Commander wanted!
Drive giant robots, build an army of a thousand Fleas, move mountains if needed, bury the enemy at all cost!
- Real time strategy.
- Physically simulated units and projectiles.
- Terrain manipulation.
- 100+ varied units with unique abilities.
- Singleplayer campaign.
- Challenging, non-cheating AI.
- Multiplayer 1v1 - 16v16, FFA, coop.
- Multiplayer online campaign.
- Really free, no in-game currency, no unfair multiplayer.
Fully Utilized Physics
Simulated unit and projectile physics is used to a level rarely found in a strategy game.
- Use small nimble units to dodge slow moving projectiles.
- Hide behind hills that block weapon fire, line of sight and radar.
- Toss units across the map with gravity guns.
- Transport a battleship to a hilltop - for greater views and gun range.
Manipulate the Terrain
The terrain itself is an ever-changing part of the battlefield.
- Wreck the battlefield with craters that bog down enemy tanks.
- Dig canals to bring your navy inland for a submarine-in-a-desert strike.
- Build ramps, bridges, entire fortress if you wish.
- Burn your portrait into continental crust using the planetary energy chisel.
Singleplayer Campaign and Challenging AI
Enjoy many hours of single player and coop fun with our campaign, wide selection of non-cheating AIs and a survival mode against an alien horde.
- Explore the galaxy and discover technologies in our singleplayer campaign.
- Face a challenging AI that is neither brain-dead nor a clairvoyant cheater.
- Have some coop fun with friends, surviving waves of chicken-monsters.
- Cloaking? Resurrection? Tough choices customizing your commander.
Casual and Competitive Multiplayer
Zero-K was built for multiplayer from the start, this is where you can end up being hooked for a decade.
- Enjoying epic scale combat? Join our 16v16 team battles!
- Looking for a common goal? Fight AIs or waves of chicken-monsters.
- Prefer dancing on a razor's edge? Play 1v1 in ladder and tournaments.
- Comebacks, betrayals, emotions always running high in FFA.
- Want to fight for a bigger cause? Form a clan and join PlanetWars, competitive online campaign with web-game strategic elements, diplomacy and backstabbing.
Power to the People
We are RTS players at heart, we work for nobody. We gave ourselves the tools we always wanted to have in a game.
- Do what you want. No limits to camera, queue or level of control.
- Paint a shape, any shape, and units will move to assume your formation.
- Want to spend more time on tactics? Use construction priorities.
- Want to focus on economy? Order units to kite, strafe or zig zag bullets.
Plenty of Stuff to Explode Explore
Zero-K is a long term project and it shows, millions hours of proper multiplayer testing and dozens of people contributing ever expanding content.
- Learn to use all of our 100+ units and play on hundreds of maps.
- Invent the next mad team-tactics to shock enemies and make allies laugh.
- Combine cloaking, teleports, shields, jumpjets, EMP, napalm, gravity guns, black hole launchers, mind control and self-replication.
- Tiny flea swarm that clings to walls?
Jumping "cans" with steam-spike?
Buoys that hide under water to ambush ships?
Mechs that spew fire and enjoy being tossed from air transports?
Carrier with cute helicopters?
Jumping Jugglenaut with dual wielding gravity guns?
Meet them in Zero-K!
or just view the media
Zero-K v1.13.12.0 - Huge Graphics Update
This update overhauls the tech behind drawing units, wrecks and map features on your screen. This has many advantages. To start with, it allows for more and better looking fancy unit rendering effects, many of which are showcased in gif form below. It should also be less performance hungry on most hardware since it makes much more use of the GPU.
The deeper impact is that the new tech (physically based rendering) gives artists more tools to make units look even better. Tweaking textures to work with the new tech is an ongoing process, and one that would be much improved by the help of a volunteer artist or two. Another task is that of improving the lighting on many maps. Units are now more responsive to the sun, and tweaking it is just a matter of moving a few sliders around.
Most of this work builds on efforts within BAR to push the visuals of the engine forwards, with special thanks to ivand and FLOZi for assistance with adapting and improving it for Zero-K. We also want to thank the testers and contributors that helped add features and find technical issues prior to release. Finally, thanks 64-Bit Dragon for putting together the video below.
New and improved status effects!
Fancy nanoframes and swaying trees! The nanoframes are highlighted near 99.9% to make abandoned construction harder to overlook.
Units start getting wrecked before they die!
Trails for pew-pew lasers (thanks Thorneel)!
New cloak effects!
Relatively modern physically based rendering to expand the artistic palette!
Also:[list]
Posted by The deeper impact is that the new tech (physically based rendering) gives artists more tools to make units look even better. Tweaking textures to work with the new tech is an ongoing process, and one that would be much improved by the help of a volunteer artist or two. Another task is that of improving the lighting on many maps. Units are now more responsive to the sun, and tweaking it is just a matter of moving a few sliders around.
Most of this work builds on efforts within BAR to push the visuals of the engine forwards, with special thanks to ivand and FLOZi for assistance with adapting and improving it for Zero-K. We also want to thank the testers and contributors that helped add features and find technical issues prior to release. Finally, thanks 64-Bit Dragon for putting together the video below.
Visuals
New and improved status effects!
Fancy nanoframes and swaying trees! The nanoframes are highlighted near 99.9% to make abandoned construction harder to overlook.
Units start getting wrecked before they die!
Trails for pew-pew lasers (thanks Thorneel)!
New cloak effects!
Relatively modern physically based rendering to expand the artistic palette!
Also:[list]
- Units cast shade on each other.
- Boosted contrast adaptive sharpen slightly.
- Toned down bloom.
- Disabled screen space ambient occlusion by default as it is not worth the performance cost.
- Adjusted the textures of many units and the lighting on many maps, but there is still more to do.
Features
- Improved the radar shadow preview widget and enabled it by default. It is now more accurate (thanks Helwor) and takes structure terraform into account.
- Units stop and wait when a nearby friendly transport tries to pick them up.
- Constructors in friendly transports are considered idle when the transport is idle, and pressing the idle constructor button selects the transport (thanks strategineer).
- Constructors in enemy transports are no longer considered idle (thanks strategineer).
- The idle constructor button flashes briefly when a new constructor becomes idle, configurable under "Settings/HUD Panels/Quick Selection Bar" (thanks strategineer).
- Added tooltips for endgame awards (thanks strategineer).
- Factories no longer inherit the retreat state of their builder by default.
- Added maximum zoom option to the COFC camera (thanks therxyy and kcin).
- Added clickthrough settings for the command panel and quick selection bar, found in "Settings/HUD Panels" (thanks strategineer).
- Added an option to show unit icon on the command panel, found in "Settings/HUD Panels/Command Panel" (thanks strategineer).
- Added Workman keyboard layout preset, found in "Hotkeys/Grid Hotkeys" (thanks strategineer).
- Tidal generator placement no longer uses the wind icon to denote income (thanks strategineer).
- Made it harder to unwittingly disable shaders in lobby settings.
Mapping and Modding
- Units and map features can be given normal maps by setting customParams.normaltex. Eg normaltex = "unittextures/bomberheavy_normals.dds".
- Model tex2 is now interpreted as a PBR texture. Red is emissivity (for lights and engines), green is metalicness, and blue is roughness.
- Unit textures can now be overridden with customParams.override_tex1 and customParams.override_tex2. Eg override_tex2 = "unittextures/m1r0.dds".
- Shielded units can set customParams.shield_fxs_type = "chicken" to render a chicken shield (thanks XNTEABDSC).
- Added a toggle for the metal spot placer mapping tool to Settings/Toolbox.
- The startbox editor now has a tooltip that tells you where it the startbox file.
- Added a tickbox under "Settings/Graphics/Sun, Fog & Water" to set a default sun angle and pitch.
- Developer mode detection also looks for devmode.txt.txt.
Fixes
- Hacksaw no longer wiggles around while under construction.
- Non-line jump commands to groups of units now only spread units to passable terrain.
- Fixed slightly misapplied Ronin texture (thanks garfild888).
- Fixed Gnat gun being slightly detatched from its body. (thanks garfild888).
- Fixed unit information window crash on Funnelweb space click.
- Fixed Mace sometimes having trouble leaving the factory.
- Fixed Duck range not resetting properly when exiting deep water (thanks strategineer).
- Removed excess technical details from unit spotter markers on AI units (thanks strategineer).
- Fixed resource bar text truncation with large font sizes (thanks strategineer).
- Shifted the default garbage collection rate more towards stability.
- Removed leftover terraform points on planet Ungtaint.
Cold Take #35 - Shields as Spherical Shells
Shields add a lot to your strategic toolbox so we designed them to work across the whole scope of Zero-K. This meant dropping wacky physics and adding an anti-monospam mechanic.
Read it here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/334920/view/607550616118493223
Posted by Read it here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/334920/view/607550616118493223
Cold Take #34 - Build a Navy
Take a dive into the mechanics of Zero-K's sea battles. The flat water surface and 3-D underwater movement mechanics present a new set of game design problems and opportunities.
Read it here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/334920/view/503965668093200937
Posted by Read it here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/334920/view/503965668093200937
Cold Take #33 - Give It Slow
Slow rounds out the roster of status effects as it lets you weaken units without fully disabling them. It is a Zero-K original and was given to many units, both new and old.
Read it here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/334920/view/516348030198220274
Posted by Read it here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/334920/view/516348030198220274