ZeroK: March 3rd 2v2 Tournament and Zero-K v1.6.2.14 – Tank Buffs

From ZeroK: link to original post

There will be a 2v2 tournament held on Saturday 3rd March at 19:00 UTC. Learn more and sign up here: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/24838

In Zero-K v1.6.2.14 we address the rocky Tank earlygame. Welder should now live up the the name 'Armed Constructor' and their raiders should be a bit better at contesting the map. Thunderbirds are also slightly nerfed and there are many fixes.

Balance

Welder:

• Cost 250 -> 220
• Health 1900 -> 2000 (nice round numbers)
• DPS 42.8 -> 90
• Range 220 -> 240

Tanks seemed really hurt by the expense of their constructor and it could not even fight many raiders. This Welder can beat a lone Scorcher and, surprisingly, does not completely dominate other raiders (except for Dagger).

Kodachi:

• Cost 180 -> 160
• Increased accuracy.
• Increased weapon velocity and arc slightly, probably cancels out.

Blitz:

• Damage 190 -> 170
• Reload time 3s -> 2.6s

The damage nerf has no effect on most raider matchups so, against, raiders this is mostly a buff.

Ettin:

• Cost 550 -> 500
• Damage 81.5 -> 90

Tank AA seems terrible compared to other AA so here is a small buff.

Thresher:

• Cost 500 -> 450

Static flak is also a bit terrible.

Thunderbird:

• Rearm time 5s -> 15s

Subsequent Thunderbird strikes after a surprise switch seemed too closely spaced. The switcher could often get multiple good disarm runs in quick succession. Happily, this change should have little effect on teamgames where Thunderbirds tend to be less reusable.

Commanders:

• Level 4 morph cost 400 -> 600.
• High Powered Servos effect 10% -> 8%.

Some buffs for later level commanders would be nice but little can be done without art.

Fixed an interaction between EMP+damage weapons and disarm. Disarm is intended to be pushed up by EMP, or, equivalently, every EMP weapon is supposed to behave as if it also deals disarm damage. This was working as intended for pure EMP weapons but not for weapons which also deal a bit of normal damage.

Graphics

• Fixed Fencer missile smoke.
• Decloak is now drawn faster.
• Enemy units fade away on cloak instead of suddenly disappearing.
• Improved Kodachi ground fire effect. Increased the size of the effect to more accurately portray the danger zone.

Fixes

• Grizzly can no longer walk backwards.
• CAI no longer produces gravity gun units (to 'fix' overzealous recursion detection).
• Fixed Raven dive against speed module commanders.
• Fixed AI names in endgame graphs.
• Endgame graph no longer appears in coop campaign when the host leaves (for SP consistency).
• Fixed some rare bugs related to orphaning of Missile Silo and Starlight children.
• Fixed Jack and Scythe(and Dirtbag) attack range movement behaviour.
• Fixed units getting stuck on poorly shaped factories, such as the Rover factory.
• Fixed the weird decloak behaviour seen over the past few days. This was due to engine changes.