Why I dislike Planetary Annihilation

he wasn't already hired at that point?

Nope.

lol omg, that's an awesome find, man!

I've played TA, Sup Com (1 and FA) and Spring before playing PA.

The thing is all these games have features that are good and bad. The thing that makes *me* like PA so much is it's the first game I've ever played where I actually feel I'm playing in an actual solar system. TA tried to do it- you got previews of the planet and such at the start of the game, however there was always the 'edge of the map' problem which I found rather broke the effect.

PA's spherical maps are beautiful (especially with the realistic shadows), and seeing multiple planets in view going off into the distance is just epic! I agree that the unit set is pretty basic at the moment and I can understand to some extent your sentiment towards the big experimental units (the Monkeylord was just epicness) however I just don't think that's where the awesomeness comes from in PA.

What always gets me is this: I start on what looks like a normal map (when zoomed in) with just one unit. You start building and zoom out a bit- you have a big base. Build more, zoom out again and you're on a planet! Large groups of tanks and aircraft roaming around. Set up orbital, zoom out again- your in space! Orbital fighters duking it out. Send out orbital fabbers to another world- set up a gate- your now on a whole new planet! The scale of this game is just epic.

I think given the ambitious scope of the game Uber are having to be minimalist with the unit set so that we can actually get a finished working game out. Things like the Monkeylord, multi unit transports and such from Sup Com were that games big features that required the heavy coding and design time. Uber have put those resources into giving us solar systems to play with (making a game like this work on *multiple* fully spherical planets simultaneously is a feat of software engineering that I think many people don't appreciate). The other thing to consider is by keeping the unit set more basic it frees the player a bit to help deal with the larger scope (managing armies on lots of planets at once ain't easy).

The other thing Uber are doing very right is actively supporting and encouraging modding- coming from playing a lot of Spring games I can tell you there's almost nothing a determined group of modders can't do so expect some mods featuring crazy powerful experimental units soon after release (just take a look at what Knight has been doing with his own custom commander model for example).

As for shields- personally I don't really miss them much (the screen type shields used in SupCom at least). I think the 'deflector' style shields implemented in Spring were more interesting (they caught and repelled plasma projectiles with some often unpredictable results which was just epic). I would expect these to appear down the line as well though.

What I would say to you though- play some games (ideally with friends) on some multi planet maps. The types of maps I prefer most are ones with a big central planet and a few small moons near by (an interesting game type is start the players all on the small moons with very little mex- then everyone has to rush to the middle, 'king of the hill' style).

All shields do is encourage turtling. Not good for a game that requires expansion. This is a much faster paced game than SupCom. This is coming from a player who in TA,SupCom1/2 turtled all the time. In PA I honestly don't miss turtling.

Probably true for static shields, although mobile shields have other uses as well. I'm not a fan of shields either, I like to use constant harassment & expansion. I would love to see stealth & stealth fields in the game before launch though. They have tons more potential IMO.

Neat little bit of history!

Although stealth is cool, I would prefer radar stealth, visual stealth is OK, I guess, but only if the units show up on radar and are T2...

Yeah, I'm talking about radar stealth. Invisibility to vision isn't nearly as good a mechanic in my opinion; radar stealth means moving units through enemy territory can be extremely rewarding but risky, and like shields it can counter catapults and other 'sniping' tactics that quite a few people seem to get annoyed by as well. Invisibility is incredibly niche IMO, I don't see any reason for it besides on some kind of advanced scout (maybe).

Thanks a lot for the posts guys, I'm glad modding is already planned. Though if I could I would like to return to something I quickly mentioned in the OP, the thing about units being covered in their own icons. I know this also happened in Supcom once you were zoomed out, but here it seems to take a lot of the screen even when you are zoomed in. Anyone know if you can reduce the size of this UI, turn down opacity or something? If not I sure hope someone will make a mod for that too.

I like turtles!
But turtles get no love from PA, this play style does not work at all in this game.

uhm by comparison it works much less in Sucom FaF

not true! once in a match my hole team left and i was the last alive (lol seems this happens in PA to when i throw a hard AI in) and my turttle defense was unbrakable! i won by 10 expermental orbital sattalights srounded by 5 shields lots of anti-nukes and anti-missiles and T3 AA was all over and T3 UEF point defenses and fat boys to help defend the base! that was a fun game then i lost 2GB of ram! now it lags every match....

Id love to play more FAF comp stomps where I turn off the T3 and bubbles (It's cool that you can do it) and would love to try one day making a T2 mod to bring some of the better T3 units (Like the good ranged battleships and missile ships) still to a T2 level of balance, and have it like that.

But I really struggle to find AI makers compatible maps, and even maps that aren't the competitive like ones (Flat walls and flat map), and so its kinda a big turn off for me.

They have a lovely launcher, but there are no filters for AI compatible maps (Not to mention those dedicated aix maps, im not a fan of those).


If FAF can improve their map vaults and such things for people like me, I would love to have a few more 3 hours plus games with over 600 aeon destroyers shelling a Cybran base.....and losing in the first assault!

Hell id love a much, much wider range of T1 and T2 units (Especially navy) that are balanced to the current ones, but that might be stretching it, as black-ops doesn't offer much in the T1 T2 navy department, and isn't compatible with the HQ factory systems (That I kinda like).

I guess the teleports are to small to accomodate experimental units
Then again a PA early acces review I just read in my fav game mag considers the nukes, laser platform and halleys as super units

But yeah I rather had a more supcom oriented game as a TA one Altough I am still quite happy with PA.

I don't see lasers (nor nukes) as super units... definitely not lasers as they can be destroyed rather easily. Nukes also have a binary counter which makes them less of a super unit either. Nukes are also not too affective when the enemy is really spread out which means very low damage and well.. that's the point of the game, to spread out. KEWs however I can agree on. They're expensive and wipe out an entire planet as well as invalidate normal units. More of an experimental than anything else in the game by far; now let's wait for Star Destroyer metal planets.

That was maybe like that originally, but it was changed.
You can't stack shields in FA(F) anymore. XP are not one-man-army units anymore.

You can tweak a feature as you want, it's not because it's called "shield" that it means "stacking and defensive game".

In FA(F), shields are used to have some time to react to some attacks. Nothing more.
And given the amount of brain power needed to handle everything, it's not superfluous.

The problem with megabots is that they are either more efficient than using other units, in which case they become essential and the only viable tactic, killing the game's variety and making it very stale very quickly (the nine-minute Monkeylord is the perfect example of this sort of thing).

Or they are too inefficient to be worth building, in which case they fall squarely into the territory of a 'noob-trap', i.e. something that looks like it will be good but if you go for it you will lose (The Krogoth in TA was completely unviable for this reason).

TBH I think these things apply less in a 1v1 because there is constant stress and harrassment at all times, but in a team game people tend to bed in and turtle, leading to a game where everyone goes for the superweapon. Big explosions are fun, but they are nowhere near as much fun as a lengthy tussle against an equal opponent. Megabots increase the probability of a static game and decrease the probability of a dynamic, many-battles game.

FAF has done wonders with the balance but still it is trying to fix mechanics that are fundamentally broken. FAF team games on the popular maps are really formulaic and this is mostly because of shields and experimentals.

So you dislike the game... because of the visuals? It doesn't look pretty enough for you?

I question whether you have played the game or not.

I feel that once PA is finished, it will have a much larger and much more epic scale gameplay than SupCom had in it's wildest dreams.

PA is supposed to be all about massive armies and strategy through unit movement rather than turtle and hold off your opponent until you get your mega unit to punch through the defensive line. I found that type of gameplay got old and boring quickly, speaking as a former SupCom player.

The end game "unit" for PA is massive armies – not a single mega unit.

It seems this thread is just another "this game isn't exactly like SupCom, so I don't like it."

...See you just made my point even more obvious. have you ever tried that strat VS a HUMAN?

(preferably one who was >100 in rating.)