This is the first big balance patch of the year, just in time for the second tournament series of the year. Shieldbots are better early and have more tools in their arsenal, but the standard shieldball is less powerful. Hover and Tank have buffs for improved unit variety and to bring them up to the power level of Rover. Spider has a few small tweaks to make them less reliant on Venom.


Lobster Roll series two will start on the 17th of April and is open to everyone. There is a round robin warm-up tournament this coming weekend, on the 10th of April. Sign up to the round robin here. Join the Discord server for announcements about the upcoming series.


The following changes have been applied to the matchmaking pool. The full pool can be viewed here.

• Added - Crubick Plains, Aurelian, Calayo, Red Comet Remake, Fairyland, Sertaleina.
  
• Removed - Sparkles Reef, Prestige, Otago, Iced Coffee, Ravaged, Mechadansonia.
  
• Updated - Cobalt Dream, Dune Patrol Redux, Fallendell.

Shieldbots are the main issue among the bot factories, and it was not just an issue of overall power. Players in the middle of the ladder were having trouble against the Shield midgame, while those at the top found Shield to be at too much of an early disadvantage. To solve this we buffed their early game while nerfing the standard shieldball. We have also tweaked Spiders to make them less reliant on Venom.

Bandit is a bit better to help Shieldbots through the early game.

• Health 330 -> 340
  
• DPS increased by 2.5%

Convict is faster to assist early expansion.

• Speed 60 -> 61.5

Rogue has a nerf to save some matchups from mass Rogue supported by the buffed Bandit.

• Health 580 -> 540
  
• Turn rate reduced by 10%.
  
• Projectile velocity 192 -> 185
  
• Damage 350 -> 340

Thug regenerates slower to make shield charge more valuable.

• Speed 57.75 -> 57 (what a weird number, now same as Outlaw)
  
• Shield capacity 1250 -> 1200
  
• Shield regen 16/s -> 14/s

Felon has 18.8% less DPS and charges slower.

• Shield regen 18/s -> 16/s
  
• Aim time 0.3s -> 0.166s
  
• Reload 0.13s -> 0.16s
  
• Charge per shot 75 -> 80
  
• Damage 108.4 -> 110

Outlaw takes on more responsibility for riot power from Felon.

• Cost 260 -> 250
  
• Health 1050 -> 1100
  
• DPS increased by 13%

Vandal takes on more responsibility for anti-air power from Felon.

• Range 880 -> 900

Racketeer is slightly easier to field.

• Cost 350 -> 340
  
• Speed 51 -> 52.5

Snitch is slightly harder to position.

• Speed 120 -> 117

Dirtbag is better at spotting and harassing.

• Speed 78 -> 84
  
• Sight range 560 -> 600
  
• Reload 2s -> 1.9s
  
• Damage 45 -> 55

Reaver has a buff to help Glaive deal with Bandit.

• Cost 220 -> 210
  
• Speed 1.71 -> 1.75
  
• Reload 0.5s -> 0.466s

Flea is harder to spot when burrowed.

• Decloak Radius 200 -> 160

Venom has less stun uptime, as well as slightly less DPS.

• Reload time 1.1s -> 1.133s.

Hermit is one of the more maligned assaults, so gains some assault power.

• Cost 160 -> 150
  
• Health 1400 -> 1500

Widow drains more energy to make it harder to field early on.

• Cloak cost 12/4 -> 15/5 (Moving/Static)

Rover is dominating the vehicle matchups, yet there were few complaints about Rover itself. We took this to mean that Rovers feel fun and well balanced, even when losing to them, so opted mostly leave the factory alone. Instead, we took a look at Hover and Tank. Hover has a decent earlygame but a lack of transitions, so we buffed some of their more niche units, while Tank has the opposite problem, so we buffed Tank earlygame.

Fencer is more vulnerable.

• Health 560 -> 530
  
• Setup time is 6.6% longer

Quill is now only slightly more expensive than a standard constructor.

• Cost 130 -> 125

Halberd can be unleashed now that Anti-Bait makes it less annoying to fight.

• Cost 240 -> 210

Mace is a better riot at the expense of a little range.

• Health 1300 -> 1400
  
• Range 345 -> 340
  
• Aims 20% faster
  
• DPS increased by 10%

Kodachi feels fairer to fight so can afford a buff.

• Cost 180 -> 175
  
• Health 670 -> 680

Welder is cheaper but also more vulnerable to raiders.

• Cost 200 -> 185
  
• Health 1800 -> 1700
  
• DPS reduced by 4%

Ogre needs a buff to fight Mace 1v1 and win.

• Health 1850 -> 1950

There are now some optional resource panels to enable under 'Settings/HUD Panels/Economy Panel' with Simple Settings disabled. They need to be positioned with Ctrl+F11. There are two panels to track constructor activity, a panel for overdrive, and a panel for wind speed.

Other Changes:

• Added Shield Charge/Maximum to aggregate selection stats and switched some rows to improve order stability.
  
• Added Avoid Bad Targets toggle for Claw, Ultimatum, Scorpion and Nimbus.
  
• Nimbus flies a little closer to make it reliably fire at tall turrets.
  
• Artemis overkill prevention is more careful about wasting missiles.
  
• Mace skirms more unit types.

• Fixed two bugs that caused some terraform shapes to stall at 99% completion.
  
• Fixed commander drone duplication upon morph.
  
• Crab is better at uncurling.
  
• Clear Factory Queue now works with factories set to Wait.
  
• Fixed Artemis not firing when on land of height zero.
  
• Landbound Urchins are better at firing into the deep ocean.
  
• Fixed transports having trouble unloading tall units.
  
• Fixed some edge cases with antinukes.
  
• Fixed Ravager suspension.
  
• Tacnuke sounds now play at higher priority.

The big feature in this update is bait prevention. Units and turrets, such as Artemis, should be significantly better now that they can more precisely obey your wishes. Felon is a beneficiary as it can be told to avoid armoured units, but it may be kept in check by another new behaviour: Most units now fire at the edge of small shields if there is nothing else in range.

There are few actual balance changes to better observe the ramification of the latest advances in unit command. Apart from that there are a few features and fixes, such as the ability to click on names in the endgame stats to highlight a line, and improved map filtering.


Advanced Radar moves towards justifying its cost, as an experiment.

• Cost 500 -> 400
  
• Sight 800 -> 1120
  
• Range 4000 -> 5600

Claymore has a smaller collision volume.

Duck missiles have less fuel, but still enough to hit land targets.

Jugglenaut and Newton now have aim lookahead (aiming towards targets that are about to enter range).


Units and turrets with reload time or costly projectiles can now be told to avoid low value targets. This can be configured under Settings/Unit Behaviour or controlled with the Avoid Bad Targets state, which is shown by default. The states are:

• Disabled.
  
• Free - Avoid light drones, Wind, Solar, Claw (Badger mines), Dirtbag, nanoframes up to 50 metal and armoured targets (except Crab).
  
• Light - As above, as well as units costing less than 90, Razor, Sparrow and unidentified radar dots.
  
• Medium - As above, as well as units costing less than 240, except Stardust, with the addition of Raptor.
  
• Heavy - As above, as well as units costing less than 420.

Some units default to Free and a few default to Light. The behaviour is overridden by Attack Move as well as manual targeting.

Units are also more opportunistic when it comes to fighting shields, now firing at nearby small shields if nothing else is in range. Most non-artillery do this and it is essentially a range buff against shieldballs. This behaviour, called Ward Fire, can be configured in Settings/Unit Behaviour or enabled as a state toggle under Settings/Interface/Commands.

There are also a few improvements to Attack Move.

• Siren brings its main gun into range on Attack Move.
  
• Most skirmishers and assaults no longer engage drones on Attack Move, however they will still fire at them if nothing else is in range.

• Individual players can now be highlighted in the endgame graphs by clicking on their name.
  
• Improved the filter box of the map list.
  
• Renamed 'Map Selection' to 'Set Map Bans' in the Matchmaker Tab.
  
• Selecting Puppy, Athena, Caretaker and Strider Hub enables the reclaim highlight overlay.
  
• Unit info screens now show movement type.
  
• Clarified Reaver and Hercules helptext.

• Greased Tremor rotary drive.
  
• Fixed Crab curling?
  
• Fixed Adamantine Mountain team names.
  
• Fixed newly constructed units sometimes not following factory waypoints.
  
• Fixed overkill prevention sometimes knowing too much about unidentified radar dots.
  
• Fixed trouble toggling Puppy Goo.
  
• Fixed some parts of long terraform queues being cancelled prematurely.
  
• Removed Leaper Chickens from planets Sapphire and Vis Ragstrom.

This is a balance patch, with changes to raiders, artillery, turrets, cloaking and drones. Each of the medium turrets has been nerfed, with a large nerf for Stinger, a fancy nerf for Stardust, and small nerfs for Faraday and Gauss. Most of the raiders with high burst damage have less range, as they may have been buffed a bit too much by the aiming improvements of last year. Some of the more oppressive artillery is a little worse, area cloaking is harder to use in general combat, and commander drones should be less annoying to fight.

Other changes include an excellent new walk animation for Outlaw and some behaviour fixes for Attack-Move.


Duck reliably hits units as small as Glaive, but lost a little range. It is a little sad to see a physics trick go, but Amphbots should not be balanced around around swingy raider interactions.

• Land range 240 -> 235
  
• Projectile velocity increased by 10%
  
• Projectile turn rate increased by 39%

Venom lost some range and health.

• Range 245 -> 240
  
• Health 750 -> 740

Dagger lost the most range because it is the fastest.

• Range 212 -> 205

Blitz didn't lose any range because it is not as popular as other burst damage raiders.

Claymore is more reliably useful, but we are taking care to not make it too powerful too quickly.

• Health 1260 -> 1300
  
• Projectile speed increased by about 50% (both on land and sea)
  
• Range 300 -> 280 (both on land and sea)

Sling loses some damage in sympathy with Stinger.

• Damage 150 -> 140

Badger loses most of the 25% damage buff caused by fixing its 5th Claw bomblet.

• Mine damage 200 -> 170.

Tremor finally loses the ability to fire while moving, and must pack up to move.


Stardust now 'heats up' as it fires, reducing fire rate as it does so. This allows it to retain most of its power against raiders while dealing less sustained damage to tankier assaults.

• Gains 3.8% heat per shot.
  
• Loses 14.3% per second.
  
• Slow scales up to 50% at max heat.
  
• Starts with 100% heat.

Faraday is more of a weighty choice.

• Cost 250 -> 260

Gauss deals less damage to lean into its anti-artillery role.

• Reload 2s -> 2.1s

Stinger is less efficient and easier to assault.

• Cost 420 -> 450
  
• Health 2475 -> 2250

Starting metal is lower to give small units a bit more space to breathe.

• Income +6 metal, +8 energy -> +5 metal, +8 energy (-1 metal income for commanders).
  
• Initial resources 300 metal and energy -> 250 metal and energy.

Cloaking an army for general combat is now harder and less effective.

• Iris radius 440 -> 400.
  
• Increased recloak time for area cloaking 5s -> 6s.
  
• Default decloak radius for area cloaking is now 12*footprint + 56, instead of 75. This means most units have a decloak radius of 80, 92 or 104.
  
• Imp and Snitch have their decloak radius increased 75 -> 80. Other units with personal cloak are unaffected by the decloak radius change.

Companion Drones are cheaper and easier to catch with raiders.

• Cost 300 -> 200
  
• Range 180 -> 150
  
• Cruise Alt 100 -> 85
  
• Guardian progression 1/1/2/2/3/3 -> 1/1/2/2/2/3

Battle Drones are also cheaper, but Guardian Chassis only receives one for free.

• Cost 500 -> 350
  
• Range 240 -> 200
  
• Cruise Alt 100 -> 95
  
• Guardian progression 0/0/0/1/1/2 -> 0/0/0/0/1/1

Fractional reload times resulting from status effects are now rounded to the nearest frame, rather than round down. This buffs units with slow damage, particularly against units with a high rate of fire.

• Moving now consistently grants immunity to being kidnapped by enemy transports.
  
• Units on Attack-Move now periodically reset their target. This ensures that they don't end up chasing retreating enemies through enemy lines.
  
• Improved Emissary movement packing.
  
• The Alt+N default terraform hotkey makes slightly higher walls.
  
• Added a Caretaker deathclone, it blocks movement like most deathclones.
  
• Made it a little easier to shoot Lotus and Stinger from the bottom of cliffs.
  
• Tactical AI is off by default for Emissary.

• Improved Outlaw walk animation.
  
• Increased Bulkhead icon size slightly.
  
• Added checkbox options for unit halos, platters, selection halos, and selection shapes.
  
• Teamplatter widgets use the same base scaling as selection shapes.
  
• Map dimension and type are now shown below the map in the lobby.

• Fixed EMP breaking factories.
  
• Fixed Archer unit AI sometimes closing range inappropriately.
  
• Fixed Puppy Gather settings under Unit Behaviour not being applied.
  
• Damaging or killing drones no longer counts towards endgame stats.
  
• Reduced the permeability of the side walls of Shielbot Factory, Cloakbot Factory and Hovercraft Platform.
  
• Fixed camera state recall and ctrl/alt+MMB rotation jitters for COFC (the advanced camera).
  
• Fixed build spacing widget crash on rapid camera rotation.
  
• Disabling a selection widget no longer enables the basic selection squares if any other selection widget is enabled.
  
• Fixed Area Mex with Space, and no other modifiers, held.
  
• Fixed map terraform masking not applying to smoothing.

Tanks have been oppressive lately, with their ability to exert a lot of early pressure. Bakuhatsu suggested a slower Kodachi and organised some testing, which went fairly well, so we're going with this large yet simple change. In other news, playing new mods is now as simple as a single button on the mod page, Dirtbag is the guinea pig for a new animation system, bombers are a bit easier to control, and various lingering bugs have been fixed.


Kodachi no longer outruns Glaive and Scorcher.

• Speed 117 -> 108

• Bombers are smarter about rearming. They now temporarily skip to their next Move command after bombing, ignoring intervening Attack commands. This makes queuing a safe retreat after bombing a group of units much easier.
  
• Added a 'Play This Mod' button to mod pages on the site. See Future Wars for an example.
  
• Improved Dirtbag walk animation.
  
• Added Disarm Award.
  
• Added some Portuguese translations.
  
• Updated Russian translations.

• Save channel topic to avoid re-displaying it multiple times a session.
  
• Added a filter field for the map list.
  
• Added a toggle for excess metal flash under 'Settings/HUD Panels/Economy Panel'.
  
• Added a toggle for Attrition Counter under 'Settings/HUD Panels/Extras' so it can be bound to a hotkey.
  
• Added free stockpile to '/luarules nocost'.
  
• Added a few tip window settings under 'Settings/HUD Panels/Unit Stats Help Window' - useful for tutorial videos.

• Fixed a premature victory bug on Planet Tempest (as well as a few other missions).
  
• Fix terraform mex placement UI.
  
• Fixed airpads not working slower under slow/emp/disarm.
  
• Fixed a few poorly configured projectile lights.
  
• Fixed Slow Award damage calculation against commanders.
  
• Fixed team names on Adamantine Mountian.
  
• Fixes for the WIP Caretaker AI. It can be tested by enabling the widget 'Auto Patrol Nanos v2'.

Here are a few fixes to round out the year. Seawolf behaves better around coasts, Metal Extractor placement is smoother, and a lingering graphics bug has been resolved. This is probably the last patch of the year so I'd like to thank the community for helping each other through an otherwise difficult year.


Submarines can no longer traverse shallow water, reverting a recent experimental change. Unfortunately it resulted in Seawolf needlessly revealing itself to surface weaponry while skirting islands.

• Minimum depth 5 -> 15.
  
• Seawolf now has a higher aim point and fire point. This solves various weapon blocking bugs that could occur around coastlines.

Metal Extractor placement is now consistent with other structure placement.

• If you click where a mex can be placed, the mex is placed, otherwise the click is ignored.
  
• Previously, whether the click was used depended on the ghost under the mouse cursor.
  
• This caused issues such as being unable to click on a blocked location near a free metal spot to place a mex.

• Writing a report description is now mandatory.
  
• Replaced the 'Clan List' button in the Profile tab with 'Contact Admins' as this seems more useful.
  
• Fixed reclaim failing to be highlighted during start position selection.
  
• Filtered out the low quality part of the construction unit reply.
  
• Fixed the problems stemming from the outline shader update, possibly even correctly. This fixes the non-default widgets that were missed by the previous patch, such as Bloom and Blob Shader.
  
• Modding in extra shields is now a bit easier.

This patch started out with a slew of graphical and interface improvements, but grew to include a few balance tweaks as well. To start with, the main menu is a bit sharper and the panels on the right are more welcoming. Players can be now reported with a convenient form via the lobby or through the Tab Playerlist ingame. Other ingame improvements include instantly updating state toggles, a greatly improved outline shader, and hotkeys for terraform presets.

On the balance side of things, mexes are slightly weaker to reward early raiding and factories are bit cheaper to make switching easier. A few other units have been tweaked, with the biggest being nerfs for Funnelweb and Ultimatum, which should open up the mid-lategame options in large teams.


Metal Extractor is slightly more vulnerable to light raids.

• Health 700 -> 640

Factory switching can afford to be easier now that air is less dominant in 1v1.

• Cost 800 -> 700

Outlaw is worse against units that keep their distance.

• Cost 250 -> 260
  
• Further increased AoE damage falloff.

Knight is also worse against units that keep their distance.

• Range 350 -> 340

Pyro is slightly weaker because it is dominant in some matchups and we are not ready to look at Jumpbots. This is a partial revert of a buff from February, in which it gained 80 health and 8% DPS.

• Health 700 -> 670
  
• DPS reduced by 4%

Jack and Dirtbag deal extra damage due to a bugfix.

• No longer deal 'around' 25% less than their stated damage against targets 'near' max range.

Tarantula is better at hitting planes.

• Missile turn rate increased by 17%.

Swift is less able to dodge missiles.

• Thickened by 37.5%.

Raven swarms are slightly easier to rearm.

• Rearm time 10s -> 8s
  
• Rearm cost 100 -> 80 energy

Likho has more downtime between bombing runs.

• Rearm time 20s -> 25s
  
• Rearm cost 200 -> 250 energy

Ultimatum is more specialised against striders.

• Cost 2000 -> 2500
  
• Decloak Radius 100 -> 120
  
• Reload 1.5s -> 2s

Funnelweb loses the ability to outrun many armies.

• Cost 3500 -> 4000
  
• Speed 54 -> 40

Rover Assembly has a slightly smaller collision volume.

Airplane Plant no longer covers its construction and rearm pads with its collision volume.

• Lobster-bestowed fall damage immunity prevents cloak for its duration.
  
• Fixed a bug where burrowing units (Snitch, Imp and Flea) sometimes remaining cloaked when launched into the air.
  
• Fixed units sometimes retaining their full LOS when launched high into the air.
  
• Raven and Impaler overkill prevention is more lenient against targets that they do not kill in one shot.
  
• Overkill prevention for many burst weapons has been improved and some failure cases have been patched. In particular, burst anti-air should be a little better at finishing off damaged bombers.

• Clicking on a player and selecting 'Report' is now done entirely in-lobby.
  
• Decluttered the Community tab by removing the profile and ladder subwindows. Renamed to 'Welcome'.
  
• Added profile and profile links (such as commander editing and ladder ratings) to the Friends tab. Renamed to 'Profile'.
  
• Moved the first-launch tutorial prompt popup into the top of the news section of the new Welcome tab. Since a new entry is significantly less intrusive than a popup, it only disappears after completing the the tutorial or by toggling Settings -> Lobby -> 'Hide welcome tutorial prompt'.
  
• Tweaked the button alignment and skinning of the main menu and top right status buttons.
  
• Reskinned the top bar to make it clear that the lobby can be toggled while ingame.
  
• Fixed a bug with updating subheadings of the main logo.
  
• Reduced the default command opacity in Settings -> Game.

• State toggles now react to commands instantly rather than waiting for the changed state to reach the server.
  
• Replaced the kick button in the Tab Playerlist with a report button, that brings up an in-lobby report form. The form has a kick option, but it should be used sparringly.
  
• Added a smarter Caretaker widget called 'Auto Patrol Nanos v2'. It is not enabled by default as it requires more testing and fixes.
  
• Closing the mission objectives panel no longer unpauses the game if the game was already paused when it was opened.
  
• Space+Click can now be used on the factory queue, the selection panel, the mission objectives panel and morph commands.

Terraforming presets now come with some default hotkeys. These keys allow you to terraform areas with a set height, skipping the height selection step, and can be configured under Hotkeys/Construction. If you already created hotkeys then you may need to check your settings.

• Alt+V makes the smallest wall that Vehicles cannot pass.
  
• Alt+B makes the smallest wall that Bots cannot pass.
  
• Alt+N makes a wall units such as Rogue can use to hide from Stinger.
  
• Alt+G levels the terrain to the height of the ground where the cursor was initially clicked.
  
• Alt+H is useful for putting a Crab high on a spire.
  
• Alt+J just makes a deep hole. This was more useful back when enemies could be burried.

More keybinds and unit behaviours can be set.

• Trajectory mode toggle is bindable under 'Hotkeys/Commands/State'.
  
• Unusual keys, such as ², are now bindable.
  
• Added Overkill Prevention to 'Settings/Unit Behaviour/Default States'.

• Reduced strength of projectile lights by 13%. This multiplier can be tweaked in Settings/Graphics/Lighting.
  
• Upgraded the outline shader. The edges of the outlines are now smooth and they make units occluded by water and effects more visible.
  
• Improved Cerberus weapon effects.
  
• Improved the water on Folsom Dam.
  
• Death explosions are slightly less overexposed.
  
• Fixed missing explosion decal for Jugglenaut jump.
  
• Fixed missing amphibious sinking bubbles.

• Added startboxes for BlackStar v2.
  
• Limpet now counts towards the kamikaze award.
  
• Fixed a bug with the factory plate placement visualisation when switching between multiple factory blueprints.
  
• Fixed right clicking on units with a command selected erroneously issuing the default command rather than cancelling the selected command.
  
• Fixed unit failing to reply to area reclaim and selection rank commands.
  
• Fixed a COFC crash caused by unbound hotkeys.

This update addresses the slightly overpowered stats on the reworked Venom. While we're at it, here are some improvements and fixes for Detriment. There is also a tournament this weekend which is open for anyone to join or watch. Details can be found here.


Venom no longer two-shot stuns Redback, and is slightly more vulnerable to raiders.

• Range 250 -> 245
  
• Damage 70 -> 65
  
• EMP Damage 450 -> 400

Detriment has shorter reload and repair downtimes, as well as better pathfinding.

• Autoheal 20 -> 100
  
• Jump reload 120 -> 100
  
• Obliterator reload 45 -> 40
  
• Obliterator AoE 212 -> 256
  
• Obliterator no longer smooths terrain under structures (so turrets on spires no longer 'dodge').
  
• Footprint 6x6 -> 4x4 (This lets it move around terrain without issues)
  
• Hitvolume width reduced by 15.2%
  
• Hitvolume height reduced by 11.4%
  
• Fix AA laser only shooting with one barrel.
  
• Face beam is now unable to fire too far sideways.

Detriment is now a bit more resistant to Ultimatum because the Disingerator deals damage for each frame it is inside the target. In perfect circumstances Ulti removes 20.5% of its health per shot, down from 23.5%, but in reality Ultimatum will often require an extra shot to kill a Detriment.

Tremor is potentially a bit oppressive in dense team games.

• Speed 40.5 -> 37.5
  
• Range 1220 -> 1160

Gauss turret now has a much larger hitvolume. It was 12.5% thinner than Lotus, which was just silly.

• Knight, Thug and Hermit now jink at half the frequency, giving them time to aim.
  
• Added a Construction Effect graphics setting to the main menu.
  
• Increase Ultimatum target priority.
  
• Fix Phoenix effect on sea impact.
  
• Updated Unit Level Ups custom mode preset.
  
• Added support for unitdefs_mod.
  
• Fixed support for modding in extra weapons to units.
  
• Improved econ hint formatting slightly.
  
• Added live water configuration under 'Settings/Graphics/Sun, Fog & Water/Water' ingame.
  
• Fixed the sun and water on Skulduggery and Mechadansonia.
  
• Fixed Dante flamethower aiming visuals.

The Amphibious Factory now has a full roster with the addition of Bulkhead - a deployable fire support unit with impressive health and range. This update also includes a wide range of balance changes, from 3% more DPS for Glaive to 200% more awesomeness for Detriment. Additionally, hosting mods is now easier than ever and there are a few other fixes and features.

The balance changes focus on improving the specialist factories (as was decided by a poll on Patreon). Apart from Bulkhead solving Amph's pre-Grizzly lack of range, Venom is more reliable and a bug that makes jumpjets hard to tune was fixed. Other factories were also tweaked and Amph received a few extra changes to accommodate Bulkhead and the Archer rework.

• Custom modes are now much easier to find. A few presets can be selected from the 'Game Type' menu while hosting a game, or under 'Select Custom Mode' in the Adv Options of a battleroom.
  
• Arena Mod, Unit Level Ups and Zero Wars are available at the moment.
  
• A custom mode can be a map, mod or just a set of game options.
  
• Custom modes can be added and edited in Zero-K/CustomModes under steamapps. The parameters are listed here.
  
• A bug that caused inconsistent mod downloads was fixed.

Added Bulkhead, a tough deployable amphibious fire support.

• Cost 230
  
• Health 1720
  
• Water regen 15 hp/s
  
• Speed 48
  
• Armed with a 600 range, 87 DPS, Plasma Cannon.
  
• Stops to fire.

Archer was a little too cheap after its rework.

• Cost 180 -> 200
  
• Water regen 25 -> 15

Scallop was somewhat replaced by Archer so needs help finding its niche.

• Depth charge damage 52 -> 48
  
• Cost 280 -> 260

Buoy is no longer as good against raiders or in skirmisher standoffs.

• Turnrate reduced by 8.3%
  
• Weapon velocity reduced by 12%
  
• Skirmishes Thug and Felon from greater range, and shoots at the edge of their shields.

Conch is possibly now as wacky as other bot constructors.

• Can morph to Djinn in 20 seconds (drains 30/s).

Scorcher has decent matchups but loses slightly on efficiency, so this might work.

• Cost 130 -> 125

Fencer is no longer interrupted by impulse that is insufficient to move it.

Ravager had been left behind by Fencer/Ripper and other assaults.

• Health 1850 -> 1920

Glaive being slightly bad could be holding Cloaky back.

• DPS increased by 3%.

Ronin now drains shields from a safe range.

• Aim speed increased by 30%.
  
• Skirmishes Thug and Felon from greater range, and shoots at the edge of their shields.

Reaver AI is now wary of chasing Archer.

Outlaw is less effective at range, to make shieldballs more approachable by assaults and riots.

• DPS reduced by 8% (slow and normal damage).
  
• AoE damage falloff increased slightly.

Thug, Felon, Convict and commanders with personal shields are now fully drained by being stunned or disarmed. Not doing so was a bug.

Units now correctly lead jumping units with their weapons. Previously they would aim where the jumper was rather than of where it was going to be. This is the first step in tuning the Jumpbots, as Pyro gaining immunity to projectiles slower than gauss is undesirable and tricky to balance.

Venom by itself no longer stuns permanently, but has more damage to compensate.

• Range 240 -> 250
  
• Aim speed increased by 33%
  
• Paralysis time 3s -> 1s
  
• Reload 1.5 -> 1.1
  
• Normal damage 40 -> 70

Wasp is heavier to dissuade air plops in 1v1, to relieve factories with expensive AA.

• Cost 240 -> 300
  
• Health 850 -> 1500
  
• Speed 3.2 -> 2.4
  
• Build range 160 -> 180

Claymore is more reliable.

• No longer shoots its ground projectile at airborne units.
  
• Cost 320 -> 300
  
• Ground-range 220 -> 300 (matches sea range)
  
• Reload 5.5 -> 2.8
  
• Damage 620 -> 400
  
• (DPS 112 -> 142)

Seawolf now poses more of a threat to units that cannot fire back.

• Health 600 -> 650
  
• Turn rate improved by 10%
  
• Torpedos turn 40% faster.
  
• Reload 3 -> 2.4

Hunter is better as a general raider and at defending against submerged units.

• Health 310 -> 360
  
• Range 230 -> 240
  
• Reload 2.5 -> 2.6
  
• Damage 200 -> 220
  
• (DPS 80 -> 85)

Cutter needs a bit more health to keep up with Hunter.

• Health 240 -> 260

Mistral fires rapidly enough to damage sinking amphs.

• Cost 240 -> 220
  
• Speed 2.3 -> 2.1
  
• Turn rate improved by 15%
  
• Aim speed doubled
  
• Reload 8 -> 7.5
  
• Burst rate increased by 50%
  
• Projectile speed increased by 13%

Siren is now both able and required to hold its own at short range.

• Health 4000 -> 5200
  
• Turn rate reduced by 25%
  
• Range 360 -> 270
  
• Damage 260 -> 280
  
• Reload 3 -> 1.7
  
• (DPS 86 -> 164)

Zephyr is now as accurate as Razor.

• Accuracy spread 128 -> 50

Detriment has more damage and abilities, but costs more.

• Cost 20k -> 24k
  
• Gauss reload time 2.4 -> 2
  
• Face Laser damage 1800 -> 2400
  
• Missile Launcher replaced with Obliteration Blaster, a manual fire weapon with 45s cooldown.
  
• Obliteration Blaster fires a spread of projectiles, dealing up to 12k damage, and smooths terrain.
  
• Can jump 950 elmos with 120s cooldown. The landing is not gentle.

Companion Drone and Battle Drone are more vulnerable to raiders.

• Reduced weapon ranges by 28%.

Increased the minimum size of ramps so they play nice with the pathfinder. This also makes walling with ramps more expensive.

• Min width 24 -> 48
  
• Min length 40 -> 64

• Fixed non-commander morph not decloaking units (units are meant to be disabled during morph).
  
• Remodelled the Airpad.
  
• Rebalanced unit reply sound volumes.
  
• Aircraft now have an advanced command that allows them to ignore a set of airpads. It must first be enabled in 'Settings/Interface/Commands'.
  
• Jump reload flashes orange when jump is the active command. This can be toggled under 'Settings/Interface/Healthbars/Jump reload flash'
  
• Fixed tactical AI not reacting well when many Attack Move commands are issued in a short period of time.
  
• Gunship strafe toggle is shown in the default UI.
  
• Fix alt/ctrl area mex sometimes acting as if shift is held.
  
• Fixed commshare again (probably).
  
• Added specialised callins for widget:PlayerResigned and widget:PlayerChangedTeam.
  
• Added more arguments to widget:UnitDestroyed.

Aquanim and Dregs (two map creators in the community) have put together a mammoth effort and released eight new maps. Dregs made six maps and supplied the image below.



Aquanim made Anvilwood and Cobalt Dream, shown below. More information can be found in the map release thread.



These maps form the basis of a major matchmaker rotation, but are also suitable for coop, small teams, and possibly even arena-style large games. As always, the update includes a few fixes and UI features, the most fitting of which is improved explosion scars that look good on a wider range of terrain types. Additionally, an experimental new AI version is ready to be tested and mod support was improved.


New maps:

• Desert Rumble
  
• Prestige Arena
  
• Mechadansonia
  
• Jurassic Sands
  
• Sparkles Reef
  
• Scaryland
  
• Anvilwood
  
• Cobalt Dream

These maps were added or re-added last month:

• Fallendell
  
• Otago
  
• Iced Coffee
  
• Intersection

The following maps remain in the map pool:

• DunePatrolRedux
  
• FrostyCove
  
• Ravaged
  
• TitanDuel
  
• Vantage
  
• Wanderlust

You might be worried to see a few classics missing from this list; don't worry, they're just taking a bit of a break and will be back later.

• Updated the Myanmar flag.
  
• Fixed downloading mods that are uploaded via the map upload page.
  
• Fixed coop saves being able to override singleplayer saves.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused raiders to be baited early when temporarily fleeing.
  
• Applied more stringent checks for shader support, in an attempt to track down the integrated GPU UI disappearing bug (even though integrated graphics is technically not supported).

• Added a dvorak keyboard grid option.
  
• Added an experimental new version of the AI. It can be selected separately and is called 'AI: Bleeding edge test'.
  
• Added a bindable button for a quick level terraform command that uses the height of the clicked location. The hotkey can be set in Hotkeys/Construction/Level.
  
• Improved the build spacing UI, fixed the build spacing hotkeys in pregame placement, and added more options for displaying build spacing.
  
• Improved the visuals of explosion scars, mostly by removing the brown circle around the edges of the crater, to make them fit a wider range of maps.
  
• Pressing escape while in the main menu and ingame returns you to the game.
  
• Surface weapons no longer fire at deep Amphbot Factories.
  
• Fixed the default settings for tactical AI under Interface/Unit Behaviour.
  
• Fixed a mex visualiser error on maps with no metal spots.
  
• Tweaked Badger sound.

Hotfixes don't usually warrant a full set of notes, but this one contains a few things that were being worked on in the meantime and fixes a noticeable idle behaviour bug. We're preparing to take a look at some of the less well-rounded factories, and part of that is making their unique aspects feel better to use. A few improvements to Lobster and Djinn made it into this update. Most notable is Djinn's less restrictive requirement for teleport, which has some interesting implications.
Lobster affects units in a larger radius.

• Gather range 112 -> 160

Djinn is more powerful and convenient.

• Lamp deployment time 9s -> 8s
  
• Self deployment time 3.33s -> 1.11s
  
• Increased throughput 120 mass/s -> 150 mass/s
  
• Teleportation is much less picky about the destination being free of units.
  
• Units with subsequent orders exit the Djinn in the appropriate direction.

• Fixed an idle-return bug that affected a few units (eg Halberd and Locust) due to their their lack of more elaborate unit AI.
  
• Fixed some situations where drones could gain a target then return because the target is too far away.
  
• Fixed terraform on flat plains not updating the map mesh until the camera moves.
  
• Fixed the hollow rectangle terraform (hold ctrl+shift+alt) UI not matching the result and added an interior rectangle to the UI.
  
• Force unhide default chassis if there are only four commanders to select.
  
• Made camera save/recall save the whole state rather than just the position (this was in v1.8.9.3 a few days ago).