I decided to purchase your game this past week; I am a Hugh fan of RTS games and have played just about all of them in the past 15 years. I have some observations about the game and concerns about what I have seen so far. My comments will be towards playing against AI and not PVP matches. The friends I play with do not like PVP we like games against the AI. So please keep that in mind. By no means at all, do I hate or dislike this game, in fact after playing it for around 13 hours now I have come to understand how the game works and plays. There was a bit of a learning curve at first, but again there usually is with most RTS games. So, the more I played the game the more I came to like it. I’ll start off with the Camera, while it’s nice that you can zoom completely out I found the camera a bit constrained. What I mean is yes you can zoom, but the problems I found is that In order to get the proper perspective I liked while playing and viewing the planet. I had to constantly zoom out, rotate the planet and zoom back in and rotate the planet to get the view rotation I liked. I really think that the middle mouse button instead of moving the view around needs to be set so that you can rotate the camera around so the player can get the view and perspective they like Instead of zooming out and rotating the planet. This just causes too much time to be wasted on messing around with the camera. The other aspect of the camera I did not care for is the straight down satellite view. I would prefer an angled view looking at my base when I’m zoomed in. The straight down view is ok when you are zoomed far out. But in the closer down looking view. I truly think the camera needs an angle added to it. Flying engineers, there’s an issue with them if they are landed and you give them an order they will not take off and go and do that task. I’m pretty sure you guys know about this, but I’m letting you all know it’s an issue. Lack of hosting options, I really hope you guys have some plans to add hosting options like removing nukes and Orbital options if the player chooses to remove those from the game. I personally do not like playing against the AI and being Nuke spammed within 15 to 20 mins into the game. That’s just utterly dumb and needs to be looked at. Please do not make the same mistakes Sup Com had with Nuke Spamming. More hosting options, Are there any plans so we can choose the AIs Color and the type of mechs they use? I also noticed we were not able to choose just One AI against two players; it would be nice if we had more control over how many AI we wanted to go against. Choosing the players starting Mech. I think instead of clicking to keep changing the mech until you find the one you want. A drop down menu of all your mechs would be much better and a smoother way of choosing your mech. If there are specific features about the mech, a small text pop up could also be there to give the player some info. If you guys don’t add a drop down menu, then please add a right click left click to go forwards and backwards in choosing your choice. But I really feel a drop down menu would speed up the process of picking through your mechs. And seeing how you guys have a bunch of mechs sitting there clicking through until you find the one you want can be a tedious task since this part of choosing does seem to lag a bit. Planet sizes, I understand there are issues with the planets being to large that takes up a lot of memory and during the load when its creating the planet it can take upwards of several mins to load a game. I hope the game will be better optimized to help with those load times. I’m also wondering why it takes so long to load up a planet that created in the editor if that planet is already created. This also brings me to the question of how you set up a game with the pre created scenarios in place. From what I saw, there are only planets with a starting planet and a second planet that can be used. Do you guys have plans for premade ones where the planet is much larger and there is only one planet? We found that trying to play with two planets if the planets are much larger does cause lag. But we found the pre created planets to be much too small for what we liked. So I created one larger planet and we really liked that much better. From what we could see also is that when there are several planets. How often is the other player really going to go to that planet? Yes on a smaller scaled map you will but on the much larger planets, we saw no need for this. Personally, I don’t care for launching an asteroid at the main planet and destroying it, yes it looks kewl, but in reality I think to many times the pvpers are going to zerg rush and the games will be over within 20 to 30 mins. Planets with larger bodies of water, we have noticed the AI sometimes gets bugged out with trying to make a ton of ships in a smaller body of water, not the larger Oceans. He will try building a lot of ships in smaller ponds. I hope you guys look to fixing that. I have also seen where they build a mass of ships in a smaller harbor looking are that is a part of the Ocean built all the ships he built are stuck on each other and can move. Can anyone give me info on the creator and what some of those option mean like Seeding and a few of the others mean and do? Another issue with Oceans is, if a land mass is not joined onto the main land mass the player is on the AI again builds a massive amount of navy, but gets caught up again and will not move. He will build some air craft and land units. But because he does not have a way to transport those units to the land mass where the player is. The AI bugs out. You end up restarting over until the AI is placed in a new spot where he will attack the player. Mini Map, okay, the guys I played with all said the same thing, where is our mini map? And I’m not referring to the V key map that comes up. We really need some type of mini map to see the planet better. Are there any plans to add this? What purpose does the V key map server? I saw nothing about it that could help me in any way while I was playing. I could not find this, but if it’s in the game great. Is there a hot key that gets you back to your base? I know the C key selects your commander, but it does not take you back to your base. Any plans to add this? Trees in the water. Any plans to clean this part up? We have seen many places with water and a tress are in the water. Building placement, Trees again are not being removed when a building is placed on the ground. Is this something that’s going to get fixed in later builds? Seeing many trees under a building is not cool. In the past games like this would have the builder clean up the area first before placing a building. Ground units spacing, if you build a very larger army, I have noticed the spacing they take up is very larger. Are you guys going to fix this? Currently with a really larger army they take up a larger amount of map space. Naval Units, turrets trying to attack naval units is currently bugged, they were not able to hit the target on the water. This is the land based turrets. Artillery and the Catapult also had issues hitting naval units. We also noticed that the naval units could not always been seen while playing. It was like they were phasing in and out. Navy versus navy was not a problem. Shared Commanders, We had some issues with playing a not knowing who’s commander was whose. Can you guys add the name of the player over top of the Commanders so we can see whose commanders is whose? Factions, are there going to be more than one faction and units in the game? Currently we are playing against the same units. I thought there was going be at least two different factions in the game? Am I missing something? That’s about all I can think of for right now, we had some issues with the connection dropping while playing, but I was informed that was due to the game crashing and not a server released issues. Plus when the games released it will have LAN and internet hosting available to us. We played several missions against Normal and Hard AI. We had some issues with the AI going nuts with Nukes on Hard mode early into the game. I do like the challenge of the AI. It was fun, but please consider nerfing their usage of nukes or give us the option to remove nukes. Thanks guys, so far it’s looking good Hope to see many fixes and added features in future patches. Sorry for the long post, but I just could not make this a short post and get the point across about what we saw this weekend. Rick
hey Rick welcome, valid points there. here you address one of my big concerns. C.F. : https://forums.uberent.com/threads/official-camera-feedback-thread.54623/page-2#post-836391 this bit confuses me since it's already the case. Yes, obviously this is more than largely because of the game's unfinished state. there are many ideas and plans for this : https://forums.uberent.com/threads/what-game-modes-should-we-start-with.43223/ there was indeed talk that we should be able to control the AI's configuration in all aspects https://forums.uberent.com/threads/small-ai-request.57283/#post-886100 yes, in the meantime there is this mod that preselect your favorite com for every lobby you join : https://forums.uberent.com/threads/making-the-most-of-mods.57013/ oh boy! you wouldn't believe how far we've come! and optimizations are far from done! that's because 1.) there's no guarantee that you'll play that system the second after you've generated it, the computer would need to know what to do with all that used memory, you could just join a friend's host because he just poped on. 2.) there are a few transformations applied to the system to make it "streamline" or "compatible", some guidelines if you will that the editor isn't feature-complete enough to restrict you from creating hehe, all factors of a game being made, and also dependent on your computer, this game is accessible to any machine if you're playing a one 800-radius planet system but you'll be pleased to find some of us have tried pushing this above and beyond. yes, all aspects of strategy and choice and you're right in your analisis, I would have done the same although I wouldn't have abstained from taking the mass points on that smaller moon or planet too as All mass points are good for the taking. it is written several times in the release notes on the patcher that the AI is pretty much Navy-incompetent as of now. there's a tutorial thread on building planets however I failed I finding it here perhaps the other forumites can help me out or perhaps we can make a new one, have you ever played minecraft? happy to say we now have picture in picture allowing a number of possible configurations, including showing you timestamp tooltips of the event being notified of when you hover you mouse over a notification. this same technology will be the one used for multi-windowing and multi-screening there will be base-naming down the line doubtless this will come. I do not understand for many reasons, one being this is one of the beautiful moments of grace of nature manifesting itself unasked through procedural generation. Any developer should be proud of that like a father of his own son. unless they are miles off shore I do not see what the problem could be. otherwise : gamma. Gamma, Gamma, Gamma, Gamma. hope this brightens your hopes for this game, it's well on it's way, trust me. Happy commander!
Thanks for the information, that’s some good stuff. I see you were confused about my comment on the camera. Is there a setting that i am missing so that the camera can be configured to be at an angle when zoomed in? I haven’t seen this if it’s there. I really would like to find a mod if there’s one out there that does allow you to change the camera viewing and angles and allow you to use the middle mouse button to change the view angles of the camera too. If there’s one available please post me a link. Thanks guys,
Thank you very much for writing that out... wasn't looking forward to writing out a full response. lol There's a way to rotate the camera. I can't remember it off the top of my head. Look in the game settings. A mini map simply isn't viable in this type of game. We're playing on a bunch of spheres. You can't have a traditional mini map. Use the Picture in Picture. It's SO much better. It's essentially dual screens. You can interact with both of them and swap them around. I would highly recommend you do some searching around on the forums. There's a ton of information here. I'll go ahead and provide some links for ya to help you get started. FAQ Confirmed Features List Planetary Annihilation Wiki
there really is an incline on the run up to the end, you must not be noticing it but it most definitely isn't a "satellite view", this is more pronounced on bigger planets. not quite the "horizon" view but play-tested and suitable.
Well, thats an okay view. but Im really looking for a bit more angle when I play. like I said I would prefer a camera that I have complete control over. One that I can use the middle mouse button to change that aspect at any given time. No mods that allow this? Any why is the Capcha asking each and everytime you post a comment? Being logged in and verified isnt enough devs???
I *think* (but what do I know) that the view angle when zoomed in is limited (so you can't see the horizon) purposefully. Once you zoom out far enough, each unit is reduced to a 2d placeholder. But when you're zoomed in, it's a 3d model. If you had a wider field of view when zoomed in and could fit hundreds or thousands of the 3d models in your view, I think even the newest graphics cards would be brought to its knees, let alone the "average" computer that the devs have to design for.
Hey Wheeledgoat, I’m not really looking for a horizontal camera. Just one with a bit more angle to it. But mainly my main need right now is for a rotating camera. Someone said they’ve seen this but can’t recall how to do it. I haven’t found it yet. I’ve hit all the keys and none of them allow it. That’s why I was hoping there was a mod for it. Thanks for the help,
as Brian said, there is indeed a keybind to go into freecam. check you options. this is temporary, only for first couple posts, will be gone or should be gone. and please use the reply button, or this: @darksx otherwise we never know you answered.
gotcha, And Ill take a look at that. I thought I had already but must have over looked it. Thanks tatsujb, I really appreciate the help and comments.
@darksx oh and the seed is important since it's he thing that redeems this all, in extremis from being 100% random. It is the "Prism", if you will, through which the generation process flows. Example : this means that if you are to generate a planet with : "Seed":100, "radius": 400, "heightRange": 50, "waterHeight": 50, "temperature": 50, "metalDensity": 50, "metalClusters": 50, "biomeScale": 50, "biome": "earth" 100 000 times it will come out 100 000 times looking exactly the same! this allows you to share a unique planet to anyone with a simple set of numbers rather than a huge file!
are you talking about "toggle free camera" ? cause all that does for me is lock the screen view (can't scroll around when I press that).
yea, that's it, at that point the view is controlled by wasd and two other keys for up and down and space should allow you to turn camera with mice to any angle you please.
welp, tried both the "set free camera" and "toggle free camera" - all that happens when I press those buttons is the screen does a little sideways jig for a second (maybe to confirm the button has been pressed?) but then the camera is locked, can't scroll anywhere. i've got decent (enough) hardware (GTX 760), game runs great otherwise. perhaps it's the linux version?
The same here for me onthe camera, very disapointing that I cant move it around when its in free mode. Heres to hoping they fix that. tatsujb, what does these ones do exactly? "Seed":100 "biomeScale": 50 "heightRange": 50 I understand what the other ones do, just not these three. Thanks,
biomescale - i think this one changes the size of the biome features relative to planet size, but honestly i don't see much difference using it. heightrange - larger makes mountains higher and valleys/oceans lower - smaller value makes planet flatter overall
