Cosmonarchy mod for StarCraft

We welcome you back to the world of Cosmonarchy, where our 1v1 tournament progresses in its playoffs stage, the Zerg tutorial nears completion, and a slew of visual updates grace the Protoss roster!

Joining these achievements are improvements to minimap rendering, and a gaggle of minor balance updates in the wake of recent competitive developments. Read on for details!

Just like last weekend, this past Saturday was home to a round of Acropolis #1's ongoing Throneroom stage. This second phase of play saw two of our players eliminated, with the remaining competitors consolidating into the top 6 -- a factor that may guarantee them an invite to the next premiere event, depending on player turnout in June!

The two players to exit the Throneroom stage winless were 🇸🇪Tacocake (Zerg) and 🇺🇸GeneralAnakin (Protoss). The former fell to 🇺🇸Newt (Terran) 3-1, while the latter bowed out due to scheduling issues. Many thanks to them for their participation!

Now that round 2 is in the rear-view mirror, eyes fall upon our all-important round 3 matchups in this penultimate stage of Acropolis #1!

• Upper Final: 🇺🇸The Shambler (Protoss) vs 🇦🇺Neblime (Zerg)
• Elimination 2-A: 🇺🇸Hupsaiya (Protoss) vs 🇺🇸Newt (Terran)
• Elimination 2-B: 🇷🇺Hamster (Protoss) vs 🇺🇸Art_Of_Turtle (Zerg)

If anything can be divined from the last round of playoffs, it's that this next round will not have any easy matches. The Upper Final promises to be a banger -- perhaps even a preview of the Grand Final! -- and there's more than a puncher's chance for the Terran and Zerg underdogs in the lower bracket.

Will this Saturday be a Protoss massacre? You'll have to find out on Pr0nogo's youtube channel!

Work on Autophagy, the Zerg tutorial, is nearly concluded! Exhaustive testing of the dialogue events has already begun, and improvements to the enemy AI -- including harassment reactions and build order updates -- will soon be underway. You can firmly expect Cosmonarchy's third tutorial mission to deploy before the weekend.

This release will mark the end of tutorial development until the Askosi are implemented later this year. It will also herald the return of singleplayer campaign development, a focus-to-be for lead designer Pr0nogo following the conclusion of Acropolis #1. A very exciting time!

While it doesn't directly relate to the Zerg tutorial, another thing that's easy to celebrate is the latest achievement of project contributor DarkenedFantasies: improved minimap scaling!

Previously, minimaps had different scaling factors based on constants established by Blizzard, and would lead to views that were overly zoomed-out. This feature resolves that problem, improving zoom accuracy for virtually all potential dimensions, which will certainly unlock more mapmakers to be more creative with their map sizes!

A longstanding complaint of Protoss players around the globe has been the prohibitive size cost of the Grand Library -- and a similar trifle for players facing Protoss has been the trivial size cost of the Ancestral Archives.

With a new graphic taken from Five Nations, we have moved the previous Grand Library graphic (and corresponding placement size) to the Ancestral Archives, while replacing the Library with a slightly smaller and more permissive graphic. Spam away!

After a long delay, lead designer Pr0nogo successfully ported project contributor Baelethal's work on the Hierophant model to the latest version of Blender, and began rendering it. The final cut may look different than what is pictured above, but it's a great visual addition to the Protoss roster, allowing all Gateway-bound units to actually turn!

The next custom graphic for Protoss is likely to be a replacement for the Amaranth or the Herald. The Legionnaire also requires a bit of love, with improvements to its walk cycle and a visual revision of its weapon being on the to-do list. Step by step, the project's graphics will continue to improve!

Rounding out our visual improvements is a visual read for the Gladius, indicating when the unit is actively charging successive bounces of its passive. When the visual expires, you know the onslaught is coming to an end... until they turn right back around, of course. These sorts of additions are paramount for better communication of precise gameplay interactions, and we are quite happy to see them arrive!

With bank data and custom trigger updates being worked on by lead programmer Veeq7, it's highly likely that the next update to the previous tutorial missions will include the alternate, cut-down intro once players watch the full one. This is essential for reducing friction when playing the same mission over and over, and should make such a process feel less irritating, even if you've been defeated many consecutive times.

This addition to the mapmaking arsenal will be joined by the release of the Zerg tutorial Autophagy, and the subsequent shift towards the creation of more ambitious singleplayer content. Via Cosmonarchy's ko-fi page, donators will get exclusive access to development sessions for campaign efforts -- so if that sounds interesting to you, pledge a few dollars monthly and pop into our Discord server!

We will, of course, see the continuation of Acropolis #1. The finals are tentatively scheduled for Saturday, 11 March -- and the crowning of 2024's first champion shall be glorious!

Meanwhile, our community continues to grow, and we are just two individuals away from 500 Discord members. Numbers are going up, but more important than that is all the fresh faces. We're happy to have you!

It wouldn't be an installment of The Cosmonarch's Compass without some match recommendations to close us out, but let it be known that these commentated games will continue long after the current tournament is over! This pair of PvT matches is listed for your immediate viewing pleasure, but the daily casts shall continue on Pr0nogo's youtube channel. Many changes, actual and potential, are discussed during those commentaries, so consider subscribing if you'd like to stay in-the-know!

• ECalipso vs Eud64 - PvT on Impetus
• Hupsaiya vs Eud64 - PvT on Derelict