[If you’ve just downloaded the game for the first time, you can safely ignore this message]

For debugging reasons (details here), the lobby client launcher/wrapper (but not the client itself, once you log in) will re-download the latest Zero-K stable as an .sdz archive instead of the ‘rapid’ incremental format currently in use. This will occur even if you already have the newest stable downloaded via rapid, but will only happen once per stable ZK release.

Due to the large file size involved (275 MB), this will lead to some wait time the next time you try to launch the game. To do the downloading ahead of time:

• Go to this page
• Download zk-v1.5.8.0.sdz to <gamedata folder>/games (this will usually be where you installed/downloaded the lobby client executable Chobby.exe to)

To stick with the theme of crazy Defender changes we’ve cooked up something that few thought was even possible. Defender now has a reload bar. Trident is another benefactor of this change and its fancy new bar even convinced Angler and Hacksaw to make the switch to Defender-style independent reloads.

Aside from the Defender we have mostly been working on polish, fixes and stability. Constructor movement is much improved with the application of raw move. The crash reporting system is working well as the engine seems to have become much more stable over the last few months. A noticeable performance boost should be noticeable thanks to the fixes for this ticket: https://springrts.com/mantis/view.php?id=5672.

Balance

Flail:

• Removed weapon AoE [?]
• Movement speed 106.2 › 105 elmo/s

Angler:

• No longer has to use all 4 missiles at once [?]
• Delay between individual missiles in a salvo 0.40 › 0.32 s
• Range 750 › 820 [?]

Hacksaw:

• No longer has to use both missiles at once [?]
• 100% faster vertical aim [?]
• 16% slower missile speed [?]

Solar Collector:

• No longer toggleable manually (still closes on damage)

Increased the footprints of some units. This reduces their ability to clump so whether it is a buff or a nerf depends on the situation.

• Roach, Tick, Flea and Skuttle footprint sizes increased to 2×2 (up from 1×1).
• Buoy, Hammer, Thug, Outlaw and Felon footprint sizes increased to 3×3 (up from 2×2).

UI

• Added reload bars for the special reload system used by Defender and Trident (as well as, now, Angler and Hacksaw).
• Added a setting to remove non-terminating commands (guard and patrol) from constructor command queues when they have a command added to their queue. Guard orders now cancelled by further commands unless they are given just after Guard. Enabled by default, lives under under `Settings / Unit Behaviour`.
• Camera fast/slow movement can be bound as a hotkey in the misc hotkeys menu.
• Builders now take a straight path towards their repair/reclaim/construction targets (if possible) and are much less likely to become stuck. This behaviour is already present for move commands.
• Factories now draw an arrow indicating their exit direction. Drag the mouse to change their exit direction.
• Added an option to show build ETA for icons on strategic zoom.
• Added an option to set tooltip opacity.
• Waiting units now have an overhead icon to indicate that they are waiting.
• “catching up please wait” now shows server time and a more accurate ETA.
• Enemy resign votes no longer show vote buttons.
• Unit value lost/killed is now tracked by endgame graphs.
• Added an option to deselect units that start retreating (default enabled).
• Add an option to make retreating units treated as different selection rank (default enabled, rank 1).
• Units now obey direct orders when retreating – the unit is still considered retreating during that time (for selection rank override and icon purposes) and will resume retreating (potentially getting deselected) after it becomes idle.

Miscellaneous

• Roach, Tick, Skuttle models are 20% bigger. This change does not affect game mechanics. Flea is similarly 10% bigger.
• Replaced 2D tree sprites with 3D models on some older maps.
• Added boxes for Trojan Hills v03.
• Zombies now raise commanders from the dead.

Fixes

• Fixed being unable to go back to the default camera if it was changed to another
• Fixed Smart Bombers disobeying manual fire state override
• Fixed tooltip overlapping the minimap when looking at ping on the default layout.
• Fixed a COFC free mode crash.
• Fixed a crash when killing a nanoframe and using old engine.
• Fixed double click attack move no taking into account mouse movement.
• Fixed teamcolors looking very similar.
• Fixed gesture menu with raw move.
• Fixed keep target with line move.
• Fixed Limpet using a weird metal chunk for wreck.
• Fixed Mace leaving a lingering green trail.
• Fixed a crash when a spectator moves to a player team (with cheats).
• Fixed many shader errors.
• Fixed bombers circling a target unable to reach it properly.
• Fixed Cobra aiming from hunched position (potentially thinking it’s blocked).
• Fixed Flea burrowing while attacking.
• Fixed a chicken queen morph crash.
• Fixed Stardust not prioritising close enemies.
• Fixed construction at zero storage when on a team of players who are also constructing.
• Fixed cases where very low income (eg from just a factory) would not be spendable without storage.
• Fixed Pylon and Zenith tooltip description not updating.
• Fixed disabled economy units income icons not updating.
• Fixed some cases where missile OKP failed to work against rapidly incoming enemies
• Fixed killed nanoframe debris tooltip showing full value.
• Fixed Engineer commander failing to shoot at very close targets.
• Fixed weapon lights rendering.
• Fixed crashing unit translations.
• Fixed shield colours.
• Fixed Circuit AI to obey unit disabling.
• Fixed Crude player list showing dead teams as alive.
• Fixed tactical AI getting stuck on useless targets such as Solars.
• Fixed Engineer commander and Infiltator spider having bad walk animations.

Sea has a balance update, with a more interesting Reef and less dominant Ronin. The amphibious bots are fleshed out with their own crawling bomb. There was mixed feedback on the Defender cost increase. Personally, I missed the choice of light turrets but appreciated the lack of large Defender forests. The cost increase has been reduced to 100 metal and will likely persist to see how people adapt.

Zombie mode is seeing some use so it has been slightly improved. The “Set AI Spawns” modoption is now active, previously it was a placeholder. Other improvements and fixes from previous stables last month, such as to terraform and stats graphs, are included in the notes for completeness.

Balance

New unit: Limpet, an Amphibious Bomb. Unlike other bombs this unit does not cloak (in any case, cloak is disabled underwater). It has higher health and a large range to compensate.

• Cost: 180
• Health: 400
• Speed: 117 e/s
• Damage: 150 normal, 1500 slow. Maximum slow persists for up to 5 seconds.
• Damage radius: 250

Defender:

• Cost 120 -> 100 (was 80 previously)

Gauss turret:

• No longer overshoots.
• Reduced projectile speed by 45%.

Moderator:

• Maximum slow persists for up to 2 seconds.

Claymore:

• Health 1350 -> 1650
• Projectile is planted for two seconds before moving (in sea) or exploding (on land).

Ronin:

• Health: 3000 -> 2500
• Reload time: 4 -> 5 (Effective DPS 150 -> 120)
• Weapon velocity: 400 -> 350
• Turret traverse rate 150 -> 50

Siren:

• Sonic gun range: 380 -> 340

Reef:

• Cost: 3500 -> 3000
• Tacnuke replaced with disarm missile
• Stockpile cost: 600 -> 150
• Stockpile time: 60 -> 30
• Damage: 15000 disarm for a maximum of 10 seconds
• Range: 3000
• Damage radius: 140

Shogun:

• Cost: 3800 -> 4000

SLAM rocket:

• Cost 200 -> 150m

Zombies are no longer immune to slow damage. The 50% zombie slowdown is applied independently so now slow damage against zombies can cause them to move at 25% the speed of a normal unit.

Behavior

• Claymore tactical AI now runs away whenever it fires.
• Fixed a bug which prevented Reef and Bantha from moving close enough to their target.
• Units moving in groups now clump less at their destination.
• Overkill prevention now takes shields into account.
• High damage weapons now prioritize healthier units over unhealthy units when both units can be killed in a single shot.

Interface

The modoption “Set AI Spawns” is now active. Enable it to select the start positions for every AI in the game.

Map/Graphics:

• Limpet, Roach, Flea and Tick now leave tracks.
• F4 eco view: enemy mexes marked.
• F4 eco view: use colour of owner instead of hardcoded teal.
• Added more quality settings to LUPS.
• Added a menu toggle which controls whether dropped/lagging players units flash.
• Start position ranks now use the shiny ranks.
• Mace weapon now has sparks.

Terraform:

• Skydust UI can now be used to flatten and build on otherwise unbuildable terrain.
• Added ‘D’ as a hotkey to cancel blocks of terraform.
• Fixed the occasional long delay when building on a terraformed platform.

Stat graphs:

• Graphs now only go up to game over.
• Simplified the graph window when the game is ongoing.
• Added a toggle to show stat graphs to the global commands bar.

Other changes:

• Rewrote the selected units panel as the old version was a drain on performance.
• Hotkeys now available in simple menu mode.
• Constructors no longer inherit factory priority.
• Added a rate limit for incoming chat and ping noises.
• Dragging orders in the factory build queue no longer removes the Alt modifier.
• Radio buttons look more like radio buttons.
• Added a chicken panel toggle to the global command bar.
• Improved trainer commander selection UI and options.

Fixes

• Fix inheriting land/fly state.
• Fix missing endgame window
• Setting a hotkey no longer causes the window to replace itself.
• Fixed Racketeer getting stuck shooting at disarmed targets.
• Reduced graphs performance usage, especially when not enabled.
• Wreckage fixes, some units would leave full wreck when supposed to leave debris.
• Fixed move-repeat interaction.
• Fixed a delay caused when giving a move order to a jumping unit.
• Fixed units doing a Circle Guard getting confused and breaking the formation.
• Fixed ballistic scatter prediction position in the attack AoE display widget.
• Fixed menu search.
• Pause no longer delays the end of the game.
• Fixed unit XP display and it is no longer gathered on damage dealt outside LOS.
• Fixes for zooming the camera to a startbox.
• Fixed missing fighter jets.
• Fixed “Wait or Win” placement.
• Fixed mex placement with command insert.

Many people are concerned by Defender so here is a test with a Defender that cost 120 metal, up from 80 metal (the image above is a tiny bit exaggerated). Is it still useful? What does the game look like? Play to find out.

Mostly we are working on fixes and polish. In particular, the settings menu is in the process of becoming much friendlier. CrazyEddie has embarked upon the task of improving the statistics graph and now it can be shown in the middle of the game with Alt+F1.

Behaviour

• Fixed Scorcher suicidal behaviour.
• Remove flamer/gauss bonus damage vs features.
• Lightning weapons with a normal damage component now deals the correct damage to wrecks (previously it dealt no damage).

Chicken Fixes

• Improved Tiamat, White Dragon and grounded Queen behaviour.
• Fixed many projectile lights.
• Roc/queen flying animations make more sense.
• Speed up Wurm movement animation

Interface

Endgame graphs:

• Endgame graphs can now be disabled during the game with the hotkey Alt+F1.
• Fixed multiple endgame graph bugs and polish issues.
• Remove Units Built/Killed/Lost

Time, death, squad and gather wait are now bindable through the hotkeys menu. These are commands that behave similarly to the normal wait command but which will remove themselves when certain conditions are met.

• Time wait is removed after a set amount of time.
• Death wait is removed if all the targeted units are dead.
• Squad wait is removed once enough units with squad wait reach the waypoint, so a factory can be queued to send squads of 4 units.
• Gather wait is perhaps the most useful, it causes your units to wait until all the recipients of the command reach their waypoint.

Main menu settings are now much clearer.

• Removed the Game submenu, the options from that menu are now mostly under Settings/Hotkeys and Settings/Unit Behaviour.
• Replaced the advanced settings toggle on the menu window with a simple settings toggle, default enabled. This shows a significantly cut down menu which is to be populated with only the most generally relevant settings (still WIP).
• Advanced mode can be enabled through Settings/Misc.
• Applied some polish to the main menu in the form of spacing fixes and consistent button sizes. Also removed the “…” and the redundant tooltip from the submenu buttons.

Minor changes:

• Factories default to selection rank 3.
• Economy panel metal bar flash is now grey instead of red when full or near full.
• Remove “Trainer” from trainer comm names

Fixes

• Fix Bantha missiles.
• Fixed an idle builder selection bug.
• Fixed an issue with issuing wait commands to moving units.
• Chat backlog is no longer ignores the setting that determines whether it is open at the start of the game.
• Fixed Panther death explosion.
• Resurrected units with ‘inherit’ start states now inherit from the default of their usual factory instead of from the unit that resurrected them.
• Fixed some command insert issues.
• Skydust now terraforms at height zero. This allows structures to be queued for construction of cliffsides (but not yet with all Skydust methods).
• Going AFK with AI allies no longer forfeits your income.
• Fixed unit marker to use AI name.
• Fixed a bug with setting resource reserve.
• Fixed jumpjets for underground units.

The largest change in this version is internal: most of the internal filenames for units have been renamed. The files now follow a sensible system which will make them more approachable for developers. Anyone with local widgets or a non-Circuit AI will need to look at updating their code or configuration. @KingRaptor has written a tool for this task so talk to them if the task is large.

Another large bit of hidden work is ongoing work on the singleplayer campaign. Most of the work remaining is scenario design and implementation. We’re not running with fully general missions so this work is much less daunting that the story campaign attempt. Missions are created with a reasonably short configuration file, part of the purpose of the internal renames was to make this task easier.

We have also been following engine development fairly closely and collecting bug reports. Bug reports have definitely decreased over the collection period and we appreciate the patience of the community for the few spikes that occurred.

Balance

Speed nerfs:

• Firewalker 2.1 -> 1.45
• Penetrator 2.4 -> 2.2

These changes seem opposed to Quants Rule since both of these units are fast for artillery. However, artillery should be slow in order to make positioning important, especially if the artillery is good against units. The Firewalker change seems particularly extreme but I think the high speed is an oversight from when the unit was otherwise hopeless. I decided that it should be noticeably slower than Recluse, with 1.6 speed, so that the owner of the Firewalker has to really think about risk and positioning. Also, Fealthas said that speed would have little effect and I took it as as a challenge.

UI

• Fixed some ugly main menu spacing.
• Made build tab hotkeys work while Shift and Alt held. Ctrl is blocked by default to preserve global selection hotkeys. This is a change to defaults so existing players will need to modify or delete their hotkeys file to apply it.
• Added a toggle for Gesture Menu in the settings so it is easy to enable. Fixed a bug with right-click opening.
• Added human readable names for the “set particular state” hotkey buttons.
• Improved COFC rotation/zoom smoothness and configuration.
• Fixed missing Smoothscroll for existing players.

Previous versions

Here are some changes since the last release notes. These changes were live for at least three weeks.

Unit Movement

Units now move in a straight line if there is a direct, unimpeded (not counting mobiles), path to their goal. This makes them much nicer to control within battles as it removes the old issues of over-steer and zigzagging. Units can even be a bit more efficient moving over long distances.

Unfortunately this only applies to move commands. Ideally this would be seen as a prototype for an engine change that would apply it to all forms of movement. For widget and AI writers, this movement is implemented with a new move command so you may want to change any instances of movement to use the new command.

Balance

Fixed some target priority issues. This is mainly a Racketeer buff:

• The target priority gadget now returns MAXIMUM PRIORITY for the target of the set target command. This is something that was worth doing ages ago.
• All units with overkill prevention now slightly prioritize the last target that they shot at. This means that if you run 10 Glaives at 10 Racketeers they will all be disarmed forever. Previously the Racketeers would all stare intently at the Glaive with the slightly shorter disarm timer and get caught out by the Glaive with the second or third shortest disarm timer.

Other changes:

• Slow damage no longer damages wrecks. The main effect is that Outlaw is much worse at clearing wreck fields. It has a small amount of normal damage so its wreck clearing ability is not entirely gone.
• Increased Sniper footprint from 2×2 -> 3×3 to reduce teamkill.
• Added a wreck for Caretaker and Strider Hub.

UI

• Unbound /track.
• Response noises play for more commands.
• Update unit states when switching spectator. For selection rank.
• Added a ‘D’ ability to Thunderbird which causes it to instantly start its run.
• Added selection rank to New Unit States.
• Transport load double tap now works on constructor commands.
• Added an option to only use selection filtering when Alt is held.

Fixes

• Fixed LUPS LOD. Now many effects such as (cloaking and thrusters) are not drawn for unit icons. This will improve performance.
• Made DDM guns not get stuck in each other.
• Fixed jumpjet on morph+reload bug.
• Fixed a bug that allowed Thunderbird to make double length runs.
• Fixed Warrior burst when slowed.
• On flacplop the ground is now instantly flattened. This fixes the bug where commanders would linger after plopping their factories on uneven terrain.
• Increased HLT and LLT overshoot command blocking range.
• Fixed transport AI failing to transport auto transported constructors for the last mex of an area mex command.
• Fixed Rogue overkill prevention for its damage buff.
• Fixed selection rank of commanders not being maintained through morph.
• Fixed constructor transport AI not being maintained through morph.
• Fixed commander selection rank defaults in widgets not matching New Unit States defaults.

Due to caster availability the May 1v1 tournament has been pushed back a week. The start time is now 10AM UTC, Saturday 27th May. See the original thread for more information and to sign up. http://zero-k.info/Forum/NewPost?threadID=24075

The time has come for a 1v1 tournament. Aquanim is coordinating this tournament – direct any questions/requests there.The tournament is planned to take place at 10AM UTC, Saturday 20th May. Registration will be open up until 1 hour before the start tim…

A few days ago, Empire won the latest round of Planetwars with a deep strike to capture Sparta, the Federation homeworld. Throne was lost in the process (due to a malfunctioning warp jammer) but after a developer discussion we decided to continue the round with the surprising (to some) rule that homeworlds can be exploded. We aim to fix the bugs and balance issues found in this round and run further planetwars until we can support lengthy galaxy-wide wars. We should mostly be simplifying and polishing current mechanics instead of adding any new big things to planetwars.

Feedback is welcome.

Balance

• Disarm now interrupts bursts (in the same way that EMP does). For example a Catapult can start firing, get disarmed and finish firing when the disarm wears off.
• Djinn obeys disarm.
• Commander area jammer and area cloaker modules now drain energy. Not draining energy was a bug.

Interface

Added selection filtering, as requested here: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/23954.

• All units have a Selection Rank state toggle that ranges from 0 to 3.
• Structures have rank 1, constructors have rank 2, and combat units (commanders included) have rank 3.
• When selecting multiple units the units without the greatest rank in the selection are filtered out.
• Hold Shift to ignore rank and create selections of mixed rank.
• Hold Ctrl to ignore rank above a certain (configurable) threshold. The default ignores rank differences above 1, this means that Ctrl+A will select all units with rank at least 1.
• Selection Rank is a state toggle so you can configure your unit defaults in ‘Game/New Unit States’, just like any other state toggle.
• If you don’t want selection filtering then disable it in ‘Settings/Interface/Selection’.

Hotkeys for setting a particular unit state are now configurable in the ‘Game/Command Hotkeys’ menu. Previously the only state hotkeys available through this menu would toggle the state. With these new commands you could, for example, bind a key to set your units to hold fire by binding “Fire State: 0”.

Improved the state toggle icon for overkill prevention.

Chickens

• Fixed to White Dragon behavior.
• Removed Spidermonkey weapon lighting and reduced impulse.
• Tweaked some timing values. Lategame chickens occur slightly earlier and small chickens become obsolete sooner.
• Added savegame support for chickens.

Fixes

• Fixed command hotkey visualization for de-disabled commands during tutorials.
• Fixed night view in missions.
• Fixed Hacksaw description.
• Fixed unit AI command for non-transports.
• Fixed some shader errors on strict drivers.
• Fixed slow mex glow update when overdrive changes.
• Fixed Convict animation.

The main part of this release is a stack of balance tweaks that have been floating around the forum and/or my head. Hover has a few nerfs while some more maligned units were buffed to try to bring them up to a decent strength. Dagger has a damage reduc…