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Zero-K v1.9.9.0 - Targeting Terrain

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AUrankAdminGoogleFrog
3 years ago

This update solves a few recent issues with ground targeting. The easy fix was for Duck, which was previously able to fire torpedoes out of the sea and onto land. The trickier changes solve the unfairness of ground targeting widgets by making the interface more powerful in ways relevant to humans, while reducing its power for widgets.

Other balance changes include Felon tweaks and slower transport speed for Jack. The AI has been updated to fix a bug, and all the configs are now based on the previous bleeding edge test version.

Balance and Behaviour


Duck is no longer able to ground fire torpedoes. This is consistent with other torpedo and depth charge weapons.

Bandit now leads targets at close range correctly.

Felon has improved burst and DPS, but less efficient charge to damage conversion.
  • Reload 0.16s -> 0.13s
  • Damage 110 -> 94 (DPS 660 -> 705)
  • Shield energy per shot 80 -> 75 (damage/charge 1.38 -> 1.25)

Reaver aims more smoothly and is smarter.
  • Aim period 5 -> 3 frames.
  • No longer automatically fires at walls protecting enemy mexes.
  • Jinks when fighting units such as Rogue.

Phantom aims faster than it turns to cut down on firing mishaps.
  • Turn rate reduced by 5.4%.
  • Aim speed 360 -> 480 (no scope).
  • Aim period 5 -> 1 frames.

Added the state toggle Fire Towards Enemies for the following units. The toggle is off by default.
  • Kodachi fires towards nearby enemies that are behind it, to avoid running into its own fire.
  • Badger fires in the direction of the closest enemy, whatever the distance.

Many units that could deal damage slightly beyond their maximum range, usually by using area of effect damage, now have reduced range for ground firing with the Set Target command.

Added a weight category - medium - to further differentiate transport speed penalties.
  • Light units cost up to 500
  • Medium units cost more than 500 and at most 1000.
  • Heavy units cost more than 1000.
Transports carry units of each weight at the following speeds.
  • Charon transports Light/Medium units at 70%/50% speed.
  • Hercules transports Light/Medium/Heavy units at 75%/65%/50% speed.
The light and heavy speed penalties existed previously, they are unchanged. The medium units that were previously light are Jack, Skuttle, Felon, Phantom, Minotaur, Emissary, Lance, Impaler, Siren, Envoy, Aspis, Iris and Djinn.

Campaign and Coop


  • Updated the skirmish AI to fix an idle factory bug - for real this time.
  • Removed time constraints on bonus objectives for the first five planets of the campaign.

Interface


  • Units can now be told to fire towards an enemy or location. To do so, issue a non-area Set Target order with the Ctrl modifier. This behaviour is paused when enemies are nearby, unless the unit is set to hold fire.
  • Improved the smart nano turrets widget Auto Patrol Nanos v2. This is still disabled by default, pending more live testing.
  • Improved some widget descriptions.
  • Added an option to hide chat.

Modding


  • Added explode on victory modoption.
  • Fixed the example model scaling gadget for dae.
  • Added an unused root to the piece hierarchy of Glaive, Iris, Conjurer, Gremlin, Scythe to allow for easy model scaling.
  • Exposed Spring.Utilities.CommandNameByID(cmdID) and Spring.Utilities.Traceback() to widgets.

Fixes


  • Saved some memory in the UI framework.
  • Fixed torpedoes sometimes falling through the map.
  • Fixed imaginary numbers in the ballistic projectile solver.
+7 / -0

GBrankPRO_rANDY
3 years ago
Buffing two of the already strongest units? Badger and Reaver :/
+9 / -0


GBrankPRO_Dregs
3 years ago
For obvious reasons we won't see mono badger, but definitely let me know if mono reaver becomes a thing in 1v1. I'd imagine we're not far off that being viable now.
+3 / -0
USrankGOLDSTANDARD
3 years ago
The change I like most is for the badger laying its own minefields and now reaver doesn't shoot at mex walls which killed a couple of my units in a recent game...
+0 / -0

USrankSkrid
3 years ago
Sad about the jack transport nerf - I like the reaver buff tho.
+0 / -0
USrankfloomby
3 years ago
quote:
Buffing two of the already strongest units? Badger and Reaver :/


The last two times badger got changed it got nerfs: reload speed and movement speed nerf.
+2 / -0
DErankBrackman
3 years ago
Technically, it's not a Badger buff but a GUI improvement.
+1 / -0
RUrankFantasyZero
3 years ago
(edited 3 years ago)
Damn, this is a wonderful script. However the distance... Beavers begin to lay mines literally too far away, is it possible to somehow calculate acceptable distance to the enemy?
+1 / -0
USrankfloomby
3 years ago
Ah the beaver, the riot mine layer...

Sorry, I don't mean to make fun of you I just like that idea.
+2 / -0


GBrankPRO_Dregs
3 years ago
quote:
The last two times beaver got changed it got nerfs: reload speed and movement speed nerf.


And yet, it still serves a very specific purpose that when executed properly demands that the opponent escalate in a very limited number of costly ways or suffer a slow and painful attrition loss. And that was true prior to this upgrade.

In PRO we have spoken about our mental responses to ingame audio cues which we reluctantly anticipate to hear, the most prominent one being firewalker, because we know in that exact moment that it means stop what you're doing, and engage the logical escalation protocol. Beavers, lances and snipers are also in this audio cue response methodology, with firewalker currently being the go-to against beaver.

Spending 900-1600 (depending on if you're already JJ) metal to attempt to counter beaver fever is often a must, however, the rover player gains one more advantage in this meta. They know that firewalker is very likely to be coming, as such can comfortably anticipate and make the counterplay of building lance (or lesser direct counters like sniper, grizzly, bombers or licho depending on eco). The reason we don't escalate into lance against beaver so often is because lance serves little purpose against the ever present scorcher balls in these matches, and rover doesn't product many high value targets worth a lance's beam cooldown.

This is what I've been referring to as a "logical escalation pathway" for a while, for example when referring to how amphbots have superior escalation pathways to hover, or rovers/jj have superior pathways to tanks. Beaver in this model is responsible for this entire pathway, and is the cornerstone of an entire strategy. For that reason, yes, I'm pretty adamant that it didn't need any more favours.
+5 / -0
unknownrankTinySpider
3 years ago
All arti shots should cost metal to fire.
+1 / -0
USrankGOLDSTANDARD
3 years ago
:D yes, with badger costing more, then again bombers should need metal to resupply
+0 / -0


GBrankPRO_Dregs
3 years ago
(edited 3 years ago)
quote:
All arti shots should cost metal to fire.


It's controversial but I agree. Apologies for my repetitive trope of "us old folk in PRO were sitting out on the porch on our rocking chairs discussing it", but alas, we saw the badger tide coming in not long back and I asked what Randy thought of badger costing 1-2 metal per shot - and we could only conclude that it made for a healthier situation where artywars was concerned. If you have auto-firing badgers like this now, but a metal cost per shot, suddenly there's a counterbalancing force in place and I like that.

As a side note, I watched a lobsterpot teamgame yesterday on comet catcher and I was surprised just how much the gameplay has evolved. What I saw was lances, badgers, firewalkers, merlins etc. Some cloaked/transported bombplay and the usual trollcoms. It was essentially both teams attempting to get as much "no retaliation possible" attrition as possible, with one team falling behind because of badly judged superweapon investment and non-use of about a dozen lances. It really, really resembled a large scale version of the escalation meta that has formed in 1v1 now. Not to say that it's a bad thing, just to say that it may be indicative of ez-attrition units being significantly more viable than conventional raiding, skirmishing and assaulting tactics now. Very much worth looking into as we shape where we want balance to go in the (hopefully near) future.
+2 / -0
CZrankSilent_AI
3 years ago
Or maybe just make badgers slower, so that they are easier to raid/bomb, or perhaps make mine decloak radus larger?
+1 / -0


GBrankPRO_Dregs
3 years ago
(edited 3 years ago)
quote:
Or maybe just make beavers slower, so that they are easier to raid/bomb, or perhaps make mine decloak radus larger?


When I say "under the right circumstances" as a prerequisite for beaver meta, I mean guarded by a proportionate amount of rippers/llts/commander - essentially enough deterrent to make them unraidable in the first place. Making them slower doesn't solve the results of them having arriven in their effective destination, where they will force the enemy hand.
+0 / -0
RUrankFantasyZero
3 years ago
As example an Emissary was nerfed very much in my opinion. Times ago it was my favorite unit, could easily scold the Paladin in numbers of ten, was fast and very agile. But right it is expensive, stupidly slow as result very vulnerable. I don't wish such fate to the Beavers...
+3 / -0

unknownrankmanero
3 years ago
I don't want to be mischievous. But I think some facs are more personally pleasing to those who program. Among these there is undoubtedly the rovers. Units like fencer scorcher impaler badger have no equal with other factory units, except maybe cloaky.
A greater balance between the factories would lead, especially in 1v1, not to always prefer rovers
+1 / -0


USrank[GBC]1v0ry_k1ng
3 years ago
Arty Wars came to be after terraform was cheapened, popups were given HP regeneration while closed and overkill was AI'd away. Making arty cost metal to fire sounds like it would just make the porc even more horrible.

The counter to an opponent investing in arty should be counter-investment in assaults and then over-running them, if that's not happening then imo thats what needs inspecting.
+2 / -0
unknownrankTinySpider
3 years ago
USrank[GBC]1v0ry_k1ng do you actually play the game?
+1 / -2


AUrankAdminGoogleFrog
3 years ago
It seems like the best time to take a drastic look at Badger, so test this out.

quote:
Badger's Claw is specialised to hit structures for full damage and is particularly bad against raiders (as an experiment).
  • Sight radius 64 -> 132 (consistent with the 115% of weapon range rule).
  • Decloak radius50 -> 80 (consistent with 2x2 footprint units).
  • No longer targets gunships (it is now pointless to try).
  • Flight time 1s -> 1.6s.
  • Initial projectile speed 50 -> 70.
  • Final projectile speed 300 -> 130.
  • Projectile acceleration 200 -> 45.
  • Turn rate reduced by 30%.
  • Toned down projectile lighting.

Also speed 60 -> 56 because Kingstad and Fine wanted to put the boot in.

Basically, the bomblets make a big arc that raiders can dodge or run from. Something like a Glaive running into a minefield is hit by, on average, about 1 bomb per Claw, something like Scalpel is hit by about half the bomblets, and turrets are hit by almost all of them.


(As in, host a game with the 'Dev' mod and test)
+5 / -0
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