Flat maps?

Hello

Any chance we can finally have a flat map so we can make it like the old school RTS games?

Thanks!

yes please. more options, more shmoptions.

basically anything that ads to the game would be good.

here we have a chance to see how the PA engine runs without units moving thousands of mph around the sun, i'm willing to bet it'd run much better.

I personally think this is a stupid request, in my opinion. Which is not necessarily fact. Why are you playing * Planetary * annihilation if you want a flat map?

If you must though....
Just make a really big planet, and use CSG or lava to make everything outside a box unpathable. And hope you don't get backstabbed by an air attack. Or from space. Man, what's even the point....

I can't imagine that the current engine has support for a truly flat map, though maybe the devs can elaborate.

Actually, scratch that, you could make an ENORMOUS crater that deletes everything but a sliver of the planet. Now I want to try it...

Like @iacondios said.......If you have a "flat" map then why play a 3-D game It seems unnecessary in every way.

no.

once you get used to play on spherical planet, it is really difficult to go back but it would be nice to see %20-30 more without loosing spherical design at (fake)max zoom out

@g0hstreaper @iacondios , because round maps is very far from being PA's engine's only feature. the PA engine is interesting for a great number of reasons which keeps things interesting if you're experimenting ....even in a way that remove one of those reasons. do you understand?

Pretty sure Human Resources was going to be their stab into using the PA engine for flat maps. So I assume unless they get onto another PA engine project with flat maps, PA will probably be sticking with spheres.

I like the idea. Most people have a hard time with the spherical maps.

If you want a flat map, go play a different game?

This is Planetary annihilation. Not Total Annihilation or Supreme Commander

no not really, if you want to experiment then do it on your own time with your own editing, There's a whole part of the community that mods things and could probably help you get your Sup com fix. If not then just DL Supcom and play on your 2-D maps.

If PA can't deliver, then I will. In the end, if people move away from the game for the numerous reasons stated above just about the map design. Then who do you have left to play with? Why not support it, and attempt to improve the game in some small facet.

I am attempting to have a feature put into the game, not taken out. This is something that all loyal fans of PA should be happy for. Maybe you won't play it ever, maybe it sickens you to think of PA on a flat map. But maybe it will bring players here who are used to traditional RTS maps, then everyone including you win.

I rather would see UI improvements to make players able to handle planets. A good UI to make planets easier to handle is a challenge. So far PA has not even tried to solve it for the most part. I believe solutions can be found.

As a developer I smiled a bit. Feature creep is an ugly thing

Jokes aside, personally I really like the spheres in PA. They give you a finite battle field, without any artificial borders or corners you see in other RTS games. This is brilliant. Spheres are for sure the one unique feature why I keep playing PA, it makes PA stand out of the crowd of flat RTS games (Oh wait, is this a pun?).

flat maps are not the point of PA .... if you have no interest in spheres then this is just not the game for you ...
i also see no point in flat maps as at worst it would just split the community and at best would be played by a tiny minority only ...
feel free to mod it but i don´t see it beeing any more worth than that ...

Then I guess we will just see if ashes of the singularity will be a hit then?

PA is a fantastic game, but some of us want to have massive fights with half the map and huge bases and arty fights etc. This was one of best parts of TA and SC, being able to dig in and make the opponent pay for every inch they take from you.

Why not handle it like civ 5? The maps in that are round, but played flat, see! everyone wins!

you're making assumptions, I never talked about supcom, plus you ignored my performance gain argument entirely, I'm getting the feeling you don't want to debate, am I wrong?

that makes no sence, for what good reason would they trash the pre-emptive HR work, instead of grrafting it onto PA? Why do you even need a lore justification to introduce new capabilities in the engine?