New User guide: Feedback wanted

Maybe some really basic keyboard:

- Enter to chat
- Shift+Enter for team chat
- ESC for game menu

Bonus points for looking up the current bindings, but hopefully if someone has changed them, he cared enough about the function to understand it.

camera anchors should be in basic, they are too important.

Also, area load.

I would just have factories set to continuous build by default and tell the player that. ctrl clicking can be used when you want a finite amount of something out of a factory, like the odd fabber or a few spinners out of a factory that is otherwise on continuous An- Bolos.

A lot of people don't realise you can also build the T1 metal extractor inside of the T2 one after it's finished, and sometimes even don't realise you can build T2 on it's own.

Tell them about the commander Uber cannon,

a quick guide to the hotkeys.

Explain how area command work.

Explain how energy affects metal. (example: If you are on the red on metal and energy u should build more metal first).

Explain efficiency.

Have a table for fabbers factories and their build power and efficiency.

Explain to people that they should not build too many fabbers and stall the eco.

Explain is better to have a lot of factories then to have fabbers assisting a single one.

Explain pip, and what it's buttons do.

Put a general guide to the UI.

Explain how the annihilase works.

Explain how halleys work.

Some tips on how to choose your spawn.

How teleporters work.

How unit transports work.

Explain how nukes and anti-nukes work.

I don't see anything about teaching the player how2planet smash and use the metal planet laser in the WIP

Where will this turtorial menu be accessible? I would recommend it being easy to find while in game.

I'd really like to see this stuff covered in a tutorial-style Galactic War, where in between a near-linear set of battles, John Patrick Lowrie explains the new units and techniques you'll use in the next battle in short videos.

Example:

###/- 3 - 6
1 - 2 - 4 - 7
###\ - 5 - 8

1: Base game stuff. Puts you up against an enemy base and gives you a set of units and your commander, without being able to build anything. Objective: kill all enemy structures (no enemy commander)

2: Construction, eco management, radar. Only T1 vehicle factory unlocked (chosen because combat fabbers are weird and tanks are slow so easy to attack with). Objective: kill an enemy AI commander.

3: Basic orbital and defences. A scenario where you have to get orbital and abandon a planet before getting steamrolled would be cool. Objective: Get your commander in transit to a safe planet (or even cooler an escape ship that you can look at in the celestial view the same way you can zoom into a planet). Make sure the enemy doesn't have hundreds of fighters, so the Astraeus doesn't get sniped.

4: Basic bots and naval. Map with lots of little islands that make Dox raiding important. Objective: Kill enemy AI commander.

5: Basic air, sub commander and mutliplayer shared and non-shared information. Would be cool if you could have an allied sub commander that transitions to being yours to control after an objective is completed, to show the difference between non-shared and shared armies.

6, 7, 8.... I'm not going to write an essay here, but I could come up with a massive spider web of a tutorial, which I think would be amazing. I would love to do a giant mod for this, but I don't know enough Javascript, and can't easily figure out exactly how the current Galactic War works, so putting it all together would be near-impossibru for me. If there are other people interested in making this into a mod, or Uber would like me to come up with an extremely long document outlining all my ideas, then.. speak up!

Back a bit more on topic, here's some badly formatted feedback to the points specifically in the first post:

• Arrow keys to rotate around planet

Mentioning that you can rebind this is important, some people (like myself) have a love of WASD or ESDF. Bonus points if you can rebind this stuff directly from the guide instead of having to close it and go into settings.

• Go between planets using planet menu (upper right)

Important to note the other ways of jumping the camera between planets. Camera anchors, using the planet switchy hotkey, or zooming out to celestial view and back in at the desired planet.

• Double Click a unit to select similar units

You can also double click the selected units icon in the bottom left to select all of that unit on the map. Also there's a keyboard shortcut for the double click action that a lot of people like to use.

Commander Basics

• select a landing zone near metal spots
• Stay alive or the match is over
• Commander starts with energy and metal resources

Missing Uber Cannon information. Also worth noting the weapons the commander has to defend himself. Exact energy and metal resource generation and build power statistics pulled from the units .json would be great.

Factories

• Factories are built by Commanders or Fabbers
• Select a Factory to get access to Build Bar
• Left Click units on Build Bar to build
• Shift Click units on Build Bar to build multiple
• Control click any unit to put that unit in the top of the build queue
• Right Click or Shift Right Click on units to reduce number of units in queue

Missing the fact that you can pause factories by toggling energy orders - this could do with a gif or video showing that the lights go off on disabled factories. Also missing cancelling a factories build queue completely by pressing cancel or using cancel keyboard shortcut. ALSO missing that you can set waypoints (including things like area patrols) from the factory and it affects any units that it builds.

Fabrication Units

• Fabbers are built by Vehicle, Air, Naval, Bot, and Orbital Factories
• Select a Fabber to get access to Build Bar
• Left Click units on Build Bar and select a space in the world to build
• Hold Shift + Left Click to queue up multiple build orders

Important to note that T1 fabricators can build more stuffs than the commander, and T2 can build loads. Again, pulling the build options and build power info from the units .json would be cool, either just the extra stuff the fabbers can build over the commander, or a big table (tech tree?) with comparisons or something. Also worth pointing out that killing enemy fabricators is very important.

Economy and Resources

• Energy and Metal resources gets consumed while building

Or when a radar is on or you use the Uber cannon!

• To generate Metal, build Metal Extractors

And T2 metal extractors on top of T1s!

• To generate Energy, build Energy Plants

But don't build energy to build fabbers to build energy to build fabbers? Noobs fall into this trap sometimes.

• Resources build up over time

No ****? Not worth putting in?

• If you’re consuming more than you are producing, build efficiency slows down

"Try pausing some factories or turning of radars you don't need" - a few simple suggestions on how to stop stalling would be good.

• As Efficiency percentage lowers, all fabbers, factories and Commanders build slower

Should be combined with the point above.

• Build Metal Storage and Energy Storage to stockpile more resources

Or.. don't. An emphasis that spending eco is usually better that storing it would be relevant here.

Area Commands

• Select units, click Attack button, left click drag an area to attack
• Select units, click Patrol button, left click drag an area to patrol

Area reclaim is important too! Need to say that dragging over the edge does a planet-wide area command. Need to say that area patrol fabbers will go and assist things.

Energy Resource

• Build Energy Plants to generate energy
• Select Fabber, select Build Energy Plant Icon, Left Click drag in the world to build multiple Energy Plants
• Advanced Energy Plants generate 8x more energy

Duplicate to Economy and Resources. T2 Energy plants really need to be more than just a straight up upgrade *le sigh*.

Metal Resource

• Build Metal Extractors on Metal Spots
• Advanced Metal Extractors can be built on top of standard Extractors
• Select Fabber, select Build Metal Extractor Icon, Left Click drag in the world to build over multiple Metal Spots
• Build Metal Storage to expand resource capacity

Duplicate to Economy and Resources. Could be worth mentioning that everything costs a "fixed" amount of metal, whereas energy taken to build something is variable and dependant on what's doing the construction.

I was hoping this would be some kind of in-game tutorial, since it's a hundred times more effective to learn while doing than it is to read, then try to remember five minutes later. Ah well.

Insofar as the guide is concerned, there really should be an explanation of orbital mechanics, including teleporters and superweapon use. Many new players will be familiar with RTS mechanics and can adapt quickly to single-planet PA, but there are top 1v1 players who still don't know how orbital works. I know you're wanting to stick to the basics for now, but orbital is such a key aspect of most casual matches that it's important even to beginners.

Also, is there a reason pole lock is off by default? Having a fixed orientation makes the game much less disorienting.

Pole lock is Ebola.

In YOUR opinion... I find it quite useful.

Wouldn't it be smarter to implement the queue-manipulation stuff first before writing this documentation? You know, stuff like removing and moving waypoints in middle of a queue, possibly even changing order (favorable: Autosorting). Controls are still a bit ... raw in these terms. Btw.: Persistent commands are also still a missing feature, as well as the ability to assist / copy a COMMAND rather than assisting a specific unit.

Besides, entirely missing the block about command inheritance (units inheriting the command of the factory they come from, same goes for teleporters!), and related to that, the explicit assist command.

Pole lock results in completely weird camera behavior on poles.

Very good point, adding more order queue management things for fabbers and factories would be quite helpful.
Same for a simple "You currently have these idle fabbers/factories/commanders: <visible list that player need to try keep empty>"

Left-click and drag to build a row of structures (factories, energy plants, defenses).

Also why do storage structures still build in a circle? Why?!

You should also add an actual in-game flashing icon above buildings telling you if they don't function because of no power.

My impression is that there needs to be a kind of notifications system added to the game so that when you hover over a button or a feature of the UI it tells you what it means and what it does. Obviously this should be switchable on and off and would help beginners a lot.

This is fantastic and pretty much exactly what I'd hope to see from Uber if they had the resources to do so. However I'd imagine that the time they'd need to spend making something this in-depth is probably still wanted elsewhere for the time being.

Also I'm not 100% sure on JPL's availability for the game. I feel that Uber would have used him far more than they already have if they could, rather than for just the Kickstarter and Launch trailers. So I'd have to assume he's largely out of the equation for the time being. That's not to say Uber couldn't bring in some other voice actor to do the job. I bet @wpmarshall would love to.

Frankly I'd be very concerned if someone had to be told that "esc" brought up the menu. I mean it makes sense if PA is the first PC game they've ever played EVER but still...

Those are usually called tooltips, and yes, we definitely need 'em.

Yes, that one's fairly discoverable. I definitely had to look up chat, with a second round to realize that I had to use the numpad enter pre-SDL.