Zero-K v1.14.2.0 - Lobster, Magpie, Venom, and Engine

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.

The engine was also updated, and it should stick this time as it was found to be quite stable in testing. The big feature is the adoption of quaternions for unit animation (just in the backend, no API changes), which makes units move and aim more smoothly. Missile trails are also much smoother, replacing the old jagged lines. These changes were blocked behind the game-side graphics update of a few months ago, and the work is ongoing. For example, this release includes a new shiny Likho texture by brunocb.

Balance

Lobster launch is slightly delayed and can be interrupted. It also costs slightly more, but at least none of these nerfs are to launch range.

• Cost 340 -> 350
• Reload time 14s -> 18s
• Time from initial upwards launch to sideways impulse 0.16s -> 0.4s
• Dead or disabled Lobsters no longer complete their launches from beyond the grave.

Magpie loses its exceptional health efficiency but gains a little damage efficiency (scary!)

• Cost 220 -> 210
• Health 900 -> 740

Venom is slightly worse at stunning, to the point that three are required to completely lock down a unit.

• Reload time 1.13s -> 1.2s
• Overstun time 0.5s -> 0.3s

Hermit deepens the Cloak-Spider ability exchange.

• Now heals at 10 hp/s after 10 seconds of not taking damage.

Redback is tougher and is better at aiming.

• Health 900 -> 980
• Turret swivels 50% faster.
• Range 300 -> 310

Tarantula gains damage to compete with lighter and faster anti-air.

• Damage 270 -> 310

Thug has a better weapon.

• Turret turn rate buffed by 20%
• Reload time 4s -> 3.9s
• Projectile speed buffed by 2.4%
• Damage 170 -> 180

Skuttle deals slightly more damage on near misses.

• Area of effect edge effectiveness 0.3 -> 0.4

Claymore is better behaved at sea.

• Fixed a bug that prevented it from aiming directly behind itself.

Flail leans into its weakness as it seems slightly too good since its buff.

• Reload time 5.2s -> 5.4s

Mariner becomes one of the more efficient constructors.

• Cost 200 -> 170
• Build range 330 -> 350

Ultimatum is slightly cheaper and harder to find.

• Cost 2500 -> 2400
• Decloak radius 120 -> 110

Amphibious water regeneration is no longer active when flying over the water.

Interface

• Queued jump commands now activate as soon as a units stun or disarm wears off. Previously the command could be delayed by up to half a second. This means that Pyro will always be able to find a split second in which to jump away from a pair of Venoms.
• The Force Fire area of effect preview now indicate when a vertically launched missile would hit terrain (Impaler, Trinity, Missile Silo etc).
• Added size settings for healthbars ingame under Settings/Interface/Healthbars (thanks therxyy).
• Units no longer lose experience when they damage units that were previously killed on the same game frame. For some reason this mostly affected Jugglenaut.

Graphics

• Updated Likho texture to take advantage of the new tech (thanks brunocb).
• Missile trails are no longer jagged.
• Unit animations are now smoothly interpolated between frames.
• Tone down Ripper roughness to restore some ambient brightness (fixed since v1.13.12.3).
• Thug model is no longer slightly off-centre.
• Toned down the slow component when mixed with EMP and disarm, to make EMP and disarm easier to see.

Modding

• Multi-unit piece attachment monstrosities no longer have a 1-frame delay when updating child positions. I.e. the subtle issue demonstrated below is fixed, and will scale to deeper trees of attachment. Just saying...
• Fixed potential bug with Engineer Blueprint blocking normal build options. The main game happened to avoid triggering it.
• Fixed massively overslowed units drawing the disarm effect.
• Fixed an issue with combining static and dynamic model rescaling (thanks XNTEABDSC).

Fixes

• Fix status effect bytepacking (floatpacking?) so slow + fire != disarm (fixed since v1.13.12.3).
• Being "stunned" by being in a transport no longer draws the EMP effect (unless the unit also has enough EMP damage to be stunned).
• Another attempt at fixing post-jump Jugglenaut, Detriment, and Recon Commander skating.
• Fixed Lobster-launched units sometimes leaving tracks on the ground below them near the end of their trajectory.
• The Tank Plate unit portrait now matches the unit.
• Fix crash when Draw on icons is not enabled (thanks Helwor)
• Fixed a small visual issue with terraform point rendering.
• Fixed Claws sometimes showing a radar dot shortly after death.