Zero-K v1.3.12.1

There are more balance changes here than in recent versions. Effectively we have a Cloaky and Hovercraft un-nerf with a small change to Scalpel. Units should be a bit smarter with the unit AI and target priority improvements, especially Scorcher. Visible but non-damaging ground napalm has been removed in the case of Dante and Pyro. The aim is to remove all misleading fire effects.

Balance

Cloakybot has a reduction of the nerfs for some of its previously most powerful units.

• Rocko: Health 350 -> 390 (was 450)
• Spectre: Reload time 18 -> 17s (was 15s)

For Hovercraft we have a small nerf to Scalpel and minor buffs to Dagger and Mace. The changes are mostly to missile physics to give units a bit more time to fight or flee.

• Dagger:
• Cost 85 -> 80 m
• Sight 500 -> 560 elmo
• Scalpel:
• AoE radius 96 -> 80 elmo
• Unit turn rate 79 -> 73 °/s
• Missile homing 132 -> 115 °/s
• Missile velocity 200 -> 180 elmo/s
• Missile duration 3.5 -> 3.1 s [?]
• Horizontal angle of fire 43 -> 66 °
• Mace: Speed 63 -> 66 elmo/s

Pyro death explosion now applies ground fire. This is to make its mechanics match the flame effect. Previously the explosion applied 21-30s of burning (315-450 damage) which tended to guarantee a kill against light raiders.

• DPS: 20
• Radius: 128 elmo [?]
• Linger time: 13s
• Burn time 25s -> 2s [?]
• Initial damage: 50 (unchanged)

Duck is now slightly worse at avoiding consequences. The underwater Duck vs Duck game may also no longer be one of blindly running into each other.

• Missile range 250 -> 240 elmo
• Torpedo range 150 -> 120 elmo
• Sonar 250 -> 350 elmo

Recluse has a buff to see what it takes to use Recluse:

• Range 540 -> 570 elmo
• Sight 594 -> 627 elmo [?]

Funnelweb lost combat regeneration for consistency [?]

Raised most units' eye height by 10-20 elmos [?]

Terraform now has its minimum thickness more strictly enforced. No more 1-wide walls around structures. Walling mexes and fusions is now slightly more expensive.

General UI

• COFC smooth mesh just affects scrolling again.
• Build ETA has size and draw height menu options.
• Menu option paths: renamed AutoGroup to Control Groups.
• The interface for walling a structure with terraform (Ctrl + click) now gives a rectangle command[?].
• The unit lock modoption now works on AI and accepts unit names as parameters.

Unit AI

Unit AI has been improved, mostly regarding targeting.
"Ignore" means the units still automatically shoot the target, but will not stop to kill and instead move on if they are on Fight command and there are no better targets.

• Spectre will now avoid all mobile ground units.
• Puppy on Fight dodges better and closes in faster.
• Scorcher will now move close to the target when on Fight command.
• Units with slow projectiles will now disprefer shooting at fast units and will ignore them. [?]
• Units are less inclined to shoot at Fleas and Darts [?].
• Penetrator, Sniper and Racketeer disprefer LLT and Defender.
• Airborne units no longer ignore Razors.
• Crusader will now ignore gunships.
• Armored units are now deprioritized correctly.

XP

XP has always been very unreliable as a measure of unit performance. This has been addressed. The rank of a unit now directly reflects how many times over a unit has paid for itself.

• Rank 1 = 1x cost
• Rank 2 = 2x cost
• Rank 3 = 3x cost
• Silver Star = 4x cost
• Gold Star = 7x cost
• Super Gold Star = 10x cost

Details:[Spoiler]

Content creation

• Maps can now have less than 6 metal spots.
• Custom AIs now select their own commanders. Ones that do not, are given Strike Trainer. [?]
• healthbar labels for features [?] are now subject to localisation.

Fixes

• Fixed slow damage permanently increasing turn rate inertia.
• Fixed Dante incendiary rockets using napalm visuals.
• Fixed rank icons disappearing while spectating.

Finally scalpel nerf!

Personally I think duck's torpedo and missile ranges should be swapped. Why are ducks better on land than they are underwater?

Glad to see these scalpel changes. We will see how they pan out.

On paper recent Zeus buffs are pretty goods so they should do alright as a main assault force. I have not seen it happen yet though nor tested myself. Warrior on the other hand... meh its just too slow in comparison to glaives which do their job as antiraider as warrior does + zeus can defend against raiders properly now so the there is really no need for warriors at all (perhaps against pyros?).

Rocko in current meta is rather useless and being dominated by other better skirmishers like Firewalkers, Buoys and Scalpels.

quote: Units are less inclined to shoot at Fleas and Darts [?].

Could we have the opposite for dirtbags? With a slight cost increase they would become much more interesting units serving as meatshields for other more important units (which is also thematic to the factory when you consider it).

quote: Warrior on the other hand... meh its just too slow in comparison to glaives which do their job as antiraider as warrior does + zeus can defend against raiders properly now so the there is really no need for warriors at all (perhaps against pyros?).

Pfft, Glaive is not really anti-raider. If anything, Glaive tends to trade unfavourably against the majority of other raiders. Warrior is still really useful.

I'd rather play without Zeus than without Warrior, but that's just personal preference (you CAN do the opposite as well, which kind of shows the flexibility of the Cloaky fac).

Spider Buffz! GUI improvements! AI improvement! Scalpel nerf!

quote: Custom AIs now select their own commanders

HOLY SHIT I'M SO PUMPED!

Is that from the selection of trainer commanders, or can they select a commander design from an existing player (eg. Could the AI be made to choose one of sfire's trollcoms)?

Ah, so it can't just be pointed at a players profile? Is there currently any way of consistently assigning a customised commander morph to an AI player?

Anarchid
define broken :P

quote: define broken :P

Moduleless builds that gain nothing when morphing all the way to level 5. Cheat-like commanders which get a riot cannon out of the box but also gain nothing from morphs. Same, but permanently stuck with a slowgun. Campaign commanders. Players' commanders which blur the concept of "commander is an avatar".

I'd have gone with more Scalpel AoE nerfs, I'm not sure 96->80 is large enough to see any significant difference. The other changes might be enough, but I'm not sure outrunning the missile is the counter I'd have gone with.

quote: Some sort of "force target" mechanic (taunt from Warcraft 3) may be possible but opens up a whole new way of messing with units. Taunt is "unrealistic" within the physics of ZK and messy to deal with. I would not add it.

I experimented with attractor-shields (repulsor shields in reverse) for the jugglenaut. It was pretty cool but super whacky. Shots passing through (or shot from within!) the field would just be sucked straight into the jugglenaut. Shields essentially work as a taunt now anyway.