The Balance Corps are out in force tonight, administering beatings left and right. Several bugfixes and interface improvements have also been spotted making their way into the city.

Interface

• Metal/energy reserve must now be enabled in options (Settings/Interface/Resource Bars. Metal and energy reserve can be set independently of each other with right-click.
• Bots get their own name in tooltip and awards screen rather than that of owning player.
• Clippy Comments: Rank limit defaults to off
• Mex circles are drawn at sea level rather than sea floor

== Balance==

Rocko

• Speed 2.1 -> 2.2
• Range 440 -> 450

Tremor. The DPS buff in v1.0.4.17 was written as 23% but was accidentally 66%. The buff since before v1.0.4.17 is now 12.5% more DPS with 50% more projectiles.

• Range 1400 -> 1300
• Damage 200 -> 135

Merl

• Range 1400 -> 1500 (back to pre-nerf that was ages ago)

Buoy

• Speed 1.5 -> 1.4
• HP 1250 -> 1200
• 25% larger hit volume and model

Amphibious units heal when underwater (because salt water is good for metal). This is to make them better underwater while no better on land.

• Clam 20 hp/s
• Duck 10 hp/s
• Archer 20 hp/s
• Buoy 25 hp/s
• Scallop 25 hp/s
• Grizzly 40 hp/s
• Angler 20 hp/s
• Djinn 30 hp/s

Banshee

• Auto heals 10 hp/s after 5s of taking no damage (same as Glaive)

Slasher

• 2x deploy and undeploy time

Sniper

• Weapon velocity 1000 -> 850
• Projectile looks pointier.

Felon

• Shield radius 100 -> 120
• Requires 0.3 seconds to charge up before firing
• Shield regen rate 20 -> 18
• Range 440 -> 430

Thug

• Shield regen rate 18 -> 16

Convict

• Shield regen rate 10 -> 9

Skuttle

• Decloak distance 150 -> 160
• Jump speed 6 -> 5.2
• Jump height 200 -> 120
• HP 320 -> 250

Gnat

• HP 120 -> 175
• Range 240 -> 260

LLT

• Sight distance 506 -> 520. Otherwise units with 450 range can sometimes shoot LLT without LLT being able to see it.

Firewalker

• Cost 1250 -> 1200

Typhoon

• Both guns can now shoot in all directions.

Bugfixes

• Fixed clearing of bomber airpad reservations
• Unit should no longer be able to hide in shipyard’s hitsphere
• Fixed some script error messages
• Playerlist no longer cuts off at bottom in FFA

Misc

• Commander Cluster Bomb and Scorpion’s multi-stunner will ignore features in their path

Because people apparently cannot understand how it works and try to fight it and complain, juggler was mostly disabled now. – it wont split any game (you can have 32ppl small teams now) – it wont auto enable if you join managed host (with star in ZKL) …

Some long-awaited balance changes in this one – whether they work as intended remains to be seen ;)Game

Team commander ends mode is default ON

Autoforce waits 75 seconds for missing people (instead of 30) and will not act unless at least two teams h…

May’s first stable version brings with it both gameplay and interface improvements.

Gameplay

• Added a resurrection award
• Added rising lava, controllable with modoptions

Units

Slasher

• Cost 125 -> 140 (12%)
• HP 500 -> 560 (12%)
• Damage 32 -> 50 (56%)
• Speed 2.5 -> 2.8

Angler

• Missiles fire over 2.8s instead of all at once (Shadow will drop its bomb before being killed)
• Reload time 8 -> 10

Bantha

• Missiles are exclusively EMP; can be fired in a volley
• Loses the super optic blast

Leveler

• Doubled terrain smoothing effect

Dirtbag

• Leaves a smaller mound

Felon

• Range 450 -> 440

Licho

• Missile slower, turns better

All vehicles, tanks, hovers and ships accelerate 3x faster

Fixed some building yardmaps

Terraform costs half as much

All units prefer not to fire at unarmed targets (including Dirtbag and Razor’s Kiss)

Graphics

• Changed comm teleport effect
• Tweaked sumo texture

Interface

• Added progress bar for midgame join/rejoin
• Fixed a bug where mexes could be placed off their spots
• Float and Fire at Radar can be hotkeyed
• Pause screen no longer closed with right-click; Space-click for options instead
• Kamikaze units aren’t counted for resign on self-d
• Minimum weapon reload time for healthbar display can be changed
• Build ETA can be set to display only on holding down Shift
• Fixes to pylon circle drawing

Metals spots has been tweaked slightly for automatic compatibility with more maps. In some cases a map was too broken for this so an override has been added.

Anti-gunship AA has been nerfed slightly in the continued attempt to make gunships more useful. Jethro is now a cloaky AA unit and hopefully some sort of Veh AA can fill Jethro’s old role.

The main UI changes are grid hotkeys for factory units and Outlaw has a button to constantly fire as well as an improved effect.

Metal Spots

UI:

• Size of minimap circle now independent of map size.
• By using larger metal icons the income visualisation can handle income up to 1000.

There are now configs for:

• Azure Rampart
• Charlie in the Hills v2.1
• EE-RiverGlade-v02
• Lava And Two Hills
• Porky_Islands
• TheBeachBeta

Fixes:

• May have fixed desync in finder algorithm.
• Fixed metal mult modoption.
• Slightly reduced spot merge detection range.
• Mexes with less than 0.2 income are discarded.

Balance

Jethro (cloaky AA):

• Now cloaks (0.1 static, 0.5 moving)
• Cost 100 -> 150
• DPS increased 50%
• Range 760 -> 700
• Speed 3.5 -> 2.9

Archangel (Jump AA):

• EMG dps is back to what it was before the XP change. This is a reduction of 30% from last version.

Cobra and Copperhead (flak cannons):

• DPS reduced 10% (to try and make Gunships better).

Quake (seismic missile):

• Cost 500 -> 400

UI

Factory build options now have grid layout hotkeys. These work a bit differently to structure grid hotkeys.

• Unit creation only requires one key press.
• The hotkeys are always active when Units tab and a factory is selected.
• Modifiers Shift (5x) and Alt (insert at start of queue) modifiers work with these hotkeys.
• These may conflict with how some current people like to use the UI so there is an is an option “Settings/Interface/Integral Menu/Disable Units Hotkeys” to turn it off.

Set Target and Cancel Target are now bindable through the menu Game/Commands tab.

Outlaw can be toggled on/off to constantly fire. Improved weapon gfx to be cleaner and more accurately depict the AoE speed.

Fixes

• Fixed some wreck names.
• ‘Anti-Armor’ units are now called ‘Anti-Heavy’
• Gauss now shoots through wreckages (it was suppose to and has done so in the past).

Today we throw off the shackles of broken metalmap layouts and confusing extractor incomes. No more will otherwise good maps be unplayable and no one can miss the clearly displayed power of super mexes. Mex placement now has a UI, is limited to specific spots and is entirely configurable game side on a per-map basis.

As far as balance goes Gunship roles have been extremified and Tremor has received quite a buff.

Mex Placement

Mex placement is now limited to specific locations on the map.

Interface:

• Mex placement snaps to mex spots.
• Spot line width and I-Beam count indicates income.
• Spot colour indicates whether the spot is under allied control.

Mechanic Changes:

• Mex constructor no longer receives 5% extra base income.
• Metalmap view cannot be used to increase scout view range.
• Mexes now start as soon as they are built (previously there was a 3s delay to gather resource data).

Compatibility:

• Cloud metal maps with large extractor radius are not supported. Examples are Bazillion Battlefield and Castles.
• Those with small extractor radius still work. For example Duck and Speedmetal.
• Game-side configs can be added to completely replace a metalmap. This can be used to fix the few liked cloud metalmaps and to fix maps that look good but have broken metalmaps.

Widgets:

• Area Mex, Mex Snap and Prospector have been removed and partially merged into a single widget.
• If you disable this widget you’re stuffed.

Communism/economy change

Base income of metal extractors is now 50% private and 50% shared when mex is built.
This ratio falls down to 0% private and 100% shared over 5 minutes.

Ready behaviour change

Start location can now be chosen at any time and there is no ready button. The game with start 4s after every player has chosen a start location.

Balance

Tremor:

• AOE increased 11%
• DPS increased 23%
• Impacts smooths terrain.

Weapononised terrain smoothing is reduced for mid air explosions (as in when projectiles impact a shield high above the ground).

Seismic missile can shoot underwater.

Brawler. It should emphasise range and not being hit by most land units.

• Speed 4.7 -> 4
• Uses more of it’s range while strafing.

Blackdawn. Should be hit and run with ground interaction.

• Speed 4.65 -> 4.5
• Health 2900 -> 3400
• Cruise Altitude 210 -> 150 (to compare Banshee is at 100)
• Range 450 -> 300

Rapier. If it is going to defend other gunships it needs to be able to keep up
with them and deal reasonable damage.

• Speed 3.8 -> 4
• Health 1300 -> 1100
• Damage 150 -> 200 (1 shot better vs Vamp)
• Range 300 -> 340

Banshee. This just needs to be a bit better.

• DPS increased 5%
• Range increased by 20

Gnat. Needs to be less extreme “completely win or die”.

• Health 90 -> 120 (This is over the Defender boundary, am I mad????)
• Range increased by 20

Strider Hub:

• Costs 550 -> 600m (for consistency)

Bantha:

• Added laser overcharge special weapon.

GUI

Structures in the build menu are ordered by cost.

Geo hightlight activates when build geo is selected. Geos are now drawn on the minimap with a big X.

Bombers now require repeat enabled to retain an attack command.

Lobby now contains “safe mode” switch that should be ultra safe even for ultra crappy video cards.

Fixed

• Rector repair speed was too high.
• Mex, wind, carrier, HLT, defender, LLT aimvolume tweaks. Allied units are better at shooting past them.
• Fix Dante script error.
• Initial state “hold position” preset should work reliably.
• Fixed Archangel DPS

v1.0.4.9GUI improvements:

new keyboard controlled main menu

new button under minimap to turn on simplified color scheme (all alies blue, all enemies red)

default interface skin is now carbon (you can change that in settings)

game treats placing …

Happy belated Easter! There are lots of gameplay adjustments in this one, but the most notable change is the new and improved???™ Quickmatch system. As always, refer to the changelog for details.

Quickmatch Improved and Enabled

The quick matching system ‘Juggler’ has had improvements and has been re-enabled. Juggler preferences can now be set with Zero-K lobby and defaults to Never. Preferences are used to automatically search/create organise games with people that also want to play that kind of game.

QuickMatch is activated by button in Zero-K lobby multiplayer tab or by joining autohosts with Stars.

People who cannot use Zero-K lobby can set their preferences on their home page – “Game preferences”.

There are now 3 levels of TEAMS host, small medium and large. These hosts will automatically start a game if the number of players is within their desired range. Automatic starting can be postponed with the command ‘!postpone’. Games which are too small can still be manually started and if a game is too large it will be split into two games with players sorted by elo. The game sizes are:

• Small 2v2 – 4v4
• Medium 4v4 – 8v8
• Large 5v5+

Please pay attention to this and configure your preferences based on your likes.

QuickMatch creates games from waiting people according to their preferences to satisfy greatest number of people.

1) It tries to make game of similar ELO skill. For 1v1 max ELO difference is 250 points.

2) It can only move you from your current game to new game if you like the new game type more than current game type, or same as current game type and moving you will allow other game to start, whilenot breaking current game.

3) Games where you are moved are always withing recommended player level for that game type (it will never move you to empty room alone etc).

Zero-K lobby/springies now also allow private hosting of unpassworded games.

Balance

Factories:

• Cost 550 -> 700
• Build Speed 5 -> 10

With the previous BP change it became a bit hard to spend at game start. This factory change is experimental so feedback would be helpful.

Penetrator, Annihilator and Sharpshooter do not fire at radar dots by default. They completely refuse to fire at a radar dot unless their ‘fire at radar’ state toggle is enabled.

Krow:

• Slows to 75% speed while dropping bombs.

Jugglenaut gets an anti unit special weapon. It can pickup all ground units around it and throw them at anything nearby.

Golliath:

• Cost 1900 -> 2200

Sumo:

• Cost 2200 -> 1900
• Jump range 300 -> 360
• Gun damage up 20%
• Stomp damage up 25%
• Stomp AOE 300 -> 340 (diameter)

Dominatrix can capture Dominatrix. This can form trees of control that completely flip when the head is killed.

Archer:

• 3xish damage
• faster projectile.

Grizzly:

• Range 550 -> 600

Clam:

• 25% faster resurrect speed. This is more of a fix because resurrect should drain 7.5 energy whereas due to an oversight it drained 6.

Commander torpedo DPS increased 50%.

Submerging a units in water puts out fires.

Overdrive Distribution

More overdrive metal is given to team members who contribute their energy. 50% of the overdrive distribution is weighted by how much energy a player contributes. The other 50% is distributed evenly between all players.

Base metal extraction sharing is unchanged, this is still evenly distributed.

Physics

In unit-unit collision both units take damage. As an aside they also take the same amount of damage (unless of course one is armoured).

Licho no longer collides with aircraft. This is to prevent mid-air catastrophes. Other aircraft are already set to not collide.

Units skid around a bit more and don’t take so much damage from sliding along the ground. Technically put speed for fall damage only uses 50% of the tangential component of velocity to the ground. The speed reduction vector is also mostly in the direction of the normal.

Pathing

Units should now stop to turn if given a movement order behind them. Slow turning units can now turn on the spot instead of wandering into turret range.

Lag Monitor

Units that the taker creates are not given to the afk player when they return. Exceptions are factories to give the afk player back their factory plop.

Afk players do not receive metal income. It is split between their teammates.

Removed sexism.

Graphics

New explosion effects for Merl and Pillager.

LOS + Radar view has been recoloured. Most importantly areas with LOS and no radar are not dark blue.

Sound

There are now game Victory and Defeat triggered music tracks.

Changed Buoy and Halberd weapon sound effect.

Fixes

• Fixed tooltips for BP 5/6 change.
• Fixed game over bug that would cause both teams to win if the last unit that died was a Puppy.
• Puppy should get stuck underground less.
• Puppy now takes 5s to self-d.
• Initial States should now correctly set states when units are received from other teams.
• Added buildpic for Bantha
• Reordered a few build menu items to obey cost ordering.
• Fixed Freaker description.
• Pillager can now shoot in all directions because it would not turn itself to shoot.

Somehow quite a few changes made it into this version. The new flow field style pathing has been enabled for almost all units (even enemy units) to see if it is an improvement. An across the board 1/6th build power reduction is now being tested. Gravity gun behaviour should be a lot more consistent. In more mundane balance Bandit has had a small nerf and Djinn is significantly cheaper.

Balance

Bandit:

• DPS reduced by 5%.
• Removed autoheal.

Djinn:

• Cost 1800 -> 800
• Speed 1.2 -> 1.4

As an experimental change all build powers were reduced by 1/6th. Repair, reclaim, resurrect and construction effectively takes 20% longer.

Gravity gun and Water Cannon power increased by an unknown factor.

Gravity Guns

Replaced the purely engine dependant implementation of gravity beams with a gadget.

• Impulse is a lot more predictable and balancable.
• Planes, Ships and Gunships are now significantly affected by gravity guns.

Known impulse capacitors have been. But do not despair that unit launching is now impossible, the partial rewrite has dramatically increased the predictability and power of ‘legitimate’ unit cannons.

Unit collision damage has been partially reinstated for units with high speed. The high speed cutoff is required to prevent collision damage during normal movement. A fast unit is damaged as if it hit the ground with that speed, the collidee is not damaged.

Pathing

Most push resistance was removed as an experiment to see if pathfinding will improve.

• Enemy units can be shunted and flowed past in the same manner as allied units.
• Crabe is the only push resistant unit. As it cannot be shunted around.

Disabled push resistance works fairly well in this version. In previous versions, packing units into a tight area was arming the mouse traps in a demonstration of fission. A little bump would cause a unit to wander 100s of elmos off it’s position which would really screw up things like cloaker and mine placement.

With this engine version, instead of moving around units merely float about when pushed. This means a well placed shield or cloaker will not be affected too much. Cloaked units such as Flea, Roach and Tick will stay cloaked while pushed. Pillager and Slasher seem to be able to fire.

Removed some Stealth/Cloak ambiguity

The obscure ability of Spy and Skuttle to stealth while uncloaked has been removed. This was inconsistent with other cloaked units and completely undocumented.

Fixes

• Tweaked some cloakybot tracks to better fit their feet base.
• Fixed Urchin gun position when placed in very shallow water.
• Removed occasional console output about pylons.
• Puppy no longer gathers wreckage while stunned or under construction.
• Transport impulse capacitor.
• Nanoframe impulse capacitor.
• Bantha missile now has a reasonable size. The triple missile pack is probably going to be fireable with a manual weapon of some sort.
• Fixed some unit tip misspellings.