This is _exactly_ what I was looking for out of PA. Thoroughly enjoyed watching this vid and I can't wait to play Fields of Isis with some friends. One thing I really like about this map is that the design brings us closer to basically playing on a flat map and for someone like me who regularly finds themselves a bit lost on the speherical maps this is heaven. I get especially confused on the latest 1v1 maps...did you guys really have to put the spawns on north/south forcing me to turn off pole lock :-( ...I know I should turn off pole lock btw, but I just don't play enough PA to be comfortable without it. Whoever made this map, you rock. I hope to see more like it and would love to see maps like this show up in official matchmaking games, etc (btw, some ability to choose/vote on the map in matchmaking would be great too)
That map is great yeah. It's just a little sneak peak at what the future can bring. But seriously turn off pole lock forever and start using camera hotkeys to orientate.
Regarding the camera keys, is there a way or some set of keys you should be using so that your perspective is always the same? I find that after moving the camera around a bit using the up/down/left/right keys I always end up looking at my base from a different angle. For example, try this in game: when looking at your base, hit up, right, down, left, up right, down, left, etc, etc. and your camera angle just ends up rotating, and rotating no matter how minor your camera movements...so where previously you might have said "ok, I need to build left of this factory..." after just a few minor camera movements you now need to realize you're looking at your base upside down and actually need to build to the right. This *constantly* messes with me...I never feel like I have my bearings in the game properly. I don't understand why the camera was implemented this way in the game...why not make it so that "up" on your screen is always north (or south if you go past north). As it is now what direction "up" is on the screen can be absolutely any direction at any time and constantly changes.
The way I play is like this: At the start of the game I make camera savepoints (some may call them camera anchors) (look in the keyboard config to see how to do that or to change which key to use): F1 is my base F2 is the enemy base F3 is one side of the planet F4 is the other side of the planet When the game starts I am looking at my base, basically at F1. Then I do stuff, move my camera around, etc. Once I am in a situation where I am like "okay I want to go to my base to continue building" I just press F1 and get back to my base. F1 has stored an exact camera positions, including the orientation, so pressing F1 resets my orientation together with the camera location. This solves the issues with "build a factory in the left", as now that simply means "build a factory in the left in the view of my base after pressing F1". Same with the other hotkeys, though using especially F3 and F4 in combination with the alerts minimap mod I build is still ... I need more time to play so I can practice. I btw have all camera savepoints orientated to the north. So as a start try to make a single camera hotkey that has a view of your main base. Operate from there to do what you want to do. Whenever the orientation of the camera becomes weird and you lose track of where you are, just go back to the camera anchor and start from there again. Relate everything on the planet to that camera savepoint. Once you get that right try to add more savepoints, as to increase the speed at which you can navigate. You will also more and more be able to tell what kind of effect the camera movements you do will have on your orientation. They do follow a certain logic in relation to the camera moves you do ^^ An additionally helpful hotkey is n. That key aligns the current view to the north, so it rotates your camera and puts north to the upper end. That way you can get a quick answer to "where is north?" for any camera location. Overall it sure does require a little practice to find your way around on a sphere, but that's to be expected. It adds a whole extra dimension to the orientation process after all Because that is just how the 3D math behind it has to work. It's a natural law basically: If you have a free moving camera that can move in any direction the orientation of the sphere it is pointed at can easily change in relation to the camera. The only way to achive "have the north always be up" is to restrain the movement of the camera, which is exactly what pole lock is doing. However that obviously is taking away freedom of the camera movement AND has horrible results close to the poles.
That...is incredibly useful information. I had no idea you can do that. Thanks so much. This will literally change how I play the game.
I know in some other thread @jables mentioned something about working on some tutorials for a future update, etc so just a note for him...a camera tutorial that covers the stuff mentioned above by colin would go a long way to helping people like me get the most out of PA
I guess basically a "how to tell where you are when playing on a sphere: hints for how the game can help you" should indeed be part of a tutorial.
Once I found the pole-lock setting, I turned it on, and 700+ hours into the game I have never even considered turning it off. I find it really useful for keeping my orientation.
