Metal Planets - Should Metal Extractors Be Buildable Anywhere?

I am not going to pretend i know what WIMTBP is.

Recently you stated past experiences in RTS’s in which you “cheated” a lot and it ruined your gameplay. I've played all types of games since I was young, but my first PC game was an RTS, and I loved RTS’s ever since I was a kid, but what kept them, or any game for the fact of the matter was/is fresh was mods/diversified options or uniqueness. For instance Red Alert 2 (Yuri’s Revenge) has mind control, and there is a mind control tank that can overdue it with mind control (it takes damage), and other than mind control it has nothing (unique). Another instance would be the grinders that one could hock (mind control civilians, enemies, and turn them into money) (uniqueness).


Emperor: Battle for Dune was one hell of a game for it had 3 unique factions, with a multitude of unique sub factions that one could add to his/her main faction (and could change it up every game) either up to 2 or 3 of, it had a neutral random event god unit that roamed the sand/lower portion of the map, and all the units looked unique, felt unique, played unique; the game had a ton of kinematics’ and cut scenes for its’ time, and even to this date does, it even had a faction allow you to choose 1 of 2 paths, choice was rare... the game in entirety was unique… I still go back and play it to this day, for storyline triumphs graphics.


Generals (Zero Hour) had many unique units, and many unique sub-units, again all 3 factions were unique/did not play the same (were not reskinns), custom maps could be made, the game could be modded. To play custom maps (which had some pretty nice options, such as indestructible trains), they would just download when the match launched. In the lobbies the host could enable/disable limiting superweapons (SW). The ranked games tended to go the way of limited SW, the otherwise so went the way of unlimited. Some games went the way of T minutes no rush, no SW, no x’s, no y’s, no z’s such that people were creating gamemodes off hand, but people tend to break the rules at times, nothing a lazer general with infinite money and a contingency plan couldn't handle, and should one need a contingency plan or should these settings be settable in the lobby (every faction had a way to generate resources past the point of resource depletion – unique/well implemented, a game I return to with friends due to a lack of community in the vanilla version), had a ranked, thus the this is how you play model.


Starcraft (1 & 2) just has unique units, limited resources, there’s custom maps with effectively unlimited resources, doesn't need a mod, people still play otherwise. The thing to focus in on is that they have a ranked schema, which has a set of guidelines, which is the this is how you play model.


Battlefield Vietnam had a customizable music playlist, with a slew of default songs that anyone in the game could hear and that properly distorted with motion, the game was modable, anyone could change there name instantaneously, and is still relevant to this day, was a very relaxing game: extreme boating! (boating a boat that is the speed of a jet over terrain that acts like ramps so that one fly’s through the air whilst blasting surfin’ bird and playing follow the leader (only one of the mods and we made a minigame out of what the mod (not downloadable, for it was just unit stat changes, there are downloadable 1’s)). CoD4, the game was modable and well enough put together for a modern themed shooter to be the relevant to this day.


Renegade was the only FPS I know of for the C&C series, it is modable and has some great mods on it, still relevant to this day, has a decent storyline…


Warcraft III (Frozen Throne), the champions/heroes/whatever they were called and all the factions were unique, there were neutral units, there were mercenary camps, …, it was modable, had custom maps, had custom game modes, there were cheats for single player that allowed for changing things up once in a while, it is relevant to this day (it felt like every map had a story).


Warcraft III (frozen throne) had a well-known mod made MOBA games prevalent, starting with DOTA, now with the most popular MOBA being LOL. League of Legends has a problem with custom games in that if things are not to ones’ liking people dodge/leave, such are custom games… but that ruins the fun…


Black and White (2) (Lionhead Studios, do not think I mean Poke’mon here please), one has a creature that one can train spells, and has to fight/defeat opposing gods, one can only cast spells within ones’ sphere of influence; the 2nd one allowed for dynamic base construction more-so than the first, had 4 wonders that were extremely expensive SW’s that one had to unlock with tribute to be able to use throughout the rest of the game, then had to use a ton of resources to build (another game I go back to for it has a quality storyline, is relaxing, it reacts dependant upon your actions, good = people love you your structures look nice, evil = people fear/hate you, your structures look intimidating).

The list goes on and on...

Planetary annihilation is most definitely unique gameplay wise, has already a unique and easy custom system creator (maybe they will make it easy to place prebuilt structures, armies, AI’s, directives for the AI’s that can change as the players/AI’s reach checkpoints, control what audio that is built in plays and when, be able to overlay text for mission notifications as the game progresses, etc. (any game with this will last, for an easy game creator allows for the community to drive the game forward) be for anyone with patience to drive the community forward, maybe have some artistic expression, see if they like level creation (even though it is easy in comparison to the real thing, get a sense of do I want to go more in depth with this). It will be moddable, maybe custom hand crafted planets? Would be cool to start out on a larger piece of a planet that got obliterated. IT would be interesting since planet collision is being considered… for that to also include the collision of units with space junk (aka you can have it take longer to launch/travel via autopilot from A to B in which it would avoid any current and try to dodge any new space junk, and depending on the size of the space junk the transport/unit takes anywhere from minimal damage to being destroyed, but space junk can be cleaned up, the models and video settings would of course have to be worked such that the particles are represented without crashing/overloading peoples systems etc. So much can be done, it depends on what type of game is this to be? Is this to be just another RTS with a unique battleground and quality map editor, or is this a generic RTS that provides it’s take on a battleground and map editor (Stronghold 2 has a quality easy to use and tool abundant map editor that has kept it around far longer than I expected,) with its’ own set of units that shoot stuff and blow up just as other RTS’s do.


This game has the potential to set the new standard of RTS’s, the question is will it get there? I would be game if Uber released this game with a ranked (this is how it is to be played) mode, and as the game goes they update with stronger and stronger sets of tools that one does not have to download mods for, of course as others do, implement peoples mods, and work with the community.

Who knows, if the attempt is made, maybe RTS’s won’t be such a niche market anymore, or maybe even as it stands now it will have the same impact... still would be cool to have those other aspects.


Point still being if Planetary Annihilation just implements a ranked, they can add whatever they want, they can still say this is how it is to be played via the ranked option.


These may be walls of text, but there is a lot of meat/verboseness in them, for keep in mind, youngsters play too.

For the same reasons as if I want all the properties of Tank A, but doubled, I build two of Tank A.
I don't demand a new unit with doubled stats and for good measure add that it can only be built under special circumstances.

What have you added to the game other than a longer unit/building list?

Actually i think you just hit the bedrock of the problem at hand. IMO, "youngsters" are people that don't know what they want in a game. I see it with minecraft all the time, people having no idea of what fun IS. Messing around with enormous amounts of metal is fun... for one or two games. Having strategic and tactical depth, replay value, that's persistent fun. Fun you'll have again and again and again.

Only one or two games on your list i haven't played. I'll be at the frontlines telling that Black and White deserves a sequel. I'll be at the frontlines to tell that it's an under appreciated game that was WAY ahead of it's time.

But the problem is: most people won't play it THE way on a ladder. They'll encounter it as they boot up the game and play. And being able to turn off the more impopular (which almost always are the BETTER) decisions at a glance is harmful to THE game. Hiding such stuff under Mods (and Mod just means Modification so it's justified) sends the correct message.

As to the Poll itself: it's massively flawed. The reason i'm not 100% against the idea is because someone can - and probably will- make it a mod. I know it's gonna happen, and i can represent my own interests better if i try and ensure it happens in the right way. I'm pretty sure everyone wants to play it for a few tries. Mostly, to get to the big boy stuff. I'm sure that the very idea of ramming an asteroid into a planet is going to be the reason that a lot of people buy this game, and having an instant access button to it is something a lot of people will want. Even if it's detrimental to the experience of mooncrashing.

So let's be clear about this: what people want is not (always) what is right. I'm certain that a lot of people clicked that Yes button because they like at least having the option, or as a mod. Because that Yes does not say anything about how they want it, or how it should be done. If they click No, they feel that even the mere possibility of it is forever gone.

That's not the case.

I'd rather have the entire poll be gone, and turn this into a regular discussion, even though i am not certain what can be discussed further.

I would like to call specific attention to this:

Unfortunately, because of the vastly increased metal income, it's far more likely that whoever holds the metal planet will throw asteroids at the ones that don't.

If I want to build two tanks, I just add them to a queue. But metal extractors I have to build individually, one after another. Building 100 metal extractors is much more time intense than building 100 tanks.

I think you didn't understand my question at all. Why would anyone want to increase the micro necessary to play the game? Many people are trying to come up with solutions for the game to decrease micro whereever they can.
And then someone comes along and thinks that it's a good idea to let us waste huge amounts of time by having it necessary to build hundreds of metal extractors instead of just a few.

If you can choose between having to build a hundred, or one metal extractor for the same metal income, then I think the logical, more fun, and less time intense choice would be the latter.

And I think that last one from you was a rhetorical question?

Wait for the mod.

Problem solved.

i'm with the making it optional part, but yes please put it in PA
Metal planets in TA did screw up the complete balance
but I couldn't care less about the balance, the fun factor on the other hand....
my god the 7 hour slug fests with factory stream spam and krogoths and other epic units running around
the joy...the horror....the carnage.....

Just quoting myself because the most recent 9 posters ignored this

To expand on this idea: I suggested this because it seems stupid to me that you would be unable to build metal extractors anywhere on a metal world. Metal extractors extract metal, so they should be able to be built on metal, duh

I mean, realism has got to be a factor here, especially if it's realism that is awesome.

It would be easy enough to strongly discourage them being built anywhere by reducing the robustness of the metal everywhere except for the designated metal spots.

You could also have a toggle for "fun mode" where extractors don't do damage...

Because this helps to balance out/compensate for the large metal income you can potentially have from a metal planet? Makes sense to me.

In a TA metal map, it's all and only the metal tileset. It's completely optional if you choose to play on a metal map, and there are plenty of other maps to play on.

In a PA system, a random metal planet will frequently be thrown in by chance. It's not optional, it just happens.

Also, those things are not just planets made out of metal.. They are war machinery. Who knows if you can even use that metal? Perhaps its alien-metal. >:C The commanders didn't build those things.

Convenience balance is not good balance. Your proposition is basically granting victory to the player willing to have the least fun, which isn't what a game should be about.

What if you could build them anywhere on a metal planet but the ones not built on metal nodes required a high fluctuating energy cost to run? Maybe even go as far as to have them take damage if the energy requirement isn't met. The idea of trading off a metal problem for a power problem.

Fair point re: queues, although an appropriate area-command would negate a lot of that, but I was looking at it from a point of Metal Planets offering 2, 3, maybe 5x the metal not 100x which is a proposition I find frighteningly unbalanced.

In the latter case a regular density of Mega Metal spots with Super Sized Special Extractors makes perfect sense.
But if we're talking more modest, and IMO realistic non-game-breaking, metal advantage to these worlds then I submit extra spots and regular old extractors are the way to go.

I'd like to see it in a randomized grid that has a different spaces missing, but is in like a grid form around the planet on it's lattitude and longitude lines.

what about metal planets just giving double per metal spot?

So the problem is that when metal spots on metal planets would yield more metal than on other planets, then we'd end up with two completely different metagames. One for metal planets and one for the other types of planets.

The devs would have to balance the whole game anew just for metal planets, which probably isn't an easy task to do. Because if you change the balance it will affect gameplay on all planets, notjust metal planets. Also it would make conquering metal planets a priority over other types of planets.

So that's why i suggested a t3 mex for metal planets. It's just way easier to balance imo. You wouldn't have an advantage from the getgo, but instead would need to invest time and ressources to get that advantage (And as we know time is money, so it's ressources²).

Zombie thread!

This is a HUGE no. If this were the case, PA would turn into "First person who gets to the metal planet wins."

I don't think so. In the games I've played once you control whole planets you have more metal than you know what to do with anyway. It wasn't a problem in TA and it won't be here. If you lost to someone who controls a whole metal planet because he had more metal than you, I hate to break it to you but you've got bigger strategic problems with how you play...

I... I don't even really know how to respond. If I lose to someone who has infinite metal, then the problem is with my gameplay? Not the major imbalance of one player having infinite metal?

You're also assuming people continue to play how they currently play, and nothing new is added to the game. When teleporters and more orbital stuff goes up, and nukes have multiple options, there's a lot more need for metal.

So the winning strategy will be as follows: don't attack anyone and build an astraeus as quickly as possible. Race to the other planet 20 minutes in before anyone has control of an entire planet, then spam out metal extractors and you now have infinite economy. First person who races to the metal planet wins.

I don't get how people thinking that giving a player an infinite economy is a good idea.

Also, if one person starts on a metal planet and the other person doesn't start on a metal planet, then the metal planet spawn automatically wins.

Also, what if people start on different planets and one player's planet is closer to the metal planet? They now have a huge huge advantage.

If this is how the game is, PA turns into "first person to the metal planet wins."

That's also the general consensus of any newer threads on this topic.

Making this change would kill PA, or require modding the game to make it actually playable.