Returning Player to Galaxy War (Criticisms)

Ok I am a long time veteran of various total annihilation games (Supreme Commander etc...).

I ran into an ugly problem right off the bat. When I got my first two upgrades they were "metal/energy storage" and wasn't that that useful when you could just spam energy generator and metal extractor.

The third unlockable was build speed for super-weapon which I do not have access to...

So in my fourth battle I decide to attack one of the faction's HQ. Upon entering solar system my first thought was oh no this is going to be a long entrench battle warfare because there were 4 full size airless planets. No moon thankfully but I didn't realize at the time there was actually 4 AI players.

So I land on one of the outer planet and promptly delivery a killing blow to the AI next to me.

I went out and scouting the other 3 planets and found 3 more AI players and two of them was building nothing but airforces on two planet with a third AI sharing the planet with one of the air spamming AI player.

So short story version: I could not land enough orbital lander to get a breach fort set up on either of the planet despite having two full planet economy behind me. Why? Because the air spamming could just sent the entire's platoon of bomber to kill a single warpgate before I can get enough AA through (one radar is enough to spot a landing force). Ditto for engineers.

Short of having access to delta V planet thrusters to push my second planet to blow up two of the AI player but that still force me to use normal orbital lander in a guerrilla warfare to wore down the remaining AI. Remember I don't have anything like those and only land fabricator to work with.

We really really really need something to allow us to do something like "D-Day" invasion of Normandy instead of landing force piece-meal or using a clutch like a teleporter which can be instant-glib by bombers.

Make 200 Aestreus. Fill 150 of them with AA-tanks, then the other 50 with fabricators. Have the AA tanks land first, have the fabricators land and make teleporters. On your main planet, have 6-15 factories produce AA-Tanks and have them go to a teleporter. Link the teleporters. Have a huge massive AA-force go through the teleporters. Have the rest of your forces go in through the teleporters.

Only way to do it to be honest. If you really want more of a Normandy invasion, make more Aestreus.

The trouble with more Aestreus is it would make the game lag even more. I tried to land 5 engineers + 7-8 factories back at home making tank/AA continous and about 50 manage to get through by then bomber was nuking everything. That was just ONE planet. I had to deal with TWO of them.

At that first breach attempt the game was lagging and would show the new teleporter "incomplete" but was actually done and connect with the home's planet teleporter at the same time. That was just with 5 aestreus. Remember I am dealing with THREE AI player spamming units. So making a force like 200 Aestreus would just have broke the game session I think.

That sounds like a local bottleneck. I've managed to get around 200 Aestreus + a few hundred infernos and AA-Tanks through. It WAS at about 3 FPS but I did manage to beat the AI.

My only suggestion would be to have a small colony on each planet ASAP. Just enough to protect a few teleporters. I know this isn't the answer you're looking for but right now, with the units that are available in the game, it's our only option.

Also, you could just go around and not fight the Boss battles until you have higher tier tech.

Lastly, on the top left, there's icons that show you how many players are in the solar system. It's usually about 4 enemy AI unless you have a ridiculous number of ally AI.

Hmm I will avoid boss battles until I get stronger then. Is it possible to backtrack and go somewhere else? On the galaxy map that is.

Another problem with using more landers is that they take forever and a day to get into formation before landing. When the enemy has even a few avengers they are eat the landers alive and it causes the landers to try and fix the formation before landing. It can lead to a vicious circle and out of 200 landers only 30 or so might even make it to the ground.

I've been said that for a while, some months ago.

They wanted me out of this forum. Perhaps things are clearer now. Otherwise, welcome to the club, dude.

We don't promote witch hunts in any form on this forum.

So please don't act like you were and are persecuted for your opinion.

I thought Anchors were supposed to be able to shoot at air? I could be wrong.

Haha, you're funny Please, go back reading some old threads. Remember Iron420? Do you still see him on this forum? He has been banned.

It has never been about me. It is that the word of the Devs on this forum can hardly be questioned. Even when they speak non-sense, or when they do not answer questions and lock down threads instead. As soon as a pal speaks his mind and doubts on things that aren't welcome discussing, he's also gonna feel the wrath of the yes-boys of the Forum.

Common problem, it's not just this Forum. It's that some people are just to young to know any better.

Anyway, sorry for the outburst I just want to say to @Vyndicu that the topic has been discussed in the past, and we simply didn't get very far.

What when was he banned?

Why was he even banned?

Also, this forum spends every day saying what's wrong with PA, we are hardly yes men here (Well some are, but you always get those).

*Shrugs* I dunno dude, there is a fine line between criticism and simple flaming, and the devs are people too, they also get rustled just like us.

Sometimes people get mad and lash out at the wrong time to the wrong people.


People hardly sit here kissing ubers boots, but people have also been asking the same questions for a long time, so really the regulars here are bored and just link the previous threads.

When you are bored, you get excited when stuff does change, even if it's a first pass at a unfinished game.

Id hardly start claiming conspiracy throes here either.....because stuff like that can get you banned.

Are you able to select multiple Astraeuses and tell them to load a group of units?

Yep, you use the area load to load them.

Currently they are a little weird on the unloading, spreading out before landing makes casualty's impossible to avoid, but that's the name of the game really.

Oh goody.

Ok, I've confirmed it. After a LENGTHY set of sieges against 3 AI opponents in GW, during which my economic bonuses counted for squat, I can confidently say that Anchors enable proper planetary invasion quite nicely. Watching them gun down air units is spectacular, to say the least... bloody bombers.

Sorry for going off topic once more. But it'll be quick. And thanks for your reply, buddy.

If people (new comers specially) keep asking the same questions, then we could also wonder why those issues are perceived by different people, across a long period of time. To me it isn't annoying, instead, it is significant. And it means that there are sensitive issues still unresolved.

Now I'll be back on topic.

That is good.

But still I don't understand the whole process to invalidate the Unit Cannon. So many efforts has been made by Uber in order to give us a way to invade planets, and all of them are prone to a spamming of some sort.

In this case, I could simply spam Umbrellas, or even better Avengers, and you will never be able to build one Anchor (plus I personally think that Anchors shouldn't be able to shot ground). There should be a way to open a breach into a well defended planet, specially if we have a superior eco, or more planets.

Possibly we will able to smash small asteroids to create a vacuum on the surface, and land it there. But I would like to see those impacts creating lava and some sort of atmospheric phenomenon, so that air vehicles couldn't take off for a while, or energy could shut off (also in response to an atomic blast). Also the area of impact shouldn't be usable for a while. But also we should be able to counter the impact with nukes or something.

Anyway, often on this forum the term technical debt has been used, saying that the Devs won't implement a simplified version of the Unit Cannon, because otherwise they will have to re-do lot of stuffs later.

So, I'm wondering how they would justify so much work done in the effort to balance the game without the Unit Cannon. Isn't this a huge technical debt as well? (even bigger) And does that mean that we will never see the Unit Cannon, 'cos otherwise the game will have to change dramatically once again, after its introduction?

That would be a pity, not just 'cos the Unit Cannon has been used to promote the game on Kickstarter. But specially 'cos the Unit Cannon could elegantly solve a tons of small issues we have today with Planetary Invasions. And it does that thanks to its flexibility, shooting different kind of units, to counter what so ever we see on the enemy planet.

Plus it's surely super fun to use, and it looks awesome. And I thought PA was all about awesome.

Funny thing is, the Devs spent very little words answering those questions. They just seem to not like the topic.

Nevertheless, those questions arise regularly.

Maybe the coding for it is just traumatically, nightmarishly difficult. Either way, all we can do right now is test what we have... which, thankfully, is mostly pretty slick.

To be fair, they also haven't delivered on gas giants, but we may be on track for that now that orbital factories are a thing.

@Vyndicu:

I don't know what difficulity you play on, but normal to hard AI's can be beaten by simple yet effective strategy!
* Get your first planet AI free and start getting up the eco there, and rush orbital ASAP, including orbital radar!
* Clear a second planet (if there are more then 3 in the whole system) and start linking teleporters between them
* Get eco going on your second planet
* Get 2-3 Advanced Orbital Sats, and send them to each planet the AI still has
* Get +- 6 Orbital Factories and start pumping out (if you can support it, assist them!) SXX's

Now here comes the fun part: orbital units like the SXX can get a direct attack order and will arrive on the attack spot once their transition in space ends. This means that once you have the sats and the SXX's you have to do 2 things, namely FIND (and get visual) of the AI Commander(s), attack (right-click) the Commander.

The Laser Platforms will directly travel to the Commanders location and start shooting it. 4 is enough to one-shot a commander, but i take 6 to have a safety measure against Umbrella's

I do have to say: even on normal difficulity, the AI isn't too shabby to sacrifice his subcommanders to kill you! ALWAYS be wary of Halley's (especially on systems that have a 1-Halley-Movable planet)!

This is such a pain, but possible.

Really, there are 3 ways to do it:

-Don't let the AI get a planet by himself. Rush vehicles hard, quickly early game within 5 minutes get teleporters up, and send tank hunting squads to cover and clear planets so they aren't covered in AI enemy to begin with.

-If AI gets a planet by himself, build a teleporter in a spot empty of mexes, and then swarm 200 AA bots followed by tanks or grenadiers or gil-e followed by 20 fabbers who build 10 flak or 20 missile towers and then advanced radar. Or, do basically that with astraeus, with area commands, pick up 20 fabbers and 100 AA units, and once landed build AA towers and a teleporter and radar.

-Get the proper tech especially before faction fights. Sometimes takes luck, otherwise do 1 or 2 above. This just makes it easier, if you have "superweapons", t2, or advanced orbital. With advanced orbital, find enemy commander on other planet with astraeus peeking at the planet. When found location, land 5 SXX Laser Satellites right on the planet right over top. When the SXX enters the planet right above, they will fire before being able to be killed and the commander will be killed without reaction. Or, use orbital fabbers to build 2-3 teleporters in different areas of planet. Or, use orbital fabbers to build and assist orbital factory and spam the hell out of avengers to overwhelm the enemy and then establish anchors to cover the planet in raining hellfire. With superweapons, halleys or nukes clear another planet, scout the enemy commander and hit him with 2 nukes or build 5 nukes and hit 5 metal clusters just to soften him up and build a teleporter and then use nukes as defensive and nuke his armies that swarm your armies. You CAN nuke planet to planet.

It will get better when GW develops in more detail.

I think you've missed the point here- you are talking about using lots of technology the player doesn't have access too. Read the Op again - He/She is talking about GW and limited technology situations.

It's odd but I've played a game of GW which went pretty much EXACTLY the same way as the op's. Ended up with storage, a sub commander and high tech weapon efficiency. Also ended up fighting across 4 moons two of which I took quickly and a third which my sub commander took.

It was around the 20~ min mark when I turned my attention to the final planet.

I tried everything. The lag at 20 mins in was already pretty bad - which was annoying considering my pc is powerful and my internet connection fast (looks like a problem with the servers?) but I still loaded up 300 astreatus' with AA and another 20 with engineers.

I had 300+ AA and 200+ ants waiting on the other side of the teleporter on my home planet too, with more being added constantly from around 30+ factories.

My initial invasion, although VERY frustrating to deploy - the lag (or something) was causing some incredibly buggy behaviour from the landers and they refused over and over to land, so much so I had to break them down into groups of 10 or 20 and fill up my hotkeys to get a rapid deployment - was successful.

I finally got everyone on planet, got my teleporter built, got AA turrets coming up and my army swarming through the teleporter.

The air force which hit my landing site was nothing like I've ever seen. I honestly couldn't see my army/beachhead any longer due to the number of bombers going over head. I bitterly wish I had taken a screenshot because the numbers bordered on the ridiculous.

In less than 2 minutes they had annihilated my entire beach head including the 600~ AA units - just with tech 1 bombers.

I managed to do a limited scout with one of the astreaus left after the landing and it pretty much confirmed with I thought - two AI commanders with many many air factories, constantly pumping out tech one fighters and bombers. One half of the planet was almost totally covered with bombers which hadn't even been involved in crushing my invasion.

To cut a long story short after 2 more attempts of ever increasing numbers I gave up. The lag at the 40 min mark made the game unplayable - getting batches of astreus to land on the planet and deploy units became a nightmare.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is I totally, utterly and completely agree with the OP. We need better invasion methods - maybe even right off the bat in GW .