2v2 Tourney

The month's 2v2 tourney concluded this weekend. If you missed it (sadly, there were no news posted before it started), you can find more information about it in the tourney thread, view the results on Challonge, and review the commentated replays on ShadowFury's youtube channel.

Balance

This very has some small and no so small changes. The small changes are minor tweaks to bot factories and the large changes are to sea and gunships.

Shieldbot

Bandit is due a minor buff and Dirtbag is now armed to add options to the Shieldbot opening. The aim is to increase Shieldbot diversity. This may involve an eventual Felon nerf.

Dirtbag:

• Cost 35 -> 30
• Is now armed with a 25 DPS melee attack.
• Sight distance 200 -> 300

Bandit:

• Cost 80 -> 75
• Range 240 -> 245

Outlaw:

• Speed 1.5 -> 1.9

Jumpjets

Jumpjets is becoming a reasonable factory but is carried by Pyro. The solution is to hobble the one trick pony. Pyro has only recently become a legitimate raider so this change is experimental.

Pyro:

• Health 700 -> 620

Moderator:

• Range 410 -> 420
• Significantly increased turnrate and turret turnrate.

Jack:

• Cost 650 -> 600

Gunships

Now that Planes work well we have set our sights on a reasonable Gunship factory. The main thrust of these changes is to make Gunship AA stand up to fighters so a Gunship switch is not instantly countered by opponents who simultaneously switch to Planes.

Plane HP and dedicated AA damage were both reduced by 9%. This effectively makes dedicated AA worse against Gunships and flex AA better against Planes. Krow HP was also reduced by 9% as it mostly interacts with dedicated AA.

Rapier:

• Reload time 4s -> 5s
• Deals 570 Slow Damage.

Brawler flies a bit higher and

• Speed 4 -> 3.7
• Range 500 -> 600
• Weapon velocity 450 -> 420
• Projectiles explode at range (like Flak, Warrior and Stardust).

Trident rework:

• Cost 400 -> 270
• Health 1500 -> 900
• Shoots 540 burst damage with 10 second reload.
• Speed 3.6 -> 3.8

Drones

Drones (Funnelweb, Companion, Reef):

• Drones now spawn as nanoframes suspended above the parent unit.
• The nanoframe builds itself and completes after 3 seconds.

Spiders

Tarantula:

• Reload Time 2 -> 1.9
• Damage 200 -> 220

Cloakybot

Another minor Rocko nerf (the last one was 5% projectile velocity). This should be the last nerf for a long time.

Rocko:

• Health 480 -> 450
• Range 460 -> 455

General Sea Changes

Sea has been reworked with promises from RyMarq to track how it plays and make future improvements. Ships have been rewritten and the sea aspects of Amph and Hover have had changes as well.

Sonar ranges are now significantly lower. This is to increase the sneakiness of underwater units.

Sonar Station:

• Cost 120 -> 40
• Sonar Range 1600 -> 600

Urchin tweaked to be lighter. It is still powerful, but far less defining of sea gameplay.

• Cost 160 -> 100
• Range 590
• Sonar Range 300
• Damage 295 -> 180
• Now has some AoE

Ships

Many ships with particularly low turn rates have had their turn rate increased to be more usable. Many more ships have been reworked.

Skeeter has has a disarm effect and slightly lower normal DPS.

Hunter has become more of a traditional riot unit. It has fairly traditional riot attributes such as AoE and low range. No longer will it dominate everything forced to travel in the water.

Snake is now properly setup as a raider. Less cost and lower stats with more speed.

Enforcer is now a powerful artillery/skirmish unit, capable of firing a salvo of powerful missiles at long range. Weak tracking makes it effectively countered by raiders and other fast units.

Typhoon is more of a traditional assault unit with a slower speed but powerful damage output and increased toughness.

Serpent is much cheaper so should see use earlier. Is now more cleanly countered by those units which can close on it, especially raiders like Duck and Snake. It has had most aspects of it reduced to compensate, including range and speed.

Amphibious

Most notable as far as amphib is concerned are the Sonar range reductions and improvements to the Claymore (which now effectively counters many of their units). The Scallop's underwater weapon is reworked into a salvo of easy to miss explosives.

Conch:

• Cost 210 -> 180

Scallops now fires a burst of explosives underwater. They gradually accelerate to high speed and have trouble tracking fast enemies.

Hovercraft

Hover primarily had the Claymore adjusted to be more effective against underwater units.

Claymore is now less suicidal with an improved turnrate and slower depth charge. To compensate it deals less damage.

looks good, gj

The Rapier slow is in addition to its normal damage.

Apparently people are pretty good at spamming Dirtbag and the feedback was useful. I've changed Dirtbag:

• Health 650 -> 600
• DPS 25 -> 10

This change feels on the UP side but I would like to check. This is a wacky unit so the changes are initially large. Also I want to go to sleep without degenerate games running for several hours.

Search replays with game v1.2.7.0 or v1.2.7.1.

Woo.

Loving the rise of slow/disarm in various units.

http://zero-k.info/Battles/Detail/273420
increase dirtbag dps to at least 20
or increase their range to be the same as jack

curent DPS makes them incapable of killing a mex, even if there are many of them trying to attack a single mex

Can we please see other improvements I suggested before?
- make aspis/eraser able to go sea

- make roache/tick/scuttle/ultimatum swim and make roache/tick invisible under eraser
This itself will open a couple of new strategies and make game more interesting
(screening heavy units, proper micro, not just retarded reefs spam)

- sea has striders(reef and warlord) so why can't we allow ultimatum be a counter to unprotected striders?

- cloaked units should be invisible inside water the same they are on land

- heavy striders should be able to walk sea like land with lower speed without ability to use weapons(dante, bantha, scorpi, detri)
I'd like to keep the current detriment design: an ability to hit underwater units, as an exception for this unit - the most powerful strider in the game.

- I'd like to see sea commanders back(torpedo), why we can use coms on land but we can't on water? Looks like synthetic limitation.
If they are too OP, swimming scuttles, roaches and ticks or even an ultimatum, give ability to deal with them easily.

Outlaw is faster so it can keep up with Rogue, Thug and Convict. This may allow people to put riots in relatively fast armies (1.9 speed). Previously Outlaw was as slow as Felon and once you have slowed your army down to 1.5 speed you may as well make a FelonBall. A faster Outlaw should also give Shields a smoother transition from the raider game (instead of just making Felon Convict behind Bandits).

quote: Can we already wipe anti-nuke off from leviathan and reef?

I like a few difference between sea and land. I agree that Leviathan is a bit too sneaky to have an antinuke and perhaps Reef antinuke range is too long. There are no land mobile antinukes because they are impossible to detect when cloaked. At least in the sea sonar is unjammable.

quote: - make aspis/eraser able to go sea

What? They are already amphibious.

quote: - make roache/tick/scuttle/ultimatum swim and make roache/tick invisible under eraser - sea has striders(reef and warlord) so why can't we allow ultimatum be a counter to unprotected striders?

I don't want to add amphib units from random factories. Swimming Roach/Tick/Skuttle would not make much sense and how would they burrow to cloak? Amphib versions would only be good against Amphibs. Ultimatum firing from underwater sounds like a good idea.

quote: - cloaked units should be invisible inside water the same they are on land

It is harder to bump decloak with the 3Dness of sea. I think sonar being unjammable is fine.

quote: - heavy striders should be able to walk sea like land with lower speed without ability to use weapons(dante, bantha, scorpi, detri)

I don't see why, it would most likely look silly. Perhaps use a Djinn if you want to suddenly attack the shore.

quote: - I'd like to see sea commanders back(torpedo), why we can use coms on land but we can't on water?

The options would be boring and sea balance is not set enough to know what a reasonable torpedo is. Also the torpedo has to be unlocked so new players are at a significant disadvantage.

New version v1.2.7.3

Dirtbag:

• DPS 10 -> 18
• Removed death explosion damage (was 50).
• Added some death impulse to reduce the occurrence of stuck units.

Hunter:

• Damage 30 -> 32
• Range 330 -> 340

Ultimatum can shoot underwater.
Removed Leviathan antinuke.
Reduced Reef antinuke range 1500 -> 1200.
Slightly fixed Scallop overshoot.
Added variation to Hunter and Scallop impact sounds.
Further fixes to Prevent Lab Hax.

i remember the hover flea/roach bug, it was trully epic :P

no sheep was safe from hoverfleas