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Zero-K v1.3.4.1

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8 years ago

While we had many releases in the last 3 weeks none of them felt large enough to make an image and a set of notes. Easter brings with it a bit of free time so here is a release and some notes on the last few weeks.


Engine



The greatest recent advance has been the permanent adoption of the latest engine version. Nothing is "official" but with week of successful use it does not look like we are going back.

Here is a list of some of the readily visible things that the engine does:
  • Desyncs seem to be much rarer and if they do occur the engine devs will care.
  • Gunships can crash when they die. Just like planes.
  • Pathfinding updates much faster. Earlier units would take a while to notice that a ramp exists and use it in their pathfinding.
  • Units don't get stuck on terrain. In situations where they previously got stuck they now slide off.
  • The line of sight view looks a lot nicer.
  • Units can be prevented from occasionally firing sideways. It has been applied to Big Bertha, HLT, Grizzly, Penetrator, Annihilator and Starlight.
  • Units can be told to ignore the terrain while firing. This is useful when they either have a massive spread or enough deformation to knock down any wall.
  • Everything costs exactly how much it says it does. In 91.0 the costs were off by 16/15.
  • Units are 'forgotten' by enemies much more rapidly when they cloak. In 91.0 a Scythe would be targeted by a Raven or Swift for so long that it looked like the plane was cheating. Now units forget after a few seconds.
  • With bombers, queuing anything after an attack ground order does not destroy the attack ground order.
  • Heatrays now do their correct distance-reduced damage against shields (previously they always did full damage).
  • Transports no longer randomly de-exist their cargo if they die over blocking terrain.

There are many things behind the scenes in the update that make it easier to develop and could lead to more features. For example save games are now possible.


Balance



Not much has been happening in balance recently. The recent tournament went well in terms of unit diversity and the games looked very good. Vehicles were a bit dominant but Veh/Tank/Hover have a history of moving around a very fine balance point.

  • Raven change from 10 days ago: Dives is slightly steeper but costs a lot of speed.
  • Applied overkill prevention to Slasher.
  • Doomsday Machine can now shoot at planes.
  • Hacksaw missile turnrate increased slightly.

Defender buff:
  • Damage 103.1 -> 104
The recent damage rounding changes resulted in Defender dealing slightly too little damage.

Brawler and Warrior gained 5.5% and 9% extra DPS that was taken from them in the transition between engines.

### Graphics
Now that most people can run the latest engine some possibly problematic features can be re-enabled. Explosion shockwave distortions are now back after a few month of absence. Also:
  • Fixed many particle effects (shimmers, plane jets) being invisible for spectators and some players.
  • Improved flaming units particle usage.
  • Improved Catapult missile effects.


Interface



Here are some recent changes to the interface:
  • The minimap has the option to fade on zoomout.
  • Camera shake is configurable.
  • Metal spots are displayed as white when unclaimed and have the option to show teamcolour.
  • Better support for translations (the new engine supports utf8).
  • Structure terraform can be activated by holding left mouse button and not moving the cursor for a second while placing a structure (the not moving time is configurable).
  • Structures with absolutely no reason to have the Wait command no longer have the Wait command.


Fixes



  • Fixed Reef drifting.
  • Fixed Geothermal being difficult to target.
  • Fixed Tidal Generator hitvolume.
  • Fixed set target stipple weirdness.
+17 / -0

8 years ago
quote:
Defender buff:

You know it's not April 1 any more, right? :p
+1 / -0

8 years ago
Great update! Thanks! Could you explain for the guys how exactly the heatray interacts with shields now?
+0 / -0
New engine? April's fools was 2 days ago!
+6 / -0


8 years ago
quote:
Great update! Thanks! Could you explain for the guys how exactly the heatray interacts with shields now?
It is exactly as if it dealt the damage to a unit. So linear falloff.
+1 / -1
Skasi
8 years ago
quote:
* Doomsday Machine can now shoot at planes.

Zomg new epic AA! I imagine it could be useful against Krows - just close them for 4x hp when a Krow flies over to bomb it. Well, or maybe Krows just go for Pylons instead...
+0 / -0
FIrankFFC
8 years ago
DDM has always been able to shot gunships Skasi.... it has always been best (roc)gunship AA
+0 / -0
Skasi
8 years ago
Oh it says planes. Well, the same is true here - close against Ravens and Wyvern, which then kill Pylons instead. :P
+0 / -0


8 years ago
Small correction, the metal spots have the option of either showing per-player or per-team colours for spectators (no more teal for selected and red for others). Players have teal for their own and white otherwise (it looks like something related to LOS checking for enemy mexes was commented out).
+1 / -0
Firepluk
8 years ago
Good job with new engine adoption, really ;)
Just fix few minor bugs:

- ctrl+shift+q doesn't work
- gunships decelaration needs 2 be fixed/we need 2 buff gunships to compensate this
+1 / -0
Skasi
quote:
- ctrl+shift+q doesn't work

Works for me! (Zero-K v1.3.4.1, spring98.0.1-451)
+1 / -0


8 years ago
quote:
- gunships decelaration needs 2 be fixed/we need 2 buff gunships to compensate this
There does seem to be a change but that just makes them more !Fun!. Rapier, Krow and perhaps Brawler and Blackdawn seem good under the new engine. Transports do need some extra acceleration to drop and pickup accurately. Banshee was not good before.
+0 / -0
Skasi
8 years ago
Well, Blastwings could use some de/acceleration buffs to make controlling them easier and slightly increase viability against swarms of mobile units. Right now they only seem really useful against windgenfarms and other statics.
+0 / -0

8 years ago
+0 / -0

8 years ago
quote:

ctrl+shift+q doesn't work

QWERTY issues?
+0 / -0

8 years ago
Distortions for normal explosions look terrible. :| They look pretty bad for outlaws' weapon too.
+1 / -0

8 years ago
Big thanks!
+0 / -0
8 years ago
Well I like that units don't get stuck anymore but this sliding thing... it is jaggedy. For example hover goes up the ramp but it cannot continue so it starts trembling in place while going down the slope at the same time. It looks like it is having seizure honestly.
+0 / -0