Community9 Aug 2026Cold Take #45 - Automatic DodgingSimulated projectile physics is a core part of Zero-K, both for the aesthetics and as a balance tool. Rather than using armour classes, light units are nimble enough to dodge most of the projectiles meant for heavier targets. We also want to create powerful controls, so players can fight their opponents rather than the UI , and automation is part of achieving this goal. So you might expect us t…
Automation means making tasks complete themselves without player intervention. The concept has a bit of baggage, at least in RTS, as people worry it means that a game will play itself. Some spin-off genres have found success in automating away large parts of RTS, such as DotA and autobattlers, but Zero-K wants to retain the core RTS sense of full player control. Sometimes we are accused of auto…
This update polishes a few mechanics and includes quite a few fixes. Singularity Reactors get their wobbly balls back and the guard command should be much more useful. Disarm no longer hard-disables jumpers while winding up and some pathfinding problems with cheap nanoframe spam have been resolved. Some of the changes are due to an engine update, which should stick as the engine is close to the…
Zero-K is extremely customisable, which is great but risks making the game unapproachable. The problem with customisation is that it asks players to optimise their own experience without necessarily giving them the background required to make an informed choice. In general, an option is useful if players understand it well enough to sort themselves into the various versions of the game implied…
Space clicking wrecks and build options is back by popular demand ( and ). Thanks to everyone who opened tickets to remind us that this probably should have been a hotfix earlier. Fixes · Fixed space+click context menu crash when activated on a non-unit. · Fixed map download for Planet Karuwal. · Commander egg can be built underwater. · Fixed Pheonix. · Fixed some weird edge cases in grid cable…
The basic reclaim mechanic is as follows: units leave wrecks when they die, and these wrecks can be harvested by constructors for extra metal . This sounds like a simple enough mechanic, but the more I think about it, the more I feel like Zero-K would not work without it. Reclaim is common to most games inspired by Total Annihilation , although its importance varies depending on how lucrative i…
This is a small fix update which also has some commander tweaks. The big wire change is that the settings are now local, which means people with the graphics bugs on Linux can disable them until we figure out the problem. · Fixed cable settings being global, i.e., the last player who toggled cables controlled cables for everyone. This is what caused the setting to look like it needed toggling t…
This update adds wires between structures to visually connect energy grids. This makes grids easier to use and more satisfying to build. We have also added commander eggs, which let players rebuild lost commanders. The egg can also be transported and thrown, to take advantage of its disabling explosion. On the more regular side of things we have a revert of the Hermit regeneration experiment, a…
The term "deathball" comes up whenever players complain that roaming around the map with a single army is too powerful. The complaint conflates whether deathballs are unfun to use, or just unfun to fight, but it is worth keeping both possibilities in mind. Most RTS designs address deathballing to some extent, but vary on how much they mitigate its issues or just outright discourage it. Deathbal…
Planetwars is live right now. The second open playtest is in full swing, with 240 invasions launched in the past 26 hours. We designed the round to last the weekend, although it is hard to dial in, although we are considering pausing it during the week. This forum post summarises the changes since the last test. This patch makes command structures easier to kill, which is the main secondary ing…
This is a small lobby update to prepare for the next Planetwars test round. The round is starting in a little over 45 hours from this post (2026/05/01 at 12:00 PM UTC). More information on the changes is to come shortly. Factions can now be joined via the in-lobby faction selection UI.
Cold Takes usually cover a concept used in the design of Zero-K, but this one is about a term invented by players to describe an issue with the game. This issue involved the "retreat range bonus", but the term was initially perplexing because it describes something that is both emergent and ubiquitous. Nobody could tell me how other games dealt with it, and it seemed very hard to remove without…
This release includes an amazing new soundtrack by Vladislav Lapochkin (D.700). It is the new default, and all previous soundtracks can still be selected ingame under Settings/Audio. Big thanks to everyone who contributes music, eventually we will have enough to give each factory its own theme. The contributions don't stop with an hour of new music. This release also has some Gunship tweaks by…
A conflict has been brewing over the course of this series. Half the cold takes, those on general design principles, often imply that Zero-K avoids special abilities, while the other half shatter this impression by being about specific special abilities. In this post we will try to resolve this apparent disagreement by exploring how special abilities work and what makes an ability suitable for…
Almost everything players do in RTS is done by issuing direct commands or by toggling states. Direct commands give units a temporary goal, and include classics such as "move to this location" or "shoot at this enemy until it dies". State toggles make more permanent changes to how a unit behaves, at least until the state is toggled back. Examples include auto-cast toggles, toggleable abilities,…
Most strategy games have tools for spying on the enemy, often at the cost of resources. This is known as scouting, and it is a tricky thing to design since its balance depends on the usefulness of information. Scouting is a waste of resources if you know the enemy's plans, or if your response would not be changed by knowing them. On the other end of the scale, games with large strategy spaces r…
This release is mainly about tweaking a few overused units. Venom is slightly worse at stunning to counteract the overstun change, and other Spiders were buffed to compensate. Lobster now gives the enemy a little more time to react and Magpie should be easier to scare away. Terraform is also UI-nerfed against Missile Silo, as the Force Fire UI now warns you about unintended terrain interactions…
Strategic freedom is a fragile thing, yet the feeling of devising your own plans is something that many games try to instil. The issue is that, as players explore and refine their strategies, the space of viable strategies can narrow down to a few options. This is usually seen as a problem with competitive multiplayer, but singleplayer games are not immune. Any game that offers strategic explor…
The Huge Graphics Update of last week was a huge success and only introduced a few minor issues. This update fixes the ones that we are aware of. · Fixed a texture detail issue that made units slightly pixelated and a bit harder to distinguish at medium zoom levels. · Tweaked outlines to be a bit more visible when zoomed out, by default. · Fixed status effects clipping into undamaged nanoframes…
This update overhauls the tech behind drawing units, wrecks and map features on your screen. This has many advantages. To start with, it allows for more and better looking fancy unit rendering effects, many of which are showcased in gif form below. It should also be less performance hungry on most hardware since it makes much more use of the GPU. The deeper impact is that the new tech (physical…
Shield generators are a mainstay of sci-fi across mediums, and RTS is no exception. Games tend to use shields as an extra type of hitpoints, one that tends to have some advantage or is at least easier to replenish. They also make for great eye candy. So it is weird that Total Annihilation lacks shields, and understandable that almost every game it spawned includes them. Even TA modders got in o…
This is a guest post by Aquanim, who led the 2016 sea rework. Over two thirds of our own planet is covered by oceans. Therefore, strategy games which are played on planetary landscapes have some reason to consider how to handle bodies of water. The simplest approach is to treat water bodies as an impassable barrier to land units and leave it at that. In games where units can interact with water…
Slow damage is the more prolific, yet less dramatic, cousin of EMP and disarm . It is weaker than EMP in that it never fully disables a unit, but the effect gradually ramps up from the very first instance of damage, making it useful in more situations. This gradual but persistent effect let us spread slow across more weapon types and roles, to the point it became a meme. But whereas EMP was inh…
This update has tweaks and fixes for the update from two weeks ago. Detriment now responds to status effects while winding up its jump, and being transported cancels the jump entirely. Racketeer is also better at keeping large units disabled. Tweaks Status effects and transportation interact with the jump windup of Jugglenaut and Detriment . · Stun and disarm pause windup progress. Jump cannot…
Strategy games present players with an evolving set of problems and a selection of tools with which to solve them. The problems in RTS tend to boil down to the fact that the enemy has units, so a lot of the tools offer ways to damage and destroy units. But using the same type of tool over and over can feel repetitive, so many games also give players ways to weaken enemy units without killing th…
This update is packed with unusual buffs. For starters, Detriment can now jump three times in a row, but every factory technically has some unit that was buffed. Most of the buffs are via a change to the stun and disarm system that will help units avoid wasting the duration of stacked stuns. We have even increased the starting resources slightly, and added more of an incentive for teammates to…
I am a huge fan of terrain manipulation, even in real time strategy games. At its best, terraform is a supercharged form of map modification which belongs to nobody when built, allowing both sides to adapt to the new terrain. A wall to shelter from artillery might be a great idea for the moment, but it becomes a liability when the enemy uses its shadow to send spiders swarming over the top. The…
Base building seems to be a mandatory part of the RTS genre and there are a lot of ways to go about it. Some games keep most structures confined to the main base while others encourage players to spread them all over the map. Many games use the base as an embodied tech tree that unlocks more powerful units, or at least use base building as some form of escalation . But the most interesting part…
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