Been a while since the last thread. There's 2 new units this update, any thoughts?
Is this a good game?
>>1600293no
>>1600293Well, I enjoy it for what that's worth. It's a TA-like (think Beyond All Reason, Supcom (not 2)) with the standout features being some minor unit automation, terraforming, and one faction.
>>1600278The last thing this game needs is more units.
>>1600775I do somewhat agree. I'm not sure what to think about Magpie, being something that encroaches on Raven's role by being a single target bomber, but Odin gives planes an additional unit that doesn't immediately disintegrate upon wandering into Artemis range. Either way they'll likely receive further adjustments, I doubt they were perfectly balanced first try. In my opinion both seem a little too good.Aside from those, Raptor and Zephyr got some much needed buffs so they hopefully aren't completely useless in their role anymore. Not sure what to think about the other buffs, but we'll see.
Prefer to play BAR, but ZK is very nice game with interesting unit roles. Can't force myself to finish campaign, though.Playing skirmish even on medium maps is pain due to not so good optimization.Are devs still using vanilla Spring instead of (Re)Coil?
>>1602876ZK switched to Recoil early this year. I've tried BAR but it didn't really click with me.
>>1603031BAR is just polished TA on steroids. It has almost same units for both factions, like in TA. ZK has amazing unit diversity and mechanics inside single "faction". Huge win for ZK. Antimicro unit AI is another feature I wish to have in BAR.Energy grids and mex overdrive is interesting mechanics, but do not scale properly (also, no maps without metal spots at all are possible). I prefer to able to build huge e-converter/massfab grid with linear income scaling. ZK forces player to expand (turtlers must suffer) and share eco with allies. In BAR you can build eco for yourself (likely for boosting eco much more till mid- or end- game) and decide when share resources with allies.Resurrection mechanics is essential and affordable in BAR from the beginning of the game. In ZK it's almost completely impractical, I think.Also, units in ZK are extremely fragile, even torpedo boats sink after two hits from their class' torpedoes, which make them little more than suicide drones. In BAR there usually some spectacular skirmish happens before units become wrecks.And veterancy is funny mechanics, yet unrealistic lore-wise.
>>1600278Planes are my least played factory so I have no thoughts, head empty. I'm glad they're slightly reverting the nerfs to Disco Rave Party though. I couldn't believe the numbers they chose when they originally nerfed it.
For me it's rovers They cute
>>1603175>In ZK it's almost completely impractical, I think.Eh... it's not useless, but resurrection is definitely more of a late game focus.600 + the strider hub isn't free for a builder, but athena's are nimble enough, plus stealth, and they can build a selection of units and buildings themselves so they're not completely one-note. The real draw is how metal is the biggest limiting factor for massing an army, but where reclaiming gives 40% of a unit's value in metal, resurrection gives a unit for free* (200% of its value in energy, which is barely a consideration late-game, with the real cost being how long it generally takes to resurrect compared to building something new).But yeah, the game is really more focused on using the 10+ variety of builders to reclaim.
>>1603401In BAR wrecks give 60% of mass, rezzing cost 50% of energy unit cost. Resurrecting and reclaiming is more profitable than just reclaiming. But in BAR rezbots are cheap, mass produced and resurrect faster (due to numbers). Also, they often used as mobile fast repair squads where nanoturrets/caretakers haven't built yet.
>>1600278is this the vibrating dildo shooter?
>>1603929No. This is an RTS, not an FPS. Who would make a thread about an FPS on a board about strategy games anyway?
>>1603386Literaly worst factory
Can't play it, crashes every time. Meh, I heard the community are notorious douchebags, anyway.
BAR but meh
best DRM on the market, literally impossible to search for on pirate sites
>>1606022Because it doesn't have any and it's free.https://zerok.itch.io/zero-k if you don't want to use Steam (the only other supported method). Be warned that the itch.io method is mostly unmaintained, though you should still be fine.
>>1606026>download installer>it wants internet connection>literally only downloads the main executable>main executable wants internet connectionhow about no>download 'portable' version>still wants internet connection, refuses to launch withoutnice totally not DRM, shithead
>>1606099The internet connection is just for auto-updating, put in a text-file named "steamfolder.txt" in the folder with the Zero-K executable and it should no longer require an internet connection to play, though as a consequence you'll need to remove it to play online.
>>1606099https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-KIt's literally an open source game
>>1606099You're gonna have an aneurism when you realize it also needs an internet connection to download maps, once you join a lobby or try to play singleplayer.
i have been enjoying it singleplayer but I get the impression its not really a "serious" fps in terms of unit balance. there are a lot of units and I like unlocking shit after each mission.
>>1600278It's the best RTS I ever played, shame it doesn't have enough population.I tried BAR but it didn't click with me so far, I'll see again when it releases on steam.
>>1609628Different units have different roles, and different factories have different specialties. I think unit balance works quite well. I think the big units from the strider factory fit in due to their cost. The thing that bothers me really is energy production. If you look at cost effectiveness, there is really no point to build any beside singularity reactors once you can. Usually I build 4 solar panels next to each metal, then build geo thermal plants and go straight into building singularity reactors.
At a glance it looks exactly like BAR except it has an actual campaign and a more comfortable UI, but the graphics/designs are disgusting, and it keeps crashing. The two teams should really switch projects and finish each other's games at this point.
>>1612158Some of the unit models have been virtually unchanged since they were made over 2 decades ago. Unfortunately there's not a lot of people with both the skills and the willingness to update them. There are some in-progress reworks, but who knows when or if they'll be ready.As for the crashing, if you could post a link to the crash report it generates I could look into it or see if there's someone else who could help.
>>1600278I prefer BAR
>>1612158Zero k is done by single autist for over a decade anon its the engine what makes it look similar to bar
>>1612158It's fucking unfair, zero-k makes want to vomit while BAR is pretty but then I get tired of all this pointless micro and devs insist on keeping it
>>1612165This is something that FOSS people seem to struggle with. They get plenty of decent programmers who have to double as average artists, musicians, UI designers so the regular user's experience can be all over the place. >post a link to the crash report it generatesCrashed twice trying to run the Steam version, froze once on the standalone version while loading a mission (no log generated), and crashed just now while loading a mission.https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/CrashReports/issues/83993https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/CrashReports/issues/85064
>>1612245While I don't know what happened with the first one (access violations are always hard to debug, if nothing else try updating your graphics drivers), the second one says it failed to allocate memory. How much RAM do you have?
>>161262912 GB
>>1612654That should be enough, not sure why it failed to allocate memory then. Have you tried running Zero-K as admin? I've been looking through old reports of access violations and someone said that doing that fixes the issue "almost all of the time", but I'm unsure if that would help. Access violations are the hardest issue to debug because the root cause can be so many different things.
>>1612662Admin didn't help... but closing my browser did, for now. I guess I can't have crap running in the background without memory issues. What a naughty, greedy game. Thanks for looking into it.
>>1612770Not that anon but try that next time games run poorly. Browsers can be pretty greedy as well. I close mine while playing games if they start to chug.
>>1612770>greedy gameWould you prefer unitcap shit, crippled pathfinding, retarded AI, etc "for optimization reasons"?Chrome-based browser (and fucking electron-based apps) eating about 3Gb memory just to launch. 2-4Gb for system processes. BTW, I have failed to play BAR on larger than 16x16 maps on my old 8Gb laptop due to OOM.
>>1612770If you're using Steam, closing and reopening it periodically helps a lot as well. It has a huge memory leak so you can easily free 3-4 gb just by doing that.
