AI War 3.060 Released

March 1, 2010

AI War 3.060 Released

Since January, Arcen’s focus has
shifted from large-scale development of AI War to our other upcoming titles —
with AI War, their intent had been to simply maintain and refine the existing
game, while adding a handful of exciting new features every month as free DLC.
As you may imagine, therefore, they were quite surprised to realize that this
new version, 3.070, is the largest monthly update they’ve ever done.

There aren’t many huge single
features here aside from the new Riot Control Starships (which introduce modular
ship design to the game). However, the number of small refinements are just
staggering (the release notes are over 10,000 words), and we’ve made a number of
significant performance improvements, too. Here’s the list of particularly
notable features out of the hundreds of changes:

  • Simple Formation movement, as well
    as arc-movement.

  • New, modular, riot control
    starships.

  • Many various performance
    improvements.

  • Manufactories now auto-manage
    themselves by default.

  • Transports are now extremely more
    useful.

  • Astro Trains are now much less
    fearsome.

  • Cleanup drones can now remove
    mines (even perma-mines).

  • Gate-raiding is now cheaper in
    terms of AI Progress.

  • Hit chance logic is slightly
    simplified to avoid player confusion.

  • New screenshot key (F12).

  • Control nodes and rally points now
    knowledge-free.

  • Option for historical autosaves.

  • Dozens and dozens of balance
    tweaks.

  • Other various bugfixes and small
    changes.

A big part of the reason for the
impressiveness of this update is Keith LaMothe, Arcen’s new part-time
programmer, who joined the team in January. Keith is tasked with keeping AI War
growing and improving while Chris Park, AI War’s lead designer and (previously
sole) programmer is working on Arcen’s other upcoming titles. Of course, Chris
still plays AI War several hours per week and so can’t help but make some weekly
changes to the game himself, and is still very much involved in Arcen’s
ever-growing forum community, and overall design of AI War.

Arcen is quite pleased to see that
AI War’s playerbase continues to grow so steadily ten months after the base
game’s initial release — they’ve seen a 300% increase in total customers since
AI War 2.0 — and in turn they’re making the continual refinement and
feature-growth of the game an ongoing priority beyond the smaller monthly DLC
releases that had been planned. A second paid expansion for the game is also
still planned for late this year.

Next month’s free DLC will include
more player-requested changes, as well as their first work on new endgame
scenarios and auto-created epilogues, both of which should really take the late
stages of the game to new heights.