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Discussion in 'Planetary Annihilation General Discussion' started by mkrater, June 3, 2015.

  1. wondible

    wondible Post Master General

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    GW: defeated one of two commanders. Did one rewind fighting the other. After beating second one, the game didn't end and first was shown as alive in the player panel.

    Tried to rewind to just before first was defeated, and sim crashed.

    I've had several crashes during rewinds, no pattern I've noticed yet.
    igncom1 likes this.
  2. Remy561

    Remy561 Post Master General

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    Saving does not really work with sub commanders yet and since those replays work like saving and loading a game it also gets bugged. As I showed in my bugreport a few pages earlier: when you save after you killed one subcommander and load afterwards the game will think you defeated both subcommanders while the living commander does get loaded and is spawned.
    igncom1 likes this.
  3. exterminans

    exterminans Post Master General

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    Intel IGP, 64bit host system, 32bit binary via Steam I assume? Newer generation laptop, Sandy Bridge or above?

    Try https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Intel_graphics#SNA_issues

    I have also experienced memory corruption with the SNA backend, which can lead to random crash.

    Also try starting the non-Steam version of PA, so you don't get hooked up against the old glibc version shipped with Steam, and make sure you have debug symbols for glibc available to aid Uber in reading the stacktrace. (On Debian based systems: libgcc1-dbg, libstdc++6-dbg and libc6-dbg.)
  4. davostheblack

    davostheblack Well-Known Member

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    Still working on my GW game from 2 days ago; now able to pump out and launch a nuke at 4 minutes

    May need to nerf some of the buff techs a little, but amazing stuff, thank you Uber
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  5. Alpha2546

    Alpha2546 Post Master General

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    Okay I started playing galactic war and I must say this patch has some crucial core gameplay fixes (at least it feels like that for me).

    Amount of units getting stuck is zero. (though haven't really played on crowded maps)
    Prioritization works good. No problems with that too.
    AI is really good too. Man it scouts like a beast and responds to it immidiatly. No sneaky air fabber expansion for me.

    I was doubting about the difficulty. Maybe it was too difficult because of spawning positions but its too hard to say that when I was getting greedy and didn't took all the easy fights first (playing on relentless). I lost a game against the 2 AI's and chronocammed it switched up my build in a core situation and eventually won the game. The chrono resume is such a cool feature. Even guys on my stream were like yeah thats a really nice feature.

    If you want to recheck the stream then here you go.
    http://www.twitch.tv/alpha2546/b/666452404


    Had a UI crash though with the error code : cilantro. It was only one crash.

    Good stuff Uber team!
    igncom1 and davostheblack like this.
  6. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    Units will sometimes get stuck around the sides of teleporters when approaching from the exit point, but it's only a few units.

    There doesn't seem to be any way to see the difficulty of an existing war. Mikeyh has suggested adding it to the name, but really it should be in the UI display somewhere.

    You can put Avengers in a position where an Anchor can't shoot them.

    2015-06-06_00002.jpg

    New Galactic War is a lot better, being able to choose techs makes a big difference. Biggest issue right now for me is there simply aren't enough techs to provide the necessary variety. Second biggest issue is the maps are too samey (which has a lot to do with their size IMO).
    Last edited: June 6, 2015
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  7. mikeyh

    mikeyh Post Master General

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    My suggestion was to show more context as extra column(s) in the list of saved games.
    Quitch and davostheblack like this.
  8. andrehsu

    andrehsu Active Member

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    The selection still appears to be broken. Have you looked into that Uber?
  9. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    Saved Games button disappears when you switch to Archived War even though it should clearly remain.
    igncom1 likes this.
  10. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    Super Weapon Fabrication Tech lists Super Weapon Tech as a requirement, but nuclear missiles don't appear to be tied to Super Weapon tech.
    igncom1 likes this.
  11. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    The audio balance between the GW victory voiceover and the music is poor, the voice is drowned out by the music.

    It also needs to be in the archived war view.
    igncom1 likes this.
  12. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    I'm not keen on the loadout unlock system. I won a Galactic War and for my efforts got... nothing. I believe you have to fight in certain systems to gain the new loadouts, but I didn't see anything which told me which they were without popping back and forth between the galactic map and the new game screen.

    Systems holding loadouts I don't have yet need some kind of symbol and voice "new loadout detected". Or perhaps that's in there and none of those systems were on my map.
    igncom1, cdrkf and Remy561 like this.
  13. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    Oh, and that thing where the camera moves with the mouse? Obnoxious as hell.
  14. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    I'd ditch the explore step following a battle, just show me the tech straight off the bat. It's not like you can do anything until you've clicked the explore button, so why have that step at all?
  15. crizmess

    crizmess Well-Known Member

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    There is another UI issue that annoys - at least - me as hell: Every time I finished a GW battle and pop back to the GW map I try to move the map with the keyboard, but - and here is the thing that is annoying - nothing happens, because you need to use the middle mouse button to move the map.
    It would be from a UI experience point of view a bit more consistent, if the same keys that move the camera in game can be used on the GW map as well.
    igncom1, davostheblack and proeleert like this.
  16. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    Isn't Complete Naval Tech redundant now we start with naval? I think that really we shouldn't start with naval at all and the game just needs a better piece of art to represent water heavy planets (right now there's none and it's an issue both in and out of GW). None of the boss worlds require naval, so I don't think it should be a starting tech.

    Frankly, I'd like a little terrain breakdown somewhere in the UI so I can make a more educated decision about whether to attack.

    Also left drag.

    Speaking of UI issues, the different techs need more to differentiate themselves. Basic Air Tech and Complete Air Tech should not look identical, at least add a bold outline or something.
    igncom1, Remy561 and proeleert like this.
  17. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    The blue boss is way too easy. Playing on Relentless and it's just one enemy commander against me, my sub commander and all my tech. We both started on the same planet as blue and it was a massacre.

    Orange suffers from the metal planet being a no-brainer as a spawn. It has less metal than the other world, but it's so densely packed. You rush infernos, overwhelm your opponent and then the other commander on the other planet has no chance.

    I think all the bosses could do with being a little trickier on this level up. All the bosses should be three commanders at this level IMO, or two commanders but shared armies.

    Galactic War is a lot more fun with these changes though. Before it felt like a chore, now I'm actually finishing wars.
    igncom1 and Remy561 like this.
  18. davostheblack

    davostheblack Well-Known Member

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    Finished my Uber-sized galactic war; pushing 20 techs at 100 turns and ~50 wins. I'd like to summarise the experience here.

    Great experience; loved how it played out. The AI is very responsive, although a touch predictable; air first every time. It felt extremely rewarding with every win; a hard won fight with a pair of resilient and responsive AI feels all the better when you get offered some good techs. The reward kind of petered out towards the end as I accumulated so many techs, but then so did the challenge, so it feels fair, and I know that an uber galaxy is very big indeed.

    A possible idea for going forward might be to lock off some of the most powerful techs from the normal battles, and have "special event" types where such tech as the Super Weapon Fabrication (-75% metal cost for super weapons!) or Commander Combat (+100% speed, +100% health, +25% damage for the commander) are hard to win, but worth the effort.

    The techs OR the difficulty curve need balancing; I ran through the last 20 battles in ~5 minutes each. This was only on Hard and on Uber sized, but I was deliberately pushing different directions to see how fast each different strategy could win the match, and regardless of the direction (cookie-cutter builds, dox rush, tier 2, orbital, nukes, whatever), the stack of buffs provided an overwhelming advantage.

    The Boss battles are completely unremarkable; couldn't tell the difference between the faction leader and their sub commanders. The differences between factions aren't visible at all; I don't know if there are any. Would love to see them with some tech advantages and/or possible set their AI level bonus

    I'd like to see more water maps; at no point did I see any need to go naval. Which is a shame; I had all the tech for naval but no chance to use my super-fast, super damaging leviathan

    The AI's fondness for air will leave an early bot-commander at a serious disadvantage

    Regardless of the criticisms, the improvements are just amazing; it's night vs day and it feels like a compelling experience. Will have to give Hardcore mode a go soon
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  19. Quitch

    Quitch Post Master General

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    So it looks like Galactic War difficulty is more more closely tied to skirmish difficulty than before, at least from the behaviour of enemy commanders' opening builds. Relentless (hardcore) was definitely too easy for me and the AI is incredibly vulnerable to rushes from the beginning until the end of a war.

    Techs need balancing, that's for sure. Techs which give you units are worthless compared to techs which improve income and efficiency and I don't see tech scaling beyond medium at all, there's just not enough and the good picks are so obvious. Right now I want T2 (any unit type), every efficiency boost, and that tech which reduces the cost of nukes. Once you've got that you're unstoppable. I beat red without scouting or leaving my planet, I just had so many nukes I could carpet every moon.

    For this to scale you need to offer units rather than unit types because there's not a whole lot of combined arms in PA. If I have vehicles all I need then is air and I'm set for life. On the other hand if I have to choose between the Inferno and the Boom then that's a much more interesting choice.

    Efficiency techs are way too good and the difference between having them and not is night-and-day. Really they need to be much smaller, but stackable. Or restrict me to one super card in a hand. Also consider having certain planets marked as having super cards, then make those planets tougher to take.

    I would also suggest adding some additional Steam achievements to encourage people to experiment with Galactic War more:
    1. Win without collecting any tech cards
    2. Win on absurd in hardcore mode
    3. Kill an enemy commander with your commander
    4. Conquer every system in an epic galaxy
    5. Win on a small galaxy
    6. Win with every faction
    7. Hold every bot bonus in your hand
    8. Hold every vehicle bonus in your hand
    9. Hold every naval bonus in your hand
    10. Hold every air bonus in your hand
    Factions have unit type preferences I believe. I picked purple because I think they're the heavy air faction. I'd like to see the AI be a bit more obvious in its preference. One of the factions favours orbital and I think that's a waste because the AI is far too limited in its orbital capabilities. Better to have vehicle, air, bot and balanced AIs. If you want to be more ambitious each faction (when AI controlled) should have some kind of edge, for example a 10% price cut in their unit type of choice.

    Lastly, there's a card that boosts fabbers and factories. That really needs splitting into two cards, right now it's a no-brainer over the commander boost.
    Last edited: June 7, 2015
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  20. DeathByDenim

    DeathByDenim Post Master General

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    No, I don't use Steam at all. And there are no 32-bit binaries for Linux.

    And, yeah, this is a i7-3632QM (Ivy Bridge). Though I do have a dedicated NVidia card that I normally use through primusrun. The crash happens with either card though. I only posted the Intel output because Optimum stuff complicates things. I take it you can run the PTE binary on Linux just fine then? Which distro do you use?

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