Messages

1

AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Does the AI reinforce neutral planets?

« on: March 24, 2012, 12:24:10 AM »

All the limit does is that when picking planets to spawn fresh "reinforcement" units at, an AI player asks "is the limit less than the number of my ships on this planet"; if so, it does not do any reinforcement spawns there.

And the limit is defined by the number of guard-posts?

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Does the AI reinforce neutral planets?

« on: March 23, 2012, 08:05:00 PM »

How so?  That's a lot of AIP, and the planets adjacent to the newly-neutral planets become on-alert.

Ah, yes.  I mean on planets that look appealing to take anyway.  It seems best to rush them and target specifically the command station very early if you want them.  Provided, of course, that you're prepared to deal with the freed AI forces.

Basically, yes.  As I recently discovered the quantity of reinforcements doesn't go down as guard posts go away (indeed, it goes up somewhat), but the total amount it can pile on that planet (via reinforcement) is limited if you kill the posts.

If the limit imposed by the guard-posts is exceeded, does the AI start building barracks and carriers?  Or does that happen only happen after an unrelated "per system" limit is crossed?  Or is the limit imposed by the guard-posts a "per-reinforcement" placement limit, and not a "total units in system" limit?

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Re: Does the AI reinforce neutral planets?

« on: March 23, 2012, 06:55:39 PM »

Ah, so reinforcements don't just magically appear at Guard Posts?  A reinforcement warp gate must be there to allow that to happen?
Interesting.

So if you go in, take out all the reinforcement warp gates (including the command station, rendering the planet neutral) but leave all the guard posts, the AI will no longer reinforce the planet?

If true that would make an early-game raid starship blitz on many alerted nearby systems very appealing.

So reinforcement warp gates determine whether the AI can reinforce a planet, and guard posts determine how many forces the AI is allowed to station there?

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AI War Strategy Discussion / Does the AI reinforce neutral planets?

« on: March 23, 2012, 02:05:28 AM »

Hey guys,

If I take out the command station in a system, but leave the guard-posts, does the AI still reinforce those guard-posts, or does it give up on the system?

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AI War / Re: AI War Beta 5.030, "Refined Hacking," Released!

« on: March 15, 2012, 02:57:24 AM »

Wow, you guys are awesome.  Hacking has added a very cool new element to the game.  I only wish the 'warning'  display was not so verbose.  It would be nice as a letter beside AI Progress with a tool-tip.  Good luck with the AVWW release.

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AI War / Re: The new hacking mechanic

« on: March 10, 2012, 10:31:26 PM »

I just pulled off my first ship design hack.  This is a really fun new mechanic.

7

Mods & Modding / Re: Interface Mod (What does that button do?)

« on: March 08, 2012, 02:53:32 AM »

Thanks!  I think I'll have to refine it a bit more before it's ready for any consideration like that.  It is helpful for a newb though =P

8

Mods & Modding / Interface Mod (What does that button do?) - UPDATED

« on: March 07, 2012, 09:19:30 PM »

As a new player I've found the toolbar buttons at the bottom (used to quickly find ships and whatnot) especially confusing.  This mod is my attempt to bring a little bit more clarity to the icons, and consistency between what icons are used to represent ships in the game and on the toolbar.

*UPDATE*
I've changed the font to something I find "softer" and more readable, toned down the brightness, and touched things up.  This is probably the final.  Images and link below are for the new update.

Here's an example of one of the buttons:


Here's a look at it in-game:
http://chattypics.com/files/20120308_00001_5euidejyd2.jpg

Here's a link to the mod:
http://filesmelt.com/dl/ai_war_interface_mod_2.zip

Overwrite the files in:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ai war fleet command\RuntimeData\Images\

*Make sure to backup first*

9

AI War / Re: Anyone with Photoshop skills for a quick and easy task?

« on: March 07, 2012, 06:24:20 PM »

Here's a cropped one, if it works better for you:

http://chattypics.com/files/ai_war_facebook_cropped_ild2dqkluv.jpg

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AI War / Re: Replacement graphics for gravity well

« on: March 07, 2012, 06:21:10 PM »

The RGB values for the grey I used are 11,11,11

It's pretty damn subtle, mileage is going to vary depending on the brightness of the display being used.

Just out of curiosity, are you able to define transparency for these kinds of things as well?

11

AI War / Re: Replacement graphics for gravity well

« on: March 05, 2012, 09:17:44 PM »

I'll fiddle around with it and get back to you in a bit.

Thanks Keith, I'm blown away and humbled that you already address some of my concerns.  It's really amazing.

12

AI War / Re: Replacement graphics for gravity well

« on: March 05, 2012, 09:13:30 PM »

Ah crap.  Looks like it breaks ALL the range-displays, they're all dark now.  Sorry guys.

13

AI War / Replacement graphics for gravity well

« on: March 05, 2012, 09:09:02 PM »

I'm glad that there's now an indicator to show the gravity well borders of the planet.  Unfortunately it's bright white and kind of ruins the aesthetic of the game (a tiny civilizations in the vast expanse of empty space).

I toned down the brightness of the two circle graphics that are used for the gravity well in case anyone else was bothered by this.

http://chattypics.com/files/384_8skwqaklmh.png
http://chattypics.com/files/512_kmmtm1k11b.png

These files should be named "384.png" and "512.png" and go in:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ai war fleet command\RuntimeData\Images\Circles

I'm guessing they'll probably break a few huge range-displays in the game, as all the circles are white I assume some kind of alpha blending is used in the engine to color them.

An example of how it looks in game:



It's more visible in-game because it rotates.  Just visible enough to hint that it's there without detracting too much from the look.

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AI War / Re: Anyone with Photoshop skills for a quick and easy task?

« on: March 05, 2012, 08:28:01 PM »

Here, I did up a version without the empty space:

http://chattypics.com/files/ai_war_facebook_q6j50n40ch.jpg

15

AI War / Re: Some interface thoughts from a new player.

« on: March 05, 2012, 07:07:11 PM »

My biggest whine about the ribbon is the change in functionality.  Unless you know the old keyboard shortcuts by heart, you can't easily find them where you used to, and now have to dig around the ribbon until you locate wherever they decided to move it.

This is why I'm not a fan of the ribbon as well.  It makes exploring what options you have a tedious exercise of hovering your mouse cursor over every single icon, waiting for tool-tips, and clicking on a bunch of tabs to toggle between separate tool bars.  It puts *more* clicks and time between the user and what they want to accomplish, and makes it harder to learn through exploration.  To me it was a pretty big step back - UI change for the sake of UI change, something that Microsoft has become fond of doing because it's hard to sell a product when it looks exactly the same as the previous version.

Anyway.  I've made my voice known or something.  Thank you all for hearing me out.  I know it's hard to digest criticism directed at something you love (especially if it's your own creation).  I don't think I can add much more.

Well actually that one is about to be fixed.

Quote from: 5.008 Release Notes'
On planet view, the game now draws two circles representing the key zones of the planet's "gravity well".

Thank you for bringing this up, it probably would of kept being an issue if you hadn't of mentioned it.

They also fixed the wave warning thing

Quote from: 5.008 Release Notes'

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.

In fact, you are credited in both of these changes.

EDIT: BTW, if you are curious, you can see the changes so far for any upcoming version at http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Current_Post-5.000_Beta

I'm actually kind of speechless.  That was fast.  And I didn't know about that changelog, so thanks for that.

My friends did finally start playing the game and we're having an absolute blast running through a campaign.  It's the most fun I've had gaming probably in years.

I'll stop bitching and let this slide off the front page, and wait until some UI discussion starts when Keith has the time to explore these things again.  Until then let's relax.  Thanks for being receptive.