PTE Build 80155-pte is now up

Oh, ok. Thanks! I did not know that, I will check those out!

**** got real on page 13. Why aren't there maps with cliffs like that in the standard game? Looks awesome!

People have been complaining about the terrain ever since the alpha days. Uber never adressed or even really ackknowledged the problems they have with the current planet generation. All they ever did was add a few new rocks for the desert, removing the better ones we had before, and thats it.
I find it rather sad since this is still the game's most major flaw in my eyes.

well to be fair they did add the system editor. It has bugs and it has a few shortcoming but I would feel that is a big step into the right direction.

Did I reply to the wrong thread? probably. but I saw some pictures of some nice looking cliffs and was WOWed.

I agree that the terrain is the biggest drawback. I understand the desire to keep the terrain simple to avoid issues and ensure balanced play making the best of the battle mechanics but TA had some fantastic maps which I'd really like to see replicated in some form or another.

I think it would do them good on the PR front too if they had some interesting looking planets and staged a few battles to show people how good the game can look.

Also... More explosions! I saw a video of some kind of nuke mod where every units was setting the map ablaze. It looked awesome! Why can't we have more explosions to increase the wow factor?

Yes indeed and them working on a system editor actually caught me by surprise since @neutrino once said they wouldn't be doing one.
However the core problem is the inability to create plateaus, cliffs and ramps (and bridges to some extend) which cannot be solved using the editor we currently have. Especially plateaus played a huge role in games like TA and created interesting strategic choices and situations.
The engine can handle it, as you can see in the screenshot thread and when using metal planets.

@perfectdark Yes wrong thread probably, but I knew you were probably talking about the screenshot thread.
I also agree that the game is lacking on the optical side of things.
Projectiles, explosions, etc... There are so many nice mods out there creating awesome effects, why is the vanilla game lacking to much in this regard? @bgolus has done some awesome work on the nuke explosions and other effects (Radar...) - we need much more of this, like ship wakes and differentiated laser beams and projectiles.

If you ask me, the biggest drawback is that there is STILL no insert queue command issued to commanders by holding Ctrl. We can insert a priority request for units in the factory queue, why not be able to insert a laser tower into my commander's build queue? I really hate having to redo the entire build order because I forgot something, and it doesn't encourage me to produce long automated fabber build queues either.

It crashes things hard. Very hard. It is awesome at least!

Thought I'd post here as well:
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/increase-orbit-height.68203/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/toggle-the-orbital-layer.67626/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/...eeds-improvement-my-humble-suggestions.65844/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/suggestion-to-improve-orbital-view.64534/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/suggestion-visual-separation-of-orbit.61361/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/idea-maybe-orbital-units-need-be-bigger.58618/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/suggestion-orbital-focus-mode.57838/
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/ui-discussion-improving-the-feel-of-orbital.54611/
Improve the orbital ai pls. Currently it feels more like a gimmick than a feature

Have you tried the Queller AI? There's some hard coded things I cannot improve, but overall it plays a stronger game than the vanilla AI.

uh, I think there is a problem with the replays, sometimes when I go and watch one, nothing appears on the planets, no units, not buildings, no commander. just an empty galaxy. The status bar in the top left still shows eco stats and unit count though.

The assisting subs thing is because of assist layers in the build arm json. Add WL_DeepWater to the array to fix it. Thanks to @hurricnzj for figuring it out!

@tvinita Should be an easy fix.

I just played multiple times vs the AI on styx and all it did was send it's commander straight into my base to build mex. The AI was at maybe 0.2 economy multiplier, but that should not trigger it to just straight up walk into my base?!

@sorian would know more precisely, but my understanding is that that behavior is driven by wanting at least a certain Eco buffer before being willing to move on to other buildings.

Aside from the multiplier, what difficulty AI were you using? From what I've heard/seen the higher difficulty AIs are better about this, even on lower economy levels. I have however killed a lot of AIs that decided to walk into my base and plonk down a mex.

first normal, then I tried absurd in hopes it would fare better. Same results. I then gave it full economy and that worked.

The AI should multiply the eco buffer it wants with the economy multiplier to compensate.

The AI looks at two factors for basic factories (it does a bit more than this, but for the purposes of the explanation this will do):

1. Can I afford to build the factory
2. Can I afford to run the factory

It will account for anticipated income when making these decisions.

If the commander needs more income to build or run a factory and there aren't any fabbers around then it'll build that income. Lower difficulty (personality) levels require wider income and storage margins before building.

The commander has no neural net or understanding of threat. It's actually rather like the AI commander from Total Annihilation at this point, it moves mindlessly from project to project shooting things that wander into range. The AI doesn't understand it should protect the commander, nor how to use it as anything other than a fabber.

I'd love to see some endgame understanding of actually moving the commander from place to place (or to a place with both umbrellas and antinukes late game) to avoid being sniped. Seems its understanding of starting a project isn't interrupted if the project is thwarted multiple times in a row, even if that sets the commander so far back that they can no longer catch up by simply finishing the project. For example, if a commander wants to send a fabber to another planet, it tries desperately to build an orbital launcher even if I keep assaulting and destroying them over and over. Worse still, it'll still send the fabber over, not the commander.

@Quitch is it possible to host a game with Queller and a vanilla AI? I'd love to see a video of the two face off against each other in a number of different scenarios...

No, unfortunately this isn't possible.

Ah a shame, I think @sorian can do this sort of thing though, based on his comments about neural net training?