9 April 2023

Designer's Notes

Continuing March Madness into April, tweaking the economic pacing some more, and improving AI - plus plenty of bugfixes and unit revisions!

For the next patch, we will revise reclamation (and other corpse interactions), as well as Vulture mine-laying. Stay tuned!

Harvest time now 4 seconds, from 4.8
Worker movement speeds now 10% faster
Worker wandering now works more consistently (c. Veeq7)
You can now return resources to an allied town center (note that your ally receives none of the returned resources)
You can now harvest vespene gas from an allied refinery

Burrowed units are no longer forcibly unburrowed when attacked (c. DarkenedFantasies)
Masons (and Taloses) now return to the point where they began construction, to avoid Masons getting stuck behind capped Geysers and similar silliness (c. DarkenedFantasies)
Sieged Phalanxes and burrowed Lakizilisks are no longer killed by landing structures

Maelstrom hits from dead Mind Tyrants no longer crash (c. Veeq7)
Cancelling Controlled Demolition no longer desyncs
Internal handling of many new abilities has been restructured to be less error-prone (c. Veeq7)
Basic workers should no longer freeze in place (c. DarkenedFantasies)
Attack-move no longer causes units to ignores enemies when initially attacking a structure
Weapons with Prolonged Arms now pierce targets far more consistently (c. Veeq7)
Zarcavrokor Bones of Reflection now correctly respects weapon range (c. Veeq7)
Star Sovereigns no longer turn wildly when trying to cast Grief of All Gods while accelerating (c. Veeq7)
Burrowed units are no longer displaced by Striga Fleeting Focus, Magnetar Law of Attraction (c. Pr0nogo), or Anthelion Gravity Well (c. Veeq7)
Player color randomization now ignores the colors of witness players (c. Veeq7)
Anthelion weapon fire SFX no longer occasionally fails to play
Madrigal weapon range is now displayed correctly when tempo is up (c. Veeq7)
Missile Silo stats display is no longer wucked while arming missiles (c. Veeq7)

Box selections are now sorted more consistently (c. Veeq7)
Centering onto control groups when members are far apart has been improved (c. Veeq7)
Minimap unit box update rate is now instant (c. DarkenedFantasies)
Witnesses are no longer shown in the score screen (c. DarkenedFantasies)

New options are now available for:
- Showing allied camera positions, or player camera positions in witness/replay mode (c. Veeq7)
- Showing team UI, including resources/units, APM, and names (c. Veeq7)
- Hiding replay progress bars (c. DarkenedFantasies)

Attack logic and mid-game production handling have been cleaned up to be more sensible with the current economic state
AI "drip-feed" attack waves less often
Zerg AI now request advanced defenses when at tier 2 and beyond

New sprite for:
- Cyprian Twin Railguns projectiles
- Sentinel Cerberus Railgun projectile
- Cabalist shadow
- Zarcavrokor Bones of Reflection projectile
Modified sprite for:
- Scribe (adjust back fins)

Cyprian:
- Weapon factor and damage now 2x5, from 1x10
- Weapon now travels to maximum range, and no longer splashes
- Now benefits from Prolonged Arms, piercing all targets as it travels
Heracles:
- HP now 140, from 120
- Armor now 4, from 3
- Weapon damage now 2x14, from 2x10
- Armor penetration now 0, from 4
- Nemean Reactors removed
Apostle:
- Gas cost now 150, from 125
- Last Breath removed
Treasury:
- Time cost now 50, from 45
Sentinel:
- Mineral cost now 250, from 225
- Weapon can no longer target air units
Ion Cannon:
- Placement size now 4x3, from 3x3
- Weapon cooldown now 7, from 10 (revert of previous change)
- Now fires a Hammerfall Beacon at target's initial position, before firing main gun at beacon position