Zero-K v1.11.12.4 - Blastwing Split

The Blastwing rework continues, with most of the feedback suggesting it dealt too much damage, although a few edge cases in its behaviour have also been fixed. There is also an overdue Corsair buff and tweaks to make Disco Rave Party less fiddly. The big feature is a command to split large autohosts with many waiting players, so everyone gets a game, and the big graphics update is darker, faster, and better looking "terrain" beyond the edge of the map.

Balance

**Blastwing **gained more damage than it needed to in the recent rework.

• Health 100 -> 80

• Speed reduced by 5%, which also reduces bomb toss range.

• Damage 320 -> 300 -> 280 -> 250

• Burn time 24s -> 14s -> 12s

**Corsair **is even better against Hunter and can stand up to Siren.

• Health 1350 -> 1500

• Speed 81 -> 90

• Range 293 -> 300

• Spread 1500 -> 2500

• Damage increased by 18%

**Disco Rave Party **no longer innately loses spin while turning.

• Instead, DRP now turns slower at high spin. There penalty ramps up from none at 50% spin, to 3x slower at 100% spin.

• DRP now has unit AI that voluntarily reduces spin to turn faster. The AI optimises for time taken to turn then spin back up to 100%.

• Reduced maximum turn rate by 25% to compensate, and to make the optimisation work out.

• This DRP should be much easier to control since it will spin up to a high minimum, and stay there unless large turns are required. Minor shifts such as radar wobble no longer reduce spin.

• Advanced DRP users also have more options. A 90 degree order can be issued to make DRP turn ASAP, or Alt+Ctrl+Shift attack can be used to drag 1-shot orders to walk slowly through the enemy base if punctuality is not a priority.

Waiting List Split

A new command, !split, is now available in large teams autohosts.

• Anyone can do a** !split **when at least 40 players are waiting (so at least 8 are on the waiting list).

• The command sends 40% of the lobby to a new autohost, so everyone has a chance to play.

• The top rated players are sent to the new host, to give everyone more evenly balanced games.

• The uneven split is an experiment. Experience suggests it will create more games. Send feedback.

• Everyone needs the update for this to work smoothly, so the first day may be rough if players don't restart to get the update.

Features

• Added Battle Value Tracker, a widget that tracks kills and losses in engagements as they happen (thanks citrine). It was useful for Blastwing. Enable under Settings/Interface/Battle Value Tracker.

• Reworked the offmap terrain. It is now a dark opaque grid of uniform squares that match the resolution of the terrain, rather than a stretched texture. It also costs less performance.

• Language can be overridden locally by copying files from (https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K/tree/master/LuaUI/Configs/lang) to LuaUI/Configs/lang.

• Added minimap preview tooltip.

• Enabled https for all external zero-k.info links.

• Update Italian, Polish, and Chinese/Taiwanese translations.

• Brightened first ally blue (in a previous patch).

• Improved thermite and flamethrower effects (in a previous patch).

Fixes

• Fixed various issues with Blastwing having trouble finding a place to land.

• Fixed Blastwing overshooting when told to attack something at the base of a cliff.

• Odin can no longer fire without ammo while touching down or sitting on a rearm pad.

• Cerberus now aims even when its current muzzle position is blocked.

• Reduced Cerberus and Lucifer hitvolume sizes, to keep them within their footprints.

• Lobster throw indicator no longer highlights structures and aircraft.

• Fixed Raise tooltip values for blocking vehicles and bots, and tweaked Alt snap to match.

• Removed Odin's redundant reload bar for its shield cluster.

• Fixed invalid events in action tracking camera.

• Particularly quick double-click-drag selections no longer ignore selection rank.