Release notes here. This one actually has some key bugfixes as well, including a change to how stacks work that really has an enormous impact on balance. The AI may be too weak now, since more of your shots actually hit stacks now since that bug was fixed. There are also some new hotkeys for placing multiple ships at once when constructing them, and some on-screen indicators for what those hotkeys are when you go into build mode. We've also built out a TON of the stuff for the tutorial framework itself, although there's still plenty more to do. But we did get enough that... First Tutorial Is Ready! This is a very small tutorial that just focuses on how to move around and things like that, but it's similar to what was in the old tutorial (for this game) as part of a larger tutorial. This version is a little bit cleaner and slightly more informative since we're able to cover more in more steps with less work, and we were able to easily adjust it to do some colorization to aid in readability. But one thing that's really notable here is that this is a micro-tutorial on a specific topic, by design. This way we can have a variety of small tutorials of this sort that are topical and that you don't have to play again and again (or even at all) if you want to skip ahead a bit. In talking to folks, it became clear that they really want to be able to just "get on with things," and that means different things to different people. So by making it really seamless and convenient and a series of micro tutorials, we're able to hopefully meet the desires of a lot of you at once. And of course we'll also do some videos later on, kind of in a Let's Play style. And we have the in-game wiki with lots of written explanations already. And the game is full of tooltips to help you contextually learn in general. So hopefully whatever your learning style is, we'll be hitting it. We don't want anyone to feel forced into a style of tutorial they don't like (whether that's reading, interactive, or video; everyone seems to want different things, which is okay). Repeat Notice: Tutorial and Scenario Designers Wanted! We're going to be working on our own tutorials based on this system, but I'd definitely love to see a really robust number of scenarios from other folks, too. Everybody has a different perspective, and maybe you want to teach some specific tactic or even set up kind of a small contained puzzle-like challenge cage-match with 5 planets against the dark spire and nanocaust with a quest you design with unusual victory conditions. I think that sort of thing is just super fun, and it's a way to play the game in a more bite-sized fashion. Some of those sorts of things aren't even really tutorials, they're more advanced challenges or puzzles. But anyway, the tutorials system is a pretty robust framework that allows for all sorts of different scenario designs that I'd love to see people really lean into. I've been explicitly trying to make this as easy as possible for non-coders to do -- all you need is a text editor -- and the idea of seeing what creative things people come up with to both teach and test players is exciting. It's more or less the same idea behind modding, where people add various map types or ship types or whatever else, except this time it's custom scenarios for teaching or testing. Other Fixes And Improvements There are a number of bugfixes and balance tweaks that seemed to be the highest-priority items that people had brought to our attention. Thanks to Badger on the bulk of those. And the build menu now has icons thanks to Asteroid! More to come soon. Enjoy! Problem With The Latest Build? If you right-click the game in Steam and choose properties, then go to the Betas tab of the window that pops up, you'll see a variety of options. You can always choose most_recent_stable from that build to get what is essentially one-build-back. Or two builds back if the last build had a known problem, etc. Essentially it's a way to keep yourself off the very bleeding edge of updates, if you so desire. The Usual Reminders Quick reminder of our new Steam Developer Page. If you follow us there, you'll be notified about any game releases we do. Also: Would you mind leaving a Steam review for some/any of our games? It doesn't have to be much more detailed than a thumbs up, but if you like a game we made and want more people to find it, that's how you make it happen. Reviews make a material difference, and like most indies, we could really use the support. Enjoy! Chris
[ 2019-10-03 01:54:09 CET ] [ Original post ]
- AI War 2 Linux [1.72 G]
- AI War 2: The Spire Rises
- AI War 2: Zenith Onslaught
- AI War 2: The Neinzul Abyss
You must steal as much technology as you can, and take enough territory to fortify your bases and launch your attacks. But every conquest you make turns the attention of the AI ever more in your direction... so choose your targets with care.
It's "a sequel to [Arcen's] enormo-space RTS AI War, which we called'one of this year's finest strategy games' back in 2009" (Tom Sykes, PC Gamer)
What's New?
We still have a lot of work to do on the game, and we're undergoing some major work with our beta testers before heading to Early Access, but a lot is already awesome:- The game is crazy moddable.
- It's multithreaded to take full use of modern computers.
- The new 3D graphics are working out great.
- The UI has already been dramatically improved by the introduction of a tabbed sidebar in the main view, and streamlining of several other mechanics that felt very difficult in the past. More to come, there.
- We’ve got art for over 130 distinct units (not counting different mark levels), and there's more to come.
- We’ve got over 1500 lines of spoken dialogue from more than 25 actors, focusing primarily on the human side at the moment; we have a few hundred lines of AI-side taunts and chatter, some of which is recorded but just not processed yet.
- There are hundreds of high quality sound effects for a varied battlefield soundscape (with distance attenuation if you’re far away, and positional 3D audio if you’re down in the thick of it), all routed through a tuned mixer setup for optimal listening to all the various parts.
- We have a set of music from Classic that is over four and a half hours long, and the new music from Pablo is partly in, but mostly set to be mastered and integrated within the next week or two.
- There’s also a ton of map types, many of them new, and with a lot of sub-options to make them even more varied.
- And a whole lot more.
Wishlist the game to be notified when it becomes available!
- OS: Ubuntu 12.04+. SteamOS+
- Processor: Dual Core 64bit CPU (2.2+ GHz Dual Core CPU or better)Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 510+. Radeon HD5900+. or Intel HD4000+
- Storage: 4 GB available space
- Processor: Any Quad Core or 3.0+ GHz Dual Core CPUMemory: 6 GB RAM
- Memory: 6 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 660 2GB / AMD HD 7870 2GB
- Storage: 4 GB available space
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