Welcome to the most shamelessly pay-to-win tournament in your gaming calendar!
The Planetary Annihilation community proudly returns to host our sixth annual AbleGamers tournament in support of our favorite AbleGamers charity.
Sixteen veterans of this uniquely cataclysmic real-time strategy game will skirmish in a series of chaotic free-for-all battles. They will need to use all the wit, skill and diplomacy they have available to them as they try to claw victory from this frantic scrum. However, there is a twist:
YOU CONTROL THE CARNAGE
You, the spectators, have the ability to donate units to the player of your choice, LIVE, as you watch the battle unfold. Give an underdog a second chance, drop a Titan in the middle of a rampaging horde, or just throw down a load of nuclear missiles to watch the world burn… literally.
Our unique donation system gives you unprecedented control over the battlefield. We price up a selection of in-game units, allowing you to specify what you want to buy, how many of them, who you’re buying them for, and where you want them. Every single cent donated goes directly to the wonderful AbleGamers Charity. If you’re not able to be there on the night you will be able to make donations in advance!
SMASHING PLANETS FOR CHARITY
Join us for an evening of fun, philanthropy and frivolity over at https://www.twitch.tv/wpmarshall at 6pm UK time (18:00 UTC) on Saturday March 14th, hosted by PA casting veterans WPMarshall and TheWrongCat. Save the date in your phones, calendars, diaries, or whatever you use to organise your lives – do not miss your chance to participate in this awesome event.
Want to play? We are hosting a qualifying event one week prior on Saturday March 7th. Sign up here!
The base is on fire, the Commander is almost dead, but he’s still fiddling with a bomber somewhere to get the perfect bombing run. Will need you to build an economy for him because he’s not going to have the time, not with that bomber to fiddle with.
FerretMaster
No, not a weasel, he’s the cute not-a-weasel-but-really-similar-and-who-knows-the-difference-anyway one. But he’s not just one ferret, he is the lord of ferrets. Help him unleash cute, furry hordes upon his enemies with a donation of Booms. Tens of Booms. Maybe one hundred.
Anonemous2
The sheep amongst the wolves. They proved themself the strongest sheep, but will that help them? No. The answer is no. Send them the aid they need quickly before they get stomped in the first five minutes.
TheIban
A FFA is won by the individual who looks least threatening, and no one looks less threatening than this. Throw some units his way to get him the attention he doesn’t want.
Game B (blue)
NimzoDragonLord
He listens to classical music, evidencing a level of sophistication beyond your apish ways. Allow just a little of that class to rub off on you through a donation, and see him time the destruction to Mars the Bringer of War.
Quaatal
Described by friends as “frequently seen playing the game”. That’s the best you got? Terrible friends. Kickstart this woman’s self-esteem with a Catalyst and make her the destroyer of worlds.
Sinoccence
He has sin in his name, so that’s how you know he’s a bad boy. Or someone who misspelt Sinnocence. Look, what do you want from me? It’s for a charity for God’s sake, donate the man some units!
ThatSonOfABroom
Let him teach you the ways of PA, how to expand, how to produce, how to raid. Want to learn more? Donate the unit you wish to see demonstrated and let him show the way of the true PA master. Or learn from his mistakes.
Game C (yellow)
KillerKiwi
Map connoisseur. May not have time to build anything due to typing into chat all the problems he has with the map design. Send units to help him demonstrate those problems.
Smurf
Don’t let the terrible name fool you, this man knows his Planetary Annihilation. Rarely found playing under his own name, donate to honour him finally revealing himself for once. If he plays as blue though you should donate to his opponents to show what you think of a reference that lame.
MattShadowing
Strapping on his big boy pants, he’s newly qualified to the PA’s top division: uber. The light of hope shines in his eyes, and the power of friendship runs through his veins. But better to have the power of a Thor for annihilating his enemies paid for and delivered to his door.
VioletAnia
Embarrassing the young players of PA with her stories of “when I was uber rank”, she needs all the help she can get. Failing to make it through the first round last year despite massive donations, the challenge is on to find exactly how much money is needed to overcome her skill at claiming defeat.
Game D (green)
NikolaMX
Nik is of clan Nik. Naming a clan after himself should tell you everything you need to know about the confidence levels in play. Whatever you give, he will show you how to BM an opponent with it and still claim victory.
MaréchalGryzzly
Every time Nik loses a game he has a new excuse. Lag? Check. Spilled drink? Check. Misclick? Check. Trash panda attack? Check. Donate to France’s #1 player, defeat Nik, and discover new excuses together.
N30n
So bad at the game he wrote a balance mod specifically to ensure his dominance in some arena. Probably doesn’t know what half the units even do anymore. Send nukes, because he might just remember how to use the attack command still.
Diskraip
They said you couldn’t turtle in PA. He proved them wrong and dominated the ladder, leaving opponents feeling guilty, sad and depressed. Donating to him is trolling the enemy, and you wouldn’t want to troll, would you?
It’s Halloween, and the appearance of the Pumpkin Commander marks the end of season 4. It was a season filled with drama, but we’re happy to announce that the Uber #1 spot was finally clinched by andreasg. We also have three winners of the activity prize in each league, so check below to see if your name is listed.
For season 5 we’re getting a little experimental, trying out some new ideas for maps. Some will work, some undoubtedly will not, but we hope it’ll be a fun ride either way. A breakdown of all the maps, both returning and new, has been prepared by WPMarshall.
The prize distribution for this season remains the same as before, with the three most activity players in each league, and the player that holds Uber #1, gaining a cash prize at both the mid-season and end-of-season points. See below for exact dates and times.
Good luck on the battlefield and may the best Commander triumph.
As we prepared our costumes for Halloween, it
struck us: what better fit for a time of ghouls and goblins than an
eternal war across a cold, infinite, uncaring void with robots? Why had
we not seen this before?!
Instantly we sprang into action
devising something that would fit into the deep, rich lore of Planetary
Annihilation that we know you love. You might say we took a Commander
body and stuck a pumpkin on it, but we’re sure you’ll look deeper than
that and see a Commander that returned home and decided it must take on
the form of fear itself to defeat crime on its planet.
The aptly
named Pumpkin Commander (never let programmers name things) is available
to all players over this spooky Halloween period, after which it will
need to be purchased through the Armory, or won in an upcoming
tournament. Use it to rout your foes and claim their delicious candy for
yourself.
That’s the sound of the Horsefly exploding its way into Planetary Annihilation, the newest addition to your arsenal.
Found in the Advanced Air Factory and armed with rapid-fire cannons, it strafes targets to remove all the pesky AA (and fabbers) from the vicinity, while tanking return fire with its heavy armour. Conduct your bombing campaigns in peace once more. It will attack the land, it will attack the sea, and in a pinch it can even attack air.
For those of you running on Linux we have some good news: Planetary Annihilation will now work with Mesa when run within a Steam Proton environment. We continue to work with Coherent Labs on the native Linux issues.
We also have prizes to give out. The mid-season arrived, and with it the tightest contest for first yet. When the fires died down it was KillerKiwi who stood victorious among the wreckage. Congratulations to them, US$500 is on its way. We’ve also listed below the individuals from each league claiming the US$100 activity prizes, if you’re on that list and haven’t been contacted please raise a ticket with support. As ever, there will be further prizes issued at the end of the season (2019-10-25 00:00 UTC), so keep on fighting!
Some further adjustments to the air game have proven necessary, with Kestrel gunship damage slightly reduced. Flak has been adjusted to place greater emphasis on its splash, making it more of an anti-horde unit, while reducing its single target damage. The Storm mobile flak has also been given the ability to tilt its gun forwards and backwards to fire off a shot earlier against attacking bombers and to help it land shots in the middle of Kestrel gunship hordes, but it remains vulnerable when approached from the flank. The Angel advanced air support platform and Mend advanced combat fabricator can now auto reclaim the wreckage of your enemies or fallen comrades.
Finally, we’ve been improving various technical bits and bobs to continue enhancing performance, especially with loading of the UI and mods. SVG fonts are dead too. What’s an SVG font you ask? Look, it says SVG font in the technical notes, that’s all I know. Let’s mourn their passing together.
First target priority changed to Air & (Bomber | Gunship)
Range increased to 120 from 100 (113929)
Storm advanced mobile flak vehicle
Health increased to 400 from 300
Changed to fire 4 projectiles
Damage decreased to 15 from 60
Splash damage decreased to 10 from 30
Velocity increased to 100 from 60
Added pitch of 60 with pitch rate of 360
Second stage duration decreased to 300 from 700
First target priority changed to Air & (Bomber | Gunship)
Range increased to 100 from 80 (113929)
Kestrel advanced gunship
Damage decreased to 15 from 20
Wyrm advanced heavy siege bomber
Added heavy unit type UNITTYPE_HEAVY
Speed increased to 30 from 20 (113945)
Angel advanced air support platform
Can now manually reclaim wreckage / features and will auto reclaim nearby wreckage if nothing to repair
Speed increased to 40 from 30 (113945)
Health increased to 1,200 from 1,000 (113945)
Mend advanced combat fabricator:
Will now auto reclaim nearby wreckage if nothing to repair
Can now build Laser Defense Turret, Flak Cannon and Radar (113929)
Stryker attack vehicle, Ares hover titan, Atlas seismic titan and Zeus air titan mesh bounds adjusted
Amphibious units moving on the seafloor which are near the water or above the water surface can now be targeted as surface units (see below)
Lob Dox launcher range decreased to effective range of 240 (no change to existing behaviour and range circle will now be correct)
Dox assault bot, Slammer advanced assault bot, Stryker attack vehicle, Ant tank, Drifter hover tank and Leveler advanced tank can no longer target sea floor (113929)
Gil-E advanced sniper bot
Velocity increased to 1000 from 600 (113929)
Can now target Stingray Tactical Missile (113945)
Spinner anti-air vehicle range increased to 130 from 120 (113929)
Leveler advanced tank
Range increased to 140 from 120 (113936)
Velocity increased to 160 from 140 (113936)
Turn rate increased to 60 from 50 (113936)
Vanguard advanced heavy tank radar increased to 260 from 150 (113936)
Pelter short range artillery velocity increased to 160 from 150 (113936)
Dox assault bot, Slammer advanced assault bot and Stryker attack vehicle can no longer target air (113945)
Hornet advanced tactical bomber (113953)
Speed increased to 40 from 30
Can no longer target seafloor
Note: patrol will not normally reclaim if economy is positive and metal storage is full. Auto reclaim units will always reclaim wreckage while patrolling.
Added simple DPS calculation using damage x rate of fire x projectiles per fire to build bar and unit hover
Added POV camera weapons aim tracking with smoother transitions
Coherent UI 2.6.8.x with faster rendering and macOS Catalina 10.15 64 bit support
New download manager with HTTP/2 and multiplexing for faster mod downloads and XHR
Improved UI caching and loading times
Improved readability of top economy bar in header
Improved readability of build bar hovers
Added radius to top right planet selector details
Client Fixes
Fixed memory leak in multi-threading async parallel for
Server / Sim Improvements
Improved saving and loading of saved game / replay times up to 2.5x faster
Added amphibious units moving on the seafloor which are near the water or above the water surface can now be targeted as surface units eg Atlas titan is now targetable by any unit that target surface layers. Kestrel advanced gunships and Horsefly advanced strafer aircraft can target any unit as they appear out of water.
Added auto reclaim of nearby wreckage
Added reclaim of nearby wreckage to patrol for auto reclaim units
Server / Sim Fixes
Fixed memory leak in multi-threading async parallel for
AI Improvements
Added splash damage to DPS calculations
Added Phoenix advanced fighter
Added Piranha gunboat
AI Fixes
Fixed average mobile health including structures in its calculations
Galactic War Fixes
Fixed Phoenix advanced fighter buffs not being applied
Toolchain
Updated software development toolchain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toolchain
Visual Studio 2019 latest with 142 build tools / Windows 10 SDK latest
Xcode 11 / macOS 10.15.x latest for macOS Mavericks 10.9+
Latest steam linux runtime / GCC 6.2.0 (currently limited by Steam Linux runtime)
Steamworks SDK 146 with macOS Catalina 10.15 support for 64 bit only
Coherent UI 2.6.8.x with macOS Catalina 10.15 support for 64 bit only
Windows libcurl 7.66.0 with nghttp2 for HTTP/2 and multiplexing
Steam Proton compatibility
Fonts converted to WOFF and all UI html and css updated
Note: PA Launcher is not currently supported on macOS Catalina 10.15 and will be updated later this year.
AI Modding
Added --al-debug for instrumentation
Dumps unit threat analysis on start for first AI (assumes all AIs are using the same unit list)Dumps per planet influence map on pause
Added --ai-log and --ai-debug to client which will pass through to local server
Added personality.ai_path to specify a different set of AI files for side by side testing of changes eg Test: { ai_path: '/pa/ai2/', display_name: '!LOC:Test,
Added AdvancedFighter, Strafer and Gunboat / SeaScout to AI unit maps
Added personality.percent_open_vehicle, percent_open_bot, percent_open_naval, percent_open_air and percent_open_orbital to specify first factory percentages
Modding
Added auto_reclaim to build arm specs (same task as auto_repair)
Added projectiles_per_fire and dps to unit specs, build bar info and unit hover info
Added ignore_overshoot to nav specs to disable distanceToStartBraking warning
Added leash_behavior and leash_distance to nav specs to control unit assist behaviour (113801)
Mods may break in the following scenes if they make assumptions about layout:
start
gw_play
live_game_econ
settings
Mods may also break in any scene if they make assumptions about the social bar position.
There are now two versions of Coherent UI / Chromium which can make UI testing challenging:
Coherent UI 2.6.8.x / Chromium 40 on Windows / macOS
Assumes always visible with individual scenes like gw play and live game controlling visibility and layout
Live game handling via main scene has been disabled
Reworked main:
New splash handling
Reworked armoury:
Responsive layout
Improved TITANS upgrades
Improved handling when steam overlay not available
Reworked replays browser:
Responsive layout
Added winner (from community mods)
113909
Fixed live streams not clickable
Added stop_clears_nearby_targets for Horsefly advanced heavy strafer aircraft
113932 / 113929
Restored Coherent UI 2.6.8.x for Linux with fixes for boringssl/openssl segfault and mesa transparency.
TITANS Balance Changes
Dox assault bot, Slammer advanced assault bot, Stryker attack vehicle, Ant tank, Drifter hover tank and Leveler advanced tank can no longer target sea floor
Mend advanced combat fabricator can now build Laser Defense Tower, Flak Cannon and Radar
Gil-E advanced sniper bot velocity increased to 1000 from 600
Storm advanced mobile flak vehicle range increased to 100 from 80
Flak Cannon advanced anti-air range increased to 120 from 100
Spinner anti-air vehicle range increased to 130 from 120
Slammer advanced assault bot can now target air – jk
Horsefly advanced heavy strafer aircraft assist removed
113939 / 113936
TITANS Balance Changes
Leveler advanced tank
Range increased to 140 from 120
Velocity increased to 160 from 140
Turn rate increased to 60 from 50
Vanguard advanced heavy tank radar increased to 260 from 150
Pelter short range artillery velocity increased to 160 from 150
113945
TITANS Balance Changes
Dox assault bot, Slammer advanced assault bot and Stryker attack vehicle can no longer target air
Wyrm advanced siege heavy bomber speed increased to 30 from 20
Hornet advanced tactical bomber speed increased to 40 from 30
Angel advanced air support platform:
Speed increased to 40 from 30
Health increased to 1,200 from 1,000
Gil-E advanced sniper bot can now target Stingray tactical missiles
Horsefly advanced heavy strafer aircraft health decreased to 1,500 from 1,800
113953
Hornet advanced tactical bomber can no longer target seafloor.
Known Issues
PA Launcher is not currently supported on macOS Catalina 10.15 and will be updated later this year
Some mods may break with the update from Chromium 28 to Chromium 40 in Coherent UI 2.6.8.x as a result of html, css, layout, rendering, js and font changes
Modern native Linux may black screen or corrupt (toggle full screen (alt+enter), resize or refresh (F5) may correct)
PA was built with modding in mind, and while we appreciate the contribution that mod authors make to our game, please remember that running mods can sometimes lead to unexpected defects and crashes, especially after a new update.
Before reporting any issues please ensure you test the game without mods enabled. Defects with mods should be reported to mod authors in the PA forums thread for each mod.
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
The sun sets on season 3 and the close fought contest for Uber #1. Only in the closing hours did a clear victor emerge. Allow us to offer our congratulations to AndreasG who took the title this time around. He walks away with US$1,000.
The winners of the prizes of US$100 for the three most active players in each league have also been determined and can be found below. If you’re on the list, you should be contacted shortly to arrange payment of your prize.
Now, let us enter season four without hesitation. The format remains the same, with prizes for Uber #1 and most active players awarded at both the mid-season and end of the season. All ladder ratings have been reset to create a level playing field, so fight well and fight often!
We have got 16 maps in the pool this time around, with 8 returning classics and 8 which are completely new. All of these maps will only be available in ranked for the duration of the season. A list of the maps can be found below.
We would like to draw your attention to Shackle. This is our first multi-planet ranked map. Both players start on a planet together, but both an Annihilaser metal world and a smashable planet await you among the stars. Think of this as us experimenting with the possibilities of 1v1, as well as just injecting a little additional variety into the pool.
There are also two naval maps this time. Yes, two. Some will cheer, some will cry, but we’re committed making the naval experience the equal of land, so watch this space. Backbone returns from season 3, and we’re adding Diahyrdi with two spawns for you to choose from.
As per previous seasons, we’ll monitor the maps to see what works and what doesn’t, and any necessary changes will be made at the mid-season point. Keep that (constructive) feedback rolling in, but more importantly, go blow up a planet… we mean have fun. Though blowing up a planet sounds pretty fun, right?
The mid-season has passed but is not forgotten. You’ll find all the prize winners below, with a couple of extra players securing activity awards due to cosmic rays interfering with our computations. All winners will be contacted shortly.
One of the eternal struggles is the balance between basic (T1) and advanced (T2) units. It has become clear recently that this is still weighed too heavily in favour of T2, primarily because of the explosive nature of T2 MEXs. To combat that we’ve made T2 MEXs more expensive and reduced their income. Let the Ant hordes terrorise the battlefield!
Grenadiers also got a range increase to help against the number of turrets the modern Commander finds on the battlefield.
The AI got smarter. Again. Now when its giant force is reduced to one Dox while en route to a target, it will give thought to whether that’s really enough to eliminate your entire base and win the game. Then when it retreats the Dox it will use a safe path rather than the most direct one. It’s also looking for more opportunities to combine its forces into ultra mega death platoons. A real thing, let us assure you; check the lore.
The mod Cover the Line had become “must have” for many players, allowing them to easily split up units to dodge AoE and put troops into optimal formations for maximising firepower. It was also responsible for a lot of crashes. Now, let it not be said that we are not merciful, so rather than executing an immediate SXX strike upon this mod and all those who use it, we have instead added custom line formations to the game. Select some troops and get to right-click dragging that mouse to unleash the power of custom line formations.
Basic Discord support has also been implemented for ranked. Amaze your friends, not only with your skills, but also the amount of time your profile shows you as playing ranked mode. They’ll be left wondering why you haven’t hit Uber yet.
This, and more, can be found in the patch notes below. Feast your eyes.
range increased from 125 to 135 (will out range turrets)
Advanced Metal Extractor (slowing the T2 rush in favour of expansion, map control and T1 units)
cost increased from 1,500 to 2,000
production rate decreased from 20 to 15
AI Improvements
Land, Fighter, and Bomber platoons will now path safely back to base to disband instead of taking a direct path
Land, Fighter, and Bomber platoons that lose enough of their units while enroute to their destination will re-evaluate whether they should change targets or disband
Platoons will now merge faster
AI will now retask platoons if they are enroute to an area that has already been cleared of targets, rather than wait for the platoon to arrive first
AI Fixes
Fix for AI platoons getting stuck if they attempt to path and fail after a previous successful path
Fix for amphibious units that cannot attack while underwater getting stuck
Fix for AI controlled orbital fighters/ships/railguns not targeting orbital structures
Client Improvements
Added client side custom line formations for move, attack and unload (replaces Cover the Line mod)
Added basic Discord activity support with 1v1 ranked info (macOS / Windows only with current Discord SDK)
Added check for multiple copies of PA running to avoid local storage corruption (Windows only)
Added startpa: custom protocol handler (currently macOS / windows only with no parameter support)
Changed landing zones default rules max to 32 players
Added automatic mapping of extra mouse buttons to middle mouse camera pan and rotate (113462)
Added basic Steam rich presence support (113462)
Note: Custom line formations will move server side in a future update with support for factory rally to custom line formation.
We all know machines are superior to organics, yet they’re only as good as the hardware underpinning them. You know this, we know this, which is why upgrading the game’s server infrastructure has been such an important goal for us. The road has been long, the struggle real, and we are finally migrated to (drum roll please)… PAnet. Oooooo, literal chills. Uh, I mean, bleep bloop, fellow machine.
PAnet (Planetary Annihilation Network) is our replacement for UberNet and provides all the backend infrastructure for managing game servers and player accounts. It has faster servers for better sim speed, more regions for lower latency, and higher capacity servers.
TITANS 1v1 ranked season 2 came to a close at the end of April. It was hard fought for a while with Uber #1 changing hands multiple times. But as the dust settled a clear victor emerged in NikolaMX, a good 100 points clear of the nearest competition. Should the Progenitors return we know who they will want as their leader.
With season 2 over we surprised everyone with a transition to a season that was one digit higher. Four maps from season 2 have returned, along with 12 entirely new maps, courtesy of WPMarshall. The lessons of season 2 have been applied and we think you’ll find these maps a big upgrade. Ranks were wiped clean and it’s anyone’s game to win once more.
AI performance has been improved and its impact on the server decreased. In addition, we have again put a big focus on eliminating known sources of client and server crashes. We even did a thing with the updating of the toolchain so they have higher version numbers, and we all know higher version numbers are better, right?
PAnet Features
New features in PAnet:
modern servers with faster CPUs, more memory and increased bandwidth
new regions (see below)
New Regions:
USWest (Oregon)
USCentral (Ohio) – this was USEast (Virginia) on UberNet since March 2018
USEast (Virginia)
APSouthEast (Singapore)
APNorthEast (Japan)
The following regions have higher capacity servers for bigger games:
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.
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
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:
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)
UPDATE: We have expanded the participation prizes to include the three most active players in each of the five leagues for a total prize pool of US$4,500 this season.
Hello Commanders,
Season one of 1v1 ranked has ended, so let us give our congratulations to [TNC] [Nik] NikolaMX, a player so humble he put his own name in a clan tag.
Fighting off many worthy opponents he has dominated the Uber league, holding the #1 position for most of the season. An Invictus statue will be on its way to our deserving season 1 winner.
Season 2 – 2019-01-25 to 2019-04-25
It’s season 2!
All ranks have been reset; everything is up for grabs again.
A new season needs new maps. As you know we introduced four new maps mid-way through the previous season, and they’ll be carrying over to season two. But the rest of the maps have been taken out back and… retired. Sleep well old maps, you’ve served your time. Replacing them are eleven brand new maps.
Season 2 Map Pool (15)
Aquilaris (WPMarshall)
Bulkhead (WPMarshall)
Canyon (WPMarshall)
Centax-3 (Grand Homie)
Disparity (WPMarshall)
Enfer (Grand Homie)
Geonosis (Grand Homie)
Lost Temple (WPMarshall)
Lugaan (WPMarshall)
Niflhel (Grand Homie)
Riddler (WPMarshall)
Singe (WPMarshall)
Tartarus (Grand Homie)
The Ardennes (Grand Homie)
The Marne (Grand Homie)
New maps mean new strategies, and everyone is on an even footing because no one has had a chance to practice these before. We look forward to seeing what you make of them and hearing your thoughts on how they play. These maps will also be made available to play in custom lobbies in the near future.
Prizes!
Of course, what season is complete without prizes? And what could possibly top an Invictus Commander statue? Like that relative that doesn’t know what to get you as a present, we opted for cold, hard cash. Nice.
The player who holds Uber #1 at the mid-season point (2019-03-08 00:00 UTC) will be awarded US$500. The player who is Uber #1 at the end of the season (2019-04-26 00:00 UTC) will receive US$1,000.
But what about those of you playing in Bronze reading this and thinking, I’m never going to hit Uber so what do I care? Well we’ve got you covered too.
We will be awarding US$100 to the three most active players in each of the five leagues, both mid-season and at the end of the season. Doesn’t matter where you rank in the league, only how much you play. (UPDATED)
Summary of Prizes
Mid-season at 2019-03-08:00:00 UTC
Uber #1 – US$500
Three most active Bronze players – US$100 each
Three most active Silver players – US$100 each
Three most active Gold players – US$100 each
Three most active Platinum players – US$100 each
Three most active Uber players – US$100 each
End of season 2 at 2019-04-26:00:00 UTC
Uber #1 – US$1,000
Three most active Bronze players – US$100 each
Three most active Silver players – US$100 each
Three most active Gold players – US$100 each
Three most active Platinum players – US$100 each
Three most active Uber players – US$100 each
Maximum annual winnings for Uber #1 is US$6,800 if you hold the position all year and play the most!
All prizes are awarded at the discretion of Planetary Annihilation Inc. Players in breach of the Planetary Annihilation Community Rules and Guidelines may be disqualified. The decision of Planetary Annihilation Inc is final.
tl;dr
Seriously? We spent a lot of time writing all that. Millennials are ruining the patch note industry.
Our ladder uses a tried and tested ranking algorithm, with numerous best practices for implementation. To oversimplify, all players have two scores: stable and volatile. The former is a rating which the system has a high confidence in and should be used for ranking, avoiding placing a player too highly based on a few good games. The latter is a lower confidence rating, but looks at the potential of the player.
Volatile and stable are used for matchmaking to find opponents of the right difficulty. Think of stable as reflecting how good we know you are, while volatile is how good you might be. Over time these two ratings will converge.
During work to migrate to PAnet we have been examining the code underpinning the ladder and identified an issue. Rather than using the stable rating for ranks the ladder had been implemented using the volatile rating, leading to wild swings in position and players being placed in high level leagues far too easily. This runs counter to the goal of the ranking system: rewarding consistency of play over time.
A fix for this has been deployed and players have had their position on the ladder updated accordingly. All games played this season remain valid, none of your results have been lost or invalidated as a result of this change. The only change is to leaderboard ranks. This does not impact the result of season 1, we reviewed the data and [TNC] [Nik] NikolaMX was the clear winner.
Players with few games in ranked will likely find they have dropped to a lower rank, or even league. The key to your rank now is consistency over a large number of games. You will no longer be able to obtain Uber status with only a few games.
We debated leaving the ranking system unchanged for season 2, but decided as it was still very early in the season it was best for the health and integrity of the ladder that an immediate fix be deployed. This will lead to a better experience for everyone, avoiding the issue of players with a small number of games camping high ranking positions, allowing players who continue to play to see an improvement over time.
You will see a significant change in the number of players within each league at first. These numbers should change over time as players play more games. Thresholds for each league have not changed and we will be reviewing the season 2 data for possible adjustments in season 3.
Accompanying this change are three much requested features. Everyone’s stable score is now visible on the leaderboard, along with the number of games played, and you can view the top 500 of every league instead of just the top 10 both in-game and on the web at: https://palobby.com/leaderboards/
We hope this improved transparency, in combination with the leaderboard correction, will make for a more satisfying ranked experience.
Finally, players new to the ladder must complete 10 games before being assigned a rank. This allows the system to ensure a more accurate rating before adding people to a league.
Bulkhead has also been updated with a fix for missing metal spots that were identified.
tl;dr
The ladder has been updated to use the correct value for ranking players
The ladder UI has been updated to display your rank, games played, and 500 players per league
Players need to complete 10 games before being assigned a rank
For season 2 we are monitoring the use of smurfs and player behaviour. That may result in some changes, some warnings, some season bans and some permanent bans (a number of which have already been applied).
