This release is primarily a balance patch with some much-needed love for Amphbots. They have finally received an “artillery” unit and, as is tradition among the Bot factories, it has new and unusual mechanics. This artillery, the Lobster, throws allies (and enemies) at its problems and should have many creative uses. Limpet and Archer have also received buffs and there are nerfs for Siren, Racketeer and Blastwing.

Balance

Added Amphibious ‘artillery’, the Lobster.

• Uses nearby units as ammo, launching them at its target.
• 340 cost.

Removed the water tank mechanic from Archer. Now it constantly fires at full capacity.

Slow waves no longer deal damage to ally units in order to buff Limpet and for consistency with Outlaw. This affects Limpet, Commander Slowbomb and Disco Rave Party.

Racketeer:

• Health 950 -> 780
• Reload 6s -> 7s
• Timer 8s -> 9s

Siren main gun reload time 2s -> 3s.

Gunships now ram and climb cliffs instead of teleporting to the top.

Mechanics

• Made overdrive not spend all excess energy unless every player has full storage. Hold back some energy from overdrive to be given to players who have less energy income and energy in storage than their teams average spare energy.
• FFA maps now default to shuffle even when played with 2 teams.

Interface

• The default Ctrl+Z hotkey no longer ignores builders. Settings for current players are unaffected.
• Allies now have more vivid and distinct teamcolours in small teams.
• Energy economy breakdown now shows overall overdrive efficiency.
• Added a large cursors option, mostly for an issue with 4k screens.
• Structure terraform up/down mouse hold very slightly more lenient with regard to movement.
• Added Artemis to Unit Marker.
• Made all units easier to select, particularly factories.
• Rearranged the ingame menu. Most importantly, moved Hotkeys and Unit Behaviour to root. Fleshed out the simple settings menu.
• Commander shock rifle now shows directional particles (same as Phantom sniper).

Fixes

• Fixed Crab attack jittering issues (#2693).
• Fixed icon distance settings being overridden to the default (#2715).
• Fixed a rare resource bar crash at game start (#2692, #2252).
• Fixed Gesture menu hold threshold being 0.5s if you set it to 1.0s (#2679).
• Fixed startbox editor crash (#2694).
• Fixed Gesture menu preventing minimap clicks (#2677).
• Fixed extraneous lobby button when there is no lobby (#2127).
• Fixed the language list being spammed with untranslated languages (#2614).
• Fixed Quake enabling buildings to be stacked in the same spot (#2650).
• Fixed Libyan flag being the old green one.

This is the last week of mission releases, bringing us to a total of 71. We’ve saved the biggest for last with missions for Paladin, Detriment and the three superweapons. A big thankyou to everyone who has posted feedback so far. Keep the feedback coming as we will continue working on tweaks and fixes.

As always, post feedback here: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/24642

The profile page has been redesigned with a focus on removing unneeded text in favor of more intuitive graphical elements. The pages are now styled depending on your in-game rank, following the existing theme of black-body radiation. Instead of relying on fixed rating thresholds, ranks are now defined via percentiles. Ranks can only be gained or lost after holding one’s position in the new percentile for multiple games.

Here’s a list of the new ranks:

Icon	Color	Theme	Percentile
	Gamma ray	Singularity	Top 1%
	X ray	Neutron star	Top 5%
	Blue white	Supergiant	Top 10%
	Bright yellow	Giant	Top 20%
	Orange	Subgiant	Top 40%
	Red	Red dwarf	Top 60%
	Dark red	Brown dwarf	Top 80%
	Infrared	Nebula	Everyone

These new ranks will be subject to changes as we refine the system. Any feedback is appreciated!

Various fixes

• Reduce rating inflation directly after a server restart
• Fix a bug that would lead to the server running out of space
• Map size is now shown in elmos
• Fix a bug that would prevent logging in
• Prevent the game from looking for steam after quitting

We are in the second last week of campaign missions. Almost all units have missions at by this point with the missions for this week for striders and heavy turrets. Remember to post feedback: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/24614The first tournament of…

On the third-to-last week of campaign missions, my Commander sent to me:Three floating StridersTwo Jumpbot missionsand a Nuclear Missile Silo.Post your feedback here: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/24594

The missions are increasing in size as we enter the final few weeks of the campaign release. The missions this week take place in epic battles involving combinations of planes, striders and cross-map artillery. Be sure to post feedback: http://zero-k.i…

We have recently switched to a new rating system. Elo is being replaced by Whole history rating. Although generally very similar to the old ratings, this means that rating values have changed for every player. Here are the most important things to know about the new system:

Core concepts that remained the same

• Winning increases your rating, losing decreases your rating.
• Defeating a higher rated player counts more than defeating a lower rated player.
• Chance of victory is derived directly from the difference in rating between two players.
• Rating decreases during periods of inactivity but is fully restored after playing a few games.

Main differences to the old system

• The rating reacts faster to skill changes, especially noticeable for newer and casual players.
• Instead of a single rating, the entire history of each player is memorized.
• There are small daily rating adjustments. These are independent of activity and serve to optimize the rating’s accuracy based on past games.

Why change a working system?

• Lessen the impact of smurfs due to much faster rating adjustments even for old accounts.
• More accurate and stable ladders that are less susceptible to the outcome of single games.
• The new system is a base for additional statistics that weren’t possible before.

This is just a very basic summary. If you want to learn more I suggest you check out the related forum thread or the original publication.

This week’s campaign missions are another two-for-one, unlocking units with two unusual movement types: spiders and ships. These factories are a bit unorthodox and allow for new strategies. As usual, post feedback for these missions in the feedback thread: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/24530

Experience-per-level has been re-scaled to lower the maximum level and give players more time around level four. There are also other fixes, including a fix for losing when a resurrected commander dies.

In other news, a tournament is being arranged for next weekend. See this thread for more details: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/24531

This week the campaign takes to the air with the release of missions for the Gunship Factory. There are also three Jumpbot/Athena bonus missions, look for Firewalker near the Hovercraft area. As always, post feedback in the feedback thread: http://zero…