Internal Playtest – Working Transports, Twitch.tv Comments in Game, Naval Balances, and more! – 2/12

http://www.twitch.tv/metabolical/c/3712638

http://www.twitch.tv/uber_garat/c/3712631

• Factories look different! The colorations on the factories are different to make it easier to tell which building belongs to which player. I think they look cooler and it’s a nice detail. I approve.
• Formations look real nice and the units stay in formation better while moving. Very nice improvement.
• Naval has some “military changes.” They didn’t give specifics though.
• Radar can now be built on the water by all fabrication units that can build a radar.
• Remember, the missile defense tower no longer shoots at ground units. That’s a pretty big change for many players.
• New Model for the transport! Looks pretty darn cool. tvinita used transports to hot drop some Infernos into a base and they wrecked shop. As soon as the defending bots got close, they were picked up and moved. Super cool.
  Area Commands for the Transports seem to be working very well and looks really easy. Cannot wait to get my hands on it.
  Anti-air defenses and fighters is all the more important now.
  
• Interesting strategy by metabolical to constantly have a factory pumping out scouts that are on an area patrol of the entire planet. Handy way to constantly scout.
• Twitch.tv chat integrates in game. Currently it just shows up as a regular chat, which could be confusing. Needs some sort of annotation that it is a twitch chat or something. And a way to chat just to twitch through alt+enter or something. But still. REALLY cool. First iteration anyways.
• Doesn’t look like units order up in formations based on unit type – yet.
• “Lots of bugfixes.” Mostly not overly noticeable stuff, compared to new units and the like, but all very good updates and get us closer and closer to Planetary Annihilation’s full release.
• Lots of AI improvements. More aggressive and expands more. Great stuff. And the next build will have even more improvements to the AI in the next build. Really exciting stuff. The AI is throwing astroids now! Hopefully we’ll get the difficulty settings soon.
• “Lots of UI work going on.” Probably won’t see it until close to release. It’s being worked on in its own branch. Hopefully we’ll get some previews at some point.

I need it now.

I hope this drops before the tourney.

soon

Man, waiting for this AND Banished is becoming too much to handle.
Must...Be....Patient...

Me too. Great way to push the new build to the limits.

I'm really excited about twitch comments integration. Gonna be super cool.

I can see all those players putting up Missile towers only to find out that they don't shoot ground anymore. Man, it'd be a riot.

Their fault for not reading the build notes.

Am I the only person who never used missile turrets as ground defense?

You aren't alone!

I rarely did.

The extra 20 range of laser defense towers makes a big difference.

I'm excited, but at the same time, I'm glad it hasn't been released this week (and likely won't be) or I'd be in huge trouble for Valentine's Day. I am not a man with a lot of willpower.

performance seems to be taking a big hit after everything was added.

There are people who STILL don't do this? Or is this just some kind of strategy veterans wouldn't think of because it's a new feature? I used to build one air factory with a patrol ring around my base. Once area commands came up I decided to have fights patrolling the entire planet. It keeps bombers away and scouts automatically.

It's such a simple trick and makes everything so much easier.

You can respond to twitch chat in game with control-enter.

It is a waste early on when you need to scout manually for better efficiency. It can be useful later on or on small planets though.

I haven't noticed any increase in efficiency for manual scouting, All that clicking I find is better spent building my base. And sending fighters on an infinite patrol early is a good protection against early bomber rushes.

Anxious for the release! :3

I use it frequently.

I just haven't had it on repeat for the entire game like that. Kinda like the idea. I'm gonna experiment with it.

The new transports are epic!

I've been doing that for a while, I've stopped using radar because of it