PTE Build 76412-pte now live (updated with new build 12/16/14)

@jables / @sorian / @tvinita, is it possible to mod the capacity of the unit cannon shells? IE if I want the unit cannon to fire 4 dox per pod rather than just 1?

UBER Thank you and keep doing your awesome work, that was a total surprise!

it would be interesting if you could send units like that, it would take more metal to stuff them into one pod, but the Max unit cap of a unit cannon would still be 12, like if you wanted to send 4 units each pod, you would only have 3 pods, if you wanted to send 5 units per pod you would have 2 pods full of 5 units and another filled with 2, and if you wanted one pod to fit all 12 it would take as long as it would be to make 12 of the individual units and there would only be one pod, it would be fun to implement stuff like that so people could have different personal preference.

Honestly I was thinking more like "why send dox when you can send slammers" unless we changed it so that different quantities of units can fit into a pod. So a dox pod will always contain like 4 dox, a boombot pod will always contain 4 boombots, but a slammer pod will only contain 1 slammer. Or something like that. You'd still fire 12 pods, but firing dox would become worthwhile, or at least more worthwhile than it is now.

this looks awesome!

making anti-popcorn consistent with this build, little early I suppose but this is too cool to do without

Can you please start another thread to explain your thinking. I'm interested in what you think should change.

Hmm. If we're going to see official 20+ player games, then you'll need to fiddle a bit with colours. Unless it's a shared army game, we'll need to utilize secondary colours so that they matter. Adding 30 more colours will be pretty confusing, as a lot of them will be too close to each other.

My idea was:

Have icons display your secondary colour, prevent players from having same primary and secondary colour (that would be hard to read otherwise), and allow for every 10 players a primary colour to be used one more time.

That means you could have a 30 player FFA game where a maximum of 3 people have the same primary. They must, of course, have a different secondary.

That also means that in (ranked) games below 10 players you will not have to deal with players having the same primary.


What d'ya say?

Is that seriously 25%? Feels like 50%. That is a little too much.

What can I say, unit cannon just has to have spread by default. Maybe relative to planet size, like UnitCannonDefaultSpred=sqrt(PlanetRadius)*e+whatever^something, well, or it can be fixed radius. And of course, you can make it larger via area attack if you wish.
Too OP in current state, send advanced satelite -> find commander -> fire cannon at exact same spot -> win.

Spread is the least that can be done. Making droppods(?) vulnerable to AA andd AO (anti-orbital) will make them no different from astreus invasion, so that's a no go.
Price increase for UC units might be next step, it's even logical - you have to pay for unit + one way ticket.

Overall, looks like multiplanet systems are going to be fun to play finally. I'm the person who prefers either one planet, or one planet + 1-2 tiny smashable moons, because I just hate interplanetary wars, especially when teams start on different planets.

I fear for very fist week when it becomes live stable build - so much spam But then, it will be OK.

You don't want to make the unit cannon too cheap because then it becomes just another factory but with better capabilities so people would just build lots of UCs rather than normal factories. Also I'm keen on them having too many counters to the UC because it's meant to break stale mates. You shouldn't be able to fire the units into the middle of someones base but if someone has massed air fighters and put them on area command around the planet I want my UC units to be able to land atleast and do some damage. The fact that it's limited to 12 units means you can't fire in a huge army, so it's not OP, but will allow you to attempt a beach head.

Public 1v1 test games are going up on the PTE, first come first serve. These maps are prototypes for potential new ranked maps.

Well except with how easy it is to spam fighters and defence towers now, breaking an orbital stalemate is still incredibly difficult unless you have like 5 unit cannons. I'm not saying make them the same cost as an advanced factory, but make them cheaper, because atm they aren't that useful really. Also, if you make them cheaper and add the scattering mechanic, it will be easier for AA to shoot down your units, because more turrets/aircraft can be engaged in killing less of your units, thereby balancing out the cheaper cost.

I agree with everything you are saying except for the default spread. I think an area attack command would suffice if you wish to spread the units.

Also there needs to be an new anti-UC unit similar to the umbrella, but only affective against UC drop pods. It needs to cost enough so that you can protect your command from snipes, and not too cheap so that you can spam then across your while planet creating the same stale mates that the UC is supposed to resolve.

I don't think AA should be able to shoot the drop pods at all. I think their needs to be a new anti UC drop pod static defense structure (see my other post) which can be built easily enough in your own base, but not spammable over the whole planet (which would just create another stale mate).

The unit cannon should be expensive (so you can't mass lots of them) but the units from one volley should be able to do some sort of damage or set up a beach head for a teleporter.

I see it in the server browser but clicking join does nothing.

Make a hard counter, and UC will be as useless as anything else interplanetary in current stable. The only things effective against truly fortified planet are planets and lazors, and those might not be available in every game.

Why make a counter structure, just let people learn to move your commander from place to place via chain of teleporters or pelican or... on foot. (I'm talking about planet that is truly yours, where you can o whatever)

Why not just use the umbrella? Make it able to hit unit cannon projectiles, but give it a slower rate of fire than it would normally have.

Only cheats were enabled. One commander was inside small lake (earth planet #2), other next to some rocks (dust planet #3) on dust planet and last one on lava planet (planet #1 where I spawned) next to lava.

I tried to reproduce it now several times, but everything looks fine.

I'm not talking about a hard counter. The anti UC static defense would be expensive, so you can build one in the middle of your base to protect the commander from snipes, but you can't easily build then over the whole planet.

Or maybe just give the commander an anti UC drop pod weapon meaning only the commander can shoot them out of the sky?

Because then people are just going to spam umbrellas.