ZeroK: Zero-K v 1.3.10.0

From ZeroK: link to original post

There are two large balance changes in this release. The Blastwings weapon is now a fireball similar to a small Firewalker (or large Kodachi). It is unlikely to be balanced but at least it should be possible to make the unit more useful lategame without dominating early.

The second balance change is more subtle. An exploit that could give permanent invisibility to HLTs lead us down a path to removing air LOS. Air units are now harder to see which is surely going to make them more powerful, somehow.

Apart from that there are fixes, area-mex-solar and a WIP arbitrary start volume system which has been enabled for some maps.

Balance

Blastwing

Blastwing now has a fireball explosion. It is comparable to a single Firewalker projectile but with larger AoE. Reduced Blastwing damage and gibs.

• Direct damage: 250 › 80
• Giblets: 15 › 3 [?]
• Fireball DPS: up to 16
• Fireball time: 20s
• Fireball AoE: 256 [?]
• Sets units on fire for 2s [?]

Line of Sight

• Reduced air LOS range by 33% to match LOS range.
• Any unit which fires in air LOS will be revealed (structures for 5s, units for 2.5s).

In effect, enemies are revealed in they fire within a units sight radius but were not previously visible because terrain was in the way.

The consequences are that:

• This works around the LOS calculation issue which causes tall units to be invisible to the enemy even though they can see and fire. They are still not visible until they fire but now it is possible to fight back.
• Shields and particles (such as Sumo footsteps) are no longer visible earlier than the unit itself.
• Air units are are harder to detect. Previously they could be seen 50% earlier than ground units (this was one of the purposes of air LOS). Radar and other vision is now more important for fighters and AA.

Kodachi out-of-combat regeneration time: 1.66s › 5s

UI

• holding down Alt when giving an Area-Mex command will surround the mexes with 4 Solars. Will surround pre-existing mexes too.
• Spotted enemy Aegis (static area shields) now draw a radius circle. [?]
• Game over display now clearly shows the match result.
• Circle Guard and Repair commands are now retained on morphing units. [?]

Miscellaneous

• Rename: Sharpshooter › Spectre
• Chicken Queen now ignores defences and moves straight into the base.
• Updated Polish helptext translations and added some UI translations.

Content creation

• Widgets now have access to winner data in the GameOver call-in. [?]
• Widgets: added gl.Utilities.DrawGroundTriangle [?]
• Added localisation support to a few widgets [?]. You can help translate them through Transifex.
• Added a powerful API for maps to define their own arbitrary startboxes. See [Startboxes the wiki page] for details on how to use them in your maps.

Fixes

• Fixed DDM cannon sometimes getting stuck inside another building.
• Fixed plasma cannons (eg. Thug, Hermit or Goliath) being unable to hit tall targets (eg. HLT) on some maps (eg. Geyser).
• Fixed crashes in ETA and Fac Panel.
• Fixed Conch prematurely leaving its building animation.
• Fixed unit state display working on hidden units. [?]
• Fixed enemy tacnuke silos not having their range circles drawn.
• Fixed Spectator Panels delay when updating win count.
• Fixed game over award display using old names.
• Fixed Context Menu showing wrong transportability for some ships.
• Fixed some units leaving incorrect wreckage. [?]