Happy New Year Updates 112595 / 112589


Happy New Year Commanders,

Our faster modern toolchain server build with multi-threading is now live on official servers! This should mean the servers perform better than ever before, especially on multi-planet systems.

The modern client with local server remain opt-in via the modern BETA in Steam and the PA launcher. If you are playing single player with a local server or hosting LAN games we encourage you try the modern client.

To help new players pick up the game faster, the Planetary Annihilation guides section is now a one-stop shop for everything you wanted to know about Planetary Annihilation but didn’t know to ask.

We have expanded the TITANS 1v1 ranked map pool with four community maps from WPMarshall and GrandHomie (for a total of 15 maps):

  • Enfer (GrandHomie)
  • The Marne (GrandHomie)
  • Lugaan (WPMarshall)
  • Singe (WPMarshall)

Your complaints about dodging in ranked have also been heard. Not only have we removed ranked queue status information from Community Chat, we’ve also anonymised names in the ranked lobby and removed the ability to leave the lobby. You really are trapped in there with your opponent now, so don’t queue if you don’t intend to play.

We’ve also got AI upgrades for the single-player and comp stomp crowd. The neural network’s fitness function (it sounds technical which means it’s impressive) has been reworked so that the AI is smarter about the way it evaluates battles.

Another long-standing AI request was the ability to select which Commander the AI uses. We promised to add this and so we have. Please feel free to admire the new Commander selection UI, making better use of your screen real estate.

We’ve continued to keep an eye on crash reports and have put a lot of effort into eliminating everything we can. You should find Planetary Annihilation an even more stable experience than before. We’ll continue to keep an eye on things to see what else might crawl out of the woodwork. Some of these things can be pretty edgecase, but we won’t stop in trying to track them all down, we hate crashes even more than you do.

Audio modding has arrived, so modders can now add whatever sounds they like to the game, either overwriting existing sounds or even adding completely new ones. Give your new unit its own style as it threatens doom to its enemies. Break subwoofers everywhere with extra bass in every shot sound effect. Replace the in-game VO with your own voice so you can literally congratulate yourself on your wins, you egotistical monster. We look forward to seeing what you come up with.

As a final thanks for continuing to play Planetary Annihilation TITANS we have added two NEW dedicated servers running the latest modern linux builds that can handle epic games of up to 32 players. A number of trusted community members have been given the keys, so keep an eye out in Community Chat and the official Planetary Annihilation Discord for announcements of big games. You haven’t truly won a game of Planetary Annihilation until you stand victorious on the wreckage of 31 other Commanders.

tl;dr

  • Official servers using modern toolchain builds with multi-threading
  • Two clients available (stable legacy and cutting-edge modern for testing)
  • 1v1 ranked maps expanded with four community maps from WPMarshall and GrandHomie for a total of 15 maps
  • 1v1 ranked lobby is now anonymous showing Player 1 and Player 2
  • 1v1 ranked lobby leave option has been removed
  • AI improvements with reworked and retrained neural networks
  • AI commander selection (as promised)
  • Server crash fixes
  • NEW official guides: https://planetaryannihilation.com/guides/
  • NEW audio modding
  • NEW official dedicated servers with up to 32 players for big games

TITANS Balance Changes

  • Pelican cost increased to 160 and health decreased to 150
  • Locust cost increased to 260
  • Spinner range increased to 120

Technical Notes

Next year we will be moving to PAnet, which will replace the legacy UberNet infrastructure with modern server environments. Eventually all the legacy Windows servers will be replaced with faster modern Linux servers.

Toolchains

Software development toolchain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toolchain

Legacy toolchain

  • Visual Studio 2012 / Windows 8 SDK
  • Xcode 5.0.1 / macOS Mountain Lion for macOS Lion 10.7+
  • Legacy Steam Linux runtime / GCC 4.8.4

Modern toolchain

  • Visual Studio 2017 latest / Windows 10 SDK latest
  • Xcode 10.1 / macOS 10.14.1 latest for macOS Mavericks 10.9+
  • Modern Steam Linux runtime / GCC 5.4.1 (currently limited by Steam Linux runtime)
  • Native Linux / Clang / LLVM 7.x for dedicated Linux servers

Server Improvements

  • Faster modern toolchain build

AI Improvements

  • Completely reworked the AI’s neural network fitness function to improve how the AI evaluates the outcome of a battle
    • Instead of being based on the difference between each and every input before and after the encounter, the fitness function now primarily looks at which side lost more metal value. Not every encounter results in a metal loss, so the fitness function also compares unit count losses as well as health losses, but they don’t count nearly as much as metal losses
  • AI commander selection in new game lobby

Server Fixes

  • Fix for crash if the AI was trying to teleport a fabber or commander to a planet as the planet was destroyed
  • Fix for multiple cases where a unit could be removed from a platoon (dropping the reference) before being added to a new platoon, causing a crash later on in the game
  • Fix for crash if the commander did not have an Uber cannon spec
  • Fix for build arms not ticking in multi-threading enabled servers causing fabbers/commanders to not face their build targets
  • Fix for crash if a fabber/commander was assisting in the construction of a projectile that died
  • Fix for a crash if a projectile target died and was cleaned up by the sim
  • Improved fix for players disconnecting from new game lobby not being removed from game

Client Improvements

  • Reorganised start menu is now scrollable with more space for menu items
  • Improved commander and colour selection in new game lobby

Client Fixes

  • Fix for ESC key locking up the start menu if no video was playing
  • Fix for community videos not showing if community mods not enabled

Modding

  • NEW audio modding:
    • api.sound.playSoundFromFile(path)
    • api.sound.playSoundFromFileAtLocation(path, x, y, z)
    • api.sound.registerCueMod(cue, path)
    • api.sound.unregisterCueMod(cue)
  • NEW build.txt with original build number (will differ from version.txt for legacy clients)
  • NEW gBuild global with original build number from build.txt accessible in all scenes
  • NEW –version command line option to override version.txt for targeting a different server build

112595

  • Hot fix for 1v1 ranked

https://forums.planetaryannihilation.com/threads/happy-new-year-updates-112595-112589.73231/

Hosting a Local Server

Planetary Annihilation includes a local server for single player that also fully supports both offline and online multiplayer LAN games on your personal super computer.

Playing PA with a local server on the same computer requires a mid-top spec CPU and plenty of free RAM. eg minimum 8GB free and ideally 16GB free.

The minimum specs for using single player local servers with TITANS are:

  • quad core
  • 8GB RAM for dedicated GPUs
  • 12GB RAM for integrated GPUs

Failing to connect to a local server is usually caused by:

  • firewalls / security suites / antivirus interfering with network connections
  • incorrect port mapping / forwarding / pinholes with WAN games over the internet
  • corrupt files
  • broken mods

Hosting multiplayer games on a local server requires a top spec modern CPU ideally with 16GB+ RAM.

Multiplayer LAN Games

When all players and the server are on the same IPv4 local network you can host a LAN game.

Offline (not logged in) LAN Games

When offline you are NOT logged in using a PA or Steam account. You can also be disconnected from the internet after initial setup.

LAN Setup

  • Every player must have the same build of PA
  • Every player must use a unique username
  • Every player must be on the same network subnet to receive LAN beacons
  • Every player must enable Community Mods
  • Servers use TCP port 20545 for games and UDP port 8192 for LAN beacons to advertise local games

Hosting a LAN Game From Within PA

  • Local server and local server multi-threading should be enabled in:
    • settings > server
  • Create a local game on your personal super computer using:
    • start > multiplayer > custom > create game
  • Make the game public to start broadcasting the LAN beacon for your game
  • Leave the game public to allow players to reconnect or spectate

Joining a LAN Game

  • Players can join your LAN game using:
    • start > multiplayer > custom
  • Public LAN games are listed under the Local region

Online (logged in) LAN Games

When online you are logged in using a PA or steam account via the internet.

Each player must be logged in using a different account or offline using a different username.

When hosting ensure host game locally is enabled before you create the game.

Multiplayer WAN Games Over the Internet

Using the Connect Buttons mod from Community Mods players can connect to private servers hosted over the internet.

WAN Setup

  • Every player must have the same build of PA
  • Every player must use a unique username
  • Every remote player needs to install the Connect Buttons mod and will need to know the public IPv4 or DNS address of your server
  • Servers use TCP port 20545 for games and need to be accessible via a public IPv4 address
    • If your local server is using a private IPv4 address like 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x then you’ll need to setup port mapping / port forwarding / pinholes in your router / modem
  • You’ll need high quality broadband or fibre to host a local server over the internet
    • At least 5 Mbit/s upload is recommended and ideally 10+ Mbit/s for bigger games with spectators
    • Larger games with more players and spectators will require more bandwidth

Port Mapping / Port Forwarding / Pinholes

You’ll need to figure this out yourself… don’t ask for help about your specific router. Try google or https://www.howtogeek.com/66214/how-to-forward-ports-on-your-router/

Your local PC hosting your local PA server on TCP port 20545 will be using a private IP address not accessible from the internet. eg 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x

Port mapping / port forwarding / pinholes open TCP port 20545 on your public IP address so that your local PA server can be accessed via the internet.

eg assuming your public IP address is 45.33.44.0 and the private IP address of your local computer with PA is 192.168.1.100 then you want to port map external TCP 20545 to internal 192.168.1.100 TCP 20545.

NEVER use DMZ unless you know what you are doing and have a very secure firewall setup.

Offline (not logged in) WAN Games

When offline you are NOT logged in using a PA or Steam account. You must be connected to the internet for WAN games.

Hosting a WAN Game From Within PA

  • Local server and local server multi-threading should be enabled in:
    • settings > server
  • Create a local game on your personal super computer using:
    • start > multiplayer > custom > create game
  • Make the game public
  • Leave the game public to allow players to reconnect or spectate

Joining a WAN Game

  • Install the Connect Buttons mod from Community Mods
  • Add the public IPv4 or DNS address with TCP port to:
    • settings > server
    • Host = public IPv4 or DNS address
  • Players can join your WAN game using:
    • start > connect to > public IPv4 or DNS address of your server
  • Privately hosted WAN games are not shown in the public games browser

Online (logged in) WAN Games

When online you are logged in using a PA or steam account via the internet.

Each player must be logged in using a different account or offline using a different username.

When hosting ensure host game locally is enabled before you create the game.

Firewalls

If not using steam on windows you may need to manually add exceptions.

Steam Windows Firewall Rules

The steam install automatically adds PA to the allowed apps in Windows Defender Firewall:

  • Planetary Annihilation (32 bit) %INSTALLDIR%\\bin_x86\\PA.exe
  • Planetary Annihilation – Crash Reporter (32 bit) %INSTALLDIR%\\bin_x86\\crashupload.exe
  • Planetary Annihilation – User Interface (32 bit) %INSTALLDIR%\\bin_x86\\host\\CoherentUI_Host.exe
  • Planetary Annihilation (64 bit) %INSTALLDIR%\\bin_x64\\PA.exe
  • Planetary Annihilation – Crash Reporter (64 bit) %INSTALLDIR%\\bin_x64\\crashupload.exe
  • Planetary Annihilation – User Interface (64 bit) %INSTALLDIR%\\bin_x64\\host\\CoherentUI_Host.exe
  • Planetary Annihilation – LAN and Offline Game Server (64 bit) %INSTALLDIR%\\bin_x64\\server.exe

The steam windows firewall rules do not apply to:

  • third party firewalls or security suites
  • moved steam apps
  • other installations such as the PA launcher

Server Mods

Server mods from the first player to connect as game creator / host will be automatically uploaded to the server and distributed to players and spectators automatically.

Downloading PA

PA accounts can use the standalone PA launcher (Windows / macOS prior to 10.15 Catalina) or papatcher.go to download a DRM free local server: https://store.planetaryannihilation.net//download/pa

For Windows you may need to install the latest Visual Studio 2019 64 bit runtime: https://support.microsoft.com/en-nz/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads

Steam accounts can be linked to a PA account: https://support.planetaryannihilation.com/kb/faq.php?id=63

papatcher.go

Download papatcher.go from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/planetary-annihilation/papatcher/master/papatcher.go

Install golang from repo (Linux) or https://golang.org/

go run papatcher.go --stream=stable --update-only

Manually Starting a Server

To manually start a local server in waiting lobby config mode create a script or desktop shortcut to the server executable with the following command line parameters:

  • --allow-lan
  • --game-mode PAExpansion1:config (for TITANS) OR --game-mode config (for classic PA)
  • --server-name "local" (initial name displayed in server browser)
  • --enable-crash-reporting
  • --mt-enabled (for multi-threading)

Customise with the following additional command line parameters:

  • --max-players 12 (up to 32 players depending on the specs of your local super computer and high speed internet)
  • --max-spectators 5 (depending on the specs of your high speed internet)
  • --spectators 5 (default spectators)
  • --output-dir "path-to/your/planetary-annihilation-data-directory" (to save local replays)
  • --empty-timeout 3600
  • --replay-filename "UTCTIMESTAMP" (to automatically name replays using a UTC timestamp)
  • --replay-timeout 180 (timeout after game over when replay is written even if players are still reviewing)
  • --gameover-timeout 360 (timeout after game over when server is shutdown even if players are still reviewing)
  • --headless (no window)
  • --port 20545 (default port)
  • --server-password "password"
  • --disable-ai (disable adding of AI players)

Example Linux Service

Example systemd unit:

[Unit]

Description=PA
After=network.target

[Service]
User=root

ExecStart=/srv/pa/pa.sh

StandardOutput=null
StandardError=null

Restart=always
RestartSec=5

NoNewPrivileges=yes
PrivateTmp=yes
PrivateDevices=yes

ProtectKernelTunables=yes
ProtectKernelModules=yes
ProtectControlGroups=yes
ProtectSystem=strict
ProtectHome=read-only
SystemCallFilter=~@mount
ReadWritePaths=/srv/pa/output/

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Example pa.sh

OUTPUT=/srv/pa/output
export MINIDUMP_DIRECTORY=/srv/pa/output

/path/to/server \
--port 20545 \
--headless \
--allow-lan \
--mt-enabled \
--disable-ai \
--max-players 32 \
--max-spectators 5 \
--spectators 5 \
--empty-timeout 5 \
--replay-filename "UTCTIMESTAMP" \
--replay-timeout 180 \
--gameover-timeout 360 \
--server-name "server" \
--server-password "password" \
--game-mode "PAExpansion1:config" \
--output-dir $OUTPUT

Modern Toolchain Test Builds 112589-pte / 112585-pte / 112575-pte / 112527-pte

Seasons Greetings Commanders,

As we enter the holiday season we bring you a little present in the form of not one, but two(!) Public Test Environment (PTE) builds. That’s right, the choice is yours. But before we get ahead of ourselves, a little reminder that PTE builds are opt-in and an opportunity for you to try out new features before we move them to stable. They may be a little unstable, a little rough around the edges, but they’re the cutting edge of Planetary Annihilation. Check this guide on how to opt-in to PTE.

Work on Planetary Annihilation started back in 2012, and it was built using the latest and greatest tooling at the time. But like the Progenitors, things have moved on and tooling has improved. This PTE comes in both legacy and modern build flavours, using either the build tools PA has been using since release, or the modern 2018 goodness. Newer tools allow us to lower RAM usage and boost performance, among other benefits. Of course this also means it’s less well tested and therefore possibly less stable at this time.

The PTE will be running its own servers, separate from the stable servers, and all of them running the modern build. This is the place to come for cutting edge performance. Bring your friends!

It’s not just about tech though, there’s a host of goodness packed into this update. In particular, the AI has once again undergone brain surgery to improve the way it evaluates battles, making it smarter about when to fight and when to ru… execute a tactical withdrawal.

Modders should make sure to hop onto this PTE to take advantage of the new audio modding capabilities and get their sweet audio goodness ready to launch alongside this update when it hits stable.

We also nipped in the bud most of the major crash sources we’ve identified. You can help us find more by running the modern build. We salute your sacrifice, Commander.

tl;dr

  • two clients available (stable legacy-pte and cutting-edge modern-pte for testing)
  • official PTE servers using modern toolchain builds
  • 1v1 ranked maps expanded with four community maps from WPMarshall and GrandHomie for a total of 15 maps
  • 1v1 ranked lobby is now anonymous showing Player 1 and Player 2
  • 1v1 ranked lobby leave option has been removed
  • AI improvements with reworked and retrained neural networks
  • AI commander selection (as promised)
  • Server crash fixes
  • NEW audio modding

Balance Changes

  • Pelican cost increased to 160 and health decreased to 150
  • Locust cost increased to 260
  • Spinner range increased to 120

Technical Notes

Next year we will be moving to PAnet, which will replace the legacy UberNet infrastructure with modern server environments. Eventually all the legacy Windows servers will be replaced with faster modern Linux servers.

Toolchains

Software development toolchain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toolchain

Legacy toolchain

  • Visual Studio 2012 / Windows 8 SDK
  • Xcode 5.0.1 / macOS Mountain Lion for macOS Lion 10.7+
  • Legacy steam linux runtime / GCC 4.8.4

Modern toolchain

  • Visual Studio 2017 latest / Windows 10 SDK latest
  • Xcode 10.1 / macOS 10.14.1 latest for macOS Mavericks 10.9+
  • Modern steam linux runtime / GCC 5.4.1 (currently limited by steam linux runtime)

Community Maps

Server Improvements

  • Faster modern toolchain build

AI Improvements

  • Completely reworked the AI’s neural network fitness function to improve how the AI evaluates the outcome of a battle
    • Instead of being based on the difference between each and every input before and after the encounter, the fitness function now primarily looks at which side lost more metal value. Not every encounter results in a metal loss, so the fitness function also compares unit count losses as well as health losses, but they don’t count nearly as much as metal losses
  • AI commander selection in new game lobby

Server Fixes

  • Fix for crash if the AI was trying to teleport a fabber or commander to a planet as the planet was destroyed
  • Fix for multiple cases where a unit could be removed from a platoon (dropping the reference) before being added to a new platoon, causing a crash later on in the game
  • Fix for crash if the commander did not have an Uber cannon spec
  • Fix for build arms not ticking in multi-threading enabled servers causing fabbers/commanders to not face their build targets
  • Fix for crash if a fabber/commander was assisting in the construction of a projectile that died
  • Fix for a crash if a projectile target died and was cleaned up by the sim
  • Improved fix for players disconnecting from new game lobby not being removed from game

Client Improvements

  • Reorganised start menu is now scrollable with more space for menu items
  • Improved commander and colour selection in new game lobby

Client Fixes

  • Fix for ESC key locking up the start menu if no video was playing
  • Fix for community videos not showing if community mods not enabled

Modding

  • NEW audio modding:
    • api.sound.playSoundFromFile(path)
    • api.sound.playSoundFromFileAtLocation(path, x, y, z)
    • api.sound.registerCueMod(cue, path)
    • api.sound.unregisterCueMod(cue)
  • NEW build.txt with original build number (will differ from version.txt for legacy clients)
  • NEW gBuild global with original build number from build.txt accessible in all scenes
  • NEW –version command line option to override version.txt for targeting a different server build

https://forums.planetaryannihilation.com/threads/modern-toolchain-test-build-112527-pte.73222/

Public Test Environments (PTE)

What is a PTE?

Public Test Environments are publicly available builds for testing upcoming changes prior to release as a stable build.

A PTE can contain any of the following:

  • fixes
  • enhancements
  • new features
  • new content
  • new units

With the transition to a modern toolchain there will be two PTEs available:

  • legacy-pte (stable Legacy Public Test Environment with 32 bit support, older operating systems, legacy toolchain, etc)
  • modern-pte (optional Modern Public Test Environment with 64 bit only, modern operating systems, modern toolchain, etc)

How do I access a PTE?

You can opt-in to a PTE via Steam or the PA launcher.

Steam (Windows / macOS / Linux)

  1. Open your Steam library
  2. Right click Planetary Annihilation: TITANS then select Properties
  3. Select the BETAS tab
  4. If PTEs are available you can select a PTE from the list
  5. Click the CLOSE button and Steam will download any changes for the selected PTE build

PA Launcher (Windows / macOS prior to Catalina 10.15)

  1. Open the PA launcher and sign in
  2. Click on your username then select Build Options… from the list
  3. Tick the PTE builds you want to install then click SAVE
  4. Change the stream from stable to the PTE build you want to test
  5. Click VERIFY to install or update the selected PTE build

For Windows you may need to install the latest Visual Studio 2019 64 bit runtime: https://support.microsoft.com/en-nz/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads

papatcher.go

Download papatcher.go from https://raw.githubusercontent.com/planetary-annihilation/papatcher/master/papatcher.go

Install golang from repo (Linux) or https://golang.org/

go run papatcher.go --stream=modern-pte --update-only

Linux Dependencies

  • libsdl2
  • libgl1

Clean Testing with Multiple Copies of PA

You can start multiples copies of PA using the --localstorageurl command line option with a different name for each copy:

--localstorageurl=test1

A separate directory for settings will be created in your Planetary Annihilation Data Directory.

This can be used to separate testing from your stable build and is required when running multiple copies of PA at the same time to avoid data loss.

Playing on Stable Servers

You can play on stable servers using the --version command line option:

--version 113600

Remember to remove or update this when a new build goes live.

Crash Reports

PA generated crash reports with logs (and dxdiag on windows) are usually automatically uploaded to our crash reporting system.

When reporting crashes it also helps if you include the crash ID from your logs (same as the filename of the generated minidump):

xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx.dmp

The default location for crash dumps generated by PA is now the logs directory in your Planetary Annihilation data directory.

The environment variable MINIDUMP_DIRECTORY can be used to change the location where PA crash minidump files are saved and will also generate more detailed (and larger) minidump files.

Windows Error Reporting (WER) and macOS may also generate different crash reports: https://support.planetaryannihilation.com/kb/faq.php?id=200

Steam Command Line Parameters

  1. Open your Steam library
  2. Right click Planetary Annihilation: TITANS then select Properties
  3. Click Set Launch Options…

PA Launcher Command Line Parameters

  1. Open the PA launcher and sign in
  2. Click on your username then select Build Options… from the list
  3. Additional command-line options

Learning to Play Planetary Annihilation

Like any RTS there is a learning curve

Try the following to ramp up quickly:

For single player:

Tips for falling in love with spherical planets:

  • disable pole lock and use align to north pole (default keybind: n)
  • learn to use middle mouse to grab and alt middle mouse to rotate
  • alternately use the arrow keys and control + arrow keys to rotate
    (on macOS you’ll need to change the default mission control keyboard shortcuts in system preferences > keyboard > shortcuts > mission control for move left a space and move right a space)
  • learn to scout and expand as you can be attacked from all directions including orbital and other planets

You will get used to playing on spherical planets. Once you do it’s hard to go back to flat maps.

TITANS 1v1 Ranked Ladder Reset and Seasons Update 112314

Hello Commanders,

The official TITANS 1v1 ranked ladder was reset on 2018-11-02 at 06:00 UTC starting a new season that ends on 2019-01-24.

The player holding the Uber #1 position at the end of this season will be shipped an Invictus Commander statue, a beautiful item that everyone should want in their trophy cabinet.

There will be new 1v1 ranked maps later this month with at least one new map every month.

Current Map Pool (11)

  • Amplus
  • Berg
  • Blitz
  • Clutch
  • Crag
  • Duat
  • Forge
  • Lock
  • Meso
  • Pacific
  • Roc

1v1 Ranked Seasons in 2019

Starting in 2019 each 1v1 ranked season lasts 3 months with a ladder reset at the start of every season.

2019 Seasons

  1. 2019-01-25 – 2019-04-25
  2. 2019-04-26 – 2019-07-24
  3. 2019-07-25 – 2019-10-24
  4. 2019-10-25 – 2020-01-23

1v1 Ranked Fixes

  • Fix for never-ending 1v1 ranked queue after a network error

1v1 Ranked Display Improvements

  • 1v1 rank and inactivity displayed in start menu (moved into base game from community mods)
  • 1v1 rank display in game over (moved into base game from community mods)

1v1 Ranked Work in Progress

The following are still in development / testing:

  • Tweaks to limit highest initial placement to Gold
  • Inactive 1v1 ranked ladder decay (slowly lose points if you’re not active)
  • Visible points display
  • Penalties for disconnecting instead of surrendering

Technical Notes

Server Improvements

  • Experimental multi-threading on official servers (still legacy toolchain and infrastructure)
  • More performance and memory usage improvements to navigation cost cells
  • Logging of server rate
  • Logging of system free memory (currently windows only)

AI Improvements

  • Further refinement of AI aggression
  • Adjusted how the AI chooses where to expand
  • Performance improvements
  • Retrained neural networks

Server Fixes

  • Fix for AI Platoon::numUnitsOfType server crash
  • Fix for AI chooseStartLocation server crash when passed bad data
  • Fix for AI attempting to transfer a unit to a planet that did not have an initial planet manager assigned
  • Fix for AI getting stuck building no factories if it is modified to remove the ability for the AI to build one or more factory types
  • Fix for a multi-threading crash

Client Improvements

  • More visible orbital attack lines in the orbital path visualiser

Client Fixes

  • Fix for particle emitter crash when emitter has an invalid fx_trail_spec

Modding

  • MatchmakingUtility.getSeasonEndDate()
  • New gVersion global with current build number accessible in all scenes
  • api.game.isPTE()
  • UTC start_timestamp (landing time) and end_timestamp (game over) in server control state to calculate accurate game elapsed (note that valid_time_range.min is the in-game landing time

Multi-threading, Performance and AI Improvements Updates 112176 / 112209 / 112214

Greetings Commanders,

It took us a little longer than we expected to prepare this build in light of some server issues last weekend, which are now resolved.

This is our first new build on the legacy toolchain and will be the first of many once we stablise our modern toolchain builds.

Our focus is on speed and stability as we work to ensure we’re in the best place possible ahead of upgrading the technologies which underpin the game. We’ve implemented numerous server sim performance improvements, while also resolving a number of the most common causes of server-side crashes.

You should still make sure your graphics drivers are up-to-date as out of date drivers are still the most common cause of client issues. Seriously. Go do it now!

Over time we’ve seen the competitive meta settle, revealing some very visible imbalances. No one likes those. We’ve introduced some small changes to fix things. Balance is as much an art as it is a science, so we’ll continue to monitor and adjust as necessary.

The AI has also seen some love, upgraded to be more ruthless than ever. It’s in it to win it, with an upgraded neural net, along with additional behavioural improvements.

Finally, rumour has it some kind of ladder reset is fast approaching…

Titans Balance

  • Advanced Air, Bot, Vehicle and Naval Factory cost increased by 25% to 4,500 (minor delay to T2 rush)
  • Slammer cost increased to 500 (minor adjustment against Leveler)
  • Solar Array cost decreased to 1,600 (minor adjustment against land-based advanced power)
  • Gil-E vision increased to 220 (vision now matches weapon range)
  • Bluehawk range increase to 220 (buff as a counter e.g. Kaiju)
  • Pelican health increased to 200 with group (formation) preference set to back (increased survivability)
  • Stingray vision increased to 250 with new radar and sonar of 350 (new cruiser role as naval radar)
  • Typhoon vision increased to 250 with drone guard radius of 250 and passive health regen reduced to -2 (20 seconds)
  • Kaiju rate of fire decreased to 0.5 shots per second (minor nerf)

Technical Notes

AI

  • Adjusted the neural network fitness function
  • Neural networks have all been re-trained for Titans and Classic
  • Threat response platoons now see amphibious units as anti-sub threat

Added a couple of new target filtering options, a new neural net input, and a few new outputs

  • AI does a better job of gathering and using intel as well as caching it for later use to improve performance
  • When looking for a place to attack, the AI will now take into account neighbouring areas when determining what size of a force to use
  • The AI will now look for more fights that it can win rather than fights it can at least tie
  • Fix for AI platoons that would get stuck trying to disband
  • Adjusted how much the AI raids
  • Improved AI neural data merging
  • Fixed bug preventing the AI from attacking when it should have been
  • Adjusted AI aggressiveness

Server / Simulation Performance

  • Adjusted how search spaces are updated in an effort to get through as many of them as possible per tick
  • During the nav update, more of an effort is made to allow as many search spaces as possible generate their high level path so units can start moving faster
  • Added a fail safe to allow nav to steal more voxel budget if it is having a tough time getting through search spaces
  • This will give nav an opportunity to fulfill a larger number of move requests over a shorter time
  • We now query a search space to ensure we have enough voxel budget remaining for the space to prevent doing a bunch of useless work
  • Added the count of updating search spaces in nav to the perf output window
  • More aggressive filtering of collision pairs to reduce the number of pairs we have to check
  • Nav now attempts to pre-allocate the cost cells it will need for the updating search spaces it has
  • Search spaces now return their cost cells to nav when they are finished so they can be reused later
  • Moved the spatial DB update for dynamic objects so that it only happens once, at most, per update

Server / Simulation Multi-Threading

Please note multi-threading must be enabled for your server.

  • The task scheduler now supports running the plan step of parallel tasks (such as weapon auto targeting and auto manoeuvring) at the same time, per unit
  • Entity record step now runs in parallel
  • The nav and physics updates now run alongside the economy update
  • Added multi-thread support for the heavy parts of the recon update
  • Units can now update their weapon aims in parallel
  • The physics update now supports multi-threading
  • The small island build is now multi-threaded per sector
  • This helps in-game perf as well as system loading
  • Added –max-threads command line to set the max number of background threads

Crash Reporting

  • Improved crash reporting for all platforms
  • Crash dumps are now stored in the log folder (varies by OS) instead of a temp folder.
  • On Windows, a DxDiag report (stripped of all personally identifiable info) is now automatically attached to crash reports.

Crash Fixes

  • Fix for crash if, during the same tick, a search space was marked for removal and then another search space was created for the same destination
  • Fix for rebuilding the collision geometry BVH when it wasn’t needed
  • Fix for crash in swizzle tree from trying to evaluate log(0), in a rare case
  • Fix for big game crashes caused when the flood runner gets a request from a search space with an invalid goal location
  • Fix for virtual texture binding crash on the client

Modding

  • icon atlases now use grids which increases the maximum strategic icons (52x52px) on an 8K texture (older GPUs) to 157 x 157 (24,649) and on a 16K texture (modern GPUs) to 315 x 315 (99,225) resulting in a breaking change to the following shaders:
    • particle_direct_ring_selection.vs
    • particle_direct.vs
    • particle_icon.vs
    • particle_status_icon.fs
    • particle_status_icon.vs
  • strategic icon mods should use the new utility function calculateAtlasUV (added to particle_common.vs) replacing:
    • v_TexCoord = vec2(a_TexCoord.x, vUVAndExtra.x + vUVAndExtra.y * (1.0 – a_TexCoord.y)); with v_TexCoord = calculateAtlasUV(vUVAndExtra.xy);

Server Issues Resolved

Our legacy infrastructure hit a 10GB limit for archived game summaries. That’s a lot of games!

112209

112209 build is now live to help us track down the cause of sim speed stalls and includes a fix for the XOV commander crash on Linux.

112214

112214 build is now live with a fix for missing metal spot icons in the system editor.

64 bit – The Future of PA and Titans

Hello Commanders,

Today marks the six year anniversary of the Planetary Annihilation Kickstarter, where 44,162 backers helped breathe life into the concept of a next-generation RTS, where thousands of units would clash across multiple worlds, unleashing interplanetary destruction.

It’s been a long road and we’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who backed, supported or just played Planetary Annihilation over the past six years; we couldn’t have done it without you!

The incredibly sexy technical work continues behind the scenes. After the next major update we will be focusing on 64-bit operating systems as we continue to modernise Planetary Annihilation. If you’re part of the 2% still on 32-bit Windows now would be a good time to upgrade so you can fully reap the benefits of the changes we’re making.

Similar to Valve, Blizzard, Nvidia and many other game developers, this modernisation necessitates saying goodbye to some unsupported, end-of-life operating systems like Windows Vista, and older macOS / Linux releases. We’ll confirm the details prior to our modern build going live and plan to make unsupported older builds which will continue to work in offline mode available to anyone who cannot upgrade.

We have also performed a much needed refresh of our community rules and guidelines, after all we don’t want our little pocket of humanity to fall into discord and be overthrown by the Machine Liberation Army. There’s even a tl;dr version, because we know you want to be playing PA not reading rules. These apply to all aspects of PA: lobby names, in-game chat, official forums and the official Planetary Annihilation Discord server, which is now live.

Please feel free to use the official Planetary Annihilation Discord server to coordinate games, discuss strategies, seek out help with modding, and anything else PA related. We also hear there’s more to life than PA, and while we’re not sure we believe that, we have created an off-topic channel just in case.

See you in Discord: https://discord.gg/C3GBXbg

The PA Team

planetaryannihilation.com – The Future of PA and Titans

Hello Commanders,

We hope you enjoyed the multithreading technical update from Sorian. The work on modernising Planetary Annihilation continues and we will bring you more of that sweet technical goodness in future posts.

The transition to Planetary Annihilation Inc is almost complete and we have moved the website, forums and support.

New URLs are as follows:

The support articles are being developed to provide more content relevant to issues we see reported. Like with any game though, we find most issues are caused by out-of-date drivers, especially with cross-platform OpenGL support, so please ensure you check that your drivers are up-to-date.

We are targeting 15th September for the launch of our official Planetary Annihilation Discord server, though you can already sign-up. We will also be following up later with Discord rich presence support to make it easier than ever to form a party with your friends, join a game with them, or just spectate one they’re already in.

In looking to the future, Classic Planetary Annihilation has been removed from sale. This will not impact existing players, the game will remain in your Steam library and Classic PA players will still be able to upgrade to TITANS at the permanent 90% off discount. New players will only see TITANS in the store, which is both backwards compatible with Classic PA lobbies and also supports switching to classic mode to host classic games. Classic PA will continue to receive updates, including the new simulation performance improvements with multithreading that Sorian is working on.

Later this month we will be releasing new PTE (Public Test Environment) builds for TITANS and Classic PA with some of those improvements for you to try out. The PTE is how you can test out new features that are still under development, and we’ll be using it to get your feedback ahead of official releases.

See you in Discord on the 15th!
https://discord.gg/C3GBXbg

The PA Team

Multithreading – The Future of PA and Titans

@Sorian is back working on server simulation performance with multithreading this month and we have a technical update to share on his work for the next update.

Two years ago I was given the opportunity to continue work on my baby, Planetary Annihilation, for the 99337 Performance Update. My primary focus was attempting to improve performance by multithreading parts of the simulation. My initial focus was on areas of the simulation where I thought it would be easiest to do things in parallel. The most natural separation was based around planets.

Since navigation and physics are typically the worst performance offenders, separating updates by planet seemed like a good plan. Their updates tend to only act on a single entity. Initial testing blew up spectacularly, as I expected it would. Fortunately, there were not many areas of contention between threads and a performance win was born.

So, now that I am back, you may be wondering what I am working on now. I’ll be continuing right where I left off! This time I am digging further into the sim to see where I can split large groups of tasks over threads to speed things up. Early this week I was focused on the physics update. I figured, since we should only be looking at two unique physics objects at the same time, it should be possible to thread this.

Well, I was right and wrong. There were the usual small issues to fix, but threading the physics update revealed a larger issue. The physics system utilizes an HGrid (described as a loose octree) to find potential entity overlaps using a function called buildPairs. It turns out that there is no guarantee that the vector of pairs that we get back does not contain duplicates. Under normal operation this isn’t a huge issue, as this is a single call that immediately returns and it was just being done thousands of times more than it needed to be. However, when you throw threading into the mix it gets ugly. Fixable, but ugly.

I have also started work on restructuring the sim tick a bit to allow the navigation and physics updates to happen alongside other updates. Right now I have it running alongside the economy update, but the economy update is only a small part of the overall update, so not much of a win there yet. I am hoping to split some of the plan steps (our sim has plan, execute, and record steps for entities) out into a group that can also run at the same time as the navigation/physics update.

For the navigation system, I have been mainly focusing on the epic number of allocations the navigation system does during voxel integration. I have a new system in place that saves off vectors of cost cells (the objects the integrator makes tens of thousands during voxel integration) for reuse. The integrator is also doing a better job of allocating in blocks instead of individually. On the multithreading front, the navigation system has proven to be quite difficult. There are so many little acceleration features and so much lazy loading that is simply prevents multithreading without a significant amount of work.

So, what’s next? There is still more work to be done with navigation, there is still the sim tick stuff to be investigated, and some AI updates as well (of course), starting with a much needed performance pass. And that doesn’t even get into other fun stuff like modern toolchain and Coherent GT updates.

Mike “Sorian” Robbins

THE GALAXY WON'T CONQUER ITSELF Get it now on Steam!
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