Commander

Warning: portions of this page are out of date

The commander system was substantially revamped in winter 2016. This page has only partially been updated to the new system.

Commander intro

Your commander can be configured with a variety of modules to suit your play-style.

After the update, modules are added only at the game and are all unlocked, and you do not need to level up to get any modules.

To keep the game balanced commander modules cost metal ingame and are not all applied at the start of the game. Commanders start at level 1 with a free peashooter and no modules but they can morph an unlimited number of times (but you'll eventually run out of modules after which it is pointless to morph). At Morph 1 (Level 2), commanders gain a single weapon. At morph 3 commanders gain a second weapon which can either be a second regular weapon or a special weapon. If a weapon slot is left empty the commander will be given a free peashooter in its place. Some weapons will replace any other weapons (e.g I get shock rifle, it will replace the first weapon I got)

Each morph level gives a commander more health, more modules or weapons. Morphs have a base cost and additional cost based on the value of the modules or weapons that it will gain when the morph is complete. You can pre-configure your commander buildouts only through level 6 but you can upgrade any number of times in-game.

Unlike regular units, your commander is not disabled while morphing.

Modules and weapons

Number of slots per level

Commanders start at level 1. The number of modules and weapons increases with levels.

Commander level	1	2	3	4	5	+
Base cost	-	25	100	400	200	+100
Total Weapon slots	0	1	1	2	2	+0
Total Module slots	0	1	3	5	8	+3

Equipping weapons and modules costs additional metal. Morph time is partly dependant on the metal cost.

Module types

Modules have cyan names in the unlock list, although their icon color depends on their nature. They fall into four categories.

Stackable

These modules are able to stacked as many times as they allow, 8x for some and 10x for drones. Stacking them repeatedly will create a powerful commander, even though their bonuses as quite minor. (10% range/damage/speed for those modules) These are cyan. This type of module is the one that should be used the most, and because of their versatility, it is useful if you intend on getting commanders which do many things, or a single buff commander that is fast, invisible and deals lots of damage. Some of these modules will subtract speed or HP, and should be used with caution as too much will leave the commander a sitting duck.

Modules:

• Advanced targeting system: +7.5% range for all weapons. -2.5% speed.
• Damage booster: +10% damage for all weapons. -2.5% speed.
• High density plating: +1600 HP,-10% speed. Requires Ablative armor plates.
• Ablative armor plates: +600 HP
• Companion drone: +Weak automatically reconstructed attack drone
• Battle drone: +Upgraded autoconstructed drone with slowing laser, requires Companion drone first.
• Carrepairer's nanolathe: +4 Buildpower.
• High power servos: +8% speed.
• Autorepair system: +10HP/sec -100 HP[/list]

Support

Support modules are not stackable. They can provide large expensive bonuses such as a shield, cloaking, jamming or a cloaker. There are also cheap ones such as resurrect and inbuilt radar or an area shield/cloak. These are cyan as well.

Weapon Boosters

These modules are expensive but give a large bonus to a few specific weapons but can only be applied once. They are a space effective way to spend a module slot but make sure you have the weapon that they affect. They are purple.

Weapon types

There are 2 types of weapon, special and normal. Both weapon types are affected by the stackable range and damage modules. Weapon names are in red.

Normal

These are auto-targetting normal weapons that behave the same was as any other unit. They can be affected by weapon boosters and weapon converters given that it is the right weapon. They are all affected by stackable modules. They are red.

Name	Range	Reload time	Damage	DPS	Strike	Guardian	Recon	Engineer	Notes
Beam Laser	330			150	✔	✔	✔	✔	Constant beam
Flame thrower	270	0.16	10	60	✘	✔	✔	✘	Sets units on fire for 15s(15 DPS) Pierces units Does more damage against larger units
Heatray	300	0.1	45	450	✘	✔	✘	✘	Damage falls off with range
Light particle beam	310	0.34	55	165	✔	✘	✔	✔
Lightning Rifle	300	1.83	220+550	120+300	✔	✘	✔	✔	EMP duration: 1s
Machine Gun	285	0.16	30	180	✔	✔	✔	✘
Missile launcher	415	1	80	80	✔	✘	✘	✔	Homing
Pea Shooter	300	.1	12	120	✔	✔	✔	✔	Default weapon
Riot cannon	275	2	220.2	110.1	✘	✔	✘	✘
Rocket launcher	430	3	360	120	✘	✔	✘	✘	Not homing
Shotgun	290	2	32x12 (384)	192	✔	✘	✔	✔

Special

Special weapons have a long reload time and must be manually aimed with the 'D' key. They are only affected by stackable modules. They are orange and can only be put on the level 4 weapon slot.

Name	Range	Reload time	Damage	DPS	Commander	Special Notes
Cluster bomb	360	30	300x8 (2400)	80	Guardian     Recon	Bomblets spread (like a shotgun)
Concussion shell	450	25	750	30	Recon	Has Impulse (Tosses some units)
Disintegrator	200	30	1400	46.67	Strike   Guardian	Damage varies on unit size
Disruptor bomb	450	25	350+2100	14+84	Strike     Recon       Engineer	Has large AOE (512)
Hellfire grenade	450	25	200	8	Guardian     Recon	Sets an area on fire (45s,40dps+3s burning)
Multistunner	360	25	550/800 x 16 (8800/12800)	352/512	Strike     Recon       Engineer	Affected by flux amplifier. Max EMP time: 8s [upgraded: 10s]
SLAM	700	30	1512	50.4	Guardian	High vertical arc

Key: EMP Damage, Slow Damage

Commander Chassis

There are 4 types of commander chassis to choose for a battle.

You can configure custom commanders based on these chassis on your user page; you must be logged in to the Zero-K website and go to: https://zero-k.info/My/Commanders. These custom commanders may be selected at the beginning of the game in multiplayer matches. You will still need to upgrade them as usual, but the upgrade options are filled in to your preferences.

Common attributes

The commander you start the game with produces 4 metal and 6 energy per second, via a unique Vanguard economy module. Any resurrected commanders who have lost this module produce only 0.4 metal and 0.4 energy per second. They all provide a sight distance of 500 and a sonar of 500. Chassis other than the Engineer Commander have 10 build power and 128 build range while the Engineer commander gains build power with levels and has 250 build range.

Chassis list

Note that attributes on level 1 and level 2 are equal. Morphing to level 2 provides no bonus other than the weapon and module slot.

Strike Commander

• All rounder
• Decent health and speed (40.5)
• Can use the most weapon types
• Combat regen bonus

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5	Level 6
HP: 3200 Regen: 5	HP: 3200 Regen: 5	HP: 3800 Regen: 12.5	HP: 4600 Regen: 20	HP: 5500 Regen: 27.5	HP: 6400 Regen: 35

Guardian Commander

• Best HP
• Medium speed (40)
• Gains more HP from increased levels than other chassis do
• Able to use most non-exotic weapons

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5	Level 6
HP: 3600	HP: 3600	HP: 4400	HP: 5500	HP: 6600	HP: 7600

Recon Commander

• Lowest HP
• Highest Speed (43.5)
• Can Jump
• Uses light weapons

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5	Level 6
HP: 2400	HP: 2400	HP: 2800	HP: 3200	HP: 3600	HP: 4000

Engineer Commander

• Lowest speed (36)
• Low HP
• Gains buildpower with levels
• Increased build range (250 compared to 120 for others)
• Fewer direct damage weapons

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5	Level 6
HP: 2800 Buildpower: 10	HP: 2800 Buildpower: 12	HP: 3400 Buildpower: 14	HP: 3800 Buildpower: 16	HP: 4500 Buildpower: 18	HP: 5000 Buildpower: 20

Exact effects of attribute modifiers

Attribute modifiers are applied in this order:

• Commander Chassis absolute statistics
• Percentage modifiers both from modules and chassis
• Absolute modifiers

Percentage modifiers from commanders and stackable modules are additive, not cumulative. Five +10% speed modules multiply a commander's speed by 1.5 instead of by 1.1^5 = 1.61.

Percentage modifiers from weapon boosters and converters are cumulative and applied before other percentage modifiers. Think of them as changing the intrinsic stats of the weapon, rather than adding a bonus.