New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Finalizing_Multiplayer#Beta_3.310_Engineering_Intelligence_Injection
This one is on the beta branch! In Steam, you will need to select current_beta to see it. On GOG Galaxy, you'll need to select Beta. In the game you should then see 3.310 as the version.
If you have a chance, please do try this new beta version, and pay careful attention to your economy and your engineers and repair, etc. There are still some known issues with engineers (getting indecisive at times, choosing not-the-optimal-order-I-say-in-the-release-notes to do things in), but I think that they're still actually more functional than the prior version. And I'm not aware of any other bugs right now that are new.
However, as with any version that changes so many things (this serious changed a LOT, and I still have more to do next build to get those last known things fixed), there is the chance for something to be dramatically wrong with it. Hence a beta that is possibly just going to last a day or so. If your economy is correct and not getting eaten by things improperly, then I'll be happy; that's honestly my main worry, because I changed so much there.
So what's up with this build in general?
1. Network privacy settings if you play by IP and are streaming and want to hide that from your screen.
2. Fix a bug that was causing slowdown by spamming the error log in the prior build.
3. Completely re-code most of the engineering logic, and a lot of how assistance from engineers is applied to things they are building or boosting, etc.
- Previously in MP, the person receiving help from your engineer paid for it instead of you. Some help you were! ;) Now you pay for it properly, as expected.
- Way more options on being able to help out allies in MP and even SP.
- Ability to boost factories in general in MP, or build things for allies.
- Fix to engineers running off to strange corners of the gravity well (and possibly same fix for melee units).
- New injection of intelligence in engineer priorities for what to build first, etc. (This doesn't work fully yet, but all the other new features do.)
- Engineers no longer move in small jumps to get to their target. They go there much more quickly and smoothly.
4. Bit of data savings, and several minor performance improvements.
5. Fix to the bug from the last few months where a lot of ship-to-ship lines were not drawn, AND a fix to them sometimes hanging around TOO long.
Feedback is really welcome, and I hope to get the rest of the remaining issues with these tomorrow, along with some other bugs and improvements. If you're curious how some of these longstanding engineers could last so long... well, check out my last playthrough, where I show myself playing the first two hours (gametime) of the game. Notice my use of engineers? Essentially, whatever was auto-created I let happen, and I ignored them beyond that. It's part of my general playstyle that I rarely have the extra metal to spare, and I play on accelerated time, so engineers just put me in the Drain economy state more often than not. It's a very strange thing not to play with engineers much, but I don't, and so I was completely blind to how prevalent this stuff was. Sorry about that!
More to come soon.
Enjoy!
