Zero-K v1.8.3.2 - Tank Raiders and Commander Diversity

In this version the Tank Foundry is bestowed with two reliable raiders, there are some tweaks for Hover and Rover, and we make an attempt at diversifying the commander chassis. Amphibious units have some minor tweaks and major fixes as part of the continual attempt to make them more generally useful.

In non-unit changes, terraform can no longer be used near enemy units. This removes a source of APM frenzy and allows terraform to be buffed for other purposes. There is a new variant of Brutal AI and we have added a few hooks in the game definitions that make it easier to mod.


Added a Brutal AI personally with a focus on economy and escalation.

Kodachi is now a more standard raider. Instead of a single large, high-reload, large fireball it fires a stream of small fireballs. The fireballs travel quite slowly, giving fast units a chance to get away, and only burn the ground for 1.5 seconds. It has received some health and speed nerfs to bring it more in line with other raiders.

Blitz is a little heavier and slower, since Kodachi should be able to take up more raiding responsibility.

• Cost 280 -> 300 (where it was before all the tweaking)
  
• Health 1100 -> 1250
  
• Speed 102 -> 97.5
  
• Reload 2.6333 -> 2.6

Ogre is better against small units and those that try to run away.

• Can shoot at retreating targets at max range.
  
• Fires two missiles, Picket-style, with a gap of 0.3s
  
• Reload 2.133s -> 2.3s
  
• Damage 420 -> 2x240

Scorcher regains some of the DPS it lost in the superfluid update.

• DPS increased by 5% (84% of previous, up from 80%).

Fencer became a little too manoeuverable and needs less damage if Hover is to be more viable.

• Reduced manoeuverability (still greater than pre-superfuild).
  
• Reload time 0.733s -> 0.766s

Ripper is still finding its place after becoming a more buildable unit.

• Health 1100 -> 1020
  
• Speed 66 -> 63
  
• Turn Rate 707 -> 624 (was 442)
  
• Reload 1.7s -> 1.766s
  
• Damage 270 -> 260
  
• Range 285 -> 280
  
• Sight Distance 347 -> 350

Dagger is one of those knife-edge units and needs small tweaks.

• Range 220 -> 215 (was 210).

Bolas is better at escorting.

• Health 720 -> 780
  
• Range 220 -> 230

Claymore might see use on land.

• Cost 330 -> 320
  
• Land Range 160 -> 220

Reaver has a tweak to make it better against Glaive.

• Range 270 -> 275
  
• Damage 40 -> 45
  
• Reload 0.466 -> 0.5
  
• Sight Distance 345 -> 350

Conch needs to be faster for Amph to be more generally useful, and now has a unique ability.

• Speed 51 -> 54
  
• Armours while idle.

Duck has room to be a decent sea raider thanks to the other changes to sea.

• Torp range 150 -> 210

Scallop deals more AoE damage to non-primary targets to make it a bit better against Ducks.

• Depthcharge Edge Effectiveness 0 -> 0.6

Lobster is finicky enough without a high fire delay.

• Multiplied aim rate by 3.

Seawolf is better at bursting down enemy ships.

• Damage 250 -> 260

Funnelweb can no longer block two Shockleys.

• Max Shield 23000 -> 19400

Terraform can no longer be worked on when enemies are nearby.

• Buildrate slows by 50x while visible enemy units are nearby.
  
• Made all terraform segments cheaper by 12.

It is time to address the dominance of the Recon chassis. Instead of nerfing jumpjets, and potentially ruining the fun, we're differentiating commanders by buildpower and buffing the other chassis.

Recon uses jump to expand rapidly and a BP nerf tones down this advantage.

• Buildpower 10 -> 8

Strike is made distinctive with more speed than Guardian.

• Speed 40.5 -> 43.5
  
• Regen 5/5/12.5/20/27.5/35 -> 5/5/10/16/25/35

Guardian is fairly plain so it has gained drones as an experiment.

• Added Light Drones: 1/1/2/2/3/3
  
• Added Heavy Drones: 0/0/0/1/1/2
  
• Companion Drone build delay 15s -> 12s (all chassis)
  
• Battle Drone build delay 25s -> 18s (all chassis)

Support needs to be faster to compete with other chassis.

• Speed 36 -> 39
  
• Buildpower 10/12/14/16/18/20 -> 12/14/16/18/21/24

Speed modifiers are now absolute rather than relative, and cloaking comes with a speed penalty.

• High Power Servos: Speed +8% -> +3
  
• High Density Plating: Speed -10% -> -3
  
• Damage Booster: Speed -2.5% -> -1
  
• Adv. Targeting System: Speed -2.5% -> -1
  
• Added a speed penalty of -8 to Personal Cloak.

• Maps that include gamedata/unitdefs_post.lua have it loaded in addition to the game version, instead of replacing it.
  
• Multiple morphs for a single unit can now be set in customParams.

• Fixed Scallop depth charges failing to reach their target in shallows.
  
• Duck and Scallop torpedo projectiles hit more consistently.
  
• Fixed the little jump that sometimes happens to floater units when they reach the sea floor.
  
• Floating units thrown by Lobster now float correctly when they hit the water.
  
• Crab now fires while changing state and is no longer 'stunlocked' by swarms of units shooting at it.
  
• Fixed a target retention issue caused by quickly issuing Force Fire then Move orders.
  
• Added startboxes for Barracuda Bay, Blindsidem Oktagon v3 and TL Dropzone.
  
• Removed swarm AI for units fighting Knight.
  
• Space+Click unit information shows commander drones.
  
• Made some selection circles better match unit size.
  
• Fixed Bandit and Scorcher sometimes shooting sideways.
  
• Potentially fix a morph bug that allowed facplop to be duplicated.