Published on November 11, 2015 By Island Dog In Ashes of the Singularity

v.63 update is now live. Thanks for all the feedback! A number of these changes are in direct response to feedback and bug reports from the forums, so keep it coming. 



Full change log:

Gameplay
  • Game option to play with Victory Points off
  • New large desert map: Anthys
  • Turinium Generator control also gives a 10% economy boost
  • Host migration (works in human-only games for now)
  • Logistics notification for when player is using 90% of their capacity
  • Game options default to Terrain Hidden
  • Balance changes
    • Quantum Relays require more radioactives, less metal
    • Smarties take longer to build (so they don’t bankrupt you)
    • Fury & Hades require more radioactives, less metal
    • Medic unit positions farther from front lines when formed in army
    • Minimum zoom increased from 2000 feet to 2300 feet
    • Maximum zoom increased from 15,000 feet to 20,000 feet
    • T3 expenses substantially increased
    • T3 armor increased from 8 to 12
    • Sentinel and Thantos armor piercing increased
    • T2 expenses slightly increased
    • Scout comes out as an individual unit
    • Brute now comes out as a group of 4.
    • Slight balance changes to weapons to correspond to changes to the units
    • Decreased movement penalty when engaged in battle
    • Creeps spawn faster

 

Art & Graphics
  • Terrain battle damage scorch marks (textures WIP)
  • Team colors more prominent on units (still adjusting)
  • Pan air surveillance unit much larger
  • light added to Medic unit
  • Added environment-appropriate trees to a number of maps

 

UI
  • Empire Tree improvements
    • collapse/expand all button
    • defaulting all to collapsed
    • added unique collapsed icon for air units
    • removed background boxes so unit icons are more legible
  • Add map scroll speed option
  • UI Buttons for game speed control
  • Added more color to UI icons
  • Steam avatars used for player icons in-game
  • F2 cycles through idle factories
  • Minimap hides region & connecting line UI when unexplored
  • Players return to a lobby after a match is complete

 

Sound
  • New music added from composer Geoff Knorr (Civilization V) and Richard Gibbs (Battlestar Galactica)
  • Leveled music volume
  • Added unique Chronos T3 move sound
  • Shortened order move sound

 

Stability
  • Crash fixes for engineers assisting factories
  • Tachyon overlay stability
  • Fix for hang

 

Bug Fixes
  • Hades bombers attack more effectively
  • Strategic map no longer gets stuck open from chat
  • Fixed construction/tech/orbital panels not showing after an enemy unit was clicked first
  • Fixed missing LOD on Hercules model

Comments (Page 2)
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on Nov 13, 2015

A bit more feedback:

- The AI needs to be smarter or behave differently depending on game settings.

I finished my 6 player ffa against normal AI on the new huge map. VP were set to 10000 but I won before anyone got that far. However I am not sure I should have won. Red kept brushing past very close to my Nexus to get to a generator. Obviously it was an area of lots of battles but at one or two points if they had pushed a bit more onto my Nexus I don't think I could have stopped them. But they were so fixated on getting the generator it never seemed to cross their mind. If they had wiped me from the game then their fight for the generator would have been so much easier, so killing me would have been a very sound strategic choice. Not to mention the extra resources which would have been easy to claim with me gone.

On a small map if the player chooses very high VPs then perhaps the AI can place a little less emphasis on them and go more for the kill.

I hope the AI will play a bit different when VP are turned off. Generators will still be important with their nice bonus but they will still need to play differently.

- Pans are sooo easily shot down. In one brief burst the single AA point defence shot down 5 Pans together and a few seconds later took down the final 2. Some more balancing needed

- We really need some kind of area command for building on resources. I thought it would be just nice to have it when we were on small maps but now there are such large ones and when you are fighting on several fronts it is essential to have as it is very hard and time consuming to try and put extractors everywhere. PA implemented this very well: Just click and hold the first extractor down and move out with the cursor creating a circle as large as you like to build the extractors in that area. Very effective indeed.

- We need to be able to grab 5 engineers, give them a bunch of things to do and they go off and do it, doing each thing one at a time, supporting each other so the thing is done very quickly before moving on to the next one. I tried this and at the moment it does not work at all. One built it and the others just sat there doing nothing. I am not sure what happens after that but the result is very slow and with engineers doing nothing.

- I think we still can't queue units in a factory before it has finished building.

- It would be nice to have a separate button for idle factories and idle sky factories. I never really want my factories idle but often leave sky factories idle and only use them when I have a particular need (too resource intensive to have them building all the time). However as they are lumped together I don't notice if a factory is idle or not as I am used to seeing a number on the button as the sky factories are idle.

-Someone mentioned it above but it would be so cool to be able to effect the shape of the meta unit like you can in total war. I think it would add a lot to the player experience

- As mentioned by a Dev somewhere, a meta unit only has 1 dreadnought in it. So if you have a saved army (Ctrl 1-9) of 3 dreadnoughts you actually have 3 meta units not one army. In this example if you click on one of the dreadnoughts and you will see only 1/3 or so of the little units will be selected with it. I know this is done by design at the moment and it can be useful to send an army somewhere and then split forces a little by clicking on the dreadnought. However have you thought of actually allowing the creation of a multi-dreadnought single meta unit/army? It would array the units differently and could be very useful.

 

on Nov 13, 2015

The AI hasn't been adjusted to account for high VP (or To The Death) games.  They are still operating on the assumption that VP sites are always the highest priority in the game.

on Nov 13, 2015

Good to know it has room for improvement.

on Nov 19, 2015

It seems to run well, however I have noticed that sometimes when scrolling across the map I see the map flicker a little. Running a GTX970 I figured i would help to update my driver. I did and it seemed to be a little better but then it happened again. 

 

[Less Important at the moment but... Gameplay]

I wish the Engineers could follow one, once grouped, and when given a command to build a structure that the extra units would automatically assist in construction. I noticed that I had to select 1 unit, then command it to build a structure and I would have to then click my second group of Engineers I set and command them to assist in construction. Otherwise they would follow the 1st one but not assist in construction. I know we are early on, but I would like to see this feature if possible. 

on Nov 20, 2015

I agree with you

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