The balance changes focus on improving the specialist factories (as was decided by a poll on Patreon). Apart from Bulkhead solving Amph’s pre-Grizzly lack of range, Venom is more reliable and a bug that makes jumpjets hard to tune was fixed. Other factories were also tweaked and Amph received a few extra changes to accommodate Bulkhead and the Archer rework.

Modding

• Custom modes are now much easier to find. A few presets can be selected from the ‘Game Type’ menu while hosting a game, or under ‘Select Custom Mode’ in the Adv Options of a battleroom.
• Arena Mod, Unit Level Ups and Zero Wars are available at the moment.
• A custom mode can be a map, mod or just a set of game options.
• Custom modes can be added and edited in Zero-K/CustomModes under steamapps. The parameters are listed here.
• A bug that caused inconsistent mod downloads was fixed.

Balance

Added Bulkhead, a tough deployable amphibious fire support.

• Cost 230
• Health 1720
• Water regen 15 hp/s
• Speed 48
• Armed with a 600 range, 87 DPS, Plasma Cannon.
• Stops to fire.

Archer was a little too cheap after its rework.

• Cost 180 -> 200
• Water regen 25 -> 15

Scallop was somewhat replaced by Archer so needs help finding its niche.

• Depth charge damage 52 -> 48
• Cost 280 -> 260

Buoy is no longer as good against raiders or in skirmisher standoffs.

• Turnrate reduced by 8.3%
• Weapon velocity reduced by 12%
• Skirmishes Thug and Felon from greater range, and shoots at the edge of their shields.

Conch is possibly now as wacky as other bot constructors.

• Can morph to Djinn in 20 seconds (drains 30/s).

Scorcher has decent matchups but loses slightly on efficiency, so this might work.

• Cost 130 -> 125

Fencer is no longer interrupted by impulse that is insufficient to move it.

Ravager had been left behind by Fencer/Ripper and other assaults.

• Health 1850 -> 1920

Glaive being slightly bad could be holding Cloaky back.

• DPS increased by 3%.

Ronin now drains shields from a safe range.

• Aim speed increased by 30%.
• Skirmishes Thug and Felon from greater range, and shoots at the edge of their shields.

Reaver AI is now wary of chasing Archer.

Outlaw is less effective at range, to make shieldballs more approachable by assaults and riots.

• DPS reduced by 8% (slow and normal damage).
• AoE damage falloff increased slightly.

Thug, Felon, Convict and commanders with personal shields are now fully drained by being stunned or disarmed. Not doing so was a bug.

Units now correctly lead jumping units with their weapons. Previously they would aim where the jumper was rather than of where it was going to be. This is the first step in tuning the Jumpbots, as Pyro gaining immunity to projectiles slower than gauss is undesirable and tricky to balance.

Venom by itself no longer stuns permanently, but has more damage to compensate.

• Range 240 -> 250
• Aim speed increased by 33%
• Paralysis time 3s -> 1s
• Reload 1.5 -> 1.1
• Normal damage 40 -> 70

Wasp is heavier to dissuade air plops in 1v1, to relieve factories with expensive AA.

• Cost 240 -> 300
• Health 850 -> 1500
• Speed 3.2 -> 2.4
• Build range 160 -> 180

Claymore is more reliable.

• No longer shoots its ground projectile at airborne units.
• Cost 320 -> 300
• Ground-range 220 -> 300 (matches sea range)
• Reload 5.5 -> 2.8
• Damage 620 -> 400
• (DPS 112 -> 142)

Seawolf now poses more of a threat to units that cannot fire back.

• Health 600 -> 650
• Turn rate improved by 10%
• Torpedos turn 40% faster.
• Reload 3 -> 2.4

Hunter is better as a general raider and at defending against submerged units.

• Health 310 -> 360
• Range 230 -> 240
• Reload 2.5 -> 2.6
• Damage 200 -> 220
• (DPS 80 -> 85)

Cutter needs a bit more health to keep up with Hunter.

• Health 240 -> 260

Mistral fires rapidly enough to damage sinking amphs.

• Cost 240 -> 220
• Speed 2.3 -> 2.1
• Turn rate improved by 15%
• Aim speed doubled
• Reload 8 -> 7.5
• Burst rate increased by 50%
• Projectile speed increased by 13%

Siren is now both able and required to hold its own at short range.

• Health 4000 -> 5200
• Turn rate reduced by 25%
• Range 360 -> 270
• Damage 260 -> 280
• Reload 3 -> 1.7
• (DPS 86 -> 164)

Zephyr is now as accurate as Razor.

• Accuracy spread 128 -> 50

Detriment has more damage and abilities, but costs more.

• Cost 20k -> 24k
• Gauss reload time 2.4 -> 2
• Face Laser damage 1800 -> 2400
• Missile Launcher replaced with Obliteration Blaster, a manual fire weapon with 45s cooldown.
• Obliteration Blaster fires a spread of projectiles, dealing up to 12k damage, and smooths terrain.
• Can jump 950 elmos with 120s cooldown. The landing is not gentle.

Companion Drone and Battle Drone are more vulnerable to raiders.

• Reduced weapon ranges by 28%.

Increased the minimum size of ramps so they play nice with the pathfinder. This also makes walling with ramps more expensive.

• Min width 24 -> 48
• Min length 40 -> 64

Other Changes and Fixes

• Fixed non-commander morph not decloaking units (units are meant to be disabled during morph).
• Remodelled the Airpad.
• Rebalanced unit reply sound volumes.
• Aircraft now have an advanced command that allows them to ignore a set of airpads. It must first be enabled in ‘Settings/Interface/Commands’.
• Jump reload flashes orange when jump is the active command. This can be toggled under ‘Settings/Interface/Healthbars/Jump reload flash’
• Fixed tactical AI not reacting well when many Attack Move commands are issued in a short period of time.
• Gunship strafe toggle is shown in the default UI.
• Fix alt/ctrl area mex sometimes acting as if shift is held.
• Fixed commshare again (probably).
• Added specialised callins for widget:PlayerResigned and widget:PlayerChangedTeam.
• Added more arguments to widget:UnitDestroyed.

!minelo
!maxelo
!minlevel
!maxlevel
!minrank
!maxrank

GoogleFrog has provided some new screenshots for the website backgrounds.

Aquanim and @Dregs have put together a mammoth effort and released eight new maps. @Dregs made six maps shown above while Aquanim made Anvilwood and Cobalt Dream. More information can be found in the map release thread.

These maps form the basis of a major matchmaker rotation, but are also suitable for coop, small teams, and possibly even arena-style large games. As always, the update includes a few fixes and UI improvements, the most fitting of which are explosion scars that look good on a wider range of terrain types. Additionally, an experimental new AI version is ready to be tested and mod support was improved.

Matchmaker Pool

New maps:

• Desert Rumble
• Prestige Arena
• Mechadansonia
• Jurassic Sands
• Sparkles Reef
• Scaryland
• Anvilwood
• Cobalt Dream

These maps were added or re-added last month:

• Fallendell
• Otago
• Iced Coffee
• Intersection

The following maps remain in the map pool:

• DunePatrolRedux
• FrostyCove
• Ravaged
• TitanDuel
• Vantage
• Wanderlust

You might be worried to see a few classics missing from this list; don’t worry, they’re just taking a bit of a break and will be back later.

Notable Fixes

• Updated the Myanmar flag.
• Fixed downloading mods that are uploaded via the map upload page.
• Fixed coop saves being able to override singleplayer saves.
• Fixed a bug that caused raiders to be baited early when temporarily fleeing.
• Applied more stringent checks for shader support, in an attempt to track down the integrated GPU UI disappearing bug (even though integrated graphics is technically not supported).

Other Changes

• Added a dvorak keyboard grid option.
• Added an experimental new version of the AI. It can be selected separately and is called ‘AI: Bleeding edge test’.
• Added a bindable button for a quick level terraform command that uses the height of the clicked location. The hotkey can be set in Hotkeys/Construction/Level.
• Improved the build spacing UI, fixed the build spacing hotkeys in pregame placement, and added more options for displaying build spacing.
• Improved the visuals of explosion scars, mostly by removing the brown circle around the edges of the crater, to make them fit a wider range of maps.
• Pressing escape while in the main menu and ingame returns you to the game.
• Surface weapons no longer fire at deep Amphbot Factories.
• Fixed the default settings for tactical AI under Interface/Unit Behaviour.
• Fixed a mex visualiser error on maps with no metal spots.
• Tweaked Badger sound.

Hotfixes don’t usually warrant a full set of notes, but this one contains a few things that were being worked on in the meantime and fixes a noticeable idle behaviour bug. We’re preparing to take a look at some of the less well-rounded factories, and part of that is making their unique aspects feel better to use. A few improvements to Lobster and Djinn made it into this update. Most notable is Djinn’s less restrictive requirement for teleport, which has some interesting implications.

Balance

Lobster affects units in a larger radius.

• Gather range 112 -> 160

Djinn is more powerful and convenient.

• Lamp deployment time 9s -> 8s
• Self deployment time 3.33s -> 1.11s
• Increased throughput 120 mass/s -> 150 mass/s
• Teleportation is much less picky about the destination being free of units.
• Units with subsequent orders exit the Djinn in the appropriate direction.

Fixes

• Fixed an idle-return bug that affected a few units (eg Halberd and Locust) due to their their lack of more elaborate unit AI.
• Fixed some situations where drones could gain a target then return because the target is too far away.
• Fixed terraform on flat plains not updating the map mesh until the camera moves.
• Fixed the hollow rectangle terraform (hold ctrl+shift+alt) UI not matching the result and added an interior rectangle to the UI.
• Force unhide default chassis if there are only four commanders to select.
• Made camera save/recall save the whole state rather than just the position (this was in v1.8.9.3 a few days ago).

In other news I (GoogleFrog, writing this) have a Patreon. It is new, since the last release, and the aim is to free up a bit more time to support Zero-K.

The map above is a new version of Twin Lakes Park by TheMooseIsLoose.

Idle Behaviour

Idle units now give up and return to their old location if they move too far while chasing enemies (previously they could be baited across the whole map). This can be disabled by setting a unit to Roam. Raiders and riots are also a bit smarter about how they react to enemies while idle.

• Idle raiders move to stay out of range when approached by riots or most other raiders.
• Idle riots perform similar behaviour against skirmishers and against riots with greater range.
• Units that have been pushed back in this manner only move a short distance. When pushed too far they will turn and attack.

While some attempt was made to generate good chase and push distances, there are around 1002 unit matchups so the configuration is a little rough. Expect tweaks and improvements in future patches.

Also, drones now return to their host if they stray too far away.

Command Panel

The command panel has a simple mode so as to not overwhelm new players with esoteric commands. I liked it so much that I added configuration options, to give even those that was a few more commands a nice clean panel.

• Replaced the icons for Repeat, Movestate and Firestate.
• Command and state position/ordering is now stable and consistent.
• Simple mode has slightly larger state toggles, large enough to show hotkeys. The old size can be enabled under Settings/HUD Panels/Command Panel (with Simple Settings disabled).
• Dual-toggle Hold Fire and Hold Position states replace Movestate and Firestate by default. Under the hood they toggle Hold Fire/Fire At Will and Hold Position/Maneuver. The full triple-toggle states can be enabled under Settings/Interface/Commands.
• Added the hotkey ‘H’ to toggle movestate.
• Approximately one third of the states and command are now hidden by default. The visibility of each command or state can be toggled under Settings/Interface/Commands.
• The position and order of the commands/states cannot be configured ingame. This requires a local configuration file found here.

Camera Controls

Many games have save/recall camera hotkeys, and it is an easy enough widget to write, so there was no reason not to add it.

• Added bindable camera save/recall position hotkeys, and more control over alerts and transition times. These can be bound under Hotkeys/Camera/Camera Position Hotkeys.
• Added the option to remove most advanced features from Combo Overhead/Free Camera, which can be enabled and configured under Settings/Camera with Simple Settings disabled. It can now be made to ignore shift, ctrl or alt, and can be permanent set to a particular tilt.

First Game Guide

There is now an interactive ingame guide that appears in your first non-campaign game. It is enabled by default to catch those who might need it. Experienced players can simply disable it with the X, and it can be enabled via Help.

Additional Improvements

• Added Scalpel to Fencer unit AI.
• In the lobby, watching a game or playing singleplayer no longer removes you from matchmaking queues.
• Command queue transparency can be configured in the main menu under Settings -> Game.
• The main menu settings menu now informs people that most settings only take effect upon entering the next game.
• Improved metal and energy image extended economy tooltips.
• Area Mex now queues one Solar with ctrl held, two with alt, and four with ctrl+alt. Previously it would queue four with ctrl.
• Missile Silo no longer repeatably fires with repeat enabled. This frees up repeat to be used to loop the build queue. An attack command may be repeated by issuing it with ctrl held.
• Added an experimental overlay that summarises visible reclaim. It can be enabled with ‘Toggle Field Summary’ under Settings/Interface/Reclaim Highlight (with Simple Settings disabled).
• Added selection hotkey settings for Swift, Thunderbird and Athena. They can be set under Hotkeys/Selection.
• Improved a few tooltips so that they are more descriptive. Move suggests line move. Reclaim/Repair suggests area reclaim/repair.
• Added more icons for the menu entries.

Fixes

• Fixed command tooltips defaulting to those set by the engine instead of being overridden.
• Added startboxes for Supreme Crossing.
• Fixed terraform height presets being unable to make walls around structures with ctrl held.
• Terraform structure height no longer lets you try to make land-only structures underwater.
• Fix factory plate UI on unit transfer within team.
• Added Construction Plates to the cheat sheet unit spawner.
• Fixed Merlin firing issues with save/load and improved walk animation.
• Removed Misc Priority from units with shields that do not drain energy.
• Optimised the defence range indicator.
• Optimised the metal spot visualiser.
• Fixed a performance issue in a piece of code that was meant to be disabled.
• Fixed a bug with Zenith.
• Fixed some incorrectly displayed rank icons in the extended player list.
• Removed Dante lookahead as it seems to interact poorly with multiple weapons.
• Dual wielding commanders now prefer to aim with their shorter ranged weapon.
• Fixed a chicken spire error caused by there being no burrows.
• Fixed a minor bug with AFK sharing.
• Fixed Gauss localisation.

Here is the page: https://www.patreon.com/googlefrog