Changelog for 2012 releases

Balance

• Flamethrower units do not avoid shooting friendlies (prone to labhax)
• Djinn automatically deploys when idle
• Restore old vehicle slopemods. They are now better at climbing hills.

Graphics

• New heatray impact GFX
• Dante and Bantha have idle anims
• Fixed some irregularities with Dante's flamethrower

UI

• Unit icons rotate to face camera
• Improved bomber dive tooltip.

Misc.

• Optimizations for terraform texture handler and reclaim HP handler
• Image Preloader is always on; disables itself if running after game start
• Units are instantly transferred when a player resigns using the give-when-afk system.
• Fix Thug error on death.

Balance

Comm shield normalized with Thug shield:

• Power 1000 -> 1250
• Regen 14 -> 16

Commander Assault Cannon damage 320 -> 360

Comm Plasma Artillery (all versions) does 1/15 more damage

Dante can no longer turn while firing salvo. This helps prevent friendly fire.

Doubled teleport speed.

Fixes

Fixed drone unit transfer behavior. Capturing a drone or carrier does not affect any other units. You can end up with drones housed at hostile carrier.

Fixed rare bug in which jumpers would not move into jump range.

Jump command is now removed at the end of the jump. This means shift-queuing a self-d command at after a jump command has the desired effect.

Fixed the origin of lines drawn for teleport, capture, shield link and jumphet UI.

Fixed error upon Bantha death.

Screamer automatically stockpiles and does not display how many missiles are queued to be produced, only how many it has in storage.

Visuals

• Prettier Flea and Dart weapon hit effect.
• Dirtbag has a jump animation.
• Added map icons for missiles.
• Increased Outlaw pulse transparency.
• Added linking arc from teleport beacon to the unit it is teleporting.

Balance

Structures are impossible to cloak with the exception of Claw (Wolverine Mine) and Sneaky Pete. Additionally Sneaky Pete can now self-cloak.

Annihilator:

• HP 7k -> 6k.

Outlaw:

• Pulse propagates 4x faster.
• Slow Damage 55 -> 75
• Normal Damage 75 -> 50

Removed targetmoverror for Scallop, Venom, Faraday and Warrior. They are better at hitting small fast things.

Firewalker and Tremor will fire even if a feature is obstructing their "aim".

Battleship and Behemoth can target gunships.

Comm Slowbeam Weapon

• Range 350 -> 400

Fixes

• Added Amphibious Factory to transport AI handling.
• Commanders gained after the battle starts are now spawned in the middle of the startbox.
• Single CAI spawns commanders in the middle of the startbox.
• Multiple CAIs on a team will spread out commander spawn locations.
• Fixed missing Blackdawn wreck.

Visuals

• New LLT model.
• Tidal generators have a proper wreckage.
• Rounded wheels for various Vehicles and Tanks.
• Improved Detriment and Bantha walkscripts.
• Messed with ally colours slightly.

Other

• Replaced chicken comm penalty with Commander Junior.
• Added reasonable metal spot layout for Cooper Hill.
• Added "wasMorphedTo" UnitRulesParam to indicate that unit creation was due to morph.

A moment of free time spawns a flurry of much needed fixes. Pathing should be improved. New wreck models by psimyn.

Fixes

• Outlaw decloaks while firing using the on/off toggle.
• Rogue stands higher and is now much less prone to friendly fire.
• Units no longer decloak when they vigorously bump wrecks.
• Fixed bomber jamming.
• Fixed Stiletto aiming AI. It can now be left to it's own devices if you do not feel the need to specify bombing run direction.
• Blackdawn footprint 2x2 -> 3x3
• Fixed some amphibious unit deaths, they were gibing to easily.

Pathing

Increased Tank, Vehicle, Ship and Hover deceleration. They should become stuck less often.

Increase Tank and Vehicle slopemod to that of Hovercraft. They are now slower when climbing ramps. This change aims to make Tanks and Vehicles avoid areas which they can become stuck.

Applied a fix which should improve global pathfinding and make ramps update faster.

Balance

Detriment:

• Shoulder weapon replaced with old vertical launch missile. The missile smooths terrain.

The changes to Rapier and Gnat are from 6 days ago.

Gnat:

• Cost 70 -> 90
• Speed 8 -> 7.5
• Damage 320 -> 400
• HP 175 -> 300
• EMP time 7s -> 2.5s
• Reduced strafe distances so it is consistently within range
• Dramatically reduced accuracy. It is much worse against small units and turrets.

Rapier:

• Range 340 -> 360

Other

• Added psimyn's wreck models for Angler, Archer, Duck, Djinn and Racketeer
• Display DPS widget disables on F5 (gui hide).

After much debate, the Impulse Capacitor Restriction Act was passed in Parliament this morning over the vehement protests of the Non-Newtonian Physics Association.

Other important changes include several optimizations to the code and a large number of bugfixes.

General

• Several bits of construction-monitoring code have been removed to speed the game up. As a side effect, boost starting resources have been removed from the game.
• Fixes for gunship "impulse capacitors"
• Muting players should work properly now
• Fixed Serpent omnidirectional torpedoes
• Fixed an exploit that allowed players to steal resources from allies by sharing a negative amount to them
• Factories "push" enemy units out of their build areas more precisely
• Fixed a crash when attempting to create a ZK mission in Mission Editor

GUI

• Fixed a widget crash when Local Colors was disabled
• Fixed advanced camera go-to-point behavior
• Rejoin progress bar no longer steals clicks; is dockable
• Terraform indicates expected total cost (usually an underestimate) in tooltip after construction starts (previously it only displayed before any work had been done on the terraform block)
• Aircraft "land at" state icons have had their colors reversed; now "land at 30%" is red and "land at 80%" is green
• Added "/cba clear" command to the Central Build AI widget to clear all build queues at once

GUI

• Added Knorke's replay control widget.

Graphics

• Implement CaptainBenz's Detriment model.

Fixes

• Disable lagmonitor sharing of unit being built by factory.
• Fixed extra second comm never spawning if you don't choose your comm type before game start.
• Fixed coop mode bug, where a player could spawn comm two times if he didn't choose his comm before default comm spawned.
• Stopped AIs that don't pick a comm type (such as NullAI) from using the same comm as the player and spawning after a delay (now they spawn immediately and with default comm).

Climbing higher.

Balance

Hammer

• Range 820 -> 840

Phoenix, reverted fire burn time nerf. AoE nerf stands.

• Max on fire time 10s -> 15s

Clam

• Can no longer resurrect
• Health 800 -> 1300

Athena

• Can now resurrect
• Health 200 -> 400
• Speed 9.17 -> 7
• Cloak cost (3, 10) -> (2, 5) (moving, static)

Jumpjet units without visible thrusters can no longer jump while flying through the air. This includes Sumo, Skuttle, Dirtbag and Archangel. Pyro, Can, Freaker and Recon Commander can still jump from mid air.

Resurrect cost: 1.5x -> 1.25x energy and time

Graphics

Reduced unit on fire effect particle count and removed smoke.

Terraform textures the map with a metal texture. This looks good, makes terraform more visible and indicates which units can walk on it.

• Sparse squares as passable by everything.
• Steeper slopes have dense squares and are not passable by vehicles.
• Black walls are only passable by spiders.

GUI

• Minimap "clear" button removes all drawings.
• Minimap metal map button displays mexes and geos without changing map to black.
• Changed default colors for line of sight view to be much more brighter and bound F4 to new metal map display.

Lobby

• Removed ATI/Intel driver checks and compat. options, most drivers now work fine.
• Added multithreaded engine checkbox.

Engine Fixes

We have been using the new engine Spring 91.0 for a little while. It seems stable enough and comes with new fixes.

• Crashing planes no longer fall through the map if stunned.
• Beam Lasers and Lightning Guns are no longer blocked by stunned shields.
• Lightning Guns can no longer shoot into water.
• Fixed all the strange 'Defender does not fire' type behaviour.
• Fixed rare issue with nanoframes reaching 100% health but not completing.

Fixes

• Weapon targeting should be a lot more intelligent.
• No damage is dealt after an Outlaw dies. This is a workaround for allied units receiving damage from allied outlaws which die.
• Fixed ATI minimap bug.
• Reduced occurrence of bomber and gunship landing bugs.
• Jumpjets no longer act as an impulse capacitor.
• Fixed units sometimes not flashing blue when emped and the UI is disabled.
• Fixed UI keys bug.

The constant cycle of improvements continues.

Note: many of these changes were in previous stables following v1.0.8.1, just not disclosed because they didn't merit news posts on their own.

Balance

Grizzly:

• HP 10k -> 9k

Goliath:

• Replaced flamethrower with short ranged slow beam. 3x damage and reload time as that of Moderator.

Puppy:

• Cannot eat map features.

Phoenix

• AoE 256 -> 216
• Max on fire time 15s -> 10s

Duck:

• Cost 200 -> 180

Avenger:

• HP 300 -> 350
• Missile Damage 200 -> 220
• No longer auto targets ground units when patrolling.

Vamp:

• Speed 10 -> 9.5

Vulture:

• Speed 11 -> 12
• HP 850 -> 950

Crane:

• HP 180 -> 240

Athena:

• Can build Djinn

Interface

• Fixed checkbox rendering
• Old energy icon is now used for unpowered units.
• Metal spot data is shown in replays.
• Minimap can be resized when not in tweak mode but it cannot be expanded to take up the whole view.

Other

• Fixed amph factory killing things touching its backside (such as morphing geos).
• Fixed tactical AI which broke due to new engine compatibility.
• Merl has a "don't fire at radar" toggle.
• Melee chicken attacks are no longer blocked by shields.
• Initial states configuration now handles cloaked units properly.
• Clippy complains less about energy.

The tides are shifting.

Balance

Out of combat repair speed reduced to 2x build speed (from 3x).

Hunter

• Range 330 -> 400
• Torpedo speed 120 -> 200, turnrate 30k -> 20k
• AoE 40 -> 48
• Turret turn rate 150 -> 300°/s

LLT

• Floats

Typhoon

• Range 270 -> 300

Crusader

• Depthcharge damage 165 -> 180; fixed GFX

Skeeter

• Range 350 -> 300

Scalpel

• Turret turn rate 120 -> 180°/s

Dominatrix

• Capture speed against target with 0% health increased to 3x normal (was 2x)

Commanders

Due to technical issues, commanders are limited to four profiles, which can morph up to level 4. We hope to bring back the others soon!

Commanders start at level 0 with no modules. They can morph to level 1 for no cost beyond that of the modules.

Some stuff you asked for (and some you didn't but was a good idea anyway). Enjoy!

Game

If there are two teams left and one has over 100x the assets of the other, the smaller team's units are permanently revealed (and any units outside the map bounds are killed outright).

Overdrive scheme can be changed in modoptions. The options are:

• Investment Return (default): Energy sources give all OD income to their owner until they have paid for themselves, after which it gradually declines to the normal sharing rate. Lifetime ROI (not counting normal share) is 150%.
• Delta-based: awards bonus metal based on change in contribution to the change in OD energy input, relative to three minutes ago.
• 100% share
• 50% share (previous)

Interface

• Improved chat console
• Optimizations for several widgets (particularly the Deluxe Player List)

Graphics

• Improved LOS mode - displays radar with a blue outline at the edge of coverage. Radar colors are completely configurable in Settings/Graphics/Radar View Colors.
• New Shadow model
• New CaptainBenz models for Hermit and Infiltrator.
• Big mushroom cloud (from Silencer) dissipates faster
• New map icons for several energy structures, particularly solar and geos
• Tweaked some award icons

Balance

• Banisher range 460 -> 430
• Crasher damage 400 -> 320

Start resources reduced:

• Resources 650 -> 400
• Storage 1000 -> 500

Commanders

• Baseline comm pays 50 metal for its beam laser

Balance

Vandal:

• Cost 100 -> 90
• Range 850 -> 880

New AA vehicle, the Crasher. High focus on speed at the expense of range.

Djinn:

• Infinite beacon placement range.
• Beacon loses LOS and death explosion.
• Doubled beacon placement time.
• Throughput increased 60%.

Avenger:

• HP 260 -> 300

Commander Disintegrator weapon no longer drains shields (on top of passing through them).

Notable Engine Changes

Spring 89.0 has some new features and fixes.

Fixes:

• Unbuilt units with full health can now be built properly.
• Lightning guns can no longer shoot into water (funny that nobody noticed this).
• Beamlasers and lightning cannons are no longer stopped by stunned shields.
• Stunned aircraft no longer fall through the map if they die.
• Kamikaze units with hold fire will now explode if they have an attack command and are near their target.
• Maybe fixed some targeting bugs such as units not firing.

New features:

• All builders now have a green circle for their buildrange.
• Unseen terrain does not update. This was in previous versions but now the update blocks are much finer and closely match LOS.
• Terrain update was implemented properly engine side. The terraform texture is now only blocked by some people with broken graphics so it has been reimplemented as a modoption.
• Hitvolumes and aimpoints are more configurable so many have been fixed and improved.

New bugs:

• Selecting and giving orders to units which are icons is now difficult.
• New targeting bugs. Apparently this one is not serve and it may already be worked around.
• Pathfinding is probably broken in different ways. A few tests showed that units are much more likely to become stuck on terrain.
• Bombers with a fight or patrol command will not fire.

Online

• added new category of hosts - Experienced players
• lowered size of teams autohost to 18
• clan size limit is now 8->16

Interface

• Zero-K starts as "borderless fullscreen" by default (for users with Zero-K lobby - you can change it in settings)
• Workaround for always-full resource and health bars with Catalyst 12.6 drivers
• Fixes for Take Reminder
• Updated Recluse and Tarantula buildpics

Beware of sharks when swimming.

Interface

• Added menu buttons for Set Target and Cancel Target
• Attack warning removed for spectators
• Possible fix for some crashes
• Fixes to rejoin progress bar

Graphics

• Shield distortion FX removed completely from Felon; visible on larger shields only on Ultra settings

Commanders

• Fixed commander napalm artillery
• Rocket launcher reload 3.2 -> 3
• Artillery conversion cost 350 -> 300
• Heavy napalm artillery damage 75 -> 100

Units

Hunter

• Health 1600 -> 1750
• Turn rate 416 -> 480
• Damage 360 -> 480
• Range 430 -> 330
• Reload 2.6 -> 4
• AoE 16 -> 40
• Slower and better turn rate for projectile.

Scallop

• Torp Damage 130 -> 110
• Torp Range 460 -> 430
• Regen 25 -> 10

Clam

• Health 1100 -> 800
• Regen 20 -> 10
• Rez cost and time increased 25% (same for comms too)

Snake

• Firing arc 180° -> 270°

Crusader

• Depthcharge AoE 32 -> 128

Slasher

• Damage 50 -> 45

Fixes to some turret aiming issues

Misc

• Regularized some map metal configs

This release mainly exists to fix the invulnerable Annihilator change of v1.0.6.6. Rapier is also slightly de-nerfed and maybe people won't cringe when new players make Archer.

Balance

Rapier:

• Revert range nerf (320 -> 340)
• Reduce damage nerf (180 -> 190)
• Speed nerf instead (4 -> 3.9)

Archer:

• Regens at 1/8th rate anywhere.
• 33% more impulse.
• 16% more damage.

Fixes

• Annihilator is no longer invulnerable to most weapon types.
• Underwater health regen disabled for unbuilt and emped units.
• Fixed mah partially drawn relay lazor.
• Fixed some torpedo sounds that were accidentally played globally.
• Fixed rare player list problem.

Lobby

• added visual engine config editor

Website

• new nicer user tooltips

Balance

Shredder:

• DPS reduced 20%

Copperhead:

• DPS reduced 5%

Commanders

Restored old HP values. Their maximum base HP is now the same as before.

• Strike Commander 2500, 3000, 4000, 5000, 6000
• Battle Commander 3000, 3800, 4900, 6000, 7200
• Recon Commander 1800, 2300, 2800, 3400, 4000
• Support Commander 2000, 2500, 3000, 3700, 4500

Dgun:

• Range 250 -> 200
• Reload time 12s -> 16s

Hellfire Grenade:

• Halved AOE

Misc

• Fixed Crabes that can become stuck on each other.
• An arbitrary set of units no longer emit smoke when cloaked.
• Chat bubbles are now smaller and only show on markers and ally chat.
• Spectator chat is yellow by default.

Balance

Vamp:

• HP 975 -> 1100.
• Slows to 50% speed when firing weapons.

Avenger:

• Missile damage 160 -> 200
• Missile reload 4.5 -> 5.2
• This is a 8% buff theoretical DPS buff

Rapier:

• Range 340 -> 320
• Damage 200 -> 180

Banshee:

• Fire angle 120 -> 180 (Fire arc is now a half sphere).

Dirtbag:

• Sight distance 350 -> 200 so it is no longer ridiculously good at scouting.

Clam:

• HP 1300 -> 1100

Valkyrie moves vertically twice as fast. This makes it faster to pickup and drop. Also nerfs stratosphere transports.

Scorcher and Push Newton prefer close targets. Pull Newton and Jugglenaut prefer far away targets.

Commanders

Commanders now have five levels. Intrinsic bonuses (HP and special stats) are much lower than before; make up the difference with modules. New base morph costs are 100/400/200/300.

Heatray module:

• Cost 125 -> 100

Napalm Grenade:

• Cost 50 -> 125
• Reload time 12 -> 16

Physics

• Transportiee mass is taken into account when applying gravity gun impulse.
• A transportiee hit by a gravity gun will transfer the impulse to the transporter, so it is now possible to launch larger things when they are in transports.

Note that Valkyrie has about 90 mass and Skuttle has 200 mass.

== Icons==

Newton icon DefenceRiot -> DefenceSupport to differentiate it from Stardust.

Hacksaw and Chainsaw AA icons have a bar behind them, they are "skirm aa". This is to differentiate the icon from Razor's Kiss and Cobra.

Fixes

• Fixed the most recent Hammer Thing.
• Baseline comm can be selected after custom comm.
• Fixed reclaim HP gadget. Reclaiming a unit no longer reduces it's health.
• Fixed strange damage reduction when tilted for Sumo.
• Windmills now face the opposite direction
• Fixed Crabe death clone.
• Fixed Clam build time.

Misc

• High or Low construction priority overrides builder priority.
• Esc cancels terraform drawing.
• Moving order-type stipple for settarget lines.

Interface

• Metal/energy reserve must now be enabled in options (Settings/Interface/Resource Bars. Metal and energy reserve can be set independently of each other with right-click.
• Bots get their own name in tooltip and awards screen rather than that of owning player.
• Clippy Comments: Rank limit defaults to off
• Mex circles are drawn at sea level rather than sea floor

== Balance==

Rocko

• Speed 2.1 -> 2.2
• Range 440 -> 450

Tremor. The DPS buff in v1.0.4.17 was written as 23% but was accidentally 66%. The buff since before v1.0.4.17 is now 12.5% more DPS with 50% more projectiles.

• Range 1400 -> 1300
• Damage 200 -> 135

Merl

• Range 1400 -> 1500 (back to pre-nerf that was ages ago)

Buoy

• Speed 1.5 -> 1.4
• HP 1250 -> 1200
• 25% larger hit volume and model

Amphibious units heal when underwater (because salt water is good for metal). This is to make them better underwater while no better on land.

• Clam 20 hp/s
• Duck 10 hp/2
• Archer 20 hp/s
• Buoy 25 hp/s
• Scallop 25 hp/s
• Grizzly 40 hp/s
• Angler 20 hp/s
• Djinn 30 hp/s

Banshee

• Auto heals 10 hp/s after 5s of taking no damage (same as Glaive)

Slasher

• 2x deploy and undeploy time

Sniper

• Weapon velocity 1000 -> 850
• Projectile looks pointier.

Felon

• Shield radius 100 -> 120
• Requires 0.3 seconds to charge up before firing
• Shield regen rate 20 -> 18
• Range 440 -> 430

Thug

• Shield regen rate 18 -> 16

Convict

• Shield regen rate 10 -> 9

Skuttle

• Decloak distance 150 -> 160
• Jump speed 6 -> 5.2
• Jump height 200 -> 120
• HP 320 -> 250

Gnat

• HP 120 -> 175
• Range 240 -> 260

LLT

• Sight distance 506 -> 520. Otherwise units with 450 range can sometimes shoot LLT without LLT being able to see it.

Firewalker

• Cost 1250 -> 1200

Typhoon

• Both guns can now shoot in all directions.

Bugfixes

• Fixed clearing of bomber airpad reservations
• Unit should no longer be able to hide in shipyard's hitsphere
• Fixed some script error messages
• Playerlist no longer cuts off at bottom in FFA

Misc

• Commander Cluster Bomb and Scorpion's multi-stunner will ignore features in their path

Game

• Autoforce waits 75 seconds for missing people (instead of 30) and will not act unless at least two teams have at least one connected player
• Admin muting applies ingame as well as in lobby (but only if mute was applied before game started); individual player mutes to follow

Units

Krow

• Acceleration 0.154 -> 0.08, brake rate 3.75 -> 1.8
• Speed 3.4 -> 3.3
• Reduced bomb count by 5

Sumo

• Cost 1900 -> 2000
• Range 430 -> 400
• Normalized sight distance to weapon range (was too high)

Big Bertha

• Cost 6000 -> 5000
• HP 4200 -> 4800

Goliath

• Normalized sight distance to weapon range (was too high)

Slasher

• Weapon no longer craters

Interface

• Unit selection screen displays unit reload times
• Comm selection screen should no longer appear when spectating
• A warning appears at start of game if lava is enabled

Chicken

• Redid defenses - now they draw from a common pool which fills with PAR and burrow kills
• Base tech penalty for each burrow kill is 40 seconds (from 60)
• White Dragon no longer stomps
• Tweaked aggro coloring in panel

Misc

• Fixed Crabe script errors
• Modified Venom and Crabe map icons

Gameplay

• Added a resurrection award
• Added rising lava, controllable with modoptions

Units

Slasher

• Cost 125 -> 140 (12%)
• HP 500 -> 560 (12%)
• Damage 32 -> 50 (56%)
• Speed 2.5 -> 2.8

Angler

• Missiles fire over 2.8s instead of all at once (Shadow will drop its bomb before being killed)
• Reload time 8 -> 10

Bantha

• Missiles are exclusively EMP; can be fired in a volley
• Loses the super optic blast

Leveler

• Doubled terrain smoothing effect

Dirtbag

• Leaves a smaller mound

Felon

• Range 450 -> 440

Licho

• Missile slower, turns better

All vehicles, tanks, hovers and ships accelerate 3x faster

Fixed some building yardmaps

Terraform costs half as much

All units prefer not to fire at unarmed targets (including Dirtbag and Razor's Kiss)

Graphics

• Changed comm teleport effect
• Tweaked sumo texture

Interface

• Added progress bar for midgame join/rejoin
• Fixed a bug where mexes could be placed off their spots
• Float and Fire at Radar can be hotkeyed
• Pause screen no longer closed with right-click; Space-click for options instead
• Kamikaze units aren't counted for resign on self-d
• Minimum weapon reload time for healthbar display can be changed
• Build ETA can be set to display only on holding down Shift
• Fixes to pylon circle drawing

Metals spots has been tweaked slightly for automatic compatibility with more maps. In some cases a map was too broken for this so an override has been added.

Anti-gunship AA has been nerfed slightly in the continued attempt to make gunships more useful. Jethro is now a cloaky AA unit and hopefully some sort of Veh AA can fill Jethro's old role.

The main UI changes are grid hotkeys for factory units and Outlaw has a button to constantly fire as well as an improved effect.

Metal Spots

UI:

• Size of minimap circle now independent of map size.
• By using larger metal icons the income visualisation can handle income up to 1000.

There are now configs for:

• Azure Rampart
• Charlie in the Hills v2.1
• EE-RiverGlade-v02
• Lava And Two Hills
• Porky_Islands
• TheBeachBeta

Fixes:

• May have fixed desync in finder algorithm.
• Fixed metal mult modoption.
• Slightly reduced spot merge detection range.
• Mexes with less than 0.2 income are discarded.

Balance

Jethro (cloaky AA):

• Now cloaks (0.1 static, 0.5 moving)
• Cost 100 -> 150
• DPS increased 50%
• Range 760 -> 700
• Speed 3.5 -> 2.9

Archangel (Jump AA):

• EMG dps is back to what it was before the XP change. This is a reduction of 30% from last version.

Cobra and Copperhead (flak cannons):

• DPS reduced 10% (to try and make Gunships better).

Quake (seismic missile):

• Cost 500 -> 400

UI

Factory build options now have grid layout hotkeys. These work a bit differently to structure grid hotkeys.

• Unit creation only requires one key press.
• The hotkeys are always active when Units tab and a factory is selected.
• Modifiers Shift (5x) and Alt (insert at start of queue) modifiers work with these hotkeys.
• These may conflict with how some current people like to use the UI so there is an is an option "Settings/Interface/Integral Menu/Disable Units Hotkeys" to turn it off.

Set Target and Cancel Target are now bindable through the menu Game/Commands tab.

Outlaw can be toggled on/off to constantly fire. Improved weapon gfx to be cleaner and more accurately depict the AoE speed.

Fixes

• Fixed some wreck names.
• 'Anti-Armor' units are now called 'Anti-Heavy'
• Gauss now shoots through wreckages (it was suppose to and has done so in the past).

Today we throw off the shackles of broken metalmap layouts and confusing extractor incomes. No more will otherwise good maps be unplayable and no one can miss the clearly displayed power of super mexes. Mex placement now has a UI, is limited to specific spots and is entirely configurable game side on a per-map basis.

As far as balance goes Gunship roles have been extremified and Tremor has received quite a buff.

Mex Placement

Mex placement is now limited to specific locations on the map.

Interface:

• Mex placement snaps to mex spots.
• Spot line width and I-Beam count indicates income.
• Spot colour indicates whether the spot is under allied control.

Mechanic Changes:

• Mex constructor no longer receives 5% extra base income.
• Metalmap view cannot be used to increase scout view range.
• Mexes now start as soon as they are built (previously there was a 3s delay to gather resource data).

Compatibility:

• Cloud metal maps with large extractor radius are not supported. Examples are Bazillion Battlefield and Castles.
• Those with small extractor radius still work. For example Duck and Speedmetal.
• Game-side configs can be added to completely replace a metalmap. This can be used to fix the few liked cloud metalmaps and to fix maps that look good but have broken metalmaps.

Widgets:

• Area Mex, Mex Snap and Prospector have been removed and partially merged into a single widget.
• If you disable this widget you're stuffed.

Ready behaviour change

Start location can now be chosen at any time and there is no ready button. The game with start 4s after every player has chosen a start location.

Balance

Tremor:

• AOE increased 11%
• DPS increased 23%
• Impacts smooths terrain.

Weapononised terrain smoothing is reduced for mid air explosions (as in when projectiles impact a shield high above the ground).

Seismic missile can shoot underwater.

Brawler. It should emphasise range and not being hit by most land units.

• Speed 4.7 -> 4
• Uses more of it's range while strafing.

Blackdawn. Should be hit and run with ground interaction.

• Speed 4.65 -> 4.5
• Health 2900 -> 3400
• Cruise Altitude 210 -> 150 (to compare Banshee is at 100)
• Range 450 -> 300

Rapier. If it is going to defend other gunships it needs to be able to keep up
with them and deal reasonable damage.

• Speed 3.8 -> 4
• Health 1300 -> 1100
• Damage 150 -> 200 (1 shot better vs Vamp)
• Range 300 -> 340

Banshee. This just needs to be a bit better.

• DPS increased 5%
• Range increased by 20

Gnat. Needs to be less extreme "completely win or die".

• Health 90 -> 120 (This is over the Defender boundary, am I mad????)
• Range increased by 20

Strider Hub:

• Costs 550 -> 600m (for consistency)

Bantha:

• Added laser overcharge special weapon.

GUI

Structures in the build menu are ordered by cost.

Geo hightlight activates when build geo is selected. Geos are now drawn on the minimap with a big X.

Bombers now require repeat enabled to retain an attack command.

Fixed

• Rector repair speed was too high.
• Mex, wind, carrier, HLT, defender, LLT aimvolume tweaks. Allied units are better at shooting past them.
• Fix Dante script error.
• Initial state "hold position" preset should work reliably.
• Fixed Archangel DPS

GUI improvements:

• new keyboard controlled main menu
• new button under minimap to turn on simplified color scheme (all alies blue, all enemies red)
• default interface skin is now carbon (you can change that in settings)
• game treats placing start position as ready -> its enough if people place start position, no need to click ready. When all people place position, game starts.

Minor GUI changes:

• removed "gesture menu" interference - added option to enable it for groups of units - default off
• scrolling with smoothscroll off is "apple style"
• there is now option to remember minimap mode (LOS/radar views etc)

Gameplay:

• all "teams" hosts now balance clan-mates together. Join same planetwars clan to play with your friend there.

Balance:

• Tremor has extra 100 range

Fixes:

• default LOS/radar display has nicer colors
• units no longer fire at targets they cannot see

Quickmatch Improved and Enabled

The quick matching system 'Juggler' has had improvements and has been re-enabled. Juggler preferences can now be set with Zero-K lobby and defaults to Never. Preferences are used to automatically search/create organise games with people that also want to play that kind of game.

QuickMatch is activated by button in Zero-K lobby multiplayer tab or by joining autohosts with Stars.

People who cannot use Zero-K lobby can set their preferences on their home page - "Game preferences".

There are now 3 levels of TEAMS host, small medium and large. These hosts will automatically start a game if the number of players is within their desired range. Automatic starting can be postponed with the command '!postpone'. Games which are too small can still be manually started and if a game is too large it will be split into two games with players sorted by elo. The game sizes are:

• Small 2v2 - 4v4
• Medium 4v4 - 8v8
• Large 5v5+

Please pay attention to this and configure your preferences based on your likes.

QuickMatch creates games from waiting people according to their preferences to satisfy greatest number of people.

1) It tries to make game of similar ELO skill. For 1v1 max ELO difference is 250 points.

2) It can only move you from your current game to new game if you like the new game type more than current game type, or same as current game type and moving you will allow other game to start, whilenot breaking current game.

3) Games where you are moved are always withing recommended player level for that game type (it will never move you to empty room alone etc).

Zero-K lobby/springies now also allow private hosting of unpassworded games.

Balance

Factories:

• Cost 550 -> 700
• Build Speed 5 -> 10

With the previous BP change it became a bit hard to spend at game start. This factory change is experimental so feedback would be helpful.

Penetrator, Annihilator and Sharpshooter do not fire at radar dots by default. They completely refuse to fire at a radar dot unless their 'fire at radar' state toggle is enabled.

Krow:

• Slows to 75% speed while dropping bombs.

Jugglenaut gets an anti unit special weapon. It can pickup all ground units around it and throw them at anything nearby.

Golliath:

• Cost 1900 -> 2200

Sumo:

• Cost 2200 -> 1900
• Jump range 300 -> 360
• Gun damage up 20%
• Stomp damage up 25%
• Stomp AOE 300 -> 340 (diameter)

Dominatrix can capture Dominatrix. This can form trees of control that completely flip when the head is killed.

Archer:

• 3xish damage
• faster projectile.

Grizzly:

• Range 550 -> 600

Clam:

• 25% faster resurrect speed. This is more of a fix because resurrect should drain 7.5 energy whereas due to an oversight it drained 6.

Commander torpedo DPS increased 50%.

Submerging a units in water puts out fires.

Overdrive Distribution

More overdrive metal is given to team members who contribute their energy. 50% of the overdrive distribution is weighted by how much energy a player contributes. The other 50% is distributed evenly between all players.

Base metal extraction sharing is unchanged, this is still evenly distributed.

Physics

In unit-unit collision both units take damage. As an aside they also take the same amount of damage (unless of course one is armoured).

Licho no longer collides with aircraft. This is to prevent mid-air catastrophes. Other aircraft are already set to not collide.

Units skid around a bit more and don't take so much damage from sliding along the ground. Technically put speed for fall damage only uses 50% of the tangential component of velocity to the ground. The speed reduction vector is also mostly in the direction of the normal.

Pathing

Units should now stop to turn if given a movement order behind them. Slow turning units can now turn on the spot instead of wandering into turret range.

Lag Monitor

Units that the taker creates are not given to the afk player when they return. Exceptions are factories to give the afk player back their factory plop.

Afk players do not receive metal income. It is split between their teammates.

Removed sexism.

Graphics

New explosion effects for Merl and Pillager.

LOS + Radar view has been recoloured. Most importantly areas with LOS and no radar are not dark blue.

Sound

There are now game Victory and Defeat triggered music tracks.

Changed Buoy and Halberd weapon sound effect.

Fixes

• Fixed tooltips for BP 5/6 change.
• Fixed game over bug that would cause both teams to win if the last unit that died was a Puppy.
• Puppy should get stuck underground less.
• Puppy now takes 5s to self-d.
• Initial States should now correctly set states when units are received from other teams.
• Added buildpic for Bantha
• Reordered a few build menu items to obey cost ordering.
• Fixed Freaker description.
• Pillager can now shoot in all directions because it would not turn itself to shoot.

Somehow quite a few changes made it into this version. The new flow field style pathing has been enabled for almost all units (even enemy units) to see if it is an improvement. An across the board 1/6th build power reduction is now being tested. Gravity gun behaviour should be a lot more consistent. In more mundane balance Bandit has had a small nerf and Djinn is significantly cheaper.

Balance

Bandit:

• DPS reduced by 5%.
• Removed autoheal.

Djinn:

• Cost 1800 -> 800
• Speed 1.2 -> 1.4

As an experimental change all build powers were reduced by 1/6th. Repair, reclaim, resurrect and construction effectively takes 20% longer.

Gravity gun and Water Cannon power increased by an unknown factor.

Gravity Guns

Replaced the purely engine dependant implementation of gravity beams with a gadget.

• Impulse is a lot more predictable and balancable.
• Planes, Ships and Gunships are now significantly affected by gravity guns.

Known impulse capacitors have been. But do not despair that unit launching is now impossible, the partial rewrite has dramatically increased the predictability and power of 'legitimate' unit cannons.

Unit collision damage has been partially reinstated for units with high speed. The high speed cutoff is required to prevent collision damage during normal movement. A fast unit is damaged as if it hit the ground with that speed, the collidee is not damaged.

Pathing

Most push resistance was removed as an experiment to see if pathfinding will improve.

• Enemy units can be shunted and flowed past in the same manner as allied units.
• Crabe is the only push resistant unit. As it cannot be shunted around.

Disabled push resistance works fairly well in this version. In previous versions, packing units into a tight area was arming the mouse traps in a demonstration of fission. A little bump would cause a unit to wander 100s of elmos off it's position which would really screw up things like cloaker and mine placement.

With this engine version, instead of moving around units merely float about when pushed. This means a well placed shield or cloaker will not be affected too much. Cloaked units such as Flea, Roach and Tick will stay cloaked while pushed. Pillager and Slasher seem to be able to fire.

Removed some Stealth/Cloak ambiguity

The obscure ability of Spy and Skuttle to stealth while uncloaked has been removed. This was inconsistent with other cloaked units and completely undocumented.

Fixes

• Tweaked some cloakybot tracks to better fit their feet base.
• Fixed Urchin gun position when placed in very shallow water.
• Removed occasional console output about pylons.
• Puppy no longer gathers wreckage while stunned or under construction.
• Transport impulse capacitor.
• Nanoframe impulse capacitor.
• Bantha missile now has a reasonable size. The triple missile pack is probably going to be fireable with a manual weapon of some sort.
• Fixed some unit tip misspellings.

Thanks CaptianBenz for the great new Bantha model. Apart from the model there are a reasonable number of small fixes. Lastly Spring 88.0 has been released, there are few new fixes in this one since the dev version. Now that there is an official release it should be easier for Linux users to find pre-complied packages.

Engine

Spring 88.0 has been released. There are few changes since the development version (87.0.1-68-g6cefe1d) that was previously used. ZKL users will update automatically and because this release is official there should be packages around for Linux users.

Pathfinding seems to have improved in this release and units are more prone to clump together.

The workaround for area commands is now completely removed.

Balance

Archer:

• 15% more damage
• 15% more impulse

Bantha:

• Missile range increased 800 -> 950 (This is to make it equal to laser, just a usability thing).

=== UI===

Gesture menu has a few more options that can be toggled through settings or with UIkeys.

• Added a toggle to disable right-click to open.
• Added a bindable UIkey that opens the menu that does not interact with the mouse.

Small Fixes

• Fixed longstanding area mex bug related to queuing area mex and normally placed mexes together.
• Shredder now has a range ring.
• EMP healthbar and flash now displays for units on less than 1% health.
• Fixed small bug in ferry point UI.
• Fixed self-d detection with units that don't count. For example terraform points and wolverine mines.
• Added proper wrecks for Grizzly and Djinn.
• Fixed very rare pylon bug (I could only cause it by creating all units and destroying them in the same frame).
• Might have fixed Dominatrix retargeting.
• Moderator sound is now louder. An engine change appears to have reduced it's volume.

The last 3 stables mostly exist to move the Amphibious Bots towards balanced.

Engine

*Spring 87.0.1-68-g6cefe1d is now in use for most of the autohosts*

It looks like it will take a few days for the engine devs to release a version which fixes the issues in 87.0. Some of the bugs are very serve (such as the chicken crash) so the development build with many fixes is now is use for most autohosts. This is to make the game playable and also test the dev version for new bugs.

Users Zero-K Lobby do not have to worry because their engine will automatically update. Users of other lobbies on Windows could take this opportunity to update to ZKL. Linux users will have to compile the engine from source. There is still a host using 87.0.

The sea nanoframe workaround has been removed and the area command workaround defaults to off. It can be enabled with the enable 87 workarounds modoption.

Balance

Buoy

• Range 430 -> 450
• Removed weapon AOE (it does not need this vs ships, prevents NOTA)
• Slow damage 400 -> 250 (sak forgot to reduce when he increased ROF)
• Reduced water drag, rise is faster. It rises so fast that on an average depth map (90 deep) it pops right of the water like a cork. This causes the first shot fired by Hunter to pass right underneath it.

Convict:

• HP 800 -> 650
• Shield Regen 12 -> 10

Scalpel

• Turn rate 500 -> 600

Duck

• Speed 2.6 -> 2.7

Scalpel:

• Damage 600 -> 660
• HP 640 -> 680 (because 1 shoting each other is a bit too extreme)
• Range 440 -> 450 (still dancing around LLT range)

Scrubber:

• Cost 90 -> 85

Fixes

• Some amph units had area mex command.
• Disabled AA micro until it is fixed.
• Fixed some Pillager, Penetrator and Tremor targeting behaviour.

Torpedo Boat and Sub both have Bouncing torpedoes so they can shoot in very shallow water.

The latest engine release badly broke area reclaim, resurrect and repair behaviour. The main fix in v1.0.3.3 is a workaround of that bug that appears to work a lot of the time.

After fixing the last few obvious bugs jseah's static AA intelligence improvement is now enabled. Static AA now avoids overkill and is less baitable. It didn't quite make it into the main stable due to time constraints.

The last 3 versions mostly fix oversights in v1.0.3.0. Here is a summary:

• Fix Penetrator damage (for a few games it did 6k damage, 2x too much).
• Tweaked new Skeeter model waterline (it looked a bit too buoyant).
• Fixed infinite duration damage over time fire.
• Newton and Jugglenaut gravity beams can target Amphibious units.
• Added factory guard toggle button for Amphibious factory.
• The "whuwhuwhwhu" teleport sound is now played locally as intended. It will not be heard map wide.
• Big Bertha can target gunships if you force it to and now prefers to target statics. It used to have no target preference.
• Fixed small bug with jumpjet velocity prediction.
• Fixed a rare and minor bug in CAI unit choice.

This is the biggest stable release for a long time with almost a month since the last one as there were a lot of changes that could not be partially implemented. The new Amphibious factory is arguably the biggest change and took significant development time. This release is congruent with an engine release so a lot of long standing bugs are fixed. This version also includes a months worth of small fixes and balance adjustments that is normal for a stable, the delay just means there are more of them at once.

New Factory: Amphibious Bots

The underwater amphibious bot factory has finally been added. There were always vague plans to flesh out the underwater combat ever since the rudimentary implementation in CA was removed.

This factory should diversify and flesh out the underwater combat in sea as well as acting as another flex factory on mixed sea-land maps. There are a few new unit concepts in this factory so it may even be land viable (similar to hovercraft). Remember, at this point balance is not expected!

Balance

Athena is no longer ploppable. The major motivation is to remove the blind factory RPS and remove the extremely fast landgrab it creates.

Snake (Mainline Submarine) Damage and Health increased ~10%:

• Damage 410 -> 450
• Health 1250 -> 1400

Hunter (torpedo ship):

• Health 1800 -> 1600

Halberd (Hovercraft Assault):

• Range 300 -> 200
• Shoots an energy pulse projectile instead of a missile.

Penetrator:

• Range 1050 -> 1020

Low ROF lasers now penetrate shields if the change is below beam damage/5. Put simply they are significantly worse at shield penetration. This affects Annihilator, Penetrator, Bantha, Stinger (HLT) and Grizzly.

Merl:

• Damage 700 -> 800

Tremor:

• AOE 130 -> 144

Pillager:

• Range 1140-> 1180

Hovercon, differentiated from Mason:

• Speed 2.7 -> 2.8
• HP 900 -> 800

Necro (Shieldbot Constructor):

• Cannot Rez
• HP 660 -> 800
• Cost 130 -> 140
• Shield 900 charge, 12 regen (worse per cost than Thug, equal would be 14)

Newton (Gravity Turret):

• Reduced the occurrence of complete ineffectiveness.

Mobile cloaker and shield are now amphibious. Static cloaker and shield float.

Increased Sumo's usable range though at long range it has very low damage.

Terraform:

• 18ish% cheaper.
• The construction point of a terraform segment is placed on the segment boundary in the direction towards the constructors that have been told to construct it. The direction updates if the constructors move.

Re-added fall damage and it is now handled more consistently than previously.

• Units are no longer elastic, they lose 70% of their velocity on a ground bounce.
• Fall damage is based on velocity and mass and should be consistent.
• Collisions between units cause no damage because such collisions can happen without flying through the air. This is clear to anyone who has played Hovercrafts.
• Units take a proportion of their health in extra damage if they land outside the map. The damage linearly increases to 100% of their health from 0 up to 800 elmos beyond the map edge. Approximately Hammer range for reference.

Chicken

Reduced easy chicken difficulty.

UI

Added optional range display for selected units. Enable through Control -> Settings -> Defence Ranges -> Show selected units ranges.

Space+click on most UI elements now brings up the options window for that element.

Rector (Cloakbot Constructor) and Ultimatum (anti mech walker) automatically cloak when built be default. The initial states setting for personal cloak has been reset to default values.

Reordered factory tab and factory buildlists along more logical lines. The factory tab is grouped by type with easier factories to the left. Factory build lists has categories ordered internally by cost. These are:
Constructor - Everything Else - Artillery - Anti Air - Mine - Unarmed.

Unit Renames

• Firestorm -> Pheonix (Area Firebomber)
• Necro -> Convict (Shieldbot Constructor)
• Cudgel -> Hermit (Spider Assault)
• Pit Bull -> Gauss (Popup Gauss Turret)

Audio

Torpedo fire sound effect is now dependant on whether the torpedo was fired above or below the water. Urchin (Torpedo Turret) now has a submerged gun when in floating mode.

Increased volume of ship unit replies.

Added 3 more music tracks by Denny Schneidemesser.

Graphics

Fixed area cloaker effect. It now fades out towards the top instead of stopping at a hard edge.

New model for Skeeter (missile scout boat).

Dominatrix control line is now stippled.

Fixes

Fixed artillery chase behaviour on idle and fight command. Arty only automatically gives itself an attack command for land attacking static defences.

• It will stop and attack turrets, prevents walking into turret range.
• It will not gain automatic attack commands on mobile units. Prevents walking into turret range if the enemy unit retreated.
• Affected units are; Hammer, Penetrator, Merl, Wolverine, Pillager and Racketeer.

Fixed small problems with Krow, Dante, Sumo, Recon Commander and Mace turret and firing animations. These were caused by a model optimisation script.

Fixed cloak with shielded commanders. It is again impossible to cloak a commander which is carrying a shield.

Fixed small LLT overshoot exploit made possible by it's extendible barrel. The barrel extension animation has been removed.

Some prediction calculations now take jumpjet velocity into account.

Fixed queue loss on commander morph. May have fixed queue loss on unit transfer.

Engine

This release corresponds with an engine release (from 85.0 to 87.0). Here are some fixes that should be visible to players, full changelog is here https://github.com/spring/spring/blob/release/doc/changelog.txt

• Fix Brawler/Blackdawn weapon jam when set to hold fire.
• Fixed excessive unit bouncing while pathing (replaced with high frequency, inconsequential, bouncing).
• Fixed permanent unit speed reduction after a "move at slowest speed in selection" command (Hold Ctrl and give a move comand).
• Aircraft no longer take off and disappear if killed while landed.
• Fixed a rare bug in which antinukes would fail to fire.
• All terrain units no longer give up on move orders while climbing steep cliffs.
• All BeamLasers could shoot through the surface of the water. This has been fixed and we're lucky noone noticed. Stiletto is now significantly better against ships because previously any beam that did not score a direct hit would explode on the sea floor. Now they explode on the sea surface so can hit via AOE.
• Fixed rare invulnerability that would occur if a jumpjet unit becomes paralysed at the end of it's flight.
• Units in transport are hittable again.
• Reduced occurrence of jumpjet units becoming stuck on opponents.
• Units under construction within factories are much easier to select.