Quick neonstorm on Blue Modules. Overview from teamgames perspective

This is from my "com morphers" in team games perspective


Good well balanced module feels good to have 1 in early levels or stacking it.

Okay module on recon com or quickly boost your HP to pass certain thresholds like spy EMP or scuttle, but ablative just feels better. You basically dont want to max it unless being slowest unit on the map is okay(ITS NOT OKAY).

An okay module with a little draw back definitly makes certain com types more viable, not as good as used to be sadly. Feels like you have to max it and grabing 1 does nothing.

an okay module a little bit weird. It feels that you may grab 1 or have to max it. Pretty bad unless you know what you are doing.

quite terrible modules. AA starts baning to you head you can grab like 1 or 2 max to some usefulness and see if enemy AA has direct vision on you combined with radar jammer. But if you max it it takes something like 5 minutes to build all drones. Terrible design.

CarRepairers nanolathe. Easily best module. Repairs not only cars. Best module by design. Feels good to have 1 or max it and always makes sense to have them even in small games. Basically you have to have lazarus device if you can with these. If you know what you are doing does more than you think. Still miss my super long range nano com tho :(

PS why other coms than support has such terrible build range? Any constructor has better. Makes very difcult to build things on cliffs.

and other similar type. Simply awesome makes your commander like real commander and units group up around you.

I think its quite awful. Maybe after maxing adv target you can grab these. Or grab few to kill some certain threshold targets with some weapons like HLT. I grab them after like LVL18 and that says a lot.

good module, but feels like you have to max it or it does nothing.


And by the way above certain levels your com starts to really lose value. Maybe dont make basic morph cost so expensive on higher levels.

The drone modules could be buffed either in cost or by making the drone mechanics more favourable (through shorter build times/delays, which could be also used to buff funnelwebs)


The area modules are nice.


stacked speed modules and cloak are the only good options for late game survivability, and they're capped, so getting heavy plating or trying to max out both range and damage ends up being counterproductive.

I generally only get heavy plating when i'm very low level and need extra hp to avoid being bombed to death by ravens.



I think the emphasis on cloak for effective commanders and some of their hardest counters (widow, skuttle) creates a blind guessing game for both parties. Disintegrator gun makes this worse.


I think disintegrator gun should be removed because it basically allows level4-5 commanders to instakill commanders that leveled up twice as much.

I've noticed you using it on team games. What do you think about that?

It costs about twice as much to get a strider hub and an ultimatum than to morph a strike or guardian commander to level 4 with cloak and dgun.

  25 (first morph)
+ 50 (first weapon)
+100 (second morph)
+600 (third morph)
+300 (cloak)
+150 (dgun)
-----
1225

Another important aspect of servo modules on cloaked dgun coms, is that they effectively increase the damage you can do with each shot.
You can just barely kill anything anything in the 7000-12000 HP range or 1600-4500 cost units, with a single well placed Dgun shot(Grizzly, Scorpion, Crabe, Dante, Jugglenaut, Cyclops, Funnelweb or commanders with 7000-8000 HP).
However, dealing maximum damage with Dgun requires that that the target is well in range of the weapon as the Dgun projectile deals damage for each frame it touches the hitvolume.
In you are following a target, you generally need to overtake the target to fire all the way through it which means your commander will decloak before it is in 'full damage range'. If the commander is as fast as the target, he can't overtake it if it turns away from the commander and start running.

You might think you can kill a Desolator that got 10000 HP with 1 dgun shot, but the hitvolume is so small that you usually only do like 8000-9000 damage to it. It is the same with commanders. I its unlikely that you will kill a commander with 7000-8000 HP in 1 shot.

A lot of heavy units depend on being able to expose themselves, take some damage and then retreat. A speedy Dgun com prevents them from doing this much more than Ultimatums do.

quote: Why is the Damage Booster Module considered so bad? Is the DPS lower than if you added movement speed or weapon range?

- because there's a cap on how much speed you can get from speed modules, so morphers generally avoid stuff that reduces movement speed
- because ZK is full of 300ish range high dps riots. It's best to grab a bit of range and speed and be able to kite them while taking no damage than to try and trade hits and die quickly

- because stacked movement speed or HP scales the unit value multiplicatively with everything else the commander does (build+scout+weapon), while damage only improves the weapons by 10%. Also other modules like HP or build speed give equivalent % bonuses that are much higher than 10%, especially at low levels (BP module gives +40%, HP module gives +20-25%, regen module gives you the benefit of being repaired by a 5BP construction unit at no energy cost)

- because the anti-skirmisher paranoia also led to some issues where it's better to choose a shorter range high dps weapon and range mod it than a longer range weapon with damage mods, for example:
2x beamlaser + 8 range mods : 300 dps, 560 range
2x missile launcher + 8 dmg mods : 288 dps, 415 range
(yes, the range ceiling is greater, but still...)



That said, it may be worth it to get few dmg mods after getting "enough" range.

I actually do play dota. Dota games compared to zero-k are longer and nerve wracking and people in big communities are mostly toxic, I play ability draft mostly. I used to to play competitively quake3 for years and 1v1 was my favorite. Now I just like to have fun. Thats the reason I dont like 1v1 and small games in ZK, because then I start trying to win and it it becomes stressful.

To clarify this:
It´s not the commorphing per se. More the fact that you have been asked in multiple occasions by your team (including me) to do something else and generally replied with "i don´t care. I will just play for MY personal fun" wich i find pretty respectless towards your teammates.
About commorphing: I definitely think moprhed coms are hilariously strong on small maps. What I don´t get with you raaar in particular why you try to make it work on maps like Inculta where it is, sorry to say, outright stupid.

In case of my rating, it affected by 1v1 games where I often do not morph the commander. But that's a problem with how the ladder is designed, not my fault. Devs should fix that.

I've used an alternate account in the past and was told to use the normal one. Either way, I shouldn't have to switch between accounts.

quote: To clarify this: It´s not the commorphing per se. More the fact that you have been asked in multiple occasions by your team (including me) to do something else and generally replied with "i don´t care. I will just play for MY personal fun" wich i find pretty respectless towards your teammates. About commorphing: I definitely think moprhed coms are hilariously strong on small maps. What I don´t get with you raaar in particular why you try to make it work on maps like Inculta where it is, sorry to say, outright stupid.

Commander morphing is an obvious scapegoat. You're assuming that commander morphing is a selfish option but making some random ineffective mix of units isn't (big metal donation vs multiple small donations).

Mixing various commander morphs with other units (even if they're from your teammates) seems to be a great way to increase variety in ZK. The best way to incentivize developers to improve that is to actually try to use it.