Zero-K v1.2.4.0 - Ongoing Sea Rework

This version includes some nice unit AI improvements and continues the ongoing sea rework. There are some major changes to sea and the Amphibious factory should fare better on land. The most notable sea change is the addition of a depthcharge hovercraft, the Claymore, and the removal of Scalpels underwater missiles. The Claymore is quite a silly unit but we may as well try out something !Fun! before sea has any balance which can be broken.

Balance

Added Claymore - a somewhat suicidal antiswarm depthcharge hovercraft. It fires Roach-sized depthcharges at short range with the hope that whatever it is targeting is far enough underwater to prevent it from killing itself. It does less well against surface targets. On land it is able to drop the depthcharge which will bounce around for a few seconds before exploding.

Scalpel can no longer shoot into water.

Scallop Torpedo:

• Damage 230 -> 140
• Reload Time 3 -> 3.5

Scallop Shotgun:

• DPS increased by 33%
• Range 280 -> 300

Duck:

• Cost 150 -> 80
• Health 400 -> 240
• Speed 2.7 -> 2.8
• Damage 430 -> 230

Typhoon:

• Health 1700 -> 1750
• Range 280 -> 240

Hunter:

• Health 1300 -> 1700
• Speed 2.3 -> 2.4
• Range 340 -> 260
• Reload Time 5 -> 4.5
• Has Crusader level AoE.

Snake:

• Cost 400 -> 350

Crusader:

• Cost 700 -> 550

Enforcer:

• Damage 860 -> 950

Commander Torpedo:

• Can target Hovercraft.
• Damage 400 -> 220
• Reload 5 -> 3.5
• Range 350 -> 330

Repair Pads now drain energy when repairing. An individual pad has 2.5 Build Power.

Moderator:

• Cost 320 -> 300
• Health 320 -> 450
• Fixed script, it will now aim more rapidly.
• Updated description.

Unit AI

Retreat:

• Air units are now diverted to Air Repair Pads when told to retreat.
• Avengers use Boost when starting to retreat.
• Jumpjet units Jump when starting to retreat.

Units skirmishing with Tactical AI now take height difference into account when determining how far away they should be from their target. Scallop now has different behaviour when underwater or on land to take advantage of its separate weapon characteristics.

Other

• Zombie mode can be played on any map via a modoption.
• Active modoptions are displayed at the start of the game.
• There is a modoption to mute spectators. This mostly deals with accidental abuse as lobby chat is still visible.
• Puppy creation has a graphical effect.

300.

If you don't want your jumpers to be in awkward positions when jumping to retreat then don't set them to retreat. This is the same with any AI. In general you should check the situation occasionally to make sure that nothing complicated that the AI cannot handle is going on.

Yeah, i was just worrying about units getting stuck on cliffs or other impassable terrain (or even between buildings), even when the terrain is otherwise flat and navigatable. We'll see how it plays out.

I've never used that retreat thing, might give it a try

looks like a decent update

- boats are good again
- amphibs are probably a viable option on land
- moderator is worth making

I think it would have been uber sexy if hovers had more than one unit capable of engaging submarines, because in amph vs hover matchup there are more submarine units capable of targeting hovers.

Given Duck's weight decrease, it might be plausible that Scalpel would get overwhelmed by Ducks like it gets with glaives on land, and Scallop would outrange Claymore.

Then voila! Counter structure:
Duck > Scalpel > Scallop > Claymore > Duck.

Currently Claymore will have to deal with both of those plus Snakes and Serpents.

quote: So its role is to counter Buoy, Grizzly and Scallop if it walks onto land. Also there was no way Duck was beating Scalpel.

For sheer nitpicking, i'll point out that new duck isn't old duck, and Scalpel fails hilariously against Grizzly both wet and dry.

But yeah, there's no reason to stay bolted to old units i guess. Roles apart, i'll try to pretty-up the sonic stuff.

quote: On land it is able to drop the depthcharge which will bounce around for a few seconds before exploding.

WOAH

supposedly scrubbers have 300 hp so they should be able to take 2 hits now instead of 1.

Scrubbers are the fastest raider units while ducks are the slowest. Making them trade evenly in a straight up fight would simply make scrubbers far superior as far as land balance is concerned.