Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy, Indie
Zero-K
Zero-K v1.7.3.4 - Funnelweb and Fixes
Funnelweb is the focus of this release, alongside fixes for related to the engine update. The community member dyth68 has been working on a Funnelweb rework for a while and it is finally time to try it out ingame. There are also a few other miscellaneous balance changes and fixes.
The engine update from last week was fairly smooth, but did identify a few bugs. Most of these bugs were since fixed by the engine developers, so this release updates the engine version to Spring 104.0.1-1085-gfc6d80e. This update also contains potential improvements to pathfinding around structures. Comment and give feedback on the new behaviour if you notice a difference.
Balance
Reworked Funnelweb to be the ultimate battlefield constructor. It may also find a role in missile defense, as it can now block two EMP missiles.
Cost 4500 -> 3500
Speed 45 -> 54
Health 11K -> 6K
Can construct at long range with 40 buildpower.
Shield now has 28K maximum change, a large increase from 3.6K.
Shield recharges at +200/second, but not if it has taken damage in the last 10 seconds.
Shield is larger and does not link.
Removed drones.
Added radar.
Ultimatum:
Speed increased by 6.8%
Damage increased by 66%
Constable:
Range 320 -> 240
Duck:
Now shoots its land weapon in an arc, a bit like Rogue.
Changed light transportability rules.
Charon is now able to transport units that cost 1000 metal or less.
The old rule was based on mass, which made it a bit opaque.
The effect of the change is that Charon can now transport Jack, Minotaur, and Siren.
Detriment:
Fixed a mismatch between when it is considered submerged for targeting and for LOS.
Raven now dives mobile targets when following Area Attack commands.
Reef and Shogun have smaller footprints to make them less likely to become stuck on Tidal Generators and Urchins.
Factory and commander innate energy income is now pooled and shared between all players on the team. This will provide players who lost their commander with some base energy income to help them rebuild.
Interface
Initial unit behaviour configuration:
Fixed Commander retreat state.
Added repeat for Athena and Strider Hub.
Added Chicken Roosts and Spires to unit marker configuration.
The area command drag threshold has been increased to issuing single target commands easier. This threshold is now configurable.
Lobby
Extended maximum chicken queen spawn time modoption from 200 minutes to 300 minutes.
Added a "Enable Inactivity Sharing" modoption that can be used to disable automatic unit transfer for inactive players.
Fixed tutorial missions.
Fixed a rare inconsistency with the order of matchmaker queues.
Fixes
Fixed units occasionally failing to revert to their normal speed after being slowed. The most commonly affected unit was Crab.
Fixed units set to hold position with ballistic weapons failing to automatically target units that are only in range due to the elevation bonus. The most commonly affected unit was Crab.
Fixed an air repair pad crash.
Fixed a rare crash on game launch.
Fixed a crash on saving with AIs.
Fixed a failure to allocate memory caused by loading bad ambient map sounds.
Fixed a desync likely caused by game file caching
Fixed ferry routes and quick load widgets.
Fixed reclaiming of live units sometimes reducing their health.
Improved minimap performance.
Fixed area reclaim sometimes issuing a unit target command.
Engine Update and Resource Refinement
The general consensus is that the start income increase was a bit much, so it has been refined as follows.
Start resources 200 -> 250
Commander income +8/+8 -> +6/+8
We have also applied an engine update, since the beta branch reports are silent and the closed testing is promising. Please report any issues.
Zero-K v1.7.3.1 - Economy Tweaks and Balance
In this update we've taken a look at the economy, with an eye to getting more players through the early game and into the midgame. Several problematic units have also been tweaked and there are some superweapon changes for large games FFA.
Economy Tweaks
Initial incomes are now higher, offset by lower starting resources.
Commander income +4 metal, +6 energy -> +8 metal and energy.
Start resources 400 -> 200.
The change in income and resources approximately corresponds to a free Solar and two Mexes. This change should smooth the start of the game by creating a slightly more economic default start and by making the loss of an early mex less devastating. Further effects, such as the efficacy of Ravens, will require community experimentation.
Constructors no longer generate trickles of resources.
Everything in the factory tab now has 0.5 metal and energy income (up from 0.3).
All other constructors (besides the Commander) no longer generate resources. Previously, small constructors generated 0.15 metal and energy.
Constructor costs have mostly been reduced by 4 per buildpower to offset the economic disruption. Each unit of buildpower used to generate 4 metal and energy every 2 minutes and 13 seconds.
Here is the full list of cost changes. Some buffs or nerfs have occurred relative to the rule of 4 cost per buildpower.
Caretaker 220 -> 180
Conch 180 -> 150
Conjuror 140 -> 120
Constable 130 -> 120 (a relative nerf of 6)
Convict 140 -> 120
Crane 220 -> 200 (a relative buff of 4)
Quill 150 -> 130
Mariner 220 -> 200 (a relative nerf of 10)
Mason 140 -> 120
Wasp 300 -> 260 (a relative buff of 10)
Weaver 200 -> 170
Welder 230 -> 200
The change addresses FFA Conch spam, makes losing an early constructors a bit less game-ending, and should make factories such as Spider, Amph and Tank a little less awkward.
No longer occasionally fails to move close enough to its target.
Seawolf
Can now fire (and successfully hit) in every direction.
Missed torpedoes no longer fly across the map (also applies to underwater Scallops).
Tweaked the costs of some Striders and Superweapons.
Paladin 10.5K -> 10K
Detriment 24K -> 20K
Zenith 30K -> 32K
Disco Rave Party 32K -> 36K
Fixed Detriment overkill prevention, it now only applies to its missiles.
Interface
Added an option 'Settings/HUD Panels/Command Panel/Selection Closes Tab' which sets whether selecting a construction option closes the construction tab.
Made units easier to click on by enlarging their mouse raytrace hitboxes.
Drop detection no longer automatically pauses, because the pause detection behaviour was broken.
Fixed performance issue while not looking at the sharing/scoreboard panel. The performance issue that is caused by looking at the sharing/scoreboard panel remains.
2v2 tournament February 23 at 19:00 UTC
There will be a 2v2 tournament at 19:00 UTC on the coming Saturday, February 23rd. Click here to see the tournament thread: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/27799
Server update: Autohost and Ratings
The server is the focus of this update, with particular attention paid to autohosts and the rating system. Autohosts now automatically ask players to select a new map, replacing the old random selection, and initiate a battle start poll. When an autohost is sufficiently full at the end of a game it will also briefly ask each player whether they want to play a small team game with a subset of the available players.
Autohosts
Autohost voting has now been streamlined to avoid long vote periods:
Directly after each battle there is a 25 second discussion time with no polls.
Afterwards, a map majority vote is called in which players can pick between some randomly selected maps.
Once the map is selected and if there are more than 6 players a start vote will be called.
If the game hasn't been started, normal votes can now be called as usual.
Additionally, if there are at least 12 players in the room at the end of a match then the battleroom will offer each player the chance to play a small team game. This feature uses the matchmaker and will only move players if a reasonably balanced small team match can be created out of the players that accept the offer.
Rating
Ladder ratings are now chosen such that the rating system is 75% confident that the player has at least that rating.
Ratings now have higher variance, meaning they will allow for bigger changes between days.
Ratings will change faster the more games are played.
Fixed an error in the formula to calculate ratings from team games.
Rating uncertainty has been replaced by standard deviation. The +- numbers shown represent one standard deviation.
Other Changes/Fixes
Fixed some user flags being incorrect.
Prevent users from vandalizing empty autohosts by setting custom maps on multiple of them.
Only count custom matches for Elo if the teams are even.
Spectate afk players on game start.
Allow anyone to call !spec to spectate afk players.
Only allow allies to vote on in-game kicking.
Abort MM battles if a player doesn't load in and temporarily ban that player from matchmaking.
Reduce force start time from 180sec to 160sec.
Fix autohosts getting deleted on every server restart.
Add the logged in player to the end of the ladder if he isn't on it.
Add a searchable ladder page with the full ladders.
Make sure the Space Lobster rank is unreachable.
Prevent an exploit where players could spoof awards and force start games.
Fix XP not being given out for some battles.
Disallow joining matchmaker if the player is still fighting in another battle and that battle has been going on for less than five minutes.
Game Changes
Made individual units easier to select.
Added some development engine compatibility, which should allow us to start wider testing.
Fixed Hunter launch sound.
Improved Shockley impact effect.
Improved Seawolf's ability to hit things.
Disabled Dynamic Water as some ATI users have had trouble with it.
Fixed a time display bug related to the craziness of UTC.
Added a few turrets to Mission 2.
Zero-K v1.7.2.0 - Flea Nerf
After some much-needed life maintenance, the summer (or 'ɹǝɯɯns') Zero-K development break is over. During the break we received a Hunter model and some much improved animations for the Cloakbots. The major changes of this version are to Flea, in the form of a nerf, and Space Lobsters, in the form of a physics tweak.
Flea:
Range 155 -> 150
DPS reduced by 7.3%
Decloak radius 120 -> 200
Other changes:
Put a cap on Space Lobster by setting a limit on the projected flight time of lobbed units.
Halberd can no longer change armour state while disarmed.
Improved the walk animations of the Cloakbots.
Replaced the Hunter model.
Hid the modoptions window in matchmaker games.
Potentially fixed an undead Outlaw error.
Chicken Queen health multiplier modoption can now be set higher.
Reworked Into Battle startboxes for 1v1.
3v3 Tournament January 26th 2019
There will be a 3v3 tournament at 16:00 UTC on the coming Saturday, January 26th. See the tournament thread here: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/27650,
Zero-K v1.6.12.0 - Archer fix and Constable buff
There is a tournament in 10 days, so it is a perfect time to fix Archer. The central issue for Archer was physics-based rather than attributes based, which makes solo testing difficult. Thankfully, rooks[vegan], Kingstad, raaar, noobula, and izirayd were nice enough to test it out in multiplayer. Kingstad decided that Archer should cost 180 metal to compensate for the changes.
It is also a good time to give Constable a little damage, because who are we to question the will of Godde? Puppy and Moderator have also received a slight reduction in jank. In other news, the outline widget had its settings tweaked and is now enabled by default. Players already using the widget may want to revise their settings to take the changes into account.
Balance
Archer fires in pulses to remove its unintended ability to hold units in place. It is cheaper to compensate.
Cost 200 -> 180
Range 300 -> 275
Continuous firing replaced with 0.66s reload time.
DPS 104 -> 72
Limpet is apparently to be buffed until it reaches degeneracy.
Cost 180 -> 150
Speed 3.9 -> 4.1
Constable is now able to fend off two Fleas.
Now deals 15 real damage per shot.
Added tactical AI.
Puppy now aims at its target instead of simply firing forwards and putting its faith in homing alone.
Moderator no longer 1-hits itself, providing much-needed hope for the Jump vs. Jump matchup.
Level 1 Commanders now have a beam laser instead of their weak pew-pew laser. Morph costs have been incraesed and weapon costs reduced to compensate.
Features
Improved amphibious unit selection sound.
Added a subtle unit outline setting and enabled outlines by default (at the insistence of Drone).
Widened the bounds on wave spawn interval and burrow spawn time for custom chicken games.
Fixes
Fixed Kirdipan.
Fixed economy panels not showing when spectating a FFA with the spectator resource bars enabled.
Fixed Zenith targeting on high ground.
Engine Testing - Beta Branch Edition
The issues with the AI from the last engine update attempt have been resolved. This time, instead of applying the latest update, we're asking players to test the beta branch. Be sure to report any issues and post if you test so we can judge the effectiveness of the beta branch approach.
In other news, _Shaman is coordinating players to nominate Zero-K for the “Most Fun with a Machine” Steam award and nominations close in two days. See this thread for more information: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/27434
Engine Update
An update from Spring 104.0.1-287-gf7b0fcc to Spring 104.0.1-901-g89b4773 is now live. Benchmarks sent in by users indicate that the framerate of the new engine is slightly more stable, and that performance is overall quite similar. The main advantages of the updated are the new features and fixes, with the possibility of more fixes to come.
The engine and AI devs have put in quite a bit of work into fixing the bugs found in local and multiplayer testing. However, we don't have the testing volume to find all the issues so please be patient and report any issues.
In this update we've taken a look at the economy, with an eye to getting more players through the early game and into the midgame. Several problematic units have also been tweaked and there are some superweapon changes for large games FFA.
