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Zero-K v1.8.8.2 - Construction Plates and Archer Rework

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3 years ago

Some players like parallel build queues, some want more ways to optimise production, and some just think a base with lots of factories looks cool. All these desires are satisfied in this update with the introduction of construction plates - efficient mini-factories that must be placed near a main factory to function. They can be used in the campaign and teamgames to take advantage of allied tech, while in 1v1 they should make it easier for factories access their heavy units.

The rest of the update focuses on the balance of three area; Kodachi, Amph, and dense team games. Kodachi has received nerfs to rein in the range bestowed by the fire prediction AI from v1.8.5.0. Archer takes over the role of sea riot from Scallop, with Archer gaining a sonic blaster and Scallop losing torpedo power. Funnelweb, Lance, Gauss and Big Bertha have various nerfs to open up the options in dense team games.

In other news, there is a 1v1 tournament this weekend. Click here for details and post to sign up: https://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/31918

Balance


Construction Plates are parallel build queues that offer an alternate method of increasing production. Hover a factory blueprint within 420 elmos of a factory of the same type to place a construction plate.
  • Cost 150
  • Health 1000 (1500 for Ship)
  • Build Power 10

Scorcher regains some of its damage.
  • DPS increased by 5.6%

Bolas has slightly more range to help it against Kodachi.
  • Range 225 -> 230

Kodachi has a nerf to take fire prediction into account.
  • Cost 170 -> 180
  • Range 230 -> 215
  • Reload Time 0.466s -> 0.5s
  • Moved 13% of on-hit damage to groundburn damage.
  • Projectile Velocity increased by 117% (reduces prediction overshoot).

Welder is more vulnerable to raids.
  • Health 2000 -> 1800

Scallop torpedoes are relegated to sidearm status.
  • Range 260 -> 270 (both weapons)
  • Can fire torpedoes from underwater.
  • Torpedo DPS reduced by 60%
  • Torpedo AoE reduced by 62%

Archer takes on the role of sea riot.
  • Replaced Water Cannon with Sonic Blaster.
  • Can fire into water, must float to fire.
  • Reduced Speed and increased DPS.

Lance is easier to catch.
  • Speed 55.5 -> 52.5
  • Turn Rate reduced by 9.4%
  • Range 1020 -> 1000

Funnelweb takes on a tankyness more appropriate for a constructor.
  • Cost 3000 -> 3500
  • Health 6500 -> 4500

Gauss is worse at tying up artillery.
  • Bunker Regen 20hp/s -> 10hp/s

Big Bertha is less generically powerful in dense team games.
  • Cost 5000 -> 6000
  • Reload 7s -> 8s
  • AoE reduced by 8.3%
  • Projectile speed reduced by 4.5%

Fixes


  • Scouted Caretakers and Strider Hubs no longer radar wobble.
  • Fixed metal reserve erroneously disabling repair.
  • Fix commander speed when walking in formation.
  • Various fixes to shared unit control mode.
  • Disabled shift append to groups by default.
  • Change disambiguation of space+click context menu.
  • Likho is better at avoiding obstructions when aiming.
  • Fix Grizzly float-to-fire AI in some edge-of-range cases.
  • Fixed manual queuing with Auto Reclaim/Heal/Assist widget.
  • Fixed an issue with auto-retreat for planes.
  • Fixed repeated screen resolution changes causing some UI widgets to be lost under the minimap.
  • Fixed zero volume music logic.
  • Fixed rare spectator panels crash.
+20 / -0

3 years ago
Nerf Funnelweb its buff BB
+2 / -1

3 years ago
There has been a lot of talk about the mechanics of BB work through energy. The BB should require 40 energy per second. The BB must have its own energy storage, which requires a connection through the grid, the storage is filled at 40 e/s, it requires 320 energy for a shot, no energy, no shot. I don't understand why the energy is being ignored, but instead just increasing the amount of metal required for build.
+6 / -0
3 years ago
Construction Plates are cute :D
+4 / -0
thanks for your dedication!

lances were clumsy before. well lets see how this plays out. bertha is still the best riot.
+2 / -0

3 years ago
quote:
...I don't understand why the energy is being ignored, but instead just increasing the amount of metal required for build.

The only thing which adding an energy-per-shot cost achieves is making you build an additional energy producer to power it... which has a flat up-front metal cost. So there is, in practice, very little difference.

(I suppose an energy cost might motivate the user to not fire a Big Bertha some of the time, but that doesn't seem like an interesting direction to take the unit in.)
+1 / -0

3 years ago
There is a difference and it is as follows:

- energy takes up space demanding it protection, single unit, easier to protection
- energy absorption, reduces income, which makes planning energy expansion
- your team provides energy by paying your costs, which allows you to not pay for energy
- energy from winds is random, which will turn off what is consuming energy
- solar colletors is a wall that blocks invisible units
- any actions/units/objects that absorb energy affect other actions/units/objects, disabling them:
1. lack of energy disables ultimatum, widow
2. Repair units with requires high costs, somewhere the funneweb will not be able to buf shields, will lower all the energy to 0, due to which there will be no metal overdrive

All of the above makes the mechanics of energy work serious, the simple calculation that this can be translated into a metal/energy equivalent value sounds strange, because the work of energy dynamically affects a huge cluster of mechanics of game.

From here it comes out that the attacking unit does not require energy, the defensive unit devours it on a huge scale
+2 / -0

3 years ago
quote:
- energy takes up space demanding it protection, single unit, easier to protection

This seems like a minor difference. I think I disagree that most of the other bullet points are even particularly relevant.

quote:
From here it comes out that the attacking unit does not require energy, the defensive unit devours it on a huge scale

Fundamentally the reason why defensive units consuming energy in lieu of additional cost is an interesting mechanic is that you do not always need or want a shield to be recharging (in particular when it is already at full HP).

On the other hand, there is no reason why a Big Bertha would want to stop firing except for the energy cost (if one is added).
+2 / -0
3 years ago
As a kodachi fan, I approve this update. Though it still feels like rovers have been inferior to the tank factory with the recent updates. Maybe I'm just a fan of units with a high health pool and survivability, which is true.
+0 / -0


3 years ago
There are certainly differences between draining energy and corresponding increased cost, it's just that the differences favour energy drain over increased cost. Draining 35 energy/s makes a unit better compared to costing an additional 1000 metal.
+0 / -0
3 years ago
Hidden nuke buff as it now kills Funnelweb.
+4 / -0


3 years ago
I feel like Bertha could afford to have less innate inaccuracy now that it has a slower projectile and less AoE. Missing mexes cuz RNG is not that fun.
+3 / -0
3 years ago
Bertha denying mex across the whole map is quite silly in what is essentially a capture the point game.
+0 / -0


3 years ago
I really like the sound of this update and so wish I was well enough to re-join you guys and play. Soon, soon.

Well done on the good work.
+3 / -0

3 years ago
I'm very excited by some of the smaller footnote fixes than the actual update itself. Looks like people who play more than me like the balance changes too. Much love!
+1 / -0
If it would be for me I would revamp the entire energy system and even the metal one. It's not realistic at all when one unit that is far away from your base requires a specific amount of energy and if it's not provided your unit will decloak. I tried to make a big thread about this a while ago but when I finished it a bug happen and 2-3 pages of information were lost instantly.

So let's take into consideration the "Phantom (cloaksnipe)" who has Upkeep energy while mobile of 5 e/s and Upkeep while idle of 1 e/s. We implement this system to all defensive structures connected to a grid and as for the rest of the mobile units, we increase their metal cost according to the energy requirement they have.

Energy

Mobile units
  • For example, the Phantom requires 5 e/s to get cloaked we just increase its cost from 750 to 175 more meaning 925. We take the calculation from how much it costs a solar collector to provide the required energy. So one solar collector costs 70 to produce 2 energy per second and from there it's clear that for 5 e/s we pay 175. We will not use the energy provided by wind generators because it's too variable.
  • Following the example above, we will apply this system to all cloaked units that require "invisible energy".

Stationary structure energy requirement
  • As RUrankizirayd suggested we make all defensive structures require energy grid or each defensive structure has a duplicated version where it's self-sustainable and has its own internal energy production but that with more metal cost.

  • In other words, each structure will be self-sustainable or dependable on the energy grid.

  • Powering up the defensive structures and keeping them as such will draw constant energy from your grid in case they are dependable. But here we use the same system from the phantom, the Idle version of energy consumption, and the active state when it requires more energy to function and attack.

  • Right now the power requirement of defensive structures doesn't actually drain the energy when connected to the grid. So In my suggestion, the drain of energy will be calculated in the same way cloaked units use energy now, meaning e/s.

  • For example, Desolator costs 1600 to be constructed and 1750 worth of solars collectors to power it up. My suggestion here is simple, for dependable make desolator costs half of its actual price (from 1600 to 800 metal) and to power it up in idle mode an energy requirement of 10e/s and when it's attacking something between 20 e/s. For the self-sustainable version I suggest we increase the metal cost it has from 1600 to 20% more meaning 1920 metal.

  • You might ask why to make two versions of the same defensive structure when we can use just only one. It's simple...and it's called complexity. You would want to make a dependable Lotus near your base that has reduced cost and also reduced energy cost while idle. You would want to make a self-sustainable Stinger in order to attack something or to hold the line somewhere.

  • Again these are just experimental prices that I suggest and I can work on an excel spreadsheet with the actual balanced changes for you guys to see and then modify according to specifications.
+0 / -0
3 years ago
I have to say whoever made those tiny factories did a really good job.
+4 / -0

3 years ago
AUrankAdminGoogleFrog where is the "Construction Plates" for Strider Hub? That's the most important one lol
+2 / -0
Just curious, why do you need a construction plate for the strider hub?

You can literally plop down 2 nanoframes if you want. The Q modifier to only place nanoframes works with the strider hub.

EDIT: I successfully tested that a moment ago and now I can't do it anymore because Q selects athena... wtf? W/E you can still manually place down 2 nanoframes.

EDIT2: Ok Q modifier works if you swap to the special build tab because Q is not a shortcut for anything there, so you can use it to plant a bunch of strider nanoframes.

You can also repeat command build, say, one ultimatum one funnelweb: set factory on repeat, select ultimatum, hold shift, place the frame, select funnelweb, hold shift, place the frame. Bingo, you now have a hub constantly producing an ulti followed by a funnel.

I don't see what a plate for strider hub would acheive a single strider hub doesn't already do.
+0 / -0
3 years ago
Construction plates sound interesting, I do frequently neglect building heavy units due to how long they hold up the entire factory and how much they cost in proportion to everything else, which complicates queuing. I'm looking forwards to trying them out.

What happens if the main fac is destroyed? Will the plates stop working until a new main fac is built nearby, or can they continue working?
+2 / -0
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