Lots of Suggestions From a New Player!

Hello guys! I'm a new player who got this beautiful game at the Steam Summer Sale, and I would like to share my suggestions, of various kinds, with you in my thread here, without knowing whether or not the developers read these. With that out of the way, let's begin with my first category:

Automation Suggestions:

Background: I think that in a game with such grand scale as Planetary Annihilation, any and all automation should be prioritized and made a part of the game, so as many players as possible can command an army spanning multiple planets with relative efficiency. An important side note here is that this will make players less inclined to simply try and camp out an Annihilaser planet instead of trying to go and fight on +10 planets.

Infinite Queue: This is a very straightforward one, what I'm asking for is a button on the side bar that, once pressed, will enable an Infinite Queue in the production structure that is selected (and this can be applied to multiple production structures at once, even if they are selected from the Idle button), meaning whatever is currently queued for construction under whichever order will repeat indefinetely. To clarify, here is an example:

Let's say I ordered 2 Grenadiers, a Dox, and a Combat Fabricator. Once all these are built, this queue would loop again, and 2 Grenadiers, a Dox and a Combat Fabricator would be built, in that order.

Upgrade Metal Extractors: This would be a button available on the sidebar for all Advanced Fabricators selected, which would then automatically go to all T1 mexes on the planet, replacing them with the T2 mex. If possible, they will head off to different mexes in the beginning and then move on to the closest other mex.

Construct Metal Extractors: Same as upgrade mexes, except it builds T1 mexes on free metal deposits.

Assist Unit Production: Yet another toggle-mode for the Fabricators, Fabricators in this mode will automatically assist any nearby unit production. They won't automatically assist building, nuclear and anti-nuclear missile construction this way. This eliminates the down time that is right after a unit's production is complete and it is being rolled out.

Fire At Will: The Commander will automatically fire his alternate Uber Cannon.

User Interface Suggestions:

Background: Everyone plays the game via the interface, therefore it is in our best interests to make it do as much as is possible with the least effort we can.

Nuclear Arsenal: This opens up a tab with the number of your nuclear missiles on each planet, and clicking the planet gives you a cursor with a small number next to it, which is the number of your nuclear missiles available on the planet you selected. You can use that cursor to fire multiple missiles at once.

Unit Suggestions

Background: Sometimes there are niches you think should be filled. Sometimes some units would be too cool to pass up.

Spearhead: Heavy orbital battleships and constructors, Spearheads are equipped with spinal mounted lasers that can only attack other orbital targets and with a long reload but with massive damage. Spearheads can take a beating and they can construct teleporters to make it easier to invade other planets. Spearheads must face their targets in order to attack and the nature of their spike damage means they are poor at facing Avengers. Very importantly, their laser can outrange Anchors.

Why do I feel we need this unit? Well, Avengers are poor against Anchors to say the least, and are not very good at killing other orbital units unless they seriously outnumber the enemy. In turn, Anchors are quite a hassle to destroy and can survive long even if they are not supported. The addition of Spearhead would solve both these problems, namely giving Avengers something to they can more easily destroy, and adding a heavy hitter to strike orbital targets with. On top of all this, this makes an orbital invasion all that much more possible, as Spearheads will quite easily set up a teleporter if there aren't Avengers around or if they are suppressed by enemy Avengers.

The infinite Queue is already in the game, if you select the factory and push "L" or whatever the infinite queue button is wired too, on the right-hand side of the screen at the bottom, one of the functions will change to an infinity sign to let you know that the build is now infinite, and you can queue up those 2 Grenadiers, a dox, and a Fabber, and they will infinitely build in that order.

You can also already upgrade your metal extractors with T2 with the use of an advanced bot, just build T2 on top of the extractor and it will automatically place them on top of it.
also, if you select a metal extractor with a fabricator, and drag outwards, it makes a large circle that can span the whole planet, and the game lets you build metal in that area

Fabbers also already have the "assist any production," if you select your fabbers and use the patrol button (p), and drag outwards, it will create a circle just like the metal, and the fabbers will assist/repair anything in that area.

The nuclear arsenal does need to be updated, and uber will add more missiles like i remember them saying, but the closest thing we have to that is just clicking a nuke, and double clicking the nuclear launchers picture in the bottom left corner, and that will select all nukes in the system.

And i agree that there needs to be another orbital fighter, or the anchors need to be nerfed, they are just WAY too OP as they currently stand, ALL of the other defenses attack what they are supposed to. Land attacks land units, AA attacks air units, Torpedo launchers attack water units...... but... the anchor... attacks EVERYTHING.

And to add to that. For the infinite queue you can also add one-time units at the beginning by holding <Ctrl>. So say you have set up an infinite queue with 2 tanks and 1 spinner, but you want to build a single fabber. Hold <Ctrl> and click the fabber. The factory will then build a fabber as its next unit and then continue the infinite queue again. (And for good measure, <Shift> queues up units in batches of 5).

As for the automatic building, PA supports area commands. So select a T1 fabber, click the metal extractor (mex) icon, and then click where you want to build but hold the mouse button down and drag so that a circle appears. The T1 fabber will then build mexes inside that circle. You can also drag the circle past the horizon, and the fabber will then build on the entire planet. Same for the T2 fabber with T2 mexes. And really, the area build works for any structure you'd like to build, so it works for turrets, energy plants, etc. Though some structures build in lines and others in circles.

There is also a mod called "Missile Command" that may help you with your nuke requirements.

For more orbital units, I can recommend the "Orbital Warfare Overhaul" mod.

I know you can upgrade your Mexes, I meant that as a button to automatically upgrade them all.

Also, thanks about these tips, though I blame the game for not making them more obvious. ^^

And I suppose my other suggestions still apply.

How about just adding orbital bombers that take out anchors from a distance that are slow firing? You would get a nice rock paper scissors game going. Fighters<Bombers<Anchors<Fighters

yet costs more and isn´t as costefficient ... and yes it attacks indeed what it is supposed to to ... orbital and surface ...

My Spearhead is basically that, except it also has armor and the ability to fabricate Teleporters. I suppose it could also repair too to be some sort of orbital combat fabricator.

SHAMELESS SELF-ADVERTISING TIME!!!!!

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/wip-server-orbital-warfare-overhaul.62878/

You mean the one with those cool orbital units and an ion cannon? Clicky for link


Picture made by @kjotak109

Of course I mean the one with the cool orbital units and the Ion cannon! What else could I possibly mean?

hmmm you mean something looking like this ?

Some cool orbital units (like^^^) could really improve the standard game play. I am surprised uber hasn't included stuff like this already. Maybe an expansion? I'd pay for it.

Who doesn't love the ion cannon and space battleships?

because the game primarily is about surfacebattles ... and i will keep saying this if you put too much emphasis on orbital combat you risk making surfacecombat less important or obsolete .. and i personaly have no interest in orbital becoming this games t3/tx ...

... I have countered this argument again and again, why does it keep showing up? It doesn't put too much emphasis on the layer, or at least not any more than is present normally in the game, it just makes it actually fun to play. You can play an entire game of PA with OWO on and not build a single of the new orbital units, and still win against someone who does use them. It's more difficult of course, but that's just like the game being more difficult if you refuse to use tanks...

i have not said anything about owom
if i have critic about owom it will be in the owom thread

and "fun" is always subjektive

I don't think that adding some mote orbital units to the game - to bring in some kind of rock, paper, scissor mechanic - will make surface less important or obsolete.
PA leans towards an aggressive play, so you want to put damage to your opponent as fast as possible. If you first have to build an orbital launcher to begin producing any unit that can put damage to your opponent, you are already on the back foot, because your opponent put the metal you spend in the orbital infrastructure into dox and ants.

there are a lot of ifs and whats during gameplay .. its all a matter of when is something the most efficient if you for instance manage to have orbital superiority with covering an orbit with units mid to late game there is no reason to not besiege the opponent from above especialy if you have the metallead ... of course its a matter of what kind of orbital units are added to the roster ..

Yes, I know, but OWO adds new orbital units, and does it in the ways I mentioned, therefore proving that it's possible and TBH pretty easy to add more orbital units without shifting the focus.

never said that it wasn't ... doesn't however mean that you can't screw up either in some way