This is a balance patch, with changes to raiders, artillery, turrets, cloaking and drones. Each of the medium turrets has been nerfed, with a large nerf for Stinger, a fancy nerf for Stardust, and small nerfs for Faraday and Gauss. Most of the raiders with high burst damage have less range, as they may have been buffed a bit too much by the aiming improvements of last year. Some of the more oppressive artillery is a little worse, area cloaking is harder to use in general combat, and commander drones should be less annoying to fight. Other changes include an excellent new walk animation for Outlaw and some behaviour fixes for Attack-Move.

Units

Duck reliably hits units as small as Glaive, but lost a little range. It is a little sad to see a physics trick go, but Amphbots should not be balanced around around swingy raider interactions.

• Land range 240 -> 235
• Projectile velocity increased by 10%
• Projectile turn rate increased by 39%

Venom lost some range and health.

• Range 245 -> 240
• Health 750 -> 740

Dagger lost the most range because it is the fastest.

• Range 212 -> 205

Blitz didn't lose any range because it is not as popular as other burst damage raiders. Claymore is more reliably useful, but we are taking care to not make it too powerful too quickly.

• Health 1260 -> 1300
• Projectile speed increased by about 50% (both on land and sea)
• Range 300 -> 280 (both on land and sea)

Sling loses some damage in sympathy with Stinger.

• Damage 150 -> 140

Badger loses most of the 25% damage buff caused by fixing its 5th Claw bomblet.

• Mine damage 200 -> 170.

Tremor finally loses the ability to fire while moving, and must pack up to move.

Turrets

Stardust now 'heats up' as it fires, reducing fire rate as it does so. This allows it to retain most of its power against raiders while dealing less sustained damage to tankier assaults.

• Gains 3.8% heat per shot.
• Loses 14.3% per second.
• Slow scales up to 50% at max heat.
• Starts with 100% heat.

Faraday is more of a weighty choice.

• Cost 250 -> 260

Gauss deals less damage to lean into its anti-artillery role.

• Reload 2s -> 2.1s

Stinger is less efficient and easier to assault.

• Cost 420 -> 450
• Health 2475 -> 2250

Mechanics

Starting metal is lower to give small units a bit more space to breathe.

• Income +6 metal, +8 energy -> +5 metal, +8 energy (-1 metal income for commanders).
• Initial resources 300 metal and energy -> 250 metal and energy.

Cloaking an army for general combat is now harder and less effective.

• Iris radius 440 -> 400.
• Increased recloak time for area cloaking 5s -> 6s.
• Default decloak radius for area cloaking is now 12*footprint + 56, instead of 75. This means most units have a decloak radius of 80, 92 or 104.
• Imp and Snitch have their decloak radius increased 75 -> 80. Other units with personal cloak are unaffected by the decloak radius change.

Companion Drones are cheaper and easier to catch with raiders.

• Cost 300 -> 200
• Range 180 -> 150
• Cruise Alt 100 -> 85
• Guardian progression 1/1/2/2/3/3 -> 1/1/2/2/2/3

Battle Drones are also cheaper, but Guardian Chassis only receives one for free.

• Cost 500 -> 350
• Range 240 -> 200
• Cruise Alt 100 -> 95
• Guardian progression 0/0/0/1/1/2 -> 0/0/0/0/1/1

Fractional reload times resulting from status effects are now rounded to the nearest frame, rather than round down. This buffs units with slow damage, particularly against units with a high rate of fire.

Behaviour

• Moving now consistently grants immunity to being kidnapped by enemy transports.
• Units on Attack-Move now periodically reset their target. This ensures that they don't end up chasing retreating enemies through enemy lines.
• Improved Emissary movement packing.
• The Alt+N default terraform hotkey makes slightly higher walls.
• Added a Caretaker deathclone, it blocks movement like most deathclones.
• Made it a little easier to shoot Lotus and Stinger from the bottom of cliffs.
• Tactical AI is off by default for Emissary.

Visuals

• Improved Outlaw walk animation.
• Increased Bulkhead icon size slightly.
• Added checkbox options for unit halos, platters, selection halos, and selection shapes.
• Teamplatter widgets use the same base scaling as selection shapes.
• Map dimension and type are now shown below the map in the lobby.

Fixes

• Fixed EMP breaking factories.
• Fixed Archer unit AI sometimes closing range inappropriately.
• Fixed Puppy Gather settings under Unit Behaviour not being applied.
• Damaging or killing drones no longer counts towards endgame stats.
• Reduced the permeability of the side walls of Shielbot Factory, Cloakbot Factory and Hovercraft Platform.
• Fixed camera state recall and ctrl/alt+MMB rotation jitters for COFC (the advanced camera).
• Fixed build spacing widget crash on rapid camera rotation.
• Disabling a selection widget no longer enables the basic selection squares if any other selection widget is enabled.
• Fixed Area Mex with Space, and no other modifiers, held.
• Fixed map terraform masking not applying to smoothing.

[ 2021-02-14 09:43:12 CET ] [ Original post ]