Zero-K v1.3.9.0

September has been a bit slow with game-side development. Regardless, we have accumulated enough fixes for a decent sized release.

Game Mechanics

Jumping out of water is now blocked (except for Recon Commander). However jumping into water is allowed (to enable Skuttling underwater units).

Drones can now be captured by Dominatrix. Captured drones still follow their carrier and take up a drone slot. Capturing a carrier no longer captures the drones.

Removed personal radar-invisiblity. This affects Swift and all drones (they had the feature, yet nobody noticed). Athena and Vulture are slightly affected because their personal radar-invisiblity was mostly redundant. The change for them is that a landed Vulture or Athena is visible to radar provided the Athena is not cloaked.

Removed Snake and Serpent tactical AI. It was broken on them because their limited fire arc needs manual control.

Interface

• Messed with many unit descriptions for the sake of consistency. Structures with long names have had their name shortened to fit on the construction tooltip.
• Drones no longer contribute to airforce general.
• Line Special Fire now requires Alt. This fixes the bug in which special weapons could not target aircraft (eg Scorpion vs Krow).
• Removed useless Flail on/off toggle.
• Added icon set manager.
• Added/Updated Strike Commander, Zenith, Placeholder, Conch, Leviathan and Hunter death clones.
• Fixed attrition counter.
• Added low quality fallback for unit outlines.
• Moved loading bar out of the way of the loading screen tips.
• Zenith meteor tooltip is now a bit more useful.
• "Exit to desktop" no longer causes resign.
• Facpanel improvements.
• Build ETA display improvements. Now works for stockpile.

Fixes

• Fixed Mex glow.
• Fixed a CAI crash.
• Outlaw debris is not longer resurrectable.
• Removed water level modoption. Changed typemap removal implementation. This is to fix a possible cause of desync.
• Reduced landship bounce.
• Slow damage now reduces gunship brake rate.
• Nukes now have enough fuel to fly along maps of ridiculous size.
• Solars no longer produce energy when closed.
• Fixed incorrect bounce for ground collisions.

"* Solars no longer produce energy when closed."

Lol, I saw that in a game...@Shadowfury333 commented in a cast about this bug.

Can Sumo jump from water?

It means dragging a line with Manual Fire (eg. Dante salvo) order selected will no longer make a custom-formation without Alt.

quote: jumping into water is allowed (to enable Skuttling underwater units).

Apart from Skuttle, Jack also works when wet (mostly useful for sunken buildings), and Freaker can still build (you can sacrifice one to build a sea mex for example).

quote: Can Sumo jump from water?

No, only amphibious units can (which is only Recon Comm).

quote: * Added icon set manager.

To elaborate: this allows to change radar icons.
F10 -> Settings -> Graphics -> Unit Visibility -> Radar Icon Sets

Currently the only option is to toggle constructor chassis backgrounds, for example Conch, Mason and Welder become


Planned is a toggle to have ships use icons consistent with the rest of the game (chassis + role) too.

^ That's what I am worried about as well.

I've played games on soft maps where Sumo could only escape water pool made by jumping by jumping again ad infinitum.

quote: Removed personal radar-invisiblity.

I, for one, welcome our new Stealth Bot overlords.