Build 77337-pte now up

I tought u where talking about the improved anchors.

Combat fabricators can build faster but still you pay the price of a couple of factorys for it. There is no way you can do big all in telly rushes within the first couple of minutes and win with this superbig price right?

Just an idea here, I agree with colin. I play plenty of PTE but can never find anyone online, so it usually ends up in a comp stomp kinda thing, and let's face it, the Ai does not handle Naval very well (which I thought we were meant to be testing).
Would it be possible to change the friends doodad in PTE to show anyone that might be online instead? I know it's a workaround to the open chat room (halcyon days!), anyways just a thought Uber.

Wouldn't the new T2 fighter makes it a bit too easy to scout planets undetected?

How about making them visible to the Orbital/Deepspace Radar so you can't use them without revealing your hand?

Well, surely they still show up on deepspace radar while transiting, so yeah, they can 'sneak' but only through a lapse in the opponents observance. and if it's the first time you've seen any of their units (sending stuff into orbit for the first time) it'll still give you an alert for that.

i say for vision the t2 fighter should only have it when in the airlayer .. this way you realy have to get it down to surface for any intel were it is vulnerable and orbital satalites would still retain their saver use when not much antiorbital is around .

I feel you on this. When the patch was very first announced, I though this was a sign they were trying to amp the dynamic factor of orbital gameplay up by 100. Cheap SSX, cheaper unit cannons, means a lot more stuff would in theory be flying around the orbital layer. So it made sense for them to give a lot more stuff on the ground the chance to fight back. But I think they haven't really found the sweet spot yet as it's not like orbital is a primary means of warfare. I think we're going to need some more adjustments to orbital fabbers, fighters, and structures if they really want orbital games to be super dynamic interplanetary slug-fests. And more importantly, another pass at the Orbital UI as this kind of game will be a pain to manage as is.

I think to counter all of the new anti-orbital ground units now, one thing they should do is give at least a little AOE to the SXX. If not for that, the SXX will become useless for orbital invasions against a fortified enemy planet, because it will be killed in seconds, and only fire 1 or 2 shots before then. Also, remove any firing delay that it has when it arrives.

In big games there are constantly units flying around in space though, it's easy to slip some low priority units through undetected when everyone is busy paying attention to where all the nukes, SXX and unit cannons are flying. When an orbital radar is spotted you get an alert, as you should because it's crucial to be aware of enemy intel.

But these planes are MUCH easier to deploy without alerting the enemy to your presence. Not to scout your opponent's heavily guarded primary planet, but to all those "unknowns" in the system. Those fighters could be on patrol on every remote asteroid, undetected, making it hard to judge where it's safe to expand. Usually you can tell at a glance which planets the enemy has a presence on because they'll have stuff in the orbital layer but the Phoenix needs direct vision to detect from off-world.

There are probably other ways to balance this though.

Also, I think this has been said before, but I want to add to the vote that the enemy Commander icon should remain in the fog of war after he has been scouted visually (or maybe even all enemy units for that matter), just like enemy structures. When you are trying to manage a ton of things going on late game, you don't always have time to check the alert for the enemy Commander being seen, or it scrolls by too quickly to check. That being the case, the main purpose for the scout is diminished. Having that kind of Intel remain on the map would help immensely and make late game Com snipes more viable, which is the only real way to remove a heavily turtled opponent from a small to mid sized planet when Annihilasers or Planet smashes are not possible.

Snipes shouldn't be the primary way to deal with a turtling opponent, and it no longer is thanks to the Unit Cannon and T2 fighters.

I agree that the enemy commander alerts are broken though. 90% of the time, even when I click the alerts the camera doesn't move to the commander's position, and I have to locate it manually. Especially if it's being detected in space. I also think the commander detection alert should take priority and remain on screen regardless of other alerts. But I don't think the commander's last position should be seen through fog of war. Scouting should be an involved process where you have to pay attention to get the intel you're looking for.

Firstly, totally agree with the radar thing, if you see something on radar, it should only be a blip, if you have radar on a unit and then get a visual scout, it should stay with the correct icon even on radar, then, if a unit moves out of your radar range and back in, it should be a blip again.

This would also give you another interesting incentive to hit power fields, because making the enemy power stall would also effectively refresh all their radar, so they'd lose some of their intel.

Also, you can figure out what is what most of the time, keeping them as blips all the time just makes it unnecessarily finicky to remember and manage.

Also, as far as the 'hidden scout planes' argument goes, i don't see how it's a big deal, additionally, you need to have reached T2 to do that, and you can do the exact same thing with the unit cannon, heck, even with an astreus which drops a fabber or scout then deletes itself/ doesn't go back to orbital.

I don't see a problem with "hiding" your scouts on other planets, it's a valid play where someone has gone to extra effort to have the intel of any potential planet hopping their opponent does. I would say if you're planning to expand to another planet, the onus is on you to scout and see if it's safe first.

I don't think that's what he meant, he meant that if you scout units visually their icons should remain even when you don't have radar or vision on them. I like your way of doing it though.

As for the planes, you can do the same thing with unit cannons but they come into play later and are much easier to keep tabs on since they are a game-winning tool everyone is always looking out for. I do think unit cannons are also kind of a too easy way to exert military influence over unclaimed planets though.

But if the game is headed towards easier cross-planet gameplay then that's the way it is I guess. In the end it's more important to put an end to orbital stalemates than preserve the commitment required to expand to other planets.

Video finally uploaded:

Is there any work going into the Galactic warfare map movement? It seems to only allow you to move your vision over a very small portion of the map. I have to quit and go back in to re set my available view.
Besides that these updates looks great!

Click the coloured commander icon. I believe it takes you to the last place the commander was spotted. If he hasn't been spotted then it's the last place you saw one of their units.

Such is my recollection, anyway. Might be wrong.

At this point they are just adding more variety to the Orbital war. You can now use one or all of these options, instead of JUST using Umbrellas.

Now all they need is more variety for orbital combat units... *COUGH*orbital warfare overhaul*COUGH*

i agree with you ... we realy need multiunittransports and orbital carriers ...

Are random planets in the lobby gone for good or is it just for the PTE?