v.63 Update Now Available

Opt in...OF COURSE!

Thank you!

This patch looks great. Gonna try it ASAP.

Tatsubj did you see the third bullet under "Gameplay"? You helped make that happen.

Solid changelog. thanks!

Are these performance improvements included with this update?

Keep up the good work

Could you please delete or remake current attack move sound for next update? As it's pretty annoying sounding.

Otherwise cool update 

Very quick feedback on 0.63. Having played (and lost) on the new map.

- The map is very open. That should make people happy. I was getting surprised by the direction from which the enemy was coming. Would need to do a better scouting job on such map.

- I now see that random maps might be asking for too much. Balanced maps are important and I think it would be too hard to make random maps balanced. I think the map editor plus steam workshop support would be better than random maps.

- I hit the 100 logistics cap and was not building any Quantum matrices. That was a disaster and I quickly fell behind. Would you consider giving us 100 quanta at the start so that 1. it delays the need to build quantum matrices and 2. if you are late getting up a quantum matrix you aren't screwed, and 3. if you are a good player who knows how to handle logistics you can use the quanta for a different kind of start, whether it be a different research option or even a global ability?

- The dot icons for the empire tree was a good idea. I think you need to keep the "leader" icon bigger though, since right clicking that icon is one way we assign solitary units to battle groups. Next I recommend you sort the icons in expanded battle groups so I can quickly eye how many of each kind of unit is inside the battle group. Right now the icons are displayed randomly, and it's hard to see how many brutes I have compared to archers. Lastly, auto-expand the trees for selected battle groups, and auto-collapse when deselected.

- Love the new music!

More feedback to come, keep up the good work!

Also, even the simplest of maps created with the map editor are not playable in 0.63.

I'm not sure how you're accessing the editor. It's supposed to be hidden.

It's hidden in the MainMenu

So I know it's finicky, I know you haven't made it readily available for us to use. But I've been chasing my tail with the editor for a few patches and I'm eager to know if my efforts are futile. It seems to me the editor alone is not enough to make a working map. I'm fine with that, if that is indeed true, I just want to know if it's true. Or ... Is the map editor all that is needed to get a working map and I'm doing it wrong? I don't expect and answer, but perhaps you'd be willing to surpass my expectations

0.63 notes on first play:

* Strategic Map button on the lower right needs to move.  It's blocking some of the Minimap (at least at 1080p, haven't tested 1440p with this build yet)

* Ground battle/scorch marks removed the amber glow from a metal resource node (was just black like the rest of the scorched ground nearby)

* I had about 8,000 in logistics unlocked.  About 4.5k in use, and then clicked on the minimap to view roughly 3k of my massive army.  Got a CTD.

Super impressed with this build.  The increases in costs for T2/T3 helps slow their progress a bit, so you don't have tons of them on your map at once.  If you extended their time to build about another 10-15% each that would be a great scale to try out.

I loved the more colorful UI icons.

Question:  Are we going to get the ability to setup Engineers in their own "Army" so they can co-build on a queue in an area?

Frogboy, we need a way to disengage man. Enemy group A showed up on radar and my nearest group B that could handle it was in the process of capping a different enemy's region. I tried to get group B to pursue group A, but it was so slow at responding that it was pointless to even try. It had the combat speed penalty having wiped out some buildings, and it spent a minute, no exaggeration, reshuffling. I don't see that kind of slow responsiveness appealing to many RTS players.

This patch is great.

-Loading up the new map, mini-map blank, terrain and enemy location unknown. Great stuff. Actually built a whole load of Pan for the first time Myself and my neighbours in the game were fairly large but white become the most powerful player and I hadn't even met/seen them yet. I love that and it is exactly what I was describing the other day.

I really hope you can get a random map generator into the lobby (PA managed it so here's hoping). You might want a toggle for symmetrical and not symmetrical maps. One for the competitive types, one for the people who don't mind/like non-symmetrical (though good if it made nearby Radioactives about the same). The black fog of war works particularly well for unknown maps I think, hence the random map making would just work perfectly with it.

-I dunno if the models have changed a bit or if it is the impact of the new colouring but the Brute does look cool in green, looking just like the name suggests.

- The extra zoom out definitely helps to enhance that epic battlefield feel, though sometimes I still would have liked a little more.

- The new map is massive; it is the first time I have felt this game is really bringing a feeling of scale that no other RTS has. Good stuff.

- The new map size really made me hunger for navy. On maps that size and up, with massive navy and land battles going on, it really could be phenomenal.

- Really like the battle scarring, definitely adds to the experience. I am sure it will improve further but I don't really have any pointers as I am not an art guy.

- Good music

I do still agree that there needs to be a way to retreat/disengage. If you don't want to get rid of the slow down perhaps the ability to retreat an army to nearest player controlled node? Though that won't help if you are already fighting over your node and you want to abandon it. Perhaps just a retreat command and the player can point to an adjacent controlled region.

You must be doing it wrong. That is the editor we use to make all of our maps.

Bummer, but I appreciate the response so I can stop spinning my wheels. I'll wait for someone to write up a howto, or the public version, whichever comes first.

Update is available to everyone now.

I like all the changes in the update. Some quick comments:

- Great to see the terrain scarring from explosions. The current scarring textures though are making it difficult to spot units standing there, especially for tier 1 units with a red team color. I think the combination of red units, brown terrain and strong terrain scars are the issue. Maybe lighter terrain scars might help.

- The player locations on the minimap during the create game screen have disappeared in 0 63. I used to find those very helpful while creating teams in vs AI games.

- Really like the more open feel of the new map. Hope to see more maps like it.

A bit more feedback:

- The AI needs to be smarter or behave differently depending on game settings.

I finished my 6 player ffa against normal AI on the new huge map. VP were set to 10000 but I won before anyone got that far. However I am not sure I should have won. Red kept brushing past very close to my Nexus to get to a generator. Obviously it was an area of lots of battles but at one or two points if they had pushed a bit more onto my Nexus I don't think I could have stopped them. But they were so fixated on getting the generator it never seemed to cross their mind. If they had wiped me from the game then their fight for the generator would have been so much easier, so killing me would have been a very sound strategic choice. Not to mention the extra resources which would have been easy to claim with me gone.

On a small map if the player chooses very high VPs then perhaps the AI can place a little less emphasis on them and go more for the kill.

I hope the AI will play a bit different when VP are turned off. Generators will still be important with their nice bonus but they will still need to play differently.

- Pans are sooo easily shot down. In one brief burst the single AA point defence shot down 5 Pans together and a few seconds later took down the final 2. Some more balancing needed

- We really need some kind of area command for building on resources. I thought it would be just nice to have it when we were on small maps but now there are such large ones and when you are fighting on several fronts it is essential to have as it is very hard and time consuming to try and put extractors everywhere. PA implemented this very well: Just click and hold the first extractor down and move out with the cursor creating a circle as large as you like to build the extractors in that area. Very effective indeed.

- We need to be able to grab 5 engineers, give them a bunch of things to do and they go off and do it, doing each thing one at a time, supporting each other so the thing is done very quickly before moving on to the next one. I tried this and at the moment it does not work at all. One built it and the others just sat there doing nothing. I am not sure what happens after that but the result is very slow and with engineers doing nothing.

- I think we still can't queue units in a factory before it has finished building.

- It would be nice to have a separate button for idle factories and idle sky factories. I never really want my factories idle but often leave sky factories idle and only use them when I have a particular need (too resource intensive to have them building all the time). However as they are lumped together I don't notice if a factory is idle or not as I am used to seeing a number on the button as the sky factories are idle.

-Someone mentioned it above but it would be so cool to be able to effect the shape of the meta unit like you can in total war. I think it would add a lot to the player experience

- As mentioned by a Dev somewhere, a meta unit only has 1 dreadnought in it. So if you have a saved army (Ctrl 1-9) of 3 dreadnoughts you actually have 3 meta units not one army. In this example if you click on one of the dreadnoughts and you will see only 1/3 or so of the little units will be selected with it. I know this is done by design at the moment and it can be useful to send an army somewhere and then split forces a little by clicking on the dreadnought. However have you thought of actually allowing the creation of a multi-dreadnought single meta unit/army? It would array the units differently and could be very useful.

The AI hasn't been adjusted to account for high VP (or To The Death) games.  They are still operating on the assumption that VP sites are always the highest priority in the game.

Good to know it has room for improvement.

It seems to run well, however I have noticed that sometimes when scrolling across the map I see the map flicker a little. Running a GTX970 I figured i would help to update my driver. I did and it seemed to be a little better but then it happened again. 

[Less Important at the moment but... Gameplay]

I wish the Engineers could follow one, once grouped, and when given a command to build a structure that the extra units would automatically assist in construction. I noticed that I had to select 1 unit, then command it to build a structure and I would have to then click my second group of Engineers I set and command them to assist in construction. Otherwise they would follow the 1st one but not assist in construction. I know we are early on, but I would like to see this feature if possible. 

I agree with you