Zero-K review has been published in a printed german magazine “c’t” (-> http://www.heise.de/ct/ ). It’s the second most popular German computer magazine.

You can read the article about us here: http://zero-k.info/temp/zerok_ct_26_colored.pdf

Thanks for the article and your interest!

Merry Christmas! Just a small update to keep your game experience in top shape for when Santa comes. Even for those of you who were more naughty than nice. Enjoy!

Balance

• Flamethrower units do not avoid shooting friendlies (prone to labhax)
• Djinn automatically deploys when idle
• Restore old vehicle slopemods. They are now better at climbing hills.

Graphics

• New heatray impact GFX
• Dante and Bantha have idle anims
• Fixed some irregularities with Dante’s flamethrower

UI

• Unit icons rotate to face camera
• Improved bomber dive tooltip

Misc.

• Optimizations for terraform texture handler and reclaim HP handler
• Image Preloader is always on; disables itself if running after game start
• Units are instantly transferred when a player resigns using the give-when-afk system
• Fix Thug error on death

Lots of small fixes here and a few noticeable changes. Structures have become uncloakable to improve lategame raiding and FFA interaction. Saktoth has crafted a new LLT model and plans to finish a set of turrets. These release notes include changes fro…

We’ve made a cinematic trailer for Zero-K, narrating some of the backstory of the game.
Check it out here:
Be sure to watch in HD!

Zero-K v1.0.10.8

A moment of free time spawns a flurry of much needed fixes. Pathing should be improved. New wreck models by psimyn.

Fixes

• Outlaw decloaks while firing using the on/off toggle.
• Rogue stands higher and is now much less prone to friendly fire.
• Units no longer decloak when they vigorously bump wrecks.
• Fixed bomber jamming.
• Fixed Stiletto aiming AI. It can now be left to it’s own devices if you do not feel the need to specify bombing run direction.
• Blackdawn footprint 2×2 -> 3×3
• Fixed some amphibious unit deaths, they were gibing to easily.

Pathing

Increased Tank, Vehicle, Ship and Hover deceleration. They should become stuck less often.

Increase Tank and Vehicle slopemod to that of Hovercraft. They are now slower when climbing ramps. This change aims to make Tanks and Vehicles avoid areas which they can become stuck.

Applied a fix which should improve global pathfinding and make ramps update faster.

Balance

Detriment:

• Shoulder weapon replaced with old vertical launch missile. The missile smooths terrain.

The changes to Rapier and Gnat are from 6 days ago.

Gnat:

• Cost 70 -> 90
• Speed 8 -> 7.5
• Damage 320 -> 400
• HP 175 -> 300
• EMP time 7s -> 2.5s
• Reduced strafe distances so it is consistently within range
• Dramatically reduced accuracy. It is much worse against small units and turrets.

Rapier:

• Range 340 -> 360

Other

• Added psimyn’s wreck models for Angler, Archer, Duck, Djinn and Racketeer
• Display DPS widget disables on F5 (gui hide).

After much debate, the Impulse Capacitor Restriction Act was passed in Parliament this morning over the vehement protests of the Non-Newtonian Physics Association. Other important changes include several optimizations to the code and a large number of …

We have rolled out a new version of autohost and lobby which change the way stuff works: Starting the game

starting the game now needs a vote if more than 1 players are present (!start causes a poll to start)

auto starting was removed

attempting …

Zero-K v1.0.9.7

We’re steadily climbing higher. Here are the changes since v1.0.8.7. In particular we are using Spring 91.0, unit targeting should be a lot better and there is a texture for terraform.

Balance

Hammer

• Range 820 -> 840

Phoenix, reverted fire burn time nerf. AoE nerf stands.

• Max on fire time 10s -> 15s

Clam

• Can no longer resurrect
• Health 800 -> 1300

Athena

• Can now resurrect
• Health 200 -> 400
• Speed 9.17 -> 7
• Cloak cost (3, 10) -> (2, 5) (moving, static)

Jumpjet units without visible thrusters can no longer jump while flying through the air. This includes Sumo, Skuttle, Dirtbag and Archangel. Pyro, Can, Freaker and Recon Commander can still jump from mid air.

Resurrect cost: 1.5x -> 1.25x energy and time

Graphics

Reduced unit on fire effect particle count and removed smoke.

Terraform textures the map with a metal texture. This looks good, makes terraform more visible and indicates which units can walk on it.

• Sparse squares as passable by everything.
• Steeper slopes have dense squares and are not passable by vehicles.
• Black walls are only passable by spiders.

GUI

• Minimap “clear” button removes all drawings.
• Minimap metal map button displays mexes and geos without changing map to black.
• Changed default colors for line of sight view to be much more brighter and bound F4 to new metal map display.

Lobby

• Removed ATI/Intel driver checks and compat. options, most drivers now work fine.
• Added multithreaded engine checkbox.

Engine Fixes

We have been using the new engine Spring 91.0 for a little while. It seems stable enough and comes with new fixes.

• Crashing planes no longer fall through the map if stunned.
• Beam Lasers and Lightning Guns are no longer blocked by stunned shields.
• Lightning Guns can no longer shoot into water.
• Fixed all the strange ‘Defender does not fire’ type behaviour.
• Fixed rare issue with nanoframes reaching 100% health but not completing.

PlanetWars

• planet is only made neutral if owning faction loses all influence.
• structures that need a planetary target (guerilla jumpgate, string connector, planetbuster) cannot be retargeted during their power-up sequence. If you change target, sequence starts again.
• link connector is now active and can connect anywhere
• planet buster leaves the planet so damaged that it cannot be economically exploited again
• guerilla jumpgate is now active and projects 1.5 influence per turn
• technologies are now active, they unlock units and provide 1 influence bonus per battle per tech
• defensive structures – grid, interception network and bomber defneses – are destroyed after successful invasion

Fixes

• Weapon targeting should be a lot more intelligent.
• No damage is dealt after an Outlaw dies. This is a workaround for allied units receiving damage from allied outlaws which die.
• Fixed ATI minimap bug.
• Reduced occurrence of bomber and gunship landing bugs.
• Jumpjets no longer act as an impulse capacitor.
• Fixed units sometimes not flashing blue when emped and the UI is disabled.
• Fixed UI keys bug.

The constant cycle of improvements continues.

Note: many of these changes were in previous stables following v1.0.8.1, just not disclosed because they didn’t merit news posts on their own.

Balance

Grizzly:

• HP 10k -> 9k

Goliath:

• Replaced flamethrower with short ranged slow beam. 3x damage and reload time as that of Moderator.

Puppy:

• Cannot eat map features.

Phoenix

• AoE 256 -> 216
• Max on fire time 15s -> 10s

Duck:

• Cost 200 -> 180

Avenger:

• HP 300 -> 350
• Missile Damage 200 -> 220
• No longer auto targets ground units when patrolling.

Vamp:

• Speed 10 -> 9.5

Vulture:

• Speed 11 -> 12
• HP 850 -> 950

Crane:

• HP 180 -> 240

Athena:

• Can build Djinn

Interface

• Fixed checkbox rendering
• Old energy icon is now used for unpowered units.
• Metal spot data is shown in replays.
• Minimap can be resized when not in tweak mode but it cannot be expanded to take up the whole view.

Other

• Fixed amph factory killing things touching its backside (such as morphing geos).
• Fixed tactical AI which broke due to new engine compatibility.
• Merl has a “don’t fire at radar” toggle.
• Melee chicken attacks are no longer blocked by shields.
• Initial states configuration now handles cloaked units properly.
• Clippy complains less about energy.