Hello Commanders,
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.
Until next time.
TITANS 1v1 Ranked Mid-Season 3 Winners
Uber #1 (US$500): NikolaMX
Most active players (US$100 each)
Uber
- NikolaMX
- nimzo
- kiwi
Platinum
- n30n
- ptasior
- broom
- metapod (bonus)
Gold
- cuyto
- alive in
- iban
Silver
- muhr
- g-force
- scotter
Bronze
- petermeffert
- frigoporco
- bigbabybear
- chancer (bonus)
If you have not received your prize contact support via https://support.planetaryannihilation.com/
Technical Notes
TITANS Balance Changes
Grenadier
- 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.
Client Fixes
- Fixed macOS import / export (load / save) dialog crashes
- Fixed recover account URL
113426
- 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
- Fix for AI controlled orbital fighters/ships/railguns not targeting orbital structures
- Fixes for possible custom line formation crash
113430
- Fix for long standing issue of area commands not always working properly in PIPs that was also causing custom line formations to fail in PIPs
- Fix for long standing issue of undefined behaviour which could lose left click and also result in a crash when using custom line formations
113457
- Improved custom line formations
113462
- Added automatic mapping of extra mouse buttons to middle mouse camera pan and rotate
- Added additional Discord activity support
- Added basic Steam rich presence support
