for waves and 4% for exos, etc) has been removed. The overall effect may be too kind to the player, but the above counter-balances can be augmented and adjusted accordingly.
    • Thanks to Toranth and others for inspiring this change.

Prerelease 6.010 Back From The Valley

(Released February 22nd, 2013)

  • Fixed a bug where allied roaming enclaves would sometimes launch all their squadrons in the first sim cycle after the game was loaded, even if there was no reason whatsoever for them to launch.
    • Thanks to Wingflier for the report and save.
  • The main special forces population logic now tracks its "strength debt" from buying more than its budget on a particular spawn. The overspending happens due to random selections picking high-strength individual ships, and previously was simply ignored but will now count against the budget of the following spawn(s).
    • The result is that it still tends to overspend on every pulse (every pulse that actually happens, anyway) but the actual total spawn over time is effectively controlled by total strength spent, ending the low-cap-ship loophole.
    • Thanks to Minotaar, TechSY730, Hearteater, Kahuna, and others for anecdotal and log-based evidence of the problem.
  • Friendly roaming enclaves (the normal-space ones; not the ones temporarily in a nebula scenario) now have a population cap based on the number of non-AI-controlled planets (i.e. planets you've killed the AI command station on) and the intensity of the roaming enclave faction.
    • So there's not a hard-cap per se, in that you can increase it by taking more territory. And who wouldn't like to get more AIP, right?
    • Mainly this is to prevent lag, but also helps bring the friendly enclaves a bit down from their previous overpowered-ness.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  • The individual ships in the friendly enclave launched-squadrons now have 4x the health and 4x the dps, but the enclaves produce them 1/4th as fast and can hold a maximum load 1/4th as numerous.
    • Just trying to keep the CPU impact of these down in the more extreme situations.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring this change.
  • Rebalance of the Ancient Shadows "brutal pick" core posts:
    • Teuthida
      • Drone lifetime from 240 seconds => 60 seconds.
      • Spawner health halved.
    • Wrath Lance
      • Rotation speed halved.
      • Health halved.
    • Grav Reactor
      • Drone lifetime from 240 seconds => 60 seconds.
      • Spawner health halved.
    • Thanks to Diazo, TechSY730, and others for inspiring these changes.
  • AI Strategic Reserves:
    • Replenishment rate down to about 2/3rds what it was.
    • Now homeworld-defense spawns only happen if the reserve is at least 25% full, so the follow-up reserve spawns will be much more spaced out.
    • Thanks to Kahuna for inspiring these changes.

Prerelease 6.009

(Released November 21st, 2012)

  • Fixed a longstanding but rare bug that could "eat" a carrier during the loading of the game if the conditions were such that a carrier was eligible for deploying its contents immediately.
    • Further, this would happen on the host and then again on the client when the client received the game data, leading to a desync-on-load.
    • Thanks to Zebreu for the report and save.

Prerelease 6.008

(Released November 21st, 2012)

  • Fixed a null exception bug that could happen in some cases in the ally-enclave logic.
    • Thanks to ussdefiant for the report and save.
  • Fixed the logic generating the LogicLog_AIMechanic_CounterHacking.txt file when Advanced Logging is on to use the proper platform-specific newline instead of just \n (which makes it look like all one line on windows).
    • Thanks to ussdefiant for the report.

Prerelease 6.007 Burying The Hatchet

(Released November 20th, 2012)

  • Fixed a bug where the Armor Booster Astro Trains were not actually having the armor boost effect.
    • Thanks to TechSY730 for the report.
  • Fixed longstanding bug where it was possible to tractor a hostile ship through a wormhole, even if it was a cannot-go-through-wormholes unit type.
  • Fixed a bug where AI threatfleet ships could get stuck on a planet with human-controlled remains on it because it made the AI think there were still enemies to kill there.
    • Thanks to Wanderer for the report and save.
  • Over time the number of files generated by Advanced Logging under various circumstances has grown a fair bit and it could be difficult as a player to know what to delete when you wanted to clean out old logs, etc. To cut down on this we started combining some related logs (the SF-like mechanics into the SF log file) but this just caused confusion. The naming conventions were also pretty variable and frequently one half of the wave log would get submitted and not the other, etc. These logs are obviously not something players need to worry about, but it's very helpful when players submit them in cases where logic problems are suspected, so it'd be nice if they were easier to find. So the names of the generated files are being changed to something that's much easier to make sense of in your file system:
    • (listed as "new name" <= "old name")
    • LogicLog_AIMechanic_CarrierEarlyPopCombination.txt <= CarrierEarlyPopComputationLog.txt
    • LogicLog_AIMechanic_CounterHacking.txt <= CounterSaboteurSpawns.txt
    • LogicLog_AIMechanic_Reinforcements_AIThread.txt <= ReinforcementsLog_AIThread.txt
    • LogicLog_AIMechanic_Reinforcements_MainThread.txt <= ReinforcementsLog_MainThread.txt
    • LogicLog_AIMechanic_SpecialForces.txt <= SpecialForcesLogicLog.txt
    • LogicLog_AIMechanic_StrategicReserve.txt <= SpecialForcesLogicLog.txt (so it's no longer combined with the SF log)
    • LogicLog_AIMechanic_ThreatFleet.txt <= SpecialForcesLogicLog.txt (so it's no longer combined with the SF log)
    • LogicLog_AIMechanic_Waves_AIThread.txt <= AIThreadWaveComputationLog.txt
    • LogicLog_AIMechanic_Waves_MainThread.txt <= MainThreadWaveComputationLog.txt
    • LogicLog_AIPlot_AstroTrains.txt <= AstroTrainLogicLog.txt
    • LogicLog_AIPlot_HybridHives_AIThread.txt <= HybridHyjinksLog_AIThread.txt
    • LogicLog_AIPlot_HybridHives_MainThread.txt <= HybridHyjinksLog_MainThread.txt
    • LogicLog_EventAttackPopulation.txt <= EventAttackCompositionInfoLog.txt
    • LogicLog_MinorFaction_DarkSpire.txt <= DarkSpireMinorFactionLogicLog.txt
    • LogicLog_OffroadScenarios.txt <= OffroadScenarioLog.txt
    • The old files are not being deleted (the game doesn't know if there's anything in there you still want), but you can use the above list as a reference to find and remove them if desired.
    • Thanks to Wanderer for inspiring this change.
  • Command Station rebuilding behavior:
    • Now when the stall timer is running because the previous human station on the planet was destroyed, the remains rebuilders cannot do anything with the command station remains until the stall timer is up.
    • Once the stall timer is over, Remains Rebuilders looking for something new to rebuild will give command station remains absolute priority.
    • The stall timer on non-military command stations from 4 minutes => 2 minutes (military ones still get 1 minute).
    • Thanks to Sunshine, DrTall, TechSY730, Varone, Hearteater, Lancefighter, KDR_11k, and Astilious for inspiring these changes.
  • Fixed a longstanding bug where the modules of the imperial spire minor faction ships were not minor faction (and simply owned by the first player). Not much impact gameplay-wise, but it was weird.
    • Thanks to Lancefighter and others for the report.
  • In response to ongoing occasional reports that the imperial spire fleet still sometimes stalemates vs the AI at the end of FS on 10/10, the non-player-controlled ships and modules have been substantially buffed again (the biggest ships are approaching 32-bit arithmetic limits here, folks) and if things drag on it starts sending in more ships each spawn.
    • Thanks to Eternaly_Lost for the report.
  • Logistics Stations:
    • Enemy Speed Reduction from 50% at all marks => 18.75% / 37.5% / 50%.
    • Ally Speed Increase from 100% (which all command stations give) to 200%.
      • They also all still give the +40/60/80 to ally speed, which other command stations don't give.
    • Thanks to... well, I think a bunch of people suggested something like this to give a reason to unlock the higher marks, but I can't find records of it right now.
  • Spire Railcluster hull type from Polycrystal => Composite.
    • The previous setting was an experiment to see what happened if a unit was a counter to the triangle ship (fighter, in this case) that counters it. What happened is that the ship is a lot harder to kill under normal circumstances than we'd intended for something that does that much damage that quickly.
    • So now the triangle counter for these is the missile frigate, which may survive long enough to kill it.
    • Thanks to Chris_Stalis, TechSY730, and others for inspiring this change.
  • Fixed a bug where the new dropdown-with-text-filter controls were not triggering the "a textbox is active, don't handle most key-binds normally" logic, so pressing the P key while typing into the text-filter would pause or unpause the game, etc.
    • Thanks to contingencyplan for the report.

Human-Ally Roaming Enclaves Return

  • Long ago the Roaming Enclaves minor faction could spawn human-ally variants in addition to the currently-possible AI-ally and enemy-to-all variants. But they weren't very bright, and tended to get killed a lot despite many changes to make them survive better. Eventually they listened to the human players saying that the enclaves were stupidly suicidal and made a very wise decision for their own survival: they left the galaxy.
    • But since then there have been many requests for the return of the human-ally enclaves, and in recent months we've added some logic to the game for other reasons that happens to make this kind of AI much easier to accomplish.
    • So, while these were re-enabled (in their dumb state) in a particular champion-related case, they've now been re-enabled generally, so you'll see them eventually if you have the Roaming Enclaves minor faction enabled.
      • Thanks to Cyborg, Spikey00, TechSY730, Sunshine, Faulty Logic, and others for inspiring these changes.
  • The Control logic for these human-ally ones has been completely redone so that all human-ally roaming enclaves in the game act as a coherent fleet. This greatly enhances survivabiltiy and coolness.
    • They also pay careful attention to how much firepower they have, the enemy firepower on potential target planets, and the enemy firepower on planets they're thinking of pathing through to get to the target.
    • There are five basic types of behavior the coherent-fleet logic can do:
      • Priority-defense of human homeworlds.
        • If a human homeworld comes under any not-completely-trivial attack (for reference, this means "more than about 50 mkI triangle ships on high caps" or the equivalent), the next fleet-logic check will drop whatever is being done and send them all back to that homeworld.
        • This takes priority over any other behavior.
        • You may tell the enclaves to not consider this behavior by sending "cmd:disallow enclaves prioritize homeworld" through chat, and tell them to start considering it again by sending "cmd:allow enclaves prioritize homeworld" through chat.
      • Defend human planets.
        • Considers moving to any planet with a human command station and an AI presence.
        • You may tell the enclaves to not consider this behavior by sending "cmd:disallow enclaves defend planets" through chat, and tell them to start considering it again by sending "cmd:allow enclaves defend planets" through chat.
      • Assist human attacks.
        • Considers moving to any planet without a command station or with an AI command station, if both the humans and AI have a presence there and the humans have a fighting chance (at least half the AI firepower).
        • This behavior is OFF by default but you may tell the enclaves to consider it by sending "cmd:allow enclaves assist attacks" through chat, and tell them to stop considering it again by sending "cmd:disallow enclaves assist attacks" through chat.
      • Attack independently.
        • Considers moving to any planet without a command station or with an AI command station, and an AI presence.
        • This behavior is OFF by default but you may tell the enclaves to consider it by sending "cmd:allow enclaves attack independently" through chat, and tell them to stop considering it again by sending "cmd:disallow enclaves attack independently" through chat.
      • Idle rally
        • If there's nothing else to do, rallies the enclave fleet to the human planet furthest from the human homeworlds that still prevents all pathing from an AI planet to a human homeworld. If no such solid chokepoint exists, it falls back on a human homeworld (if one of the homeworlds is such a chokepoint for all the others, it picks that one).
        • This behavior is always available, you can't tell them to not do nothing if there's nothing to do.
    • When considering behaviors other than the emergency homeworld defense and the "nothing else to do" rally:
      • It won't pick a planet if the AI firepower is way lower than the enclave-fleet's, or if it's high enough to be too much of a threat to it.
      • It won't consider a planet if it can't get from the human homeworlds to there without moving through a planet with enough AI firepower to threaten the enclave fleet.
      • If more than one planet is found eligible by the enabled behaviors, it picks randomly between the ones nearer the human homeworlds.
      • Once a planet is chosen it sticks with it as long as it remains eligible, or gets the emergency-defend-homeworld override.
    • A note on these enclave-related chat commands:
      • They're experimental: historically we haven't done direct-human-control of minor factions for a lot of reasons and that's not really what we're doing here (it's pretty indirect and general). But we wanted something a bit more meaty with this faction's behavior in the sense of it feeling like an ally that's fighting alongside you rather than directly under your control (we've already done that with most of the Fallen Spire stuff, and to some parts of the nebula faction stuff) or only participating in a very simple fashion (we've already done that with the human resistance and dyson spawns, etc).
        • That said, it's very hard and perhaps impossible to get these enclaves to do something even moderately complex without it clashing with what some players want them to do. So we're experimenting with these "chat directives" to see if that kind of very high-level influence is sufficient to give these a general appeal to the various kinds of player who want a "computer-controlled sidekick" in the game.
        • So these commands, and potentially the new behaviors as a whole, may just go away if things are found to just not work out. Or potentially some kind of new interface will be needed for them, in which case it would probably need to be part of an expansion if we do another one of those. For now it's a lot like text-chatting with a human ally in multiplayer.
      • These commands are not cheats (so they do not require "enable cheats", and do not flag the game as having had cheats done).
  • An enclave will not deploy its squadrons until on the target planet determined by the fleet-logic, or it falls below half health. When just idle-rallying it won't launch squadrons even on the target planet unless that planet comes under significant AI attack.
  • The spawning logic has also been changed:
    • Time between spawns was previously based on both faction intensity and AI Difficulty, but is now based on just the intensity. The difficulty-based factors have been changed to always use the higher-end values so that spawns will happen more frequently on lower difficulties than they used to.
      • For reference: on faction intensity 4 you'll generally see the first spawn at 73 to 88 minutes into the game, and new spawns every 31 to 46 minutes after that. Intensity 1 is about 1/4 as often (with a longer initial delay), and intensity 10 is about 4x as often (with minimal initial delay).
    • When spawning, instead of randomly picking between spawning enemy-to-all, ai-ally, or human-ally enclaves it does a spawn of all three (in different places).
  • Stats-wise these have been left alone (although that's pretty buff right now, possibly OP) except for a few changes to cut down on hair-pulling:
    • Now have Radar Dampening 20000, so it does't protect them from much but does help against really long-range strikes from superforts, bombards, etc.
      • For reference, human-built enclave starships have radar dampening of 8000 or lower, so this particular change may actually be too weak.
    • Are now immune to Orbital Mass Drivers, since the alternative was letting them kill the OMDs in self defense, which didn't seem desirable since those are not autotargeted.
    • May now fly through enemy forcefields, but still can't directly shoot things under them.
    • The launched squadrons can no longer traverse wormholes, to keep them from buzzing off and annoying all kinds of AI stuff. The enclaves will have new ones to launch before long anyway.
    • Both the enclaves and their squadrons are now allowed to kill (autotargetable) guard posts and do other behaviors that free threat. since their deployment is now more regulated and they tend to clean up what they free.
      • They're still scrupulous about never killing anything that causes AIP on death, or is otherwise not autotargeted (ion cannons, SF guard posts, distro nodes, etc).
  • If you're curious about the spawning and high-level control logic, advanced logging will generate a LogicLog_MinorFaction_RoamingEnclaves.txt file in your AIW installation's RuntimeData directory (when any of that logic happens, of course).

Prerelease 6.006 The Pain Train

(Released November 13th, 2012)

  • Rebel Human Colony health from 400k => 5M.
    • Thanks to Don Carsto for reporting a situation where AOE apparently killed one of these as an afterthought.
  • Fixed some longstanding GUI issues with the handling of mouse-down (where it should have been mouse-up) with textboxes.
  • On the Stats Window, Reference Tab, changed the "Target Ship" dropdown such that when you click on it, the main button (just above the dropdown list) converts into a textbox; if you type something into that the dropdown list is filtered to only contain items which which contain what you typed.
    • The dropdown has been really bad for a while due to the sheer number of items, but more recently it's become even worse to the point that some items simply couldn't be selected because "one pixel down" on the scroll bar was more than one "page" of options.
    • Thanks to Nypyren and chemical_art for inspiring this change.
  • In response to the then-#2 item on the mantis voting list: Added two new options to the Galaxy Display dropdown on the galaxy map:
    • Custom Search (Narrow)
      • Allows you to pick a specific type of object (example: MkII fighter, MkIII Hardened Forcefield Generator), and displays the count of detected units of the specific type on each planet.
    • Custom Search (Broad)
      • Allows you to pick a category of object (example: fighter, forcefield), and displays the count of detected units of types in that category on each planet.
    • Both of these use the "text filtering" mechanism just implemented for the reference dropdown, so you you can get to the desired selection faster.
    • Both of these can be keybound like all the other galaxy display options, but default is unbound.
    • Thanks to PineappleSam for the suggestion and a whole ton of other players for supporting it on mantis.
  • In response to a longstanding request from many players to make Astro Trains interesting:
    • The plot is now like the other variable-intensity plots, with settings from 0 to 10 (can be set differently per AI player).
    • The intensity controls the number of stations seeded during mapgen.
    • Trains no longer spawn during mapgen, but about every 20 minutes the game will check to see if the number of trains in the game is less than the "supplied population" of trains (which is based on plot intensity and whether the AI in question is a Train Master), and if there's room it spawns a group of trains at a randomly selected station.
      • This group will move together through the rest of the game.
      • The size of the group is based on plot intensity and whether the AI is a Train Master.
      • All told, the result is that an AI with Astro Trains on will build up to 10 groups, with the size of each group being bigger on higher intensities.
    • The vanilla "Astro Train" and "Turret Astro Train" no longer get spawned into the game. The Regenerator and Speed-Boosting trains still exist, but no longer have guns.
      • None of the new types have guns either. The danger posed by these is based on other mechanics.
    • Each new train's type is picked randomly from the set of eligible types, which is based on plot intensity and weighted to favor the less dangerous trains (so the more dangerous ones still happen but are rarer). Do note that the really nasty trains don't show up at all unless the plot intensity is fairly high.
    • The following new train varieties have been added (brace yourself, this isn't going to be pretty) :
      • Cargo
        • Harmless in itself, but each "delivery" contributes towards a counter for that player, and when that fills up (you'll see an alert once it's past 50%) it spawns some surprises. The spawns are unpleasant but not massively so (unless you're on intensity 8 or higher, where you're asking for it).
      • Tachyon Jammer
        • Prevents human tachyon emitters from working on the planet it's on.
      • Gravity Jammer
        • Prevents human gravity emitters from working on the planet it's on (the limited-range stuff, not planet-wide stuff like logistics stations or grav drills).
      • Tractor Jammer
        • Prevents human tractor beams from working on the planet it's on.
      • Forcefield Jammer
        • Prevents human forcefields/shields from working on the planet it's on.
      • Radar Jammer
        • Acts like the unit of the same name: halves attack range of everything on the planet. There's also a MkII variant that only halves enemy (to the AI) ranges.
      • Armor Booster
        • Acts like the unit of the same name: boosts armor of all AI ships on the planet.
      • Armor Inhibitor
        • Acts like the unit of the same name: negates armor of all enemy-to-AI ships on the planet (also disables shields, like that unit does, though that may be changed in the future for both; it's a holdover from when the armor inhibitor was the shield inhibitor).
      • Attack Booster
        • Boosts the attack of all AI ships on the planet.
      • Tachyon
        • Provides planetary-wide tachyon coverage for the AI.
      • Gravity
        • Halves the speed of all enemy-to-AI ships on the planet.
      • Tractor
        • Has a bunch of tractor beams.
      • Widow
        • Has a bunch of paralyzing tractor beams.
      • Shield
        • Basically a shieldbearer (the shield does not push enemy units). Has a lot less health than most of the other trains and is thus somewhat feasible to kill.
      • Repair
        • Basically a super-MRS.
      • EMP
        • Basically an EMP-guardian in train form. This is another one of the train types that's got way less hp and thus more feasible to destroy than others. If you have scouting on a planet with one of these, it shows up in the alert box.
      • Nuclear
        • Kinda like an EMP guardian, but only triggers on non-destroyed planets with a human command station present. Oh, and it's a nuke instead of an EMP. Destroys itself when it goes off. This is one of the train types that's got way less hp and thus more feasible to destroy than others. If you have scouting on a planet with one of these, it shows up in the alert box.
      • Note: several other train varieties are under consideration, including others submitted by players in the past, but this seemed like a good set to start the mauling.
    • Astro Train Station AIP-on-death from 1 => 3 to make "just blow up all the stations" less of an obvious choice to train-troubled players.
    • Any old save with trains in them will have all trains removed (they're the wrong types of trains and wouldn't fit into the new logic due to how they spawned); the stations will spawn new ones over time until the train cap is reached.
    • Thanks to Sunshine, Toranth, Draco18s, TechSY730, Kahuna, Hearteater, and others for inspiring this change. They probably wish they hadn't said anything.
  • Fixed a longstanding bug where gravity turrets (and other finite-gravity-well generators like Spire Gravity Drains) would continue to function even if in stand-down, paralyzed/EMP'd, or out of supply (for the turret; the fleet ship doesn't need supply).
  • Fixed a bug where a couple icons for the Spire Shadow Frigate were missing; they'd not been used for a long time but recently we started using them, but not everyone has them. This patch should fix that.
    • Thanks to Deus Draco for the report.
  • Fixed a bug with carrier early-pop unit combination that could cause desyncs in MP, and for carriers to simply not produce any units in SP.
    • Thanks to Lancefighter, Night, Lord Of Nothing, and Drin for reports and saves.
  • Special Forces now combines ships into carriers if SF non-carrier'd population gets over 3000 (aims to bring it down to 1500 or so).
    • These carriers, and any ships they deploy, will all be Special Forces and follow that logic.
    • Thanks to Dressari and Bruteforce123 for reporting a case where there were so many SF ships flying around it was causing massive lag just from that.
  • Fixed a bug where raid eyes could be triggered by enemy presence on adjacent planets.
    • There seemed to be reports of raid eyes going off on the presence of 1 enemy ship, but upon review we couldn't find a clear report of this, or a save of it happening, nor did our tests reproduce any such behavior. If you have one, please mantis :)
    • Thanks to Lancefighter and contingencyplan for reporting.
  • Spire Corvette main-gun range from 3500 => 8500.
    • This is still shorter range than its shortest-range module, last we checked, so it should still work fine there.
    • Thanks to Cinth for the suggestion.
  • Superfortress build time increased to 2.5x of what it was; still costs the same and with engie assistance you can still build one basically as fast, but now the per-second costs of unassisted construction are not quite so bleak.
    • Thanks to chemical_art for the suggestion.
  • Core Eyes, as a group, are now roughly as likely to be picked as each of the other brutal-pick AI HW structures. Each core eye is still equally likely to be picked, compared to other eyes.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for the suggestion.

Prerelease 6.005 Burning The Candle At Both Ends

(Released October 31st, 2012)

  • Since it was the sole winner (that beat the "none of the above" option) of the "Aim the Nerfbat of Damocles: Player-side (II)" poll, Tackle Drone Launcher:
    • Drone's self-attrition now happens on a per-frame basis rather than per-second, so that the distance it can travel after engaging tractors is much more consistent (for a given amount of health-left-when-starting-tractors).
    • This deals with the tendency since the attritions-faster-when-tractoring change was made for drones to pick up their loads just after the second ticked over and thus get nearly a full second of additional flight time and go way further than intended. Overall it's a fairly big nerf, though it also makes the results look cooler in general.
    • Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
  • Improved the rendering of the planetary summary sidebar to use the same approach for drawing the ship icons and borders as the game normally does for far-zoom ships. Previously that sidebar was blurring the icons a fair bit due to using a different method.
    • Thanks to HitmanN for bringing this to our attention and helping us figure out what was happening.
  • Since threat now behaves more intelligently when "stonewalled", removed the /10 modifier that turret firepower was given when evaluating whether a threatball should attack. Before it was better that they just get it over with, but now it's better that they regroup with other threat and look for an opening.
    • Thanks to TechSY730 and many other players for suggesting.
  • In honor of being one of the winners of the "Aim the Nerfbat of Damocles: AI-side (II)" poll, the autobomb-like colony ship in the nebula scenarios has received moderate nerfs to speed, health, and damage. Combined, those three moderate nerfs are fairly severe. Surely if we overdid it someone will let us know (yea right, not with that scenario).
    • Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
  • Fixed a bug in the past couple versions where the Spire's Frigate-level champion was using the wrong icon in the planetary summary.
    • Thanks to Jeffersn for the report.
  • Redid the far-zoom icons for the 9 LotS bonus ships:
    • Spire Armor Rotter
    • Spire Blade Spawner (and Spire Blade)
    • Spire Gravity Drain
    • Spire Gravity Ripper
    • Spire Maw
    • Spire MiniRam
    • Spire Stealth Battleship
    • Spire Teleporting Leech
    • Spire Tractor Platform
    • Thanks to HitmanN for more excellent pixelart.
  • Also in honor of being one of the winners of the "Aim the Nerfbat of Damocles: AI-side (II)" poll, the Zenith Bombard:
    • Now "costs" the AI 150% as much to spawn in all contexts (or nearly all of them, at least; hybrids wouldn't pay attention to this when picking up their escorts, they just pick zombards less often).
    • Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
  • In honor of being one of the winners of the "Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (VIII)" poll, the Teleport Raider:
    • Ship Cap from 488 => 320. (those are high-cap-scale numbers)
      • Health, Attack, M+C cost, and E cost automatically adjusted accordingly, before the further changes below.
      • This just cuts down a bit on the inevitable disadvantages of being so high-cap in terms of damage loss to armor, etc.
    • Cap Health from 5.145M*mk => 10M*mk.
    • Cap Base DPS from 49k*mk => 70k*mk.
    • Armor Piercing from 300*mk => 750*mk.
    • Effective Range from 7k => 8k.
    • Cap Energy cost from 25k => 20k.
    • Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
  • Also in honor of being one of the winners of the "Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (VIII)" poll, the Infiltrator:
    • Ship Cap from 544 => 320. (those are high-cap-scale numbers)
      • Health, Attack, M+C cost, and E cost automatically adjusted accordingly, before the further changes below.
      • This just cuts down a bit on the inevitable disadvantages of being so high-cap in terms of damage loss to armor, etc.
    • Cap Health from 11,124,400*mk => 15M*mk.
    • Cap Base DPS from 49320*mk => 70k*mk.
    • Now has bonus vs medium (of 4x, like its other bonuses).
    • Base Move Speed from 26 => 32.
    • Now has cloaking (between the name and the role, it just doesn't make sense not to).
    • Ammo type from Flare => Dark Matter, to prevent excessive nightmare generation.
    • Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
  • And in honor of being third place in the winners of the "Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (VIII)" poll, the Superfortress:
    • Now being balanced as a MkV version of the MkI fort, but with a ship cap of 1 instead of that type's 5. So roughly 25x as nasty as a FortI. You can go hide now.
    • At the same time, removing the AI version's 3x health multiplier. It seems unnecessary now.
    • Base Armor from 5k => 500k.
      • This basically means it has 5x the listed health, and puts the effective cap-health at about 50% higher than a cap of theoretical MkV forts. To compensate, it's about 3 times easier to take down than those would be if you're hitting it with stuff that ignores armor, strips it away, or somehow overpowers half a million of it.
    • Seconds per salvo from 3 => 2.
    • Shots per salvo from 120 => 250. (I said you could hide)
    • Base move speed from 3 => 12 (same as forts)
    • Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
  • Fixed a bug in recent versions where the Doom Accelerator Cannon modules were largely confused into thinking they were Impulse Reaction Cannon modules.
    • Thanks to Bognor and chemical_art for the report.
  • Honorable mention from the "Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (VIII)" poll, the Zenith Power Generator:
    • Build cost (from trader) from 7.2M total m+c => 5M.
    • Base Max Health from 100k => 2M.
    • Ongoing metal+crystal cost (10 each per second) removed.
    • Energy production from 400k => 600k (equivalent to 4 planets' worth of energy collectors).
    • Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.
  • Another honorable mention from the "Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (VIII)" poll, the Champion Drone Bays:
    • Bomber Drone base movement speed increased from 70 => 84.
    • Slicer Drone base movement speed increased from 140 => 168.
    • Interceptor Drone base movement speed increased from 90 => 110.
    • Champion Drone bays production:
      • Interval between "batches" from 2 => 5.
      • Batch size from 1 => 3.
    • Thanks to the players who provided feedback and votes on this.

Prerelease 6.004

(Released October 29th, 2012)

  • Fixed a bug in the last version that had changed the colors of your ships in the planetary summary.
    • Thanks to Lancefighter for the report.

Prerelease 6.003 Fortress-size It

(Released October 29th, 2012)

  • Fixed a longstanding (forever, basically) bug where non-wave AIs (Turtle, Support Corps, etc) would not launch waves even in a Defender-campaign game.
    • Thanks to Gith, Cinth, and others for reporting this.
  • AI Home Command Stations have been taught a new self-preservation technique for dealing with a very specific threat.
    • Thanks to Kahuna for inspiring its new sense of humor.
  • Removed the range-check when deciding whether a champion should gain experience from a kill on a planet. Now if it's on the same planet as the thing dying, it gets XP.
    • Note that the majority of champion XP normally comes from winning nebula scenarios, which already give XP to all champions in the game.
    • Thanks to contingencyplan, Moonshine Fox, Wingflier, and Cinth for the suggestion.
  • Fixed a bug where AI spire corvettes were always spawning with MkI modules when they should have been using (corvette mark)+1 (max 5, of course).
    • This will not impact AI spire corvettes that already exist in savegames prior to this version; just newly-spawned ones.
    • Thanks to ussdefiant for the report and save.
  • Adjusted Fallen Spire shard speeds again, since the increased intensities necessary to match the increased speed were a bit much early on. Now the first shard is back at the original (1/4 of recent) speed, the first city shard is 1/2 of recent, the second city shard is 3/4 of recent, the last shard is actually 5/4 of recent, and the others are unchanged. The intervals between chase spawns have been adjusted accordingly.
    • Thanks to the participants of this poll and for their feedback on this issue.
  • Added modular-fort versions of the following champion modules:
    • Acid Jet.
    • Paralyzer.
    • Polarizer.
    • Impulse-Reaction.
    • Heat Beam.
    • Nanosubverter.
    • Insanity Inducer.
    • Translocator.
    • Doom Accelerator.
    • Photon Lance.
    • Rail Cluster.
    • Rail Cannon.
    • Plasma Siege Cannon.
    • Flak.
    • Bomber Bay.
    • Interceptor Bay.
    • Slicer Bay.
    • So that's all of them. They follow the same racial affinities as the champion modules (spire doesn't get drones but gets the absurdly big energy weapons, etc).
    • Each is available to any human player's modular fortresses if any human champion has them. Fortress modules only go up to MkIII, though (champion modules go all the way to MkV).
    • Thanks to Cinth for reminding us to make this happen.
  • Redid the far-zoom-icons for all the Ancient Shadows bonus ship types:
    • Neinzul Scapegoat.
    • Youngling Firefly.
    • Saboteur.
    • Spire Corvette.
    • Spire Railcluster.
    • Tackle Drone Launcher.
    • Zenith Medic Frigate.
    • Zenith Reprocessor.
    • Zenith Siege Turret.
    • Thanks to HitmanN for the excellent pixelart.
  • Redid the far-zoom icon for the Spire champions (the others had a fair bit of internal contrast, but this one looked pretty washed out.
    • Thanks to HitmanN for this one too.
  • Added two new cheat codes (entered during the game via the chatline, if cheats are enabled) :
    • running with scissors
      • Removes all AI Eyes (sentry/ion/parasite/nuclear/etc) from the game.
    • revenge is best not served
      • Removes all Counterattack Guard Posts from the game.
        • Note, this will result in the ships guarding those posts being freed as threat. Not generally a big deal if done early in the game after you have some defenses, however.
    • Thanks to triggerman602, LaughingThesaurus, and Lancefighter for inspiring these.
  • AI special forces growth rate is now about 0.5x what it used to be, but max strength is now about 1.5x what it used to be. An overall nerf, in general; we'll see where we need to go from here.
    • Thanks to Kahuna for the suggestion.
  • Corrected an obsolete description for the counterattack guard post saying the resulting waves were low-warning.
    • Thanks to Lord of Nothing for the report.

Prerelease 6.002 Better Than A Stick In The Eye

(Released October 25th, 2012)

  • Fixed a really longstanding bug where human rebel colony rebellions couldn't happen if the player had not conquered any mkII AI planets.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic and others for reporting.
  • Amended the tooltip that the lobby shows when you mouse over the button that disables cloaking ships to note that it does in fact disable scouts and this makes for a fairly different game.
  • Tackle Drones now self-attrition much faster once their tractors have engaged, which drastically reduces how far out of the fight they can throw enemy ships while not reducing their effective "get to the enemy at all" range.
    • In fact, their overall base time-to-live has been increased from 7 to 9, to make sure they can reach the enemy in most cases.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic, Kahuna, Hearteater, and others for inspiring this change.
  • The AI now has some more tricks to use when responding to knowledge hacking, only used fairly rarely except when dealing with certain recently exploited player cheeses.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for sealing the fate of many.
  • Deepstrike threat:
    • Now triggers 1/20th as often, but each spawn is 20 times as big.
    • Now respects relative unit strength (so 1 blade spawner != 1 fighter, cost-wise).
    • Now spawns on a random AI planet instead of always on an AI homeworld.
    • Now spawns with the ThreatFleet behavior instead of just normal threat.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic for inspiring these changes.
  • Fixed bug where champion-only players could try to build units from the zenith trader. Not really succeed, lacking resources, but try.
    • Thanks to bonreu and Coppermantis for reporting.
  • Respawning champions owned by a Normal+Champion player now respawn at that player's home command station (if alive) rather than using the "respawning command core" logic (which Champion-Only player champions still do).
    • Thanks to Lancefighter for the suggestion.
  • Finally got around to finishing the AI Eye changes from the poll it won some months ago.
    • Added the following new eye types:
      • Raid Eye (like a raid engine if it's triggered too long)
      • Nuclear Eye (nukes the planet, and itself, if it's triggered too long, really hurts on AIP)
      • Threatening Eye (spawns threatfleet ships elsewhere in the galaxy every 5 seconds or so of being triggered)
      • Translocating Eye (powered-up version of the mkIII military command station's new weapon, only fires when eye is triggered)
      • Plasma Eye (massively-higher-Rate-of-Fire version of the mkIII plasma siege starship's weapon, only fires when eye is triggered).
    • Added "Core" variants of the Sentry, Raid, Threatening, Translocating, and Plasma eyes.
      • These are only seeded on AI homeworlds, and are now the only eyes eligible for seeding on AI homeworlds (so Ion and Parasite eyes are now only seeded on non-homeworld planets).
      • They are immune to nukes and a few other things normal eyes aren't.
      • They emit planet-wide tachyon coverage (even when powered down, for those types that can power down).
    • Thanks to the many players who voted for the Eye in that poll, and to Hearteater, Faulty Logic, madcow, and others for suggesting some of the specific changes made here.

Prerelease 6.001 There's Always At Least One

(Released October 22nd, 2012)

  • Fixed a bug where if player 1 had the "Engineers do not assist allies" toggle checked, the allied large starbases in nebulae would not repair champions controlled by players 2-8.
    • Thanks to Kronic and menzel72 for the reports and save.
  • Fixed a bug where unlocking the MkI champion missile module would count as MkV for the purpose of the Specialist achievement.
    • Thanks to Jeffersn for the suggestion.
  • Fixed a localization-missing error that could happen on the high scores window.
    • Thanks to Cinth for the report.
  • The "Reduce Visual Stimulation" now suppresses the "whiteout" effect of warhead detonations, etc.
    • Thanks to Jeffersn for the suggestion.
  • Fixed several potential unhandled-errors and desync situations that could happen with the scrap-wave mechanic.
    • Thankfully scrapwaves basically never happen due to other AI-population-compression mechanics, so this wasn't actually a big deal. Good to have fixed anyway.
    • Thanks to Cinth for the report.
  • Fixed a longstanding bug where the Stats window -> Military tab -> "# Built" column values ended in a % sign.
    • Thanks to Volatar for the report.
  • Fixed a bug in the CTRLS window -> Ship Design tab where changing a design and then switching templates or unit types before saving (and confirming when it asks if you're sure you want to discard the changes) would leave the display in a very confused state.
    • Thanks to Faulty Logic and chemical_art for the report.
  • Fixed a bug where a scapegoat could regen any number of allied ships that died in exactly the same frame, rather than just one.
    • Generally this wouldn't be a big deal due to the number of ships dying during a particular frame being fairly low, but when a Spirecraft Martyr goes up... let's just say that the Abominable Intelligence found a counter to the martyr. But it's been fixed now.
    • Thanks to Switch for the report and save.
  • Changed Ravenous Shadow speed to not vary with combat style (it's now always what it used to be on Normal combat style), since the champion's speed doesn't vary there.
    • Thanks to Cinth and Coppermants for the suggestion.
  • The game no longer seeds wormhole guard posts on wormholes that lead to nebulae, since this was confusing in games without champions (the wormholes are still seeded in that case, because champions can be added midway).
    • Note: this won't affect saves from previous versions, because the posts are already seeded there.
    • Thanks to Volatar and other for reporting the confusion.
  • Brightened the "Shields" display that shows on the resource bar when using a champion.
    • Thanks to Spikey00 for the suggestion.