First Impressions, PA stories and how to improve in a match.

So just played my first game of PA and this is some quick thoughts of the game so far (and yes this will be considering its in alpha). This has been my experience but i'd love to hear other peoples and other related guff, like tips and tricks! :3

First off, i'm an avid fan of the rts genre and when I heard the Uber cast had some of the people behind SupCom and TA I turned expectantly towards PA. After finally purchasing the Alpha I looked where to hone my skills (being a noob I looked for the AI to practice against to at least get my bearings). Upon losing focus at finding any training or tutorial I dived into a game, where I was meet by very friendly players (who in my opinion probably went easy on me). when the game launched I mistakenly chose a rubbish spot as I saw the metal extractors were pretty much like mass extractors from SupCom and my spawn had none so moved to find some and set about my base which after a while I was fairly pleased with, although at the end of the game I saw how little I had done in comparison to the others. About an hour later I was dead, my base destroyed by missiles and me still be dazed by not discovering the tech 2 stuff till mid game, but I enjoyed it a lot and can't wait to see the full release and all the amazing things to come! Keep at it Uber!!!

Well that was my first game and even though it went a bit iffy I had a blast on PA, now that i've told my story of the first game i'd like to hear how the community is getting on with PA and what to do and what not to do in a match.

Thanks all and Well done to Uber for an amazing game! ^_^

good to hear it went so well, If you lock in as soon as you host the game will launch with "air" AI in every free spot.
and there are plenty of videos and livecasts (there's a sticky thread for them) that show how to play, I recomend Zaphodx's videos, he has a thread here. every new patch he explains all the changes in detail.

Once again, a great example of the friendly community thank you very much i'll go check them out!

If you've played SupCom 1, you will have a good idea of the pace of a game, building resource production, ensuring that if you have the resources spare you are always building something, ideally LOTS of things.

Work out an optimal build pattern early on to minimise energy/mass shortages that plays to your unit preferences. Then once your economy ramps up KEEP building, particularly T2 mass/energy as they are a big step up from T1. T2 units are much better than T1, but are energy/mass intensive and if you neglect T1 to push to T2 you make yourself vulnerable to T1 unit rushes. Don't neglect anti-air as many a commander has seen a horde of carefully stashed T1/T2 bombers descend and take it out. Remember, at the moment the only game mode is commander focused, so ignore base buildings if you can get a/the commander.

Scout your enemies early and often ideally by air and using routes indirect from your own base, don't just fly in a straight line as if they will follow your planes right back. Information is life and if they are building a massive attack you want to know, likewise if they are stupid enough to leave their commander in a weak sub-base, then punish them for that

Normal visible range is small, making radar a MUST, T2 ideally as it gives you massive visibility and even better on the bigger maps to place firebases with some defences and radar well outside your base in a ring to give you maximum warning of tank rushes or dastardly commander-sniping bombing runs. It'll also keep any missiles out of range of your main production centres.

Offensively, pick off any attempts of your enemies to produce their own firebases, if you can you can use air construction units to build your own offensive firebases within range of their main base whilst distracting them with frontal attacks.

Oh and also remember the planet is 3d, so you can always go the long way around if they've left a defensive hole in the back.

The really big, major, huge difference between PA and SupCom is that after the initial engagement in SupCom (Commanders rush the big metal spots in the center of the map, someone might die, early T2 Rush Snipes happen, firebases are set up), the metal ownership is relatively solidified. Unless one team makes a huge push to take back metal from the other team, it'll remain in their grasp.

In PA, there is enough metal for everyone, unless you're playing on a horrendously small planet. So there is far more focus on raiding and denying your enemy metal, and expanding to get as much metal as possible.

Not to mention the urban sprawl that teams end up creating, turning pristine tropical worlds into burnt, blown up, ravaged and totally annihilated hellscapes that would be reminiscent of warhammer 40k, or indeed, fans of Total Annihilation.

Just wait until we get our hands on asteroids and moons

Hell yeah, but you know what?

I look forward to buring some forests down, and ensuring that any planet conquered will become uninhabitable wastes of production!

FOR ALPHA COMMANDER, FOR THE ELITE! (Propagandas ok right?)

This is really a super interesting aspect of PA, Your randomly generated planet will host with 100% mass points, you know how there's a slider for mass on the planet generator and you can save and play on saved planets? well there should totally be more hosts with few metal spot planets to see people fight over them. it would be a totally different gameplay and really interesting to see.

We've actually tried fighting on planets with little metal and it devolves into a Pelter/Catapult ****-flinging match. There is next to no raiding because nobody can afford to raid.

Wow thanks for the tips everyone! and loving the support the games getting, looking forward to future updates and hopefully seeing some of these ideas in action :3

aw that's a shame, maybe the slider was way too low? I did imagine this as an extreme. We all know what stalemates devolved into on starcraft when everyone was out of ressources (God what a stupid idea by the way, it makes me cringe every time someone on the forum suggests limited ressouces : yea like you've mined out the planet's mantle, asthenosphere, mesoshere, core...)

a small side question to ask now that I've played a few more matches would be how did everyone do when they first bought it, i'm getting better but still generally suck compared to other people in the games, is it just with practice in putting techniques together effectively? Some good points could be: How quickly should I tech up? whats the deal with bots and vehicles, should I go for one and focus on it or build both and build them equally but slower? any tips on base building? mine are getting mashed towards the end of the games. Any answers to any of these would be really great! you've all been a big help to me so far :3

For some shameless self plugging, check out http://pamatches.com

It has lots of videos from some great players that you can learn from.

Experience from Supcom FA multiplayer can be copy-pasted straight over to PA. This is why people having played a lot of FAF multiplayer (me included) have been Trololololing on the PA server. FA has evolved massively and continues to do so today. I strongly suggest getting in shape on there. You can PM me there, I'm tatsu and I'll beef you up.

I've played a lot of SupCom in my time first the original then FA afterwards which I enjoyed even more, its nice to have the same feel in the controls and game play as SupCom. I played the Cybrans because of there versatility and plus Monkeylord and Megalith were some personal favorite of mine ^_^. So your saying the tactics I use there can be carried over?

...Sort of, sort of not. Again, SupCom is primarily about how you used your RESOURCES, while PA and TA are more about how you use your UNITS. Tactics in SupCom are mostly defensive, with a few crazy suicide tactics that could be considered remotely offensive. Tactics in PA are mostly offensive, with a few crazy suicide tactics that could be considered remotely defensive.

They are two sides of the same coin. There are a lot of similarities and a lot of differences.

Maybe that's where I've been going wrong then, so far a lot of my tactics for the game have been primarily defense, sort build a good base, give it plenty of defensive structures. While with my unit building its been sort of build them when I need them. One thing I have learnt above all else is always keep scouting as I soon learnt it really pays off

It still remains that a better eco than your opponent = easy win

Alls that's left to do is use the darn eco.

A number of players I have seen both through videos and gameplay colonise many metal extractors over whichever planet they were on and generally spread out very far, I tend to spread out more slowly but with defenses would be generally better to go on a claiming spree and use the enhanced metal (and power generators as I would build more to keep up with the metal) to put myself further ahead more quickly but then not defend them at all or with very little?