Strategy

There are 1,487 posts filed in Strategy (this is page 109 of 149).

ZeroK: Changes to rating changes, room skill limits and more

There have been a few smaller changes on the server side. Ladder Rating is now a 50:50 weighted average between the smoothed WHR change and the change that one would get from classical Elo. This means that the ladder rating will still converge towards the 30 day WHR average, but there will be a higher minimum gain/loss for balanced games.

The following commands are now available to all players in custom hosts with less than 8 players. They don’t have any effect if there are more than 8 players. You can use these commands to create battles for players of a specific skill level.

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

The battle waiting list now functions slightly different. Instead of counting the join time, the priority is now set by the time at which the player unspecced. So speccing will put you back at the end of the queue. There is a new command !maxevenplayers which can be used to enforce balanced teams. If the number of players at the start of the game is uneven and below the number set as !maxevenplayers, then the last person to unspec will be specced upon start.

For highly ranked players that want to play 1v1s outside the matchmaker, there is now the “Pro 1v1 Host”. There, players of rank Neutron star and up can play 1v1 games which count for competitive (matchmaker) rating.

AUrankAdminGoogleFrog has provided some new screenshots for the website backgrounds.

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ZeroK: Zero-K v1.8.10.0 – Eight New Maps and MM Rotation

AUrankAdminAquanim and @Dregs have put together a mammoth effort and released eight new maps. @Dregs made six maps shown above while AUrankAdminAquanim 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:

These maps were added or re-added last month:

The following maps remain in the map pool:

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.
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