"Look and feel" issues in current ZK

Constable beam does damage so it should be disruptor now

It's hard to stress this enough that zero-k needs work of a graphics designer and programmer that can update all of the effects to modern standard.

Although it's widely known and accepted (I suppose), stating the fact again and again doesn't help with reaching the goal of making new graphics. However, I haven't seen any list done so if we summed it up maybe it would help a bit.

I have a lot of remarks but never cared to write them down as I didn't feel like it would change anything.

I'm not sure about the new graphics being so important. Take projectile lights, it actually decreases game readability so it's not an improvement but the opposite.

The OP is not about graphics in themselves, rather about size and appearances not matching unit stats.

Cartoony cel-shaded textures would be pretty timeless.

Finally someone else complains about this. Having balanced units with different abilities and such is good, but games feel better when they also make sense, which ZK doesn't in many cases.

I agree with many of them. here's some more:
- detriment's big arm guns being a secondary weapon in terms of "power" (dps and range)
- glaive's tiny gun dealing more dps than the bandit's lasers
- open gauss turret looks more frail than a lotus, yet it's tougher than the much bigger stinger
- artemis' rapid fire capabilities (reload for stockpiled rockets is once every 1.8s)
- tremor's nonsensical ground deformation abilities
- halberd's extreme weightless armor
- lance's energy beam is much thicker than the barrel
- massed small raiders cost-effectively killing slow heavy riots which should counter them : glaives and fleas vs maces, redbacks, scorpions..
- ultimatum's attack animation



For most of this you don't need more designers or programmers, you need to have the current ones WANTING to do it. It seems easy enough to change the numbers or adjust the models (for example, shorten the barrels on reaper if it's meant to be a clumsy short range weapon with slow projectiles).

Hunter is definitely a model with such an issue. I was very surprised to find such a bulky ship is only 100m. When you have an army of hunters its visually more scary than the reality, which I think is one of many things that makes ships feel really bad for some people. I've even seen player like godde overestimate the strength of a large force of hunters when he charge into urchins and they just evaporate. They should be half the model size.

quote: Hunter is definitely a model with such an issue

Fixed.

quote: This is a thread for gathering problems with ZKs current look-and-feel in the hopes that some of them might be solvable with a small mount of work.

This is now a thread where i tell you how to fix that.

Most other things mentioned above fall into one of four categories:

1) Things that require new models. Historically ZK has low mana for modelling, especially when off-peak (when the model doesn't come with a fancy thing-doer unit upgrade). In dyth68's list that's Buoy and Crab; in raaar's list that's Gauss.

Low probability of ever getting fixed due to high amount of effort required (do prove me wrong!). Full model replacements also needs some discussion because it will often impact balance.

2) Things that can plausibly be achieved with unit model modifications without requiring a full model replacement. Mostly unit cannons. Ravager, Minotaur, Badger, etc. Requires minimal knowledge of 3d work and some acquisition of skill with Spring's 3d asset workflow, very doable for a beginner contributor. Very easy to get approved because of zero non-aesthetic consequences.

3) Particle effects. Explosions, trails, projectile graphics. Tons of low-effect, but fairly low-difficulty work. Most of difficulty comes from reading up what's on the table wrt Spring's weapondef parameter, and the CEG language. But many of CEG effects can be copied etc. Again, no effects besides aesthetics (and maybe performance) = easy to get approved.

4) Things that require balance changes or significant code work. Hard to do, hard to get approved. E.g. "Thug needs to do more damage" or "it would be cool to have modern GPU particles instead of CEG".

TL;DR get your working copy dirty and start racking up commit count, respect and privilege with things that are easy to learn (minor model modifications and particles) and which you want to do but noone else will.

Anarchid

quote: "Thug needs to do more damage"

I was thinking of the opposite as the better solution: a model switch or change.
Making Thug do damage based on its model would ruin balance.

I'll be giving the Fencer missile and the Cyclops slow beam effects a poke when I next get a burst of energy.

Maybe making cannon's thickness proportional to damage and cannon's length proportional to range would be in order among plasma weapons? Not necessarily direct proportions - maybe square root.

Ideally the look of a plasma ball would be fully derivable from its damage, speed and AoE.