pretty quiet in the forum lately

[usmcrave99]

Alright here are some highlights, and I've attached the full Beta history in a .txt.

v.10 - Initial Beta Version; Had a Never ending AI turn that made it impossible to test beyond 3 turns.

v.11 - Never ending AI turn supposedly fixed, but continued until v.14.

v.12 - Range Check errors during AI turns fixed, unknown cause, but probably the AI trying to purchase too much. Dead players still taking turns was fixed.

v.13 - Game Over window did not actually end the game until this version. Bombardment loophole was fixed; prior to this version, you could fire as much as you wanted until the 2nd missile actually hit, because the movement point was not deducted until impact. Holding shift when clicking the left/right arrow buttons on the selection window to get increments of 10 was added; prior to this, only available increment was 1.

v.14 - Alt-Tab functionality was added. Endless AI player turn finally fixed.

v.15 - Purchases window takes current form; in prior versions Purchases took up most of screen. City cost increased to 100. Bombardment fixed again, this time to restrict it to adjacent (highlighted) territories. All unit costs doubled. Cities restricted to 4 per territory. Supply Cost added to most purchases; prior to Supply, money was never deducted from your total, regardless of how many units you already had or were purchased. Purchases split into Air, Land, and Sea selections; prior to this, it was all in a single list.

This was the major turning point in AI difficulty. Prior to adding the Supply Cost, the AI was harder to defeat because it could always purchase a sh!tload of units. Afterwards the AI would not build enough cities to support the units it built, and rapidly started to lose money. All you had to do was survive the initial rush, and the AI would not be able to build enough units for defense, nor would the AI ever attack a territory not on the front line.

v.16 - AI will now always build a Fabrication Complex if it doesn't have one.

v.17 - Combat Order List added to the top of the Combat window.

v.18 - Popup help text added for all controls. Double-clicking finally added to Purchases window; prior to this, you always had to click the Add button after selecting where and how many.

v.19 - Nothing changed regarding game play.

v.20 - Fixed: Selected Units List help text would display even after window was closed.

v.21 - Random error where I was able to move a unit to a territory beyond its remaining movement may have been fixed; may have been related to border drawing, where it looked like two territories were not adjacent. (see Illegal Move.JPG)

v.22 - Fixed: AI would only land one plane at a time from over enemy territory.

[spillblood]

So you were a beta tester? How did you get to do this? I'd surely have joined the beta if possible. Did this in Gratuitous Space Battles, and the game shaped out great (although it's a rather limited strategy game). I made some suggestions before final release and many after release, reported bugs etc. Tried to do this here, too. You should simply try to help improving the games you spent money on especially if they're from little developers. Man, hopefully they'll finally listen to our suggestions.

[usmcrave99]

Originally Posted by spillblood

So you were a beta tester? How did you get to do this? I'd surely have joined the beta if possible.

They posted for it on their website back on August 2nd. It's still on there, about halfway down, under "What's New." I just submitted the form to their email address. A week later I found out I was one of the 16 selected.