Recap of Feb 28th's 11 Hour Livestream

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http://www.twitch.tv/uberentertainment/b/507079716

• Pre-loading is not in the game right now. It’ll be added back in, but has some work to be done to it.
• Soon we’ll be able to have AIs on our team in the Alliances mode. They just need to update the lobbies for it.
• The Unit Cannon is still being worked on. Just hang in there – it’s a lot of work and there’s other stuff that is a higher priority.
• Eventually the AI will probably communicate with players, like pinging where they’re sending nukes and the like.
• The AI personalities and difficulties are almost ready. They already have variables in game to get the AI to focus on land, or air, or the like. So hopefully personalities and difficulties will be added soon.
• The code is in for resource sharing in Alliance, but not the UI. So that should be added soon.
• Sorian talks a lot about the AI. What it does. What it will do. ANd stuff. Check this article out on neural networks, which will provide insight into how the AI works.
• Mike says he rates the current AI as “Decent.” It’s not even close to being done, but he claims that AI in most RTS games sucks. So that means that Planetary Annihilation’s AI is going to be the best AI in any real time strategy game.
• OathAlliance killed Marc. Which was fun to watch.
• The AI will use Teleporters soon.
• Sending AI and Naval through teleporters has “been a topic of conversation in the office.” So that’ll probably be added in one way or another. So hopefully it’ll be added at some point. Mavor likes the idea of a naval specific teleporter.
• There’s going to be “a lot” of Commanders. So don’t sweat about not having a certain Commander. There will be a lot of them.
• The “original plan” was to have a way to intercept/stop astroids. It’ll be added at some point.
• All platforms (Windows, OS X, and Linux) will be seeing game performance improvements in the future.
• Joining mid game will be possible in the future.
• Mavor is not happy with the planets right now. Terrain and height levels will be improved. There’s going to be more variety to the height levels and terrain. It’s an “ongoing work in progress” – so expect improvements.
• Picture in Picture has a ton yet to be added to it.
• The metal planets will be death stars. Finally officially confirmed. It’ll just be a while before it is added.
• There will be official tournaments in the future – with prizes!
• Cloaking is on their list.
• Some discussion on comparing Planetary Annihilation to Starcraft 2. Specifically, the difference in APM and how that changes gameplay. In Starcraft, high APM is all about managing a few units. In Planetary Annihilation, a high APM is about managing 10 things at once on 3 different planets.
• Uber, particularly Meta, really wants to have a focus on eSports
• Quite a bit of EA hate, which is amusing. They’re such a terrible company.
• Uber talked a lot about advice for aspiring game developers. They talked about degree vs no degree. Tips for aspiring developers. What they look at when hiring, and the like.
• Nukes are going to be expanded upon. Which means we’ll have multiple nuke missile types.
• They talked about planet cracking without moveables. Balance is ongoing, and Uber thinks we aren’t using our tools properly. Mainly, Anchors are supposed to be used to create an Orbital foothold, for bringing in laser satellites, orbital fabbers, and the like.
• Someone suggested an anti-air satellite. I like that idea.
• Stacking aircraft is “ongoing pathing work.” That seems to imply that they won’t be stackable in the future.
• The soundtrack will be downloadable “soon”
• More Commanders are on the way. Several of them will be for various promotions.
• Plush toy Commander will be available on Amazon soon!
• Uber will be at PAX East.
• We’ll see new Commander weapons “soon.”
• Pre-set systems that Uber creates is being worked on. They’ll have a variety of systems that are set up for certain sized battles.
• Uber has a good relationship with Steam/Valve.
• Garat said something about “only” having 64,000 planet seeds.
• There’s gonna be some nuke changes in the future.
• They’re working to make invasions less of a grind when planets don’t orbit each other.
• Uber started with 5 employees, and how has 32 employees.
• Death animations are going to be improved. Example, ships will break up and sink in pieces. Which is cool.
• There will be 3 Commander figurines that we can purchase and put up on our desk.
• Currently there’s very few animation sequences in the game. There’s more time put into modeling the units than animating the units. More animations are coming though!
• New Metal Extractor models are on the way so we can easily see whether it’s a basic metal extractor, advanced metal extractor or both.
• They want to add a “multi turret orbital fabber.”
• They’re working on a “beam” effect. Which will make things make more sense for orbital fabbers building on the planet’s surface, and other stuff.
• They gave away a few Planetary Annihilation steam codes.
• They’ve floated the idea of environmental hazards before. They pretty much shot down the idea of unit destroying environmental effects. But visual environmental effects may be nice. Or possibly floating icebergs – which would be cool.
• In game Voice Over IP (VIOP) likely won’t be integrated. If it is, it’ll probably just use someone else’s tech – like mumble.
• Change Orbit is currently in the game.
• Planet smashing win!
• Multi Monitor support is coming, but is technically difficult. So that’ll take a while.
• The water’s visuals are going to be drastically improved at some point.
• Optimizations to the lighting rendering are coming, that’ll improve the game’s framerate.
• The new lobby is “pretty fresh.” We’re gonna have a countdown timer at start, rather than starting when the last person hits ready.
• “Why can’t we download the Planetary Annihilation soundtrack yet?” Because it’s not ready. It will be ready “soon.”
• The bomb bot is not working fully yet. Uber knows that, and will work on it.
• Game changing random events are a big no.
• “Don’t believe anything unless you hear it from me [Mavor].”
• Epic ending – PAAPPA nuked his own Commander and John’s Commander for a finish.
• New Explosion Effects. They’ve wanted to re-do the nuke explosion for a while. Ben’s description sounds pretty cool.
• We may be able to have settings on area build patterns. So we can choose line or area.
• More lights are coming to units, after lighting optimization for performance reasons.
• A VERY impressive game from Tom where he was managing and fighting on three planets at one time. Very awesome.
• They talked about game expansion and planet count. They want dozens of planets and even said who knows, maybe they’ll eventually have multiple solar systems.
• Very little is final.
• No current plans for a demo of Planetary Annihilation, but isn’t ruling it out. If there is a demo, it’s “a ways out.”
• They want to do lots of unique planet types, like Halo Rings and more. Flat maps will probably be added, but will just require a lot of work.
• “I”m pretty sure we’ll end up with some mega units.” Large units are time consuming and difficult.
• No plan for a 2D mini map.
• Multi planet spawns are mostly a UI thing. So we should see them soon.
• Mavor doesn’t think that SupCom did underwater right. The UI being the main failure. So subs are gonna be awesome.
• “Stealth is definitely something that we’re interested in.” “Both cloaking and stealth.”Commanders will quite possibly be cloakable.
• Other forms of water and stuff like oceans of mercury are going to be explored. Also lava boats may be added.
• The multiple nukes will have some that stay on the same planet, and others that will go to other planets – not just moons. Gonna be only one launcher. Mavor has wanted multiple nukes since the biginning. Added a possible special nuke that sucks in three anti nuke missiles. There may be a basic and advanced nuke launcher. There also be an orbital nuke launcher for interplanetary nukes.
• There may be a missile launcher from space to aid in planet cracking.
• Picture in Picture can follow units. That is very good for keeping an eye on your Commander, or a scout.
• Clicking on the alert will bring up the alert in the Picture in Picture.
• The engine is built mostly from scratch. It uses a few libraries, like F Mod Sound Library, Coherent UI Library, Twitch SDK, and a few others.
• “If brute force isn’t enough. Use more.”
• Looks like transports are going to stay at Advanced.
• Uber is working on the “Uber Command System” which allows us to draw formation shapes, walls, and the like.

If anyone, particularly Uber Devs, notice any mistakes in this – let me know and I'll fix it. I started to get a little out of it towards the end of the stream.

I watched the whole stream but after reading this I realized how much I missed, thanks Brian.

You have done us all a favor. Go now. You may rest knowing your duty has been fulfilled.

I'm pretty impressed that you stuck through the whole thing; that's a solid chunk of info up there. I missed some stuff since I had to leave; really excited about the nuke revelations and art pass, cloaking/stealth, and that Mavor wants to work on the endgame more, among other things.

I'm glad you and Garat liked my Anti-air sat suggestion (among other satellites I'd like to see); while I appreciate they've tackled the issue of breaking open the orbital layer with Anchors, that doesn't help when any Stargate teleporter you try to build on the surface is incinerated by T2 bombers. Scathis seemed like he has something else in mind though, I guess we'll wait and see.

Missed the first few hours. Thanks for the recap Brian!

The first few hours were where most of the best stuff happened!

Jeepers great work. I slept for 10 of those 11 hours Cloakable commanders will be great.

Bit early for my timezone and kids having things to do most the morning

Anyway shouldnt you be in bed yet?

I got in three games today against Uber. Won twice lost once. @garat and @metabolical should remember not to anger me.

lol. Was trying to make a quick tutorial video. But the feature is broken, so that'll have to wait.

Off to bed now...

That is all fantatstic stuff. Thanks Brian.

But my imagination is stuck on seas of mercury. That is badass.

yay subs are still coming back

I'd like to see a MIRV nuke as an advanced form of nuke. That would be a nice way of using up anti-nukes instead of making the missile a bullet sponge.

Wasn't it explicitly stated by scathis in the burrito's last thread about air-stacking and environmental effects that stacking is here to stay? Great write-up, though!

It's worth remembering that Brian is doing this at his own expense, so if you feel like him sitting watching a livestream for 11 hours, while he could've been doing something more productive with his time, is worth it, then send him a donation to keep pamatches.com going and give him a reason to keep doing all this excellent coverage!

Yes, we will have to destroy the opponent's energy first before being able to snipe the commander. I will probably reduce the potential to make epic snipes while being on the ropes but on the good side, it will also remove the ability to do boring snipes with bombers or gunships.

But.. but... how will I win now?

-Sending *AIR* and Naval through teleporters.

11th bullet. Spell correction.

Good summary, I still didn't finish watching their Gamma Release Livestream lol.

+1 on EA hate.

I'm going to watch the whole thing just for the EA hate.

Very nice, thank you for the recap. Very many interesting points and also :

• Uber started with 5 employees, and how has 32 employees.

Should probably fix that how