Well.. I have been playing the Galactic War and I am having fun with it. But the moment the AI starts on another planet or moves to another planet the game gets too crazy for a casual player like me. Take for example the amount of steps to get to another planet: * Build builder units * Build planetary transporters * For every transporter: - Click on it, click on a builder unit (hope I didnt pick a unit I already selected) * Select all transporters * Click on another planet, find spot, issue the land command * Wait........ * With the builder units build a portal * Power on the portal * Click on the portal * Click on another planet * Click on that portal * Move units into portal Well.. this is doable IF it was the only thing I have to do. Between those steps the enemy landed on my planet which I have to get rid of. Manage my base.. Keep an eye on the enemy, check if they didn't land on another planet.. etc.. etc.. For a casual player like me it just overwhelms me and I just quit the game. I am hoping for more intelligent units which organize themselves. For example I should be able the issue build commands on another planet and the units should organize themselves: The transporters should pick up any idle builder move them to the destination planet, unload them.. The builder units start building the stuff I requested...
so transport automisation for fabricators? could work with austreuses assisting fabbers but other than that would be automisation that rather takes control away that is unwanted ...
Your issue can be broken down into two parts. Basic starter tech in Galactic War doesn't include Avengers (orbital fighters) and orbital fabbers. This makes interplanetary conquest quite a challenge, even for experienced players. I agree with you on this one. In fact, a lot of people do - it's been mentioned time and time again on the forums, and chances are it'll be adressed at some point. The difficulty "for casual players" being too high. On this point, I can't agree with you. With a couple of games under your belt - not neccessarily against real players, AI is just fine - you should have the mechanics down well enough to easily multitask all of those steps. You can't expect an interplanetary strategy game to play itself, after all. If all else fails, you can still modify the AI economy settings, i.e. dropping their resource income to 0.7 or 0.5 in order to further decrease the match difficulty.
Very big issue with the game is indeed this, that in my terms I say it is the accessibility of orbital.
Tips: -You can make 8 astraeus "area load" 8 units. Put those units in the same area, highlight the astraeus and drag-click load over the area. -You can use the dual cameras to see two teleporters at once, both to keep track if a unit lands, and to quickly click both teleporters. -You can select a factory and tell the factory to "use the teleporter", so it builds all it's units and sends them to the teleporter. -You can select a landing teleporter and give it a command like an assist or move order. I recommend area patrol in a decent safety zone around the teleporter, or if the planet is empty a planet patrol to keep it empty.
PA is as much a game about logistics and economy as it is a game about strategy and tactics. The normal level AI is still highly aggressive about economic expansion; if you let its economy get ahead of yours, it will simply flood you to death with units. When the enemy AI starts landing on your planet, it means your economy is so far behind that you have already essentially lost. The answer is to, as the classic joke goes, "Do unto others before they do unto you.": rush your economy. Put up a radar fairly early to be sure that the AI isn't on the same planet as you are and then focus on nearly nothing but expanding your economy, getting the orbital launcher, and sending a group of fabbers to each of the other planets. If you can't devote focus to other planets, queue up a forest of defense towers to deny its fabbers access to resources and to fry any units it sends your way. Put up a factory instead of a teleporter and have it construct units continuously to stave off the AI.
One way to make interplanetary fights much easier is to use camera hotkeys. By default shift+number sets a camera hotkey. Then when you want to switch back to that view use alt+thatnumber. Set a hotkey on your main base then another where you plan to attack / build on the other planet. This method made me much better at fighting across planets as I didn't have to scroll in and out so much.
Yeah, the problem is that, as a player you are fighting the user interface, rather than sorans AI. If its good or not well i dont know. But i feel like fighting the UI shouldn happen. Buts its definitely TEDIOUS beyond belief in the galactic war. I still feel like the game needs some big orbital freight units, that can each hold 500 units or something. beyond being very handy, it would look freaking awesome, just seeing workers or other units reign down from orbit. or even just having them land, and seeing the units pour out, kinda like you see the robots do in the Mann Vs Machine from The Team Fortress 2 game.
I don't mean I find the game too difficult as I am more than able to defeat enemies. Its just that the amount of clicking makes it overwhelming. Another example are the portals. Why do I have to power on both portals and then select the first, go to the other portal and click it again. A right mouse button on the first portal should show me a list of possible end-points. When I select an end-point both portals should power on and start working..
We all want UI improvements to help stuff like that. Don't worry, you are in good hands in that regard.
I agree, switching between Planets generally feels a bit impractical. IMO the best way to do it is to save camera positions. Shift+Number will set a position, Alt+Number switches to it.
Control groups are your friend. Crtl + 1 the first portal, then go to the second one, Ctrl + 2 it if you like. Then hit "1", right click the second portal (or vice versa) and they're linked. You should always try to use all tools at your disposal. As for the "list of possible end points" - it's a possibility, sure. But at a certain point a game needs a certain treshold regarding mechanical skill, too. I'm not calling for StarCraft levels requiring 80-100 APM even from "regular" players to stay competitive ... but I stand by my point that the game should not play itself. Control groups, visual anchors, the planet overview in the upper right ... there are plenty of ways to keep one's sight on what is important.
Well.. units should be smart enough to do basic stuff. With so many things going on I should be focusing on the large scale of things not micromanage individual units.
Says who ... ? At some point you have to draw a line. An arbitrary point between "basic stuff gets done automatically" and "I still want to micro that". Coming from StarCraft, I feel that PA has several amazing features which massively decrease the amount of micro neccessary to get along. I could name several examples but I'd like to stick with the most powerful one, area commands. With an area command, I can basically automate a planet-wide build order, or patrol move, or attack command. Something I can only dream of in other RTS games. Personally, I'm very comfortable with the amount of player input required by PA, but then again I'm coming from a franchise were I was considered an average player with 100 APM. I understand if other people feel differently ... and ultimately, it's Uber's decision how to design this aspect of their game.
100 apm is sort of average here... (okay I can't really say that, it's average for players who've been here since alpha/beta- maybe even belooow average.) All I know is like when I see 50apm I'm like: whaaaat.
I think there may be some tricks that would make this easier- I've never really found orbital much of an issue... 1: Area commands- I'm assuming you've already figured out the ability to build blocks of buildings by dragging? Well the area commands work for other things too. The big one is for the orbital transport. Create a set of units you want to send somewhere, and build a set of transports for them. Then click the 'load' option with all the transports selected and drag an area over the units and they will sort themselves out for you. You then need to repeat this process the other end- with all the transports selected click 'unload' and drag an area and the will drop all your units down. It makes getting set up on another planet much easier when you can land with fabbers, aa and some defences rather than a single lonely fabber or commander. 2: The PIP windows is fantastic for managing this (the little rectangle icon on the bottom right menu if you haven't used it before). Click this brings up a second mini window- and this window works just like the main view (including the ability to control things). If setting up a gate *or* sending units to another plant, I always find it helpful to leave this open at the landing site. For gates, once the end gate is up, you can select it in the PIP, then right click your home gate in the main view *WAY* easier than switching between planets imo! Final neat trick- the pip has a 'double arrow' symbol in its top left corner- this switches the view in the PIP and the main window (so if you have it looking at your expansion base you can switch to it when units arrive, and keep an eye on your home base at the same time). The UI in PA is very powerful, although many of it's best features aren't made as prominently as they should imo. I also think Uber should produce a short scripted training campaign to teach people these things, anyway hopefully the above will help you in your next multi planet game.
