AI War: Fleet Command

mart981 · 27 Aug 2009 at 12:04

Thanks for the link tals. Also reminding me I bought Puzzle Quest from GG about 18 months ago that I had forgotten about after a few new hard drives and OS changes

x4000 · 27 Aug 2009 at 14:50

vincent1989 said:
i've a suggestion, placing mines is really clunky and time consuming, is there any way you can make it so that instead of placing one at a time you can either

stamp down a minefield maybe a circle with a certain number of mines (say 30) or

that when you select a mine you then draw a variable sized circle on the map which depending on the size you make it will vary the number of mines inside

if i think of any more i'll make a mention

Great suggestion! Actually, there was quite a bit of agitation for that recently among the playerbase, so that's already in the 1.201 prereleases on the Arcen forums (the official release will be out as soon as all the kinks are worked out of this major release, which is going to be either this week or next... not sure at this time). In the new release, you can drag-build structures -- which is slow if you are putting down a bunch of mines. So therefore you can also put them down in big clumps (which can also be dragged). Holding Ctrl+Shift while dragging lets you place 5 at a time, holding Alt+Shift while dragging lets you place 10 at a time, so you can place a huge number at a time.

It's a bit more freeform than what you were suggesting, but you can get huge minefields in almost exactly the shape that you want very quickly.

Thanks for the note!

Le_Petit_Lapin · 27 Aug 2009 at 14:52

What sort of defenses would you recommend dumping round a wormhole early in the game?

x4000 · 27 Aug 2009 at 14:54

Edleake said:
That's too cheap!

I'm always honored when people feel that way.

These sales always give a big jump in the number of players who are willing to give a game from a small, new developer a go, though, so it's a great help for us. This is probably going to be the last one for quite some time (a month or two at least), though, so if you're on the fence about the game and want to pick it up on discount, now's your chance!

And for anyone who does pick up the game through GG, don't forget to rate us up if you like the game (and/or put a little player review in there)! Those things really do help us on that portal if you like the game.

x4000 · 27 Aug 2009 at 14:57

Le_Petit_Lapin said:
What sort of defenses would you recommend dumping round a wormhole early in the game?

Often it depends on the situation. But my usual basline is: 3-6 Mark I tractor beams at each hostile wormhole, plus maybe 6-10 mark I short range turrets, plus sometimes 3-4 mark I mlrs turrets. Then make sure to have an engineer on free-roaming, or stationed near the wormholes in danger, so that those get repaired. And if there is an astro train coming through frequently, you might want to add a counter-negative-energy turret.

Beyond that, I'd just reinforce more (with more mines and turrets) if the AI is getting through. And if there are incoming waves, I'd station part of your fleet there depending on how big the wave is. But then your fleet can be doing something else between the bigger waves.

vincent1989 · 27 Aug 2009 at 18:40

x4000 said:
Great suggestion! Actually, there was quite a bit of agitation for that recently among the playerbase, so that's already in the 1.201 prereleases on the Arcen forums (the official release will be out as soon as all the kinks are worked out of this major release, which is going to be either this week or next... not sure at this time). In the new release, you can drag-build structures -- which is slow if you are putting down a bunch of mines. So therefore you can also put them down in big clumps (which can also be dragged). Holding Ctrl+Shift while dragging lets you place 5 at a time, holding Alt+Shift while dragging lets you place 10 at a time, so you can place a huge number at a time.

It's a bit more freeform than what you were suggesting, but you can get huge minefields in almost exactly the shape that you want very quickly.

Thanks for the note!

good to know, that's been my biggest/only gripe and i'm glad it's sorted/on the way to being sorted

tals · 27 Aug 2009 at 18:54

vincent1989 said:
good to know, that's been my biggest/only gripe and i'm glad it's sorted/on the way to being sorted

The beta's are available to all for info. I've got into that bad habit of grabbing the latest one because it's literally like Christmas at the moment with new items daily. It's also very easy you just overlay the files over the current files. It does have the attraction as you may have seen Chris is very open to suggestion. In the beta he 'improved' the Starfield - a number of us didn't like it so Chris had the next patch with multiple selections which improved on the original. The feedback really matters! Anyway here is the latest beta link

http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,1017.0.html

Windle · 27 Aug 2009 at 20:32

Bought from Gamersgate. Not working

Said the install was OK but get this when launching:-

27/08/2009 20:28:18
-----------------------------------Application_ThreadException-----------------------------------System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'SlimDX, Version=2.0.7.41, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b1b0c32fd1ffe4f9' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
File name: 'SlimDX, Version=2.0.7.41, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b1b0c32fd1ffe4f9'
at AIWar.GameForm.GameForm_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnCreateControl()
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl()
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

x4000 · 27 Aug 2009 at 20:38

Windle said:
Bought from Gamersgate. Not working Said the install was OK but get this when launching:-

27/08/2009 20:28:18
-----------------------------------Application_ThreadException-----------------------------------System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not load file or assembly 'SlimDX, Version=2.0.7.41, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b1b0c32fd1ffe4f9' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
File name: 'SlimDX, Version=2.0.7.41, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b1b0c32fd1ffe4f9'
at AIWar.GameForm.GameForm_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad(EventArgs e)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnCreateControl()
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl(Boolean fIgnoreVisible)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.CreateControl()
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ScrollableControl.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.ContainerControl.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WmShowWindow(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

It looks like SlimDX was not installed. You can easily get it and install it from here. Assuming that the other prerequisites were installed, you should then be good to go!

vincent1989 · 27 Aug 2009 at 20:41

tals said:
lol yeah it's outrageously cheap. The coop game I was playing we just got totally pwned, partly because the economy changes quite a lot in the beta and we decided to go beta - that was a good call because lots of nice stuff and the economy works but just caught us on the hop and partly because we didn't get scouts around and by the time we thought about it it was too late (with our Noobiness). I started a new SP game this morning and it's all so much clearer - just loving this game, coop really is very worth while trying, myself and a friend play quite late but if anyone wanted to join in our next starting tonight they'd be very welcome. Game will play 10pm- 11.30/midnight on weekdays - should finish after a week if we get our games in

Tals

any chance i can join in? i don't have a mic for the PC so i'd have to be shown what's needed via flares and text, but i'm keen to have a go at multiplayer

tals · 27 Aug 2009 at 20:59

vincent1989 said:
any chance i can join in? i don't have a mic for the PC so i'd have to be shown what's needed via flares and text, but i'm keen to have a go at multiplayer

Without the mic it's going to be difficult - Chris can chime in but you really need Voip to be able to strategise. This game will last I guess a week or so and we should then start another. People are very welcome as a 7 player coop woul dbe amazing!

vincent1989 · 27 Aug 2009 at 21:06

tals said:
Without the mic it's going to be difficult - Chris can chime in but you really need Voip to be able to strategise. This game will last I guess a week or so and we should then start another. People are very welcome as a 7 player coop woul dbe amazing!

of course, it's a bummer, i only just got rid of my last headset as i wasn't really gaming with my old clan anymore (or pc gaming at all really) and it was just cluttering my room, ah well!

can't seem to install the 1.201 patch either, i've extracted it in to the game folder but stupid old winrar throws up a load of errors and it seems to still be on 1.013 (or what ever it is)

edit: ah, poo, i'm on 1.012, need .013 to patch XD

x4000 · 27 Aug 2009 at 21:09

vincent1989 said:
of course, it's a bummer, i only just got rid of my last headset as i wasn't really gaming with my old clan anymore (or pc gaming at all really) and it was just cluttering my room, ah well!

can't seem to install the 1.201 patch either, i've extracted it in to the game folder but stupid old winrar throws up a load of errors and it seems to still be on 1.013 (or what ever it is)

You might try 7Zip instead, it's free and very reliable. Or just the basic windows "compressed folders" interface also works well.

I know of several players who are playing successfully without a mic, and I've actually had a situation before where one of my alpha tester's mic was broken and so he was typing and the rest of us were talking (he could still hear us, he just couldn't talk himself). So you could probably work it out that way, thus Vincent is still able to hear all the other talk but it is just a bit more difficult for him to chime in (but still doable).

vincent1989 · 27 Aug 2009 at 21:14

x4000 said:
You might try 7Zip instead, it's free and very reliable. Or just the basic windows "compressed folders" interface also works well.

I know of several players who are playing successfully without a mic, and I've actually had a situation before where one of my alpha tester's mic was broken and so he was typing and the rest of us were talking (he could still hear us, he just couldn't talk himself). So you could probably work it out that way, thus Vincent is still able to hear all the other talk but it is just a bit more difficult for him to chime in (but still doable).

ta and ta, installing 7zip now, hopefully i'll be able to update then ^^

edit: nope, 7zip throws up the exact same crap. already tried re-downloading the updates to no avail, i guess trying a full re-install is the next step

sorted, for some reason it didn't want to extract and replace in the game folder itself, cut/paste soon sorted that XD

tals · 27 Aug 2009 at 21:56

I know of several players who are playing successfully without a mic, and I've actually had a situation before where one of my alpha tester's mic was broken and so he was typing and the rest of us were talking (he could still hear us, he just couldn't talk himself). So you could probably work it out that way, thus Vincent is still able to hear all the other talk but it is just a bit more difficult for him to chime in (but still doable).

The noob in me might be showing but I thought text chat was only through the galaxy view - envelope button?

x4000 · 27 Aug 2009 at 21:57

tals said:
The noob in me might be showing but I thought text chat was only through the galaxy view - envelope button?

No, you can hit Enter at any time to chat, just like in most other RTS games. And there is a little envelope icon on main view next to the minimap, too, if you prefer to click stuff. Normally the text chat lines will show for 10 seconds in the main view, or if you want to look back at the last 45 messages sent you can just hover over the envelope icon in either the main view or the galaxy view.

tals · 27 Aug 2009 at 21:58

OK we're give it a go

Ed are you in? Game is starting in 5 mins

tals · 28 Aug 2009 at 00:09

tals said:
OK we're give it a go Ed are you in? Game is starting in 5 mins

Game worked remarkably well - now we just have to coordinate the 3 of us. Game much more frantic than 2 player with waves comin in thick and fast

Chris on a related note, the chat was excellent - is it possible to have a small beep when someone does a text message - my usual audio cues issue

Also on the starmap screen you have a message about fog of war - that overlays the last message sent - so if you miss the message when it comes in it's impossible to see on the starmap screen until a new message is created. Otherwise worked very nicely

vincent1989 · 28 Aug 2009 at 00:54

tals said:
Game worked remarkably well - now we just have to coordinate the 3 of us. Game much more frantic than 2 player with waves comin in thick and fast

Chris on a related note, the chat was excellent - is it possible to have a small beep when someone does a text message - my usual audio cues issue Also on the starmap screen you have a message about fog of war - that overlays the last message sent - so if you miss the message when it comes in it's impossible to see on the starmap screen until a new message is created. Otherwise worked very nicely

i agree completely in regards to this, its a vastly different beast in respect to both the previous build and also single player, the couple of hours we played for was good fun.

x4000 · 28 Aug 2009 at 01:16

tals said:
Game worked remarkably well - now we just have to coordinate the 3 of us. Game much more frantic than 2 player with waves comin in thick and fast

Chris on a related note, the chat was excellent - is it possible to have a small beep when someone does a text message - my usual audio cues issue Also on the starmap screen you have a message about fog of war - that overlays the last message sent - so if you miss the message when it comes in it's impossible to see on the starmap screen until a new message is created. Otherwise worked very nicely

Glad to hear it! And thanks for the suggestions about the chat, also. I've added that to my list: http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,1025.0.html