This is a balance patch on three fronts. On the ground, hovercraft have worse movement and nerfs to their most generic units, while spiders have cheaper early game units. In the air, light gunships receive some much needed attention and Raven no longer dives. Superweapons now require an energy grid, are much more vulnerable to being stunned, and Zenith swapped its cost with Disco Rave Party again. Other features include more options for line formations, better unit tracking and first person control, APM stats at the end of the game, and some fixes to do with saving campaign missions.

Ground

Hovercraft movement was buffed in v.1.9.11.0. This patch partially walks back the changes.

• Speed maintenance while turning reduced from 85% to 80%. Other vehicles are still at 60%.
• Slowdown while climbing hills is now halfway between the pre- and post-v.1.9.11.0 values.

Bolas is still a bit too much of a generalist so has minor nerfs to health and damage.

• Health 720 -> 680
• Reload time 0.333 -> 0.367
• Slow damage reduced by 1/6.

Scalpel gained a lot of power from improved movement and overkill prevention, so has similar nerfs.

• Health 680 -> 650
• Damage 660 -> 620

Ronin is a bit smarter.

• Now steps back while reloading (with Attack Move or or idle without Hold Position).

Flea is harder to spot.

• Decloak range 160 -> 130.

Venom is cheaper to help spiders expand safely.

• Cost 200 -> 190

Redback is cheaper to help spiders field armies early.

• Cost 240 -> 230
• Speed 1.8 -> 1.85

Pyro deals slightly more damage because some people just want to watch the world burn.

• Main DPS increased 3.3% (lingering damage unchanged)

Air

Wasp is now only slightly less efficient than the average constructor.

• Buildpower 7.5 -> 10

Blastwing now deals enough damage to kill a Metal Extractor.

• Explosion damage 80 -> 40
• Ground fire initial damage per second 18 -> 25
• Ground fire duration 20 -> 25

Locust has more raiding uptime.

• Idle regeneration 5/s -> 10/s

Harpy has noticeable buffs as it been outclassed for a while.

• Health 1100 -> 1200
• Improved brake rate by 20%.
• Damage 200 -> 220.
• Improved unit AI with preemptive breaking and better riot avoidance.

Raven no longer dives. Instead it has a guided bomb that glides downwards, homing onto targets in a cone below it. Raiders are fast enough to dodge by leaving the area before the bomb hits.

• No longer dives.
• Cruise altitude 330 -> 270 to fit under area shields.
• Bomb speed reduced by 32.5%.
• The bomb now has significant homing, but it cannot fly more than about 45 degrees off vertical.

Phoenix bombs hit slightly sooner and in a larger area, increasing its reliability.

• Cruise altitude 270 -> 240.
• Increased spread slightly.

Superweapons

Disco Rave Party must spin up to fire at full speed and swaps its cost with Zenith.

• Requires a connection to a grid with 400 energy.
• Cost 36k -> 40k
• Initially spins 20% speed, reaching a maximum of 100% after about a minute of firing.
• Maintains speed without firing, unless it is stunned or loses power.
• Buffed the smoothing of Green Stomper slightly.

Zenith is less accurate when fired continuously and swaps its cost with DRP

• Requires a connection to a grid with 400 energy.
• Cost 40k -> 36k
• Range 9000 -> 8400
• Increased the effect of launch distance on meteor spread. A meteor launched while it is still high in the sky is significantly less accurate than one floating in the swarm.
• Meteors wander down from space to the swarm faster, and are generally more energetic.
• AoE 240 -> 256
• Added smoothing. The radius is small but it can move structures.
• Meteors are visually 40% larger.
• Meteor reclaim increased 10 -> 20.

Starlight requires a large grid and resets its aim when stunned.

• Requires a connection to a grid with 600 energy.
• Glint falls and docks whenever the laser is not firing. This includes disarm, emp and low power.
• Aim speed is now reduced by slow damage.

Singleplayer and Coop

Chickens now regenerate at 20 hp/s after 10s of idle time. Adjusted some campaign missions for the superweapon changes.

• Added enough energy to reliably power the enemy Zeniths on planets Caderical and Pendust.
• Added barely enough energy to power the player Zenith and Disco Rave Party on planets Caderical and Zhurou.
• Added radar to assist the Disco Rave Party on planet Cipher, for difficulties Hard and Brutal.

Taught AIs about superweapon grids and updated the lower difficulty levels.

• AIs can now build Starlight.
• AIs know how to place Pylons around their superweapons.
• Updated beginner and novice AI to use the latest build.
• Added AI builds that are compatible with the latest engine, which is still being tested.

Features

• Moved line formation settings to 'Settings/Interface/Line Formations'.
• Added an option that turns right-click drag for selected commands (as opposed to context commands) into a line formation, rather than deselecting the command. Disabled by default.
• Added an option to evenly distribute different unit types along line formations. Enabled by default.
• Added an option to merge small categories of units for the purpose of evenly spreading unit types along line formations. Defaults to 1.
• The previously hardcoded behaviour in COFC that disables unit tracking mode when the camera is rotated can be disabled under 'Settings/Camera/COFC Following'.
• Icons that smoothly draw over models as you zoom out, rather than suddenly switching, can now be enabled under 'Settings/Graphics/Unit Visibility/Icon Zoom Transition'.
• Added keep target command for Raven, since it now makes sense with its guided bomb.
• Bombers can be now be set to retain the target of cancelled attack commands in 'Settings/Unit Behaviour'. This is how other units behave, but it was disabled for bombers to reduce accidents.
• Starlight stops moving its beam when given a Stop command, rather than continuing on to its most recent target location.
• Added direct unit control support (FPS mode). It can be enabled in the lobby in game options under 'Silly'. To enable in the campaign do /cheat, open the cheat sheet on the top left bar, tick the appropriate option, and do /cheat again (to reenable victory conditions).
• Added a tab to the game over screen with command speed summaries, such as APM.
• Added splashes for units entering or exiting water at speed.

Fixes

• Fixed complete mission objectives being broken by save/load.
• Workaround for the ramps on Lovaza Jira disappearing when the game is saved and loaded.
• Fixed some bugs and jitters with COFC unit tracking mode.
• Fixed icon distance and volumes not being carried over to externally launched games.
• Fixed an issue with connecting to the lobby for a few players.
• Improved unit movement for reclaim, attack move and repair commands.
• Fixed some typos in the space+click unit guides.
• Fixed Zenith space+click guide reporting incorrect reload time.
• Fixed incorrectly reported cruise altitude in the space+click unit guides.
• Fixed units with free cloak not listing cloak as an ability in the space+click unit guides.
• Added translation for 'shields'.
• Added startboxes for Coast To Coast Remake.

[ 2022-01-20 09:19:33 CET ] [ Original post ]