Current work update - 11/5/14

So, does that mean we can hook up our fully custom planet generators too? I mean, which parts of the planet are NOT being made accessible right away?

• Is manual metal spot and catalyst placement included?
• Starting spot placement is included, that's for sure
• We are still bound to using the random generated heightmap when we want elevation, right? Or will we also be able to provide our OWN function for generating the heightmap and the biome map? (I would much rather define the shape and biome distribution by support vectors than by the original perlin noise, for various reasons. And limit the default noise based algorithms to what they can do best: Placing decals, pebbles and trees, because I DON'T want to store THEM in the planet definition, that's for sure....)
  
• Can features be placed in orbit of gas planets?
• Can features be place in MID AIR on purpose? You know, Pandora style floating rocks and alike. Or floating platforms above gas giants
  
• Not a question, but please make sure that the API to the new features is documented on release so modders can actually hook up their own planet generators.

(Can't wait to get hacking on that: Custom planet generator)

Balance work and system editor changes are awesome, thank you!

@jables thanks a lot for keeping us updated. We always want to know more and get things faster, but don't get mad at this passionate community ;-)
You are doing great. Keep up the good work!

please please please team ranked matches.

Thank you based Uber.

I have one more question to add. Will it be possible to place water and lava by hand. (It's kind of about placing biomes manually.)

the question is "can we change elevation by hand" then more or less.

Not exactly. If you place subtractive brushes that cut out the ground at least in the current version the holes will not be filled with water.

When the maps are not symmetrical could you please make sure that all spawn points are equally good or that there are only two possible sets of spawn points which as a set are roughly comparable? With the current maps and spawn points it can happen that one player gets e.g. the two best spawn points and the other the two worst, which can be quite frustrating (at least for one party).

I think i saw a picture posted by sorian where he explained that you could manually relocate the spawn points. This definately should fix the unblanced spawn points. We'll see how it'll go.

Looking good Uber!

The problem is not necessarily the location of the spawn points, but that e.g. on duellist each player is randomly assigned two of the spawn points, so that it can happen that one player gets both the spawn points with the best mex placements.

Hello quick question will you work on optimisation a little bit ?

@varrak Has been working diligently on optimizing performance (especially RAM usage, he's taken off nearly 1GB, which rocks). It's likely that this kind of stuff won't really make it into the next release, or if it does, it's not in a position to tell people that it will yet.

Also, does @bgolus work on optimization stuff too?

@jables

Are the maps a variety of sizes?

1 small, 1 medium, 1 large

I think map size really affects gameplay adding diversity.

This will also show the true state of balance.

I think balance is allot better than what ppl r giving you credit for.

An even variety of map sizes is key to making pa live up to its potential imho.

What's your guys thoughts at uber about this?

*Bribe* I'll buy a commander for an in depth response to this question

Who I'm I kidding I'm going to end up getting all the coms over time anyway to show my support, but still...... would ya give an in depth response, pretty please?

yeah, the game shouldn't just be balanced around small maps. Why did we start playing on such small map anyways? I remember we played much bigger maps back in early beta.

Still no word on what the balance changes actually are then? Not even a vague direction or units that might be affected?

Please can we have a long PTE-before-release session (1-2 weeks) so that we can investigate the changes and give feedback which can be received and implemented before the build goes stable? This would help prevent the more casual players having to re-learn the balance multiple times, and ending up with some units that have potentially game-breakingly wonky stats.

Yes please.

Stuck in meetings throughout the day, but to add a bit now, and will update more later.

• We will remove the current 2 planets when we bring in the new ones. I don't have an answer to bringing in community planets yet as I have to deal with legal for that sort of thing (wish it were easier).
• The goal is at least a week of PTE for this round
• We will stream new planets and playtests in the next week or so.
• We are working on hand placing metal spots and hand placing start spots, but unsure if they will make it in this release, so I didn't mention them.
• Adjusting height maps also being explored, but again, not this release.
• The AI can already beat me again damn it @sorian
• We are playtesting about 5 maps currently of many different sizes, as well as other things such as chokepoints to see how it affects current gameplay feel.
• Optimizations and bug fixing are being done.. probably shoulda mentioned that, but you can just assume that is a constant thing we are doing.
• The following bullet is being cut for this release as it ran into more issues than we thought
  • Adding ranked icons to all lobbies to better show off your Uber (or my bronze)

And now I have to run. Will answer more questions as they come up.

What kind of legal issues can that be? The only thing I can think of is the potential that the maps are creations by random people not part of Uber, so they might have a form of copyright on it, but then again usually companies are pretty direct about going "all you create with our game is ours to use".
Not to mention that I am sure the map creators would be very happy to put their maps somewhere with a big "PUBLIC DOMAIN" stamp and from there anybody is free to use those tiny pieces of json in whatever why they want.
Or is there any other issue with it? I don't understand legal stuff, all I know of that word: It's unreasonable reasons that everyone wishes would not exist. I hate lawyers. xD

If I update the Genesis map pack with an open source license, would that be enough?