Category: Uncategorized

Back with more infrastructure improvements in the quest to cut your game waiting times and improve satisfaction 🙂

There are now specialed managed hosts – they have a star in the lobby.
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* TEAMS – makes 2 team games,pick maps based on player counts

* 1v1 – for 1v1 battles,picks 1v1 maps

* FFA – for free for all – they pick ffa map based on player count, balance ffa

* COOP – for Chikens and CAI fights – pick chicken maps, balances for 1 vs bots and add its own normal chicken if players dont

All of those managed hosts auto balance on !start and are prefered way to play now.

Please use them instead of hosting your own, because only those participate in another addition:

The Player Juggler
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Player juggler is a way to merge classical matchmaking with normal battleroom based gaming.
Its a system that moves waiting people together based on their preferences.

Each person can set his/her prefences on home page.
Juggler takes into account things like player preferences, current battle, elo, clan to make suitable changes.

How to use it?
* First go and set your personal preferences. If you set something as dislike, juggler will never move you to disliked battle type.
* Next join the managed autohost of battle type you want to play – say FFA autohost.
* Wait,every 2 minutes juggler checks available people waiting on other managed autohosts (including those that joined running battle late) and if sensible games can be made from the people, it moves them together into games.

For details about inner workings check: http://code.google.com/p/zero-k/wiki/PlayerJuggler

Other minor additions
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* !map (no params) on autohosts picks next suitable map (managed only)
* TEAMS autohosts give extra comms to smaller team
* major springie rewrite with lots of changes

Hurray! No more need for pausing – intelligent lag monitor is here.
Laggy/afk people will be given to the most skilled person on team, and when they come back, their units will return instantly.

Gameplay changes:
* destroyer morphs to warlord
* hovercon brake rate and build distance improved
* behemoth has high trajectory
* banisher 2x rate of fire 1/2 damage

Other changes:
* voice commands improvements
* new pyro texture by smoth

Fixes/tweaks:
* endvote button to votes
* small nuke effects for water
* terraform slope detection fix

Yep, another fast update – this time with a new feature, voice commands. This one also contains a gameplay change though, so those who use ships or striders should take note.

General
* Added a voice command widget (Windows only)
* Implemented the Strider hub. This builds all the units previously exclusive to the Athena (from which they have been removed), as well as the missile sub, battleship and carrier (no longer buildable at the shipyard).
* (Re)added the Surfboard, a transport from which land units can fire
* Fixed Missile Silo not working properly

Modules
* Fixed aiming/firing issues with torpedo module

Chicken
* Fixed excessively fast teching in chicken
* Fixed chickens inappropriately going after human/CAI players on their team
* Chicken/burrow count rises less dramatically with playercount in large games
* Speed Queen has more health

Interface
* Playerlist is much slimmer now; uses icons instead of text for ping/CPU indicators. A numerical reading is still available from the mouseover tooltip. Also fixed some bugs with player display.
* Core Selector: default number of buttons reduced from 8 to 6 (can be changed in settings). Comm selection hotkey more responsive.

Several fixes for important bugs in this quick post-Christmas update. Changelog includes v0.9.5.1 changes.

Fixes
* Fixed bombers trying to attack with no ammo
* Fixed “Hadron collider” unit launching exploit. Buildings can no longer be placed in open factories.
* Fixed Strike Commanders always having cloak
* Jumping resets a unit’s velocity again
* Chicken: Fixed resetting of tech timer to its lowest possible value each time a burrow was killed
* Slowing weapons now affect construction speed
* Fixed Storage description
* Healthbars cannot show negative health values.

Interface
* Fixed Ctrl+C selection of commanders with more than one commander
* Commanders can now have their initial fire and move state set through the menu. Game -> Unit AI -> Initial States -> Misc
* Command menu tabs can be scrolled with [,] and [.]

Balance
* Flamethrower weapons now lead their targets more reliably (as a side effect, they may look odd with LuaShaders off)
* Catapult: cost 4000 -> 3500; AoE 96 -> 128; HP 4500 -> 4000
* Thug beefier: HP 800 -> 850; Shield 1000 -> 1100; Shield regen 14 -> 15
* Tick: Param time 30s -> 25s; Damage 4k -> 3.5k
* Behemoth: cost 3000 -> 2500
* Firewalker is more accurate
* Bandit turret turns 55% faster

Graphics
* Pyro has a new model/texture
* VR Grid no longer obscures weapon effects and the like
* Behemoth has a flashier weapon effect

Christmas comes early for good boys and girls! Santa’s bringing a new version, with lots of bugfixes and an awesome increase in framerate!

(Unfortunately, we also had to reset your widget settings and keybinds. Sorry about that. You should back up Documents/My Games/Spring/uikeys.txt if you modified it manually.)

Engine
Should no longer crash on default settings with Intel cards
Implemented a new terrain rendering system (much much faster)
Improved pathfinding

General
Added awards for building mexes and doing damage with commanders

Modules
Added a torpedo module

Balance
Felon: HP 1000 -> 1400, cost 700 -> 650
Dominatrix works faster on damaged units; cost 400 -> 420
Typhoon (corvette): HP 2400 -> 2200, damage per shot 11 -> 10
Shipyard HP increased 50% (4000 -> 6000)

Graphics
New Welder (tank constructor) model
Fixed missing subs and precision bomber weapon effects when hitting underwater targets
Improved Skeeter, Pillager and Crabe weapon FX
Krow corpse scaled down to fit unit

Interface
Fixed crashes in player list and unit XP display
Added Map category to widget list