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Zero-K v1.5.6.0 Expensive Defender Week(end?)

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6 years ago

Many people are concerned by Defender so here is a test with a Defender that cost 120 metal, up from 80 metal (the image above is a tiny bit exaggerated). Is it still useful? What does the game look like? Play to find out.

Mostly we are working on fixes and polish. In particular, the settings menu is in the process of becoming much friendlier. USrankCrazyEddie has embarked upon the task of improving the statistics graph and now it can be shown in the middle of the game with Alt+F1.

Behaviour


  • Fixed Scorcher suicidal behaviour.
  • Remove flamer/gauss bonus damage vs features.
  • Lightning weapons with a normal damage component now deals the correct damage to wrecks (previously it dealt no damage).

Chicken Fixes


  • Improved Tiamat, White Dragon and grounded Queen behaviour.
  • Fixed many projectile lights.
  • Roc/queen flying animations make more sense.
  • Speed up Wurm movement animation

Interface



Endgame graphs:
  • Endgame graphs can now be disabled during the game with the hotkey Alt+F1.
  • Fixed multiple endgame graph bugs and polish issues.
  • Remove Units Built/Killed/Lost

Time, death, squad and gather wait are now bindable through the hotkeys menu. These are commands that behave similarly to the normal wait command but which will remove themselves when certain conditions are met.
  • Time wait is removed after a set amount of time.
  • Death wait is removed if all the targeted units are dead.
  • Squad wait is removed once enough units with squad wait reach the waypoint, so a factory can be queued to send squads of 4 units.
  • Gather wait is perhaps the most useful, it causes your units to wait until all the recipients of the command reach their waypoint.

Main menu settings are now much clearer.
  • Removed the Game submenu, the options from that menu are now mostly under Settings/Hotkeys and Settings/Unit Behaviour.
  • Replaced the advanced settings toggle on the menu window with a simple settings toggle, default enabled. This shows a significantly cut down menu which is to be populated with only the most generally relevant settings (still WIP).
  • Advanced mode can be enabled through Settings/Misc.
  • Applied some polish to the main menu in the form of spacing fixes and consistent button sizes. Also removed the "..." and the redundant tooltip from the submenu buttons.

Minor changes:
  • Factories default to selection rank 3.
  • Economy panel metal bar flash is now grey instead of red when full or near full.
  • Remove "Trainer" from trainer comm names

Fixes


  • Fix Bantha missiles.
  • Fixed an idle builder selection bug.
  • Fixed an issue with issuing wait commands to moving units.
  • Chat backlog is no longer ignores the setting that determines whether it is open at the start of the game.
  • Fixed Panther death explosion.
  • Resurrected units with 'inherit' start states now inherit from the default of their usual factory instead of from the unit that resurrected them.
  • Fixed some command insert issues.
  • Skydust now terraforms at height zero. This allows structures to be queued for construction of cliffsides (but not yet with all Skydust methods).
  • Going AFK with AI allies no longer forfeits your income.
  • Fixed unit marker to use AI name.
  • Fixed a bug with setting resource reserve.
  • Fixed jumpjets for underground units.
+7 / -0
+1 / -1
6 years ago
Why remove shit from the graphs and menus?
+0 / -0
quote:
Why remove shit from the graphs and menus?

Why do you remove shit from your digestive tract
+5 / -1
6 years ago
With factories being highest rank, if i draw a box over my fac building a con i now only select the fac, not the con. WTF logic


also why should i randomly mess with my factory waypoint while giving new units orders, whats up with that?

im genuinely curious
+1 / -0

6 years ago
That's pretty close to unusable.

They still kill lotus. So if you invest 120 in killing 90 metal over the next 30 seconds, you end up with a defender that only really cost you 30m. But unlike before, you probably won't build a second defender to speed it up since they're just not efficient enough to build willynilly. Since a stinger would kill the lotus and provide you with real area denial, that might be preferable in most situations.

IMO defender was balanced before, but may have had an undesirable impact on the way the game is played.
+0 / -0
quote:
Why do you remove shit from your digestive tract

Thats the easiest way to get some free time to spend with myself.
+0 / -0

6 years ago
I'm not so sure defender is even required. I personally have two concerns with defender removal or cost increase:
1) It makes air switch or even start more powerful. Whether it's good or not remains to be seen
2) Defenders were used to somewhat contain the skirmishers, which are generally too strong & spammable. With defender being nerfed, the only option to effectively deal with riot + skirmisher mix is to build your own skirmisher army with higher range. Things like air of GS switch exist, but countered to easily to be sustainable. Perhaps it's time to shift game focus on raiders and assaults, rather than on skirmishers and riots?
+3 / -0

6 years ago
Were defenders beating skirmishers anyway? It didn't feel like it to me.
+1 / -0

6 years ago
quote:
Were defenders beating skirmishers anyway? It didn't feel like it to me.

Sometimes if defenders were in sufficient numbers, then they could shot down lone skirmishers like Dominatrix or Recluse. At least defenders could somehow retaliate.
Now I think you should go straight to Gauss/HLT instead of a forest of 3 or 4 defenders.
+2 / -0

6 years ago
Defenders offer limited aa capacity vs swifts and also vs blastwings. Especially in team games. So they are needed.
+0 / -0
6 years ago
>Removes defender
>Gets roach swarmed.
+1 / -0

6 years ago
Should we bring back the old offender?

+0 / -0

6 years ago
quote:
the old offender

[Spoiler]
+0 / -0
No I mean for real. I really struggled with blastwings most games bc I avoided defenders...
+0 / -0


6 years ago
Got replays? I thought Blastwing could be a potential issue.
+0 / -0

6 years ago
IMO defenders arent really a problem. Stat wise they are pretty bad. The only this is that they punish indecisiveness very hard. Each factory has easy counters to them....
"offender OP" is a meme that I mostly see parroted by people who don't even play zk.
+1 / -0
6 years ago
Well, pushing with offenders is as effective as pushing with slashers. With the exception slashers actually move.
+0 / -0