Zero-K v1.5.4.11 - Empire Wins Planetwars

A few days ago, Empire won the latest round of Planetwars with a deep strike to capture Sparta, the Federation homeworld. Throne was lost in the process (due to a malfunctioning warp jammer) but after a developer discussion we decided to continue the round with the surprising (to some) rule that homeworlds can be exploded. We aim to fix the bugs and balance issues found in this round and run further planetwars until we can support lengthy galaxy-wide wars. We should mostly be simplifying and polishing current mechanics instead of adding any new big things to planetwars.

Feedback is welcome.

Balance

• Disarm now interrupts bursts (in the same way that EMP does). For example a Catapult can start firing, get disarmed and finish firing when the disarm wears off.
• Djinn obeys disarm.
• Commander area jammer and area cloaker modules now drain energy. Not draining energy was a bug.

Interface

Added selection filtering, as requested here: http://zero-k.info/Forum/Thread/23954.

• All units have a Selection Rank state toggle that ranges from 0 to 3.
• Structures have rank 1, constructors have rank 2, and combat units (commanders included) have rank 3.
• When selecting multiple units the units without the greatest rank in the selection are filtered out.
• Hold Shift to ignore rank and create selections of mixed rank.
• Hold Ctrl to ignore rank above a certain (configurable) threshold. The default ignores rank differences above 1, this means that Ctrl+A will select all units with rank at least 1.
• Selection Rank is a state toggle so you can configure your unit defaults in 'Game/New Unit States', just like any other state toggle.
• If you don't want selection filtering then disable it in 'Settings/Interface/Selection'.

Hotkeys for setting a particular unit state are now configurable in the 'Game/Command Hotkeys' menu. Previously the only state hotkeys available through this menu would toggle the state. With these new commands you could, for example, bind a key to set your units to hold fire by binding "Fire State: 0".

Improved the state toggle icon for overkill prevention.

Chickens

• Fixed to White Dragon behavior.
• Removed Spidermonkey weapon lighting and reduced impulse.
• Tweaked some timing values. Lategame chickens occur slightly earlier and small chickens become obsolete sooner.
• Added savegame support for chickens.

Fixes

• Fixed command hotkey visualization for de-disabled commands during tutorials.
• Fixed night view in missions.
• Fixed Hacksaw description.
• Fixed unit AI command for non-transports.
• Fixed some shader errors on strict drivers.
• Fixed slow mex glow update when overdrive changes.
• Fixed Convict animation.

You did not even mention the gamebreaking bug that prevented players from defending planets which resulted in empire taking federation planets without expected resistance. I think game would still be ongoing and taken unexpected turn if this bug was addressed.
On the contrary the bug that allowed the capture of Throne using string connector was addressed on the spot.

I fully understand. It only saddens me that you seem to not even see the issue or consider it important enough to mention in this summary. I think that it was one of biggest bugs in this PW. On the other hand, the PB issue was minor - it did not prevent players from playing the game and it would require a lot of dropships to even consider capturing it.

As far as I know, Dynasty got around the defensive pact problem by temporarily joining Federation in the end to defend the homeworld. There were not enough PW-players online at the right time from Dynasty and Federation combined to defend most of the planets I took from Federation in that push, as far as I know. (I checked the player list on occasion believing that the defensive pact was operational, and as far as I recall no Dynasty player attempted an attack in that period.)

I do not think it affected the game as much as you think, although obviously it wasn't good.

On the other hand the question of "should a small handful of players in an unusual timezone affect the game to this degree" is a valid one.

As far as I know the defensive pact issue is still not fixed... because it's quite non-obvious what was actually causing it.

The planet busters (and string connectors) weren't supposed to target homeworlds in the first place, and yet that didn't get fixed either.

Before you start accusing people of bias (even if you choose to be backhanded about it)... maybe have a think about the facts, and then don't?

Vistritium what is your aim? What is your point?

Irrelevantly:

quote: Winning just 2 of battles in the assault of PB could make enough time for PB to activate and, for example, fire at Sparta making feds invulnerable.

Re-targeting a planetbuster resets its cooldown. It could not be quickly switched to destroy Sparta.

I don't take kindly to the effort which I and others put into Planetwars to win this round being dismissed as illegitimate because some GBC players are salty. If Federation players were complaining (and make no mistake, they were the ones in a position to win if Empire did not) I'd be somewhat more tolerant of that.

quote: all or most battles on the last day of PW when empire was taking planets on the way to PB and Sparta.

You weren't around for a fair few of them, and you'd almost certainly have lost them anyway 1v2.

quote: Also, fify. quote: the defensive pact issue is still not fixed... because it didn't get any attention.

Now you're making shit up. Justify this or shut your lying mouth.

We should probably take this to the lobby now. This discussion is no longer fit for the forum.

I like ideas like that, more ingame interaction.

Anyone who built it or any faction leader can send it (like a dropship). Of course, it's a one time use so if enemy manages to destroy it before detonation you just wasted your metal. For ingame ownership, it's just a building with a timer with automatic detonation so it's not important. Obviously faction leader would choose an appropriate time to send it.

It would really help the understanding of PW if the icons next to planets were explained in the map.