Release notes here!
This one had a lot of under-the-hood work to further the architecture goal of building the “Major” factions (human player, The AI) with mostly the same toolbox used for the “Minor” factions (Dyson, Devourer, Nanocaust, etc). This implicitly makes them all much more moddable and flexible.
But the result that stands out is that the Special Forces mechanic now stands out. Or rather, it used to be a mechanic, but now it’s a faction in its own right. The main AI makes donations to the SF, but the SF decides what to build and where to go. As in AIWC it acts to defend the AI’s planets against attack. Unlike AIWC, this behavior is more emergent (it should defend the AI against attacks from factions other than you, for instance) and is entirely moddable. If you want to make a SF sub-type that only builds long-range ships and only does sneaky drive-by attacks against the player, that can be done by modding. Or if you want a sub-type that only builds Etherjet Tractors and Widow Guardians and tries to tow the player’s fleet to its destruction, that can be done too.
Enjoy!
Keith
Any word on if/when AIW2 will be on GOG?
They want to see a build first, but we haven’t been ready to share one with them yet. Based on our past history and conversations, I imagine that the game will launch on GOG at the same time it does Steam. But I can’t really promise anything, since that’s mostly out of my hands. At the moment they’ve been very interested in playing it, but I’m not keen on giving them an in-progress beta since they’ve turned down some of our past stuff.
Sounds good! Hoping for the best!