Topics

1

AI War Technical Support / Unknown crash (no error report generated)

« on: August 21, 2010, 07:13:26 PM »

I was playing today, trying out the new build, 3.1.8.8, and for no apparent reason, the game suddenly crashed.  No error report, no nothing, just a window message saying "this program has crashed".  I was expecting AI War to generate a crash report, so I just closed the windows box, but it wasn't a very useful box anyway.

I realize this isn't very helpful, but I figured I should let you know.  I'll see if it happens again...

I attached the save game my friend made when he saved after I crashed.  So it might not be useful, since it's made after the crash, so to speak.... but yeah...

2

AI War Strategy Discussion / Starting is the hardest part at higher difficulties...

« on: July 18, 2010, 10:18:48 PM »

I'm finding that the first few minutes, maybe 30 minutes or so, of a game are the hardest of the game.  After I have taken a couple planets the game gets a lot easier, and tends to level off, never getting anywhere close to as hard as it was in the first hour.  But slowing down and lagging, because the number of ships in game are going up up up.....

Are there any tips to make starting easier?  Or specific AI types that are easy at the start, but harder later on?

3

AI War Strategy Discussion / Hot key list

« on: July 17, 2010, 12:10:20 PM »

So I found, at long last, the hot key list that is in-game....  And now I'm wondering if there is any way to copy it straight to the wiki, or if it would have to be typed out manually....  Because with it in-game, I can't play and look at it at the same time.  I have a second screen, so I would love to just load it up and be able to learn the hot keys while I play...  There are sooo many!

4

AI War / Why are Anti-Starship Arachnid fab's so common?

« on: July 16, 2010, 08:47:18 PM »

I'm just wondering if there is a specific reason why anti-starship fab's are far more common then other types of fabricators...  There are four in my current 60 planet game....  I wouldn't mind so much if each one you captured increased the ship cap, but as it is, I don't see why there should be more then one of each fab in a game....

5

AI War / Social News, AI War, and so forth...

« on: July 15, 2010, 01:27:19 AM »

I tend to browse Reddit, and sometimes Digg or SlashDot, and I was thinking that around when CoN is released (or sooner) I could throw up a link to it, and maybe drive some extra traffic this way.  That being said, what would be the best page to link too, and when would be the best time to make the posting?

On a side note, I'm mostly a lurker, I don't tend to submit many posts, so if there is anyone else that plays AI War and also uses some social news sites more frequently, it might be better for them to make the post, as it's not likely to get very many views if I post it....  Speaking from past experience that is....  There is always a chance it could make it to the front page though, which would generate thousands of page views over the span of a day or two, after which they would tend to die out....

6

Tidalis Technical Support / Full Screen bug with dual monitors

« on: July 07, 2010, 10:31:01 PM »

I found a bug where if you have dual monitors, and try to play in full screen mode, the game will exit if you mouse over towards the second screen.

Steps to reproduce:

• Have two screens set up side by side, in extended desktop mode.
• Start the game, and choose full screen mode.
• The game is now on your primary monitor.
• Move your mouse towards the secondary screen.  It will move onto that screen, as if the game was in windowed mode.
• If you have activation follows mouse running, mousing over another window will cause Tidalis to minimize, with lots of screen flicker and resolution changes.
• OR: If you click on anything on the second screen, desktop, or window, it will also cause Tidalis to minimize, with the same screen flicker problems.

The screen flicker problems are caused by the screens having to resize back to native resolution.  I think.  I run 1680 by 1050, so it has to change.  Since you seem to be doing the letter box thingy anyway, any chance you could add in some more resolutions?

Oh, and I just updated to the latest (or so I assume) version about 5 minutes ago, via the auto-updater thingy.

7

AI War Strategy Discussion / What is the best way to deal with Tractor Beam Turrets?

« on: June 27, 2010, 08:15:37 PM »

Personally, I find tractor beam turrets in the hands of the AI are a big thorn in my side, as they tend to die soooo slowly, compared to all the other turrets.  Sure, massed fire from a thousand ships will kill one, but on mark IV worlds there can be dozens of Mk III's to pin me in place, and prevent me from pulling back, or loading back into transports, etc.  Any suggestions as to which units or bonus ships are best at taking them out?  So far, all I have found is Raid Starships, and only because they do a large amount of damage with a 1x multiplier to almost everything.  And even raid starships will take a while if there are several of them....

What are some good counters?

8

AI War Strategy Discussion / Multiplayer resource sharing

« on: June 11, 2010, 09:40:29 PM »

According to the wiki, the following is true:
"If a player hits the resource storage cap for metal or crystal (600k), then the excess resources flow to allies instead of just being wasted. "

My question to you guys is....  Is there any way to tell in game how many resources are being shared, and to which players?

9

AI War Technical Support / Dyson Sphere causing massive game slowdown?

« on: June 10, 2010, 01:32:30 AM »

Hello, I have been playing with a couple friends for a while now, and we haven't had any major issues.  Sometimes really large battles will cause a bit of lag, but nothing more then 5 or 10% slower, and the game still responds, so it's not a big deal.

But in this most recent two player game, about 7 hours in we found a Dyson Sphere, and the game speed fell through the floor, and now it's lagging, and freezing all the time.  I have included 3 autosaves from this post, one from right before we found the Dyson Sphere, one from right after, and our latest one.  Exiting to Windows each time and then reloading the autosaves and disabling the second player, I get the following:
The first, from 6:49:21 into the game, runs pretty well, a tiny bit of lag, but nothing major.  Ships in game is ~34,500
The second save, from 6:59:21 into the game, is from shortly after finding the Dyson Sphere.  The game freezes a few times in my test minute.  Ships in game is ~35,100.
The third save, from 8:04:57 into the game, has quite a bit of lag, and freezes often.  Ships in game is ~33,600.

I am our host, and I have a quad core AMD Phenom X4 9600 running at 2.3ghz; 2gb of ddr2 ram, running dual channel; an 8800 GT with 1gb memory; and the game is installed on a striped raid 0 of two WD Raptors @ 10k rpm.  We have played games that lasted over 10 hours, have played games with 3 players, never had any issues until now.  It's been confirmed that it's my process (not render) time that hangs when we freeze, and I'm the only one that freezes, my friend just gets a waiting for players message.....

Any ideas what I could do about this, other then try to clear the system with the Dyson sphere extra fast, or start a new game without a Dyson Sphere in it?  This is the first time we have played with one, and I have noticed a few other posts about people lagging and also mentioning a Dyson Sphere somewhere in there, they just didn't blame it.  So here I am, connecting the dots, and attempting to figure out the problem. :-)

~Dragon