Bertha Range

I don't see Raven, Likho and Bertha as being a particularly exciting part of Zero-K. In any case, Raven and Likho are still viable, even if they must be used with a bit more caution. Your failure to kill a commander has much more to do with Commander HP buffs.

Thunderbird and Scythe are still very strong when used correctly (speaking as a Thunderbird spammer and somebody who has watched Archetherial play, respectively). Krow doesn't seem much worse than it has ever been.

In general I think you need to draw more of a distinction between "tactics requiring head over macro/micro" (e.g. blocking nuke at the silo with units) and "uncounterable game breaking mechanics which need to be fixed for the health of the game" (e.g. all the variations on sending stuff into space where it cannot be killed).

To do this, ask yourself the question "if every player/team did this would the game become a joke?". If "yes", it probably needs to be removed.

"Stop removing all the clever things I found which are uncounterable! I enjoy winning against people who haven't discovered them yet. Winning by being better at the game is so much harder, and losing is no fun."

Now missile silo is more capable being a counter to Bertha, after range and aiming nerf. Nevertheless, Anti-Air is also in consideration for Bertha Defense now.

Good attempt to nerf Bertha, but I still want it require 100E, anyway It will be built further from home base now.

CrazyEddie that is unfair and I think there is a real concern here. Zero-K has definately become less janky over the years, and part of the purpose of Quant's Rule is to preserve uniqueness. An idea similar to Quant's Rule is that of making every unit rediculously OP in its own way, instead of nerfing all the units towards some sort of bland average.

These aspects of Zero-K (and CA earlier) are quite important to me and I try to preserve them when possible. I also disproportionately remember the jank from 10 years ago. There used to be an energy storage and it used to self destruct for 4000 damage at 400 range. You could put one beind a terraformed wall and kill enemy commanders. Newton has always been used to launch Pyros. At one point you could cloak structures and cloakered units were not even uncloaked by proximity. More recently, I did the nuke-bomb trick with a few Dirtbags instead of an Athena. There are still special tactics to be played around with. Just this week I killed a Crab on a spire by launching a Lobster at it.

Anyway, Forever I think you have a legitimate concern in this general area. More specifically I can sort your examples into these categories:

• Tactics that were so cheap or effective that they would warp the entire game, so had to be removed.
• Tactics that disappear once everyone has access to good unit AI.
• Tactics for which very little nerfs were applied, but which may have fallen out of the meta due to other changes.
• Thunderbird.

Space (and the upper atmosphere)

Most of the tactics that have been directly removed or heavily limited involve going to space. By space I mean going significantly higher than can be achieved with a standard Newton ramp. It is very difficult to interact with anything in space and some powerful things have been possible up there. As far as I recall Space Charon Skuttle looks like this:

• Launch a Charon with a Skuttle high into the sky.
• Move the Charon over an enemy Singu.
• Drop the Skuttle.

There was a related tactic that involved launching a Skuttle with a Newton and having it jump down onto the enemy. This is why Skuttle (as well as Toad and Jugglenaut) cannot jump from mid-air. Note that I went out of my way to create this distinction between jumpjets and jumplegs, preserving our ability to do orbital Pyro, Jack, or Constable drops.

I think it is fairly obvious why both methods of precisely dropping a Skuttle from orbit were removed. Such an ability essentially makes Berthas and Missile Silo obsolete. Shields do not stop it. The Skuttle cloaks while it is falling so it cannot be shot down. The only halfway reasonable way to counter this is hovering Hercules over your important structures every time you hear a Newton fire. I forget what I did about Space Charon Skuttle but it was possibly blocked by one of the following mechanics. I do not know if the latter two mechanics are in the game or whether I just dreamt of them. Also, if any of them exist then I may have implemented them for other reasons.

• Newtons deal 25% impulse to gunships in the vertical direction.
• Units are dropped out of transports with a bit of random impulse, ruining accuracy.
• Increase the climb speed of gunships as they enter space, making them return to their normal cruise altitude quite rapidly.

The Newton Flea scout is much more straightforward. You could launch Fleas across the map for a very cheap scout along a line. This is significantly cheaper than other scouting options, especially since I don't think Swift boost existed at the time. This is perhaps the most questionable instance of limiting a tactic, but I did so because it would be the only way anyone should scout. I stopped the trivial version of this tactic by making ground units have reduced LOS when flying high in the air. This change approximates what a unit may see if its LOS range was a sphere instead of a cylinder. You can still scout with Newton ramps if you launch your unit such that it hits the ground near the area of interest.

If Newton ramps no longer work then this is news to me. Make a demonstration and report issues. Here is a history of Newton:

• 2017 - Buffed Newton impulse by 20%.
• 2013 - Added the Newton Firezone widget.
• 2012 - Reworked Newton impulse so that it is more reliable/predictable.
• Various tweaks over the years to fix impulse sticking.
• Unknown changes to how impulse works in the engine. At least one commit in ZK that buffs Newtons to counteract such changes.

Other Tactics

Sometimes something is sleeper-OP and suddenly dominates the meta. I tend to nerf units when that happens (eventually) but there is a worry that repeating this process makes the game tend towards blandness without anyone noticing. This is why I am very hesitant to nerf the unique strengths of a unit (and as an extension, keep quoting Quant's Rule). That said, sometimes nerfing a weakness of a unit can make it useless too. I try to keep my eye on the units that are 'left out' of the meta. There aren't that many, and the gunships are the most worrying at this time.

Likho does not seem to have gone away. It was nerfed because a Likho rush could dominate large team games on small maps. Here are the changes:

• 2018 - Had its rearm time nerfed from 5s to 20s.
• 2015 - Given burnblow to fix all the cases when it would randomly miss.
• 2013 - AoE reduced by 25%, damage reduced by 20%.

I resisted all the calls to nerf Raven and Scythe for a long time because each of them has a lot of unique attributes. Nerfing those attributes would effectively narrow the range of what units in Zero-K can achieve (I felt a similar thing while increasing Flea cost, but it seems to have been required). I finally nerfed Raven to 320 cost from 300, and it still seems to be quite good. These units have had a big indirect nerf in the form of reducing the income tied to commanders and the significant increase to their health.

Locust, Gnat, and Revenant have been quite problematic units. Revenant was only ever good in rushes, it gets buffed sometimes. Perhaps it will be good sometimes. Locust was really good in massive swarms quite a while ago. It was nerfed a bit and this must have pushed it off the edge. I tried using it recently and it is ok but a bit underwhelming. I'm quite happy with Gnat now in its role of anti-heavy that can be countered by raiders or thin turrets. This makes a Gnat rush require an extra 2 or 3 Gnats per enemy raider or turret in order to keep it stunned, while allowing Gnat to retain its high damage for stunning heavy units. Harpy was dominating the meta fairly recently and lost 9% of its speed and range in 2017. Overall the Gunship factory needs to be looked at.

Thunderbird has been nerfed quite a bit because it always looks so unfair in the hands of someone who is really good at using it. It is an impactful and high-skill unit, so as a side effect it will look bad in the hands of someone less experienced. Imp is a bit similar in that I tend to nerf it whenever I feel like it makes me win 1v1 too often. I should probably revert some of the Imp changes. The situation of Krow is quite similar to Thunderbird, except in the most important way - Krow has not been changed in a long time. It had a cost buff from 4500 to 5000 in 2013 and 25% slowdown while bombing in 2012.

I really don't know what to say about the area shields. They recharged 20% faster 8 years ago but that is about it. Shields still seem to be very powerful today.

The Athena Nuke Bomb involved moving an Athena into the path of a nuke, blowing up your opponent's base. It was limited by making Nuke Silo open and ready to fire at a moments notice as long as it has a nuke stockpiled. Previously the silo would open just prior to firing so the Athena player knew when to strike. This was removed as it was more a case of bad unit AI than an exploit. Players could already give an attack command followed by a Wait command to 'prime' their silo for firing. The alternative to making this behaviour the default would be to make the launch process unable to be aborted, which sounds terrible. Nukes still collide with units. As a bonus it is now possible to scout whether a Nuke Silo has a nuke stockpiled.

Conclusion

I've looked through your examples and some things have become less powerful in a way that could flatten the game. Thunderbird and the gunships may be the best examples. I stand by limiting most of the space-related jank that I limited, but I have made sure to leave as much as possible in place (like orbital Pyro and limited Newton scouting). It is interesting to reminisce on what once was, but it could be a seductive trap - and one that you may have fallen in to. You should look at what has been gained over the same time period, and I think the gains outweigh losses when looked at without the bias of nostalgia.

• Djinn, Lobster, and Placeholder exist.
• Planes are now buildable all the way until the lategame.
• All the striders are now buildable.
• Terraform is usable enough to be mainstream.
• Games are less about turrets and more about armies.
• Sea works.

another thing that is at a really nice spot now is racketeer for example. best iteration i know so far.

Also here are some replays with an old tactic of skuttle space transport:
Downloading doesn't work...
https://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/111499
And I think this is the one with me countering starlight using shields:
https://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/187975
I want to see this game a lot but can't download it :(
https://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/163791

GoogleFrog...
Skuttle Charon luncher costs more than 2000 metal. The bigger the range the more newtons you require. I once made a 15000 metal Skuttle space launcher on sandcastles. Also please remember that enemy aa shoots down the transports so you will have to constantly spam transports making the cots way more than you can predict... It works from what I saw like a 20000 superweapon that requires tons of micro and costs almost the same.

Suggestions to counter Skuttle Charon luncher with Newtons:
1. You can already use what units we have and just change and add them as defense structures/units. An outlaw structure for example that decloaks units or gives a certain amount of damage when it detects a unit (250 to instakill Skuttle) can easily counter the tactic.

2. A kinetic shield that stops incoming units no matter in what state they are (cloaked/uncloaked). This can also be useful as a structure to protect your base from certain units. I understood that it might be hard to code and apply to the game but it will be interesting if it's decided to make an implement this kind of structure/unit. Also, making it take damage no matter if the shields are up and giving it a more cylindrical shield hight will clearly be a good counter against space attacks.

Also regarding the Starlight, just tested out and Zenith is far superior to the starlight. It has good aim, it penetrates shields very strongly and it's hard to counter if you burry it. To counter starlight you just make some walls around your base (10000 metal) and it's useless after that.
I saw that Starlight and Zenith are extremely unbalanced. Zenith is generalistic and can easily kill a detriment in 100 - 120 meteors and also destroy your entire base. Starlight is just a constant laser pointed out at a specific target that can be easily countered by walls.
Suggestion to implement:
1. Give Starlight small line of sight view where the laser ends so you can at least see what are you doing. This will make it more useful in auto-targeting AI transforming it into a good repellent for strong units.

2. Make Zenith less strong against shields. Currently, they can't be countered except underwater... tested this out just a few hours ago and if you have a zenith nothing can escape it. Also after the changes to the Singularity reactors, no economy can be protected against this superweapon...

Other things that I want to point out...Gunships still have a slide effect when used with newtons. I will not tell exactly how to exploit this but this one is worse than space Skuttle...because it can come out of nowhere behind the map and pass all defenses. When you have the time I will show it to you GoogleFrog. It's clearly a big map gamebraker!

I remember launching Pyros across Victoria Crater with three Newtons 10 years ago. I am still able to do it today. Launching a Jack only requires six Newtons. http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/753901

Edit: I boosted the amount of LOS units have while flying through the air: https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K/commit/1bc649be985e690a7c7f6a7dfb61f451d632b681

"I can't find out how much a Charon Launcher would cost"

Well, I already told you how much it costs on sandcastles and it's 14000 metal.
This is what you need:
1. Decoy Charon launcher so you overwhelm the anti-air
2. Skuttle bomb Charon transport.

This tactic is easily countered by enemy anti-air and this is why you need 1. Depending on the size of the map these two terraform pylons with newtons around it costs a lot. It's best used to counter bertha spam, Disco, buried Disco and singularity reactor. Also the 1. requires constant Charon spam in order for it to function on heavy porc aa. My assumption for Comet catcher redux is that it will cost between 3000-4000 only the terraform and newtons. The Skuttle bomb, Charon spam will cost between 1000-3000 metal depending on how precise you are and how good the enemy aa is.

It is required when you only reach late game or mid-game with a lot of metal income. It's not effective early game from what I have experienced.

So about the counter, we were discussing, it doesn't have to be cheap. A defense building that decloaks enemy is required in this game form what I saw. I already see that the game is starting to focus a lot on Cornea. A building like that would be useful indeed and it will also counter what we were discussing.

Let's be honest GoogleFrog, we have no counter for superweapons yet. We have a counter for Detriment, Paladin but when it comes to Zenith, Starlight, and Disco we have nothing. If enemy made a weapon like that you don't stand a chance against it. This is why Charon Space launcher if micromanaged accordingly, will be of help. It costs a lot of metal, you can hear it coming you just need to pay attention and react in order to save your big buildings.

The defense building to counter invisible units or at least detect them will be balanced according to how effective it is. Ideas are plentiful when it comes to this game. For example instead of what I just proposed you can make a newton defense building that has AOE repulsion similar to the outlaw but, instead of the outlaw damage it should be some kind of newton wave that throws units away from the area. It will have this repulsion system when it detects clocked units or when an enemy is close You should also give it a cooldown so balancing it won't be hard. Also, an on/off button + activation only for cloaked units will be interesting.

[Spoiler]

Now in regards to what you said here "Self-scouting for Starlight could be a cool unique ability. It would give it even more of an "Eye of Sauron" vibe. What it probably needs though is a terraform effect or just more damage."

Eye of Sauron will be interesting for Starlight if you implement it. I think this is what it lacks in comparison to the other superweapons. Starlight can be countered by terraforming easily so let it have a line of sight where the laser pointer is. Giving it anti terraform capacity will make Starlight the strongest of them all so I don't suggest that.

GoogleFrog...
Regarding the counter that we are discussing. It's the same principle that we have with all counters in Zero-K. You want to kill detriment...2 Dezintegrators and it kills it. Do you want to counter Morphed commander? just a fusion and some spies. Do you want to counter big superweapons that are constructed far away without reach? You make the Charon Space Launcher with Skutle. Do you want to counter nuke? Just make a 3000 protector. All the counters mentioned have 60-80% less metal investment than the tactic itself.

It all comes down to when you make it and when do you apply it. If you make the counters to late you lose. So the Charon Space launcher should have a counter that follows the same principles as all previously mentioned.

"I also only ever remember seeing a Charon Launcher that went so high that AA could not reach it"
To answer this I will tell you that the AA didn't have cylindrical hight range. It only had a round ball shape range against planes. After that, you changed the anti-air and made it have a cylindrical shape (at least Artemis and Chainsaw have it, don't know about the others). So this is why the Charon Space launcher now requires decoys from screening the transporter who has the payload.

The things that you changed in making newton useless against Charons was implemented in the Charon itself. Don't remember exactly what it was but right now you have broken another unit while making them. Krow, for example, can be extremely powerful in a 30 metal income map (per player) if you know how to use it with newtons. I will not show you this tactic since you never insisted on but Manu12 can agree it's extremely OP in comparison to Charon Space Launcher. I will exploit it in some games soon don't worry about it :D.

Now to answer your questions:
1. "If the counters are cheap enough, then why would making a Charon Launcher ever be a good idea?"
All counters in this game are cheap if they are not supported by something else :). You are always afraid when playing a big map to be nuked and that's why you waste 1000 on scouts... just to make 1-2 protectors.

2. "If the counters are specific to Charon Launcher, then producing the counter in any other situation is a noob trap."
Already discussed...you can make a newton wave projector that detects invisible units and when enemies are in certain range it will explode a newton bomb blasting enemies away without giving them damage :). It will also help in detecting the well used Cornea (mobile/stationary)

3. "If the counters have powerful other uses, then won't they warp the entire rest of the game?"
You will need some kind of invisible detection system...no matter what. Fleas are easily killed by some lotus spam and besides that how can you handle the scorpions that backstab or other units using mobile Cornea?

4. "If the counters are good against orbital units, then won't the already 'balanced' Jack and Pyro launchers become obsolete?"
The counter will be good against orbital stuff getting close to that specific AOE of Newton Wave projector :). Giving it a reload time will make it useless against raids of flying Pyro/Jacks.