Messages

16

AI War / Re: AI War 6.0 and Ancient Shadows Expansion Materialize on Steam

« on: October 20, 2012, 03:48:05 AM »

So i bought ai war and all the expansions on impulse (back when it was still impulse and not ****ty gamestop)

Will this be released on 'GameStop' now? And if no then what options do i have? I dont have to buy the whole franchise again do i?

17

AI War / Re: Warp Gates with multiple players

« on: March 20, 2012, 09:16:47 AM »

I strongly suggest letting waves hit multiple locations.   Getting 12K ships from one wave set (4 waves for a 2 player game, about 2K ships per wave, but doubled for the vicious raider) on one planet at 250-300 AIP, can be worse than Exo-galactic strikes.   

Assuming you coordinate, split targets means you can both send your fighters to deal with the bomber wave on target B and your bombers to deal with the missile frigates on target A.   Of course, since you have double the number of waves.. you may need to do this to survive. 

At 4 players during the mid/end game, you really want 8-12 "likely" targets with a reasonable distribution of forts, mines, & turrets etc, and you take everything adjacent to, and heavily defend your factory 4's, your homeworlds etc.

I play with schizophrenic

18

AI War / Re: Warp Gates with multiple players

« on: March 20, 2012, 07:53:41 AM »

ah cool. easy defense it is then (well easier... eaves are of course 2 times the size )

thx

19

AI War / Re: Warp Gates with multiple players

« on: March 20, 2012, 07:35:12 AM »

They come at the same time and attack 1 of our planets each. Judging by this behavior I'm fairly sure we both need to create separate bottlenecks but I wan tto be sure. We have a very early assualt on a level IV planet planned and if we can create a single bottleneck that would be nice

20

AI War / Warp Gates with multiple players

« on: March 20, 2012, 07:13:21 AM »

So after years of owning this I started my first MP game with a friend but I have no idea how the warp gates work in mp

Do we need to leave 1 warp gate next to each of our territories or just next to 1 of our territories to achieve the bottleneck thing?

If we leave just a single warpgate next to my territory will the AI send unannouced waves to my friend?

21

AI War / Re: Uhmm New patch??

« on: June 20, 2011, 10:58:25 PM »

Hey dont let my initial post stand as a reflection of my view on arcen. I seriously mean it when i say (and have said before) that i respect this company more then any other current company out there and im super impressed by the customer support. I was honestly just baffled by the sudden stop of patches during a beta.
In fact when i purchase other indie games with large issues people (fanboys )always argue: 'well its an indie company and a large game you have to accept X problem' and i always have to mention AI war as an example of the opposite

I just thought: 'Game is in a beta stage.. therefore there likely exist (larger) problems... arcen is busy with another product.. they are neglecting AI war'

And it was really only the fact that it was a beta.. to be super honest i actually think you guys release TO MANY patches for AI war xD stuff changes so much. (but i know some people looove that which is understandable)

Anyways keep up the good work and good luck with the next game

22

AI War / Re: Uhmm New patch??

« on: June 20, 2011, 06:22:57 PM »

my worries were less about unstableness and more about large faults in the design. ive actually never encountered a crash in AI war (although ive never finished a game ) but i have encountered some terrible design mistakes in the betas (which is normal as said).. and im very ocd about it.
AI war isnt just playable in a 2 hour setting and when im 3 hours into, what could become, a 20 hour game and see some unit is vastly under or overpowered then i lose all interest.. thats why i wanted a 'stable' release

23

AI War / Re: Uhmm New patch??

« on: June 17, 2011, 11:43:51 PM »

The beta patch is super, super stable, I'd just play that.  The latest official version is also really stable, but the beta does include some very good changes.  Our betas aren't like most other companies.

Or let me put it another way: know what would happen if we released another official patch?  We'd change the name from beta, and make it the official one.  This one is ready to go, but there hasn't been an enormous time pressure to release it because the beta is stable and easy to get, and people seem happy.  So we haven't gone through all the hassle with getting the next official to vendors, etc, etc.

Ok i thought this may in fact be the case. I was just wondering why you didnt slap on a new number and take away beta but i didnt think about the hassle of having to go through all the vendors

So thanks for clearing that up. I will now play the beta

24

AI War / Uhmm New patch??

« on: June 17, 2011, 11:21:04 PM »

So i bought the LotS expansion quite a long time ago but i havnt played it once since I wanted to play a patched version.. However it seems that the patch is never going to leave beta and its starting to get to me.. i dont want to play the beta as i have bad experiences with them (they are of course betas).
When is the actual patch going to be released? So far i feel like ive wasted my money. I dont want to play the non beta release version either since chances are its kinda crap and from what ive read it does have some problems (again this is normal for a new release)

So yes i sound bitchy but ive been patient and im used to arcen releasing one patch after the other.. Maybe its because of the new game but i really dont care about that xD it would be nice if this would be cleanly patched

Maybe im missing something but both ingame and on this forum page the 2-3(!) month old beta patch is the last one can see :-/

So let me know whats up ^^ maybe im just missing something like an idiot

25

Game Development / Re: Unity 3D thoughts

« on: November 23, 2010, 10:24:17 AM »

not mac compatible. It's written in XNA/.Net (As opposed to mono)

Didn't know you have a mac. Sorry

26

Game Development / Re: Unity 3D thoughts

« on: November 22, 2010, 04:29:01 PM »

I could only guess that your texture is completely composed of 0 alpha pixels although I'm pretty sure bmp doesnt do that. Try creating a new gui texture without selecting your texture and see if the Unity symbol pops up. It all seems to work for me (and i followed your instructions becuase ive never done it before )

On 2D engines:

First off let me say this: Do not underestimate GameMaker. It is not a toy and is extremely powerful when using GML. Not only powerful but fast/efficient. It can do many things i have yet to see anybody do with XNA like fast dynamic shadows and lighting (although its def possible with XNA)
It has its faults but believe me it is a very good tool. It's particle system in particular is better then any other Ive seen

Now if you want a "real" engine then I cant stress FlatRedBall enough. Great engine.. The best support ever (literally), A code generator and editors, maintained by a guy who has done alot in the business (Including working for EA and he just ported SteamBirds to android.. )

Not only is it great overall but it has support for: PC, XBox360, Web(Silverlight), Windows Phone 7and in the next release even Android.

Its current state is a bit messed up due to the new platforms (2 new platforms in 3 months time) but once they iron the problems out (And believe me they will because the guy uses it for all of his personal work)  you will have quite possibly the best 2D engine around... It already was but as said some things got a bit crazy the last 3 months xD

Vic (the creator) is EXTREMLY helpful. Right now hes very busy on projects but when things cool down hes always available to help.

Its only real fault is the fact that that it is XNA based.. thats not too bad but it has its quirks (which x4000 actually has a blog post about) and the fact that it is (currently mind you ) "only" a 2.5D engine


edit: you will need to know and have a good understanding of C# though

edit again: actually the XNA quirks dont really count to much because FRB has its own content pipeline

27

Game Development / Re: Unity 3D thoughts

« on: November 22, 2010, 11:14:42 AM »

It is very nice to let ones creative side out. This is something I did after just a couple hours of experience (And possibly a mock up for a project I have planned) if anybody is at all intrested:

Terrible quality utube vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7xe_1Yl_qY

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Game Development / Re: Unity 3D thoughts

« on: November 21, 2010, 12:19:54 PM »

Hey thanks alot for the tips. Right now I'm obviously just getting the hang of it although its pretty easy after using multiple other engines and vanilla XNA.
Ive always been a "2D guy" but the simplicity of this REALLY makes it hard to not try 3D stuff heh

Anyways thats why I posted here... To get an opinion by an unbiased developer who has actually used it to the fullest

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Game Development / Re: Unity 3D thoughts

« on: November 19, 2010, 10:50:15 AM »

Yeah Ive already started and quite like it so far. I'd be interested in knowing whether X4000 used the SpriteManager script available on the wiki

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Game Development / Unity 3D thoughts

« on: November 18, 2010, 03:35:06 AM »

I've decided that it may be a good idea for me too to switch to unity3D from the engine I am currently using (although I'm not sure about this yet) and thought this would be the perfect place to ask some questions about it seeing that it is neutral (as opposed to the unity forums) and arcen actually uses it in a full blown 2D game (I am not interested in 3D for now)

First off, if you get  a chance x4000, I guess unity is handling the "2D" rendering quite well (I'm aware it's most likely textures on a 2D plane in 3D space though, correct me if im wrong) but what did you do to get that to work so well? Is there anything I should be aware of? Or can I just do what Unity "wants me to do?"

Btw I havnt even done anything in it. Im just reading about it and see there is a user made custom SpriteManager script available so Im wondering why that is.

Has anybody else here used the engine?