My Feedback to Devs

Been playing the newish single player campaign and I thought i'd provide a bit of feedback.

The good:

Really like how it's not just an exact copy of Total Annihilation and there are some innovate ideas in there like controlling planets, orbital units, unit guns ect. I also like the art style and direction. The single player progression system is also a cool idea, though I think it needs a bit of tweaking (duplicates, too much randomization, screwed if you don't get slots early).

The bad:

Worlds just feel really lifeless and unimaginative. Partly I think this is because planet size is too small, but also the worlds lack interesting features. Things like rivers that run through the course of the map would really help navel combat. Choke points through vast cannons. Large mountains or hills that give a range advantage would all add a new layer of depth. This is a scifi game after all, where are the unique alien worlds? TA had gas pods, acid worlds and giant water worlds.

Units also feel lifeless and or unimaginative to me. I think this is partly because you can build them much faster and all of them are killed in 2-3 shots. I'd really like the building pace to be slowed down a notch and damage to be tweaked (reduced) accordingly. Not really digging the blob vs blob combat with units being destroyed left and right. Try to remember some of TA's icon units like "The Can" or the "Pittbull". It's not just nostalgia combat was slower and thus more memorial and interesting.

Also the special effects on units are all pretty boring and lack personality. I think adding a bit of color to some lasers other than white and adding missile trails, having tanks rock from recoil when the fire, tank tracks, ect, would go a long way.

You mean bulldog?

The biomes are certainly lacking. It would definitely be nice to see some icing on the cake (polish) for the biomes, like real rivers, terraforming in the system editor, and some under water additions just to name a few.

Yeah some shallow and deep water, crossing points over rivers (choke points) and underwater features would be awesome. Also archipelago style maps would be great. I agree that the game needs more visual polish, foliage, seaweed, giant sea anemone, giant dead octopus are some ideas from TA. I am sure the game designers could come up with their own original ideas. Point being that every map could be really unique and different in both play style and appearance. Right now every map pretty much plays the same.

I also liked how there were different metal values and large deposited you could use. I really think there needs to be much bigger planets.

Nah the Pittbull was the amphibious tank from TA.

I tend to agree a little bit about unit health, but this is intended to be several scales of magnitude above TA.
If units take a lot longer to die they need to take a lot longer to build too, and the the whole pace of the game will change - this is not necessarily a good thing; modern gamers in particular want shorter game/match times, but mods can and do provide a different experience.

That was the Trident (Arm) or Croc (Core)

Pittbull, if it exists, is a modded unit.

I tend to agree ... Consideringing how long supcom units take to build and last this game depending in map escalates realy fast ...
However i am gonna say it again if you want smaller amounts of units to matter more you better play with a low ammount of mexxes to surface ratio ... The less mexxes there are and the more raiding will matter comparibly to big pushes ...

The general thing about PA however simply are those larger pushes with numbers of units ...

Wasn't the pittbull a pop up canon?

Anyway to the op:

First you really need to download and install PAMM (pa mod manager, check out the released section in the modding sub forum). I agree the base game lacks a bit, mainly due to the devs being very constrained on time / funds (this was built on a shoe string budget compared to earlier titles).

However, the community has had the opportunity to push the engine as one thing the devs must be commended on is their excellent support for mods. PAMM will give you access to all the goodness

Things to try: custom map packs! Since the improvements to map editing there are some crazy good hand made maps with stuff even ta couldn't do (hint tunnels through planets with combat pathable terrain both inside and above the tunnel!). There are special effects mods that greatly liven up the weapons, explosions, unit lighting and such. There are also a whole host of balance mods that increase unit variety and durability and finally there are packs to improve card drops for gw.

I really think this will enhance your game from the sounds of it

That would be Toaster (CORE), Ambusher (ARM)

Ah yes now I remember! The Pitbull is indeed a unit related to TA, specifically it was added into the Absolute Annihilation and later Balanced Annihilation mods for TA:Spring It's a T2 pop up point defense unit (not an artillery unit like the Toaster / Ambusher) for ARM. Core also got an additional T2 turret which was a pop up heavy missile tower called the 'Viper'. I'm not sure if these were ever included in any of the TA mods or if they only existed in Spring. They were both useful additions however as TA lacked a close range T2 point defense (essentially for ARM players, as good as the Annihilator is it can't fend off units at close range at all).

The Viper was an original Cavedog Unit, added in the Core Contingency expansion.
TA had quite effective close range T2 Point defences - Heavy Laser cannons: Sentinel (ARM) & Gaat Gun (CORE)

I'm aware of both of those and they are T1 weapons *not* T2.

I wasn't sure which were in TA and which were BA add ons (been a while since I played TA on line, I moved over to Spring when it first released as the TA on line community was dwindling, and have played there ever since).

I guess they added the Pittbull to AA / BA to balance the fact core had the Viper

The T1 PDs are the LLT (ARM) and Light Laser Tower (CORE). Also the Immolator (CORE), but that's specialised.
Though granted, I think we are just calling the tiers different things. There's actually a weird half-tier due to T1 construction units having additional build options the commander can't build. Some people call this T2, others T1 (with the commander-only ones being T0.5).

Edit: 4000th post

Comm is t0, basic are t1, and advanced are t2.

Though many people who played TA put it into way to many techs.

Units dying too fast and being rather boring is a common complaint ever since the beginning of the alpha of this game. Uber never acknowledged that complaint however...

my only complaint is orbital and the leveler

other than that i dig the fast pace of the game ...

i wonder weither or not speedsettingoptions would help for players that don´t seek competitive play

Well there are some positive changes being made in the PTE build, although unit longevity isn't one of them I must admit. A few other silly things have been corrected (air transports are now T1 again for starters, also energy balance is much better and they've incorporated a number of improvements to how orbital and land interact).

I agree with your first "Bad" opinion, the planets are dull and lifeless. The planets need "something" to make them more memorable.

The next about choke points is your mind still in a 2-D mind set. Thats also why there isn't many features on the planets is because a player can attack anywhere and you have to be on the lookout for things like that. In 1v1 they have a map which your opening base does have a choke point but other than that it's very open in terms of planet scale.

Your reference about the gas pods and acid worlds would be cool to see but I disagree with adding them. This is Planetary Annihilation, a different game, yes it can have features that tip it's fedora to it's predecessor but if it's just a copy paste then it's nothing new just 3-D

The units seeming kinda cold and just husks I do agree with, they seem like just another number to make your blob bigger, that being said when you play a lot (and I mean a lot) you don't feel a connection to the individual unit but for the unit as a whole. Like dox for me feel like these hyper energetic psycho units that sprint everywhere looking to start fights. Tanks, kinda slow in the head and very powerful. Get them to face the right way and right click and everything dies. They have hidden personalities that not one unit can show but you notice overall after quite a few hours.

I couldn't agree more, in fact some time ago I posted my own suggestions to tackle this issue:

I like the visual style overall and, apart from minor tweaks ( fixing lava as discussed in this thread so that it resables the original concept art, some details for the oceans and few other small things), I think the biomes look nice and pretty from the purely static point of view. But I would add some small animations that give "life" to the biomes, just as some simple examples:

• Earth planets: Waves or ripples in the oceans so that water looks like a real liquid and not a transparent gel, as it does a bit now.
• Lava planets: Make the already nice-looking volcanoes really cool by animating them into active volcanoes with a small geyser of lava at the top, a couple of lava rivers flowing along the sides and a small pond of lava at the base. An animation of released gases and some small bubbles on the lava oceans will also work quite well into making the biome look more "alive".
• Desert planets: Add some dust animations, something like small dust tornadoes or just an animation that conveys the effect that air is blowing by showing some thin dust clouds.
• Moons: Moons are dead environments so they should remain as they are!
• Ice planets: Same kind of animations used for desert planets may work for ice planets by changing the colour so it looks like snow in the wind. An occasional geyser in some non-pathable landmarks like cracks will also be nice.
• Metal planets: Add occasional sparks or bolts around the annihilaser area and maybe more varying ilumination effects from the internal lights of the metal planet.

These are just some exaples that come to my mind, of course, they must all be implemented in such a way that unit and structure visibility remains clear at all times. For this reason, I think, non-pathable landmarks like volcanoes, cracks, mountains, the annihilaser, lava oceans, etc. are the perfect things to animate a little bit as they will not cause any issues to unit and structre visibility.

Small things like this would make the planets feel more 'alive'