Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy, Indie
Zero-K
Zero-K v1.11.8.1 - Lobster Brained
Lobsters have been taught to not fire when it would be redundant, making Lobster balls much easier to manage. Overkill prevention in general has a tweak, and some APIs were extended to make modding easier. The Artefact Control game mode which saw some testing about a month ago is now live. In terms of balance, Redback has a bit of a nerf and some of the least used units - Skuttle, Phoenix and Emissary - have small buffs.
Balance
Duck can now be dodged by a Glaive trying as hard as it can to run away.
Missile fuel time 2s -> 1.5s
Redback is worse at taking map control and assaulting defenses.
Cost 230 -> 240
Speed 1.85 -> 1.75
Skuttle can see enemies before they break its cloak.
Line of sight 280 -> 330
Emissary aims faster and no longer benefits from manually turning.
Body turn rate reduced 105 -> 84 degrees/second
Gun aim rate increased 40 -> 70 degrees/second
Resets its gun between shots (as much as possible) in case it has to move.
Phoenix moves faster and hits its target sooner.
Speed 8 -> 8.1
Projectile gravity 0.7 -> 0.72
Unit AI
Overkill prevention, the system that prevents ten Scalpels firing at a single Glaive, is now available for Lobster and disabled for units set to hold. It is controlled by a state toggle that is hidden by default because there is very little reason to touch it. The state toggle can be enabled under Settings/Interface/Commands, and per-unit defaults to be set in Settings/Unit Behaviour/Default States, or by holding Space and clicking on a unit, then pressing Edit Behaviour.
Lobster is smarter, no longer firing unless there is a visible valid target.
This prevents it from firing when it would do absolutely nothing, provided there are no invisible enemies nearby.
As a result, telling a tight clump of Lobsters to fire causes only two to shoot.
This behaviour can be configured with the hidden Overkill Prevention state.
Removed the Force Fire command by default. This can be configured via another hidden state toggle.
Overkill prevention is now suspended by default when units are set to Hold Fire.
Added the "Enable for Fire at Will" and "Enable for auto targeting" states. Previously it just had enabled/disabled.
Most units default to "Enable for Fire at Will". The theory being that if you set a unit to hold fire you care more about its target dying than about overkill.
Nothing defaults to "Enable for auto targeting", but it may be useful to try out.
Impaler now has an even stronger preference for targeting structures over units.
Interface
Added a minimum wind icon and number to the left column of the wind generator tooltip during placement (thanks Porkchop)
Cleaned up some inconsistent unit highlighting and selection. Units under interface panels cannot be clicked on by default, tooltips do not appear, and units are not highlighted.
Selecting through the panel at the bottom of the screen can be configured under Settings/HUD Panels/Selected Units Panel.
Drag selection can still terminate over a UI panel.
Add some translations for the commander selector.
Updated Global Build AI with some fixes and documentation (thanks esainane).
Added username team colour in chat and removed white outlines for dark names (thanks Birdulon)
Local widgets are no longer disabled for spectators on rooms with local widgets disabled.
Added Italian translations for the main menu (thanks fvasco)
Campaign
Tweaked campaign text and replaced some Artefacts with more suitable structures (thanks Thorneel)
Maps
Added boxes for Onyx Cauldron 2.0
Improved lighting on Skulduggery (thanks Shaman)
Improved water on Cull, Lost v2 and Lowland Crossing Revised v2.
Fixed an issue with void water with new shaders on some graphics cards.
Artefact Control
Added a control point game mode called Artefact Control under Experimental.
Several artefacts are spawned on each side of the map.
Each team controls half at the start of the game.
Artefacts have 11k health and heal at 100 hp/second.
Artefacts respawned with switched allegeance when destroyed.
If a team controlls all the artefacts, they win.
Modding
Changed some keys in unit def files to match the lua UnitDefs table. Mods with the old keys are still supported.
buildCostMetal -> metalCost
buildCostEnergy -> energyCost
energyUse -> energyUpkeep
metalUse -> metalUpkeep (vanilla ZK doesn't use this)
maxDamage -> health
maxVelocity -> speed
Other changes.
Unit defs no longer require unitname since it must match the table key, so it is redundant.
Unit defs are now also read from subfolders of 'units'.
Set undefined burst rates to 0 (rather than 0.1) as it can interfere with weapon modding.
The game exits to menu when unit defs fail to load, rather than crashing.
Added game-side GG.UnitModelRescale(unitID, scale) from Unit Level Ups.
Added backwards compatibility for Spring.GetUnitIsBeingBuilt.
Fixed backwards compatibility for Spring.GetPlayerRulesParams.
Added customparams.buggeroff_angle for factories, in radians.
Added customparams.metal_extractor_mult to support the creation of higher tier metal extractors.
Fixed modding away the Sniper reload move penalty breaking the script.
Cleaned up the build icon generator gadget.
Napalm effects now contain an example of sin (replaces taylor series).
Improved modded energy generator tooltips.
Mexes suport morphing.
Fixes
Fixed commshare sometimes preventing resign or causing a crash when the game ends.
War music no longer counts morph as violence.
Fixed missing vote resign button.
Marginal turret overshoot can no longer be circumvented with command insert.
Fixed a few build icons incorrectly implying that a floating structure is built underwater.
Fixed commander selector button image.
Fixed backwards 'motion blur' on ejected shells.
Fixed some large structure wreckages having much too large collision volumes.
1v1 Tournament July 8th - With Prize Money!
Get ready for the next Zero-K tournament, a 1v1 tournament where dozens of commanders will fight for dozens of dollars. The format is bo1 double elimination but other details have not been fully finalised. Sign up with a comment on the thread and send any questions to Kingstad. If you are more interested in watching, then games can be spectated through the lobby or you can watch one of the commentary streams linked on Discord.
There was also a minor update this weekend. It is mostly fixes for the previous update, but there are also a few features and balance changes.
Balance
Redback is worse at dodging projectiles.
Increased collision shape width by 11% and length by 25%.
Reduced turn rate by 5%.
Ogre now ignores terrain and wrecks when aiming and firing. It has sufficient AoE and arc for making the attempt to often be beneficial.
Zeno now homes onto the actual position of a radar target earlier - early enough to hit it.
Features
Holding Alt while selecting units now filters out rank 3 (ie army units).
Added a sudden death mode game option, under Map. It causes the game to end shortly after a specified time via a contracting death circle.
Fixes
Fixed a missile impact indicator error.
Fixed a pathfinding issue to do with construction orders on terrible terrain.
Tactical missiles no longer have inconsistent half-prediction of enemy velocity. They now fire exactly where they are aimed.
Fixed contrast adaptive sharpening scaling with zoom level.
Fixed moderator tooltip colour in the lobby.
Improved Pylon collision and selection volumes.
Zero-K v1.11.6.2 - Don't Nuke Your Allies
The 3v3 tournament finished earlier today with an excellent turnout of 19 teams. The results and videos will be posted in this thread in the coming days. The upshot for this patch is that we are free to make a few balance changes. The aim of these changes is to work on a few of the more maligned units, while nerfing some of the most prevalent strategies. This mostly means buffs for Gunships and nerfs for Lance and cloaked Snitch.
The update also has some exciting features. A big one for team games is that allied nukes and missiles now automatically show where they were aimed, which should halve the number of people that panic when a nuke is fired. Another is the ability to watch any game while waiting for a different one to start without missing out on the chat, as chat from non-started lobbies is now sent ingame. Superintendent has also added a few more tracks to his alternate soundtrack.
Balance
Snitch is slower to nerf its use with cloaker, without making it worse as a pure ambusher.
Speed 117 -> 108
Iris is a bit easier to find and its area cloak radius now matches area shield radius.
Speed 57 -> 54
Decloak range 180 -> 210
Cloaker radius 360 -> 350
Lance is less effective when set to fire at will.
Reload time 20s -> 23s
Scallop is still the slowest riot but is a bit tankier than average.
Health 1100 -> 1200
Speed 48 -> 51
Emissary can afford to be fast since it takes so long to pack up.
Speed 60 -> 63
Range 1120 -> 1150
Blastwing takes less time to deal its damage and deals slightly more.
AoE 128 -> 144
Fire DPS 25 -> 32
Fire linger 25s -> 20s
Gnat needs more health to survive long enough to stun the juiciest target.
Cost 90 -> 85
Health 370 -> 440
Revenant can be brought back now that commanders are more resilient.
Health 3600 -> 4200
Missiles 8 -> 9
Reduced missile wobbly by 6.7%
Stardust has a small buff to its damage output but might still need a larger change later.
Heat per shot 3.8 -> 3.5
Lucifer can see as far as it can shoot (thanks Majo).
Sight range 780 -> 1280
Game Features
Added predicted impact time and location for allied nukes and stockpiled missiles (thanks esainane).
Added a new Superintendent music track.
Hovering a unit with the mouse now highlights it slightly. This can be configured under 'Settings/Graphics/Unit Visibility'.
Alt+N terraform preset is slightly higher to block Phantoms firing at Engineer Commander.
Added Set Target (instead of Force Fire) on Right Click option under 'Settings/Unit Behaviour'.
Added time and space leeway settings to make selection easier, under 'Settings/Interface/Selection'.
Added an explanation of selection rank to 'Settings/Interface/Selection' as people find fiddling with it surprisingly useful.
Embiggened cursor hitboxes of Grizzly, Jugglenaut, Cyclops, Shield Factory and Cloak Factory.
Singularity Reactor size now fluctuates.
Impaler fire sound is slightly fainter and only five can play at once.
Added Base Extraction graph to the endgame stats that tracks cumulative metal from extractors before overdrive.
Moved projectile retarget configuration into its own file to aid modding. See here (thanks Mach56).
Lobby Features
Battles can now be watched by right clicking on them in the battle list and selecting 'Watch'.
Chat from any lobby you are in is sent ingame if the lobby is not running.
Added a new Superintendent track that plays when the lobby opens.
Mention Imp burrow in the tips for the Imp campaign mission.
Added a game option to override the names of teams for tournaments.
Added a game option (under Experimental) called Notes that just writes text to a window at the start of the game. Use it to explain unit tweaks or other complicated set of options.
Fixes
Preselection highlight (when hovering over units) now highlights units correctly in edge cases.
Fixed the player count in the battle lobby status box updating slowly.
Fixed units set to avoid radar wobble not firing at identified structure dots that left radar.
Fixed Advanced Geo aim point (thanks dyth68).
Fixed Mariner special build icon size.
Healthbars and Build ETA now draw in front of unit outlines.
Fixed an error that could occur when destroying all the units of the losing team.
Phoenix gibs no longer include a near-complete copy of its fuselage.
Zero-K v1.11.6.0 - Floating Superweapons
This is mostly a fixes and tweaks update as the 3v3 tournament is only in two weeks. Everyone is welcome as each team must have a new player. Sign up in this thread if you are interested.
There are two big balance changes: nerfs for superweapons and shields being disabled underwater. Aspis can now float, to give it some use in sea, and floating has been improved in general. The superweapon changes were motivated by some of the epic games on the large maps added in April. Starlight is much more expensive as it is the best at ending games, but games were ending a bit too early. Disco Rave Party and Zenith were differentiated by leaning into the slow aim and rate of DRP compared to the instant response of Zenith. Thanks for all the feedback in the thread on the forums.
The most notable fixes are for the rare Zenith gathering bug and the Fencer/Bulkhead transition issue. There are also many backend improvements to scripting and the engine (which was updated earlier in the week), some of which are relevant to modding and listed in a section below. More Chinese translations have been contributed and a few campaign missions have been tweaked based on feedback.
Balance
Shields are disabled when the unit carrying them is submerged.
The disable is the same as any other disable. Charge drops to zero and linking does not work.
The unit must be completely underwater. This is the same threshold at which cloak is disabled and units are no longer detectable by non-sea vision.
Aspis can now float and floating in general has tweaks to help it stay above water.
Units lobbed or gravity-gunned into the sea can float immediately.
Note: This was already the case for sea-to-sea lobs and transport throws.
Floating units no longer sink while teleporting.
Note: Teleporting from land to the sea will still put the unit on the sea floor.
Cloak is cancelled immediately after a unit takes a decloaking action (such as firing). This was always the intention, but at some point action decloak gained a random delay of up to a third of a second.
Cornea no longer pays for personal cloak while area cloaking.
This reduces its effective energy drain by 1 energy per second.
Firewalker is less indiscriminate.
Now checks whether a friendly unit is directly in front of both barrels before firing.
Aims a little higher for more clearance.
Zenith costs a bit more as part of a general superweapon nerf, but has more range.
Cost 36k -> 38k
Range 8400 -> 8800
Fixed a rare bug that would transform it into an expensive doorstop.
Disco Rave Party costs a bit more and leans hard into directionality.
Cost 40k -> 42k
Health 12k -> 8k
Range 7500 -> 7000
Aim speed 4 degrees/s -> 2.5 degrees/s
Full spin up time 1 -> 2 minutes (via reduced acceleration at high spin rates).
Spin speed is now lost while turning, with greater losses at high spin.
Eg a 45° turn drops spin 100% -> 58%, a 90° turn drops spin 100% -> 33%.
Starlight is much heavier as it is the superweapon that truly ends games.
Cost 45k -> 60k
Health 7500 -> 12k
Range 10k -> 12k
Campaign
Allied AIs are now Hard AIs on Normal difficulty (previously they were Normal AIs).
Replace allied Merlins with Dantes in a few missions as they are prone to friendly fire.
Adjusted partially built superweapons to leave cost-to-complete unaffected by balance changes.
Moved Disco Rave Party slightly closer to the enemy base to partially account for its lower range.
The mission briefing box now expands to avoid using a scrollbar for the tips section.
Added a hint about mex income sharing to some of the first planets with allies.
Made the hints for the Krow mission say a bit more about how to use Krow.
Added a hint explaining Retreat Zones to the Krow mission.
Cut hints down to four for Kirdipan (since the window is now expanded to show all hints).
Fixed Romolis victory condition not checking for Merlins.
Maps
Added start boxes for Supreme Strait.
Improved lighting on All That Glitters.
Fixed Timna Island box names.
Enable alternate diagonal boxes for Calayo.
Fixed small teams boxes for Angel Crossing.
Added boxes for Pillar of Doom.
Improved the widget that lets people tweak and save water and lighting tweaks.
Graphics
Aegis spin animation is now based on shield charge (thanks Mach56).
Improved line of sight rendering with AMD graphics (many cards were using a shaderless fallback).
Contrast adaptive sharpening weakens when zooming out to counteract the grainy effect.
Reenabled contrast adaptive sharpening by default.
Added a subtle bloom shader.
Bumpmapped water is now default for Lowest graphics as the others barely work.
Interface
Added huge nuke warning toggle ingame under Settings/Accessiblity (thanks dunno).
Improved the "Skip pregame chat" button on the replay controls.
Language change updates unit selection texts immediately.
Added translation capability for Zeno.
Updated Chinese (both simple and traditional) translations (thanks Kitty, evilblue, et al).
Updated Polish translations.
Tweaked unit reply volumes slightly.
Modding
Zeno no longer counts for Turtle Shell (but would have needed to deal real damage).
Custom submarines now detected as such for Context Menu properly (instead of as ships).
Added LUS preprocessing which translate uses of SFX.*, COB.*, math.{pi,tau}, math.{rad.sqrt}(constant) into constants. Local optimisations for these functions or tables should be removed.
"morphUnitCreating" is now a game rules param (was team rules param).
Added gadget:GamePaused(playerID, isPaused) to gadget handler.
Chicken drone morphs now done via customparams.
Missile silo automatically works with any custom missiles you add to the buildlist.
Custom missile silos can exist and have moddable stockpile capacity via missile_silo_capacity customparam (still needs script support).
Removed old nuke/antinuke models.
Fixes
Fixed Zenith occasionally failing to gather meteors.
Fixed Fencer and Bulkhead occasionally failing to transition between states correctly.
Fixed always-floaters that teleport to from land to sea not automatically floating.
Fixed cloak not being disabled on units when they are reclaimed.
Fixed area cloakers with personal cloak erroneously being charged for personal cloak.
Fixed the live unit reclaim tooltip using the old value (50%) rather than the new one (80%).
Fixed an error upon comshared resign (thanks Shaman).
Fixed debris texture.
Fixed Zeno not being autogroupable (thanks Shaman).
Fixed a rare crash to do with terraform.
Fixed a bug where disabling units could break a factory.
Increased Lua memory limit.
Sign up for the 3v3 New and Experienced Player Tournament, 17th of June
Brace yourselves for the exhilarating Zero-K 3v3 Tournament, where battle-hardened veterans and fresh faces unite to claim victory! Gather your forces, for this is your chance to prove your mettle on the grandest stage of strategic warfare.
🗓️ Date: June 17th [Saturday] ⌚ Time: Sunday, 18 June 2023 03:00 (1 PM EST | 7 PM CET | 1700 UTC)
Enlist your team in the tournament by posting on the dedicated forum thread or signing up on Challonge. Each team must include at least one new player, adding an exciting twist to the competition. Embrace the opportunity to mentor and fight alongside budding commanders. Don't forget to provide your team name to ensure your presence is duly acknowledged.
Curious about the eligibility of new players? Fear not! A new player is defined as someone who meets either of the following criteria at the time of registration:
Playing Zero-K for less than 10 days.
Having played fewer than 30 PvP games.
Should your teammate not fit these criteria but you believe they deserve an exception, reach out to MDSK Discord or in the forum thread above.
Zero-K v1.11.4.1 Many Maps and Lots of Languages
For this update we looked through the new maps from the wider Spring (now Recoil) community and featured a bunch of them. Some will play better than others, but that's what feedback is for! The update also adds translations for Chinese and Italian, and includes an engine update that was benchmarked to improve framerate by 9%. In terms of balance there are nerfs for Reaver and Lance and a cost reduction for Krow. The unit reply sounds have also been rebalanced.
New Maps
We have featured 67 new maps, with many from BAR or raaar. Some are makeovers of classics, others are new takes on a theme, and many are completely new.
There are many large maps suited to big team games or comp stomps: Alpha Siege Dry, Ancient Vault, Bismuth Valley , Carrot Mountains, Darkside (v3.0), Eight Horses, Fool's mate, Entrenched Plains, Heartbreak Hill, Highway 95 East, Highway 95 West, High Noon Remake, Ice Scream (v1.1), Ice Scream (v2.4), Omega Valley, Pawn Retreat, Red River Remake, Red Triangle Remake, Riverrun, Silveridge, Sphagnum Bog, Starwatcher, Taldarim, Two Continents Dry, Two Continents.
These maps are a bit smaller, good for 1v1 or small team games: Callisto, Death Valley, Desert (3.25), Desolation, Ditched, Dockside, Hades Ponds, Hexian Arena, Lake Carne, Mithril Mountain, Scorched Crossing, Theta Crystals, The Halite Maze.
Some particularly experimental maps are: Crucible, High Forts, Hooked, Sky Fortress Sigma.
The maps Point of No Return and Timna Island are designed for chicken or coop games as they are asymmetric, with one side starting in a fortress.
The following maps are updated versions of classics, although many will feel new as there are a lot of maps to play through: Altored Divide Bar Remake, Coastlines Dry, Comet Catcher Remake, Copper Hill, EmainMacha Remake, Incandescence Remake, Highway 95, Hotlips Remake, Icy Crater, Into Battle Redux, MoonQ20XR2, Nuclear Winter Bar, Ravaged Remake, Seths Ravine Remake, Supreme_Crossing, Tabula Remake, Tangerine Remake, The Cold Place BAR, The Hole, The Rock, Tumult Remake, Valles Marineris, Zed Remake.
Predicting which maps will or won't work is tricky, so send feedback. Old versions of revamped maps were left up as they may be distinct enough to coexist or there could be a problem with a new map.
Balance
Live unit reclaim yields 80% of the cost of the unit in metal, up from 50%.
Reaver is 7% worse both at firing and turning.
Turn rate 1850 -> 1710
Reload time 0.467s -> 0.5s
Conjurer is slower to nerf cloakbot expansion rate.
Speed 57 -> 54
Thug is better at hitting things.
Weapon velocity increased 200 -> 210
Rogue is also better at hitting things.
Weapon velocity 185 -> 190
Ravager is also also better at hitting things.
Weapon velocity 238 -> 245
Lance is probably due a nerf of some sort and cost is simple.
Cost 1000 -> 1100
Krow needs a buff to make it relevant to modern Zero-K.
Cost 4500 -> 4200
Superweapons have 25% less health to make them easier to snipe.
Starlight health 10k -> 7.5k
Disco Rave Party health 16k -> 12k
Zenith health 12k -> 9k
Added an experimental game option that reveals superweapons that exceed 5% build progress. It isn't on by default, but could be interesting to test.
Interface
Added Chinese and Italian translations (click the flag in the top right of the screen ingame).
Cleaned up a few unit reply sounds and rebalanced them relative to each other. Most replies are a bit quieter.
The tab playerlist share resource buttons now take your storage into account to display how much will actually be shared.
Mapping
Added a game-side lava gadget so that mappers can create lava maps without copying code into the map file. Maps can add lava by including the file "mapconfig/lava_config.lua". See here for the parameters and here for an example. It even supports tides.
The startbox editing tool can now be toggled under Settings/Toolbox. This makes it hotkeyable provides space for a hotkey explaining how it works.
Added vertex-wise undo, snap to cardinal direction, and snap to map edge to the startbox editing tool.
Fixes
Fixed UI scale detection for screen resolutions in the 2000s (ie 2560x1440).
Reset everyone's UI scale settings to catch people who where affected by the issue above. Set Lobby or Game Interface Scale in the main menu under Settings/Lobby and Settings/Game.
Fixed menu volume resetting when the track changes.
Fixed and reset the non-functional Unit Reply Volume slider.
Improved the performance of the map list.
Toggling "Only Featured Maps" in the lobby updates a previously opened map list correctly.
Zero-K v1.11.3.0 - Visible Slowdown
This update introduces Zeno, the 5th missile for the Missile Silo, which homes onto a target, hits it for a massive dose of slow damage, and then leaves lingering slow in the surrounding area. Another major change is an increase in general unit visibility via a few nerfs for area cloakers. As usual, there are a few months of fixes, features and, contrary to the title, performance improvements.
New Missile
Added Zeno, a homing slow damage missile built in the Missile Silo.
Has significant range, equal to Quake.
Homes onto its target.
Deals 10k slow damage to a single target.
Interacts with shields similarly to Eos, as 10k slow damage is 3333 damage to a shield.
Leaves a large area of lingering slow damage for 30 seconds.
Cloak Fields
Many players felt that cloak was a bit too prevalent and that whether to use it lategame wasn't much of a choice. We address this with a few targeted nerfs to area cloak. Most notably, Cornea has a directional cloak field rather than a huge bubble, and larger armies are slower to cloak. The latter is implemented with the new cloak rate mechanic.
Area cloakers now apply cloak at a set rate, starting with units closest to the centre of the bubble.
Cloak rate is in terms of mass per second, and only spent on units that are ready to cloak.
For reference, Bandit has 90 mass, Lance about 300, Dante about 800, and Detriment about 2400.
Cloak can still be maintained on any number of units.
Units with personal cloak are unaffected. They don't wait to be cloaked, and don't spend cloak rate that could be used on other units. This includes units that cloak while stationary.
Cornea cloaks a much smaller area, but the area can be moved with Fire Special Weapon (D).
Jamming range 550 -> 600
Cloak field range 550 -> 400
Can shift the centre of its cloak bubble up to 200 elmos away
Has a cloak rate of 1200 mass/s
Iris has a small range reduction and cloaks at a slower rate than Cornea.
Cloak field range 400 -> 360
Jamming range 400 -> 360
Has a cloak rate of 800 mass/s
Commander Area Cloak loses a similar amount of cloak range and has the same cloak rate.
Cloak field range 350 -> 320
Jamming range (with cloak field module) 350 -> 320
Has a cloak rate of 800 mass/s
Conjurer is the most efficient cloaker in terms of cloak rate per cost.
Has a cloak rate of 600 mass/s
Balance
Puppy now leaves wrecks and debris when killed, but not when it hits a target. Previously it left nothing.
Imp now only barely "makes cost" against a lone Scorcher.
Cost 120 -> 125
Snitch costs a bit more to spam.
Cost 160 -> 170
Cyclops slowbeam had a bug that made it do 3x the intended damage to shields.
Slowbeam damage to shields 2000 -> 666
Hercules can reach the ground and lift everything.
Fixed a weapon bug that caused its laser to not reach ground units while cruising.
Can now transport Shogun and Reef.
Advanced Radar is a bit too good after its cost reduction from 500.
Cost 400 -> 450
Maps and Campaign
Added Zeno to planet Nataa (the Missile Silo mission).
Tweaked planet Mstaras (the Gunship Factory mission) to be a bit easier on difficulties below Brutal.
Added startboxes for Angel Crossing, Calamity v1.1 and Supreme Crossing V2.
The "Sun, Fog & Water" map tweaking tool now loads its defaults from map settings.
Added shadow density to "Sun, Fog & Water" map tweaking tool.
Added compatibility for more metal layout standards.
Removed map fog by default. This is the type that was visible when zoomed out.
Tweaked the lighting and water settings on a few maps.
Graphics and Interface
Reordered battles in the multiplayer lobby to put empty autohosts below running games.
Build spacing UI has more options, found under "Settings/Interface/Building Placement".
Added a contrast adaptive sharpening shader. It can be enabled under Settings/Graphics/Effects with "Sharpening".
Added notable death explosion to ingame unit help menu (accessed via space+click).
Added better support for flipping the minimap, which is useful when used with a flipped camera.
Added a widget that displays map info like a label on a painting. Disabled by default.
Fiddled with the way line of sight adds to radar. This unlocks more ways to customise radar coverage.
Tweaked war and peace detection to spend a bit more time playing peace music.
Fixed slight visual misalignment when Missile Silo launches missiles.
Fixes
Improved performance of game mechanics that handle orders.
Fixed significant framerate drop (with certain settings) caused by many multi-weapon striders firing at once.
Fixed kicking a spectator sometimes causing a player to resign.
Fixed X-Ray shader issues on some hardware.
Fixed a rare bug with jumpjet behaviour.
Fixed a rare crash in the tab playerlist.
Fixed missing text on shield charge bars.
Blitz description no longer mentions its old EMP death explosion.
Zero-K v1.11.1.0 - Extra Gridding
This patch has an engine update, some superweapon tweaks, and extra gridding. Strider Hub now requires 50 grid energy. This is targeted at rushes in big team games, as every other use of Strider Hub should not have trouble finding 50 energy. The engine update changes how graphics states are handled over multiple games, which should improve load times and performance.
Bertha now requires a grid connection and is a bit better at knocking down walls. Grid for Bertha has been frequently requested for a long time, probably for thematic reasons, as finding 50 energy seems easy for most Berthas. Zenith had a large buff to knocking down walls just over a year ago, which turned out to be too much, so is slightly worse at it. Starlight aims slightly slower to give defenders a little more time.
Balance
Strider Hub requires grid to place striders and to spend resources.
Requires 50 grid energy to function.
Big Bertha requires grid and is better at knocking down walls.
Starlight has reduced aim speed to enable a bit more counterplay, and because slow means epic.
Pitch rate 1.2 -> 0.75 deg/s (37.5% nerf)
Yaw rate 3.5 -> 2.5 deg/s (28.5% nerf)
High Density Plating was erroneously applying its improved form to all chassis.
Health for Strike, Recon, Engineer 2000 -> 1600
Features
Added the lobby option 'Equalize team commanders' under 'Start' to balance uneven custom games.
Improved performance and load times.
Added GameID to game rules params (widgets can read it).
Fixes
Fixed wrecks dropped by jumping units snapping to the ground.
Fixed commander experience not being updated correctly when upgrading.
Fixed water visuals on some maps (water was a bit too opaque).
Energy content no longer effects reclaim highlight colour (for mixed resource map features).
Ctrl-Click auto morph for structures is now disabled by Shift.
Fixed blast radius indicator for EMP blasts (Imp).
Improved the sun on Delta Siege Dry Deluxe V3.
Zero-K v1.10.12.1 - Commander Characterisation
Commanders are more diverse and generally a bit cheaper to morph. On top of this, each chassis has more effective versions of modules that align with the speciality of the chassis. Weapon and upgrade costs have been reworked at level 4 to make more sense.
Modules were tweaked to buff most types of commander, with nerfs for builds that stack range and speed, as those were a bit too strong. Repeat modules are now limited to 5 rather than 8, and many have chassis-specific buffs. Range and speed modules are more expensive, eating into the cheaper morph cost at level 4, while other modules have the same or greater effectiveness.
Campaign commanders can still stack 8 repeat modules, and gain the benefit of most speciality buffs, because that just seems like fun. There are some non-commander changes too, such as nerfs for Cloakbots, buffs for Spider, and greater restrictions on gunships leaving the map.
Commanders
Weapon and upgrade costs were shifted around to make a bit more sense. Level 4 is up to 200 metal cheaper than before.
A "Beam Laser" option is now available at level 2, replacing "No Weapon"
All weapons at level 2 are now free (cost 25 -> 0)
Level 4 base cost 650 -> 150 (now base cost always increases by 50 per level)
Picking "No Weapon" at level 4 actually results in no weapon
Basic weapons at level 4 cost 25 -> 350
Advanced weapons at level cost 100 -> 400
Generic modules now have a limit of 5, rather than 8. Commanders will generally be a bit more powerful earlier as many modules were buffed in some way, however, a few were nerfed. The module limit in the campaign is still 8.
Module Changes
Speed penalties for modules are now a percentage of speed - after flat bonuses - rather than a flat penalty. Overall this increases the speed penalties for commanders that stack High Powered Servos, while often buffing other builds.
Damage Booster is more effective and usually costs less speed.
Damage boost 10% -> 15%
Speed penalty flat 1 -> 2% of total speed
High Density Plating costs much less speed.
Speed penalty flat 3 -> 2% of total speed
High Power Servos is denser but slightly less efficient.
Cost 150 -> 200
Speed boost 3 -> 3.5
CarRepairer's Nanolathe is also slightly less efficient, but now it is nice and round.
Cost 150 -> 200
Build power boost 4 -> 5
Adv. Targeting System costs more metal and speed.
Cost 150 -> 200
Speed penalty flat 1 -> 3% of total speed
Personal Cloak usually costs less speed.
Speed penalty flat 8 -> 12% of total speed
Chassis Changes
Some modules are more effective on appropriate chassis. The specialisation bonuses listed below are relative to the newly tweaked modules.
Guardian gains 25% more health from modules.
Ablative Armour health 600 -> 750
High Density Plating health 1600 -> 2000
Strike gains more regeneration from modules but loses the buff by level 6.
Engineer gains more buildpower from modules, turning the module tweak into a buff.
CarRepairer's Nanolathe buildpower boost 5 -> 6
Recon gains more speed and can lower its jump cooldown, at the cost of poor buildpower.
High Power Servos speed boost 3.5 -> 4
High Power Servos reduces jump cooldown by 1 second
CarRepairer's Nanolathe buildpower boost 5 -> 4
Campaign Chassis is generally more powerful, as that seems fun.
Gains all the module specialisation bonuses listed above, except for buildpower.
Gains 5 buildpower from CarRepairer's Nanolathe, to keep its numbers round,
Now has Strike-level innate regen (up from 5 at all levels)
Removed Strike innate jamming, as it was added accidentally.
Weapon Changes
A few less popular weapons have been buffed. A bug that caused Shotgun, Flamer and Heatray to only benefit from every second range module has been fixed.
Shotgun regains the range it lost for technical reasons, and fires faster.
Range 264 -> 285
Reload 2s -> 1.8s
Cluster Bomb has more damage in the form of an extra projectile, and more spread.
Projectiles 8 -> 9
Spray angle increased by 20%
Concussion Shell deals a bit more damage.
Damage 750 -> 850
Balance
Ronin is slower when in battle and a little easier to kill.
Health 400 -> 380
Moves at 80% while reloading
Reaver cares more about incidental health loss.
Regeneration rate 20 -> 15 health/second
Flea is more dangerous.
Damage increased by 14.3%
Venom now has an Avoid Bad Targets toggle.
Fixes
Aircraft that go too far off the edge of the map are now "gently" pushed back in.
Shotgun, Flamer and Heatray now gain range correctly.
Fixed Recon's shaky aiming while walking.
Players and AIs that fail to place a start position are now cycled through defaults, rather than selecting the first.
Fixed a few outdated module tooltips on the campaign UI.
Renamed "Save / Load" in Campaign to "Profile".
Improved the AI's commander morph choices.
Speed is now displayed with a decimal place in Space+Click menu, as many units have increments of 0.5.
Zero-K v1.10.11.3 - Factory Loitering and Engine Update
We have been testing an engine update since Wednesday, and this time it seems stable enough to adopt. The update corresponds to about ten months of work and mostly involves the graphics backend. As a result, performance has improved for many people and some AMD graphics issues have been fixed, although in testing we found the current beta graphics drivers to be unreliable. Be sure to ask on the forums or Discord if you encounter issues. The engine also has a few new features, with the biggest being the ability to shrink the space factories try to clear of allied units. The update also has some new music tracks from Superintendent and the commander morph rate nerf has been reduced.
Balance
Commander upgrade has its recent nerfs reduced, particularly at high levels.
Morph rate 5/5/7.5/7.5/10/10/10... -> 5/7.5/10/12.5/15/15/15... per level
Features
Performance should be improved for many people.
Allied units can loiter much closer to factories without being told to go away.
The auto assist toggle sends constructors directly sideways, to save time.
Added more tracks by Superintendent.
Show Selection Rank by default.
Improve RoI tracker and add a hotkey to toggled it.
