Where are we standing? (18.01.15)

So Planetary Annihilation that was officialy released september 5th 2014 is by the date of opening this thread out for 4 and a half months, which is actualy not that much time.
And yet within these 4 and half months PA seems to went trough quite a number of changes.
But how close or far off to having a optimal game of this kind are we?
Ignoring personal preferences but considering what PA may truly missing and needing
how much more work do you think PA needs from here on?

This shall be more a summary of the communities thoughts on the current general gamestate
What is your gutfeeling?

Compared to the launch, the game progressed to the positive in all kind of aspects for me, but I see still quite some points which need work and hopefully will be improved in upcoming patches. Just going to address my main points:

- Save feature: It is definitely needed and should be as high on the priority list as possible
- Advanced tutorial: I still can observe that many streamers or random teammates have big problems in generally understanding the game (as well controls, as gameplay wise)
- Single player improvements: I assume that at least 80% of players play alone vs ai or in the galactic war. There I have two points: 1st ai needs a wider spread in difficulties: Should be easier for new players and stronger of advanced players. 2nd GW is still not very appealing and a bit boring for me.
- Biom variety: They just don't feel different enough and could need some more interesting terrain features.
- Balance: I see it as a progression that always needs the attention of the devs. For me the latest PTE is already an amazing step in the right direction.

Edit: Sounds way more negative than I intended to write it. Overall I'm really happy with the game, just wanted to address the direction of feature updates I'm hoping for.

Saves is the only feature I can think of that needs to be added, not that it's a big deal to me. Polish like biome variety is lacking, but I'd rather they keep working on the engine and improving features that users can generate content with, aka modding and the map editor. Stuff like an advanced tutorial should be for the community to make, and possibly for Uber to link to imo.

Galactic war needs to be re-done from the ground up as it's pants at the moment, also Co-op/MP galactic war, saves, server, balance, tool-tips, A lot of biome work, check lists in lobbies to disable/enable certain buildings/units.

I'd be a happy chappy if just the SP galactic war was re-worked so it's actually fun.
To be fair, I'm too hyped for Grey Goo right now.

saves are needed. Also server side modding for gameplay stuff needs a lot more APIs. Also a lot of polish: a lot of UI improvements (orbital, queues, idle fabber/factories), balance stuff, bugfixes, improvements for the system editor usability.
Oh and the ability to control the heightdata in the system editor and to place features by hand.

... and did I mention somewhere that we need a global chat system? Looking at "there are 2000 people playing PA" and then having troubles to find somebody to try PTE with is really really bad.
And while we are in this area: We need player profiles and a fully visible ladder.

my points on what needs more work:

galactic war singleplayer needing less RNG on techdrops and more a techtree that allows me to design my own techbuild as i advance, option for aggressive AI conquering noncaptured systems and attacking my own for a more dynamic campaign, stationable commanderallies to defend strategical planets and option to autobattle or manualbattle with them ...
general galactic war multiplayer ...


orbital: needs some ui work as well to be more distinguishable from surface ... multiunittransports, carriers and teleporters for more dynamic logistics of your surfacearmy and general better macroability


general ui improvements: having visual information on idle fabbers and factories, nukes available to launch f.e.
more detailed information of what units and structures require and produce in the buildbar


saving be it a full chronocamgame or just states


naval - teleporters and subs

And I thought that there are 12 months in a year and September to January are 4 months!
Thanks for clearing it up.

how could you forget multi-screening?

that is in enough for modders to make it useful already. Someboody just needs too do it

I am not sure
0 vote(s)
0.0%

At least everyone is pretty sure of what they want. That's something, I guess.

nobody's going to do it.

I would be cool if there was a way to make maps with premade units to certain ai's or players already there waiting for them, then people could make makeshift campaigns aswell as just general missions to beat ai in a certain time frame or survive against waves of units for as long as you can kinda thing...

you can mod a lot of that already

O_O someone with more energy and time then me should do this... it could be quite fun plus assuming there was a way to get word out to the common players it would be something they can play solo while they wait for more features and such

Bit of a mod request if possible

Option 5 should be "... amount of work ..."

... fix pleaze ...

@cola_colin @cwarner7264

I wait a moment when Ubers fix ugly smash planets bug.Its a reason why i don't like create systems with many moons.

So the lobbies got fixed?

I would like to be able to customize the planets further in the system editor. AI improvements are always nice. GW needs help. Make the UI more intuitive and easier to manage multiplanet systems.

Where*

Yeahh still enough to be done to keep Uber busy

- Galactic war (Clanwars and making it a real gamemode please!!! here my idea for it: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/galactic-war-need-some-love.65150/page-2#post-1021579 )
- Terrain/planet overhaul (Custom stuff is usually 100x cooler than the random stuff, so we need a better generator)
- Ingame saving and replay continuation
- Server optimisation (40 player games!! )
- Orbital and naval love (Getting there )
- Effect overhaul, the bullets doxes and grenadiers shoot aren't that awesome, you barely see them, especially in the desert. Also planet smash sometimes looks off and is there already an effect for two equally sized planets which completely destroy eachother?
- More planet customisation options (Custom hills, water, forrests etc)
- New biomes (Alien worlds and cities?)
- Gameplay and UI features like adapting your buildque for fabbers factories.
- Dedicated servers!! (Not complaining about Uber's servers, but I bet the community can do awesome things with them )
- Official mod support (steam workshop alike? or just implement PAMM into the game)
- Planet sharing tools (not the mod, real stuff with votes for everyone)

Ordered them with my most wished feature on top and my least wished feature on bottom