Planetary Annihilation Timeline

Planetary Annihilation: TITANS & Classic PA Timeline

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Development & Updates Timeline to 2021-09-04

DATE	BUILD(S)	DESCRIPTION	KS
2012-08-15		Classic Planetary Annihilation Kickstarter begins
2012-09-14		Kickstarter Ends & Payment Processed	11
2013-03-22		Engine Tech Livestream	22
2013-04-18		Live Game Client Demonstration Live Stream	25
2013-05-03		Combat Livestream	26
2013-05-17		Pre-Alpha Livestream	27
2013-06-06		Alpha Begins 9 months after Kickstarter Ended	28
2013-06-13		Steam Early Access	29
2013-06-28		First Alpha Live Stream
2013-07-30		Second Alpha Live Stream
2013-08-14		Third Alpha Live Stream
2013-09-26		Beta Begins	35
2013-10-11		Beta Livestream	41
2013-11-22		Final Beta Invites	50
2013-11-27		Fall Livestream	53
2014-01-17		Gameplay Livestream	62
2014-02-27		Gamma Begins	68
2014-04-24		Gamma Update Livestream	71 72
2014-05-22		Galactic War	76 77
2014-06-03		Developer Walkthrough	78
2014-06-05		Soundtrack Available	79
2014-06-20		Early Access Retail Edition	80
2014-08-11		Launch Price $29.99	89
2014-09-05		Classic PA Launch 2 years after Kickstarter	93
2014-10-01		Steam Achievements / Badges / Trading	97
2014-10-02		Human Resources Kickstarter begins
2014-10-07		Jables Starts as PA Producer	100
2014-10-09	73939	DRM Free Offline Play	99
2014-10-20		Human Resources Kickstarter cancelled :-(
2014-11		Uber Entertainment Layoffs :-(
2014-11-25	75539	1v1 Ranked Advanced System Editor AI Improvements	103
2014-12-17	76557	Unit Cannon	104
2015-01-28	77443 77582 77673 77725	Submarines and Interplanetary Fighter	105
2015-03-13	79600	Offline Single Player Save / Load	107
2015-04-14	80462	Online Single Player Save / Load	108
2015-05-28	82369 82293	Resume Anywhere	109
2015-06-09	82834 83074 83391 83796	Galactic War Redesign	111
2015-07-31	85138 85423	Asteroids	114
2015-08-18	86422	TITANS LAUNCH 3 years after Kickstarter	116
		Free to Kickstarter Backers 66% off for existing owners of classic PA
		Experimental Titans New Units Unit Wreckage New Terrain Bounty Mode Tutorial Balance Changes New Engine Mechanics to support Titans
		Concurrent updates to both Titans & Classic PA
		AI Improvements Galactic War Improvements New Maps Notification & Sound Alerts Improvements Balance Changes
2015-08-26	86765	Balance Changes Polish / Fixes
2015-09-09	87296	AI Improvements Polish / Fixes
2015-09-21	88163	AI Improvements Polish / Fixes
2015-09-23	88288	Hotfix
2015-10-14	89528	Hotfix
2015-10-22	89755	Final Uber Entertainment Updates Before Layoffs AI Improvements Polish / Fixes
2016-05-31	94684	Community Update Community Mods In-Game Mod Manager Custom Servers support Legion Expansion support Modding Improvements Polish / Fixes
2016-11-21	99377	Performance Update Multi-threaded local servers AI Improvements LZ4 Compression for Sever Mods (2x faster) System Editor Rework Connect to Game Improvements Polish / Fixes
2016-12-05	Chat	Global Community Chat
2016-12-20		Legion Expansion Faction Mod
2017-03-05		Unit Restrictions via Community Mods
2017-06-21	105067	Enhancement Update POV Camera Balance Changes - Removed Commander Reclaim Alternative Win Conditions - Sudden Death Mode for teams Sim Speed Control for Local Servers 16 New Free Commanders
2017-10-17	108271	Balance and Community Servers Update Balance Changes - Zeus, Leveler, Gil-E Polish / Fixes New Community Servers options AI Improvements (via Community Mods)
2017-11-25		1v1 Rank Display Improvements (via Community Mods)
2017-11-26		Galactic War Exploring Improvements (via Community Mods)
2017-12-04		Unit Restrictions Improvements (via Community Mods)
2017-12-27		Game Browser Sorting Improvements (via Community Mods)
2018-03-08		Uber Entertainment removes dedicated SoftLayer servers leaving older spec EC2 instances with high contention ratios resulting in sim stalls and crashes
2018-04-09	109959	Official Chinese Translations
2018-04-15	110029	Community Hotfix for Windows and Linux Connection Issues
2018-04-17	110069	Community Hotfix for macOS Connection Issues
2018-04-18		Community Updated Uber Launchers
2018-05-01		Replay Browser Improvements (via Community Mods)
2018-05-12		Game Browser Improvements (via Community Mods)
2018-06-01		Uber Entertainment outsourced UberNet to PlayFab port rolled back to 110069 after leaking secrets in client builds
2018-08-18		Planetary Annihilation Inc 6 years after Kickstarter Permanent 90% off TITANS upgrade discount for existing classic PA owners	118
2018-08-25		sorian returns to work on multi-threading, sim performance, new mechanics and AI	119
2018-09-05		Classic PA removed from sale (no impact on current owners with concurrent updates to both games) https://planetaryannihilation.com/ https://forums.planetaryannihilation.com/ https://support.planetaryannihilation.com/ Official Planetary Annihilation Discord Server	120
2018-09-15		Deprecation of 32 bit client support and older unsupportable operating systems New Community Rules and Guidelines	121
2018-10-18	112176	Multi-threading and Performance Improvements AI Improvements Improved Crash Reporting Polish / Fixes Balance Changes Modding Improvements (icon atlases optimised for up to 99,225 strategic icons)	122
2018-11-02	112314	TITANS 1v1 Ranked Ladder Reset and Seasons Multi-threading on Official Servers AI Improvements	123
2018-12-20	112589-pte	Modern Toolchain Test Builds with Audio Modding AI Improvements
2018-12-31	112589 112595	Happy New Year Updates Modern Toolchain Builds on Official Servers AI Improvements Audio Modding Polish / Fixes Dedicated Servers Official Guides	124
2019-01-05		Steam Daily Deal
2019-01-25		TITANS 1v1 Ranked Ladder Season 2 New 1v1 Ranked Map Pool	125
2019-02-07	112835	TITANS 1v1 Ranked Leaderboard Update https://palobby.com/leaderboards/
2019-03-08 2019-03-08 2019-03-20	113044 113034 113132	Translations, AI and Modern Updates Updated and new translations for French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Simplified Chines and Traditional Chinese AI Improvements Polish / Fixes Balance Changes	126
2019-05-19 2019-05-24	113298 113318	PAnet and TITANS 1v1 Ranked Season 3 Modern servers with faster CPUs, more memory and increased bandwidth New regions including Singapore, Tokyo and USWest Official Dutch and Polish Translations AI Improvements Polish / Fixes Balance Changes	127
2019-05-25 2019-07-03 2019-07-08 2019-07-17 2019-07-22	113410 113426 113430 113457 113462	TITANS 1v1 Ranked Mid-Season 3 Winners Custom Line Formations AI Improvements Polish / Fixes Balance Changes	128
2019-07-13		Steam Daily Deal
2019-07-25	113470	TITANS 1v1 Ranked Season 4	129
2019-08-18 2019-08-29 2019-08-29 2019-08-30 2019-08-31	113553 113578 113581 113583 113600	Happy Birthday Update AI Improvements Polish / Fixes Balance Changes Stryker	130
2019-08-18 2019-08-29 2019-08-29 2019-08-30 2019-08-31	113553 113578 113581 113583 113600	Horsefly Update Toolchain Updates AI Improvements Polish / Fixes Balance Changes	131
2019-10-20		Happy Halloween! Pumpkin Commander	132
2019-10-25	113901	TITANS 1v1 Ranked Season 5	133
2020-01-04		Steam Daily Deal
2020-01-25	113968	TITANS 1v1 Ranked Season 6	134
2020-03-14		AbleGamers 2020 Pay To Win Charity Community Tournament	135
2020-04-24 2020-04-30	114218 114220	TITANS 1v1 Ranked Season 7	136
2020-05-28 2020-06-16 2020-06-18	114344 114438 114475	Stay Safe Update Updated Translations Balance Changes	138
2020-06-25 2020-06-26 2020-06-28 2020-07-03 2020-07-08 2020-07-10 2020-07-12 2020-07-13	114599 114618 114628 114673 114716 114726 114750 114759	Rainbows & Unicorns Updates Unicorn Commander Toolchain updates Updated Translations Polish / Fixes	139
2020-07-23 2020-07-25 2020-07-30 2020-08-12	114776 114780 114803 114823	TITANS 1v1 Ranked Season 8 Polish / Fixes Balance Changes	140
2020-08-15		Back to launch price of US$29.99 8 years after Kickstarter	141
2020-08-18 2020-08-26	114862	TITANS 5 Year Birthday! Radar Jamming
2020-09-03	114480	sRGB and experimental HDR10 changes
2020-10-22 2020-10-30 2020-11-18 2020-12-16 2020-12-28 2021-01-15	115003 115013 115050 115186 115280 115447	TITANS 1v1 Ranked Season 9 Polish / Fixes Balance Changes Water Depth Orbital Balance	142
2021-01-09		Steam Daily Deal
2021-01-21	115482	TITANS 1v1 Ranked Season 10	144
2021-02-13 2021-02-22	115506 115521 115546	Upgraded game servers and balance update
2021-04-23	115626	TITANS 1v1 Ranked Season 11
2021-06-14	115678	Balance Changes Polish / Fixes	145
2021-06-24 2021-07-01 2021-07-14	115819 115836 115847 115863 115923	Fusion Updates Galactic War Updates	146
2021-07-23	115938	TITANS 1v1 Ranked Season 12	147
2021-08-04		Dev / Support (and day to day management) resigns with 90 day notice period
2021-08-14	115958	Fusion Updates
2021-08-27		TITANS 1v1 ranked map pool expanded to the best 50 maps from all 12 seasons
2021-09-04		Planetary Annihilation Inc reverts to Uber Entertainment management
2021-09-06		Steam Daily Deal (cancelled) – Galactic War server mod support with faster mod mounting / uploading / downloading using new APIs and mod signing
2021-09-17		Community Maps (cancelled) – Improved map selection replacing map packs and system sharing
2021-10-17		Forced suspension (hopefully temporary) of community services (any services connecting to APIs)
NOTE: Community Dedicated Servers although operational can not be advertised due to the forced suspension and lack of security updates since 2021-08
NOTE: Improved Linux support, Steam Proton compatibility and better client user interface performance for ALL operating systems was part of the Coherent GT upgrade after important updates to the modding APIs to replace synchronous XHR, IndexedDB, etc. Linux server performance was significantly better than Windows with similar results expected for the Coherent GT client upgrade.
2022-04-11	115444-dev	New dev team balance update release with incorrect older dev build number, broken 1v1 ranked, no classic PA build, no legacy builds and no dedicated servers build
2022-04-15	115517	Non dev (still old) build number to fix 1v1 ranked
2022-05-12	115673	Fixes broken maps (still old build number)
2022-06-14	115806	Fixed broken skybox mods (still old build number)
2022-09-19	116242	Default local hosting (precursor to downgrading or shutting down multiplayer servers?), Windows only insecure UPnP (Steam suggests disabling UPnP), balance, maps and AI updates
2023-04-20	116931	Balance changes with custom unit types for mods up to CUSTOM58 limiting future expansion of base game unit types

Historical Roadmap For Fusion Series

• Toolchain and performance updates
• Default continuous build with view of build queue
• Improved map selection (map packs no longer required)
• New game lobby system preview (including metal spots)
• UI unicode font updates with emojis
• Defeated player and spectator vision options eg defeated unshared player can only view team
• Faster mod mounting, uploading and downloading
• Server mods support for Galactic War
• AI updates
• Shields!

Note: Fusion series roadmap was removed from website and Steam news.

Kickstarter post: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/659943965/planetary-annihilation-a-next-generation-rts/posts/3230861

 

New Mechanics (not included in the Fusion Series Roadmap)

• Energy spots
• Neutral units (army 0 support for individual units placed by map maker)
• Inactive neutral units that activated temporarily or permanently via proximity of guard radius (eg map maker early / mid game area denial)
• Commander only capture of neutral or inactive units with high energy cost (high risk / high reward with commander on front lines)
• Commander only mass teleport of surrounding units with high energy cost where phasing units took damage but could not return fire (high risk / high reward with commander on front lines)
• Map wreckage (single use metal with optional path blocking placed by map maker)

Uber Entertainment / Star Theory Games

Prior to August 2018, Planetary Annihilation was developed and published by Uber Entertainment Inc who renamed to Star Theory Games in 2019 while developing KSP2 then dissolved in March 2020.

Watch the Jim Sterling video for context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJAi5Wu3W08

Planetary Annihilation Technology

Planetary Annihilation is a cross platform client / server networked OpenGL application with a custom engine developed in 2013/2014 using C++11 and a fully moddable HTML5 user interface using Coherent UI based on Chromium.

Since 2018 the Planetary Annihilation engine had been modernised to C++17 with updated versions of third party libraries.

Historical Technology links

• The Tech of Planetary Annihilation: Chronocam (Forest Smith) Q&A
• Bending Solid Geometry (Allen Chou)
• Sorian Dev (Michael Robbins)

Game AI Pro (early approaches to tech used in Planetary Annihilation):

• 23. Crowd Pathfinding and Steering using Flow Field Tiles (Elijah Emerson)
• 30. Using Neural Networks to Control Agent Threat Response (Michael Robbins)

GDC 2012 Off The Beaten Path (early approaches to tech used in Planetary Annihilation):

• 17 minutes: Neural Networks in Supreme Commander 2 (Michael Robbins)

Toolchain

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toolchain

• C++17 reference guidelines
• Visual Studio Code (assets)
• Visual Studio 2019 latest with 142 build tools / Windows 10 SDK latest
• Xcode 12.5 / macOS Big Sur 11 / 10.16
• Linux GCC 9.3 with LTO (limited by steam Linux runtime)
• Clang / LLVM 12 (macOS / dedicated servers)
• AddressSanitizer (ASan)
• UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer (UBSan)
• Google Test (gtest)
• Google Benchmark

Third Party Libraries

• breakpad
• Coherent UI 2.5.9 (testing Coherent GT)
• FBX SDK 2019.2
• FMOD 4.44.64
• LZ4 1.9.3
• miniz 2.1.0
• libpng 1.6.37
• libsdl 2.0.14 (testing 2.0.16)
• libsquish 1.15 for DXT Compression
• stb_image 2.26
• stb_truetype 1.24
• Steamworks SDK 150 (testing 151)
• v8 86
• zlib 1.2.11
• Windows libcurl 7.68.0 with nghttp2 1.40.0 for HTTP/2 and multiplexing (testing 7.76.1 / 1.43.0)
• Windows mimalloc 1.7.1 (testing)

Crash Reporting Platform

Backtrace: https://backtrace.io/

Localisation Platform

Crowdin: https://crowdin.com/

Translations

Transfluent: https://www.transfluent.com/

Security

We recommend https://1password.com/