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

TL;DR - With small-ish metal income, caretaker flexibility is better. With great metal income, plates become better.


Katastrophe - That was mentioned with the walkoff scenario. And yes, the indirect buff to spiders is... nice. I find myself less annoyed with spiders when i get about 30m/s. My usual all-rounder queue is 15 fleas, staggered 4venom 2 redback 3 recluse 2 hermit. With about 40BP and 30M/s, the 15 fleas tend to be the point where i stack up a lot of metal. Sometimes i add a constructor to queue. I could stagger fleas. But that means the trouble of suicide-scouting. With 5 fleas, losing single one is a dent in vision network. With 15, losing 3, is not that great of a deal.

I am currently messing about with plates in skirmishes with AI, mainly testing it in 3v3 hard AI. Gaining personal flexibility of units for 150m is really nice. And while i was affraid that it would degrade Caretakers... No such thing. Plate gives 1-BP for 15 metal. Nano gives 1-BP for 22 metal. Plate cannot repair your riots, assaults etc. Nanos Can. Nanos retain their usefullness without metal income to match them, they only need energy to be somewhat usefull. Add in to the equation that nanos can reclaim in their range. If we stick to smaller numbers, nanos are outright superior, because you always should have more energy income than metal. And unit repaired is unit that gets "produced again" for energy cost only.

EDIT (way too late) - Yes. I just paid a bit more attention. Caretaker worth 180 metal is even more superior. Nothing of substance in that changes.

quote: no one thinks about the scenario where your income is too high for 1 fac + caretakers?

Why would you? If you got to that point, 800 metal on a seperate factory isn't exactly a considerable expense. Heck you may want to do that anyway beause you want units to be produced at a different location on the map.

What if I wanna build berthas in 1v1 in cases like the opponent builds cerberuses and I need to break thru.

Archer pretty op for its cost. In comparison, scallop is too expensive for its performance.

I am loving the construction plates.

The main factory pumps out Wasps and Locusts, and I have a plate each for Revnants and Nimbi.
Dedicated plates for heavy stuff + caretakers are fun and useful. Oh, I need to start spamming out Sirens? Well, I've got a plate pumping them out. Transfer the caretakers!
Still learning the tricks of the new system, since I placed down my shipyard where I could only really fit one plate attached to it.

Everyone being able to have their own Owl alone seems like a cool possibility, made better by the fact that owl has it's own hotkey.

For Archer, it's time to say goodbye to its old weapon.
Its name is no longer based on archerfish. It's more based on pistol shrimp.