Zero-K News

The Rogue nerfs continue, Redback can now beat a Reaver, and Firewalker has its first change in years. Phantom slows to 66% speed to reload its gun (maybe the auto-loader broke?) to make them a bit easier to find, while Blitz and Pyro are a bit tougher in an attempt to bring them into the raider game. The skin swap 'easter egg' is gone, some animations are improved and some GC fiddling resulted in a performance improvement. A few new or remade maps now have start boxes, and the matchmaker map pool has been updated.



Ronin is a bit smarter.

• Steps away from Lotus while reloading (with Hold Position disabled or Attack Move).
  
• Updates aim direction more frequently to cut down on friendly fire.
  

Reaver has slightly less reach and manoeuvrability.

• Turn rate reduced by 10%
  
• Range 275 -> 270
  
• Projectile velocity increased by 5.5% to compensate
  

Phantom is easier to catch.

• Moves at 66% speed while reloading.
  

Rogue is costlier and a little easier to hit.

• Cost 125 -> 130
  
• Turn rate reduced by 10%
  

Thug requires more downtime between uses.

• Shield regen 14/s -> 13/s
  

Redback kills Glaive in three shots.

• Damage 70 -> 80
  

Pyro is tougher.

• Health 670 -> 690
  

Firewalker deals less damage.

• Direct damage reduced by 15%
  
• Ground burn damage reduced by 5%
  

Blitz is tougher.

• Health 1250 -> 1300
  

Emissary takes less time to pack and unpack.

• Gun turns 14% faster.
  
• Increased projectile velocity by 1.6%.
  
• Slightly lower arc.
  

Lance is less likely to be overshot by inaccurate projectiles.

• Lowered aim position.
  

Picket is no longer 1-shot by Rogue.

• Health 300 -> 340.
  

Zero-K v1.10.7.0 had some balance changes as well.

Rogue has a slower and less damaging weapon.

• Damage 345 -> 330
  
• Projectile velocity 190 -> 185 elmos/s
  

Outlaw is faster and deals more normal damage at the cost of slow damage.

• Speed 57 -> 60 elmos/s
  
• Normal damage 27 -> 30
  
• Slow damage 81 -> 75
  

The matchmaker map pool has been rotated and map bans have been reset. You can set your map bans by clicking 'Set Map Bans' in the matchmaker window or directly on the site here.

The following maps were added to the pool.

• Reptilian Battlefield
  
• Altair Crossing v4
  
• Rainbow Comet
  
• Eye of Horus
  
• Aurelian
  

The following maps were removed from the pool.

• Dune Patrol Redux
  
• Sertaleina
  
• Desert Rumble
  
• Frosty Cove
  
• Trojan Hills
  
• Shimmershore
  

• Improved Impaler, Phantom and Tidal Generator animations.
  
• Added a reload animation for Phantom (to give it a reason to slow down).
  
• Added start boxes for Lava Highground and Pentos.
  
• Added start boxes for remakes of Emain Macha, Flooded Valley, and Trefoil.
  
• Fixed uninspired name for kamikaze award.
  
• Fiddled with garbage collection settings to improve performance.
  
• Optimised drawing for morph effects and removed some redundant tables.
  
• Increased thickness of antinuke coverage indicator, so it is harder to miss.
  

• Removed the unintended easter egg where units would occasionally swap skins.
  
• Blastwing cloak now breaks when the unit is launched.
  
• Reduced the linger of the map erase effect.
  
• Fixed the worst cases of units trying to shoot at underwater Amphibious Factories.
  
• Fix lights on Mount Dustmore.
  
• Fixed Spidermonkey web not rendering.
  
• Fix a crash in outline shader error messages.
  
• Fixed part of the cloak transition effect that had been disabled for engine compatibility reasons.
  
• Fixed geothermal vents not reacting to terrain changes on some maps.
  
• Fixed underscores causing issues for abuse reports sent via the ingame playerlist.
  
• Fixed inconsistent colours on team endgame graphs for spectators.
  
• Fixed ambiguous AI team names in AI vs. AI games.
  
• Fixed Missile Silo missiles not being removed from control groups as soon as they are launched (technically they only die after landing).
  
• Fixed a rare situation where command queues could be lost by adding a keybind to set units On or Off, then using the keybind with a selection of units that do not all have an On/Off toggle.
  

This update has nerfs to address the abundance of Lance in teamgames and Rogue in 1v1. It also has small nerfs for Bandit and Dirtbag, buffs for some underused units, and less effective area cloaking in combat. The release is a little early to avoid being too close to the upcoming 3v3 tournament (18:00 UTC, Saturday 9th July, sign up here), so some features didn't make it. We hope to have a fixes and features patch some time in July or August, which would ideally include an engine update, Adv. Options for mods, and some dodge AI.



Units without personal cloak now decloak for longer after acting (firing, building, etc).

• Non-personal recloak delay 6s -> 8s.
  
• Non-personal recloak delay for proximity is still 3s.
  
• For comparison, personal recloak delay is 3s for actions and 1.5s for proximity. Units with personal cloak use the personal delays even when under an area cloaker.
  

Dirtbag is slightly less tanky.

• Health 600 -> 580
  

Bandit has a range nerf that may be overdue since the pre-aim update.

• Range 235 -> 232
  

Rogue is easier to catch and slightly more expensive.

• Cost 120 -> 125
  
• Health 540 -> 520
  
• Speed 57 -> 54
  
• Turn rate reduced by 5%
  

Scalpel is more manoeuvrable.

• Turn rate increased by 5%
  

Claymore deals more damage at the edge of its area of effect.

• Reload time 3.2 -> 3.1
  
• Edge effectiveness increased to match Ripper
  
• Disabled avoid bad targets by default
  

Mace sight now matches the +25% weapon range rule of other riots.

• Sight range 407 -> 431
  

Lance is easier to catch when out of position, and is worse at hitting aircraft.

• Speed 52.5 -> 49.5 elmos/s
  
• Turn rate reduced by 10%
  
• Range 1000 -> 980
  
• Vertical aim speed reduced by 66%
  

Jack is worse at picking off raiders.

• Range 125 -> 122
  

Gremlin has better damage for its cost and slightly more range.

• Cost 150 -> 140
  
• Range 700 -> 720
  
• DPS increased by 3%
  

Locust deals more damage but is worse at healing.

• Autoheal 10 -> 6 hp/s (still activates after 5 seconds)
  
• DPS increased by 4%.
  

Harpy can more reliably snipe riots.

• Range 350 -> 360
  

Phoenix is tougher.

• Health 900 -> 1060
  

• Added Curacao flag.
  
• Unit marker can now be enabled for Widow.
  
• Scorpion and Ultimatum are now marked by unit marker each time they appear.
  
• GG.addUnitSlow now handles overslow.
  
• Made circular map API more reliable.
  
• Fixed a GL4 shutdown error on old hardware.
  

This release has a few fixes and improvements, and brings us up to date with around four months of engine work. We are keeping pace with the engine, which means each update is relatively small. This one fixes a few uncommon bugs and might improve performance slightly.

• Icons not appearing on a quarter of the minimap for some people should be fixed (engine).
  
• Possibly fixed the openAL issue for Linux people (engine). Remove "UseEFX=0" to check.
  
• Starlight no longer sinks itself into soft maps.
  
• Improved auto-aiming for Starlight, Disco Rave Party, and Bertha. They now prefer to target units close to their old target, to cut down on traversal time.
  
• Caretakers and Strider Hub now give up on commands that are too far away. This could be caused by trying to reclaim a wreck as it flies through build range.
  
• Fixed godmode and global LOS buttons on the cheat panel in multiplayer.
  
• Fixed Widow thinking it is 50% larger than it is for the purposes of pathfinding.
  
• Fixed reclaim field aggregator sometimes not drawing anything.
  
• Improved the font sharpness of reclaim field aggregator.
  
• Improve the performance of the minimap.
  
• Added a widget (disabled by default) that highlights hovered units called Highlight Unit GL4.
  
• Fixed custom formation bug caused by fog of war and godmode.
  
• Wind touches the ground.
  

In this update we work through the backlog of graphics and performance improvements made possible by the engine update three months ago. Outlines and reclaim highlighting should run (and look) better, although exact results will depend on hardware. Compatibility fallbacks exist for players with particularly old hardware. Many other bits of code have also been tweaked for performance.

Other fixes and features have been worked on in the meantime, the most notable being formation ranks. It can be enabled through the ingame menu, and it is a bit rough around the edges, so send feedback.

In terms of balance, the 1v1 oriented changes are minimal as the pick- and win-rate stats are looking quite good. Shields have a nerf and Hover have a buff, and both sets of changes are partial reverts of buffs and nerfs from 2021. For dense teamgames, Impaler projectiles are slightly slower to cut down on their effectiveness against mobile units.



Bandit has half a revert to its recent damage buff.

• Damage per second 8.35 (pre-August 2021) -> 8.6 (recent) -> 8.48 (new)
  

Rogue is slower and also has half a revert to some recent buffs.

• Speed 58.5 -> 57
  
• Projectile velocity 185 (pre-August 2021) -> 192 (recent) -> 190 (new)
  
• Damage 340 (pre-August 2021) -> 350 (recent) -> 345 (new)
  

Bolas has its recent health nerf reduced.

• Health 720 (pre-October 2021) -> 680 (recent) -> 700 (new)
  

Scalpel has both its recent nerfs reduced.

• Health 680 (pre-October 2021) -> 650 (recent) -> 660 (new)
  
• Damage 660 (pre-October 2021) -> 620 (recent) -> 640 (new)
  

Impaler has a slower projectile.

• Projectile acceleration reduced by 11%.
  

• Added optional front-back ordering for line formations. Set it with Formation Rank ingame under Settings/Unit Behaviour/Default States, or set it per-unit with a state toggle that can be enabled ingame under Settings/Interface/Commands.
  
• Added a modoption to disable resurrection.
  
• Tweaked the tutorial mission to be a bit more informative, and removed the Lance.
  
• Added selection filtering for global build command.
  
• Added an option to show rating in the Tab Playerlist.
  
• Added hardware cursor to main menu Settings/Game.
  

• Replaced unit outlines with an opengl4 shader (a non-opengl4 fallback exists).
  
• Replaced reclaim highlight with an opengl4 shader (a non-opengl4 fallback exists).
  
• Improved Rogue walk animation.
  
• Added a unique death clone for Imp.
  

• Updated Stinger model, with a small compatibility change required for how it aims.
  
• Removed 3do model support and converted existing 3dos to s3o.
  
• Unhardcode mex from pregame queue widget. A customParam for this exists.
  
• Fixed a potential crash caused by adding morph to a variety of units (mostly cloakbots).
  
• Add Spring.Utilities.CMD table for custom command lookup.
  
• Added a warning for buildings with brake, acceleration, and turn rate tags set.
  
• Remove QueryNanoPiece from LUS.
  

• Lance avoids hovering downwards while firing, to avoid 'accidents'.
  
• Removed flat rectangles that could sometimes form under killed structures.
  
• Commanders with skins no longer leave a ghost behind when they leave line of sight.
  
• Removed 'Dev' from the name of the in-use AIs.
  
• Fixed weird looking impact explosions for Ogre, Behemoth, and Shogun.
  
• Settings that exist in the main menu and ingame are now under advanced settings ingame.
  
• Fixed an error in the ward fire toggle related to shooting at metal spots.
  
• Fixed Gauss turret spamming functions.
  
• Automatic guard remover no longer applies to factories.
  
• Fixed some minor Legacy AI configuration issues.
  
• Fixed feature ghosting not obeying distance fade.
  
• Fixed Imp underwater explosion effect.
  
• Optimise some code in Gauss turret, units catching on fire, selection shapes, attack AoE, economy overlay, decloak range, reclaim field summary, pause screen, newton firezone, radar dot height, and geothermal highlighter.
  

Most people report significantly better framerate with the engine update, but there are still a few lingering bugs. This update addresses many of them and re-adds commander skins.

• Reimplemented commander skins for GL4.
  
• A line to the nearest matching factory is now shown even when outside plate range.
  
• Fixed factory plate command conditions for underwater placement.
  
• Fixed transported units temporarily snapping to the ground when flown over factories.
  
• Fixed weirdness in Ogre (and similar) weapon explosion effects.
  
• Fixed factory facing arrow underwater.
  
• Fixed path cache issue on some popular maps (such as Tangerine) that lead to desync.
  
• Fixed trees missing textures on some maps.
  
• Fixed disappearing cursors, possibly related to the first campaign mission.
  
• Fixed radar icons sometimes displaying at the wrong size.
  
• Improved detection for GL4 support.
  
• Fixed some crashes on hardware without GL4 support.
  
• Fixed a rare longstanding bug with hit detection for fast projectiles and small units.
  
• Fixed reclaim-blocked structure placement squares showing as red rather than yellow.
  
• Fixed /debuggl.