Hello Commanders,

The time of the Unicorn is over, and now, the time of Fusion begins. It represents the beginning of great change.

This arc kicks off with the introduction of the Stinger, the little bot that could. Bringing anti-air back to the Bot Factory with its twin mounted homing missile pods, it can accompany your Dox raids to bring down those pesky Icarus and Bumblebees.

A major improvement to the lobby UI has been introduced, with the host being able to drag, drop and swap players. Easily switch teams around to achieve Ultimate Balance™. There is also no longer a default system in new lobbies, saving your CPU from generating something you were probably not going to use. Just doing our bit for the planet. Lastly, asteroids can now be included in randomly generated systems.

The hand-crafted map pool has expanded, with all previous 1v1 ranked maps available. A revised default system list includes some new FFA / team maps for you to play but don’t panic! PAX has survived the cull 🙂

You may have noticed the servers are running smoother than ever, with the recent upgrades to the fastest m5zn instances in all regions. Our dedicated servers for big FFA and team games have also been upgraded.

The Fusion Commander is available to all players during the Steam Summer Sale and Humble Greatest Hits Sale, after which it can be purchased through the Armory.

---

Balance changes: https://planetaryannihilation.com/guides/titans-balance-changes/

Previous update arcs:

• Rainbows & Unicorns: https://planetaryannihilation.com/news/rainbows-unicorns-updates/
• Stay Safe: https://planetaryannihilation.com/news/stay-safe-updates/

Technical Notes

Added Fusion commander.

Balance Changes

Added Stinger anti-air bot.

Client Improvements

• Updated translations

Start

• Added view replays to mini leaderboard

New Game Lobby

• Added player drag / drop / swap for team games
• Changed to no default system for faster hosting
• Added new status messages while waiting for system to be selected
• Added asteroid option to random system generator
• Added new default maps

Leaderboards

• Added view replays

Live Game

• Improved scrolling of unit selection list

Replays (115847)

• Added system name
• Added tooltips
• Added 1v1 ranked filter

Settings (115932)

• Added Camera > Mouse Pan Button

Server / Sim Improvements

• Added server side support for player drag / drop / swap in new game lobby
• Added server side support for player IDs, game type, mods info, system name and system summary to replay summary

Server / Sim Fixes

• Fixed loading of saves with orphaned celestial sim projectiles (115923)

AI Improvements

• Tweaked Easy / Normal difficulties

---

115836

Fixes new maps not showing in system list.

115847

• Updated translations
• Updated default maps

Replays

• Added system name
• Added tooltips
• Added 1v1 ranked filter

115863 / 115902

Galactic War

• Added Stinger anti-air bot
• Updated tech cards

Thanks to Quitch for documenting tech card issues.

Basic Bot Tech

Enables building of basic Bots and basic Bot Factories.

• Added Stinger

Complete Bot Tech

Enables building of all Bots and all Bot Factories.

• Added Stinger

Bot Fabrication Tech

Reduces metal build costs of all bots by 25%.

• Added Stinger
• Fixed deal conditions

Vehicle Fabrication Tech

Reduces metal build costs of all vehicles by 25%.

• Fixed deal conditions

Orbital Fabrication Tech

Reduces metal build costs of all orbital vehicles by 25%.

• Removed Anchor
• Removed Jig
• Fixed inconsistent deal

Economy Fabrication Tech

Reduces metal build costs of all metal and energy production structures by 50%.

• Fixed inconsistent deal

Intelligence Fabrication Tech

Reduces metal build costs of all intelligence structures and mobile units by 50%.

• Added Hermes
• Removed Teleporter
• Fixed inconsistent deal

Improved Fabricator Build Arms

Increases the build speed of all fabricator and factory build arms by 50% and reduces energy usage by 50%.

• Added Colonel
• Added Unit Cannon
• Fixed Angel

Efficiency Tech

Increases metal and energy production by 25%.

• Fixed inconsistent deal

Storage Compression Tech

Metal and energy storage on all commanders and storage structures increased by 300%.

• Fixed inconsistent deal

Bot Engine Tech

Increases speed of all bots by 50%.

• Added Stinger
• Fixed Spark
• Fixed Locusts
• Fixed Colonel
• Fixed deal conditions

Vehicle Engine Tech

Increases speed of all vehicles by 50%.

• Fixed deal conditions

Commander Combat Tech

Increases the speed of your commanders by 200%, doubles commander health, and increases damage by 25%.

• Fixed inconsistent deal

Air Combat Tech

Increases the speed of all air units by 25%, health by 50%, and damage by 25%.

• Added Horsefly
• Fixed Hummingbird

Bot Combat Tech

Increases health of all bots by 50%, damage by 25%, and speed by 50%.

• Added Stinger
• Fixed deal conditions

Vehicle Combat Tech

Increases speed of all vehicles by 50%, health by 50%, and damage by 25%.

• Added Stryker ammo

Naval Combat Tech

Increases speed of all naval units by 50%, health by 50%, and damage by 25%.

• Added Narwhal torpedo (classic PA)
• Added Squall torpedo

Orbital Combat Tech

Increases speed of all orbital units by 50%, health by 50%, and damage by 25%.

• Fixed inconsistent deal

Structure Combat Tech

Increases the health of all structures by 50%. Defensive structures also gain a 25% damage increase.

• Added Anchor
• Added Halley
• Added Unit Cannon
• Added Torpedo Launcher ammo
• Added Advanced Torpedo Launcher ammo

Commander Ammunition Tech

Increases damage of your commanders by 25%.

• Added anti-air
• Added torpedo

Air Ammunition Tech

Increases damage of all mobile air units by 25%.

• Added Horsefly
• Fixed Hummingbird

Bot Ammunition Tech

Increases damage of all bots by 25%.

• Added Stinger
• Fixed deal conditions

Vehicle Ammunition Tech

Increases damage of all vehicles by 25%.

• Fixed deal conditions

Naval Ammunition Tech

Increases the damage of all naval vessels by 25%.

• Added Squall torpedo

Advanced Defense Technology

Enables more powerful defenses.

• Removed Anchor
• Added Advanced Torpedo Launcher

Bot Armour Tech

Increases health of all bots by 50%.

• Added Stinger
• Fixed deal conditions

Vehicle Armour Tech

Increases health of all vehicles by 50%.

• Fixed deal conditions

Structure Armour Tech

Increases the health of all structures by 50%.

• Added Unit Cannon

Super Weapon Tech

Enables nuclear missiles, metal planet controllers, and planetary engines to be built.

• Disabled card as already available

Improved Intelligence Tech

Reduces energy costs for intelligence structures by 75%.

• Removed Teleporter

Improved Energy Weapons Tech

Reduces energy costs for energy based weapons by 75%.

• Added Spark
• Added Icarus
• Added Wyrm
• Added Zeus
• Added Artemis
• Removed Teleporter
• Removed Umbrella
• Removed Catapult
• Removed Hornet
• Removed Stingray

Complete Energy Tech

Reduces energy costs for intelligence structures by 75%, weapon energy costs by 75%.

• Added Spark
• Added Icarus
• Added Wyrm
• Added Zeus
• Added Artemis
• Removed Teleporter
• Removed Umbrella
• Removed Catapult
• Removed Hornet
• Removed Stingray

Modding

gw_specs

• Added array operator defaults
• Added pull operation
• Added support for death weapons

115923

• Updated translations
• Added Settings > Camera > Mouse Pan Button
• Fixed loading of saves with orphaned celestial sim projectiles

115938

• Updated translations
• TITANS 1v1 ranked season 12

115958

• Updated translations
• Fixed Galactic War freeze when selecting edge systems
• Fixed psychedelic 2017 commanders changing colour
• Fixed render chain memory stomp with fractional scaling eg subsample 75%
• Added --single-material to papatran to combine multiple materials in units that should have only a single material group and material

---

https://planetaryannihilation.com/timeline

Scroll to the end for latest patch notes.

Hello Commanders,

Your eyes do not deceive you, this creature of majesty above is both half-Commander and half-unicorn. Touch its horn if you will, but the only wish it grants is the pillaging of the galaxy’s resources to ensure the demise of your enemies. Friendship is temporary, but a well-placed ubercannon is forever.

The Unicorn Commander is available to all players during the Steam Summer Sale, after which it can be purchased through the Armory. It also comes with its own strategic icon so that everyone else knows that you’re better than them, both as a player and a person.

Lobbies now have the option to shuffle player starting locations. No longer can you know who is where without any scouting in FFA and team games. Live the mystery.

The AI has had an easy difficulty added to skirmish and normal in Galactic War as part of some more extensive changes. We hear your eyebrow lift (just one, you’re classy like that) at the addition of an easier difficulty, but once improvements land and it’s kicking your hiney, you’ll be sorry you got all sniffy about an easy difficulty.

Translations have been updated and expanded to include community mods like Legion Expansion and Queller AI.

Balance changes: https://planetaryannihilation.com/guides/titans-balance-changes/

Previous update series: https://planetaryannihilation.com/news/stay-safe-updates/

Technical Notes

Client Improvements

• Updated translations
• Added connect timeouts to download manager to avoid long launch stalls
• Added initial support for full offline / disconnected mode via --offline (work in progress)
• Improved game password dialog with focus and default button
• Added shuffle landing zones to new game lobby for large FFA and teams games using maps with custom landing zones
• Improved discord user handling (114673)
• Improved commander spawn zoom (114673)
• Added spacebar to exit video (114673)
• Improved locale error logging (114673)
• Improved fatal error logging (114673)
• Added audio device routing (114716)
• Added default audio device setting with list refreshing every 5 seconds 114716)
• Added default audio device selection during startup (114716)
• Reduced unnecessary locks and allocations during material creation (114862)
• Added automatic open of players list for 1v1 ranked games (114750)
• Added --enable-detailed-minidump command line parameter as an alternative to setting the MINIDUMP_DIRECTORY environment variable (114750)
• Added skybox graphics setting (114776)
• Removed outdated sRGB restrictions for AMD / Intel GPUs (114880)
• Added --gl-disable-srgb / --gl-disable-mrt-srgb command line options to restore previous behaviour if needed (114880)
• Added --hardware-hdr command line option to enable experimental HDR10 support on latest Windows 10 for modern 10 series or newer Nvidia GPUs (114880)
  Note: macOS HDR10 support is automatic
  https://planetaryannihilation.com/support/troubleshooting/#HDR10
• Added support for 128 bit UNITTYPE flags and masks expanding max types from 63 to 127 (114980)
• Added SIMD optimisations for 128 bit flags (114980)
• Added legacy CPU check with error message to try legacy build (114980)
• Added events to ui/main/game/live_game/js/constants.js (114980)
  • Custom1
  • Custom2
  • Custom3
  • Custom4
  • Vehicle
  • Shield
  • Amphibious
  • WaterHover

• Updated strategic icons for water hover units (115050)
  • Naval Basic Fabrication Ship
  • Barnacle support barge
  • Piranha gunboat

Updated water shader to show different depths (115280)

• Water hover shallows
• Deep water commander danger zone
• Deep water

Client Fixes

• Fixed SDL2 full screen toggle / resize issue on Windows (114628)
• Fixed intro video loss of focus (114673)
• Fixed tutorial commander specs (114716)
• Fixed custom line formations crashes (114726 / 114823)
• Fixed settings mod compatibility issue (114726)
• Fixed join modded game crash from modded new game lobby or live game (114726)
• Fixed landing crash on slower systems (114726)
• Fixed setCommandMode crash (114759)
• Fixed line command crash (114759)
• Fixed API data access (114880)
• Fixed get units crash (114880)
• Fixed icons not showing with one or more unit server mods (115280)
• Fixed handling of Unicode surrogates eg 🔥 (115447)

AI Improvements

• Added easy difficulty for AI skirmish to match galactic war (work in progress)
• Improved AI start location selection (114716)
• AI landing policies now avoid planets with others AIs so they spread across planets (115050)

Galactic War Improvements

• Added normal difficulty between easy and hard (work in progress)
• Added Default personality placeholder to gw minions (114716)

Server / Sim Improvements

• Improved attack (focus fire) task
• Added shuffle landing zones
• Added early exit for sim tasks that set failed during initialisation (114673)
• Added radar jamming (114862)
• Added support for 128 bit UNITTYPE flags and masks expanding max types from 63 to 127 (114980)
• Added SIMD optimisations for 128 bit flags (114980)
• Add new units types
  • UNITTYPE_Vehicle (114980)
  • UNITTYPE_Shield (114980)
  • UNITTYPE_Amphibious (114980)
  • UNITTYPE_WaterHover (114980)
  • UNITTYPE_Interplanetary (115506)
  • UNITTYPE_TacticalDefense (115506)
  • UNITTYPE_Radar (115506)
  • UNITTYPE_RadarJammer (115506)

Server / Sim Fixes

• Fixed AI server crash in evaluateBases
• Fixed server crash for modded units with ORDER_Attack and no weapons (114673)
• Fixed target priorities vision (114716)
• Fixed Windows 4GB replay / saved game limit (114862)
• Fixed moving to target assist task crash (114862)
• Fixed auto repair / reclaim while transporting (114862)
• Fixed water-hover pathing around structures, walls, TITANS, etc (114980)
• Fixed handling of Unicode surrogates eg 🔥 (115447)
• Fixed beam weapon collisions with structures, terrain and water surface (115447)

Maps

• Added shuffleLandingZones
• Updated the following maps to use shuffleLandingZones: true
  • Clutch
  • Lock
  • Crag
  • Bedlam
  • PAX
  • Medea
  • Roc
  • Blitz
  • Forge
  • Berg
  • Duat
  • Pacific
  • Styx
  • Meso
  • Amplus

Modding

• Exposed locTree for localislation parsing of modified DOM nodes avoiding the need for concatenated loc strings or data-binding
  locTree(document.getElementById('#nav-link'));
• Added gOffline and gModsOffline for offline mode (work in progress)

• Added api.audio.getDevices():[string]
• Added api.audio.setDevice(string)
• Reworked SettingItemModel to support
  • options.function(currentValue)
  • options.deferredFunction(currentValue) for async
  • options.refresh: seconds
  • option.empty: string
• Added support for JSON // single line comments

• Improved modding support for multiple selectable skybox mods in settings: (114776)
  • model.skyBoxes.push({text: 'Test', value: '/pa/terrain/sky/textures/skybox_02.json'})
  • api.ar_system.changeSkyBoxSpec(api.settings.getSynchronous('graphics', 'skybox'));

• New recon observer channel (114862)
  • radar_jammer

AI Modding

• Default personality tag is the placeholder for current base game functionality
• Added fall back to default netural_networks if not included under personality.ai_path which will be the case for most mods
• Added additional --ai-debug output (114673)
• Added enabled to build specs for AI debugging (114673)
• Added debug to build conditions for AI debugging (114673)
• Added IsMainBase build condition (114673)
• Added first pass of AI intel point threat status (114673)
• Added personality.starting_location_evaluation_radius (114673)
• Added gw mod support for bounty_mode, bounty_value, sudden_death_mode, shuffle_landing_zones and land_anywhere (114716)

AI mods can use personality.ai_path to specify their own complete set of templates, builds and unit maps as the default AI may be changing significantly

Toolchain

Updated software development toolchain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toolchain

• C++17
• Visual Studio 2019 latest with 142 build tools / Windows 10 SDK latest
• Xcode 11.5 / macOS 10.15.x latest for macOS Mavericks 10.9+ with full notarisation using hardened runtime
• Steam Linux runtime with gcc-9 / LTO native (previously limited to gcc 6.2 and no LTO)
• Steamworks SDK 148 (will upgrade to 149 soon)
• Windows libcurl 7.68.0 with nghttp2 1.40.0 for HTTP/2 and multiplexing (will upgrade to 7.70.0 and 1.41.0 soon)
• breakpad latest
• libpng 1.6.37 with SSE optimisations
• libsquish 1.15 with SSE optimisations
• stb_image 2.25
• stb_truetype 1.24
• lz4 1.9.2
• miniz 2.1
• zlib 1.2.11
• sdl 2.0.12

114618

• Fixed missing Unicorn Commander build image
• AI tweaks

114628

• Fixed SDL2 full screen toggle / resize issue on Windows
• Changed libpng 1.6.37 SSE optimisations for older CPU on Windows (use legacy build for older CPUs)

114673

• Updated translations
• Updated Steam Linux runtime
• Improved discord user handling
• Improved commander spawn zoom
• Added current zoom type support to api.camera.lookAt
• Added early exit for sim tasks that set failed during initialisation
• Added spacebar to exit video
• Fixed intro video loss of focus
• Improved locale error logging
• Improved fatal error logging
• Fixed server crash for modded units with ORDER_Attack and no weapons

AI modding

• Added additional --ai-debug output
• Added enabled to build specs for AI debugging
• Added debug to build conditions for AI debugging
• Added IsMainBase build condition
• Added first pass of AI intel point threat status
• Added personality.starting_location_evaluation_radius

114716

• Updated translations
• Added audio device routing
• Added default audio device setting with list refreshing every 5 seconds
• Added default audio device selection during startup
• Added Default personality placeholder to gw minions
• Improved AI start location selection
• Fixed target priorities vision
• Fixed tutorial commander specs

AI Modding

• Added gw mod support for bounty_mode, bounty_value, sudden_death_mode, shuffle_landing_zones and land_anywhere

Modding

• Added api.audio.getDevices():[string]
• Added api.audio.setDevice(string)
• Reworked SettingItemModel to support
  • options.function(currentValue)
  • options.deferredFunction(currentValue) for async
  • options.refresh: seconds
  • option.empty: string
• Added support for JSON // single line comments

114726

• Fixed custom line formations crash
• Fixed settings mod compatibility issue

114750

• Updated translations
• Added automatic open of players list for 1v1 ranked games
• Added --enable-detailed-minidump command line parameter as an alternative to setting the MINIDUMP_DIRECTORY environment variable
• Fixed join modded game crash from modded new game lobby or live game
• Fixed landing crash on slower systems

114759

• Updated translations
• Fixed setCommandMode crash
• Fixed line command crash

114776

• Updated translations
• Added skybox graphics setting
• Improved modding support for multiple selectable skybox mods in settings:
  • model.skyBoxes.push({text: 'Test', value: '/pa/terrain/sky/textures/skybox_02.json'})
• api.ar_system.changeSkyBoxSpec(api.settings.getSynchronous('graphics', 'skybox'));

114780

Updated TITANS 1v1 ranked maps and reconnects

114803

Grenadier

• Idle aim delay restored to 1.0 from 0.5
• Max firing velocity decreased to 80 from 90
• Min firing velocity decreased to 70 from 85
• Splash radius decreased to 5 from 6

Gil-E advanced sniper bot

• Vision and range decreased to 200 from 220
• Can no longer target seafloor

Naval Basic Fabrication Ship

• Navigation changed to new water-hover with updated flat bottom model

Barnacle support barge

• Navigation changed to new water-hover with updated flat bottom model
• Can now build teleporters on land

114823

• Updated translations
• Fixed custom line formation crash

Grenadier

• Maximum firing velocity increased to 90 from 80

114862

Client Improvements

• Updated translations
• Reduced unnecessary locks and allocations during material creation

Server / Sim Improvements

• Added radar jamming

Server / Sim Fixes

• Fixed Windows 4GB replay / saved game limit
• Fixed moving to target assist task crash
• Fixed auto repair / reclaim while transporting

Balance Changes

Grenadier

• Splash damage decreased to 30 from 40

Slammer advanced assault bot

• Damage decreased to 90 from 100

Vanguard advanced heavy tank

• Radar jamming 75 added

Typhoon drone carrier

• Squall torpedo damage decreased to 75 from 100

Jig gas mining platform

• Cost increased to 4,000 from 3,000

114880

Client Improvements

• Updated translations
• Reduced unnecessary locks and allocations during material creation
• Removed outdated sRGB restrictions for AMD / Intel GPUs
• Added --gl-disable-srgb / --gl-disable-mrt-srgb command line options to restore previous behaviour if needed
• Added --hardware-hdr command line option to enable experimental HDR10 support on latest Windows 10 for modern 10 series or newer Nvidia GPUs

Note: macOS HDR10 support is automatic.

https://planetaryannihilation.com/support/troubleshooting/#HDR10

Client Fixes

• Fixed API data access
• Fixed get units crash

114980

• Added support for 128 bit UNITTYPE flags and masks expanding max types from 63 to 127
• Added SIMD optimisations for 128 bit flags
• Add new units types:
  • UNITTYPE_Vehicle
  • UNITTYPE_Shield
  • UNITTYPE_Amphibious
  • UNITTYPE_WaterHover

Client Improvements

• Updated translations
• Added legacy CPU check with error message to try legacy build
• Added missing events to ui/main/game/live_game/js/constants.js
  • Custom1
  • Custom2
  • Custom3
  • Custom4
  • Vehicle
  • Shield
  • Amphibious

Server / Sim Fixes

• Fixed water-hover pathing around structures, walls, TITANS, etc

Balance Changes

Grenadier

• Acceleration decreased from 120 to 100

Added UNITTYPE_Vehicle for wheeled units vs treads

• Advanced Fabrication Vehicle
• Skitter vehicle scout
• Stryker attack vehicle
• Spinner anti-air vehicle

Added UNITTYPE_Shield placeholder.

Added UNITTYPE_Amphibious

• Commander
• Dox
• Slammer
• Colonel
• Manhattan
• Atlas

Added UNITTYPE_WaterHover and are no longer targetable by below the waterline naval torpedoes

• Naval Fabrication Ship
• Barnacle support barge
• Piranha gunboat

Note: This excludes amphibious torpedoes from:

• Commander
• Slammer advanced assault bot

Removed UNITTYPE_Scout from Piranha gunboat.

The following naval below the waterline torpedo weapons no longer target UNITTYPE_WaterHover with "exclude_unit_types": "Hover | WaterHover"

• Torpedo Launcher
• Advanced Torpedo Launcher
• Barracuda sub
• Orca destroyer
• Kraken advanced stealth sub
• Typhoon carrier drone

Modding

• Added the following for testing by modders when enabled in boot.json
• knockout-3.5.1.min.js / knockout-3.5.1.debug.js (swap wth knockout-3.4.0.min.js)
• lodash-migrate.min.js / lodash-migrate.js (enable to see and report potential issues with lodash 3.x > 4.x)
• lodash-4.7.20.min.js / lodash-4.7.20.js (swap with lodash-3.9.3.min.js to see breakage)

115003

• TITANS 1v1 Ranked Season 9
• Updated translations

115013

• Fixed regression of unit selection type counts
• Updated translations

115050

• Updated translations
• Updated strategic icons for water hover units
  • Naval Basic Fabrication Ship
  • Barnacle support barge
  • Piranha gunboat
• AI landing policies now avoid planets with others AIs so they spread across planets

Balance Changes

Stryker attack vehicle

• Speed decreased to 18 from 20 (same as Dox)

Ant light tank

• Turn rate increased to 120 from 90

Grenadier

• Vision decreased to 125 from 130

Spark tesla bot

• Range increased to 70 from 65

Mend advanced combat fabricator

• Cost decreased to 1,000 from 1,200

Spinner anti-air vehicle

• Rate of fire decreased to 2.4 from 3

Piranha gunboat

• Range decreased to 120 from 130

Barracuda submarine now has radar stealth

Horsefly advanced heavy strafing aircraft

• Cost decreased to 1,800 from 2,000

Angel advanced air support platform

• Cost decreased to 5,000 from 5,500

Mines changed to sight vision which now reveal units and target radar stealth

115186

Dox assault bot

• Acceleration increased to 180 from 50

Advanced Metal Extractor

• Production rate increased to 16 from 15

115280

• Updated water shader to show different depths
  • Water hover shallows
  • Deep water commander danger zone
  • Deep water
• Fixed icons not showing with one or more unit server mods
  • Legion Expansion
  • Second Wave – Units addon
  • Aurora Artillery

115447 / 115459

Client / Server Fixes

• Fixed handling of Unicode surrogates eg 🔥

Server / Sim Fixes

• Fixed beam weapon collisions with structures, terrain and water surface

Balance Changes

Commander

• Can now build orbital launchers and umbrellas

Icarus Solar Drone

• Beam weapon now collides with enemies, structures, terrain and water surface

Orbital Launcher

• Cost decreased to 600 to match T1 factories
• Commander buildable

Orbital Factory

• Cost increased to 6,000 from 3,600

Umbrella

• Commander buildable

Anchor

• Beam weapon now collides with enemies, structures, terrain and water surface

SXX-1304 laser platform

• Beam weapon now collides with enemies, structures, terrain and water surface
• Underwater vision removed

Artemis railgun platform

• Beam weapon now collides with enemies and structures

Omega orbital battleship

• Beam weapon now collides with enemies, structures and terrain
• Can now target seafloor
• Now has underwater vision of 200

Helios orbital titan

• Beam weapon now collides with enemies, structures and terrain

Dox assault bot

• Speed increased to 19 from 18

Grenadier

• Vision decreased to 115 from 125

Storm mobile flak

• Removed underwater vision

115482

• TITANS 1v1 Ranked Season 10
• Translations

115506 / 115521 / 115529

• Upgraded AWS servers in all regions with faster CPUs and more RAM (c5n > m5zn instances)
• Fixed missing unit types (115521)
• Fixed spurious unit alerts (115521)
• Gnugfur commander is now FREE (115529)

New unit types:

• UNITTYPE_Interplanetary
• UNITTYPE_TacticalDefense
• UNITTYPE_Radar
• UNITTYPE_RadarJammer

Balance Changes

Grenadier range decreased to 140 from 145

Catapult tactical missile launcher

• Rate of fire increased to 0.4 from 0.2
• Cost increased to 2,000 from 1,800

Holkins long range artillery cost increased to 10,000 from 9,600

Orca destroyer torpedo range decreased to 145 from 150

Orbital Fabrication Bot surface radar changed to surface vision

115546

• Improved multi-threading on upgraded AWS servers
• Fixed client crashes caused by mods

115678 / 115693 / 115711

• Fixed ALWAYS order and build previews ignoring SELECTED
• Changed amphibious units on sea floor to require underwater vision if below the water line (115693)
• Added SELECTED OR ALL to order and build previews (115711)

Balance Changes

AA target priorities now include Icarus solar drone.

Underwater vision removed for all non amphibious land units.

Spark vision decreased to 120 from 130.

Grenadier vision decreased to 100 from 115.

Hello Commanders,

Did you want to know what Planetary Annihilation Inc is doing to help you stay safe during COVID-19? No? Didn’t think so. Instead we’ve spent the time adjusting the dials, tweaking the numbers and fiddling the stats, all to create the new perfect™ balance. We’re making adjustments to make it easier to create your initial base, make tanks more viable as an early game option, and also make it easier to get into the orbital layer.

For the map makers among you, we fixed metal on the equator, allowed you to quickly create backups as you work, and height adjustments are now possible for terrain. You’ll need to dive into the pas files with your preferred text editor to make the changes, no fancy UI just yet, but it will allow you even more control over your creations. In return, don’t create systems with planets as far apart from one another as possible and orbital travel times so long they verge on the realistic. No one likes those systems. Please stop.

New support section on website (work in progress): https://planetaryannihilation.com/support/

Horsefly update: https://planetaryannihilation.com/news/horsefly-and-titans-1v1-ranked-mid-season-4-winners/

Technical Notes

TITANS Balance Changes

Fixed attack (focus fire) delayed targeting and charging to their death for units with a firing delay, ballistic solutions, etc. eg Commander, Grenadier, Hornets, etc.

Queued area load and unload can now be used to create a temporary ferry.

Commander

• Build range increased to 30 from 20
• Faster and more accurate alt-fire ubercannon d-gun (114438)
• Fixed all commanders to have identical mesh bounds based on base commander spec (114438)

Icarus Solar Drone

• Speed increased to 50 from 30

Stryker attack vehicle

• Speed increased to 20 from 15 (faster than Dox)

Grenadier

• Rate of fire increased to 0.5 from 0.4
• Range increased to 145 from 130
• Yaw ranged increased to 135 from 90
• Idle aim delay decreased to 0.5 from 1.0
• Firing standard deviation decreased to 0.75 from 1.0

Drifter hover tank

• Range increased to 115 from 100
• Damage increased to 125 from 120

Pelter medium range artillery

• Firing standard deviation increased to 0.5 from 0.35
• Range decreased to 240 from 260

Orbital Launcher

• Cost decreased to 1,500 from 2,000

Mend advanced combat fabricator (check the build range)

• Can now build Anti-Nuke Launchers and Umbrella anti-orbital defenses

Anchor defense satellite

• Ground weapon range reduced to 80 from 100

Jig gas mining platform

• Metal production decreased to 30 from 36
• Energy production decreased to 7,500 from 9,000

Piranha gunboat / sea scout:

• Navigation changed to new water-hover (114438)

Stingray missile ship target priorities:

• Air & ( Transport | Bomber | Gunship | Titan )
• Mobile & Air

Narwhal frigate target priorities:

• Air & ( Transport | Bomber | Gunship | Titan )
• Mobile & Air

Horsefly advanced heavy strafing aircraft

• Cost increased to 2,000 from 1,200
• Health decreased to 1,250 from 1,500
• No longer targets air

https://planetaryannihilation.com/guides/titans-balance-changes/

Client Improvements

• Added support for interplanetary area and line formations with load / unload
• Added control build range preview
• Added official support link to start menu and removed community support link
• Added alt / option alternative area build (114438)
• Added max radius for alt / option alternative area build (114445)
• Changed Armory to be available offline and show locked commanders not available to purchase without steam overlay (114473)

Client Fixes

• Fixed black screen issue where load event for splash image failed to fire (patched by community mods)
• Fixed strategic icons and fog of war lighting showing when units teleporting
• Fixed invalid userIds causing empty friends list (114473)

System Editor Improvements

• Added export to system editor for fast backups while creating maps
• Added description, creator and version to system editor

System Editor Fixes

• Fixed system editor metal sport validation
• Fixed unselectable sunken CSG in system editor

Server / Sim Improvements

• Added continuous area load / chase and interplanetary area load / unload (queued area load / unload orders can be used for temporary ferry)
• Added terrain height adjustments to planet builder
• Added water-hover navigation type for low draft brown water navy access to shallows (114438)

Server / Sim Fixes

• Fixed transport / distance with teleport load / unload exploits
• Fixed death explosion damaging their own wreckage
• Fixed move sub tasks targeting a unit only targeting initial position resulting in missed air / orbital loads for moving units
• Fixed nav agent targeting of lower layers by air / orbital not excluding radius of each agent resulting in missed loads as vertical move outside of goal range
• Fixed attack (focus fire) charging to their death for units with a firing delay, ballistic solutions, etc
• Fixed attack (focus fire) weapon targeting (114438)

Modding

• Added to transporter spec
  • load_range
  • chase_range
• Added alternative area builds to unit spec: (114438)
  • alt_area_build_separation
  • alt_area_build_type
  • alt_area_build_pattern

• Added to unit state JSON for map units capture: (114438)
  • unit_spec
  • army [index]

Content Creation

• Added --no-sun and –-no-planets with hidden black biome for video capture using api.ar_system.changeSkyboxOverlayColor(0,0,0,1)

Terrain Height Adjustment Example

{
    "name": "test",
    "description": "",
    "author": "",
    "version": "",
    "planets": [
        {
            "name": "test",
            "mass": 20000,
            "position_x": 13400,
            "position_y": 1200,
            "velocity_x": 17.19521141052246,
            "velocity_y": -192.0131072998047,
            "required_thrust_to_move": 0,
            "starting_planet": true,
            "respawn": false,
            "start_destroyed": false,
            "min_spawn_delay": 0,
            "max_spawn_delay": 0,
            "planet": {
                "seed": 1,
                "radius": 500,
                "heightRange": 100,
                "waterHeight": 50,
                "waterDepth": 100,
                "temperature": 100,
                "metalDensity": 50,
                "metalClusters": 50,
                "metalSpotLimit": -1,
                "biomeScale": 50,
                "biome": "grass",
                "symmetryType": "terrain and CSG",
                "symmetricalMetal": true,
                "symmetricalStarts": true,
                "numArmies": 2,
                "landingZonesPerArmy": 0,
                "landingZoneSize": 0,
                "heightAdjustments": [
                    {
                        "normalizedAdjustment": -0.5,
                        "radius": 200,
                        "pos": [
                            0,
                            0,
                            500
                        ]
                    },
                    {
                        "normalizedAdjustment": -0.5,
                        "radius": 200,
                        "pos": [
                            500,
                            0,
                            0
                        ]
                    }
                ]
            }
        }
    ]
}

JavsScript example of 10 equally spaced terrain height adjustments using golden circle for a 600 radius planet in the System Editor scene using the debugger:

(function(count, adjustment, radius)
{
    var planetRadius = model.radius();

    var increment = Math.PI * (3 - Math.sqrt(5));

    var offset = 2 / count;

    var adjustments = [];

    for (var k = 0; k < count; k++)
    {
        var y = k * offset - 1 + (offset / 2);
        var r = Math.sqrt(1 - y * y);
        phi = k * increment;
        adjustments.push({
            normalizedAdjustment: adjustment,
            radius: radius,
            pos: [planetRadius * Math.cos(phi) * r, planetRadius * y, planetRadius * Math.sin(phi) * r]
        });
    }

    model.heightAdjustments(adjustments);
    model.heightAdjustments.valueHasMutated();
    model.update_planet_spec();
    model.previewTerrainSelectedPlanet();

})(10, 1, 100)

Lave biome with generated terrain height adjustments:

{
    "name": "test",
    "description": "",
    "version": "",
    "planets": [
        {
            "name": "test",
            "mass": 20000,
            "position_x": 13400,
            "position_y": 1200,
            "velocity_x": -17.19521141052246,
            "velocity_y": 192.0131072998047,
            "required_thrust_to_move": 0,
            "starting_planet": true,
            "respawn": false,
            "start_destroyed": false,
            "min_spawn_delay": 0,
            "max_spawn_delay": 0,
            "planet": {
                "seed": 1,
                "radius": 600,
                "heightRange": 10,
                "waterHeight": 0,
                "waterDepth": 0,
                "temperature": 100,
                "metalDensity": 50,
                "metalClusters": 50,
                "metalSpotLimit": -1,
                "biomeScale": 50,
                "biome": "lava",
                "symmetryType": "terrain and CSG",
                "symmetricalMetal": true,
                "symmetricalStarts": true,
                "numArmies": 2,
                "landingZonesPerArmy": 0,
                "landingZoneSize": 0,
                "heightAdjustments": [
                    {
                        "normalizedAdjustment": 1,
                        "radius": 200,
                        "pos": [
                            261.533935546875,
                            -540,
                            0
                        ]
                    },
                    {
                        "normalizedAdjustment": 1,
                        "radius": 200,
                        "pos": [
                            -315.9520263671875,
                            -420,
                            289.43792724609375
                        ]
                    },
                    {
                        "normalizedAdjustment": 1,
                        "radius": 200,
                        "pos": [
                            45.427738189697266,
                            -300,
                            -517.6256713867188
                        ]
                    },
                    {
                        "normalizedAdjustment": 1,
                        "radius": 200,
                        "pos": [
                            348.2481994628906,
                            -180,
                            454.2281188964844
                        ]
                    },
                    {
                        "normalizedAdjustment": 1,
                        "radius": 200,
                        "pos": [
                            -587.8665161132812,
                            -60,
                            -103.98531341552734
                        ]
                    },
                    {
                        "normalizedAdjustment": 1,
                        "radius": 200,
                        "pos": [
                            503.7155456542969,
                            60,
                            -320.422607421875
                        ]
                    },
                    {
                        "normalizedAdjustment": 1,
                        "radius": 200,
                        "pos": [
                            -148.58802795410156,
                            180,
                            552.7400512695312
                        ]
                    },
                    {
                        "normalizedAdjustment": 1,
                        "radius": 200,
                        "pos": [
                            -239.4943084716797,
                            300,
                            -461.1317443847656
                        ]
                    },
                    {
                        "normalizedAdjustment": 1,
                        "radius": 200,
                        "pos": [
                            402.4857482910156,
                            420,
                            146.98715209960938
                        ]
                    },
                    {
                        "normalizedAdjustment": 1,
                        "radius": 200,
                        "pos": [
                            -241.7477264404297,
                            540,
                            99.78994750976562
                        ]
                    }
                ]
            }
        }
    ]
}

114349 / 114353

Horsefly advanced heavy strafing aircraft

• Cost increased to 2,000 from 1,200
• Health decreased to 1,250 from 1,500
• No longer targets air

114438

• Updated translations
• Added alt / option alternative area build
  • Four wide strips of land mines
  • Double walls
  • Nuke farm sphere
  • Double Galata Anti-Air
  • Double Flak Cannon Advanced Anti-Air
  • alt_area_build_type
  • alt_area_build_separation
  • alt_area_build_pattern
• Added normalizedAdjustment property to terrain height adjustments with range -1 (water bottom) to 1 (max height)
• Added water-hover navigation type for low draft brown water navy access to shallows
• Changed Piranha gunboat / sea scout to new water-hover navigation type with new flat bottom model
• Faster and more accurate alt-fire ubercannon d-gun
• Fixed all commanders to have identical mesh bounds based on base commander spec
• Fixed attack (focus fire) delayed targeting and charging to their death for units with a firing delay, ballistic solutions, etc. eg Commander, Grenadier, Hornets, etc

114445

• Updated translations
• Added alt / option alternative area build
  • Double Lob
  • Double Turret
  • Double Pelter
  • Double Catapult
  • Double Holkins
• Added max radius for alt / option alternative area build
  • Land mine
  • Nuke Launcher
  • area_max_radius
  • alt_area_max_radius
• Fixed alt / option area feature crash

114473

• Updated translations
• Changed Armory to be available offline and show locked commanders not available to purchase without steam overlay
• Fixed invalid userIds causing empty friends list
• Stingray missile ship target priorities:
  • Air & ( Transport | Bomber | Gunship | Titan )
  • Mobile & Air
• Narwhal frigate target priorities:
  • Air & ( Transport | Bomber | Gunship | Titan )
  • Mobile & Air

114475

• Updated translations
• Fixed compatibility issue with some mods

113583 / 113600 Balance Changes

Hello Commanders,

War never changes. At least that’s what they say, yet on 18th August 2019 we celebrated one year since Planetary Annihilation Inc took over development of this mighty game, and what an exciting year of change it has been.

Modernisation of the underlying tech foundation was a big goal for us when we started. We have modernised the entire development toolchain, helping to reduce defects and improve performance. We have also upgraded the Coherent UI framework and eliminated numerous crashes. At this point if your client is crashing you probably need to update your graphics drivers. We are aware of the Linux Mesa issues so please hang tight, we’re working on it!

A huge amount of effort has been put into the server, given that it is responsible for most of the heavy lifting. We have spent a lot of time improving performance, both through changes to the AI and the mechanisms that underpin the simulation. That includes more multi-threading, more optimisation and of course less crashes. You can now get buttery smooth performance on systems and setups that would have been unthinkable a year ago.

Aiding this has been the migration to PAnet, our modern backend infrastructure. Better servers mean bigger and better games and a happier community.

Single player is still incredibly popular among our community so AI updates have remained a big focus. We keep making it smarter and deadlier, so if you are struggling to win more than before, it’s not you it’s us.

Multiplayer is not forgotten either and the ranked queue is feeling more active than ever before, with seasons ensuring everyone gets their chance to shine with map rotation and balance changes keeping it fresh. Add to that a prize pool of US$4,500 per season to keep it competitive.

Of course, while it is pleasant to feast on cake and grow fat we can’t just rest on our laurels, there is a lot of work we still want to do and a gift we want to give.

The Stryker takes on the role of a fast, low armoured raider. Giving vehicles more of an early presence, you can keep the pressure on your opponent while also defending your valuable fabbers against Dox.

The time of the Navalpocalypse is upon us, with ships now enjoying FTL (Faster Than Land) propulsion. The person who came up with this term is very pleased with themselves, don’t let it catch on or they’ll become insufferable. No longer will your naval games feel like an eternal slog, instead they will be more of an elegant duel with massive guns. There has also been a significant adjustment to the Typhoon to improve its viability and enable Squall swarms to blot out the sun, as the prophecy foretold.

Finally, we have made more improvements to the AI’s performance so that it will wait patiently and put its hand up, ensuring it is less demanding of your CPU’s time. This may be the most significant performance improvement we have made so far in our AI.

It has been a great year and we look forward to an even better one to follow.

Recap:

• modernised client
• modernised server with more multi-threading and AI improvements
• PAnet migrated from UberNet with modern servers and more regions
• 1v1 ranked seasons with new maps, balance changes and a US$4,500 prize pool every 3 months
• Stryker!

---

Technical Notes

TITANS Balance Changes

• Stryker (113578)
• Naval speeds increased
  • Narwhal frigate speed increased to 12 from 9
  • Orca destroyer speed increased to 12 from 9
  • Stingray missile ship speed increased to 11 from 8
  • Leviathan battleship speed increased to 11 from 8
• Typhoon drone carrier
  • Typhoon drone carrier speed increased to 11 from 8
  • Cost decreased to 5,200 from 6,500
  • Ammo rate increased to 30 metal per second (20 stored drones then one per second once depleted)
  • Initial launch stage decreased to 200 from 500 (shorter launch before turn)
  • Now targets sea floor
  • Guard layer changed to WL_AnyLayer from WL_AnySurface with guard radius of 100 (113583)
  • Launch projectile lifetime changed to 3.0 from 2.0 (113583)
  • Squall drones
    • Weapons priority changed to torpedoes
    • Torpedo rate of fire increased to 0.8 from max 1 (up to 10 low damage torpedoes depending on range to target)
• Kestrel gunships:
  • Can no longer target underwater layer (subs)
  • Cost increased to 800 from 600 (113600)
• Changed manual targeting of Galata AA to only damage air (113600)

Client Improvements

• –local-server-port to use a different local server port
• Added build bar size which can now be changed from 75% to 200% separately from GUI size (113578)
• Changed settings (113578):
  • Moved resolution scaling to top of graphics tab
  • Duplicated GUI size at top of graphics tab
  • Added build bar size to graphics tab and gameplay tab > user interface

Client Fixes

• Hopefully fixed build bar hot keys not always working (113578)

AI Improvements

• AI now processes path requests over time rather than all at once which should help smooth AI performance
• Multiple small AI performance improvements

AI Fixes

• AI platoons that fail to find a path back to base when disbanding will now try a direct move request as a last resort

113578 / 113581

Stryker is now live with build bar changes.

Modding

• Added id to each unit spec
• Added projectile_specs with basic info and projectile: true for buildable projectiles in each unit spec
• Added buildable projectiles to unit specs with merging of projectile ammo info if already in unit list (removing the need for ammoBuildHover hacks)
• Added unit specs to settings
• build bar is now flexible in width and no longer restricted to 3 x 6
• build bar entries are now specified as row / column with titans only / classic only flags

"/pa/units/land/attack_vehicle/attack_vehicle.json": ["vehicle", 20, {row: 2, column: 6, titans: true}]
"/pa/units/orbital/deep_space_radar/deep_space_radar.json": ["utility", 2, {row: 0, column: 2, classic: true}]

113583

• Stryker health increased to 60 from 50 (may tweak further)
• Typhoon drone carrier
  • Guard layer changed to WL_AnyLayer from WL_AnySurface with guard radius of 100
  • Launch projectile lifetime changed to 3.0 from 2.0 (should resolve disappearing squalls)

113600

• Stryker strategic icon updated, accelerate / brake increased to 150 from 100 and now targets sea floor
• Kestrel gunship cost increased to 800 from 600
• Changed manual targeting of Galata AA to only damage air

Update: 113132

Hello Commanders,

With the successful launch of TITANS 1v1 ranked ladder season 2 with new leaderboards it’s back to toiling away in the update mines.

In the background, work continues on our tech upgrade and the prerequisites necessary to transition to the new PAnet infrastructure. While these 2019 long-term goals remain long-term, we still want to deliver some additional improvements to the game that is currently in your hands and ensure support for the widest playerbase possible.

You should try out our modern build branch, which will eventually replace the legacy branch, if you’d like to enjoy some performance and stability enhancements right now including an update to Coherent UI, the framework for our moddable user interface.

With 113132 we have switched to the modern build as our default client and we hope you enjoy the performance enhancements of our modern toolchain. If you have any issues with the modern build you can fallback to the legacy build.

See our Happy New Year update for a reminder of the modern build details.

Translations

We’ve seen an increase in the number of non-English speaking players playing our game and we want to make sure we’re giving you our full support. We have engaged with a new translation team to update and improve the existing translations, replace community translations, and add support for Japanese. We’re also updating Community Mods to allow for mod translations.

As you can imagine this is a big job so we’ll be doing it in a number of passes, focusing first on adding missing strings.

In this patch we’ve included updates for:

• French
• German
• Russian
• Simplified Chinese
• Traditional Chinese
• Korean
• Japanese
• Italian
• Spanish
• First pass of Polish (incomplete in 113132)

Report issues with existing translations in this thread.

Work in progress:

• Official translation support for mods

Also in the works are plans to add servers in South-East Asia (SEA) once we complete our migration to PAnet.

TITANS 1v1 Ranked Mid-Season 2 Winners

We’re roughly halfway through season 2, which means it’s time for mid-season prizes. Congratulations to all those who fought the good fight, blew up a whole lot of robots, and are walking away with their well deserved spoils.

Uber #1 (US$500): [TNC] [Nik] NikolaMX (whew, this guy is just too good)

Most active players (US$100 each)

Uber

• [TNC] [Nik] NikolaMX
• [BSE] Diskraip
• [ICARUS] nimzo

Platinum

• [WAF] Viroo
• PAG_Clopse
• Sinoccence

Gold

• [BSE] Qivy
• [GPP] Isaac Arthur
• Alive In

Silver

• muhr
• go
• e1vis

Bronze

• FrigoPorco
• TotalAnnihilator
• ΗΑΖΞ

Winners will be contacted shortly to arrange payment of their prize.

Now we enter the second-half of the season, and that means there’s US$1000 up for grabs for the Uber #1 spot. We’ve seen the return of some big names from the past, so we expect the battle to be hard fought. There will also be another round of most active prizes for each league. You can check out the full prize details in our season 2 announcement post.

We’re also making a few map adjustments based on feedback and game review. These are intended to improve the flow of play and your general 1v1 ranked experience.

AI

It wouldn’t be PA if we didn’t keep improving the AI. Some of you noticed it was seeming a little under the weather recently, but we found the cause and administered treatment. Now the AI should be face rolling you once more. This includes improved air and naval attacks. You may also notice it’s more prone to bombarding you from the coast too. Ooooo, nasty.

As many of you will know, the AI’s Commander often liked to plant both feet in the soil, hold the line, and then explode in combat against forces it should never have fought. These Commanders are expensive to replace, so we’ve taught it that discretion is the better form of valour, leading to less unnecessary deaths, and it surviving to deliver the late game awesomeness we know you want.

Lastly, we did some work on enhancing the speed with which the AI processes all this information, making it more efficient than before.

TITANS Balance

Air has been a continuous thorn in the side of balance, often overwhelming the defences intended to stop it due to the ability for a player to commit their full strength to every engagement. In an effort to combat this we have boosted the strength of all land anti-air, including the Commander, with the intent to allow a greater diversity of play and hopefully reduce the massive fighter blobs. No longer will your Dox fight in the shade.

The Locust has also seen a further nerf, with a reduction to health. This allows for units like the Laser Defense Tower to kill them with a single shot. They’re still devastating if undetected, but easier to stop once spotted.

The Icarus has had a minor change made to its attack behaviour so that it attacks like a gunship. Will this make it a powerful weapon of destruction? Nope. Will it make it look so much cooler before it explodes? You bet. It will also be slightly harder for Dox to hit.

Stability

We, and our community testers, have spent many hours hammering away, looking for any defects so that we could reap a bountiful harvest of logs and crash dumps. These have been used to squash a number of crash root causes, including the single largest cause of server crashes.

In our modern build we have also updated Coherent UI to resolve a defect we identified which could cause client crashes.

Stability remains a big focus going forward, and an area we continue to work on. Thanks to everyone who helped us by running the PTE build.

tl;dr

This is an update about language and you skipped it? Are you aware of irony?

• First pass of new and improved translations
• South East Asia (SEA) servers planned
• Mid-season ladder prizes awarded
• Ranked maps updated
• Improved AI
• Balance changes
• Improved stability and modern Coherent UI update

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Technical Notes

Aww yiss, this is the good stuff.

Translations

New translation handling:

• New prefix in literal strings that support knockout bindable HTML:
  • !LOCID:locId:locText
• New data-loc-id and data-loc-no-style attributes that support knockout bindable HTML without styling:
  • <loc data-loc-id=”locId” data-loc-no-style>locText</loc>

TITANS 1v1 Ranked Map Pool Updates

Aquilaris

• Platforms opened to amphibious and hover units

Bulkhead

• Removed spawn platforms
• Added 2 metal near the base

Lost Temple

• Reduced the amount of water metal
• Increased the starting platform size
• Moved metal closer to the base and into tighter clusters for defence

Riddler

• Increased base space by shrinking lava crevasse
• Moved some metal points at the equator
• Lowered the CSG around the air only metal
• Reduced crater metal from 6 to 4

TITANS Balance Changes

Commander

• AA rate of fire increased from 1 to 2 shots per second (reducing early game air snipes)
• Target priorities changed to equal priority for main threats:
  • Air & ( Transport | Bomber | Gunship | Titan)
  • Mobile & Air

Spinner Vehicle Anti-Air

• Rate of fire increased from 2 to 3 shots per second (open up ground pushes against heavy air)
• Target priorities changed to equal priority for main threats:
  • Air & ( Transport | Bomber | Gunship | Titan)
  • Mobile & Air

Locust Nanoswarm

• Health decreased from 80 to 60 (easier to kill and will require more micro if rushed)

Icarus Solar Drone

• Attack behaviour changed to aggressive circle-strafe (similar to Kestrel gunship)
• Target priorities changed to:
  • AirDefense | ( Land & Mobile ) | ( Naval & Mobile )
  • Air
  • Fabber | EnergyStorage | MetalProduction
  • Land & Naval

Galata Turret Anti-Air

• Rate of fire increased from 3 to 4 shots per second
• Target priorities changed to equal priority for main threats:
  • Air & ( Transport | Bomber | Gunship | Titan )
  • Mobile & Air

Bot / Vehicle / Air / Naval Advanced Factories

• Cost increased from 4,500 to 4,800 (slowing the T2 rush)

Client Improvements

• Increased maximum eco modifier to 10x
• Improved sandbox mode no longer requires a mod to show user interface for units, vision and control (will also be obvious if you join a sandbox game)
• Improved stability when marshalling data between Coherent UI and engine
• Improved performance and stability of pushing unit specs when starting live game
• Modern: updated to Coherent UI 2.5.9.3 which may improve rendering on Linux

Client Fixes

• Fixed missing languages in Steam client
• Fixed initial language not being set based on Steam client language setting
• Fixed commander selection in 1v1 ranked new game lobby
• Fixed a material library threading crash
• Fixed windows crash handler failing triggering a Window Error Report (WER) which was also masking the material library crash
• Modern: updated to Coherent UI 2.5.9.3 with fix for memory allocation crash
• Modern: updated libcurl with fix for login failures on Windows 7 (113132)
• Fixed a client crash during live game that was impacting high spec high core systems (113132)

Server Fixes

• Fixed our #1 server crash. We now know this was caused by creative use of multiple anti-entity target weapons in the Legion Expansion Rampart shield generator when encoding deltas for the ammo capacity history curve
• Fixed a crash if a seeking projectile was fired at a unit that as it leaves the planet
• Fixed a navigation cost cell integrator crash in pathing

AI Improvements

• AI performance improvement pass focusing on AI data updates, build location updates and attack location selection
• Improved the AI’s ability to use naval against land targets
• Improved the AI’s use of space near it’s starting base on some planets
• Improved the AI’s economy management
• Improved the AI’s handling of slow air platoons e.g. zeus + angel
• Small improvements to the AI’s nuke and Unit Cannon targeting
• AI Commander should no longer charge the front lines to its death
• AI platoons should spend less time stuck against terrain trying to attack something

AI Fixes

• Hardened the Fabber and Factory manager system to prevent a crash
• Fixed a math error causing the AI to only evaluate half the planet for military targets
• Fixed an error causing the AI to underutilize its air force
• Fixed AI not attacking on gas giants
• Fixed AI incorrectly marking bases as unable to deploy vehicle/naval units
• Fixed crash if a mod enables an AI controlled Unit Cannon to build fabbers
• Fixed AI commander getting stuck against terrain while trying to navigate back to safety (113132)
• Fixed AI unit cannons not building anything in some circumstances (113132)
  
• Fixed for AI sometimes getting stuck not using its unit cannons (113132)
• AI building placement perf improvements (113132)

Crash Reporting

• Added –enable-full-memory-minidump (Windows only) to be used when requested by support

Modding

• Work in progress: new unit specs API to replace Blueprint Info Framework

Other Modern Updates

• libcurl 7.64
• lz4 1.8.3
• miniz 2.0.8
• zlib 1.2.11
• libpng 1.6.36
• libsquish 1.15
• stb_truetype 1.21
• stb_image 2.21
• breakpad
• libsdl 2.0.9 for Windows (macOS was already 2.0.9 and Linux is system version)

113044 reverts to libsdl 2.0.8 for Windows. 113046-legacy fixes missing unit selection ring.

113132

• First pass of Polish translations (incomplete)
• Fixed AI commander getting stuck against terrain while trying to navigate back to safety
  
• Fixed AI unit cannons not building anything in some circumstances
• Fixed AI sometimes getting stuck not using its unit cannons
  
• AI building placement perf improvements
• Fixed a client crash during live game that was impacting high spec high core systems
• Modern: Fixed Windows 7 login issue
• Modern build is now the default client (you can switch back to legacy if needed)

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/