Zero-K - Recent changes [en]

Magpie

Buckymancer — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 18:49:45 GMT

Uses bomberstrike's image as a manual override because planesupport's identical image is missing.

Module:WeaponData/data

Buckymancer — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 18:41:54 GMT

1.14.10.1

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Module:UnitData/data

Buckymancer — Tue, 06 Oct 2026 18:40:14 GMT

1.14.10.1

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Template talk:Command Panel UI Button

110.227.53.115 — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 15:00:12 GMT

Deepak

New page

User:Aquanim/UnitTierList

Aquanim — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 08:34:00 GMT

Mapping Guide

Stuart98 — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 19:00:09 GMT

Download: Remove remaining springfiles links.

User:Aquanim/DraftMapMakingGuide

Stuart98 — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 18:53:56 GMT

Upload: Remove mention of springfiles as it's dead.

Mapping Guide

GoogleFrog — Sat, 03 Oct 2026 14:48:07 GMT

What you will need

User:Aquanim/UnitTierList

Aquanim — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 05:44:36 GMT

Planes

User:Astraltor

Astraltor — Fri, 02 Oct 2026 05:27:56 GMT

Abbreviations

Steel Blue — Sat, 26 Sep 2026 09:48:09 GMT

T: TAW initial

User:Buckymancer/PregameAdvice

Buckymancer — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 03:19:07 GMT

copy from forum

New page

This advice is intended mainly for large games with 6 or more players on your team. Smaller games are more concerned with individual factory matchups.

Grey: Place your Commander near metal spots that nobody else is near.

For your first few games, you're expected to spend more effort experimenting and learning than contributing. But making sure all the metal spots in your teams start box get their Metal Extractors built quickly is a quick and easy way to help your team start strong.

Red: Place your Commander and Factory where it can support a teammate.

You should've figured out how to fight with some units by now, but probably won't have a response to everything the opponents do. Shadowing a more experienced player lets that player handle the particularly tricky situations while you watch, and lets you focus on specific unit matchups with the teammate balancing you out.

Brown: Place your Commander in the front where you can immediately push forward for territory.

Teams get large advantages when they control more metal spots after the initial opening push than their opponents. You start with a Commander that can both build and defend Metal Extractors. And territory is easier to defend than to assault. Expanding forward quickly at the start is one of the best things you can do for your team.

Copper: Aim for territory near the midline but of modest economic importance.

At this point you should have the skill to hold your own on the front, but only if the other team doesn't focus on you too much. You can take advantage of this by staking a claim on territory which it's a mistake for the opponents to focus too much on, but that's still important enough to your team to commit the metal to.

Gold rank tends to polarize into two playstyles and my advice for each is different.
Gold Specialists: If you're the type of gold who tries to practice one strategy to perfection, place your factory as early in pregame as possible.
This lets your teammates plan their own openings around what you will do and greatly improves the odds you'll get effective support.

Gold Generalists: If you're the type of gold who is trying out many strategies, place your Commander late in the pregame to balance your team's numbers between fronts.
Your resources should be somewhat useful anywhere, but your aren't critical anywhere. But the team losing one front to being badly outnumbered there or to having one player responsible for too much frontage are real threats. So, keeping in mind that some fronts are longer than others, put your Commander where the team's frontage-to-body ratio is lowest.

Silver: Be ready to change your plop to fill gaps in the team's composition.

You now have the game knowledge to look at the whole pregame board and figure out what's missing. That could be a specific factory that the terrain demands. Or it could be an area with insufficient player coverage, as with the gold generalists. But at your level, it can also be a comparative skill void with a mass of only brown or lower ranks.

Blue: Choose your starting position to be able to bail out low-ranked teammates.

This is no longer about where you start, but where you can go from there. Where Silvers can relocate in pregame to be "lane leader" of an otherwise unskilled lane, your team needs blue "front captains" who have a main lane or gameplan each, but can quickly reinforce or rotate into any lane that doesn't have at least a silver. If your team has few blues, then plopping on the map edge is suspect because it means you can only sidestep in one direction, but that might be worthwhile if it means you're in a position to back up an otherwise exposed gray or red ranked ally.

Purple: Choose your starting position where you can achieve a game winning advantage.

By purple you should have a better grasp of pregame than I do. But the one pregame mistake I do often see is to proceed with an initial plan that has significant but ultimately limited upside. For example, a purple can win the sea completely as ships on Folsom, but without the momentum to push ashore they risk losing the rest the map to skill differences before any fac switch could make a viable land army.

User:Aquanim/UnitTierList

Aquanim — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 09:29:02 GMT

Other Static Defences

Cold Takes

GoogleFrog — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 01:54:59 GMT

User:Aquanim/UnitTierList

Aquanim — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 21:28:01 GMT

Support and Utility

Newbie Guide

93.31.80.207 — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 17:27:17 GMT

Selection

User:Aquanim/UnitTierList

Aquanim — Sat, 12 Sep 2026 11:54:45 GMT

Raiders etc.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 The '''{{PAGENAME}}''' is a tactical strike bomber from the [[Airplane Plant]].{{Autoinfobox zkunit
-| defname = bomberstrike
+| defname = planesupport
 }}==Description==
-The Magpie launches short-range homing missiles at ground and air targets. It makes up for its low damage and long reload time by boasting the range and maneuverability to hit dangerous targets and make it back to base.
+The Magpie launches long-range slowing bullets at ground and air targets. It makes up for its low damage boasting the range and staying power to ensnare dangerous targets and make it back to base.
 {{Navbox units}}

@@ Line 323: / Line 323: @@
 '''Locust''': Playable in small teams games on large maps. If you build this there is a lot of pressure on you to demonstrate that it was a worthwhile investment.
-<span style="color:orange">'''D Tier'''</span>
+<span style="color:brown">'''F Tier'''</span>
-'''Nimbus''': Does too much Losing To Razor for my liking.
+'''Nimbus''': Does too much Losing To Razor. And misses very often. And has woeful DPS.
 = Anti-Air (mobile and static) =

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 * An image editor, such as [http://www.gimp.org/ GIMP] or [http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html Adobe Photoshop], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_raster_graphics_editors#List etc]
 * [http://www.7-zip.org/ 7zip]
-* A map compiler. This tutorial will use SpringMapEdit (although we don't have a link to it since springfiles died). There is also [https://springrts.com/wiki/MapConv MapConv] for Windows, and [https://springrts.com/wiki/MapConvNG MapConvNG] for Linux.
+* A map compiler. This tutorial will use [https://github.com/aeonios/SpringMapEdit SpringMapEdit]. There is also [https://springrts.com/wiki/MapConv MapConv] for Windows, and [https://springrts.com/wiki/MapConvNG MapConvNG] for Linux.
 * a copy of the map blueprint [https://github.com/jk3064/Map-Blueprint/archive/master.zip archive]
@@ Line 18: / Line 18: @@
 = Download =
-* [http://springfiles.com/spring/other/mapdev-stage1-working-files Download] the working  files
+* Download the working  files (link disabled as springfiles is dead)
-* [http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-maps/mapdev-stage1 Download] the completed map archive
+* Download the completed map archive (link disabled as springfiles is dead)
 = Preparation =

@@ Line 94: / Line 94: @@
 * Your map isn't set up right. Test it locally again and make sure your map works.
 * Something on the server has gone wrong. AFTER testing your map locally and finding that it works there, contact an admin. Uploading your map to a file-sharing service so the admin can look at it may help.
 = Skeleton Of A Map =

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 * An image editor, such as [http://www.gimp.org/ GIMP] or [http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html Adobe Photoshop], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_raster_graphics_editors#List etc]
 * [http://www.7-zip.org/ 7zip]
-* A map compiler. This tutorial will use [http://springfiles.com/spring/development/spring-map-edit SpringMapEdit]. There is also [https://springrts.com/wiki/MapConv MapConv] for Windows, and [https://springrts.com/wiki/MapConvNG MapConvNG] for Linux.
+* A map compiler. This tutorial will use SpringMapEdit (although we don't have a link to it since springfiles died). There is also [https://springrts.com/wiki/MapConv MapConv] for Windows, and [https://springrts.com/wiki/MapConvNG MapConvNG] for Linux.
 * a copy of the map blueprint [https://github.com/jk3064/Map-Blueprint/archive/master.zip archive]

@@ Line 295: / Line 295: @@
 '''Raven''': Not the game-defining unit it once was, but there is nothing wrong with the Raven of today. Does the job it is designed to do.
-<span style="color:brown">'''F Tier'''</span>
+<span style="color:#666">'''Unclassifiable'''</span>
-'''Magpie''': Flat out unbuildable.
+'''Magpie''': It is going to take a while to figure out just how good slowing-Magpie is.
 '''Sparrow''': Very specific usecases as a jammer, decloaker or scout-without-a-planefac. If you need it for one of those things, build it. Otherwise don't.

← Older revision		Revision as of 05:27, 2 October 2026
Line 1:		Line 1:
	[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCYkdoPqAL9zPCmTbNtc5r0_OHy_NfEOC Astraltor's Zero-k 1v1 POVs]		[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCYkdoPqAL9zPCmTbNtc5r0_OHy_NfEOC Astraltor's Zero-k 1v1 POVs]

		+	[https://tiermaker.com/create/zero-k-units-19495832 Tiermaker for Zero-K units]

	{\| class="wikitable"		{\| class="wikitable"

@@ Line 133: / Line 133: @@
 ===T===
 *TB — [[Thunderbird|'''T'''hunder'''b'''ird]] — area disable bomber plane.
 *Terra — [[Terraform|'''Terra'''form]] — a way to modify map's landscape.

@@ Line 379: / Line 379: @@
 '''Stardust''': Plonk this down somewhere that you expect a bunch of raiders to try to flank. Gets outranged by too many things to be a good frontline turret.
-'''Desolator''': I think the present meta doesn't favour Desolator but it's not inherently awful. Use it with terraform if you are going to use it.
+'''Lucifer''': This is a lot of metal to spend on something that dies to Impaler. But if the other team doesn't have Impalers it can pose a real problem.
 <span style="color:orange">'''D Tier'''</span>
-'''Lucifer''': This is a lot of metal to spend on something that dies to Impaler.
+'''Desolator''': This beats just about anything that walks into its range, but nothing ever does. Then it dies to artillery.
 = Tactical Missiles =

@@ Line 47: / Line 47: @@
 * [https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/334920/view/671750754888843965 Cold Take #45 - Automatic Dodging]
 * [https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/334920/view/693144755752665606 Cold Take #46 - Giving and Taking Feedback]
 [[Category:Cold Takes|#]]

@@ Line 230: / Line 230: @@
 '''Snitch''': Combined with areacloak this solves an awful lot of difficult problems. Even without a cloak you can sometimes get these to connect for big damage, if you're wily enough.
 <span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>
 '''Limpet''': This can turn the tide of a midgame fight. Suffers from being in a slow factory which can struggle to take advantage before the slow wears off.
@@ Line 256: / Line 256: @@
 '''Charon''': Maybe this is a hot take. Enables some pretty brutal offensive drops. This can force AA from your opponent while most of your actual metal is still invested in the land units being transported. Stonks on this unit go up on large maps where you might need to support multiple fronts.
 <span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>
-'''Iris, Aspis''': Maybe these should be S tier, but I do sometimes find that these give you a false sense of security.
+'''Aspis/Aegis''': Maybe this should be S tier, but I do sometimes find that these give you a false sense of security.
 '''Placeholder''': Potentially completely broken, but its range and HP are poor enough that something generally manages to kill it.

@@ Line 31: / Line 31: @@
 To select construction units such as your Commander, '''left-click''' them. Holding down the left mouse button draws a rectangle that selects all units inside the area. Your commander can also be selected from anywhere on the map with the keyboard shortcut {{Key combo|Ctrl|C}}.
-To add to/subtract from current selection, hold {{Key press|Ctrl}} and '''click''' on the unit. Holding {{Key press|Ctrl}} and dragging a rectangle will add multiple units to the selection.
+To add to/subtract from current selection, hold {{Key press|Shift}} and '''click''' on the unit. Holding {{Key press|Shift}} and dragging a rectangle will add multiple units to the selection.
 == Construction ==

@@ Line 74: / Line 74: @@
 <span style="color:#44f">'''A Tier'''</span>
 '''Bandit''': Very good at screening, excellent range for a raider, good HP, decent DPS. A bit on the slow side, though.
 <span style="color:lightblue">'''B Tier'''</span>
 '''Kodachi, Pyro''': Very good early game, but they lose value a lot quicker than the higher tier raiders. I have a serious skill issue with both of these units.