[WIP] The Comprehensive Interactive Planetary Annihilation Tutorial

I'm in the process of creating a complete, end-to-end tutorial for Planetary Annihilation using audio, custom AI and save games for maximum fragility. The objective is to have it all done for the Steam summer sale.

I thought it would be worth soliciting the community's thoughts on the topics which should be covered. This is all pretty high level (I'm turning it into a script) but here's what I've got:

Part One - Getting Started

• Main Menu
  
  • Single-player
    
    • Galactic War
      
      
    • AI Skirmish
      
      
    • Load Game
  • Multiplayer
    
    • Custom
      
      
    • 1v1 Ranked
      
      
    • Leaderboards
  • Armory
    
    
  • Replays
    
    
  • System Designer
    
    
  • Player Guide
    
    
  • Settings
    
    • Graphics
      
      
    • Camera
      
      
    • UI
      
      
    • Server
      
      
    • Keyboard
  • Videos
    
    
  • Patch notes

Part Two - User Interface Basics

• The lobby
  
  
• Spawning
  
  
• The Commander
  
  
• Player List
  
  • Names
    
    
  • Colours
    
    
  • Box highlight
• System List
  
  • System
    
    
  • Planets
• Economy Bar
  
  • See part 4
• Ping
  
  
• Chronocam
  
  
• Second Camera PiP
  
  • Swap cameras
    
    
  • Capture main view
    
    
  • Follow alerts
    
    • Disable before hiding PiP
  • Pin to opposite side
• Clock
  
  
• Unit cards
  
  
• Camera Controls
  
  • Panning
    
    • Keys
      
      
    • Middle mouse button
      
      
    • Pole lock
  • Zooming
    
    
  • Camera anchors
• Boxing units
  
  
• Control groups
  
  
• Idle fabbers
  
  
• Idle factories

Part Three - Interaction

• Selecting units
  
  • Select
    
    
  • Cancel selection
    
    
  • Orders
    
    • Move
      
      
    • Attack
      
      
    • Alt fire
      
      
    • Assist
      
      
    • Repair
      
      
    • Reclaim
      
      
    • Patrol
      
      
    • Use
      
      
    • Stop
      
      
    • Fire orders
      
      
    • Move orders
      
      
    • Energy orders
• Contextual commands
  
  
• Building
  
  • Build vehicle factory
    
    
  • Build energy planet
    
    
  • Build metal extractor
    
    
  • Build energy storage
    
    
  • Build skitter
    
    
  • Change build mode
    
    
  • Build skitter
    
    
  • Cancel skitter
• Tech levels
  
  • Change build mode
    
    
  • Build fabber
    
    
  • Select fabber
• Transports
  
  • Load
    
    
  • Unload
• Area commands
  
  • Area build
    
    • Line
      
      
    • Cluster
      
      
    • MEX
  • Area patrol
    
    
  • Area attack
• Control groups
  
  
• Chaining commands
  
  
• The four layers

Part Four - Understanding the economy

• Economy bar
  
  • Metal/Energy
    
    
  • Income
    
    
  • Outgoings
    
    
  • Overall
    
    
  • Storage
• Income from units
  
  
• Income from buildings
  
  
• Expenditure
  
  
• Efficiency

Part Five - Orbital

• Moving between planets
  
  • System list
    
    
  • Zoom
    
    
  • Astraeus
    
    
  • Teleporter
    
    
  • Unit cannon
• Interaction between layers
  
  • Anchor
    
    
  • SXX
    
    
  • Bluehawk
    
    
  • Catapult
    
    
  • Umbrella
• Planet smashing
  
  
• Annihilaser

Part Six - Intelligence

• Vision
  
  
• Radar
  
  • Basic
    
    
  • Advanced
    
    
  • Deep Space
    
    
  • Orbital

Part Seven - Galactic War

• Creating a war
  
  
• Using the map
  
  
• Tech
  
  
• Your first battle

Part Eight - System Editor



Part Nine - Mods

• PA Mod Manager
  
  
• UI vs. Server

Would it be worth asking Uber if they would be willing to partner up with you on this? I feel like this is exactly the sort of thing that should be linked to from the main menu for new players. If you could get them to agree on a format, they could provide you with some assets and really bump up the production quality.

Yesterday I was on the twitch stream of a player on his first GW game, and walked him through a lot of things. He lost that match, did better on the next couple, but the first game with different planet starts was just too much. I think you've got most of the stumbling points

- A metal spot was blocked, which didn't help figure out how to build mex
- How to destroy (or reclaim) buildings
- Building interrupted previous build orders
- GW had it's own set of issues - "build more storage" -> "what is storage?"
- "how do I upgrade"; then got adv vehicles and had too many choices.
- Canceling units in a factory to build a few fabs (e.g. control click)
- Built 3 nukes and never fired them.
- Built a unit cannon and never fired it.
- Struggling early eco, then massive floating at the end.
- Managed to work through astraeus, but command sequence and single-unit very confusing.
- Teleporters confusing, but AI planet was so locked down a teleporter couldn't stay up long enough to really work through it. So scouting and multi-planet strategy might be a thing to cover as well.

I've thought of doing a contextual help mod. So if the user is clicking lots of unit build icons, suggest continuous, etc. I disparaged of a mod reaching the people that need it, but maybe with the video stream we could get the word out.

Again, I feel like this is something you could try to liaise with Uber on. If you get the green light to work with them from the get-go it could do wonders for new players

Absolutely, definitely worth asking if they'd be willing to collaborate/support. Also, I started a script myself a while back, I still intend to record some videos to serve as tutorials. So let me know if you want help!

Out of curiosity, can an interactive, in game tutorial actually be built with the current tools?

I'd imagine that mouse-over tooltips are feasible, at the very least?

Hope this goes well for you quitch. Doing your best to keep this game alive. Mucho appreciated.

Stick chat and team chat in there somewhere.

I'm not aiming to do that. My goal is to have an audio file which talks through stuff, but the player is responsible for doing it. Saves will be used to setup specific situations for certain tutorials, and I'm toying with using a custom AI to engineer specific situations.

I considered trying to hook into the game and setting up javascript, and it has been talked about in the past... and nothing has come of it. Because it's hard. And we'll be naval gazing that one until the end of time.

So I'm going with something achievable that doesn't require complex co-ordination and isn't as subject to being broken by the game, rather than something perfect.

Great idea quitch!

The system editor part seems spot on hehee.

I've already started with writing down a manual for system designing so it might be handy to put it in when its kinda done sooner or later. We'll see