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This is mostly a fixes and tweaks update as the 3v3 tournament is only in two weeks. Everyone is welcome as each team must have a new player. Sign up in this thread if you are interested.
There are two big balance changes: nerfs for superweapons and shields being disabled underwater. Aspis can now float, to give it some use in sea, and floating has been improved in general. The superweapon changes were motivated by some of the epic games on the large maps added in April. Starlight is much more expensive as it is the best at ending games, but games were ending a bit too early. Disco Rave Party and Zenith were differentiated by leaning into the slow aim and rate of DRP compared to the instant response of Zenith. Thanks for all the feedback in the thread on the forums.
The most notable fixes are for the rare Zenith gathering bug and the Fencer/Bulkhead transition issue. There are also many backend improvements to scripting and the engine (which was updated earlier in the week), some of which are relevant to modding and listed in a section below. More Chinese translations have been contributed and a few campaign missions have been tweaked based on feedback.
Balance
Shields are disabled when the unit carrying them is submerged.
- The disable is the same as any other disable. Charge drops to zero and linking does not work.
- The unit must be completely underwater. This is the same threshold at which cloak is disabled and units are no longer detectable by non-sea vision.
- Units lobbed or gravity-gunned into the sea can float immediately.
- Note: This was already the case for sea-to-sea lobs and transport throws.
- Floating units no longer sink while teleporting.
- Note: Teleporting from land to the sea will still put the unit on the sea floor.
- This reduces its effective energy drain by 1 energy per second.
- Now checks whether a friendly unit is directly in front of both barrels before firing.
- Aims a little higher for more clearance.
- Cost 36k -> 38k
- Range 8400 -> 8800
- Fixed a rare bug that would transform it into an expensive doorstop.
- Cost 40k -> 42k
- Health 12k -> 8k
- Range 7500 -> 7000
- Aim speed 4 degrees/s -> 2.5 degrees/s
- Full spin up time 1 -> 2 minutes (via reduced acceleration at high spin rates).
- Spin speed is now lost while turning, with greater losses at high spin.
- Eg a 45 turn drops spin 100% -> 58%, a 90 turn drops spin 100% -> 33%.
- Cost 45k -> 60k
- Health 7500 -> 12k
- Range 10k -> 12k
Campaign
- Allied AIs are now Hard AIs on Normal difficulty (previously they were Normal AIs).
- Replace allied Merlins with Dantes in a few missions as they are prone to friendly fire.
- Adjusted partially built superweapons to leave cost-to-complete unaffected by balance changes.
- Moved Disco Rave Party slightly closer to the enemy base to partially account for its lower range.
- The mission briefing box now expands to avoid using a scrollbar for the tips section.
- Added a hint about mex income sharing to some of the first planets with allies.
- Made the hints for the Krow mission say a bit more about how to use Krow.
- Added a hint explaining Retreat Zones to the Krow mission.
- Cut hints down to four for Kirdipan (since the window is now expanded to show all hints).
- Fixed Romolis victory condition not checking for Merlins.
Maps
- Added start boxes for Supreme Strait.
- Improved lighting on All That Glitters.
- Fixed Timna Island box names.
- Enable alternate diagonal boxes for Calayo.
- Fixed small teams boxes for Angel Crossing.
- Added boxes for Pillar of Doom.
- Improved the widget that lets people tweak and save water and lighting tweaks.
Graphics
- Aegis spin animation is now based on shield charge (thanks Mach56).
- Improved line of sight rendering with AMD graphics (many cards were using a shaderless fallback).
- Contrast adaptive sharpening weakens when zooming out to counteract the grainy effect.
- Reenabled contrast adaptive sharpening by default.
- Added a subtle bloom shader.
- Bumpmapped water is now default for Lowest graphics as the others barely work.
Interface
- Added huge nuke warning toggle ingame under Settings/Accessiblity (thanks dunno).
- Improved the "Skip pregame chat" button on the replay controls.
- Language change updates unit selection texts immediately.
- Added translation capability for Zeno.
- Updated Chinese (both simple and traditional) translations (thanks Kitty, evilblue, et al).
- Updated Polish translations.
- Tweaked unit reply volumes slightly.
Modding
- Zeno no longer counts for Turtle Shell (but would have needed to deal real damage).
- Custom submarines now detected as such for Context Menu properly (instead of as ships).
- Added LUS preprocessing which translate uses of SFX.*, COB.*, math.{pi,tau}, math.{rad.sqrt}(constant) into constants. Local optimisations for these functions or tables should be removed.
- "morphUnitCreating" is now a game rules param (was team rules param).
- Added gadget:GamePaused(playerID, isPaused) to gadget handler.
- Chicken drone morphs now done via customparams.
- Missile silo automatically works with any custom missiles you add to the buildlist.
- Custom missile silos can exist and have moddable stockpile capacity via missile_silo_capacity customparam (still needs script support).
- Removed old nuke/antinuke models.
Fixes
- Fixed Zenith occasionally failing to gather meteors.
- Fixed Fencer and Bulkhead occasionally failing to transition between states correctly.
- Fixed always-floaters that teleport to from land to sea not automatically floating.
- Fixed cloak not being disabled on units when they are reclaimed.
- Fixed area cloakers with personal cloak erroneously being charged for personal cloak.
- Fixed the live unit reclaim tooltip using the old value (50%) rather than the new one (80%).
- Fixed an error upon comshared resign (thanks Shaman).
- Fixed debris texture.
- Fixed Zeno not being autogroupable (thanks Shaman).
- Fixed a rare crash to do with terraform.
- Fixed a bug where disabling units could break a factory.
- Increased Lua memory limit.
[ 2023-06-04 07:28:23 CET ] [ Original post ]
Commander wanted! Construct giant robots, build an army of a thousand Fleas. Move mountains if needed. Bury the enemy at all cost!
- Traditional real time strategy with physically simulated units and projectiles.
- 100+ varied units with abilities including terrain manipulation, cloaking and jumpjets.
- 70+ mission galaxy-spanning campaign to be enjoyed solo or co-op with friends.
- Challenging, (non-cheating) skirmish AI and survival mode.
- Multiplayer 1v1 - 16v16, FFA, coop. ladders, replays, spectators and tournaments.
- PlanetWars - A multiplayer online campaign planned to start in May.
- Really free, no paid advantages, no unfair multiplayer.
Fully Utilized Physics
Simulated unit and projectile physics is used to a level rarely found in a strategy game.
- Use small nimble units to dodge slow moving projectiles.
- Hide behind hills that block weapon fire, line of sight and radar.
- Toss units across the map with gravity guns.
- Transport a battleship to a hilltop - for greater views and gun range.
Manipulate the Terrain
The terrain itself is an ever-changing part of the battlefield.
- Wreck the battlefield with craters that bog down enemy tanks.
- Dig canals to bring your navy inland for a submarine-in-a-desert strike.
- Build ramps, bridges, entire fortress if you wish.
- Burn your portrait into continental crust using the planetary energy chisel.
Singleplayer Campaign and Challenging AI
Enjoy many hours of single player and coop fun with our campaign, wide selection of non-cheating AIs and a survival mode against an alien horde.
- Explore the galaxy and discover technologies in our singleplayer campaign.
- Face a challenging AI that is neither brain-dead nor a clairvoyant cheater.
- Have some coop fun with friends, surviving waves of chicken-monsters.
- Cloaking? Resurrection? Tough choices customizing your commander.
Casual and Competitive Multiplayer
Zero-K was built for multiplayer from the start, this is where you can end up being hooked for a decade.
- Enjoying epic scale combat? Join our 16v16 team battles!
- Looking for a common goal? Fight AIs or waves of chicken-monsters.
- Prefer dancing on a razor's edge? Play 1v1 in ladder and tournaments.
- Comebacks, betrayals, emotions always running high in FFA.
- Want to fight for a bigger cause? Join PlanetWars, a competitive online campaign with web-game strategic elements, diplomacy and backstabbing (currently on hiatus pending an overhaul).
Power to the People
We are RTS players at heart, we work for nobody. We gave ourselves the tools we always wanted to have in a game.
- Do what you want. No limits to camera, queue or level of control.
- Paint a shape, any shape, and units will move to assume your formation.
- Construction priorities let your builders work more efficiently.
- Don't want to be tied down managing every unit movement? Order units to smartly kite, strafe or zig zag bullets.
Plenty of Stuff to Explore (and Explode)
Zero-K is a long term project and it shows, millions hours of proper multiplayer testing and dozens of people contributing ever expanding content.
- Learn to use all of our 100+ units and play on hundreds of maps.
- Invent the next mad team-tactics to shock enemies and make allies laugh.
- Combine cloaking, teleports, shields, jumpjets, EMP, napalm, gravity guns, black hole launchers, mind control and self-replication.
- Tiny flea swarm that clings to walls?
- Jumping "cans" with steam-spike?
- Buoys that hide under water to ambush ships?
- Mechs that spew fire and enjoy being tossed from air transports?
- Carrier with cute helicopters?
- Jumping Jugglenaut with dual wielding gravity guns?
- Meet them in Zero-K!
- OS: Ubuntu 13.04 or equivalent
- Processor: 2.0 GHz dual core CPU with SSE (Intel Core 2 Duo or equivalent)Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: 512 MB graphics card with OpenGL 3 support (GeForce 8800 or equivalent)
- Storage: 6 GB available spaceAdditional Notes: 64bit only. Big Picture mode is not supported
- OS: Ubuntu 17.10 or equivalent
- Processor: 3.0 GHz quad core CPU (Intel Core i5 or equivalent)Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: 2048 MB graphics card with OpenGL 3 support (high GT 500 series or equivalent)Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 8 GB available spaceAdditional Notes: 64bit only. Big Picture mode is not supported
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