This or BA?

I like the diversity of 0K, on the other hand the simplicity of BA is also charming. Atm 0k is new and unexplored that's always fun.

I haven't decided which 16 multiplayer is worse yet, 8v8 DSD or 8v8 Cooperhill :S

>Im surprised some people think its more complex.

Overdrive is non-intuitive. It would be almost impossible for someone to figure out how overdrive works without being told or reading the manual.

Unlocks confuse a lot of newbs. I'm constantly seeing people asked why most labs and units are grayed out.

Customizable coms add a huge level of complexity.

A few units require power - how often have you seen people build a doomsday then ask why it won't fire.

People often don't understand that missiles in a missile silo are individual units. They keep asking how to fire missiles.

Yes, I think that ZK is slightly less complicated than BA. But there are several definite points that are more confusing.

The major difference in complexity is that BA is all vehicles on most maps, and mostly Flash and Stumpy. BA has a lot of noob traps, but its easier to learn 'dont build that' than 'this is how you use that'. ZK has a dozen starting factories and all units have a unique uses and counter dynamics you must learn in order to use them well. We designed it this way on purpose, since ever since OTA, the difference between units has been small despite having 10x more than most other RTS games. We thought we could make every single one of them useful, and we've done a pretty good job i think, but that does mean that the possibility space of actions you can take is utterly enormous.

Both games have a few weird tricks and things you have to learn (Random e costs or how to link your grid efficiently) but the vast number of useful, unique units in ZK is in my opinion its greatest source of complexity and its greatest strength.

I would call BA needlessly complex in some regards and simpler in others.

Initially, at the very start of your first game, BA is probably simpler as your commander only can build what you should build at the start of the game. Some unlocks in ZK are an attempt to replicate this.

Then I think BA moves into needlessly complex. Units have variable cost ratios and unrounded numbers, units deal variable damage to each other, the economy timing and planning is not trivial.

Then once you learn which units are good and the general algorithm for an economy BA becomes simple again.

With ZK we aim for a positive gradient on the complexity curve. Things should start of reasonably simple and discovered complexity should rarely condense to something simple. For example a choice between unit X and Y should not have a simple rule like 'always choose X'. That is an initially complex choice becoming simple.

Of course you'll be able to find counterexamples of things in ZK that are needlessly complex. I just said this is the aim, it is not perfectly implemented.

But anyway here are a few things that have come up:

The initial factory locks of the unlock system is suppose to reduce very early complexity. I'm not really a fan of unlocks but this application seems to work. Answering "why can't I build some stuff" is simpler currently than somehow guiding a player into a decent startgame. Of course tutorials would be far better.

I think Overdrive follows a good complexity curve. Initially players in a teamgame are not required to know anything about overdrive and this lack of knowledge does not significantly hurt the team. Most players do not need to know the workings of overdrive (I doubt many people do), all they have to know is more "energy = more metal" and you should probably link about half your mexes. More advanced players would link the super mexes as they produce more output, you can notice this through normal play and observation.

> -zK has priority buttons for builders. in BA you just assign more builders to a construction which is more intuitive.

You are just a newbie. The efficient way to do it is to spam periodic wait commands on the builders assigned to the lower priority stuff. You only put more cons on building when you have excess resources to spend, in which case ZK is no different.

> -BA wind is just variable, in zK it also depends on terrain height.

BA wind is also variable relative to map.

> Special damage?!

I think he meant hidden special damages, like thud doing 2x damage to llt. Closing up animation makes the difference visible.

It is a bit pointless to ask about BA/ZK preference in a Zero-K forum, most people will probably answer the obvious. :)

Not to say that there aren't lots of things that can't be fixed and improved, but ZK has a very liberal approach toward design, where BA tends to be ultra-conservative. So while devs are busy creating new bugs for ZK, those bugs often get fixed pretty quickly, plus sometimes they create improvements also.

Well, due to some major divergences from BA/XTA, economy management became a lot more brutal, particularly due to remove of metal maker and implementation of 1:1:1 costs. You can no longer easily make solar when you are stalling energy and excessing metal, or make a mm when you are stalling metal and excessing a lot of energy. When you start stalling energy, you need to get more energy sources fast. This made the management mostly unfun (even pintle complained about it iirc), and priorities were an excellent way of dealing with this. They made it easier to allocate all your resource to getting energy when you needed it, or build mexes, etc.

well i played BA for a while and after a couple games of ZK didnt look back, what shits me in BA is the limited number of strategies with alot of units being useless, it just made it repetitive and boring. This is due mainly to there being a progressive tech tree T1.T2,T3

> So while devs are busy creating new bugs for ZK, those bugs often get fixed pretty quickly, plus sometimes they create improvements also.

Haha, look at that troll! ;)


> What I like and dislike(if that base is mine :trololo: ) about BA and TA that you can blow UP whole base to nothing if you are lucky with one very lucky pewee. In zk usually winning team wins.

See, I think it's exactly the opposite! If the opponent doesn't porc like shit then in it's much easier to turn the tide of a game in ZK than in BA. This is something I like - there's (nearly) always a chance to heavily impact the game. Even the cheapest army can win the game if the owner is doing a very good job/something awesome just once! And I don't mean it the XTA microhell approach where a single scout can kill your commander.


Don't forget BA has random Ecost for weapons to fire. ZK doesn't. DDMs, etc. don't count - they are part of the "grid complexity".

Balance must allow variable strategies and must not mean units are completely equal.. i believe that in ZK it works well.

Also, unlike BA, we actually measure balance .. we have system that tracks performance of every unit in every game, we have mathematical models etc.

In cost efficiency we keep game balanced. I dont know if you can claim it in BA because BA does not measure it at all