The full notes are here. Everything in this build is courtesy of Dismiss.

This includes a fix to the "prior" button not actually working properly in the prior build. It now does.

A couple of tooltips have seen some improvements, and there's protection against a couple of possible errors.

The NecroParty mod has had a lot of balance updates and corrections to how well it gives you a starting spot.

The Generator mod now makes better choices for AI homeworlds.

The Reclaimers mod has had a few balance tweaks.


If you're a volunteer or mod coder for the game, there are a number of additions to make life easier to you.

Heart of the Machine just passed 700 reviews by players! Exciting milestone. The game continues to grow, with a lot of exciting things in work for the next couple of months. April is me reworking the prologue and chapter one a lot, and then May will be a focus on tier one and two goals in chapter 2+.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

The full notes are here.

The first thing that I should note is that Steam multiplayer should now be a lot more reliable. It seems that I did not have the flags for that set up correctly, based on the documentation provided by Steam. This is something discovered by long-time contributor Dismiss, and it probably explains a huge amount about reliability problems with the Steam networking. If it seemed like some messages were just disappearing into the ether, it's because they were, because of the way that Steam was set up to send.

On the other hand, LiteNetLib and GOG networking were set up properly, and so never had these problems. But some of the problems that were reported were originally reported on both LiteNetLib and Steam, which is a bit confusing for me. It's possible that there were originally problems that were more at the application layer, and we all cumulatively fixed all of those. If that's the case, then my and Badger's ongoing feeling that this was transport-layer-agnostic may have been out of date. This would be fantastic news if true, because if that's true then it should mean that they all just work fine now. Fingers crossed.

The issues that were reported would fit the solution that Dismiss found, though, so there's that. It's a truly huge find if it's truly what it is. Not that I'm doubtful, but just... well, I'm a certain amount cynical after chasing multiplayer with this game for so long for so many years. Again, fingers majorly crossed, and giant thanks to Dismiss either way.

There's a long list of fixes in the link above.

Several of them are performance fixes, like to the Human Resistance Fighters warping in pre-stacked to avoid a hit from them spawning a ton of things and then despawning them to stack.

Some flickering ui was fixed.

Some ui elements that were not shown for all clients in multiplayer now are.

Formatted tooltips (which are optional, and another of the many things by Dismiss) have gotten a wide variety of fixes.

Both the lobby and encyclopedia have gotten a slate of fixes.

Two new personal settings have been added, and one galaxy setting is now changeable during the game rather than being marked as a cheat if you were to change it.

There is then a really long list of nice things for coders, either volunteers or modders, included in this build.

The Generator mod now works with Sidekick players.

The Sidekicks mod has a nerf to one enemy unit's resource yield, and a fix to another pair of structures not being buildable by a certain kind of player.

The Points of Interest mod has had a lot of rebalancing.

The Necro Party mod has had a really major update. Please try out this rework of the Necromancer faction, with a focus so far on rebalancing of rift hacks to make each galaxy feel more unique, make planets have strategic value, and rebalance costs to make more lines/flagships useful. Come to the discord to offer your thoughts and ideas.


This rebalances the Logistician campaign type and the games that have the Fuel setting enabled, by making the regular forcefields, tractor arrays, tachyon arrays, most minefields and some of the basic turrets cost no Radon at all. Most turrets will cost around 450 Radon, and the sniper turrets will cost 1800 Radon. Anything that costs above 10k Radon and the station keepers are unchanged.

In Fallen Spire campaigns, the player will be able to build a Spire version of the fuel stations on planets with a mark 7 Spire city. These fuel stations also have a strict per-planet and per-galaxy limit.

Zenith Traders will also be able to sell Minor Fuel Stations, a previously deprecated item in the base game. These also have a per-galaxy limit.

In exchange of this, all fuel stations have a 60k energy consumption to maintain. That also makes them more realistic too.

This rebalances the game in a way that if the player loses a Radon station, they don't insta-lose the game, or that it makes it possible to grab an expansion even if you have no Radon available, since only the awesome turrets are expensive now.
It would also be close to impossible to play a Fuel game together with Fallen Spire campaign without a rebalance, since the Spire City buildings also cost Radon, and a lot of Radon, mind you.

Keep in mind that if there are new turrets that are added by another mod, this mod might not make any changes to them.

It always bothered me how the player couldn't gain anything from holding a system with a Dyson Sphere in it, even though it's supposed to be a structure that is so potent that it creates nearly limitless energy.
With this mod, the player will be able to draw 2m power from a Dyson Sphere for as long as they can hold a Command Station on the same planet.

This mod just changes the names of 40+ Exogalactic War Front units into biblically accurate angel and demon names, it's just for cosmetic flair.

Maybe the humanity wanted to name their strongest previously-thought-to-be-allies after their biblical protectors before they decided to turn their weapons on their own masters?

Maybe the AI has a god complex and that's why they named their most powerful minions after the angels?

Or maybe you are a Neon Genesis Evangelion fan, and really like the idea of potentially world-ending AI agents named after the angels.

In any case, be prepared to feel the fear of seeing something unfamiliar and scary, all over again.

If you have the mod "ExoWar Overhaul" by Lord of Nothing enabled, this mod will also rename the newly introduced exowar units by that mod too.

Heart of the Machine just passed 700 reviews by players! Exciting milestone. The game continues to grow, with a lot of exciting things in work for the next couple of months. April is me reworking the prologue and chapter one a lot, and then May will be a focus on tier one and two goals in chapter 2+.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

This build has a number of updates to quickstarts in general, and to the Sidekicks mod, and a few generalized fixes.

On the quickstarts side of things, Dismiss has fixed up a number of the descriptions, and has added a new "Full Campaign Start" type of save. This is a very interesting way for players to provide really hyper-specific scenarios (down to the seed and all the other bits) for others to try and play.

There's also a new community quickstart, called the Marshal Plan, by Corpserule. This is the first of those new kinds of full campaign quickstarts.

Badger has been hard at work on his sidekicks mod, and has a number of balance changes and improvements relating to the Dyson Empire, Scourge Infused Empire, and more. He also updated the player type descriptions in the game to make those a lot more informative in general.

There are a handful of other minor tweaks and fixes to the main game from both Dismiss and Badger.

Full release notes here: https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion_Part_II#5.618_More_Quickstarts_And_Sidekicks


Heart of the Machine has been in Early Access for slightly over a month now! Big thank-you to everyone for all of the support and the excellent reviews.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070#app_reviews_hash?snr=1_5_100010__global-header

Here is a link to prior recent HotM updates in case you missed them.
https://steamcommunity.com/ogg/2001070/announcements/detail/524210308312468720
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2001070/view/530965072572320673
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/530965072572317985

This build updates the scourge infused empire so that they can now summon their scourge minions to join in a particular fight, which helps to set them aside from regular scourge allies. This is with the Sidekicks mod, which is free and totally something you should try if you still haven't! It's by one of the devs of the game (Badger), and is basically an unofficial and free DLC4.

In other areas, there are a number of more bugfixes and tweaks in here. Big thanks to both Badger and Dismiss for those.

Back in the Sidekicks mod, there are also another two new custom AI difficulties, to go with the two that were added last update. Shark and Lumbering Badger are both very amusing and intriguing.

Full release notes here: https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion_Part_II#5.617_Minions_And_Fixes


Heart of the Machine released into Early Access a few weeks ago! Big thank-you to everyone for all of the support and the excellent reviews.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070#app_reviews_hash?snr=1_5_100010__global-header

Here is a link to prior recent HotM updates in case you missed them.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/530965072572317964
https://steamcommunity.com/games/2001070/announcements/detail/578252481832681480

New build for AI War 2! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion_Part_II#5.616_Fixes_And_Difficulties

This one has been a bit longer coming, because I've been slammed with the launch prep for the new game. Everything in here is from Badger and Dismiss, and there's a lot of goodies.

• There's been a bug with flagships lingering with a "tractored" debuff in some cases that were really annoying, and that should now be fixed. Big thanks to Dismiss on that.
  
• A couple of fixes to some other edge cases with ships stuck outside the gravity well or regenerating improperly.
  
• Another couple of edge cases with ships losing behavior mode when being loaded into transports and then having that order canceled, and things of that nature. All Dismiss on these items and the above!
  
• Badger has made a number of fixes to the Sidekicks mod factions, most notably the Scourge Empire and Ark Empire.
  
• And then the most exciting feature of all, which had me facepalming that I had not thought of it: Badger has added four new AI Difficulties that can be used with any AI, as part of the Sidekicks mod. (If you have not tried this mod yet, you really should. It's free, and basically a giant DLC4.) Anyway, the general goal of these is both to be interesting, but also to use fewer ships than normal. This is highly valuable for multiplayer games that are large and have a lot of players in them, to reduce the amount of data transferred and otherwise keep things running smoothly. That said, even in solo play, these give a different experience that should be quite interesting.

In other news, Heart of the Machine released into early access yesterday! If it looks of interest, please swing by and pick it up! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

Reviews are always greatly appreciated, as they really help out. Also extremely cool, there's a new video that shows you some of the time travel shenanigans you can get up to in chapter 3 and onwards of the game. That's 10-15 hours in for most people, so it's nice to be able to see that before you even start the game -- it is very spoiler-lite, and just gives you an idea of what you're in for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbndNdmJOdQ

As a final note for this build, let me just say thank you for all the years of support for Arcen in general, from AI War 1 all the way through many other titles to AI War 2, and now on to Heart of the Machine! It means a lot, and I've been so happy to see so many familiar faces from 14, 15, or even 16 years ago for the first time in a while!

Full release notes: https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion_Part_II#5.615_Sidekick_Mod_Updates

For the most part, this is just some balance and bugfixes so the Dark Zenith Empire, plus in general a fix to the Scourge Bane. All of these are part of the excellent Sidekicks mod, aka the 4th unofficial (free) DLC for the game, by Badger.

In unrelated news, getting closer and closer to Heart of the Machine! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

It has seen a number of updates to the demo for everything from localization to bugfixes and balance lately, too.

New build! https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion_Part_II#5.614_Classic_Fusion_Returns

This one gets Classic Fusion working again. That's a total conversion mod that makes this game function like a hybrid of AI War 1 and 2. Some other mod updates had broken this one, and it's been broken for a while, but now it's back. Big thanks to Badger for getting the code in place for those fixes, and to Puffin for recompiling it.

Badger's Sidekicks mod has a variety of cool updates in this one, including various balance and bugfix updates to the new features in the prior build. This includes improvements to the Dark Zenith Empire, which remains such a cool new way to experience the game.

In other news! Heart of the Machine is coming to early access on January 31st. Be sure to wishlist it to hear about updates! It is seriously huge for launch, and I'm excited to explore it more with you during EA: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

Also the demo is updated recently, and there's a new trailer. The language translations are increasingly excellent in the demo, but still have another week or so of going through LQA.

New build with updates to the sidekicks mod. Full release notes: https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion_Part_II#5.613_Dark_Zenith_Empire

If you haven't tried the Sidekicks mod, it's really worth a go -- more each build. It's by one of the main developers of the game itself, so as far as mods go... well, it's practically like a fourth expansion, but for free. I take no credit for any of that, it's all Badger and what he's wanted for his own multiplayer sessions.

This particular build adds a full "Dark Zenith Empire" option, alongside the sidekick version of the same idea. You've played as the spire, but have you ever played as the Zenith? It's worth noting that the developer behind this mod is literally the same person who developed out the Zenith factions for the main game, so this is... prime stuff. Seriously, more people need to play it!

In other news, Heart of the Machine has an official release date: coming to Early Access on January 31st! If you haven't wishlisted it yet, be sure to do so! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

There's also an updated trailer for the game, AND a fully updated demo with new content, a complete ui overhaul, and a ton of other goodies.

Fairly small update, with just changes to the very-cool Sidekicks mod. As I've mentioned a few times, it's by one of the main developers of the game, and at this point rivals the size of a DLC -- for free. So if you haven't given it a try, and are interested in some morecontent, it's really worth a look.

Full release notes are here: https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion_Part_II#5.612_More_Sidekicks_Mod_Updates

In other news, Heart of the Machine keeps drawing closer and closer. And we do still have slots open for the beta test!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/

New build with updates to the sidekicks mod. Full release notes: https://wiki.arcengames.com/index.php?title=AI_War_2:Post_Completion_Part_II#5.611_Sidekicks_Mod_Updates

If you haven't tried the Sidekicks mod, it's really worth a go. It's by one of the main developers of the game itself, so as far as mods go... well, it's practically like a fourth expansion, but for free. I take no credit for any of that, it's all Badger and what he's wanted for his own multiplayer sessions.

In other news, Heart of the Machine is coming quite soon! If you haven't wishlisted it yet, be sure to do so! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2001070/Heart_of_the_Machine/