WARNING: Any missions, AIs, etc. which were dependent on the old ships
will not work unless they are updated. The names and general functionality of Hover and Amphibious units have not changed at this time (besides sonar) so anything dependent on those units should still work.
WARNING: I am sadly not multilingual and have not attempted to translate the new unit names and descriptions to non-English languanges.
Sonar
tl;dr version: all sea units and Urchin can see underwater units, but underwater units are not detectable by radar and long-range sonar sources do not exist. Being underwater functions like radar jamming does on land, except you can't be seen by mex.
[Spoiler]
- All units produced by the Ship, Amphibious and Hovercraft factories, and the ship Striders, have sonar equal to their vision range.
- Urchin has sonar equal to its vision range.
- Commanders have sonar equal to their vision radius.
- Vulture has sonar equal to its jamming radius (700).
- Other units and structures do not have sonar. Notably this includes Gauss, Aspis, Eraser, Ultimatum and Detriment.
- Sonar Station has been removed.
Note that Sonar is incapable of seeing a unit unless it is entirely underwater (this is true in existing sea as well). This is relevant to cloaked units on the surface.
In principle, being underwater is a lot like radar jamming, except that you are also invisible to non-Urchin structures, non-Vulture planes, and amphibious-pathing units from land factories.
The analogy between Radar and Sonar, in terms of gameplay, is much less strong than before; Sonar does not allow you to see threats before they are close.
The underwater combat Amphibious Bots (Duck and especially Scallop) are less relevant to a straight-up fight in the water when ships are involved due to the Destroyer's sonic gun. However, they can abuse their invisibility to radar to make attacks against land or sea targets without warning. Duck is still a pretty significant threat
en masse across a broad front.
Hovercraft's effects on a water battle are similar to main ZK. Penetrator and Halberd are good units.
Cloak
Units which are entirely underwater cannot cloak. (This is true in existing sea as well, it's a recent change.)
Underwater Line-Of-Sight
A unit which is sufficiently deep in water no longer has surface vision. (This is true in existing sea as well, it's a recent change.) This is
not a design decision of mine; I believe it's occured engine-side. If it becomes a problem it may be possible to alter this behaviour but we will see what happens.
Ship Factory
Ship Factory has been substantially reworked. I've also taken the opportunity to remove a lot of conflicts with TA unit names (though some renames are just for consistency with reroles or for some theme). Overkill prevention and Unit AI has been implemented, but you may find bugs and foibles. Report these so they can be fixed please :)
[Spoiler]Constructor
Mariner is a little more expensive and has sonar, but mostly unchanged.
(Disarming) Scout
Skeeter is renamed to
Cutter. It's been buffed a bit and has enough range to destroy any mex on land which Mariner can build on.
Be aware that the Scout Boat's overkill prevention defaults to disabled, because it also tries not to hit disarmed targets. Under some circumstances you may wish to enable it.
(Torpedo-Boat) Raider
Hunter is now a torpedo-boat raider; it is much cheaper, smaller and faster, but is individually weaker in combat and no longer has a large area-of-effect.
(Missile) Skirmisher Frigate
Enforcer is renamed to
Mistral; its weight has been
significantly reduced, and it now functions more like a standard skirmisher. It fires weak guided missiles from long range (in particular it outranges Urchin, Scalpel, Defender and Stinger).
(Shotgun) Riot/Raider Corvette
Typhoon is renamed to
Corsair; it is a little cheaper and faster, and armed with shotguns instead of machineguns. However its toughness has been reduced.
(Sonic Gun) Riot/Assault Destroyer
Siren (a new unit based on the old Daimyo model) has a sonic gun with some area-of-effect which is effective against lighter-weight surface and underwater targets. It also has a mini-Impaler missile for attacking statics. It is quite slow.
Artillery Cruiser
Crusader is renamed to
Ronin; it is more expensive, more resilient, has slightly improved range and has more area-of-effect. It no longer has a depth charge sidearm.
Submarine Raider
Snake is renamed to
Seawolf; it fills the same role as before, with a few numbers tweaks. The changes to how sonar works have affected its best use somewhat.
Anti-Air
Shredder is renamed to
Zephyr and now has sonar but is otherwise unchanged.
Transport
Surfboard is unchanged, besides new sonar.
Submarine Artillery
Serpent has been removed.
Other Unit Changes
[Spoiler]Battleship
Renamed to
Shogun and has a little more range and sonar. Otherwise unchanged for now; this needs some teams game testing but its overall role seems okay.
Carrier
Instead of its previous cruise missile, the Carrier stockpiles tactical missiles in 60s at 10 m/s, and fires them like a D-gun. This change is largely to avoid the current overload of weapon and drone controls.
The Carrier currently retains the name Reef but this may be subject to change, as are the other properties of the unit. The main usecase of Carrier is in teamgames and I currently lack data as to how Carrier will interact with the new Ship factory.
If and when the drone controls are improved there is some potential for adding a light carrier to the Ship factory. I'd like to put something interesting in the missing build panel slot in Shipfac and a carrier is a unit which thematically and mechanically makes more sense in Ships than anywhere else.
Tactical Missile Sub
Renamed to
Scylla (Leviathan was a TA name). Now stockpiles in 30s at 20 m/s.
Similarly to the Carrier, this unit could potentially see further changes but I would need more data about teamgames (inculding FFA) before changing it.
Amphibious Units
Sonar on all units; otherwise no changes yet. Archer in particular could see future changes.
Hovercraft Units
Sonar on all units; otherwise no changes yet. Claymore in particular could see future changes.
Urchin
Range has been reduced a little. HP very slightly increased.
Ultimatum and Detriment
Sonar removed.
Sonar Station
Removed.
In the long run stuff like remodels, altering projectiles, sounds, etc. could be done by somebody. However I didn't see the point in putting a lot of effort into polish until the general design of the units has solidified.
