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Create new units

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3 years ago
As I ponder more around factory RPS, I realize that filling out the unused unit slots in each factory could help to give each factory more responses to current RPS situations.

Currently remaining slots:

2 Spiders
1 Amph (reserved)
2 Tanks
1 Jump
2 Planes
1 Rover
2 Hover

Strider lab, strangely, has a unit on the A slot beneath it's "constructor" unit. Does the presence of a unit in this slot imply that there is yet a further slot available to each factory?

Moving on, if it's agreeable that new units would be an avenue worth development, my next questions are fairly straightforward:

What are the steps involved in unit creation?

Creation of 3d model, textures, animations, lua files created, weapons added, balance and testing? Any other that I missed?

Are there any tutorials like the map making ones for this process?

Units I would make if I had the time:
[Spoiler]
+0 / -0

3 years ago
There's this:

https://zero-k.info/mediawiki/index.php?title=Blender_To_Zero-K

It's not perfect yet as it doesn't really cover animation or other detailed scripting, but it has at least a bit about everything on your list, I think. It can always be added to.
+0 / -0


3 years ago
quote:
1 Jump - No idea yet.

A dedicated riot that kills units with fire, allowing the rest of the factory to lose bits of their flex-riot ability. With jump-related ability of some sort?
+1 / -0


3 years ago
Of those listed, I think Planes needs the 2 new units the most.
+2 / -0

3 years ago
I believe Ship has a missing slot which could do with filling as well.
+1 / -0


3 years ago
Trust me to conduct the test on a land map and miss out boats. That's how much the sea-hate has sunken in, clearly!
+1 / -0


3 years ago
quote:
I believe Ship has a missing slot which could do with filling as well.

Ship really lacks an actual honest Assault that doesn't moonlight as raider (Corsair) or riot (Siren).
+1 / -0
I recall Googlefrog saying that the community had very little model-making capacity atm, so that seems to be the main limiter (I presume that extends to animation).

That being said, Zero-K has plenty of units already, with enough complexity and deep to each unit you largely need to learn them all to be effective, at least on the counter-offense side of things (you don't need to know how to use everything, but you need to know how to counter everything). Adding even more units as a means of fixing factory imbalances may not be the way to go.
+1 / -0
I agree with Manored. Adding more units to fill missing unit slots feels like a solution waiting for a problem. It would be better to approach from the other end: find a "RPS" situation that would best be solved by adding another unit.
+1 / -0
BRrankManored, USrankTitanShadow12 - You're both putting warnings out as though the problem you're concerned about is real or like the people you're addressing don't already think that way. But no one has proposed that we just thoughtlessly fill slots, and if either of you know my narrative even slightly, you will know that it's anti-factory RPS. Previously, I've tried to approach it from a "more generics" option where we have more turrets, or more structure upgrades. But that's a seperate angle for a seperate thread, if traction ever does find it's way back to that angle after being shut down numerous times before. In the case of this thread, all that has been mentioned so far is what slots are available for units, how to make units, and some potential ideas.

Factory RPS is an issue. One that's far less pronounced in team games, but highly acute when you look at 1v1. To say that you can deal with it by knowing how to counter things presumes that all factories have the correct tools to deal with any other factory, but that's absolutely untrue. A good motivation to be having this discussion in the first place.

When I made the suggestions that I did in my spoiler section, I left certain sections empty. The implication is that I want my suggestions to be in the right ballpark before I make them, and the implication is that the ideas I DID put down are deliberately there because they've had enough thought put into them to be realistic problem solvers.

I've had (very recent) experiences, and so has another very highly ranked player I know, with Spiders vs Rovers on maps with large open spaces. It probably goes without saying that the rovers won. In my case, I was spiders and I raided my opponent ridiculously well with fleas, causing damage that any other factory would have used to snowball into victory. However, despite this advantage, a small contingent of protected fencers combined with large spaces to move around completely turned the tides in my opponents favour. Factory RPS that couldn't be mitigated with the current unit roster.

Edit: Before the above paragraph gets ripped to shreds whilst I sleep for being only a narrow isolated view, I'm inclined to express the obvious - that it runs equally parallel to the longer term experience of spiders Vs other factories - in particular, cloakbots and tanks. The larger view amounting to a pretty broad picture of what RPS elements overwhelmingly effect them, within the last couple of years.

So when I suggest a melee spider that can close gaps, or one that can slow the movement of advancing units... It's absolutely coming from a place of factory RPS mitigation.

Hopefully the angle that I'm coming from allays some of your concerns.

Edit: P.s. None of the above immunizes me against being wrong or my suggestions not panning out, but I promise the intent is in your corner.
+1 / -0
3 years ago
I'm not really assuming anyone is gonna put more units in the game for the sake of "filling slots" or somesuch.

My objection is more absolutist in nature, as in, I think the absolute number of units in Zero-K is already very high, and already makes the game difficult to learn, as such adding more for any reason would be best avoided. It would be best to rework the game in other ways.

I should note I don't have a problem with the specific number of units in itself. A game with hundreds of units is fine if the player only requires a glance to understand how they work. Zero-K units are quite deep, though, with many non-obvious interactions.

Also, I think adding more units to fix balance problems can become a chicken and egg scenario, where you will eventually want to add more units to fix the balance problems created by the new units.

I think Zero-K's factory RPS woes are largely unsolvable so long as the following design philosophies are maintained (I'm presuming them from observation so devs feel free to correct me if I deduced something wrong):

1. All factories being designed to be viable independently in a map of average terrain. I'd personally prefer to have 2-3 core factories and the rest specialists not meant to work on their own. Factories such as spider, hover, amph bots, jump bots, etc, would not be expected to be viable on their own on an average land map. This would make it much easier to figure out when to use what factory, currently the "terrain factories" exist in this gray zone where they're almost viable for normal play but not quite.

2. Factories being intentionally flawed in specific areas to help differentiate them, such as spiders having neither artillery nor proper raiders. I dislike this mostly because it makes the game less intuitive, and paradoxically it contradicts the first design philosophy I mentioned: factories are designed to be independent except they also have flaws that make them dependent on others.

Basically factories in Zero-K are really, really complex, aggressively difficult to understand entities. They correlate to terrain except not really because they also have themes that don't necessarily have an obvious correlation to the terrain they're correlated to and on top of that they both are and are not designed to function independently. Wheeze.
+0 / -0

3 years ago
It is true that you shouldn't create units just to fill unit slots. Though you can also look at it as the factories with open slots are at an unfair disadvantage. They simply have fewer tools at their disposal in every game.

For example, Rover could certainty use a late game unit. Maybe a vehicle launching loitering ammunition's that could be programed to look for a certain type of unit. Similar to Aeroviroments Switchblade missile launchers. I would love an aircraft stealth bomber to take out high priority targets.
+1 / -0
3 years ago
I suppose "factories with less units are at a disadvantage" is a fair point, at least for some factories.
+0 / -0
3 years ago
I apologize for misrepresenting your point Dregs. I just saw the empty slots list and assumed you were pointing it out as a bad thing, and I didn't notice that you were really just pointing out the possibility of using them as tools for further balance.

I guess I also don't quite understand the term "factory RPS." Can you explain for me?
+0 / -0

3 years ago
More than new units, I wish there was a way to make playing sea exciting and fun. It seems the worst part of ZK to me.
+3 / -0
Make each factory fun.


Cloaky is okay.

Shieldbot is okay.

Jump is good as it is now.

Amph need tweaks before thinking of additional unit.

Rover need tweaks but I suppose the units is good now.

Any addition to Tank would keep trait of slow turn:
1. A light boat laser 'Tank' could move on water surface slowly, very slow turnrate and attack only surface target.
2. Another heavy riot EMG 'Tank' deploy 2 short ranged EMG turrets cost tripple than stardust, a bit less DPS. 700M riot with 2200HP. Slow turnrate.

Spider, I wish a mobile slow flea producer can be added - great great great it can produce flea anywhere it goes.

Plane has many substitutes in storage, as I recall the updated pheonix by Shaman fill the gap between raven and licko, upgraded homing fire bombs would be great at cost of 1000M. Or you will bring in a special force bomber could pick up a "missile silo" product and fire it - otherwise I wish to have a slow bomb so it help ravens.

Hover used to have a transport, but hover is fine.

Gunship, need to think about it before adding anything.

Strider, add the gundam, the generic commander can morph into troll commander, which is the campaign commander.

Don't know anything about ships.
+0 / -0
quote:
More than new units, I wish there was a way to make playing sea exciting and fun. It seems the worst part of ZK to me.


A decade later, the answer is still clear: give ships legs/rollers so they can go on land!

Sea would also benefit from having a Djinn equivalent so they can build "bridges" for allies.
+2 / -1

3 years ago

Land breaking ship? Similar to ice-breaking Icebreakers! Add it to the to-do list! Sink the lands!
+0 / -0

3 years ago
For spiders - terrain artillery unit. So it would end dependence on crab spires and enable spider as better force to deal with porc. Maybe it could be also deploy able like crab but with shorter range then emissary but with damage reduction.
For rovers - amphibious light assault tank who had to transport ability. Or maybe bridge tank.
For planes - small fast stealth plane with suicide ability but only against air units.
Strider hub - get invisible sniper sub which was removed from ship plant long time ago. Serpent if i m correct was it name.
Jumpjet - maybe disarming skuttle version with big aoe ability and smaller decloak range. Old skuttle still remains.
+0 / -0
USrankTitanShadow12

quote:
I guess I also don't quite understand the term "factory RPS." Can you explain for me?


Gladly. As mentioned before, it's a little more pronounced in 1v1 where the game is started with a singular factory each. Factory Rock Paper Scissors essentially means that there's a probability that one of the two starting factories will have a distinct advantage over the other, for a variety of reasons. Keeping in mind that player skill differences can overcome factory RPS, but all things being equal, one player is going to have a significantly more relaxed time winning.

An example of that might be jumpbots vs tanks, with the toolset provided to jumpbots having some inherent qualities that make dealing with tanks a relatively trivial (albeit predictable) affair.

The problem is double compounded by the fact that when it comes to factory switching, the disadvantaged player is probably already behind and can barely survive a factory switch, whereas the advantaged player can likely do so with comfort, earlier than the player who actually NEEDS to do so.

Ultimately, it sucks getting in the matchmaker queue for however long, to get into a game with an adversary who would normally be a fair challenge, only to have your honest best count for nothing because they counterpicked you - knowingly or not.

I'll re-iterate options that reduce factory RPS:

  • A larger compliment of generic turrets, or turret upgrade states
  • Full unit rosters for all factories
  • Multi-Factory token starts
  • Cheaper factories, 600 metal cost maybe
  • Rigorous re-balancing
  • Upgrading your commander (in certain scenarios)
  • Buffs to commander upgrades
  • New ability: Low cost factory morphing - It's a facswitch with the downside that you don't have two at the end.
  • Pick shieldbots all of the time
+1 / -0
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