Essential Game Launch Feature

I know anyone who takes the time to read these forums cares about this game and wants it to do well! So i thought i would start off a thread for suggestions/discussions of features that are essential for enjoyment of new players coming into the game.

I think number 1 for me is an effective 'matchmaker system'. People are going to be sold on the idea of fighting between planets more than the standard battle across a single planet. The sooner they can jump into this, the better. So i think any match maker that gets implemented needs to as a default setting place players in team armies starting across a couple of planets.

Second to that i would say that key match maker options ought to be the choice between team/solo and then if team, shared/non-shared and finally multi/single planet starts.

Number 2. I think it would also help new players to have a pre-game setting for a suggested 'build path'. Just an option to follow an 'Air T1' strat, 'Air T2' strat, land T1/T2 start etc (bots, tanks). All that the game has to do then is suggest to the player with a small icon the next building that should be constructed in this strat.

Additionally, there could be an auto unit build function for the strat as well. I think that something like this would enable a new player to get rapidly into the holistic game view which is where they will draw the most satisfaction.

If anyone else agrees let me know, and post your ideas!

Number 1 - Fix the movement of commanders and engineers when they are about to build something. They often go quite far for no reason and they start to build like 10 seconds later which is important.
Number 2 - It would be nice to have ability to edit build queue like in supreme commander. In case you are making a queue that has like 10 buildings and you fail with 9th then you have to make the queue again to edit 9th building.
Number 3 - Fix metal spawns and randomization of positions but afaik uberent is working on this.

List of things promised but not yet implemented:

• Unit Cannon
• Asteroid Belts
• Gas Giants
• Metal Planet Weapon System
• True Desert/Water Biomes
• Galactic War
• Full Fledged Sub Marine Layer

This is the bare minimum required to fullfil their kickstarter promises. They can, as always, take all the time they need. Just don't turn out to be liars.

It's been brought up a couple of times but i think that since PA is quite a complicated game it would server the community well if there where easily tutorials for the game. How does economy work? How do i smash a planet into another? How do i get a super huge army as fast as possible? How awesome is the d-gun ubercannon? et.c. et.c.

Matchmaking system is cool to, but in my eyes a lot that people generally try to fix with matchmaking can be fixed with customizeable lobbys as well. Name your games after what you want, like "only top players", "noobs welcome", "turtlerfest", "competition rules" or whatever. I know we have this to an extent already, but as most things the lobby can be further polished to make communication between players and hosts and smooth as possible. (Now you kinda have to go the way around renaming the system you play to get a message across.)

Personally i don't care if the unit cannon or whatever specific feature makes it or not. I want a stable balanced game with a nice over all feel of things rather than to stare myself blind at some detail in some concept art. I like swirls and all, but not as much as i like gg's

We definelly need the missing features, some tutorials and match making sistem not sure about the others however, bugs will be enventually fixed soo i dont think they count as missing for compleate game release

They never promised this directly, they just said about water worlds (That we have) and a fully navy (That we more or less have).

"$1,100,000 - Naval units and Water Planets

We are happy to announce that our first stretch goal is a set of naval units and extended support for water planets. One of the most popular questions we receive is whether or not naval warfare is going to be supported. We like naval warfare and want to have it in the game, but it’s going to be quite a bit of additional work. We want to not only support naval units but to do a great job at it. Likewise we want great support for water in the engine and the ability to create amazing planets that are largely water. First class support for naval means you will be able to have a combination of water and land planets as well as ice asteroids. Huge water only planets to play out all kinds of naval only scenarios will also be supported. Asteroid tsunamis FTW! Some of the water units we can expect include subs, amphibious units, floating buildings and of course battleships!"
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ihilation-a-next-generation-rts/posts?page=14

They told me I can expect subs and amphibious units, so I will!

I wouldn't hold my breath for anything "amazingly special" out of the "Sub" area. To be honest subs in most games are generally annoying/worthless.

We may see a few subs, but as far as I've heard(I may be wrong) Uber is not going for full underwater warfare.

"First class support for naval" meant something different to me I guess... Par for the course it seems

Naval and "underwater" are the same thing. Just because they don't go 50% Above water naval and 50%(or even 70/30) doesn't mean they've broken any promises or mislabeled something.

As you said:

Who knows what Uber exactly means? I don't work there or have the placed bugged so I can't say what their exact plan is. I trust Uber to get the job done. It's time to use the most annoying virtue, patience.

I would like the game to offer viable options for invading planets. I do not mind too much about how that would be done (as far as it is good for the game-play). But it seems a pretty important aspect of the game and I would be disappointed if that would be missed at release.

On Kickstarter the project reached all the stretched goals. Therefore it would be just fair from Uber to fulfill that agreement with their backers. Personally I do not mind having it done at version 1.0 or later. As far as they do not ask me more money for what I've already paid, time is not necessarily an issue.

I will not buy this game full-price a second time. For Planetary Annihilation 2 with all the missing features I will just wait some future Christmas sales

I'm not overly worried about anything as far as "needs to be added before release."

The game isn't finished. Uber is really good at what they do and they're gonna deliver a game better than we coulda come up with.

Come on. Don't be that guy. Uber is working hard to deliver an RTS game unlike any other and all you can do is just complain that it's not enough? Uber is going to deliver. They haven't indicated anything at all about not delivering.

All of that stuff is going to be in the game. It just needs more work because the game isn't finished!

Orbital and planetary invasions are not done. There's still plenty more to be added to the game and balanced. Uber has a lot of plans for Planetary Invasions. We'll get these options – it'll just take time.

As for Planetary Annihilation 2? That's not gonna be a think for many years – if ever. Uber plans to constantly improve and add onto PA with free updates to the game.

Not to be that other guy, but it's already looking like the Unit Cannon won't make launch going by dev talk, namely because it isn't a priority. Not that the Unit Cannon is a necessary thing when the real problem is orbital in general, transportation, planet cracking, and all the things to be worked out with planet destruction. But it's a bummer since that was one of the cool things in the initial kickstarter trailer. It makes you wonder what is going to make it into an the 1.0 build when there is still a lot to do and many features to flesh out and polish.

Just because it's a low priority, doesn't mean it won't make it into the game at launch. It just means they're working on other things first.

I disagree with you and think it will be in the game launch, along with all of the other promised features.

It's also worth mentioning that they plan on making orbital invasions balanced and possible without the Unit Cannon.

There's lots of features yet to be added. But PA will be a complete game at launch.

Frankly, im surprised that any of the stretch goals are making it in at launch.

I too am a bit annoyed about subs and the unit cannon but can live without them.

For me I would really like them to fix and improve the planet smash animation. The halleys don't fire, often the smash animation doesn't run and even when it does it needs to be more "awesome". It's the flagship feature of the game after all.

Plus we need a bunch of prebuilt systems and leaderboards. We know they are working on these however.

Bolded are things which were mentioned specifically in stretch goal descriptions. These are the things which we need before release. Other items weren't necessarily promised, merely in the KS video or mentioned later.

We already have the former, and I've no idea what the heck you're expecting for the latter.

The only things this game needs that is essential for launch if a full on interactive tutorial that stresses the importance of expanding your base, how the tech tree works, how the economy works, what units can be built from which factories, the basics of advanced buildings, orbital gameplay and some basics about defense. Anything else is caviar to be honest. But until this is implemented, new players will have a very difficult time with the game and may drop the game because of it.

It was fine for backers because they knew what they were expecting and were enthusiasts about RTS. New players will want to be walk through the basics the first time around before being thrown out into multiplayer.

I really don't think that the current "tutorial" is enough. A scripted tutorial where the player is taken step by step on what to build on an already established planet should be plenty.

For Deserts, try making mars, or Dune. It's impossible. The water worlds use the earth template (same as "deserts"). A true tropical or water biome could have some unique things like island chains for instance. Having it use the earth template limits it somewhat (but admittedly not as bad as deserts).

Have they even set a date for release yet, no? ^^