This is the first in a new series of design blogs about Zero-K. We aim to release one every two weeks, when there isn't a patch, and by 'we' I mean me, GoogleFrog (others might contribute later). Expect posts about Zero-K development, design, history, and whatever else comes to mind.

To start us off, why is Zero-K even called Zero-K? It started around 2009 when a mod called Complete Annihilation wanted to throw off the shadow of being "just another alphabet soup mod", the term for games on the Spring Engine that traces themselves back to Total Annihilation. The mod split off from Balanced Annihilation a few years earlier, which forked off Absolute Annihilation, which was based on Uberhack and subsequently ported to Spring. For those of you aware of BAR (Beyond All Reason), it is based on Balanced Annihilation and had the working name BA Reloaded.


Zero-K was picked after much discussion, deliberation, argument, and finally, a vote. We had a site at the time, called CaGov, where developers could create polls and vote on things. We voted on things from whether taking damage should decloak (it does) and whether all bombers should be replaced with laser bombers (only Thunderbird was replaced). The simple version of the Zero-K name is that it won, beating a few other proposals, the only other of which I can remember is Robocracy.

Edit: Longtime developer Sprung remembers "Ecce Machina" and the related name "why oh why is Deus Ex already taken". MidKnight remember "Open Conflict", because it's open source.

There were a few arguments in favour of Zero-K. The more narratively inclined like the idea of robots fighting pointlessly over the scraps of a universe approaching heat death, or zero degrees kelvin. That paid off in the lore for the campaign over a decade later (any more would be spoilers). We also coveted 0 A.D.'s alphabetically superior position on various lists, and thought we could force the shortening 0K. That did not work out.

Most of all, we wanted a unique name that would stand out and win at page rank, as search was all the rage in the late 2000s. We at least won that battle, defeating a book about cryogenics and a brand of dangerously cold single-use towelettes. The towelette company even sent us a sample after a Twitter interaction; the book still makes it to the image search preview in DuckDuckGo.


We may have been a bit too clever with the name. Zero-K stepped out of the shadow of Total Annihilation only a few years before Planetary Annihilation embraced it. Nostalgia aside, the latter is still a more descriptive name, and such names are common for strategy games. Think of all the names to do with armies or conquest. War, command, force, settle, empire, company, division, legion... the list goes on. Generic names indicate genre, which we gave up in favour of being unique. Maybe that sums up Zero-K.

Arguably the best aspect of the name revealed itself years after the decision was made - puns about low temperature - which far outweighs any downside. Zero-K: Nothing is cooler.

Index of Cold Takes

Zero-K began its life about 15 years ago as a mod built by volunteers, and development has continued in much the same way, except now as a full game. Admittedly we have slowed down a bit in recent years, in part due to the greater focus on polish, but also because we've already combined the best bits of RTS into a cohesive whole. Including some things that seem like gimmicks elsewhere, but really just need several years of refinement to get right.

Massive online battles and tight 1v1? Done. Campaign, AI, skirmish? Done. Spider-tanks, jumpjets, ships, planes and hovercraft? Done. Terraforming, cloaking, and 3D terrain that really matters? Done. Giant robots and superweapons? Done three times over. And there isn't much to do for the controls either, as we're so far ahead of everything else already. That's just what happens when people play for over a decade and improve what they notice needs improving.

Not that there isn't more to do. We release 3-4 major updates a year and don't plan on stopping. Just this month we added two new bombers and tweaked some other aircraft that needed a bit of love. In the last few months we improved the controls for Lobsters and notifications for tacnukes, in Don't Nuke Your Allies. As well as all the extra modding support of the past few years, so things can go full circle. So there is plenty to do, and we plan to do it for as long as we keep playing.

This update introduces two new bombers to fill out the aircraft roster. One is a bit like a light Likho, and another is like a heavy Raven, but there is a lot more to each. Other planes have tweaks and buffs, such as an area reveal ability for Sparrow, and a heavier Phoenix. Some gunships even got in on the action, with the most notable being a sizeable buff for Krow.

Other balance changes include a bit more health for light assaults, and better spinning for Disco Rave Party. In terms of features, bombers are well-served here as well, with selection icons for whether a bomber needs ammo, as well as smoother landing paths.

There are a few extra features for modding, such as scaling and tinting, which were technically in the previous hotfix. The campaign has the new bombers, a few features, and a new Records page which displays and aggregates your best stats for each mission. How fast can the campaign be completed, and with how few units lost?


Magpie is a light nimble bomber armed with a pair of missiles. It deals less damage than Raven, but makes up for it with speed, precision, and the ability to shoot from the edge of AA coverage.

• Cost 220
  
• Health 900
  
• Speed 252 (between Raven and Likho)
  
• Rearm time 20s
  
• Range 550
  
• Damage 180 x 2
  
• Can hit small raiders most of the time, and most aircraft.

Odin is a heavily armoured rocket zeppelin that can fire a slow moving disintegrator bomb or a cluster of temporary shields.

• Cost 1500
  
• Health 5200
  
• Speed 185 (between Raptor and most gunships)
  
• Rearm time 35s
  
• Bomb range 200
  
• Bomb damage, it's a disintegrator (5-shots Detriment)
  
• The bomb is very slow, even Detriment can dodge it.
  
• Special weapon fires seven shields at 550 range.
  
• Each shield has 3400 charge and a radius of 200.
  
• Shields decay at 40 charge/s, expire at zero charge, and do not link.

Sparrow can now boost, and reveals and decloaks everything in an area when it dies.

• Boosts by 5x for 3 seconds.
  
• Destroys itself after boost.
  
• Reveals an area of radius 400 for 12 seconds when it dies.
  
• Revealed area scales up during boost, to a maximum of 640.

Phoenix is heavier and deals more damage over a longer run.

• Cost 360 -> 460
  
• Health 1060 -> 1450 (90 more than if just scaling by cost)
  
• Reduced turn rate slightly
  
• Rearm time 5s -> 8s
  
• Drops 15 -> 18 bombs over 0.93 -> 1.7 seconds
  
• Area of Effect 216 -> 320
  
• Damage per bomb 25 -> 40
  
• Burn time 10s -> 12s

Krow manoeuvrers a bit better and fires beam lasers with more damage.

• Improved brake rate by 25%.
  
• Pew pew lasers replaced with burst beam lasers.
  
• Damage increased by 22%

Raptor is more manoeuvrable and slightly more deadly.

• Increased turn rate while firing, to counteract the effect of slowing down.
  
• Firing cone angle 90 degrees -> 100 degrees
  
• Damage increased by 4.2%

Locust is a tiny bit better as raiding, as a great Locust is scary.

• Speed 207 -> 212
  
• DPS increased by 2.5%

Thunderbird is slightly healthier.

• Health 1120 -> 1200

Bolas has 4.5% more DPS and can 1-shot Flea.

• Reload 0.366 -> 0.433
  
• Damage 34 -> 42

Ravager is tankier.

• Health 2000 -> 2200

Knight is a bit tankier.

• Health 2400 -> 2500

Hermit is tankier and faster.

• Health 1500 -> 1550
  
• Speed 51 -> 54

Skuttle can survive a single Jack poke.

• Health 250 -> 380

Zephyr is also tankier, and now has missiles.

• Health 1900 -> 2200
  
• Replaced its front laser turret with missiles.
  
• Missile damage 72 x 2
  
• Reload time 1.6 seconds
  
• Range 1000 (same as lasers)
  
• The missiles have 30% less DPS, but fire in a burst.

Disco Rave Party has an interpolation of its May spin rate nerfs.

• Aim speed 4 -> 2.5 -> 3 degrees/s.
  
• Spin up time 60 -> 120 -> 90 seconds.
  
• Spin drop while turning is unchanged, but less spin is lost for any given turn due to the increased turn rate.

• Magpie is unlocked on Fel Diacia (the Thunderbird mission) and Odin is unlocked on Bavhakya (the Likho mission). Anyone with these missions complete will have their units unlocked.
  
• Added a Records tab to the Profile menu on the campaign screen. This screen can sort and display your victories with least units lost, in the shortest time, with bonus objectives and difficulties. Unfortunately the data is not retroactive.
  
• Removed a few Lucifers from easier difficulties on Onsally (the Phoenix mission).
  
• Worked around the Dominatrix build options bug for the Rover Assembly on Ganong (the Dominatrix mission).
  
• Clarified Lalata main objective text (the Jugglenaut mission).

• Added Units Lost to endgame graphs.
  
• Unit pictures for bombers now have an icon showing whether it is ready to fire.
  
• Aircraft now smoothly glide and stop when landing on airpads. This is technically a nerf as they take slightly longer to land.
  
• Improved shotgun visuals, with minor balance implications.
  
• Grizzly now aims smoothly and holds its gun steady as it fires.
  
• Tweaked the automatic handicap mode to give lower handicaps for ratings above 2000.
  
• Moved Raptor to the AA slot (D) of the Airplane Plant and Sparrow to secondary scout/raider (S).
  
• Taught the opponent AI about Magpie.

• Units can now be tinted, rescaled and made glowing via the customparams model_tint ("R G B"), model_glow ("R G B A"), and model_rescale. Colour values are from 0 to 1.
  
• Free units (0 metal and energy cost) no longer need to explicitly specify a non-zero buildtime (previous release).
  
• Added a function to effects/napalm for generating generic fireballs ala Inferno.
  
• Air pads now call ReammoComplete, if it is a units script, when bombers are rearmed.
  
• Added command AIR_MANUALFIRE for aircraft, since they cannot use the in-engine type.

• Fixed Tremor wheels not spinning.
  
• Gravity guns push and pull a bit more consistently.
  
• Jack can no longer pretend to be a missile in enemy Missile Silos.
  
• Slow damage makes shields charge slower again (it broke at some point)
  
• Fixed bombers sometimes seeming to ignore a move command.
  
• Attack Move on bombers is now is now removed after they shoot, unless the bomber is set to repeat. Previously this only worked for some bombers.
  
• Bombers are now much better at landing on Reef. Much better. Horrific things could happen before.
  
• Fix sun on Mercurial and Rogues River.

Lobsters have been taught to not fire when it would be redundant, making Lobster balls much easier to manage. Overkill prevention in general has a tweak, and some APIs were extended to make modding easier. The Artefact Control game mode which saw some testing about a month ago is now live. In terms of balance, Redback has a bit of a nerf and some of the least used units - Skuttle, Phoenix and Emissary - have small buffs.


Duck can now be dodged by a Glaive trying as hard as it can to run away.

• Missile fuel time 2s -> 1.5s

Redback is worse at taking map control and assaulting defenses.

• Cost 230 -> 240
  
• Speed 1.85 -> 1.75

Skuttle can see enemies before they break its cloak.

• Line of sight 280 -> 330

Emissary aims faster and no longer benefits from manually turning.

• Body turn rate reduced 105 -> 84 degrees/second
  
• Gun aim rate increased 40 -> 70 degrees/second
  
• Resets its gun between shots (as much as possible) in case it has to move.

Phoenix moves faster and hits its target sooner.

• Speed 8 -> 8.1
  
• Projectile gravity 0.7 -> 0.72

Overkill prevention, the system that prevents ten Scalpels firing at a single Glaive, is now available for Lobster, and is suspended for units set to hold fire. It is controlled by a state toggle that is hidden by default because there is very little reason to touch it. The state toggle can be enabled under Settings/Interface/Commands, and per-unit defaults to be set in Settings/Unit Behaviour/Default States, or by holding Space and clicking on a unit, then pressing Edit Behaviour.

Lobster is smarter, no longer firing unless there is a visible valid target.

• This prevents it from firing when it would do absolutely nothing, provided there are no invisible enemies nearby.
  
• As a result, telling a tight clump of Lobsters to fire causes only two to shoot.
  
• This behaviour can be configured with the hidden Overkill Prevention state.
  
• Removed the Force Fire command by default. This can be configured via another hidden state toggle.

Overkill prevention is now suspended by default when units are set to Hold Fire.

• Added the "Enable for Fire at Will" and "Enable for auto targeting" states. Previously it just had enabled/disabled.
  
• Most units default to "Enable for Fire at Will". The theory being that if you set a unit to hold fire you care more about its target dying than about overkill.
  
• Nothing defaults to "Enable for auto targeting", but it may be useful to try out.

Impaler now has an even stronger preference for targeting structures over units.

• Added a minimum wind icon and number to the left column of the wind generator tooltip during placement (thanks Porkchop)
  
• Cleaned up some inconsistent unit highlighting and selection. Units under interface panels cannot be clicked on by default, tooltips do not appear, and units are not highlighted.
  
• Selecting through the panel at the bottom of the screen can be configured under Settings/HUD Panels/Selected Units Panel.
  
• Drag selection can still terminate over a UI panel.
  
• Add some translations for the commander selector.
  
• Updated Global Build AI with some fixes and documentation (thanks esainane).
  
• Added username team colour in chat and removed white outlines for dark names (thanks Birdulon)
  
• Local widgets are no longer disabled for spectators on rooms with local widgets disabled.
  
• Added Italian translations for the main menu (thanks fvasco)

• Tweaked campaign text and replaced some Artefacts with more suitable structures (thanks Thorneel)

• Added boxes for Onyx Cauldron 2.0
  
• Improved lighting on Skulduggery (thanks Shaman)
  
• Improved water on Cull, Lost v2 and Lowland Crossing Revised v2.
  
• Fixed an issue with void water with new shaders on some graphics cards.

Added a control point game mode called Artefact Control under Experimental.

• Several artefacts are spawned on each side of the map.
  
• Each team controls half at the start of the game.
  
• Artefacts have 11k health and heal at 100 hp/second.
  
• Artefacts respawned with switched allegeance when destroyed.
  
• If a team controlls all the artefacts, they win.

Changed some keys in unit def files to match the lua UnitDefs table. Mods with the old keys are still supported.

• buildCostMetal -> metalCost
  
• buildCostEnergy -> energyCost
  
• energyUse -> energyUpkeep
  
• metalUse -> metalUpkeep (vanilla ZK doesn't use this)
  
• maxDamage -> health
  
• maxVelocity -> speed

Other changes.

• Unit defs no longer require unitname since it must match the table key, so it is redundant.
  
• Unit defs are now also read from subfolders of 'units'.
  
• Set undefined burst rates to 0 (rather than 0.1) as it can interfere with weapon modding.
  
• The game exits to menu when unit defs fail to load, rather than crashing.
  
• Added game-side GG.UnitModelRescale(unitID, scale) from Unit Level Ups.
  
• Added backwards compatibility for Spring.GetUnitIsBeingBuilt.
  
• Fixed backwards compatibility for Spring.GetPlayerRulesParams.
  
• Added customparams.buggeroff_angle for factories, in radians.
  
• Added customparams.metal_extractor_mult to support the creation of higher tier metal extractors.
  
• Fixed modding away the Sniper reload move penalty breaking the script.
  
• Cleaned up the build icon generator gadget.
  
• Napalm effects now contain an example of sin (replaces taylor series).
  
• Improved modded energy generator tooltips.
  
• Mexes suport morphing.

• Fixed commshare sometimes preventing resign or causing a crash when the game ends.
  
• War music no longer counts morph as violence.
  
• Fixed missing vote resign button.
  
• Marginal turret overshoot can no longer be circumvented with command insert.
  
• Fixed a few build icons incorrectly implying that a floating structure is built underwater.
  
• Fixed commander selector button image.
  
• Fixed backwards 'motion blur' on ejected shells.
  
• Fixed some large structure wreckages having much too large collision volumes.

Get ready for the next Zero-K tournament, a 1v1 tournament where dozens of commanders will fight for dozens of dollars. The format is bo1 double elimination but other details have not been fully finalised. Sign up with a comment on the thread and send any questions to Kingstad. If you are more interested in watching, then games can be spectated through the lobby or you can watch one of the commentary streams linked on Discord.

🗓️ Date: July 8th [Saturday] 2023
⌚ Time: (3 PM EDT | 9 PM CET | 1900 UTC)
⏰ Countdown to Tournament
🔗 Forum Thread
👀 A commentary stream

There was also a minor update this weekend. It is mostly fixes for the previous update, but there are also a few features and balance changes.


Redback is worse at dodging projectiles.

• Increased collision shape width by 11% and length by 25%.
  
• Reduced turn rate by 5%.

Ogre now ignores terrain and wrecks when aiming and firing. It has sufficient AoE and arc for making the attempt to often be beneficial.

Zeno now homes onto the actual position of a radar target earlier - early enough to hit it.

• Holding Alt while selecting units now filters out rank 3 (ie army units).
  
• Added a sudden death mode game option, under Map. It causes the game to end shortly after a specified time via a contracting death circle.

• Fixed a missile impact indicator error.
  
• Fixed a pathfinding issue to do with construction orders on terrible terrain.
  
• Tactical missiles no longer have inconsistent half-prediction of enemy velocity. They now fire exactly where they are aimed.
  
• Fixed contrast adaptive sharpening scaling with zoom level.
  
• Fixed moderator tooltip colour in the lobby.
  
• Improved Pylon collision and selection volumes.

The 3v3 tournament finished earlier today with an excellent turnout of 19 teams. The results and videos will be posted in this thread in the coming days. The upshot for this patch is that we are free to make a few balance changes. The aim of these changes is to work on a few of the more maligned units, while nerfing some of the most prevalent strategies. This mostly means buffs for Gunships and nerfs for Lance and cloaked Snitch.

The update also has some exciting features. A big one for team games is that allied nukes and missiles now automatically show where they were aimed, which should halve the number of people that panic when a nuke is fired. Another is the ability to watch any game while waiting for a different one to start without missing out on the chat, as chat from non-started lobbies is now sent ingame. Superintendent has also added a few more tracks to his alternate soundtrack.


Snitch is slower to nerf its use with cloaker, without making it worse as a pure ambusher.

• Speed 117 -> 108

Iris is a bit easier to find and its area cloak radius now matches area shield radius.

• Speed 57 -> 54
  
• Decloak range 180 -> 210
  
• Cloaker radius 360 -> 350

Lance is less effective when set to fire at will.

• Reload time 20s -> 23s

Scallop is still the slowest riot but is a bit tankier than average.

• Health 1100 -> 1200
  
• Speed 48 -> 51

Emissary can afford to be fast since it takes so long to pack up.

• Speed 60 -> 63
  
• Range 1120 -> 1150

Blastwing takes less time to deal its damage and deals slightly more.

• AoE 128 -> 144
  
• Fire DPS 25 -> 32
  
• Fire linger 25s -> 20s

Gnat needs more health to survive long enough to stun the juiciest target.

• Cost 90 -> 85
  
• Health 370 -> 440

Revenant can be brought back now that commanders are more resilient.

• Health 3600 -> 4200
  
• Missiles 8 -> 9
  
• Reduced missile wobbly by 6.7%

Stardust has a small buff to its damage output but might still need a larger change later.

• Heat per shot 3.8 -> 3.5

Lucifer can see as far as it can shoot (thanks Majo).

• Sight range 780 -> 1280

• Added predicted impact time and location for allied nukes and stockpiled missiles (thanks esainane).
  
• Added a new Superintendent music track.
  
• Hovering a unit with the mouse now highlights it slightly. This can be configured under 'Settings/Graphics/Unit Visibility'.
  
• Alt+N terraform preset is slightly higher to block Phantoms firing at Engineer Commander.
  
• Added Set Target (instead of Force Fire) on Right Click option under 'Settings/Unit Behaviour'.
  
• Added time and space leeway settings to make selection easier, under 'Settings/Interface/Selection'.
  
• Added an explanation of selection rank to 'Settings/Interface/Selection' as people find fiddling with it surprisingly useful.
  
• Embiggened cursor hitboxes of Grizzly, Jugglenaut, Cyclops, Shield Factory and Cloak Factory.
  
• Singularity Reactor size now fluctuates.
  
• Impaler fire sound is slightly fainter and only five can play at once.
  
• Added Base Extraction graph to the endgame stats that tracks cumulative metal from extractors before overdrive.
  
• Moved projectile retarget configuration into its own file to aid modding. See here (thanks Mach56).

• Battles can now be watched by right clicking on them in the battle list and selecting 'Watch'.
  
• Chat from any lobby you are in is sent ingame if the lobby is not running.
  
• Added a new Superintendent track that plays when the lobby opens.
  
• Mention Imp burrow in the tips for the Imp campaign mission.
  
• Added a game option to override the names of teams for tournaments.
  
• Added a game option (under Experimental) called Notes that just writes text to a window at the start of the game. Use it to explain unit tweaks or other complicated set of options.

• Preselection highlight (when hovering over units) now highlights units correctly in edge cases.
  
• Fixed the player count in the battle lobby status box updating slowly.
  
• Fixed units set to avoid radar wobble not firing at identified structure dots that left radar.
  
• Fixed Advanced Geo aim point (thanks dyth68).
  
• Fixed Mariner special build icon size.
  
• Healthbars and Build ETA now draw in front of unit outlines.
  
• Fixed an error that could occur when destroying all the units of the losing team.
  
• Phoenix gibs no longer include a near-complete copy of its fuselage.

This is mostly a fixes and tweaks update as the 3v3 tournament is only in two weeks. Everyone is welcome as each team must have a new player. Sign up in this thread if you are interested.

There are two big balance changes: nerfs for superweapons and shields being disabled underwater. Aspis can now float, to give it some use in sea, and floating has been improved in general. The superweapon changes were motivated by some of the epic games on the large maps added in April. Starlight is much more expensive as it is the best at ending games, but games were ending a bit too early. Disco Rave Party and Zenith were differentiated by leaning into the slow aim and rate of DRP compared to the instant response of Zenith. Thanks for all the feedback in the thread on the forums.

The most notable fixes are for the rare Zenith gathering bug and the Fencer/Bulkhead transition issue. There are also many backend improvements to scripting and the engine (which was updated earlier in the week), some of which are relevant to modding and listed in a section below. More Chinese translations have been contributed and a few campaign missions have been tweaked based on feedback.


Shields are disabled when the unit carrying them is submerged.

• The disable is the same as any other disable. Charge drops to zero and linking does not work.
  
• The unit must be completely underwater. This is the same threshold at which cloak is disabled and units are no longer detectable by non-sea vision.

Aspis can now float and floating in general has tweaks to help it stay above water.

• Units lobbed or gravity-gunned into the sea can float immediately.
  
• Note: This was already the case for sea-to-sea lobs and transport throws.
  
• Floating units no longer sink while teleporting.
  
• Note: Teleporting from land to the sea will still put the unit on the sea floor.

Cloak is cancelled immediately after a unit takes a decloaking action (such as firing). This was always the intention, but at some point action decloak gained a random delay of up to a third of a second.

Cornea no longer pays for personal cloak while area cloaking.

• This reduces its effective energy drain by 1 energy per second.

Firewalker is less indiscriminate.

• Now checks whether a friendly unit is directly in front of both barrels before firing.
  
• Aims a little higher for more clearance.

Zenith costs a bit more as part of a general superweapon nerf, but has more range.

• Cost 36k -> 38k
  
• Range 8400 -> 8800
  
• Fixed a rare bug that would transform it into an expensive doorstop.

Disco Rave Party costs a bit more and leans hard into directionality.

• Cost 40k -> 42k
  
• Health 12k -> 8k
  
• Range 7500 -> 7000
  
• Aim speed 4 degrees/s -> 2.5 degrees/s
  
• Full spin up time 1 -> 2 minutes (via reduced acceleration at high spin rates).
  
• Spin speed is now lost while turning, with greater losses at high spin.
  
• Eg a 45° turn drops spin 100% -> 58%, a 90° turn drops spin 100% -> 33%.

Starlight is much heavier as it is the superweapon that truly ends games.

• Cost 45k -> 60k
  
• Health 7500 -> 12k
  
• Range 10k -> 12k

• Allied AIs are now Hard AIs on Normal difficulty (previously they were Normal AIs).
  
• Replace allied Merlins with Dantes in a few missions as they are prone to friendly fire.
  
• Adjusted partially built superweapons to leave cost-to-complete unaffected by balance changes.
  
• Moved Disco Rave Party slightly closer to the enemy base to partially account for its lower range.
  
• The mission briefing box now expands to avoid using a scrollbar for the tips section.
  
• Added a hint about mex income sharing to some of the first planets with allies.
  
• Made the hints for the Krow mission say a bit more about how to use Krow.
  
• Added a hint explaining Retreat Zones to the Krow mission.
  
• Cut hints down to four for Kirdipan (since the window is now expanded to show all hints).
  
• Fixed Romolis victory condition not checking for Merlins.

• Added start boxes for Supreme Strait.
  
• Improved lighting on All That Glitters.
  
• Fixed Timna Island box names.
  
• Enable alternate diagonal boxes for Calayo.
  
• Fixed small teams boxes for Angel Crossing.
  
• Added boxes for Pillar of Doom.
  
• Improved the widget that lets people tweak and save water and lighting tweaks.

• Aegis spin animation is now based on shield charge (thanks Mach56).
  
• Improved line of sight rendering with AMD graphics (many cards were using a shaderless fallback).
  
• Contrast adaptive sharpening weakens when zooming out to counteract the grainy effect.
  
• Reenabled contrast adaptive sharpening by default.
  
• Added a subtle bloom shader.
  
• Bumpmapped water is now default for Lowest graphics as the others barely work.

• Added huge nuke warning toggle ingame under Settings/Accessiblity (thanks dunno).
  
• Improved the "Skip pregame chat" button on the replay controls.
  
• Language change updates unit selection texts immediately.
  
• Added translation capability for Zeno.
  
• Updated Chinese (both simple and traditional) translations (thanks Kitty, evilblue, et al).
  
• Updated Polish translations.
  
• Tweaked unit reply volumes slightly.

• Zeno no longer counts for Turtle Shell (but would have needed to deal real damage).
  
• Custom submarines now detected as such for Context Menu properly (instead of as ships).
  
• Added LUS preprocessing which translate uses of SFX.*, COB.*, math.{pi,tau}, math.{rad.sqrt}(constant) into constants. Local optimisations for these functions or tables should be removed.
  
• "morphUnitCreating" is now a game rules param (was team rules param).
  
• Added gadget:GamePaused(playerID, isPaused) to gadget handler.
  
• Chicken drone morphs now done via customparams.
  
• Missile silo automatically works with any custom missiles you add to the buildlist.
  
• Custom missile silos can exist and have moddable stockpile capacity via missile_silo_capacity customparam (still needs script support).
  
• Removed old nuke/antinuke models.

• Fixed Zenith occasionally failing to gather meteors.
  
• Fixed Fencer and Bulkhead occasionally failing to transition between states correctly.
  
• Fixed always-floaters that teleport to from land to sea not automatically floating.
  
• Fixed cloak not being disabled on units when they are reclaimed.
  
• Fixed area cloakers with personal cloak erroneously being charged for personal cloak.
  
• Fixed the live unit reclaim tooltip using the old value (50%) rather than the new one (80%).
  
• Fixed an error upon comshared resign (thanks Shaman).
  
• Fixed debris texture.
  
• Fixed Zeno not being autogroupable (thanks Shaman).
  
• Fixed a rare crash to do with terraform.
  
• Fixed a bug where disabling units could break a factory.
  
• Increased Lua memory limit.

Brace yourselves for the exhilarating Zero-K 3v3 Tournament, where battle-hardened veterans and fresh faces unite to claim victory! Gather your forces, for this is your chance to prove your mettle on the grandest stage of strategic warfare.

🗓️ Date: June 17th [Saturday]
⌚ Time: Sunday, 18 June 2023 03:00 (1 PM EST | 7 PM CET | 1700 UTC)

🔗 Forum Thread
🔗 Challonge Registration
⏰ Countdown to Tournament


Enlist your team in the tournament by posting on the dedicated forum thread or signing up on Challonge. Each team must include at least one new player, adding an exciting twist to the competition. Embrace the opportunity to mentor and fight alongside budding commanders. Don't forget to provide your team name to ensure your presence is duly acknowledged.

Curious about the eligibility of new players? Fear not! A new player is defined as someone who meets either of the following criteria at the time of registration:

• Playing Zero-K for less than 10 days.
  
• Having played fewer than 30 PvP games.

Should your teammate not fit these criteria but you believe they deserve an exception, reach out to MDSK Discord or in the forum thread above.

For this update we looked through the new maps from the wider Spring (now Recoil) community and featured a bunch of them. Some will play better than others, but that's what feedback is for! The update also adds translations for Chinese and Italian, and includes an engine update that was benchmarked to improve framerate by 9%. In terms of balance there are nerfs for Reaver and Lance and a cost reduction for Krow. The unit reply sounds have also been rebalanced.


We have featured 67 new maps, with many from BAR or raaar. Some are makeovers of classics, others are new takes on a theme, and many are completely new.

There are many large maps suited to big team games or comp stomps: Alpha Siege Dry, Ancient Vault, Bismuth Valley , Carrot Mountains, Darkside (v3.0), Eight Horses, Fool's mate, Entrenched Plains, Heartbreak Hill, Highway 95 East, Highway 95 West, High Noon Remake, Ice Scream (v1.1), Ice Scream (v2.4), Omega Valley, Pawn Retreat, Red River Remake, Red Triangle Remake, Riverrun, Silveridge, Sphagnum Bog, Starwatcher, Taldarim, Two Continents Dry, Two Continents.

These maps are a bit smaller, good for 1v1 or small team games: Callisto, Death Valley, Desert (3.25), Desolation, Ditched, Dockside, Hades Ponds, Hexian Arena, Lake Carne, Mithril Mountain, Scorched Crossing, Theta Crystals, The Halite Maze.

Some particularly experimental maps are: Crucible, High Forts, Hooked, Sky Fortress Sigma.

The maps Point of No Return and Timna Island are designed for chicken or coop games as they are asymmetric, with one side starting in a fortress.

The following maps are updated versions of classics, although many will feel new as there are a lot of maps to play through: Altored Divide Bar Remake, Coastlines Dry, Comet Catcher Remake, Copper Hill, EmainMacha Remake, Incandescence Remake, Highway 95, Hotlips Remake, Icy Crater, Into Battle Redux, MoonQ20XR2, Nuclear Winter Bar, Ravaged Remake, Seths Ravine Remake, Supreme_Crossing, Tabula Remake, Tangerine Remake, The Cold Place BAR, The Hole, The Rock, Tumult Remake, Valles Marineris, Zed Remake.

Predicting which maps will or won't work is tricky, so send feedback. Old versions of revamped maps were left up as they may be distinct enough to coexist or there could be a problem with a new map.


Live unit reclaim yields 80% of the cost of the unit in metal, up from 50%.

Reaver is 7% worse both at firing and turning.

• Turn rate 1850 -> 1710
  
• Reload time 0.467s -> 0.5s

Conjurer is slower to nerf cloakbot expansion rate.

• Speed 57 -> 54

Thug is better at hitting things.

• Weapon velocity increased 200 -> 210

Rogue is also better at hitting things.

• Weapon velocity 185 -> 190

Ravager is also also better at hitting things.

• Weapon velocity 238 -> 245

Lance is probably due a nerf of some sort and cost is simple.

• Cost 1000 -> 1100

Krow needs a buff to make it relevant to modern Zero-K.

• Cost 4500 -> 4200

Superweapons have 25% less health to make them easier to snipe.

• Starlight health 10k -> 7.5k
  
• Disco Rave Party health 16k -> 12k
  
• Zenith health 12k -> 9k

Added an experimental game option that reveals superweapons that exceed 5% build progress. It isn't on by default, but could be interesting to test.

• Added Chinese and Italian translations (click the flag in the top right of the screen ingame).
  
• Cleaned up a few unit reply sounds and rebalanced them relative to each other. Most replies are a bit quieter.
  
• The tab playerlist share resource buttons now take your storage into account to display how much will actually be shared.

• Added a game-side lava gadget so that mappers can create lava maps without copying code into the map file. Maps can add lava by including the file "mapconfig/lava_config.lua". See here for the parameters and here for an example. It even supports tides.
  
• The startbox editing tool can now be toggled under Settings/Toolbox. This makes it hotkeyable provides space for a hotkey explaining how it works.
  
• Added vertex-wise undo, snap to cardinal direction, and snap to map edge to the startbox editing tool.

• Fixed UI scale detection for screen resolutions in the 2000s (ie 2560x1440).
  
• Reset everyone's UI scale settings to catch people who where affected by the issue above. Set Lobby or Game Interface Scale in the main menu under Settings/Lobby and Settings/Game.
  
• Fixed menu volume resetting when the track changes.
  
• Fixed and reset the non-functional Unit Reply Volume slider.
  
• Improved the performance of the map list.
  
• Toggling "Only Featured Maps" in the lobby updates a previously opened map list correctly.

This update introduces Zeno, the 5th missile for the Missile Silo, which homes onto a target, hits it for a massive dose of slow damage, and then leaves lingering slow in the surrounding area. Another major change is an increase in general unit visibility via a few nerfs for area cloakers. As usual, there are a few months of fixes, features and, contrary to the title, performance improvements.


Added Zeno, a homing slow damage missile built in the Missile Silo.

• Has significant range, equal to Quake.
  
• Homes onto its target.
  
• Deals 10k slow damage to a single target.
  
• Interacts with shields similarly to Eos, as 10k slow damage is 3333 damage to a shield.
  
• Leaves a large area of lingering slow damage for 30 seconds.

Many players felt that cloak was a bit too prevalent and that whether to use it lategame wasn't much of a choice. We address this with a few targeted nerfs to area cloak. Most notably, Cornea has a directional cloak field rather than a huge bubble, and larger armies are slower to cloak. The latter is implemented with the new cloak rate mechanic.

• Area cloakers now apply cloak at a set rate, starting with units closest to the centre of the bubble.
  
• Cloak rate is in terms of mass per second, and only spent on units that are ready to cloak.
  
• For reference, Bandit has 90 mass, Lance about 300, Dante about 800, and Detriment about 2400.
  
• Cloak can still be maintained on any number of units.
  
• Units with personal cloak are unaffected. They don't wait to be cloaked, and don't spend cloak rate that could be used on other units. This includes units that cloak while stationary.

Cornea cloaks a much smaller area, but the area can be moved with Fire Special Weapon (D).

• Jamming range 550 -> 600
  
• Cloak field range 550 -> 400
  
• Can shift the centre of its cloak bubble up to 200 elmos away
  
• Has a cloak rate of 1200 mass/s

Iris has a small range reduction and cloaks at a slower rate than Cornea.

• Cloak field range 400 -> 360
  
• Jamming range 400 -> 360
  
• Has a cloak rate of 800 mass/s

Commander Area Cloak loses a similar amount of cloak range and has the same cloak rate.

• Cloak field range 350 -> 320
  
• Jamming range (with cloak field module) 350 -> 320
  
• Has a cloak rate of 800 mass/s

Conjurer is the most efficient cloaker in terms of cloak rate per cost.

• Has a cloak rate of 600 mass/s

Puppy now leaves wrecks and debris when killed, but not when it hits a target. Previously it left nothing.

Imp now only barely "makes cost" against a lone Scorcher.

• Cost 120 -> 125

Snitch costs a bit more to spam.

• Cost 160 -> 170

Cyclops slowbeam had a bug that made it do 3x the intended damage to shields.

• Slowbeam damage to shields 2000 -> 666

Hercules can reach the ground and lift everything.

• Fixed a weapon bug that caused its laser to not reach ground units while cruising.
  
• Can now transport Shogun and Reef.

Advanced Radar is a bit too good after its cost reduction from 500.

• Cost 400 -> 450

• Added Zeno to planet Nataa (the Missile Silo mission).
  
• Tweaked planet Mstaras (the Gunship Factory mission) to be a bit easier on difficulties below Brutal.
  
• Added startboxes for Angel Crossing, Calamity v1.1 and Supreme Crossing V2.
  
• The "Sun, Fog & Water" map tweaking tool now loads its defaults from map settings.
  
• Added shadow density to "Sun, Fog & Water" map tweaking tool.
  
• Added compatibility for more metal layout standards.
  
• Removed map fog by default. This is the type that was visible when zoomed out.
  
• Tweaked the lighting and water settings on a few maps.

• Reordered battles in the multiplayer lobby to put empty autohosts below running games.
  
• Build spacing UI has more options, found under "Settings/Interface/Building Placement".
  
• Added a contrast adaptive sharpening shader. It can be enabled under Settings/Graphics/Effects with "Sharpening".
  
• Added notable death explosion to ingame unit help menu (accessed via space+click).
  
• Added better support for flipping the minimap, which is useful when used with a flipped camera.
  
• Added a widget that displays map info like a label on a painting. Disabled by default.
  
• Fiddled with the way line of sight adds to radar. This unlocks more ways to customise radar coverage.
  
• Tweaked war and peace detection to spend a bit more time playing peace music.
  
• Fixed slight visual misalignment when Missile Silo launches missiles.

• Improved performance of game mechanics that handle orders.
  
• Fixed significant framerate drop (with certain settings) caused by many multi-weapon striders firing at once.
  
• Fixed kicking a spectator sometimes causing a player to resign.
  
• Fixed X-Ray shader issues on some hardware.
  
• Fixed a rare bug with jumpjet behaviour.
  
• Fixed a rare crash in the tab playerlist.
  
• Fixed missing text on shield charge bars.
  
• Blitz description no longer mentions its old EMP death explosion.