Planetary Annihilation x FAF

[tatsu]

Please give this a shot and read before screaming that I should have been in the Off-Topic

Is this Off-Topic? I honestly sincerely don't believe so.

It's about FAF in the crudest of ways. I've been waging a war internally over at the PA forums to shunt PA more towards the better good that we all know and love : FA (faf balance and patches)

Why? well because take a step back... it's not all too different. Scroll in and out to home on certain parts of the map, direct troops of a thousand units (this time around more!), decide what tool or combinations of tools will serve to take down the enemy commander, be more precocious about throwing all of your cards in if you are facing more than one adversary.

Ect.. ect.. ect..

well so far some progress has been made : we got strategic zoom in the general sense instead of having two split entities : the solar system and the planet, we got some of the orders we are used to having : queuing up at front of queue, at end, loop...

there's still some ways to go, the scale I feel is rather off. the health ratios completely bogus, but there's light at the end of the tunnel : for one a scale change is now a promise, for two balance mods have started springing up like wildflowers and I've chosen one for you that you might like :

the realm community balance mod. I can tell you that from my experience the longevity of units is incredibly refreshing.

I have also been releasing since version 49000 Sup Com icons, which I've finally made a FAF iteration of :


I also mean to highlight something that you see above : Hotbuild. Yes, the hotbuild you know and love. ...But on steroids... without exageration of any shape or form this hotbuild it tenfolds better than the one you are used to in FAF.

Also it will please you to learn that Uber is going for their own personal rewrite of Trueskill (because it's copyrighted) but for trueskill rather than elo, and therein is a fine victory.

I've published a couple guides that you may find of use.

All and any unit balance mods are on PTE, hence my guide to installing PTE :
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/guid ... pte.60594/

once that's done here's how to get the balance mods going, but really a more general guide to any type of mods :
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/mods ... ods.57013/

the first part only explains how to get balance mods going. to install general purpose mods click on the middle picture that says "click here" to be taken to the PA Mod Manager download page.

once PAMM is up and running you'll find everything is a one-click install then play just like this :


here are some videos of me playing with a series of mods, most or all of which are listed in the picture of the Mods guide i made :



You may find that the feel is rudimentarily close to FA. and we're getting closer.

[Zock]

to embed videos, you take the video id, behind the "v=", not the full url, and put it in the youtube tag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2csm70M-Eso

Code: Select all

[youtube]2csm70M-Eso[/youtube]

[tatsu]

thanks, I figured it out in the meantime thanks to this http://www.moneym8.com/2008/08/05/how-to-add-youtube-videos-to-phpbb3/!

so any feedback? opinions?

[pip]

1) I got bored watching one of your video. Nothing seems to happen.

2) If there are already required balance mods better than default balance of the game, before it's even finished, it means the community is split before the game is even finished. It's a big fail IMO.

3) Scale is off, but even if they redo it, it's too late for me, the game is ugly and underwhelming, I don't care about it anymore. The future of PA is FA. Playing PA is like playing an awkward version of TA with poor 3D graphics, but without any personality,with no proper artistic direction, with only one faction and without the units we all loved at the time. Better play TA on Spring IMO.

4) Duck created a random map generator for FA that produces random maps more appealing than what I see in PA.

5) They ripped off sounds from TA, and they managed to add new ones that really irk me. The only good thing in PA seems to be its soundtrack with orchestral score.

6) Since they invented the 'gamma phase' of a game development, when is it supposed to be finished? After Delta? Or is it really near completion? From what I see, it's still a long way from being finished.

[tatsu]

it is still a very long way from finished (BTW you'll have to pardon my terrible playing skills, neither me nor my opponents were of any worth this match I was more showcasing the icons than anything here, If you want more spiced up matches you have plenty of good videos from Matiz: http://www.twitch.tv/matiz_, Cola_Colin : http://www.twitch.tv/colacolin, and Gandalf : http://www.twitch.tv/planetary_annihilation). Gamma's an inside joke, the classical Beta and Alpha phases reflect nothing of what was in their PA versions. Realizing this and the confusion caused by the interval between expectations and reality, the developers decided to get rid of all connotation with the change of name, lest they be in Beta for a very very long long time.

All in all PA hasn't yet taken as much time to develloped so far as vanilla SupCom. I estimate they will take just as much time : three years.

As for the whole TA thing, I tend not to notice, having never played TA (not counting Zero-K and the likes). For me, personally, PA will always be closer to FA than TA.

Now as for gameplay I do concede that FAF by far outclasses that of PA. it is to be expected. If we are to convert it to SupCom age, it is currently equivalent to post-vanilla SupCom in age. at that stage SupCom also had terrible graphics a neigh-on nill unit roster and no playability :


7 years of hard works, a standalone extension, mods, patches, bugfixes, and balance passes later we have the FA (from FAF) we have today. Don't think rome was built in a day. It's easy to forget the long road FA has come.

so what you have to consider is the heart of my debate here, is PA's potential to be like FA (perhaps even have a PA tab in FAF (which is perfectly legal, btw, by the dev's own declaration)).

the thing to consider here is that the base features the PA engine comes with represents salvation for some FA players for others, enrichment of the FA experience :

• it contains FA's engine features :
  
  • it has the simulated projectiles running in real time.
  • it has terrain usage (to a lesser extent for the moment),
  • it has the large unit count
  • strategic zoom

• it adds to that :
  
  • Cross platform meaning linux and mac users alike get to come join in on the fun (and I know of linux's current workaround but the level of comfort in it's usage is too damn low if you need to start FAF up three times each time you wanna play)
  • server - client : down with other's cpu limitations! server that keep up with your beast, if people wanna play with a shitty PC, let them lag in their own corner. (not only this but Uber offers you the possibility to mount your own server --- basically, since they'll relese server side without DRM on release and as such you could potetially make even more potent servers then uber's themselves)
  • 64-bit, multi thread And ....you guessed it multi-core. Now tell me about somone on FAF who wouldn't love all that for FA
  • all the latest graphic tech, 3D FX, point light, point shadow, HDR, ambient occlusion, tessellation the kind of stuff people like to build Crysis, or whatever latest RPG or shooter with.... you could model your FPS soldier in PA and have him look just as good. (so why does PA look so shit you ask? ...well think of it this way : there currently is no unit limit in PA, none meaning if you wanna have a billion tanks, go right ahead, and you can achieve that number relatively quickly too. PA doesn't do anything to stop you from it. So in some FPS like BF4 you got some 1trillion polies on screen... yeah big deal... PA you can easily get 6trillion, and currently there's a severe lack of optimization so it doesn't unload much from the VRAM and RAM.
    end of story : it's an economic (in terms of performance) approach. they want to (and do) support intelHD2000 so if you wanna activate the super-high poly, super high texture, super high FX mod, go right ahead but you better pack a titan Z. I think that's my approach in anycase I plan to work on such mods. is this not how they make minecraft "playable"? Skyrim? heck even FA does it with it's water reflection mod, it's shiny metal mod, it's bigger trees mod, it's RK explosions mod (next in line to become stock), the current explosion we have is also a mod.
    that said if you don't wanna spend billions PA does look great as is honestly what's the issue here :
    
    and of course I've omitted the FX that are broken and glitchy but that's because they are obviously first pass, will be redone and get a day of glory. moving on to next point.
  • well, the billion unit limit is an obvious one, yes you'll have to split it up amongst number of players but that means if you are two you get to have 500000000 units ... running stable ... +1... ...not -10... ...do you realize?
  • next is the player numbers which we get to bump up from 12 to 40, not half bad if I do say so myself.
  • next is relay type playing, potentially even MORE then 40 players having played in one game through the power of swapping team members.
  • replay-is-your-savefile playing versus ai? no more need for a save button. even if your PC crashed you'll be able to pick up where you were, not only that but you get to pick any replay, ANY, and pick up as a player from a certain point.
  • the Team armies game mode. creative, innovative. Basically fullshare taken to the next level where you all control everything even each other's commanders and have unique economy. Not for everyone, perhaps, not for you i'll concede. My point is it interests alot of other players that want to develop teamwork and working in unison. obviously working on many planets at once bears a lot of complications that Team armies ingenuously solves.
  • a round playing surface obviously. Now this one is not unanimously agreed upon by the FAF community as an enhancement, but personally I think it adds an enourmous amount. even before the PA kickstarter was started and before the devs even had the idea of PA, I thought of taking things even more seriously by bringing the control zone to space and the whole planet as the natural progression of Supreme Commander. To be honest I originally thought that that was the only novelty SupCom 2 would bring. to my dismay it did everything backwards.

I think these are the key features of the PA engine we want to be interested in as FA players.

We have here the building ground for a bigger, better FA. that's what I see.

[LittleInferno]

You must really be kidding?

Sorry but now you have to take with me,in the same way you do when i talk on PA its even!

Arent you the one that when I say something bad on the PA forums about your terrible game that PA is,you tell me to go back to the crap FAF?

Arent you the one that when I say on PA forums that players should only think in PA has a diferent game and not try to match the almost perfect game that FAF is, because Ze-pilot sacrifice, by losing much of his life to devote to this community and some members of his fantastic team.
And you now what you tell me when i say that dont you?

Arent you the one and some more souls, who are constantly criticizing me on PA ,because I make too much publicity to the fantastic world of FAF.
Let me tell you because that publicity that you guys hate that i do on PA i already bring here about +/- 20 players and they love this game ....



Sry but How dare you bring to FAF and advertising to one of the worst rts of 2013/2015 to our community to try and take away players from here since no one plays PA right now .





When you know that 98% of FAF players hate PA game is at all possible aspects....

As always I say this is just my personal opinion that only reflects my thoughts.

Only Zaphodx e ColaColin Have went from FAF to PA.

I dont get what kind post you try to make with this but i prefer this game Etherium then the horrible Game PA is ,and plz focus to the main question you put here and not who im because i already now what you going to say!



FAForever will be the best rts for many years.....

[Gerfand]

I think that we can start comparing two games when both are released

but I don't konw where this Hate culture come from...
of course some advertisement about FAF is healthy
but start a "War" because a game is not the same is ridiculous... is like to say that CoD MW:2 is better than BF-3 becuse BF-3 is not CoD...

yes we can compare both games, but we need to have in mind 2 things:
1- PA is not a finished Product
2- admitting that is a new game, PA will have much more freatures than FA (especially becuse the dev's are the same)

So PA as game, can be better than FA (one reason that I don't support shields to PA), BUT this don't mean that will KILL FA(F)

Is better to try to use PA to grown FA, than to try to stop PA...
is like the proverb: "if you can't beat them, join them"
but w/out necessary joining they(I have both on Steam and will play both!)

P.S. lets start thinking like Rhianne Burke(peace) insted of Marxon(annihilation)!

[LittleInferno]

Its not a war actualy i hope PA have good game.

But when players like me see and try play PA and see PA players tell FAF its nothing compare to them awsome game ,maybe its only me but its really not easy...

[Gerfand]

it contains FA's engine features :

• it has the simulated projectiles running in real time. (TA)
• it has terrain usage (to a lesser extent for the moment), (TA)
• it has the large unit count (depends what you mean w/ large...)
• strategic zoom (well this is a SupCom thing)

[Legion Darrath]

Moved to off topic