I'm quite new to the Planetary Annhilation community and feel sorry to repost something that has been asked several times especially in the Steam forum. The game is already very well structured and has a great modding community, but over the years Steam really has grown to my heart and I rarely abandoned it So I think the workshop would be a good addition to the game, because it's perfect for downloading some cool looking planets and things like that. Or achievements can give some fun over hundreds of hours of playtime. Persons who don't like achievements, can easily ignore them. To the developers of this great game, please don't lose sight of the steam community! I think more features will boost the sales of the game, too.
Welcome tk the forums! You should get the PA mod manager and get the system sharing mod, though some more Steam integration would be nice beta gamma is gamma!
I love Steam too and would like to see a bit more integration. Due to the planned modding potential of this game I would assume the workshop is likely to be added eventually. I'm sure achievements and trading cards will be added near release as well. When I saw this thread though my initial thought was with the Steam overlay and Friends list. Because I usually play games with other people I know, I would really like the ability to join a friend's game or invite them through Steam.
I imagine that given the heavy emphasis that Uber plan to place on modding, there will be direct support in-game to install mods etc. I believe this would make the Steam Workshop somewhat redundant, since it would be replicating a functionality that would already exist within the game itself. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course, but that's my interpretation.
Yes, cvwarner7264, I see your point. If the developer is eager to support modding itself and can provide its service over several years, it's a good solution. Beside the service from Steam already exist and is not bad. Currently installing the mod manager, so let's see. Mabye some planets from Star Wars or units from WWII to download or build Yeah, the friends from Steam. Thanks zomgie. That would made the whole thing easier to invite friends for a game, because this community is already established. But Uber can build it's own community, too, but then I have to add every friend with PA again. I hate going over to Origin for some games even now If you don't want to build your game around Steam, just give the users over their at this filthy Steam something that makes the game worth buying. Like achievements Without Steams heavy advertising your game on my store page frequently and also on every sale, I wouldn't be that interested in it.
If the plan is to make Planetary Annihilation a self-sustaining platform, I think that hooking it too deeply into Steam would harm the evolution of the product. As well as those people who choose not to integrate it with Steam, for whatever reason. If Uber have the time and manpower to do it well and match functionality for those who don't use Steam? Fantastic. But that's a pipe dream
Barring some sort of technical limitation, I can't see why "invite friend to join game" via Steam wouldn't make it in eventually (even if you have to use the Steam overlay to achieve this, rather than an in-game button). This has already had a firm 'maybe' from Uber - they're not a priority initially, but again I can't see why they wouldn't be added eventually.
Given the game's unfinished nature and the fact we only have seen the lightweight client so far, not the server (which will be distributed with the game eventually) we can only mod aspects or the way we see things in our own game. Technically speaking, if you were to create a special, different planet, the fact that they are loaded as a set of numbers means all people joining your host would be able to load it as you see it. (this does not apply to the props but it does apply to shape, color, prop and mass point placement) This, of course, is subject to limitations made by the server as to what you are allowed to load to play on. But for the moment that is the full extent of what we can do and there hasn't been to much experimentation on that end. There is a mod called system share which allows you to share systems and retrieve shared systems. some of those can be very creative. for the most part though, it is not yet time for full-fledged revamp mods yet, without the server it is impossible.
I think this is currently the plan, the uber social menu will pull your steam friends. SOURCE: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/the-new-social-features-will-pull-your-steam-friends.58554/
