Do we need more than one planet?

Sound yes. Ok, of course we do.

But let me ask a better question. Do we need more than one planet *now* with the status of Planetary Annihilation not allowing for planet invasions beside the Teleporter?

Let's face it. The Teleporter is highly insufficient as an invasion instrument. Once a player acquires dominance on a planet, there is no way to invade it using just the Teleporter. Unless the defendant doesn't care to build an appropriate Air Force to keep monitoring the surface, of course.

In fact what regularly happens is that games with more players and more planets end up in a boring lagged waste of time. You don't learn anything spending hours watching how slowly your thousands units crawl here and there trying to use your Stellar income of metal and energy.

So, screw those maps. Yesterday I opened a small set of games online for three players on one unique planet. All games went fast and all were really enjoyable. When I lost my Commander first, I could have a good time watching what the other two players were doing.

You learn a lot on those maps. There is no escape, no waste of time, the action is quick, and the overall match is over within 20 minutes.

And now the actual question. Is it really appropriate for the actual state of the game having a default game involving 2 planets? Or could the default map be lowered to a more reasoble middle sized single planet?

I understand that the Devs want to gather data about bigger maps, more players, planetary clashes, and obviously with the optimization process. But the game isn't quite there yet. And suggesting that it is, is a bit of a misleading.

What's your opinion on the matter?

Now it's still unbalanced.

You've just have to not leave a player alone on a planet for too long. ^^

It's all personal preference ...
if you want to play a quick match for your daily fix go single
You want a longer match with the possibility to take a breath take more planets ...
I may not need more planets to have a fun match ... but i WANT more planets in a match
Thats the main sellingpoint of this game

The only reason we even know that invasions are hard is because we were able to try it out.

this is an important part of the game that needs testing in beta. The more planets the better. Now and forever

Quick game set-ups can get you into a game with just a few clicks. You should, for example, be able to choose between the following:

-Planetary skirmish (1 planet of any size)

-Orbital combat (1 main planet with 1 or more moons)

-Celestial battle (a full solar system, at least 2 main planets with also moons and asteroids)

and further…

-Inter-stellar conflict (multiple solar systems)

-Galactic war (no description needed)


That way, you can always play a game with the size you like.

Nice Idea- some pre-sets would help I think.

A couple of quick thoughts about the above:
Inter-stellar conflict isn't on the cards- PA's current map size limit is a single solar system (that single system can however include allot of celestial bodies).

Galactic war- As per the above, it is confirmed that we will not be playing a real time game on more than one solar system at a time. The Galactic war will be a separate game that sets up normal single solar system battles. I'm guessing that GW will have it's own menu system and based on my understanding it will be something you can revisit as wining a GW will require many standard games.

Some players enjoy the slow paced hour plus long games.

Personally, planets shouldn't be in a system yet; just the main planet, but since nukes can hit moons, having many moons is way better, and less likely to result in a tie, than having multiple planets.

(By the way, you can make a system with 10 moons of varying sizes, and it's still awesome, for those who care.)

We've been thinking about interplanetary invasions for a long time -- even before we implemented planet smashing, the Astraeus, and interplanetary nukes. The game is improving in this area and will continue to improve over time, as we add new mechanics and features. For instance, we're going to give you the power to move planets into orbit around each other. Crazy!

Planetary Annihilation is about scale, right? We want folks to be scattering throughout a solar system and dominating multiple planets (when not blowing them up).

Doesn't moving planets into orbit with each other kinda negate the need to invade though? Why bother when you can suddenly just rain nukes on the orbiting planet?

only play systems where all planets orbit each other...... then you can nuke a hole for your teleportation

At a certain point players should be able to just turn planets into a single giant unit. It's the ultimate elimination of micro-management. If I control the entire surface of a planet with thousands of units then why should I have to worry about moving them about and patrolling every square inch just to keep someone else from sneaking in a teleporter.

The game also needs a much better way to "give chase" across planets. The most annoying part of the current game is the moment where you crush an opponent's base just in time to see an astraeus pluck his commander to another planet. Queue up 10 minutes of wasting time to send units to a new planet and hunt down a tiny base that has no chance to survive.

Hej Brad, that sounds awesome.

Of course, like everyone else in here, I am as well looking forward to all the goodness you guys are developing at Uber. And no rush, take your time guys, you're doing a great job, proof is the game has plenty of goodness already.

However, we all know that at the present there is no way to have two planets interact with each other, other than feebly (unless they orbit each other, which is pretty silly). The Transporter is an awesome addition. The Orbital Fabber is a good start (it would be great to be able to land it and mutate it into a Bot Fab, for instance). But neither can support an invasion from a planet to an other.

Once two players are on two different orbits, that's a dead end. Well, at least unless one of two is terribly naive.

So what's the point to suggest it as a starting point or as the default setting?

I'm just pushing a bit of provocation here. Mine is not a critic to the game itself, or to the beta status of it, or to its potential. I believe that you guys at Uber will ultimately develop a game I'll play for very long.

Too bad that people may miss the goodness already in PA. A more modest planet, just one. And the game play is already terrific. If it were like that, you had already a hit.

ps. The more I think about moving a planet into an other planet orbit, the more I think is a bit of an escamotage. But future will tell.

For attacking other planets, we will have at least;
teleporters
transports
interplanetary nukes
unit cannons
asteroids
orbital lasers

In time, we will probably get one or two other options. These could be things like;
Metal planet "death star" weapon
Egg (Whatever that is)
More IP nuke types
planet-assaulting megabot

That's quite a big list! Just keep in mind that taking over a well-defended planet is hard, and it should stay that way. What we could still use more of are options for resisting some of the counters. Something like advanced cloaking bots could be a cool thing to launch out of a unit cannon. Mobile anti-nukes would allow an invading army to survive long enough to get a base up. Crawling bombs fired out of a unit cannon could effectively be interplanetary artillery. It won't take much more unit diversity before we get to a point where we can start being really creative about how we combine unit types to get an army that is more powerful than any individual component.

*Edit*
Removed the part where I had accidentally quoted someone else and started a completely different response. Sorry for the confusion.

Oh, totally. I see where you're going. Not quite sure I agree, though (respectfully.) We're definitely trying to ensure that it's always possible to establish beachheads across planets, which allows for invasions. Right now you can do that, provided your foes haven't completely converted a planet into a base.

But, yeah, there are some awkward no-win scenarios out in the wild. I'm a little lost on your question -- you're wondering if games should just have two players starting at two different planet start points?

I've been playing almost exclusively on single planet systems for some time. Partially for performance reasons, partly due to under developed orbital.

We're getting there... Just not quite there yet.

We really need drop pods.

I think what he means is that planets on different orbits (so IP nukes can't be launched between the two) can very quickly turn into a no-win stalemate. If you don't create your own map in the system editor though, the default system generates two planet systems, neither of which orbit each other.

Until new game mechanics are put in place to facilitate these types of invasions (nukes that can be fired between actual planets, not just between a planet and its moons, moving planets into orbits around each other, faster travel times between planets), the default random system should be a single modestly sized world.

Exactly this. Thanks for writing it better than I did.

Please, refer to the reply made by Jodarklighter. He put it down pretty neatly.
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/do-we-need-more-than-one-planet.56094/#post-862864

I would like to invite you guys in pondering if that would give more opportunities to people (specially new comer) to discover what the game has already to offer - which is great. In short, I suggest that the default random system should render just one planet, and perhaps few moons. Simple as that.

Then, in a second phase when new options for extending conflicts across different orbits and planets will be implemented, you could expand the default random system, including more planets and wider solutions.

Doing so PA will get a wider audience right now, on a ground that's close to be solid already - sigle planet scenario. Tournaments in fact are placed on a single, small/medium size planet. Reason is that that kind of setup is highly enjoyable.

Proposing a two planets setup as the default random system it ends up being a less than optimal choice because it leads people in playing a far to be optimized configuration of the game. In short, it's a pity and perhaps a missed opportunity.