Zero-K News

Get ready for the next Zero-K tournament, a 1v1 tournament where dozens of commanders will fight for dozens of dollars. The format is bo1 double elimination but other details have not been fully finalised. Sign up with a comment on the thread and send any questions to Kingstad. If you are more interested in watching, then games can be spectated through the lobby or you can watch one of the commentary streams linked on Discord.

🗓️ Date: July 8th [Saturday] 2023
⌚ Time: (3 PM EDT | 9 PM CET | 1900 UTC)
⏰ Countdown to Tournament
🔗 Forum Thread
👀 A commentary stream

There was also a minor update this weekend. It is mostly fixes for the previous update, but there are also a few features and balance changes.



Redback is worse at dodging projectiles.

• Increased collision shape width by 11% and length by 25%.
  
• Reduced turn rate by 5%.
  

Ogre now ignores terrain and wrecks when aiming and firing. It has sufficient AoE and arc for making the attempt to often be beneficial.

Zeno now homes onto the actual position of a radar target earlier - early enough to hit it.

• Holding Alt while selecting units now filters out rank 3 (ie army units).
  
• Added a sudden death mode game option, under Map. It causes the game to end shortly after a specified time via a contracting death circle.
  

• Fixed a missile impact indicator error.
  
• Fixed a pathfinding issue to do with construction orders on terrible terrain.
  
• Tactical missiles no longer have inconsistent half-prediction of enemy velocity. They now fire exactly where they are aimed.
  
• Fixed contrast adaptive sharpening scaling with zoom level.
  
• Fixed moderator tooltip colour in the lobby.
  
• Improved Pylon collision and selection volumes.
  

The 3v3 tournament finished earlier today with an excellent turnout of 19 teams. The results and videos will be posted in this thread in the coming days. The upshot for this patch is that we are free to make a few balance changes. The aim of these changes is to work on a few of the more maligned units, while nerfing some of the most prevalent strategies. This mostly means buffs for Gunships and nerfs for Lance and cloaked Snitch.

The update also has some exciting features. A big one for team games is that allied nukes and missiles now automatically show where they were aimed, which should halve the number of people that panic when a nuke is fired. Another is the ability to watch any game while waiting for a different one to start without missing out on the chat, as chat from non-started lobbies is now sent ingame. Superintendent has also added a few more tracks to his alternate soundtrack.



Snitch is slower to nerf its use with cloaker, without making it worse as a pure ambusher.

• Speed 117 -> 108
  

Iris is a bit easier to find and its area cloak radius now matches area shield radius.

• Speed 57 -> 54
  
• Decloak range 180 -> 210
  
• Cloaker radius 360 -> 350
  

Lance is less effective when set to fire at will.

• Reload time 20s -> 23s
  

Scallop is still the slowest riot but is a bit tankier than average.

• Health 1100 -> 1200
  
• Speed 48 -> 51
  

Emissary can afford to be fast since it takes so long to pack up.

• Speed 60 -> 63
  
• Range 1120 -> 1150
  

Blastwing takes less time to deal its damage and deals slightly more.

• AoE 128 -> 144
  
• Fire DPS 25 -> 32
  
• Fire linger 25s -> 20s
  

Gnat needs more health to survive long enough to stun the juiciest target.

• Cost 90 -> 85
  
• Health 370 -> 440
  

Revenant can be brought back now that commanders are more resilient.

• Health 3600 -> 4200
  
• Missiles 8 -> 9
  
• Reduced missile wobbly by 6.7%
  

Stardust has a small buff to its damage output but might still need a larger change later.

• Heat per shot 3.8 -> 3.5
  

Lucifer can see as far as it can shoot (thanks Majo).

• Sight range 780 -> 1280
  

• Added predicted impact time and location for allied nukes and stockpiled missiles (thanks esainane).
  
• Added a new Superintendent music track.
  
• Hovering a unit with the mouse now highlights it slightly. This can be configured under 'Settings/Graphics/Unit Visibility'.
  
• Alt+N terraform preset is slightly higher to block Phantoms firing at Engineer Commander.
  
• Added Set Target (instead of Force Fire) on Right Click option under 'Settings/Unit Behaviour'.
  
• Added time and space leeway settings to make selection easier, under 'Settings/Interface/Selection'.
  
• Added an explanation of selection rank to 'Settings/Interface/Selection' as people find fiddling with it surprisingly useful.
  
• Embiggened cursor hitboxes of Grizzly, Jugglenaut, Cyclops, Shield Factory and Cloak Factory.
  
• Singularity Reactor size now fluctuates.
  
• Impaler fire sound is slightly fainter and only five can play at once.
  
• Added Base Extraction graph to the endgame stats that tracks cumulative metal from extractors before overdrive.
  
• Moved projectile retarget configuration into its own file to aid modding. See here (thanks Mach56).
  

• Battles can now be watched by right clicking on them in the battle list and selecting 'Watch'.
  
• Chat from any lobby you are in is sent ingame if the lobby is not running.
  
• Added a new Superintendent track that plays when the lobby opens.
  
• Mention Imp burrow in the tips for the Imp campaign mission.
  
• Added a game option to override the names of teams for tournaments.
  
• Added a game option (under Experimental) called Notes that just writes text to a window at the start of the game. Use it to explain unit tweaks or other complicated set of options.
  

• Preselection highlight (when hovering over units) now highlights units correctly in edge cases.
  
• Fixed the player count in the battle lobby status box updating slowly.
  
• Fixed units set to avoid radar wobble not firing at identified structure dots that left radar.
  
• Fixed Advanced Geo aim point (thanks dyth68).
  
• Fixed Mariner special build icon size.
  
• Healthbars and Build ETA now draw in front of unit outlines.
  
• Fixed an error that could occur when destroying all the units of the losing team.
  
• Phoenix gibs no longer include a near-complete copy of its fuselage.
  

This is mostly a fixes and tweaks update as the 3v3 tournament is only in two weeks. Everyone is welcome as each team must have a new player. Sign up in this thread if you are interested.

There are two big balance changes: nerfs for superweapons and shields being disabled underwater. Aspis can now float, to give it some use in sea, and floating has been improved in general. The superweapon changes were motivated by some of the epic games on the large maps added in April. Starlight is much more expensive as it is the best at ending games, but games were ending a bit too early. Disco Rave Party and Zenith were differentiated by leaning into the slow aim and rate of DRP compared to the instant response of Zenith. Thanks for all the feedback in the thread on the forums.

The most notable fixes are for the rare Zenith gathering bug and the Fencer/Bulkhead transition issue. There are also many backend improvements to scripting and the engine (which was updated earlier in the week), some of which are relevant to modding and listed in a section below. More Chinese translations have been contributed and a few campaign missions have been tweaked based on feedback.



Shields are disabled when the unit carrying them is submerged.

• The disable is the same as any other disable. Charge drops to zero and linking does not work.
  
• The unit must be completely underwater. This is the same threshold at which cloak is disabled and units are no longer detectable by non-sea vision.
  

Aspis can now float and floating in general has tweaks to help it stay above water.

• Units lobbed or gravity-gunned into the sea can float immediately.
  
• Note: This was already the case for sea-to-sea lobs and transport throws.
  
• Floating units no longer sink while teleporting.
  
• Note: Teleporting from land to the sea will still put the unit on the sea floor.
  

Cloak is cancelled immediately after a unit takes a decloaking action (such as firing). This was always the intention, but at some point action decloak gained a random delay of up to a third of a second.

Cornea no longer pays for personal cloak while area cloaking.

• This reduces its effective energy drain by 1 energy per second.
  

Firewalker is less indiscriminate.

• Now checks whether a friendly unit is directly in front of both barrels before firing.
  
• Aims a little higher for more clearance.
  

Zenith costs a bit more as part of a general superweapon nerf, but has more range.

• Cost 36k -> 38k
  
• Range 8400 -> 8800
  
• Fixed a rare bug that would transform it into an expensive doorstop.
  

Disco Rave Party costs a bit more and leans hard into directionality.

• Cost 40k -> 42k
  
• Health 12k -> 8k
  
• Range 7500 -> 7000
  
• Aim speed 4 degrees/s -> 2.5 degrees/s
  
• Full spin up time 1 -> 2 minutes (via reduced acceleration at high spin rates).
  
• Spin speed is now lost while turning, with greater losses at high spin.
  
• Eg a 45° turn drops spin 100% -> 58%, a 90° turn drops spin 100% -> 33%.
  

Starlight is much heavier as it is the superweapon that truly ends games.

• Cost 45k -> 60k
  
• Health 7500 -> 12k
  
• Range 10k -> 12k
  

• Allied AIs are now Hard AIs on Normal difficulty (previously they were Normal AIs).
  
• Replace allied Merlins with Dantes in a few missions as they are prone to friendly fire.
  
• Adjusted partially built superweapons to leave cost-to-complete unaffected by balance changes.
  
• Moved Disco Rave Party slightly closer to the enemy base to partially account for its lower range.
  
• The mission briefing box now expands to avoid using a scrollbar for the tips section.
  
• Added a hint about mex income sharing to some of the first planets with allies.
  
• Made the hints for the Krow mission say a bit more about how to use Krow.
  
• Added a hint explaining Retreat Zones to the Krow mission.
  
• Cut hints down to four for Kirdipan (since the window is now expanded to show all hints).
  
• Fixed Romolis victory condition not checking for Merlins.
  

• Added start boxes for Supreme Strait.
  
• Improved lighting on All That Glitters.
  
• Fixed Timna Island box names.
  
• Enable alternate diagonal boxes for Calayo.
  
• Fixed small teams boxes for Angel Crossing.
  
• Added boxes for Pillar of Doom.
  
• Improved the widget that lets people tweak and save water and lighting tweaks.
  

• Aegis spin animation is now based on shield charge (thanks Mach56).
  
• Improved line of sight rendering with AMD graphics (many cards were using a shaderless fallback).
  
• Contrast adaptive sharpening weakens when zooming out to counteract the grainy effect.
  
• Reenabled contrast adaptive sharpening by default.
  
• Added a subtle bloom shader.
  
• Bumpmapped water is now default for Lowest graphics as the others barely work.
  

• Added huge nuke warning toggle ingame under Settings/Accessiblity (thanks dunno).
  
• Improved the "Skip pregame chat" button on the replay controls.
  
• Language change updates unit selection texts immediately.
  
• Added translation capability for Zeno.
  
• Updated Chinese (both simple and traditional) translations (thanks Kitty, evilblue, et al).
  
• Updated Polish translations.
  
• Tweaked unit reply volumes slightly.
  

• Zeno no longer counts for Turtle Shell (but would have needed to deal real damage).
  
• Custom submarines now detected as such for Context Menu properly (instead of as ships).
  
• Added LUS preprocessing which translate uses of SFX.*, COB.*, math.{pi,tau}, math.{rad.sqrt}(constant) into constants. Local optimisations for these functions or tables should be removed.
  
• "morphUnitCreating" is now a game rules param (was team rules param).
  
• Added gadget:GamePaused(playerID, isPaused) to gadget handler.
  
• Chicken drone morphs now done via customparams.
  
• Missile silo automatically works with any custom missiles you add to the buildlist.
  
• Custom missile silos can exist and have moddable stockpile capacity via missile_silo_capacity customparam (still needs script support).
  
• Removed old nuke/antinuke models.
  

• Fixed Zenith occasionally failing to gather meteors.
  
• Fixed Fencer and Bulkhead occasionally failing to transition between states correctly.
  
• Fixed always-floaters that teleport to from land to sea not automatically floating.
  
• Fixed cloak not being disabled on units when they are reclaimed.
  
• Fixed area cloakers with personal cloak erroneously being charged for personal cloak.
  
• Fixed the live unit reclaim tooltip using the old value (50%) rather than the new one (80%).
  
• Fixed an error upon comshared resign (thanks Shaman).
  
• Fixed debris texture.
  
• Fixed Zeno not being autogroupable (thanks Shaman).
  
• Fixed a rare crash to do with terraform.
  
• Fixed a bug where disabling units could break a factory.
  
• Increased Lua memory limit.
  

Brace yourselves for the exhilarating Zero-K 3v3 Tournament, where battle-hardened veterans and fresh faces unite to claim victory! Gather your forces, for this is your chance to prove your mettle on the grandest stage of strategic warfare.

🗓️ Date: June 17th [Saturday]
⌚ Time: Sunday, 18 June 2023 03:00 (1 PM EST | 7 PM CET | 1700 UTC)

🔗 Forum Thread
🔗 Challonge Registration
⏰ Countdown to Tournament



Enlist your team in the tournament by posting on the dedicated forum thread or signing up on Challonge. Each team must include at least one new player, adding an exciting twist to the competition. Embrace the opportunity to mentor and fight alongside budding commanders. Don't forget to provide your team name to ensure your presence is duly acknowledged.

Curious about the eligibility of new players? Fear not! A new player is defined as someone who meets either of the following criteria at the time of registration:

• Playing Zero-K for less than 10 days.
  
• Having played fewer than 30 PvP games.
  

Should your teammate not fit these criteria but you believe they deserve an exception, reach out to MDSK Discord or in the forum thread above.

For this update we looked through the new maps from the wider Spring (now Recoil) community and featured a bunch of them. Some will play better than others, but that's what feedback is for! The update also adds translations for Chinese and Italian, and includes an engine update that was benchmarked to improve framerate by 9%. In terms of balance there are nerfs for Reaver and Lance and a cost reduction for Krow. The unit reply sounds have also been rebalanced.



We have featured 67 new maps, with many from BAR or raaar. Some are makeovers of classics, others are new takes on a theme, and many are completely new.

There are many large maps suited to big team games or comp stomps: Alpha Siege Dry, Ancient Vault, Bismuth Valley , Carrot Mountains, Darkside (v3.0), Eight Horses, Fool's mate, Entrenched Plains, Heartbreak Hill, Highway 95 East, Highway 95 West, High Noon Remake, Ice Scream (v1.1), Ice Scream (v2.4), Omega Valley, Pawn Retreat, Red River Remake, Red Triangle Remake, Riverrun, Silveridge, Sphagnum Bog, Starwatcher, Taldarim, Two Continents Dry, Two Continents.

These maps are a bit smaller, good for 1v1 or small team games: Callisto, Death Valley, Desert (3.25), Desolation, Ditched, Dockside, Hades Ponds, Hexian Arena, Lake Carne, Mithril Mountain, Scorched Crossing, Theta Crystals, The Halite Maze.

Some particularly experimental maps are: Crucible, High Forts, Hooked, Sky Fortress Sigma.

The maps Point of No Return and Timna Island are designed for chicken or coop games as they are asymmetric, with one side starting in a fortress.

The following maps are updated versions of classics, although many will feel new as there are a lot of maps to play through: Altored Divide Bar Remake, Coastlines Dry, Comet Catcher Remake, Copper Hill, EmainMacha Remake, Incandescence Remake, Highway 95, Hotlips Remake, Icy Crater, Into Battle Redux, MoonQ20XR2, Nuclear Winter Bar, Ravaged Remake, Seths Ravine Remake, Supreme_Crossing, Tabula Remake, Tangerine Remake, The Cold Place BAR, The Hole, The Rock, Tumult Remake, Valles Marineris, Zed Remake.

Predicting which maps will or won't work is tricky, so send feedback. Old versions of revamped maps were left up as they may be distinct enough to coexist or there could be a problem with a new map.



Live unit reclaim yields 80% of the cost of the unit in metal, up from 50%.

Reaver is 7% worse both at firing and turning.

• Turn rate 1850 -> 1710
  
• Reload time 0.467s -> 0.5s
  

Conjurer is slower to nerf cloakbot expansion rate.

• Speed 57 -> 54
  

Thug is better at hitting things.

• Weapon velocity increased 200 -> 210
  

Rogue is also better at hitting things.

• Weapon velocity 185 -> 190
  

Ravager is also also better at hitting things.

• Weapon velocity 238 -> 245
  

Lance is probably due a nerf of some sort and cost is simple.

• Cost 1000 -> 1100
  

Krow needs a buff to make it relevant to modern Zero-K.

• Cost 4500 -> 4200
  

Superweapons have 25% less health to make them easier to snipe.

• Starlight health 10k -> 7.5k
  
• Disco Rave Party health 16k -> 12k
  
• Zenith health 12k -> 9k
  

Added an experimental game option that reveals superweapons that exceed 5% build progress. It isn't on by default, but could be interesting to test.

• Added Chinese and Italian translations (click the flag in the top right of the screen ingame).
  
• Cleaned up a few unit reply sounds and rebalanced them relative to each other. Most replies are a bit quieter.
  
• The tab playerlist share resource buttons now take your storage into account to display how much will actually be shared.
  

• Added a game-side lava gadget so that mappers can create lava maps without copying code into the map file. Maps can add lava by including the file "mapconfig/lava_config.lua". See here for the parameters and here for an example. It even supports tides.
  
• The startbox editing tool can now be toggled under Settings/Toolbox. This makes it hotkeyable provides space for a hotkey explaining how it works.
  
• Added vertex-wise undo, snap to cardinal direction, and snap to map edge to the startbox editing tool.
  

• Fixed UI scale detection for screen resolutions in the 2000s (ie 2560x1440).
  
• Reset everyone's UI scale settings to catch people who where affected by the issue above. Set Lobby or Game Interface Scale in the main menu under Settings/Lobby and Settings/Game.
  
• Fixed menu volume resetting when the track changes.
  
• Fixed and reset the non-functional Unit Reply Volume slider.
  
• Improved the performance of the map list.
  
• Toggling "Only Featured Maps" in the lobby updates a previously opened map list correctly.