 This is a balance patch on three fronts. On the ground, hovercraft have worse movement and nerfs to their most generic units, while spiders have cheaper early game units. In the air, light gunships receive some much needed attention and Raven no longer dives. Superweapons now require an energy grid, are much more vulnerable to being stunned, and Zenith swapped its cost with Disco Rave Party again. Other features include more options for line formations, better unit tracking and first person control, APM stats at the end of the game, and some fixes to do with saving campaign missions. GroundHovercraft movement was buffed in v.1.9.11.0. This patch partially walks back the changes.
-
Speed maintenance while turning reduced from 85% to 80%. Other vehicles are still at 60%.
-
Slowdown while climbing hills is now halfway between the pre- and post-v.1.9.11.0 values.
Bolas is still a bit too much of a generalist so has minor nerfs to health and damage.
-
Health 720 -> 680
-
Reload time 0.333 -> 0.367
-
Slow damage reduced by 1/6.
Scalpel gained a lot of power from improved movement and overkill prevention, so has similar nerfs.
-
Health 680 -> 650
-
Damage 660 -> 620
Ronin is a bit smarter.
-
Now steps back while reloading (with Attack Move or or idle without Hold Position).
Flea is harder to spot.
-
Decloak range 160 -> 130.
Venom is cheaper to help spiders expand safely.
Redback is cheaper to help spiders field armies early.
-
Cost 240 -> 230
-
Speed 1.8 -> 1.85
Pyro deals slightly more damage because some people just want to watch the world burn.
-
Main DPS increased 3.3% (lingering damage unchanged)
AirWasp is now only slightly less efficient than the average constructor.
Blastwing now deals enough damage to kill a Metal Extractor.
-
Explosion damage 80 -> 40
-
Ground fire initial damage per second 18 -> 25
-
Ground fire duration 20 -> 25
Locust has more raiding uptime.
-
Idle regeneration 5/s -> 10/s
Harpy has noticeable buffs as it been outclassed for a while.
-
Health 1100 -> 1200
-
Improved brake rate by 20%.
-
Damage 200 -> 220.
-
Improved unit AI with preemptive breaking and better riot avoidance.
Raven no longer dives. Instead it has a guided bomb that glides downwards, homing onto targets in a cone below it. Raiders are fast enough to dodge by leaving the area before the bomb hits.
-
No longer dives.
-
Cruise altitude 330 -> 270 to fit under area shields.
-
Bomb speed reduced by 32.5%.
-
The bomb now has significant homing, but it cannot fly more than about 45 degrees off vertical.
Phoenix bombs hit slightly sooner and in a larger area, increasing its reliability.
-
Cruise altitude 270 -> 240.
-
Increased spread slightly.
SuperweaponsDisco Rave Party must spin up to fire at full speed and swaps its cost with Zenith.
-
Requires a connection to a grid with 400 energy.
-
Cost 36k -> 40k
-
Initially spins 20% speed, reaching a maximum of 100% after about a minute of firing.
-
Maintains speed without firing, unless it is stunned or loses power.
-
Buffed the smoothing of Green Stomper slightly.
Zenith is less accurate when fired continuously and swaps its cost with DRP
-
Requires a connection to a grid with 400 energy.
-
Cost 40k -> 36k
-
Range 9000 -> 8400
-
Increased the effect of launch distance on meteor spread. A meteor launched while it is still high in the sky is significantly less accurate than one floating in the swarm.
-
Meteors wander down from space to the swarm faster, and are generally more energetic.
-
AoE 240 -> 256
-
Added smoothing. The radius is small but it can move structures.
-
Meteors are visually 40% larger.
-
Meteor reclaim increased 10 -> 20.
Starlight requires a large grid and resets its aim when stunned.
-
Requires a connection to a grid with 600 energy.
-
Glint falls and docks whenever the laser is not firing. This includes disarm, emp and low power.
-
Aim speed is now reduced by slow damage.
Singleplayer and CoopChickens now regenerate at 20 hp/s after 10s of idle time. Adjusted some campaign missions for the superweapon changes.
-
Added enough energy to reliably power the enemy Zeniths on planets Caderical and Pendust.
-
Added barely enough energy to power the player Zenith and Disco Rave Party on planets Caderical and Zhurou.
-
Added radar to assist the Disco Rave Party on planet Cipher, for difficulties Hard and Brutal.
Taught AIs about superweapon grids and updated the lower difficulty levels.
-
AIs can now build Starlight.
-
AIs know how to place Pylons around their superweapons.
-
Updated beginner and novice AI to use the latest build.
-
Added AI builds that are compatible with the latest engine, which is still being tested.
Features
-
Moved line formation settings to 'Settings/Interface/Line Formations'.
-
Added an option that turns right-click drag for selected commands (as opposed to context commands) into a line formation, rather than deselecting the command. Disabled by default.
-
Added an option to evenly distribute different unit types along line formations. Enabled by default.
-
Added an option to merge small categories of units for the purpose of evenly spreading unit types along line formations. Defaults to 1.
-
The previously hardcoded behaviour in COFC that disables unit tracking mode when the camera is rotated can be disabled under 'Settings/Camera/COFC Following'.
-
Icons that smoothly draw over models as you zoom out, rather than suddenly switching, can now be enabled under 'Settings/Graphics/Unit Visibility/Icon Zoom Transition'.
-
Added keep target command for Raven, since it now makes sense with its guided bomb.
-
Bombers can be now be set to retain the target of cancelled attack commands in 'Settings/Unit Behaviour'. This is how other units behave, but it was disabled for bombers to reduce accidents.
-
Starlight stops moving its beam when given a Stop command, rather than continuing on to its most recent target location.
-
Added direct unit control support (FPS mode). It can be enabled in the lobby in game options under 'Silly'. To enable in the campaign do /cheat, open the cheat sheet on the top left bar, tick the appropriate option, and do /cheat again (to reenable victory conditions).
-
Added a tab to the game over screen with command speed summaries, such as APM.
-
Added splashes for units entering or exiting water at speed.
Fixes
-
Fixed complete mission objectives being broken by save/load.
-
Workaround for the ramps on Lovaza Jira disappearing when the game is saved and loaded.
-
Fixed some bugs and jitters with COFC unit tracking mode.
-
Fixed icon distance and volumes not being carried over to externally launched games.
-
Fixed an issue with connecting to the lobby for a few players.
-
Improved unit movement for reclaim, attack move and repair commands.
-
Fixed some typos in the space+click unit guides.
-
Fixed Zenith space+click guide reporting incorrect reload time.
-
Fixed incorrectly reported cruise altitude in the space+click unit guides.
-
Fixed units with free cloak not listing cloak as an ability in the space+click unit guides.
-
Added translation for 'shields'.
-
Added startboxes for Coast To Coast Remake.
+19 / -0
|
BEST PATCH 2022 ! TANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR WORK GF.
+3 / -0
|
|
|
Woah that's a lot of stuff! and well needed, awesome!
+0 / -0
|
danm nice now it gives me a reason to do the campaign again thanks mate
+0 / -0
|
oh an you do something about the boat there rlly getting behind updates and i see no worth in them as air and hover craft can take them by out fast
+1 / -0
|
nice! quote:
because some people just want to watch the world burn. |
what about the people, who just want to watch the world explode? (buff skittle)
+3 / -0
|
Nice! In apm it would be nice to see "custom scripts used", is that even possible?
+2 / -0
|
Amazing patch. Thanks for all your continued hard work!
+1 / -0
|
After messing around a bit I find Zenith finally has a role... or at least in FFA. The smoothing is VERY significant and can easily flatten any spired porc. It's rare but for games that go into extreme shield stack scenarios, I fear Zenith will still be the only super that has no chance of piercing through while DRP got an EMP shot and SL can just outdps any defense. There is also that Zenith backfires spectacularly if EMP'ed. I applaud the faster reload so that having a Zenith should now mean having to fire it every 30s or so once an acceptable number of meteors has been amassed, even if not at max count. But, left unattended, Zenith still does nothing and has a VERY HIGH chance of actually being used by opponents instead of the player building it. Unattended, SL and DRP only do nothing at worst and roam around at known targets of high value at best. Zenith literally hangs Damocles' sword over its owner. The other changes are nice. I'm not sure how I feel about the raven change. I started to use different dive states in recent games depending on the scenario. Manually setting ravens to not dive at all is very useful if the intent is to area target a location and take out mex/energy/static defenses. Now that the raven doesn't need to dive anymore, I don't need to mess with that setting. That's nice. However, the raven can no longer dive it seems. Unless there is an issue with my client UI, the option to set the dive state of bombers is gone. I can still see it in settings and check the box to display it, but it doesn't appear in the command pannel. That means recon coms (or any large yet fast enough unit or with jump) can now evade raven. That makes me happy on the receiving end and sad on the giving end. It also makes ground AA able to shoot ravens down while moving out of bomb range, which makes ravens even weaker than pre patch. You could trade with mobile ground AA before. Now you just lose, and stationary AA is DEVASTATING to ravens. Overall I think this change is actually a nerf.
+1 / -0
|
Yes Zenith is dangerous since it drops all those meteors on you when it gets stunned (or destroyed), so maybe it could get some sort of interesting buff to make it worth it, like making some of the meteors explode or something (would do more damage, AOE, and leave less of a wreck, might be interesting).
+1 / -0
|
Zero-K v1.10.1.1
-
Fixed a bug with Halberd overkill prevention in the water.
-
Fixed an error caused by issuing Starlight a Stop command while under construction.
-
Fixed an error caused by Raven landing on an airpad shortly after firing.
-
Fixed Beginner AI being broken for some people.
+2 / -0
|
quote:
However, the raven can no longer dive it seems. Unless there is an issue with my client UI, the option to set the dive state of bombers is gone. I can still see it in settings and check the box to display it, but it doesn't appear in the command pannel. |
Fixed. I removed the dive state binds and options from the settings menu. quote:
Now you just lose, and stationary AA is DEVASTATING to ravens. Overall I think this change is actually a nerf. |
There are broadly two types of changes:
-
Simple balance changes that are clearly either a buff or a nerf.
-
Design changes that redo some aspect of how a unit works or move in in a new direction.
Both these changes traverse the underlying unit space (the 'landscape' of all possible units), but in different ways. Balance changes explore locally to find the best version of a unit as it exists, while design changes take larger jumps to check whether there is something better out of sight. Balance changes are more common because most units seem to be in a pretty good spot, and I like to explore for a bit before changing units that might not be. Uprooting a unit from an explored area is always a bit of a risk, and doing it a lot is chaotic. Doing balance and design at the same time can make the effects of each hard to tease apart, so I like to only do one when possible. I was thinking about a balance change for Raven, but the the discussion drifted towards how dive works, how to make it feel better to use, and what interactions it is trying to achieve. After fiddling with a few system I came up with the pitch-limited guided bomb, which may do enough of what diving Raven did. So I decided to try out it, and avoid messing with numbers until we see more of how it plays.
+2 / -0
|
400 energy? Looks like singu/grid snipe is on the table. Is the only way for athena to hit underwater singu is djinn? ----------------------------- Raven dive change is: 1.Riot (and some raider) AA nerf 2.Limited capability fast surface units, a bit of testing makes ~90 speed the threshold here bombs stop hitting directly, not sure what was the limit previously. The thing to look out for fast AA, which can dodge bombs and be immune: Crasher, Flail, Ettin can dodge bombs if one keeps them in motion Gremlin, Zephyr are marginal Other AA is too slow to dodge bombs. Predictions on match ups: Increased surprise effect against hover which leans on riot/skirm hard, but effectiveness drop more with hover AA. Increase in surprise effect against spiders, which also riot/skirm ball, and maintain improved effectiveness later on Other factories don't lean on vulnerable and high cost rear line units and use riots as AA, so isn't affected as much. One notable change is that Scythe at full speed should be able to avoid direct hits, so do micro here when the entire enemy air force is trying to plug the rear, (and lol glaves or scorchers). Maybe this will be make other air be favored in rear line reactions. --------
Other: Scalpel no longer 1 shot recluse, but why would spiders be on flat maps~~ Scalpel no longer 2 shot blitz, buoy, claymore
+4 / -0
|
raven was not meant to be anti raider...
+0 / -0
|
quote:
2.Limited capability fast surface units, a bit of testing makes ~90 speed the threshold here bombs stop hitting directly, not sure what was the limit previously. The thing to look out for fast AA, which can dodge bombs and be immune:
Crasher, Flail, Ettin can dodge bombs if one keeps them in motion
Gremlin, Zephyr are marginal
Other AA is too slow to dodge bombs.
Predictions on match ups:
Increased surprise effect against hover which leans on riot/skirm hard, but effectiveness drop more with hover AA.
Increase in surprise effect against spiders, which also riot/skirm ball, and maintain improved effectiveness later on
Other factories don't lean on vulnerable and high cost rear line units and use riots as AA, so isn't affected as much.
One notable change is that Scythe at full speed should be able to avoid direct hits, so do micro here when the entire enemy air force is trying to plug the rear, (and lol glaves or scorchers). Maybe this will be make other air be favored in rear line reactions.
|
Thanks for the details. I mean do to more precise testing but haven't had the time yet. I just played a few games VS AI and saw flails and a few other types of moible ground AA run away fast enough to dodge raven bombs while shooting. One thing ravens were really good for, if you kept them alive, was total denial of runs to the back of the base by basically any enemy unit. If they could dive, ravens would essentially land on their target's head and pass over a bomb instead of attempting to drop it form the sky, and such a point blank delivery method would work against fast units such as ravagers and even many raiders. I'm not suggesting this needs to be replicated, it's just an observation. I am now curious to see which assault is fast enough to evade ravens. This is especially relevant for assaults, which perform best if told to move through structures instead of attack-moving, so they are expected to be at least attempting to move at full speed all the time. I could just check the wiki for speed values over 90, going by your reference, but I also wanted to try a few in game just to see if that number sounds right. In FFA I can't count the number of times players like    bloa either attempted to or straight up killed me with ravager spam, and in good enough numbers, ravens could shut that down completely so that's something I want to explore. EDIT: Looks like   shin_getter's statements are accurate. At 88 speed, on perfecly flat ground (at least leveled rectangle on titan dual goes), ravager gets damaged by raven guided bombs. Ettin at 96 speed dodges everything, which in practice might not happen because of variation in elevation. Despite being smaller targets, gremlin and vandal cannot dodge. Toad can jump out of guided bomb after it has been fired, but a badly timed jump will result in getting hit in the air. The raven will aim accurately enough to hit a mid jump target. I think this can lead to exciting plays. Raven can still bomb krow, but will sometimes miss for some reason. Nimbus gets obliterated by raven. Revenant will dodge everything if moving at full speed.
+0 / -0
|
Bravo and merci beaucoup for this great job!
+3 / -0
|
quote:
Requires a connection to a grid with 400 energy[...] + [...]Cost 40k -> 36k |
So it used to cost 40k and now it's 36k + the cost of 400 energy, which more than makes up for the difference... So it's not really cheaper than it used to be.
+1 / -0
|
quote:
So it used to cost 40k and now it's 36k + the cost of 400 energy, which more than makes up for the difference... So it's not really cheaper than it used to be. |
Yes, that is true, but it is still cheaper than it would have been with no cost decrease and the cost of the energy.
+1 / -0
|
The Cruise altitude changes will probably mean those planes get destroyed even faster by flex aa. The ripper for example absolutely decimates planes. Does glaive now kill them easier?
+1 / -0
|
