Planetary Annihilation Guide
Revision Begun July 2024

This is not comprehensive guide. I assume you have a decent general knowledge of the game. I wrote this originally from the perspective of already having a deep knowledge of the game, approaching a thousand hours of playing. I've done some recent edits (august 2024) as I've started playing the game again and have had to make adjustments due to some balance changes and updates.

I wanted to mainly touch on topics that made the largest impacts on my gameplay, subjects that I believe are fundamentals. A lot of these fundamentals weren't easy for me to intuitively come across on my own, but were instead taught and pointed out by other better players on my journey. Many of these things were the final push I needed to get me from upper plat to eventually peaking at uber #2. That being said, I still think these can help players of any skill level as these are fundamentals you might not be able to learn intuitively by simply by playing.

First you need to understand that the game has mods built in the game which are allowed in rank play. These are "client mods" that provide quality of life improvements to the original UI.

Here are a list of mod I find essential:
Infinite build: sets all factories to loop build by default.
Hotbuild: customizable and straightfoward building hotkeys.
Eco Manager: adds some buttons to your screen that allows you to toggle power of all your fabbers or factories with a single click,
More pew pew: Adds more diversity to weapon particle effects making them more quickly readable.
Fast click: The base game ignores any mouse commands while any key is pressed because you MIGHT be issuing an area command. (WHY???) In situations where you are clicking and using hot keys, this will cause the game to inexplicably ignore commands! This mod changes it so that area commands are only triggered while you hold ALT. Don't skip on this one!
AUTOFACTORY V2: Automaticallty queues up units on your factories. You'll need to edit the units in the options menu.
ARMY UTILITIES: Adds some additional info to UI, adds options to send certain units to perform actions automatically which can be set in the options menu
COMBAT FAB DESELECT: Removes Combat Fab from combat unit selection
IN GAME RANK DISPLAY: Displays player's rank next to their name in 1v1s
FAVORITE COLOUR: Adds settings > UI option to choose preferred colors automatically in the lobby .
NIK'S "HOW IS THIS EVEN LEGAL" MOD PACK: Adds a bunch of stuff, read about it here:

https://forums.planetaryannihilation.com/threads/rel-niks-how-is-this-even-legal-mod-pack.73606/

METAL IN SELECTION: Adds the total metal value of unit selection tab.
ALL IN ONE SPECTATOR TAB: Adds a tab that includes both army and economic information to spectator chrono cam.

Planetary Annihilation is a complex game. Recognizing and mastering its core mechanics can be tough with all the options presented to the player. Once we recognize the core mechanics we begin to unlock our true potential.

Ultimately, it is a game about exponential growth. Your most fundamental goal is to maximize your metal income and converting it into useful things on the battlefield.

Your ability to spend your metal is limited by how much energy you have available to you. Familiarize yourself with the different energy costs compared to metal usage per unit. Air fabbers are the least efficient while factories are the most efficient. More efficient use of power will reduce how many power generators you'll require. Use air fabbers sparingly!

Your overall strategy in order of importance is very similar to a 4X tgame. "explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate" As it relates to planetary annihilation, in order of importance, you should always be doing the following:

1. EXPAND your economy.

Build more metal extractors and power generators. Your economy is the foundation your entire war machine is built off of! Mastering this aspect of the game should be your number one priority!

2. EXPLOIT your resources

Convert your metal into useful things on the battlefield. Your factory count is a huge deciding factor to outcome of the game. Make as many factories as your economy can support. Make a sparing amount of fabricators to make more factories and utilities such as fixed defenses and radar where needed and power generators when needed.

3. EXPLORE - intelligence.

Maximize your abillity to make informed decisions using scout units and radar. Split off some units from your armies to check for where the enemy is expanding. Ideally, you should have as much of your production queued up well into the future which free's up your attention to manage the greater battlefield. Improve your mastery of the camera, use control groups, and make it a habit to regularly review the battlefield so that you have a near omnipresent perspective of the battlefield. Keep your air force moving and frequently checking key areas of mass around the planet.

4. Exterminate your opponents

This aspect of the game is only possible through your mastery of the previous principles. Systematically cripple your opponents economy, primarily by destroying vulnerable metal extractors and fabricators. Avoid losing your units to fixed defense. If you can't destroy existing metal extractors, you still can prevent new ones from being claimed.

Once you gain enough of an edge on your opponent, you will “snowball.” Between skilled players, a game can often be decided within only a few minutes of the ganme.