Spherical maps will be this game's downfall

It's great that the engine can support full spherical maps, because those are HARD to do. A partial sphere is much easier, and thus it should be possible without too much work.

I did not know about the pole lock, will have to try that. A mini map also sounds helpful, but it won't fix everything.

Yes, modders can potentially solve this also, but I think it's too important to not be supported in the main game.

Some people appear surprised that I call spherical "less strategic". in TA/supcom, you can decide where to place things depending on the structure on the map, i.e. resources in the back of your base, turrets at the front and clusters of them near entry points, etc. In PA, you can't possibly defend 360 degree directions, so you could either place turrets randomly and hope for the best, but who knows the attack comes from an unrelated angle, and makes them completely useless. They're too expensive for that. Watch TA/supcom matches and see how much placement of things matters, I don't think it does quite as much in PA. Sometimes less options leads to more complex and interesting situations.

I'd say there is more to "strategy" than the placement of turrets.

seriously go back 1 page and read what I wrote at the end of the page.

you will have hills choke points everything but its not finished yet so most of the stuff are flat.
will be waaay easyer to defend after they update the planets and biomes.

It's confirmed that flat maps will be added at some point, as I mentioned earlier.

Actual helpful tips on managing spherical maps:

* Press "N" to orient your camera north
* Use Shift-# to save a camera view
* Use Alt-# to return to a camera view

These three things alone will make the game far more playable than the default method of randomly scrolling around the globe. I think there's even an option to make the camera always face north but I just free-scroll and hit "N" when I feel I need to re-orient myself.

It really is very confusing to play without those tricks. I always kick myself when I spend 10 minutes setting up my base after forgetting to orient my camera north right at the start of the match. It's hard to get my bearings back after getting used to the map facing a particular direction.

That would be the aforementioned pole lock, you can find it in the settings menu.

I find pole lock and the camera anchors critical, especially when playing across multiple planets.

Instead of commenting on the entire post you should read everything, because this is a good point :
This is made worse by the completely generic looking maps with no apparent structure. Look at an average TA/supcom map, and not only does the geography dictate how attacks can be made, they're usually limited by 2 possible directions since you're often in a corner. This is WAY more strategic than the current spherical maps, where trying focus attack or defense in a particular direction seems pointless.
Procedural generation is from a development perspective a very nice feature since it does not involve spending lots of time on designing planets. The question is, why all RTS comme with a limited set of maps ? Because it takes time to design them, and if it takes time, it's because designer try to make them very interesting from a strategical perspective. As far as i remember, the original statement is that we have the possibility to save the most interesting planets. But looking at how the current planets look like, i've never been in a situation where i could say "Oh i really love this planet". Basically, whatever the biome is, all planets look like the same. They are randomly generated. And probably because too much randomly generated, it's hard to find one which is more interesting than another one from a strategical perspective.
Yes, the planet generation system is obviously not completed. But there's no garantee to which extent it will evolve, especially when it comes to the game release date.
I think the original post failed in expressing the real concern, which is not spherical maps, but the fact that it's hard to make a difference between the different planets, because they are all randomly generated. The random genration process is not smart enough to generate trully interesting maps from a strategical perspective.
Also, probably because of current brushes limitations, it's not possible to obtain very interesting planets.
At some point, an editor can make all the difference in this game, unless we get a very smart random generation algorithm and more brushes to make each planet look like really different.
The procedural generation system is an invaluable tool to move forward on developping this game without having to wait for planets to be designed. But providing a smarter algorithm and more sophisticated brushes, as well as the ability to modify these planets, is something which will have to come soon or later to make this game just awesome.

Platying on planets is cool and this is why we all love this game.
But being able to design planets is a mandatory feature.

Aardappel... Duidelijk een Nederlander! Welkom op het forum!

but the maps are fine and only needs ajustment, so more strategic points to control, at the moment the points to look at when starting are:
- blocked by water, cracks in the grond and with not to many entries to your base.
- metal spots.

so you are rights about it lacks something, but the Ubercrew are working on it, also the camera commands make life much easier like Slamz posted,

Shift +# to set a camera point,
Alt + # to go to that point,
that only makes the game more accesable.

cheers

I dont think you can speak for the majority of backers, but like most people you speak for the majority of active forum members and defend the actual game. There is only very few people who come to forums and complain- most people who dont like a game move on because its annoying to discuss with only people who love it how it is. And you are one of them.

Most people who backed the game liked spherical maps but there is a huge amount of people who dislike how it plays on spherical maps.

I personally cant imagine how playing on a spherical map and not having half your army idle will work, especially when you include orbital play.

It is disorienting the first few hours, but then it suddenly clicks and the potential is unleashed.
Pole lock is a helpful tip
One trick that I use, especially as bases get larger and larger, build power gens in a pattern scattered around your base. e.g. an arrow here pointing to the enemy, a number here, an X here, all of which meant something to you and are visible reference points in orbit view, but meaningless to an enemy who flies over.
You can also do this with a fabricator, I haven’t tried it yet … build walls around a worker so they are trapped, then shift build stuff with that worker (trapped so will never get built). What you build should spell out things more clearly – an X at each enemy base etc. – only you and your team can see it, and only when you press shift, useful until we get pings, can be placed anywhere.

I don't really get how the maps being 'spherical' changes anything when actually playing the game (camera controls being the one exception).

When you're zoomed in on a large map / planet it's effectively like playing on a flat map anyhow- the only difference from this and a normal 'flat' map is there are no edges and this to my mind is a very GOOD thing. I get fed up of playing OTA & Spring games where you've won- totally taken over all the resources and 90% of the map and you have to play for another 15 minutes because you have a camper who's made a little 'castle' style choke point base in a corner somewhere powered entirely by fusions and metal makers. I'll win in the end but given the strength of defences in TA it can take a while (this is often the ending to big FFA games in my experience- a player surrounded by flacks, DDM's, and anti nukes- Berthas are often the only sensible solution and take time to build).

There is no reason that strategic placement of structures can't be integral to PA play although I do agree with the OP currently the maps don't promote this much. I don't think it would be hard for Uber to make a map editor that would allow the use of the 'brushes' to add and remove features to create the types of maps we're used to though (allot of the tools required were shown in the metal planets live stream so the ground work is already in place).

Having played spring for ages (with its very free selection of cameras) I've never had an issue with camera controls in PA, although I guess someone who isn't used to working in full 3-D might find it more difficult at first. I think the new UI and camera improvements due very soon should help on that one.

Nice tips there bunny- I'll have to try that in game!

maybe we get a feature for "Drawing" on the planet. this would make this easier^^

Pinging is something we will likely see. Drawing I'm not so sure - it does have a very low TTP.

I think that the OP has a point in that the spherical maps do currently add to the amount of micro management that is needed to play PA (which is supposed to be a macro oriented RTS). You can't see everything that is going on at once, so you have to regularly move your view around once you get a large size base. Compare this to SupCom where you can zoom out and see everything any of your units can see at a glance.

The devs are working on features like notifications and multiple windows to alleviate this problem. I doubt it is possible to achieve quite the level of what we see in SupCom, but I bet they will get close. I am certain that the devs have foreseen this issue from the earliest stages of development and knew it was something they would have to work against.

When i first started, i didnt like fighting on a whole planet either, but as time went on i found it to make very awsome game play and now like the idea, i guess the only thing thats bothering me at the moment is the scale.

Theres great potential here, and even though i dont agree with the op, at one one time i thought just like him so its a valid arguement. Try to give the game a far shake before you condem it is all i suggest.

As many others here have mentioned it's something you need to get used to! I didn't like it at first either. But after practicing and getting accustomed to it I believe it's actually one of the coolest things about pa. As long as uber gets the scale right and allows us to have unique planets with setons like choke points &ta style terrain it's going to be awesome. It allows for many more strategic attacks from several (actually every angle possible) angles vs the old formula of only one direction & once again basically fighting in a box, now that box is gone forever! It's as close to real life rts warfare as we can get currently & by the looks of it might EVER get....

Putting time into the map building really helps. Getting a nice balance of water and land while also having all the water interconnected, or all the land as one piece until we have more transport options. Including a nice balance of planets in a solar system as well ( I am finding that a medium-large metal planet start with 1 large non KEW moon and 1 smaller 5 halley KEW is a fun match against ai or friends)

Disorientation is a part of the game that every player must overcome. Not to mention the procedural nature of planet generation means that the player must learn the lay of the land per match. I really like these random maps, I usually have to delete and make a new one after playing it more than 3 times as I dont like getting used to them. I found that in SupCom I was very bored of the map selection and especially the symmetry/predictable spawning. The lack of familiarity with a map at the start of a round feels in spirit with the theme of bots awakening after years of dormancy.
As soon as I am done my opening build (which has become a second nature automated task that I do without thought in some cases) I snap out of my routine and ask "where am I? Where are they? Which direction should this base expand?" and begin examining the map and my surroundings.

I have been waiting for a spherical map rts since I had my first PC.

What in his short sentence shows that he does speak for me or anyone that may like the general spherical game ... how very prejudice of post this
Not to mention that the issue you mentioned can be dealt with through optimised ui