I'm worried

I was an early backer on kickstarter, but only recently found the inclination to get PA running on my box and playing it. Been about a month or so.

And I'm still WAAAAYYY behind the curve. These forums help with strategies, tactics, and methods a lot but the more I read the more I realize how far behind I am.


Where I'm really lacking is optimal start builds. I thought about starting a thread asking "what's your build order" until I realized it is different for water/land, and also size of planet, blah blah blah. If you'd like to share your build orders (I still stall my eco early on, as my first few fabbers are coming out, can't seem to fix that) I'd love to hear it.

But taking a step back I'm worried! Efficient starts are SO important, and the more I read the more I feel like everybody's got it down but me, and whoever else comes into this game as a n00b. Makes me concerned for the future of PA since this is already such a steep learning curve and is only going to get worse with more things being added as we approach release.

Sure, there will be the hardcore gamers and genre fans that will get it. Is that who we're hoping will support this game? Will it be enough?

I wouldn't worry about it. Things are going to change drastically (I hope) balance wise and apart from raw mechanics lots of the build orders and strategies currently used will probably be far from optimal when we get better balance.

For example, I really hope factory first will become viable as it is less cookie cutter than the current implementation.

We need to support a wide range of people.

Competitive people just are more common on the forums.

man, I almost hate to ask this, cause it's a slippery slope of opinions...

but exactly what is this "cookie cutter" start? am I close?
-2 mex
-2 energy
-bot factory
-queue comm on 1-2 mex alt. w/ 1-2 energy
-bot fabbers; 1-energy 2- assist comm 3- assist bot fab1 4-factories
....and on... this is where i get a little cornfluzzled

Seriously?

I mean, Planetary Annihilation surely is a damn good game, already. And it will be awesome for years to come.

But, dude, there are much more important things in Life. I'm a noob as well. So what? I'll get better eventually. Or eventually not. So what? Is it really that important?

Perhaps the moment you will relax and get less attached to the outcome, bang! You'll get better without even realizing how it could happen

As long as you don't waste any of the metal you make, and have like a slight positive for energy, you should be good.

So like a net of less then 0 metal per tick and like less then 500+ energy per tick.

That way you have enough to keep your radar up and fabbers building whilst spending all of your metal on what your strategy is.

Oh, I'm as relaxed a guy as you're likely to find. That's not the problem.

I feel like my game improvement has stalled, and I've got a long way to go. And while I will continue to enjoy the game, I'm concerned that many, maybe most, average players will stop playing when they get to the point where I am right now.

Practice. Its all you need to do to get better.

Typically when i start its
-3 mex
-1 energy
-bot factory
-Commander builds energy chain
-bot fabbers grab outside mex
-Fabbers construct buildings when economy is doing well.

After that, its up to you to strategize. Don't worry about doing somthing wrong. The game changes to much to say you had the wrong build. Just make sure you don't stall your energy but use all the metal you get per tick. Eventaully practice to have a level energy where it is just enough and mass is always slightly negative.

Much as I hate to self-plug like this, there's an interesting discussion on initial build orders at the start of this video that you might find helpful:



They go a bit into the 'whys' as well as the 'whats'

thx chrono & warner for the input! sadly i'll have to wait till i get home to watch the vid.

maybe i should have just titled the thread "what's your build order" and subjected everyone to it. it is, after all, my biggest question these days.

I think I'm morally and intellectually obligated to grumble in this thread.

*Grumble*

Obligation satisfied, go about your business.

Thats because the average competetive gamer cares far more for a fair and balanced game than the average casual player.

The biggest problem is that casual players are far more susceptible to mods, so the things they ask for should generally be relegated to mods only. Competetive players on the other hand require the core game/game mode (if you want to call it that) to be balanced to a competetive players perspective. Splitting the competetive community over multiple mods each with its own version of balance would kill PA. Not the same for casual players, who are just looking to have a good time.

No, it's better this way, I think. Just learning build orders 'because everyone else does it' means you can't be as flexible. Theory crafting on when / why a particular build order is good I'd say is a far more constrictive conversation to have.

true dat. it IS rather enlightening to know that it's best to keep metal at 0 or slightly negative, and heavens-to-betsy never go neg. on energy (stall). i read a thread a few weeks ago that went into why, but i was too new then to really understand it. the reminder and reinforcement is great.

Early game you can go negative in energy a little if you aren't relying on radar. This could change if they make radar more useful or add an energy cost for more things.

sorry my n00b-ness bores you, brother. It's not my intention to be a bother. Rehashing of things is inevitable with any endeavor as new people come into the fold. It's the nature of forums (plus, don't forget we're not allowed to resurrect old threads.)

Even though the forum search function leaves a good bit to be desired, I do google site search the forums before posting. I'm better about that than most, I daresay.

If I could suggest this as gently as possible; the stickies could use a bit of cleaning up - especially if you want to have the moral high ground when grumbling about topics. (topic index - last update May 2013)

peace and all that jazz!

Brian has several threads with what your intentional title was. Search and check them out !

Not everyone is going to be super pro. Once matchmaking is in place you should well be able to find people suitable for your skill level to play with.

As far as starts go, build enough mex and generators to support com + factory building. About 1500 energy and 20 metal. Then keep expanding to support fabbers and more factories. Then keep expanding. If you are stalling early, build more of that resource early, if you have surplus, build more production before expanding that far. It's really just trial and error. It could be made more intuitive though.

i have! many results are from before the current build (it sucks when you finally realize that. i've learned to look at dates now). and about half of the remaining threads say "this has already been brought up, go search for the other thread!" it's actually kinda funny, makes me laugh. but i've got an unusually large affinity for irony.

I wasn't trying to bash or anything but me personally my starting build hasn't really changed to much from the time those threads were crafted so I feel they still hold nice tidbits. I'm still one pgen 3 mex factory 2pgen factory loads of power. Situations determine what factories I choose and how I expand after.