WOAH! Did NOT expect to be here. I've been playing Zero-k for over a year and it is so. much. fun. I play BAR (Beyond All Reason) and Zero-k with some of my friends.
Zero-k: A libre sci-fi RTS game, with an economy based on metal and energy
101–110 of 147 posts
Re: Zero-k: A libre sci-fi RTS game, with an economy based on metal and energy
#102The strange thing I cannot play war games any more. Not after Russia invaded Ukraine. War now seems Really Evil and playing with it doesn't seem appropriate. I wonder does anyone else feel like that?
Why Russia / Ukraine? There is nothing particularly notable about this conflict compared to others. War has always been war.
Yeah, I think you are right. But I didn't feel it before it hit me into the face. Me personally. Wars seemed too far away to feel real.
Re: Zero-k: A libre sci-fi RTS game, with an economy based on metal and energy
#103The strange thing I cannot play war games any more. Not after Russia invaded Ukraine. War now seems Really Evil and playing with it doesn't seem appropriate. I wonder does anyone else feel like that?
Such a strange thing to say. Are you saying war did not exist before Russia-Ukraine war? Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria...US instigated wars aren't evil enough for you?
No, they were far away and not my problem. It is silly from a rational standpoint, it is probably unjust from a Universal Justice standpoint, but I'm not talking about rationality or justice right now, I'm talking about emotions.
Re: Zero-k: A libre sci-fi RTS game, with an economy based on metal and energy
#104linux support but no macos support? Aww
I'm 41, gamed since all the way back... but feel silly for asking... what sort of macros would you use in games like this?
In Supreme Commander you could have build templates for building layouts, eg. fortifications (point defence, shields, artillery, properly aligned, rotatable, etc), I relied on it extensively in multiplayer to quickly get foothold. (SC was successor of TA, these games started as clones of TA).
Just tried BAR, and the build templates would be really handy.
Re: Zero-k: A libre sci-fi RTS game, with an economy based on metal and energy
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Such a strange thing to say. Are you saying war did not exist before Russia-Ukraine war? Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria...US instigated wars aren't evil enough for you?
No, they were far away and not my problem. It is silly from a rational standpoint, it is probably unjust from a Universal Justice standpoint, but I'm not talking about rationality or justice right now, I'm talking about emotions.
Understandable.
Sorry, let's hope for a quick and just peace then.
Re: Zero-k: A libre sci-fi RTS game, with an economy based on metal and energy
#106Would I need a fairly powerful machine to run this? I can run Starcraft 2, is that enough? I've toyed with Total Annihilation, but the graphics were too old, even for Brood War fan such as myself.
If you can run SC2 you prolly can run ZK. It does uses nearly all of the 4 Gb specified in the minimal requirements, though. But if you are at minimal specs, don't think about engaging into the popular 16vs16 battles.
A fair bit above them, only graphics are a problem.
Intel i5 11th gen, Intel Iris UHD graphics, 16GB RAM.
Re: Zero-k: A libre sci-fi RTS game, with an economy based on metal and energy
#107I hadn’t heard of this before, and was excited that a new RTS was being announced, given that RTSes seem like a fading genre. Of course it’s just a link to an older game. I guess the days of the RTS really are behind us. :(
The Planetary Annihilation devs are coming out with a factory-rts hybrid game akin to Mindustry. That seems the direction RTS is heading in general, hybridizing with other genres.
link?
Re: Zero-k: A libre sci-fi RTS game, with an economy based on metal and energy
#108I used to play Total Annihilation online back when I was in secondary school in the late 90s We'd hang out on IRC, and people would host a game on their IP. Eventually I got into creating new units for the game. You had to animate them with a C-like language, and I was trying to teach myself C at the time so that was part of my programming journey. The 'Swedish Yankspankers' were a clan that had a channel on the IRC…
You'll love what the community did with Supreme Commander, Chris Taylor's spiritual successor to Total Annihilation:
https://www.faforever.com/
They even created a Coop-Campaign and a completely new faction.
Re: Zero-k: A libre sci-fi RTS game, with an economy based on metal and energy
#109I used to play Total Annihilation online back when I was in secondary school in the late 90s We'd hang out on IRC, and people would host a game on their IP. Eventually I got into creating new units for the game. You had to animate them with a C-like language, and I was trying to teach myself C at the time so that was part of my programming journey. The 'Swedish Yankspankers' were a clan that had a channel on the IRC…
You'll love what the community did with Supreme Commander, Chris Taylor's spiritual successor to Total Annihilation: https://www.faforever.com/ They even created a Coop-Campaign and a completely new faction.
I put a lot of hours into SupCom. It was always a buggy mess, but I do remember it quite fondly. Planetary Annihilation has felt like the right progression in the spiritual series. It was always a very smooth experience and fixed the technical issues with scaling up to massive scale combat while fixing the balance issues of turtling. The skill ceiling is immense and I could never beat high level bots. The nature of having one to many planets also means you can play cooperatively with up to several friends. It's a good time.
Re: Zero-k: A libre sci-fi RTS game, with an economy based on metal and energy
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
To compare the two: Zero-K allows 16 vs 16 battles (and it works!), each player controls a relatively smaller number of units. In Beyond All Reason, there are 8 v 8 battles and each player controls a larger number of units, maybe 200 or so at the peak of battle. (There are some strong, but predictable AIs for both games.) Zero-K has more units that are less realistic and have more variety. BAR has more realistic unit…
To clarify, ZK doesn't population caps like e.g. Starcraft. The actual limit is actually the CPU/GPU (and maybe your bandwidth too). ZK's 16vs16 host, the "lobster pot" as they call it, can barely be playable if your rig is too weak.
> ZK doesn't population caps
That sounds like poor RTS design.
Popcap is one of the simplest and most effective "anti-snowballing" mechanisms. Once you're "maxed out", you cannot get further ahead - you must attack and trade to build new stuff. If you can just keep making stuff without ever being forced to trade, whoever gets ahead first, eventually wins.
Supply also serves as a comeback mechanic - you were even, but took one bad fight, so you can immediately spend all your money to get a new army. Meanwhile your opponent must construct additional pylons before they can get much further ahead - they grow stronger slower than you regrow the lost limbs.