V1.4.2.14

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Revision as of 11:05, 12 January 2018 by Sprung (talk | contribs)
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The community has done great work over the last two week exploring the new and improved Warrior. This version has a nerf to Warrior which reduces the previous buff while retaining the unique parts of the warrior; regeneration and damage. We have begun the promised commander weapon design fix with an attempt to equalize their power levels and give each weapon a distinct purpose.

Other nice changes include a fix to the longstanding Slasher overkill prevention issue, reasonable team names and rally points for rearming bombers. Use of rally points should improve bomber turnaround.

In other news @ikinz is working on a nice ZK themed Weblobby and the release of Spring 101.0 is looming. The new engine has some nice features but is hampered by ATI graphics errors. Access to ATI testing is stalling our ability to make ZK compatible.

Balance

Nerfs to [b]Warrior[/b] as a partial reduction of the recent buff. The aim is to harden the counter by skirmishers and reduce overlap with the Zeus assault role.

* Cost 200 → 210 (old was 220)
* Range 280 → 270 (same as old)
* Health 880 → 820

[b]Commander[/b] morphing receives a design pass. Most of the effort was applied to basic weapons.

* Basic weapons are now balanced around 50 cost and have designed strengths and weaknesses[tooltip=This is a small nerf for outliers such as HMG and a buff for lackluster weapons such as Beam Laser.][color=orange][?][/color][/tooltip].
* Commanders can equip duplicates of basic weapons.
* Manual fire weapon reload time increased to at least 25s to reduce their spam annoyance. Some buffs. Costs are normalized to 150.
* Cheapened morph base cost by 50 to level 3 and 100 for higher levels.
* Slightly cheaper drone modules.

[b]Valkyrie[/b] can no longer transport [b]Enforcer[/b].

Fixed [b]Slasher[/b] overkill prevention.

[b]Djinn[/b] weight lowered:

* cost 800 → 750
* health 2600 → 2500

Artillery accuracy improved:

* Hammer can no longer miss a Defender [tooltip=spread 0.7° → 0.44°][color=orange][?][/color][/tooltip]
* Pillager can no longer miss a Stinger [tooltip=spread 0.6° → 0.36°][color=orange][?][/color][/tooltip]

Tactical AI:

* Added tactical AI for Ravager.
* More things skirmish Warrior (for example, Ravager).
* Removed broken Scorcher behaviour[tooltip=Circling around structures][color=orange][?][/color][/tooltip].

UI

[b]Air Repair/Rearm Pad[/b] can now have rally points. Aircraft that leave an [b]Air Repair/Rearm Pad[/b] or a [b]Airplane Plant[/b] with an empty command queue will inherit the queue of their pad. This mirrors the behaviour of factory queues. Reef is unaffected.

Better team names:

* instead of "team 0", teams now have recognizable names, for example "Team North", "GBC" or "Team Saktoth" [tooltip= • when a team is only one player, that players name • if the whole team is a single clan, that clans name • if the team has a recognizable geographical location (eg North), then that name • the highest ranked players name (eg. Team Saktoth)][color=orange][?][/color][/tooltip]
* the game-over screen now tells spectators who won (in the above format; was just "game over" previously).

Other changes:

* Line-move now shows dots for the projected unit positions. This is option is enabled by default for new and current players. We need to know whether it works for all graphics cards.
* Loading progress bar is now more accurate.
* Added a "show always" option for armor and build-priority state icons.

Changed defaults [u]for new players[/u]:

* Fight is now hotkeyed under A and Attack is under F. The commands are also renamed.
* Engine info screen hotkey: 'i' → 'Ctrl+i'
* LoS view toggle hotkey: 'L' → 'Ctrl+L'
* Default command visibility: always shown for selected units, hold Shift for all units (previously was hold shift for selected units, no way to see all units).

Misc

* The game can now result in a draw in two cases: everyone dies at the same time (eg. two opposing roaches blow each other), or all alive teams are dropped (eg. when the non-dropped team resigns after the other drops).
* Wreckage, rocks, trees etc. no longer disappear without a trace when destroyed/crushed/reclaimed but make a small dirt poof instead.
* Trainer comms default to HMG/radar at level 1 and ablative/regen at level 2.
* CAI no longer avoids linking its fusion reactors.
* Fix CAI having wrong idea about energy economy.
* Endgame graphs: add m/e income and unit value.
* Fix the "Alliance 15 has been destroyed" spam.
* Fix regeneration showing on unfinished units.
* Scouted unfinished buildings' ghost sites are green again.
* Fix shuffle always shuffling the same way.
* Warrior helptext mentions idle regeneration.
* Fixed priorities not working correctly.
* Tactical AI now works on identified radar dots, not just units which are in LOS. This could lead to cases where skirmishers are too scared of a riot hiding behind a wall to move fowards and shoot it. If you want your skirmishers to spring the trap with their fragile face then explicitly give them a move order.
* Fixed Selections widget crash which occurs when you select an enemy unit which then leaves and re-enters radar range.