Sea testing player perspective 1v1 video

I made a video of my last 1v1 game with Aquanim testing sea:

Sorry there is no commentary but I probably wouldn't have made it on a whim if I had to put in that much effort.

All (?) the sea units in the video have had their attributes/weapons redone by Aquanim in his branch. Some of the units have just contributed their model and he has even used some previously unused models.

It was nice to see sea being dominated by (shotgun) Typhoons instead of subs.

If you're interested in giving the branch a go, you can clone it from here into your \Zero-K\Games folder, then set !game zk:dev in a custom room. I would like to get some more opinions.
[Spoiler]

The main wiki page of the fork has an overview of the changes. (It mostly doesn't have specific numbers yet since those are still in flux.)

The tl;dr of what you need to know is:
* Sonar range = vision range of mobile sea units and Urchin, jamming range of Vulture
* Ships are reworked significantly enough to be difficult to tl;dr, Hover and Amph are largely unchanged to date
* Underwater combat is still relevant but less dominant

If you don't know what the word "clone" means:
[Spoiler]or ask most anybody who's contributed to ZK in the past, they probably know more about Git than I do.

Side notes:
[Spoiler]

I assume that balance is the primary concern for now, and the details about what things looks like come later.

I don't really like anything about that. Changing sea does not mean changing boats, and if anything boatfac needs changes far less than the other two seafacs. Shotgun boats also look stupid, as if we need more than one shotgun unit for sea.

The reason nobody uses surface ships isn't necessarily that they suck, just that every other seafac sucks against subs more.

If anything, fix amphs and hovers so that they at least have a skirmish/arty that can hit subs.

If anything, fix commanders because currently they're completely defenseless when underwater.

If anything make sonar cheaper, because a basic radar should not cost more than a vulture.

[Spoiler]

Underwater units being only detectable via LOS sounds like a good way of retaining their stealth capability in a non-frustrating way.

quote: 1. How is it supposed to interact with ground combat? I think it was one of the biggest issues with ships overall since the only 2 factories that could really hurt anything in-land were Warlord and Reef.

* Skeeter has enough range to kill any mex which Mariner can build
* The Mistral missile frigate has a LOT of range for a skirmisher (it currently outranges Defender and Stinger!)
* The Crusader equivalent has a bit more range than it used to
* The Siren has an Impaler sidearm; it only has 700 range but should be able to destroy Urchins on high cliffs overlooking the water, as is found in maps like Sail Away and Folsom Dam
* When drone technology permits it I have some nebulous plans for a light carrier in Shipfac which deploys drone-bombers

quote: 2. Where do hovers and amphs fall into the new sea design.

I mostly haven't changed them at this point, besides giving them all sonar as well. The ships were designed with hover/amph in mind, so even though the hover/amph units themselves haven't changed the context in which they are used has. My feeling for the state of the hover/amph units at the moment is:
[Spoiler]

I can't predict with any accuracy how things will work out in the context of a larger team game, where factories and number of players are asymmetric (e.g. one team may choose to prioritise water more than the other). I'm cautiously optimistic but the problem is too complex for me to come to a firm conclusion. At some point I'd like to see testing of this. My immediate goal was to make the ship mirror plus switches feel fun to play, since I think that is a necessary prerequisite for making a sea which involves ships fun to play.

quote: 3. What is the role of subs if any ship unit has sonar?

Submarines are quite fast and are effectively immune to radar; they're still good for raiding and picking off isolated stuff. Eco buildings do not have sonar so it can be difficult to find subs which slip away from your army. Duck fulfills a similar role, with less "picking stuff off" and more "overwhelming enemy anti-sub defences over a broad front".

Even though every ship can see underwater, they can't all shoot underwater. There is a balance to be maintained between building the units which can shoot underwater (like Siren and Hunter) and building the units which can't, but are better against surface targets (Corsair, Mistral, Ronin, Shogun).

In a while this will hopefully be more accessible than "get it yourself from Github", but besides any balance/design stuff that needs doing I will also need to clean up the code before that happens. I was not at all familiar with Spring when I started so there was a fair bit of trial and error.

In principle the tight-knit shipblob is countered by Battleship. It worked well for me in a previous game but I didn't really have the eco or AA support to make one in this game.

Battleship could conceivably be lower-cost and lower-weight. It's not obvious to me how much (if any) movement in that direction is appropriate, however.

EDIT: I also suspect that unsophisticated micro from both of us is a product of unfamiliarity with the units.

EDIT 2: Potentially the Strider Hub could also gain more combat-oriented ships to help with this. I don't currently have a thought-out plan for something like that, though. They would probably require new models (the only unused one I know of is Vanquisher, which is basically two Typhoons welded together.)

quote: The counter structure requires a viable raider, though, and having at least one or another fast ship is a good thing. Probably I would increase the redisigned ships' weights by 50%.

Siren is already pretty high weight at 600, and the artillery ship has gone up to 850. There's an argument to be made for increasing the weight of Corsair in particular, and possibly other ships as well.

quote: Siren seems to be very cool. I don't really see it's role, though. Countering everything but Mistral? Siren could pop up some legs to walk on land.

Siren has an area-of-effect direct-fire anti-surface and anti-sub weapon and high HP; it's good for sitting at the front, tanking damage, and screening your army against subs/amphs/torpedo boats. The Impaler sidearm lets it (slowly) deal with Urchins too. It doesn't have the DPS to be effective against Corsair, and it's slow so does poorly against artillery and skirmishers.

quote: Skeeter's disarm is rather useless. What it needs is more direct damage instead. (same applies to main)

The scoutboat is not amazing as a combat unit but at worst it's Dart-like. It does provide high line-of-sight, which is especially relevant against underwater stuff now. In a small-scale engagement the disarm may be better than it appears at first sight.

The raider Hunter fulfills at least some of the roles which a non-disarming Skeeter would.