Hard to complain about but in my games, I tend to get too powerful for things like landmarks and anomalies to be annoying (and the grail is an anomalous site iirc)
Also, one thing, not at you @inactive_user but at everyone, is that if you let the game progress to the late game, e.g. turn 80 plus, which is best done by having a very large map and hard AI settings, then the AI will start building and modding t3 and t4 units, and will usually outnumber you and will pose a challenge.
I think the sweet spot would be to bring that t3 and 4 wave forwards, ut there are AI mods that have managed this, I think by adjusting the resources the AI gets.
Anyway, my current Pangaea map is on turn 104 and I am fightng a war on 3 fronts, because I was closing in on a domination victory and the remaining AI got angry about it.
It is possible I could lose because the bulk of mya rmy is far to the east, where the 4th AI just got crushed, but my capital and main provinces are largely undefended. I have some 15 stacks closing in on me from various directions, but strong militia defences and a small mobile army in the interior should be able to firefight, while my massive (8 stacks I think) army in the east just turns in and destroys my enemies, from right to left.
I just had an epic fight where I won a defence with 8 Bulwarks (with the autonom self repair module) and 3 ramjets and 1 Vanguard plane, a Baron and some other stuff, held of a Syndicate assault led by 2 Zeniths. TWO.
So I’m still finishing out an Empire campaign and up to the point where the planets can be utter beasts.
I just started one that was labelled as a Voidbringer Thrallworld which means the fauna/spawner attacks are just completely insane. I tried establishing colonies using the advance base as defense but even that was nowhere near enough. It’s like each colony would need a decent sized stack to defend it and I don’t see how the energy budget would work.
Have any of you folks defeated this setting? Tips, strategies?
Hey Guys, things have been quiet for a while so I wanted to provide a little update regarding the upcoming PDXCon Remixed. While I’m sad to say we won’t be making any announcements during PDXCon this year, some Triumph Studios employees are participating in Panels & Talks throughout the event. Please take into account that all given times are in CEST.
Ages & Institutions: Journeys Through Paradox
Juney Dijkstra
May 21st from 08.00 - 09.00
Map Painters: Designing Game Maps for Map Games
Jakob Matthes/Eomolch
May 22nd from 02.30 - 03.10
From Finish to Start: Expanding a Complete Game
Tom Bird/Tombles
May 22nd from 19.05 - 19.45
New update is out, and the first fix mentioned is that specific bug @tomchick complained about:
Update V1.404 - Update Notes
Fixes:
Galactic Empires
The Psi-Fish Hunting Grounds planet trait now forces the planet to be continents and disallows changing of game settings to prevent issues with Psi-Fish dwelling spawns.
Fixed the Masking Frequencies planet trait not working
Fixed not being able to choose the default Phoenix Walker requisition item as Vanguard, Amazon, Shakarn or Syndicate
Fixed not being able to buy high level vehicles using Renown in certain situations
Combat
Fixed evasion bonus from the Skitter ability not resetting after Undo
Fixed Undo allowing you to circumvent the effects of Panic and Captivate
Fixed that applying Impaired on a unit would reset cooldowns and once per combat abilities from the disabled mods
Fixed a crash that occurred when you would Undo a move in combat after moving away from a hazard
Campaign
Fixed issue where campaign missions could sometimes not be ended
Fixed that the Forgotten NPC Faction would sometimes not be present in the Obolus-5 campaign mission
General
Fixed that the Futurist achievement could no longer be unlocked
Fixed issue where buying a grail cypher from an NPC faction would not deduct its influence cost
Fixed occupied Shakarn and Oathbound colonies having access to previously built turret defenses unlike the other races
Fixed Soul Beacon Maelstrom not giving Essence Charges to friendly units
Fixed issue where operations that are being primed would not update when the amount of casting points available changed
Fixed an exploit caused by repeatedly aborting the production of a Colonizer unit
Fixed an exploit related to the Immaculate Breeding Ground Emergent spawn
Fixed that certain actions and events could end up blocking the victory screen (both in the Galactic Empire and scenarios)
Fixed multiplayer going out of sync by viewing the invasion forces in the Diplomacy screen
Fixed a crash that could happen during an AI turn in the late game
Fixed various instances where the AI could get stuck in their turn (which would leave you stuck at “Opponents are moving”).
Fixed issues with higher quality settings on M1-based Macs
I did finish the first basic easy game recommended after the tutorial as a vanguard promethean. There’s still a bunch I don’t understand. Mostly how the map works (colonies, how to exploit, what is my territory, etc). But it does have a nice one more turn vibe. I’m also not wild about the plethora of research and mod options. It seems like there are a lot of unimportant choices rather than a few important choices. There seem to be a hunch of mods that provide a slightly different flavor of restoring a minor amount of health, for example.
FWIW, I have come to the conclusion that the breadth of tech/mod options are really a much smaller number of choices, it’s just that each one is a composite of several research items and/or mods.
Planetfall is not, IMO, anything approaching a “research everything” sort of game. I typically have a plan going into a planet now, like, “Okay, playing Amazon Voidtech, I’m going to really lean into Echo Lancers and otherwise just worry about what I need to do to support them.” That informs my choices to a huge degree, in terms of what research to prioritize and what not to bother with.
I’ll go entire games without (or just baaaaarely) touching one of the weapon type research trees, for example. Almost always, I’ll be heavy on either race tech or secret tech but not both.
Of course, that all assumes a lot more knowledge than a new player is going to have. But even when I was experimenting with new factions/techs, something would usually catch my eye and I’d lean into that. Like the maximum chonkability of dorfjets, or self-healing insect plasma monks, or legions of flying cyborg death cultists.
The game is very much designed to give you more options than you can possibly grapple with or implement in a single playthrough, even with one specific race/tech combo. The solution to the analysis paralysis that the game is prone to is to just grab hold of and focus on something specific.
That’s probably really good advice that I don’t often follow. You can get some synergy with mods, and some mods are way better than others. For instance the Kir’Ko have a regeneration mods that only cost 5 cosmite vs the Amazon regeneration mod that cost 10 cosmite. The Amazon mod gives 10 boost in hit point vs the Kir’ko only 5. Most mods give 10% boost in damage, plus DOT effect, but some give 20%. I tend to try and cherry pick the good ones.
Compared to a typical 4x game, I find research in Planetfall to be less important than most games.
Mods give a passive boost in one of three categories (hp, damage, defense) as well as whatever their thing is.
“Their thing” is anything from self-buffs to cast-on-friendly buffs to some other passive boost to once-per-battle attacks to whatever.
For the most part, in a vacuum, mods of equal tier (cosmite cost) contribute broadly similar damage/turn or mitigation/turn (assuming a battle of average length).
The game is in teasing out the advantages that change that math in your favor. At the most basic level, for example, stacking morale (chance to 100% hit and do critical damage) with powerful but inaccurate weapons. We’ve all done this in innumerable games.
Planetfall’s system really is delightfully designed once you have enough context to see the shape of the whole thing, and the multiple levels of counterplay available on both the tactical and strategic levels.
But for the beginner or more casual player, finding something fun (“oh my god, the Amazon t2 voidtech thing is mounted?”) and then just centering your strategy on that to the exclusion of like dimensional instability stacking or whatever mitigates the game’s weakest bit (analysis paralysis and menu diving) while maximizing the immediately amusing bits (pew! pew!) and letting the player enjoy themselves while building the context and experience they need to engage with the game on the deeper level that it offers.
what frustrated me was knowing what units and mods would be the perfect counter to each enemy stack but feeling constrained to having one or most two types of army
