Planetary Annihilation: TITANS News

Migration to PAnet was completed on 2019-05-20 with build 113298.

Hello Commanders,

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



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:

• USWest (Oregon)
  
• USCentral (Ohio)
  
• USEast (Virginia)
  
• EUWest (Ireland)
  

Uber #1 (US$1,000): NikolaMX

Most active players (US$100 each)

Uber

• NikolaMX
  
• Diskraip
  
• nimzo
  

Platinum

• Pa!nCorgi
  
• Viroo
  
• Sinoccence
  

Gold

• Qivy
  
• Alive In
  
• theiban
  

Silver

• muhr
  
• G-Force
  
• go
  

Bronze

• FrigoPorco
  
• TotalAnnihilator
  
• MrStorm
  

If you have not received your prize contact support via https://support.planetaryannihilation.com/



Mid-season at 2019-06-06:00:00 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 3 at 2019-07-25:00:00 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
  

Four maps carried over from season 2:

• Aquilaris
  
• Disparity
  
• Centax-3
  
• The Ardennes
  

Remaining season 2 maps have been added to the in-game map list.

Twelve new maps:

• Backbone
  
• Exeunt
  
• Basilica
  
• Hopper
  
• Rotunda
  
• ASAT
  
• Hyde
  
• Kelvin
  
• Echo
  
• District
  
• Maginot
  
• Bailiff
  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9FV3rGqkZQ


Legacy builds are no longer supported and will not be updated.


Dutch updated as an official language


Improved region selection for players in different continents


Fix for failed to join game (113329)


Local server and public server changes:

• Improved performance of AI deployment data
  
• AI will do better at protecting its commander against nuke snipes (113318)
  
• Orbital lasers and the Orbital Titan will make attacking units that can attack orbital a priority (113318)
  

Local server and public server changes:

• Fix for platoon disbanding weirdness
  
• Fix for evaluateReconNeed AI crash
  
• Removed a couple of duplicated build conditions (113318)
  
• AI dps calculations will correctly take projectiles_per_fire into account (113318)
  
• Units that can target Air will now correctly have AntiAir threat (113318)
  
• Walls will now have Land threat (113318)
  
• MetMinFabberCount now counts Naval fabbers (113318)
  

Local client changes:

• New 1v1 and shared army team vs team maps from TITANS 1v1 ranked season two
  
• Updated Coherent UI with improved 4K+ support for Windows
  
• Improved start menu videos feed (moved into base game from community mods patch)
  
• Improved start menu streams feed (moved into base game from community mods patch)
  
• Improved start menu news feed (moved into base game from community mods patch)
  

Local client changes:

• Fix for 4K+ crashes on Windows
  
• Fix for Coherent UI crashes
  
• Fix for material library crashes
  
• Fix for social bar not shown after 1v1 ranked requeue
  

Local server and public server changes:

• AI no longer directly influences sim and all commands are queued
  
• AI now updates concurrently with history
  

Fixes for shutdown crashes



Holkins Long Range Artillery

• Target priorities added:
  

  Commander
  Titan & ( Land | Naval )
  Artillery & Advanced & ( Land | Naval )
  Nuke | NukeDefense

Ares Hover Titan

• Target priorities added to main weapon:
  

  Commander
  Titan & ( Land | Naval )
  Artillery & Advanced & ( Land | Naval )
  Nuke | NukeDefense

Bumblebee Bomber

• Target priorities added:
  

  Commander
  AirDefense & ( Land | Naval )
  Titan & ( Land | Naval )
  Artillery & Advanced & ( Land | Naval )
  Nuke | NukeDefense

Kestrel Gunship

• Can now target underwater layer (subs)
  

  Target priorities added:
  Commander
  AirDefense & ( Land | Naval )
  Titan & ( Land | Naval )
  Artillery & Advanced & ( Land | Naval )
  Nuke | NukeDefense

Hornet Tactical Bomber

• Target priorities added:
  

  Commander
  AirDefense & ( Land | Naval )
  Titan & ( Land | Naval )
  Artillery & Advanced & ( Land | Naval )
  Nuke | NukeDefense

Wyrm Heavy Bomber

• Can now target underwater layer (subs)
  
• Target priorities added:
  

  Commander
  AirDefense & ( Land | Naval )
  Titan & ( Land | Naval )
  Artillery & Advanced & ( Land | Naval )
  Nuke | NukeDefense

Zeus Air Titan

• Target priorities added:
  

  Commander
  AirDefense | ( Air & Fighter)
  Artillery & Advanced & ( Land | Naval )
  Nuke | NukeDefense

Orca Destroyer

• Torpedoes now have splash damage
  

Typhoon Drone Carrier

• Drones can now fire a single short range low damage torpedo
  

https://planetaryannihilation.com/news/panet-migration/




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




https://steamcommunity.com/games/386070/announcements/detail/1699433555461912598

Both games are updated at the same time.




Founding Kickstarter backers from September 2012 were gifted TITANS for free.

All other owners of classic PA can upgrade to TITANS at a permanent discount of 90% off for ~$US2.99.


https://planetaryannihilation.com/news/

https://planetaryannihilation.com/timeline/

Hello Commanders,

With the successful launch of 1v1 ranked 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 can 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 modern you can switch to legacy

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



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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
  
• 1v1 ranked mid season 2 prizes awarded
  
• Ranked maps updated
  
• Improved AI
  
• Balance changes
  
• Improved stability and modern Coherent UI update
  

Aww yiss, this is the good stuff.



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:
  

  locText

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 defense
  

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
  

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)
  

• 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
  

• 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 for possible fix for login failures on Windows 7
  

• 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 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
  

• 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
  
• Fix for crash if a mod enables an AI controlled Unit Cannon to build fabbers
  
• Hardened the Fabber and Factory manager system to prevent a crash
  

• Added

  --enable-full-memory-minidump

  Windows only to be used when requested by support
  

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

• 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.

• First pass of polish translations
  
• Fixed windows 7 login issues on modern build
  
• 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)
  

https://planetaryannihilation.com/news/translations-ai-and-modern-update-113132/




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




https://steamcommunity.com/games/386070/announcements/detail/1699433555461912598

Both games are updated at the same time.




Founding Kickstarter backers from September 2012 were gifted TITANS for free.

All other owners of classic PA can upgrade to TITANS at a permanent discount of 90% off for ~$US2.99.


https://planetaryannihilation.com/news/

https://planetaryannihilation.com/timeline/

Hello Commanders,

We recently launched season 2 of the 1v1 ranked ladder along with prizes for Uber #1 and the most active player in each league.

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/

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.

• 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
  
• Bulkhead updated for missing metal
  
• https://palobby.com/leaderboards/
  

https://planetaryannihilation.com/news/

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.



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.

• 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.



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)



Mid-season at 2019-03-08:00:00 UTC

• Uber #1 - US$500
  
• Three most active Bronze players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
  
• Three most active Silver players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
  
• Three most active Gold players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
  
• Three most active Platinum players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
  
• Three most active Uber players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
  

End of season 2 at 2019-04-26:00:00 UTC

• Uber #1 - US$1,000
  
• Three most active Bronze players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
  
• Three most active Silver players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
  
• Three most active Gold players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
  
• Three most active Platinum players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
  
• Three most active Uber players - US$100 each (UPDATED)
  

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.



Seriously? We spent a lot of time writing all that. Millennials are ruining the patch note industry.

• Ranked season 2 has begun
  
• New ranked map pool
  
• US$4,500 to be won this season (UPDATED)
  

Let the soothing voice of WPMarshall take you on a guided tour of this season’s maps: https://youtu.be/ienE1HgwmLM

UPDATE: 1v1 Ranked Leaderboard Update 112835

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.

Today's Deal: Save 75% on Planetary Annihilation: TITANS!*

Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!

*Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time