Balance

Dagger:
* Cost 85 -> 90

Mace:
* Speed 2.2 -> 2.1

Slasher:
* Cost 150 -> 140 (undoing the cost part of the nerf which also lowered damage).

Ravager:
* Speed 2.9 -> 2.95 (undoing the speed part of the nerf which also lowered projectile velocity).

Wolverine:
* Can fire backwards.
* Slightly lower ballistic arc height.

Geothermal Power Plants can be built underwater.

Unit AI

Everything that skirms Glaives now skirms Skuttle. This was an oversight.

Everything that skirms Bandits now skirms constructors, mobile AA, Eraser and Aspis. Placing these units at the front of an army was able to trick skirmishers into not moving away from the entire army. This came up in a battle when a group of Rockos did not skirm a ball of Outlaws and Convicts.

Dart is now considered a less important target than Scorcher and Slasher.

Interface

Added a setting for the initial value of reserve. Energy has 5% reserve by default. Resources below the reserve threshold will not be used by constructors on normal and low priority.

Fixes

* Shield link behaviour should make more sense. It used to have strange link limitations. This version has no strange rules and only takes charge from neighbours.
* Fixed commander skin drawing.
* Fixed epicmenu search showing duplicate result of same options if that option use radiobuttons
* Removed A Magnificent Journey and Freedom’s Calling peace tracks. They start too slowly.
* Fixed the appearance of a singleplayer ready button.
* Fixed Battleship death.

Shadowfury333 will be casting the tournament at http://www.twitch.tv/shadowfury333

Good luck everyone!

This month’s 1v1 tournament will take place on the 26th starting at 09:00 UTC (9AM). Registration is open until July 25th 23:59 UTC. Keep in mind that due to daylight savings time in UK is UTC+1, in Central Europe UTC+2, etc. Current time in UTC can be seen here.

The tournament is open to players of all skill levels.

Rules:
– Single elimination
– First map of each round is predetermined, the following maps will be selected by the loser of the previous game from the featured 1v1 map pool.
– Finals are best of 5, all other matches including the bronze match are best of 3.
– Default ZK engine version will be used. If both players in a round agree to use a different versionit may be used for that round.

The tourney racket will be seeded according to players’ 1v1 Elo. The players coming first, second and third will receive 75, 50 and 25 kudos respectively. View the bracket here.

Maps for the first games in every round will be the following:
Round 1: Desert Plateaus
Round 2: Red Comet
Semifinals: Quicksilver
Bronze match: Valles Marineris v2
Finals: Trojan Hills v2

Sign up in this thread!

2v2 Tourney

The month’s 2v2 tourney concluded this weekend. If you missed it (sadly, there were no news posted before it started), you can find more information about it in the tourney thread, view the results on Challonge, and review the commentated replays on ShadowFury’s youtube channel.

Balance

This release has some small and no so small changes. The small changes are minor tweaks to bot factories and the large changes are to sea and gunships.

Shieldbot

Bandit is due a minor buff and Dirtbag is now armed to add options to the Shieldbot opening. The aim is to increase Shieldbot diversity. This may involve an eventual Felon nerf.

Dirtbag:

• Cost 35 -> 30
• Is now armed with a 25 DPS melee attack.
• Sight distance 200 -> 300

Bandit:

• Cost 80 -> 75
• Range 240 -> 245

Outlaw:

• Speed 1.5 -> 1.9

Jumpjets

Jumpjets is becoming a reasonable factory but is carried by Pyro. The solution is to hobble the one trick pony. Pyro has only recently become a legitimate raider so this change is experimental.

Pyro:

• Health 700 -> 620

Moderator:

• Range 410 -> 420
• Significantly increased turnrate and turret turnrate.

Jack:

• Cost 650 -> 600

Gunships

Now that Planes work well we have set our sights on a reasonable Gunship factory. The main thrust of these changes is to make Gunship AA stand up to fighters so a Gunship switch is not instantly countered by opponents who simultaneously switch to Planes.

Plane HP and dedicated AA damage were both reduced by 9%. This effectively makes dedicated AA worse against Gunships and flex AA better against Planes. Krow HP was also reduced by 9% as it mostly interacts with dedicated AA.

Rapier:

• Reload time 4s -> 5s
• Deals 570 Slow Damage.

Brawler flies a bit higher and

• Speed 4 -> 3.7
• Range 500 -> 600
• Weapon velocity 450 -> 420
• Projectiles explode at range (like Flak, Warrior and Stardust).

Trident rework:

• Cost 400 -> 270
• Health 1500 -> 900
• Shoots 540 burst damage with 10 second reload.
• Speed 3.6 -> 3.8

Drones

Drones (Funnelweb, Companion, Reef):

• Drones now spawn as nanoframes suspended above the parent unit.
• The nanoframe builds itself and completes after 3 seconds.

Spiders

Tarantula:

• Reload Time 2 -> 1.9
• Damage 200 -> 220

Cloakybot

Another minor Rocko nerf (the last one was 5% projectile velocity). This should be the last nerf for a long time.

Rocko:

• Health 480 -> 450
• Range 460 -> 455

General Sea Changes

Sea has been reworked with promises from RyMarq to track how it plays and make future improvements. Ships have been rewritten and the sea aspects of Amph and Hover have had changes as well.

Sonar ranges are now significantly lower. This is to increase the sneakiness of underwater units.

Sonar Station:

• Cost 120 -> 40
• Sonar Range 1600 -> 600

Urchin tweaked to be lighter. It is still powerful, but far less defining of sea gameplay.

• Cost 160 -> 100
• Range 590
• Sonar Range 300
• Damage 295 -> 180
• Now has some AoE

Ships

Many ships with particularly low turn rates have had their turn rate increased to be more usable. Many more ships have been reworked.

Skeeter has has a disarm effect and slightly lower normal DPS.

Hunter has become more of a traditional riot unit. It has fairly traditional riot attributes such as AoE and low range. No longer will it dominate everything forced to travel in the water.

Snake is now properly setup as a raider. Less cost and lower stats with more speed.

Enforcer is now a powerful artillery/skirmish unit, capable of firing a salvo of powerful missiles at long range. Weak tracking makes it effectively countered by raiders and other fast units.

Typhoon is more of a traditional assault unit with a slower speed but powerful damage output and increased toughness.

Serpent is much cheaper so should see use earlier. Is now more cleanly countered by those units which can close on it, especially raiders like Duck and Snake. It has had most aspects of it reduced to compensate, including range and speed.

Amphibious

Most notable as far as amphib is concerned are the Sonar range reductions and improvements to the Claymore (which now effectively counters many of their units). The Scallop’s underwater weapon is reworked into a salvo of easy to miss explosives.

Conch:

• Cost 210 -> 180

Scallops now fires a burst of explosives underwater. They gradually accelerate to high speed and have trouble tracking fast enemies.

Hovercraft

Hover primarily had the Claymore adjusted to be more effective against underwater units.

Claymore is now less suicidal with an improved turnrate and slower depth charge. To compensate it deals less damage.