I haven't heavily played other RTS games in a competitive online enviornment, but I know that zero-k plays differently from them. What are the biggest diferences?

I'm thinking about this because I'm telling people that a mex is more important than anything else in the game. In zero-k, metal extractors are the #1 win condition for me. If I have more mexes than my enemy, I'm strong, less for too long and I wanna resign. I put building mexes on priority over a lot of things, sometimes I'll lose mexes to get far out mexes(cause I can re-win the lost mexes) and I'll get mexes before reclaim. This is because the standard 2metal mex pays for it's self in 35 seconds, which is insane. The economic payback is just insane. And your ability to grow your economy is caped only by the number of builders you have and how fast you move, which you can solve by just having more builders. Looking at Starcraft2's economy it looks like an harvetser unit takes about double that time to pay back, maxing out at 39-45 minerals per minute, as well as being caped by expensive command center bases located at mineral deposists. This means that your economic investments in starcraft yield results more slowly than in zero-k. Of course, a mineral line should be more easily defended against raids than an open field of mexes.

When you rebuild a mex, you also get like 30 metal of reclaim. :p

I notice in the OTA campaign a mex costs like 250 metal and can generate 1.6 metal/second, which is such a snoozefest.

This economy analysis is much deeper than just the surface-level unit control of line move. What other less clear differences exist between Zero-k and other RTS games?

ZK actively uses physics in its balancing. Unit speed, projectile speed and arc, the speed at which units can aim their weapons turrets, aoe vs unit size, and so on are all incorporated intentionally into unit design. ZK also has well-defined unit roles like raider, riot, assault, skirm, and so on.

Most RTS games don't do any of that. If they have unit roles at all the roles are entirely artificial and enforced through damage/armor types.

ZK is also the only rts I know of that uses streaming, standardized resource economy. No other OTA-based game uses a 1:1 metal/energy ratio, and no other RTS game that I'm aware of that has more than one resource does that either. Very few non-OTA-based RTS games use a streaming economy model.

ZK also lacks unit limits. Most RTS games have some sort of unit limit as a resource. In other words, the dreaded supply depot. In ZK you can spam fleas until spring hits its unit limit.

Purely cost-based tech trees are also rare. In OTA you had to have a certain worker to build a T2 fac, and then a T2 worker to build advanced T2 and T3 stuff. In StarCraft and EvoRTS you have to build certain buildings before you get access to other tech. Like, you can't build a terran airfac in starcraft without first building a veh fac, which in turn requires an infantry fac, and you can't build missile turrets until you have an engineering bay. In ZK you can build anything you can afford and even things that you can't afford if you're willing to wait long enough.

Starting out with a free fac that can produce military units is also unheard of. In most games you spend the first 5 minutes doing nothing but watching your workers gather resources. In ZK you're already raiding in under 2 minutes.

ZK also has cheap scouts and radar, which makes it a lot easier to scout than it is in most games. In Starcraft scouting involves suiciding one of your early workers and you're lucky as hell if it even sees anything.

There are also other things like automation and unitAI. A lot of RTS games are designed to be clickfests, where the player is constantly drowning in menial tasks that ought to be automated away, particularly in eco. Meanwhile ZK has units that automatically try to dodge enemy bullets and skirmishers that automatically keep their distance from shorter ranged units and factory repeat and any widget that you can think to build to automate whatever menial tasks you want.

ZK is totally unlike most other RTS games as far as gameplay is concerned.

Astran you should mention (or maybe it´s so normal to you that you are not aware of it at all) that what you describe comes from the massive Teamgames. As far as i know, Starcraft II has 3v3 as upper limit?
The tactical variety that you describe applies to team-games. 1v1 also has some tactical variety, but it´s more bound to direct factory-matchups and the map.

quote: ZK is also the only rts I know of that uses streaming, standardized resource economy. No other OTA-based game uses a 1:1 metal/energy ratio, and no other RTS game that I'm aware of that has more than one resource does that either. Very few non-OTA-based RTS games use a streaming economy model. ZK also lacks unit limits. Most RTS games have some sort of unit limit as a resource. In other words, the dreaded supply depot. In ZK you can spam fleas until spring hits its unit limit.

To be fair, command and conquer games pretty much all do both of these. With the caveat that their streaming is not completely continuous as resources tend to only stream in when you have a harvester parked at a refinery.

This (especially combined with unit counters that may frequently be instagib or even mass-instagib - something quite openly inspired by RA) could be why there are quite a few ZK reviews on Steam that think that it's a take on Red Alert.

Horizontal (cost-based) tech tree, generalist factory with the starter one free, smart units have been evoked, and those are the major sticking points IMHO.
Having played Starcraft, AoE2, Warcraft3, Supcom, Dawn of War, Wargame and a few others, I now feel that each of those is a major, unique selling points for Zero-K

The importance and fluidity of map control for resources is also important, and relatively few RTS use it to such an extent. Zero-K is especially notable in how easy it is to raid, take and loose resource points. Other RTS often make taking and defending points a bigger and costlier affair.

Terraform and physics-based combat also helps further setting it apart.

Something else of note is the no-armor/damage-classes, with unit RPS solely determined by their physical characteristics, and the occasional straightforward ability.
This helps each unit make instinctive sense, and it is also what makes having hundreds of different units and structures, each one with its own particularities, manageable in the first place.

The overdrive system is also clever in how it doesn't require micromanagement but opens ways to gain more resources while still keeping map control capital, and requiring strategy. It also degrades gracefully: loosing mex or power plants doesn't suddenly cripple your economy metal makers could, but only degrades it, for example. Unless that was a singu in the middle of your base, but then you chose to make that gamble.

All in all, this plus the effort on powerful UI (the f*cking line move!) makes Zero-K probably the most elegant, and dare I say brilliant RTS I know of. All those elements of design helping reinforce the S in RTS, instead of rote memorization and reflex micromanagement race. Interestingly, it also manages to do that while being a fast-paced game.
(There is room in the videogame landscape for games based on memorization and reflex APM, but those have always been predominant and I much prefer something like Zero-K.)

Other minor details I like about Zero-K: units are robots so when they are a bit stupid and don't mind running to their deaths, it feels slightly less jarring. And the whole style is "cartoony" soft-SF enough to tell you that it's a game, so don't worry if things don't make sense worldbuilding-wise (looking at you Supcom).
Also having only one faction, with factories working as soft-factions without duplicates, is also a clever way to give more tools to the players while still keeping the playstyle variation of factions.
And a great AI that can beat a decent player without cheating or relying (too much) on inhuman micromanagement.

It is interesting to see how all this promote game styles that are rarely seen elsewhere: fast raiding and naked expansion, no storage, or targeting caretakers in priority come to mind.


Seriously, this game has a surprising number of things going for it. I really think it is flat out the best RTS out there, even if it is not necessarily for every RTS player's taste and its presentation lacks the polish an AAA budget could provide.

Pacing has had a bit of a mention but I think it can be expanded upon. Other games, particularly *Craft and *Empires, tend to have short, intense, battles separated by periods of downtime. Players have plenty to do in the downtime, but that are not directly interacting. You don't have to play these games this way but it does seem to be a common way to play. In Zero-K the units tend to be positioned close to enemy units and fights are much more continuous. Radar also plays a role in constant unit interaction since spotting and responding to enemy units is an interaction. Lots of the TA genre of games have this type of gameplay.

Steel_Blue if you're going to compare the economy to the Starcraft II economy then you need to take more aspects into account. In Starcraft II an SCV merely costs 50 minerals and a bit of Command Center time. In Zero-K a mex costs:

• Some factory time to build a constructor.
• The cost of a constructor.
• All the time that the constructor spends walking towards the metal spot.
• The cost of the metal extractor.
• The extra cost of defending many resource points outside your base.
• A Solar Collector (or equivalent) to use the income.

Overbuilding buildpower is a necessary part of playing Zero-K, and a lot of that necessity comes from the walking-cost of moving to distant metal extractors. I consider part of a constructor's value to be its distance from your factory since creating that distance costs constructor time. Killing constructors should be the main aim of raiding.