Internal Playtest – 2nd of the Day – Terrain Improvements, Commander Uber Cannon, and Bugs (1/29)

Not much really to show in this playtest.

• The goal of the newly re-designed Uber cannon is meant to fend off attacking units and isn’t as good as anti-Commander
• The Uber Cannon does indeed consume energy form the global energy stores to fire. This opens the potential for exploiting where players rush with Commanders and spam out lots of energy plants and energy storage. We’ll see though.
• A crazy bug where enemy bombers are invisible and missile defense towers won’t fire at them. This is why these are internal play tests rather than live beta builds! At least they figured it out so they can fix it.
• Garat seems to be taking the hint and seems to have gotten better at expanding. Go Garat!
• The build includes more variants in terrain. It seems to alter gameplay and unit movement more. We’ll see “significant improvement” in the coming months.
• There’s changes to naval, but since they played on a desert biome rather than a tropical biome, we didn’t really get to see the changes.
• Initially I was concerned that combat fabbers would be completely worthless. But with the high health units like Infernos and Vanguards, they’ll be very helpful for assaulting fortified positions.
• Flak is really really strong.
• Holy cow Gunships are powerful in large groups.
• “Everything is more fun with bombs.”
• Moving planets with the Halley is much faster now.

Don't forget to sign up for the Planetary Annihilation Weekly Newsletter!

I really like these playtest recaps Brian, keep 'em coming. As for the uber cannon issue, I think a set cooldown time (7-8 seconds sounds like a good place to start) would prevent miserable energy buffing/fun-game-slaughtering uber cannon rush mechanics.

man, Uber is sending out these playtests like they are an AI attacking someone's base! keep up the recaps Brian!

They usually do one or two a day, it seems. They work so fast that there can be big changes just between morning and afternoon! I think they have probably been doing this for a while, but only recently started streaming them. It really is amazing that we get to watch the day to day progress in development!

I salute you Uber. Great job.....Even if this is just another iteration.

lolz

Lando Calrissian Official Stamp of Approval:

I agree that there should be a limiting factor of sorts but just having a static timer I would in a team match Comm rush with two commanders and cycle out uber shots so you could fire almost constantly. If I could suggest what about a short timer of a few seconds between shots but for every subsequent uber shot the energy drain coast goes up a extensional factor?

Glad they're appreciated!

(updated to include Garat's video)

Seriously, much appreciate the recaps! I don't always have time to, even though Metabolical and I usually try and stream as much as we have time for.

Of course!

Thanks for doing the videos! Really enjoying the previews of what's to come.

I really like how fast and furious all the changes are coming. Particularly, new features that we can actually play with rather than behind the scenes stuff that we just read about.

I really do hope that gunships stay as glass cannon raiding units.

Agreed.

Based on the playtest, they seem to be brutal raiding units but could probably benefit from losing some of their health.

Scathis would need to speak about the gunships, but I'm think that's how he sees them.. Fast, effective, but.. Taken out like a Chinese lantern in a windstorm if there are any good air defenses. As it should be, IMO. I still need to get used to using em, but.. loving them so far.

I still have nightmares of the brutal gunship wars of SupCom2, *Grizzled voice* You go air, or you go down. Once they start blitzing your base at point blank range, no shield will save your ***!*Grizzled voice*

Early game rushing is certainly something to be considered, but I recall fond times of using my commander in TA as a godly last-ditch defense with the D-Gun, especially since it followed the terrain (The D-Gun could fire as fast as you clicked & had energy). It felt crazy good going up against an army as it swarmed through your perimeter, and watching them disintegrate en mass as you ducked behind cover and tried to avoid being killed. Desperate fighting is so much fun

There's a huge danger for "as fast as you click and as long as you have energy" as it could easily run into the pitfall of Halo Wars.

In Halo Wars if players used a certain hero and built nothing but power plants, it was impossible to win against.

So I don't want there to be a borderline exploit of building nothing but power plants and energy storage and just rush and let the uber cannon fly.

That's just be boring one dimensional gameplay.

But a fun sounding mod if you ask me.

Personally I'm hoping for something along the lines of the Brawler in TA. Unchecked they would wreck armies and outposts, but a single flack cannon or a handful of Hawks would chew 'em up.

Id prefer if a single missile turret could screw over a small amount of them if they don't pay attention.

Otherwise we might end up just using flak cannons exclusively.

What helped balance the Brawlers was that they missed so often. They were trash against single small targets (like spread out mobile AA bots or defenses) and always did best when firing at clumps of things. Of course, the way the gunships in TA moved left them vulnerable to ground units that normally wouldn't be able to hit aircraft effectively, like some of the lasers and plasma cannons.