[Discuss] Total Annihilation's Spirit in Planetary Annihilation - Updated Page #6 05/08/14

Factories without assisting is a complete myth when talking about TA. Everyone did it all the time; you'd be silly not to.

I have no issue with assisting.

My main issue I'm struggling to see any argument against though is the health (or specifically lack of) of units in PA. A standard t1 tank should take more than 2 hits to kill- the units in pa get a glimpse of a suggestions that possibly something might be considering firing at them and 'poof' they're gone.

The argument relating to larger scale doesn't wash either in this case- I'm not advocating changing the cost of units, or reducing the number of units or anything like that. I'd just like them to last a little bit longer. Personally I think that a 2x HP increase on all ground units (except the vanguard) would be a big improvement. I might be wrong- however I think its one of those things that devs should try. This isn't about mimicking TA, it's just about tweaking what we've got.

The other thing I'm personally an advocate for is to reduce the amount of metal available early game. Again this doesn't have to be drastic- however it would add in a bit more skill to the early game rather than 'spam spam spam'- every game of PA I play is like playing Speed Metal from spring, a massive rush to get energy eco up followed by massive spam of everything you've got. The economy is exponential in nature- a reduction on basic metal output wouldn't hurt the game overall- it would just delay the exponential curve a bit and put a bit more emphasis back on early t1 raiding and so on which I think is fun.

Looking at the recent play tests, allot of my eco points are at least being partially addressed by making t2 harder to access (so we should get a t1 stage of the game again), although I still think that metal is far to abundant early on. The most fun games I've had of PA lately have been 'boxing' where you have no build space or eco to work with as its so tight- managing a base around about 5 mexes, having to pause factories you don't need to put eco onto someone else- microing each unit to it's best ability. These things are what's great about the early game of TA or Spring and evidentially it is possible in PA, unfortunately the normal set up of games removes this completely.

The most common interview questions we receive asks for our opinion on the current state of the RTS genre and how we managed to pull off a successful Kickstarter campaign for an RTS considering how many have been canned by other developers in the recent past. (Stick with me.)

The answer I give for that is also a great thing to consider as we yap at each other in this thread: the real-time strategy game didn't die, it just needed someone to give it a shot in the arm. Planetary Annihilation is that. We're not just making a RTS that challenges convention, we're making a game with a scale that has never really been seen before. You fight on planets in space! And you do it with thousands of units and, down the road, dozens of players. You can treat the solar system like a space pinball table and send asteroids screaming into planets. You can teleport your units across worlds in a blink of an eye. You can send nuclear warheads from on planet to the other. It's just incredible what we're building (and folks are playing).

We're doing our own thing. Planetary Annihilation is its own thing. We're making mechanics and features that all cater to the size and awesomeness of the experience, and we're making other creative decisions that do too.

I'm not saying anyone's wrong here or that some of these aren't good ideas. Just wanted to give a little perspective.

Well said.

There has been a lot of discussion lately on how we should change the core aspects of the game (assisting, nuke mechanics, etc) to make it better. I've opted out of these discussions because they are focused on the short-term perspective, instead of the big picture. It is just a waste of my effort to convince folks of the unintended consequences.

This game should not be built around a competitive atmosphere - it should be built for these massive battles. The competitive side of it can definitely come with the package, and will be useful for balancing the game with people who know most EVERYTHING about it.

It will come with time. All of you dudes need to be patient.

Sorry if it feels aggressive, it was not the case.

Hi Brad, I really appreciate you guys taking the time to discuss these things with us. I design products for a living so I do sympathised that it can be very disheartening when someone criticizes something you've poured so much devotion into. That's why when I do raise a criticism I try to keep it as fair as possible.

I agree PA is something new and different- I do a little bit of programming for embedded systems, so I have at least some comprehension of how difficult getting a good bit of software working can be. The work it must have taken up front to get the PA engine running, and capable of supporting battles on multiple spherical bodies simultaneously, all whilst keeping track of units, projectiles et al, is no small achievement and yet as it isn't particularly tangible is something people often overlook.

I guess that's the issue with this thread- what were discussing are fine polish details of a game(s) that have been around for years and have progressed over that time. Thinking about it I also think PA is going to develop it's own nuances that maybe aren't apparent right now.

So please don't take anything us nostalgic TA fans grumble about to heart. You guys are awesome- keep doing what you're doing!

Oh, no worries at all dude. Thanks for caring and posting!

If I may..

If the Uber devs don't take anything we say on the forums to heart, then the game isn't going to end up being built for us. We are the playerbase. We are the funding source. We are the ones that made this game happen. Us. All of us. Nostalgic TA fans and non both included in that. If they only take one side and not the other, they're not making a game for the dedicated playerbase as originally stated and that will divide said playerbase even moreso than it already is.

Sure we squabble over petty things, important things, or things that.. we basically have no friggin' idea what's going on with. The fact of the matter is I think, for better or worse, they have to develop PA with the fanbase in mind, including our suggestions, ideas, arguments, debates, and all that implies.

Whether that is included remains to be seen, but I think there's more to learn from TA than the mechanics and concepts that everyone can see on the surface. It's not perfect, but it's far from bad. The fact that so many successful games were based off the idea that TA introduced is absolutely blinding proof that the game did something right.

There's a lot of somethings in that game. We just need to find them. We need to go deeper..

Hi guys, I've been without internet - visiting the girlfriend and doing what I do best...


I've been keeping appraised of what's going on in this thread on my phone, and right now on her laptop.

I'll respond properly at some point to the various opinions expressed in this thread, but suffice it to say for now (for those who really had a bone to pick with me):

I don't think that the 'Spirit' of Total Annihilation lies in the exploits that competitive gamers employed in order to win matches against other professional gamers.

Those players sometimes forget that they are playing - they are making fun.

That's what the spirit of TA was about for me, and tracking down those features which are:

1. Fun and immerse us in the game-play.
2. Able to work in Planetary Annihilation.

is what this thread is about.

As I have said before, I do not want Planetary Annihilation to be a copy of Total Annihilation.
However as its spiritual successor there are some things TA did which were awesome and could arguably work well in Planetary Annihilation.

I have picked out features from TA.
I was not attempting to write down a review of TA (there are some very good ones on the store page).
Nor am I attempting to represent or capture all of TA's elements in this thread.
Many of them are already in PA, some are not worth retaining.

As the poll shows, people seem to like the features I have chosen because for them, and for me, they are part of the spirit of Total Annihilation.
Total Annihilation's spirit is not about building "a metric f-tonne of AA tanks".


I'll discuss individual replies and specific examples soon.

For now I'll to reply to Brad because he da man.

Hi Brad,
As I said in my OP, I think Planetary Annihilation is awesome. You guys at UBER are making a fantastic game. Taking the RTS into space and fighting on planets and smashing solar systems apart is an epic scale of war and I'm loving it.

I completely see and agree Planetary Annihilation is doing its own thing. Nobody can deny that.

I do think a little more inspiration for creative decisions could be drawn from Total Annihilation. This isn't me saying "make it moar like TA pls". Obviously things need to adapt and be different for the scale and scope of the awesome interplanetary war Planetary Annihilation has.

Some are easier than others - semi-aesthetics like 'deploying' and 'bunkering' just look really cool and mechanical.

Some things, like environmental effects and energy diversification, haven't been a prominent part of the process.
I feel this is the influence of SupCom on the genre.
And part of the point of Planetary Annihilation was that it wanted to be closer to Total Annihilation's spirit than SupCom.
Both of these things would work really well with Planetary Annihilation being in space with multiple planets and environments (still can't get over how cool PA is).
I also think balances to Fabricators might be sought in TA (again SupCom's cheap/fast moving mass Engineer influence), but that's in my OP.

Thank you for noticing this thread, keep up the brilliant work!

Anything ported from TA in any respect is a TA mechanic. It would need to be changed, however slightly, to fit within the constraints of PA.

And thus, it wouldn't be a TA mechanic anymore. I've already said taking inspiration is fine. People disagreed with that (or something else in my posts) and here we are now

I'm not setting out to say TA is better than PA.
I'm not assuming anything, or attempting to present TA in its entirety.
I'm picking out specific things which (completely subjectively) contributed to the spirit of Total Annihilation.

I did play with fog of war, and I didn't mod. I was a 'nineties kid'.

I'm not arguing for the inclusion of such elements because for me they don't constitute the spirit of Total Annihilation. Also, as you quite rightly point out, they were broken mechanics employed by players seeking to win above all else.

Here you brush over the actual meat and purpose of my original post.
I say in my OP how and why these mechanics might be useful in PA, both for more engaging ground combat, balancing heavier fire-power with deploying and adding 'depth' to energy generation through having the options of volatile/bunkered/constant but fragile. I think this variation would suit the different environments Planetary Annihilation can have in a single solar system.

I don't feel this added to the 'spirit' of Total Annihilation, and as you point out it messed up economic balance. Why would I mention it, or argue for its inclusion in Planetary Annihilation?

While I agree with your latter point, I'm afraid I'm going to have to say I do know what I'm talking about. It's just that I'm not the raving, die-hard Total Annihilation fan you make me out to be. I don't want elements to be thoughtlessly and needlessly ported from TA to PA if they're not going to add anything, or if they're going to damage gameplay.
However if there's something good in TA which SupCom needlessly cut from the genre, there's no reason it shouldn't be rediscovered and applied to Total Annihilation's spiritual successor.

I have been playing Total Annihilation lately too. I agree that great advances have been made in the genre, and where some game elements might have 'fallen short' of Total Annihilation, some (such as pathfinding and formations, graphics, interplanetary awesomeness) are far superior.

We already have units moving at different speeds. If you send your army out as a group, they form up together. I'd love to see formation controls which put Vanguards and Infernos at the front.

First of all, I don't want power and metal generators, nor did I suggest they be implemented in PA in my OP.
Nor do I think things like Wind and Geothermal should be simple ports from TA to PA. There's plenty of opportunity with the different environments to play with wind-speed and geothermal spots varying on different planets. I think Fusion and Nuclear energy should be expensive and volatile, and I think the ability to bunker and cloak economic structures adds some depth and makes sense.

Because there was not the differentiation between environments that is present in a game like Planetary Annihilation. There was no need, and Fusion Reactors are seen as 'the next big thing' in sustainable energy. Again, I'm not suggesting these different forms of power just be ported across with no thought as to where, how and why a player might employ them. There should be clear advantages and disadvantages, as well as in-game opportunities, for expansion of your economy beyond "build more energy boxes".

An annoyance? I suppose I'd be annoyed if I was getting shot at and couldn't see what was shooting me.
I get that this is harder to do in a 3D engine. *shrug* I thought it was worth noting as it involves us in the combat more.

Not so much. I played the campaigns a lot. I my bots ^^.

Again not me.

I'd suggest we have differing memories of playing Total Annihilation.
This probably comes from a difference between Single and Multi Player styles. I never had any need to learn or utilise strategies which exploited imbalances such as mass-engineer Assisting and Bertha-micro. I had (and have) a lot of fun playing Total Annihilation.
I'm not arguing for the straight porting of all elements in TA to PA. Realism needs to be balanced alongside utility. Fun is what I ultimately seek when gaming. The more I'm involved in a game through my bots sliding around on the ice or burning their way through a jungle, the more fun I have.

I miss the lower firing arcs that TA used for LRPCs / MRPCs. Guardians / Punishers vs the Pelter and Intimdators / Berthas vs the Holkins, the TA versions just look and act better. The high arcs PA uses are visually jarring. Really high arcs are for getting a shot over a an obstruction (like a hill) if PA had terrain more like TA (which I'd love to see) and there were blocking shots, sure the arty should shoot in a higher arc, but when aiming at something with no obstructions the lower arc is what should be used.

High arcs should actually limit range.

How am i making you out to be a raving die hard TA fan? I'm pointing out that you probably are not because you prove time and again in your posts that you don't know the game. Prove me wrong if you like, name the two gamebreaking bugs that made it in the game, through patches and expansions and all.

To take parts from a game you don't understand and add them into PA, how could that possibly fix PA? This is why i'm objecting to your post in the first place. That is the very definition of thoughtlessly and needlessly porting elements from TA to PA that are not going to change or add anything and that might even end up breaking gameplay.


P.S. I'm too tired to format this and suspect it's going to look like ****, hope it's readable...

edit: Yepp, it looks like ****, you'll have to dig around in that mess if you wanna figure out what i said. TL;DR eroticburrito i'm sorry but you don't know TA enough to say what should be taken from it to fix PA.

I'm sorry. I voted no because I couldn't agree on all. Part sure.

energy comes from a magic box. Many ways achieved. Different energy would work if balance adjust, also distracting tho.

I'm starting to like metal placement, can agree on reduction. To t2 metal. Tbh that's as much a Red Alert 2 change as it is TA.

deploy is a lot of micro. Unless it is a units role it shouldn't, like a moving turret (anchor).

terrain effect, would like, but very difficult considering calculating planet curvature is a tedious task.

health and shot speed, those are relics of an old game. TA would have done faster if it were possible with yesterdays technology.

shooting air, if could be highly inaccurate, sure. Air could use nerf. But... With large scale of game its hard for a tank to shoot into air and miss a plane if there are 50 planes. And 50 tanks have a large margin to hit something at that rate.

lastly, I like the purpose of this thread. It isn't about cloning TA, it is about breeding a new game from existing prior features, even gene therapy. If you can make human beings and edit bad traits out like genetic fatal conditions and good traits in like muscle structure, why not? These are just my opinion for ones that I read, some I don't agree some I even think pa did better but some he thinks the same so its handpicked.

I've assumed that the reason we see more metal in PA than TA (or mas in SupCom) is because unlike those 2 games there is no metal makers (energy -> metal conversion for those that didn't play TA)

Fair point.
Equally, there's quite a lot less reclaiming than TA and even SupCom at the moment. TA even had maps with buildings to reclaim, and SupCom had ruins/neutral bases.
I think metal makers would break economic balancing. I'm not a fan of resources which just come out of a box.
If metal were a bit (lot) more scarce and units/wrecks were a bit more durable then reclaiming could take a greater role rather than being a nostalgic mechanic.

That's cool. I agree with you on most things, and even I say in my OP where I don't want certain things.
Take the Poll's 'All these things' as all the things I 'argue' for in my OP.

I think TA's strongest unit types might be a bit too durable to work well in PA without micro, but PA's units could do with a HP boost to lengthen combat.
I'm a fan of shot speed because it's more aesthetically pleasing and physical to see a chain of plasma balls spurting towards the enemy than (for example) the Doxen's hard to distinguish streams of yellow spraying.

Projectiles missing is good for varied gameplay too; engagements are less certain and controlling your troops is rewarded - you can retreat and the enemy will miss. I remember running my bots up a hill into enemy fortifications only to immediately turn about, missiles landing at their heels as my army simultaneously chanted "Nope-Nope-Nope-Nope".

I agree with your concerns over deploying leading to micro, however I think it could be a useful way to balance heavier fortifications and units to give the little guys a chance late game.

As a casual player (without the expansion or patch) i can identify myself with burrito (@OP).

I guess the (more) competitive scene was vastly different from how i played it. I guess that's why the OP had different experiences too

Dev, Ero,

That's exactly it though, this IS meant to be a competitive game. It has NO single player experience. A lot of what erotic is suggesting is for a single player game. Not a multi-player only (hopefully) professional tournament based RTS.