Planetary Annihilation: TITANS

Planetary Annihilation: TITANS

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Guide From a Top Player
By TehAnnihilaterer
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.
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Basic Build Order
This builder order is done with minor deviations. Smaller maps may favor bots while larger maps may favor air units. Check replays of uber players for their build orders. You don't want to overproduce fabbers in the beginning of the game, nor should you allow your economy to "stall" especially in the beginning of the match.

Choose a landing spot that puts your commander in build range of at least 1 metal spot (2 or more is ideal) and has enough room to build 2 factories and 3 power generators without moving at all.
Upon landing do the following:
(WITH COM ONLY)
1 Bot Factory (makes 3 bot fabs, which all immediately begin to build mass extractors separately, then makes dox on loop)
1 Metal extractor (2 if possible)
1 Air Factory (1 spy plane, then interceptors on loop)
3 Power Generators
1 Bot Factory (dox on loop)
2 Power Generator
1 Air Factory (interceptors on loop)
1 Power Generator
Then repeat infinitely:
1 Factory of your choice, preferably transition into vehicles and air.
1-2 Power Generators

This build would be referred to as "Bot Air Bot Air," for the order in which the chosen factories are build. You may prefer to try "Bot Air Air Air" for example.

You should begin building an advanced factory as as your 7th factory at the latest. Air and bots are the current most popular choices, air being favored for larger maps. Naval on naval maps. Make a single t2 fab when you do and have it making t2 extractors exclusively.

It is of the upmost importance that you minimize the amount of build time your commander loses moving!

This opening provides you with the essentials you need to ward off early aggression. Use the air scout to scout your opponent's base and expansion efforts. This will allow you to identify any threats as well as any vulnerabilities they may have. Things to look for are air capability and vulnerable fabricators. The air factories ensure that you do not fall behind on air superiority.

An essential tip for queuing up units. If you hold control while adding new units to a queue. When doings so, the selected unit will be added to the front of the line of a priority queue which will be built only once before returning to the normal queue. This is useful for example for adding in a fabricato, fabricator, or some of niche utility unit without permanently affecting the queue.

It is helpful to build a minimal amount of turrets in key areas. It is essential to place a wall i front of them where you expect enemies to approach from. Walls have an obscene amount of HP.

Radars are an indispensable asset that are a passive way to identify incoming threats to your expanding fabs and metal extractors.

Remember that is more important to have more hummingbirds (t1 air interceptors) than your opponent to prevent them from building bombers! Make bombers sparingly and only when you know you have air superiority (more hummingbirds than your opponent.)

One of the most useful hotkeys in the game is "select all air combat units," which will select all interceptors and bombers. Make sure to bind this to something you can remember in the options menu, I use shift-2. Use this hotkey often so you do not have to constantly grab your air units from clumps of other units.

When you select a factory, you can give it a command which will be inherited by all units built from that factory. This is called a rally point. Select a factory, then right click a location on the planet. Your units will proceed immediately to that location upon being built.

You can issue commands to be executed in series by holding shift. Meaning if I were to set a factory to rally units to a location, then assigned a second location while holding shift, the units will proceed to the first location, and then the second. This applies to just about every command available, this is especially useful when issuing build commands

Ideally, you should set rally points from your factories in a path which they are passing nearby you expanding fabs in order to provide extra protection.

I highly recommend watching commentary from the best players you can find posting on Youtube.

Be sure review every game and try to analyze how you can improve.
Economy Management
ECONOMY MANAGEMENT.
Planetary Annihilation uses a streaming economy, meaning that the cost of building is dispersed over time instead of being a lump sum up front like in Starcraft. In the very center top screen your efficenecy is displayed. If you are at 50% efficiency, everything you have is building at 50% its maximum build rate.

Think of energy as a secondary resource that limits your ability to spend your primary metal resource. It doesn't matter how much metal you have, if you don't have enough energy or metal income or storage to support everything you are building, your economy will "stall," meaning everything you are building will be slower.

All fabbers and units have different metal build rates and energy costs. Your commander will be the fastest and most energy efficient builder in the early game. Keep this in mind before you start spamming air fabbers, which have the worst metal/energy ratio.
Essential Hotkeys
SETTING UP HOTKEYS.
Be sure to review all of the avaiable horkeys that are available for you to use. I recommend that you make tweaks and changes on an ongoing basis in order to optimize your play. Try to keep all hotkeys easily accessible by your hand of the keyboard.

Download hotbuild 2. Go to the HOTBUILD tab in your settings while at the main menu. I use the community default keys for buildings with a few additions and modifications. Be careful that you are not introducing hotkey conflicts. I have disabled all hotkeys that i don't use in order to minimize conflicts and human error.
ESSENTIAL THINGS TO CHANGE
Patrol: W
RECLAIM: Q
Unload: D
Alt-fire/ubercannon: D?
Select all air combat units: shift-2
Select idle fabbers: f
Select idle factories: control-1
Select commander: 1

Control groups:
Select a group of units and press ctrl-1. Then select something else. Press 1. Cool huh? Binding units to control groups allow you to quickly recall a group of units without having to find them. Double tapping the control group will center that group on your screen.
This works with 1-10.
I have the select commander hotkey set to 1 by default :D
40 Comments
Scherz 5 Dec, 2024 @ 8:27pm 
No joke, the mod combo this guide suggests is crippling. My factories would randomly try to build fabs, and those fabs would get stuck infinitely building them. The infinite build mod also resets itself everytime you click off of a factory, so you can never truly disable it with chucking out the mod itself. My first run with with those mods resulted in my economy and army collapsing 15 minutes in because each of my five factories had managed to self queue between 50 and 70 fabs, fabs who were immediately turning around to assist the factory and further annihilate my economy. The mods aren't quality of life improvements, they're an active detriment to the person using them.
Mogger 19 May, 2023 @ 7:19am 
unironic cringe, horrible guide
Sir.Beast 19 Jan, 2023 @ 3:44am 
trash
Worm 26 Dec, 2022 @ 5:00am 
bad guide
Bilbo'sRandomtask 25 Nov, 2022 @ 5:07pm 
Thanks Dude! stellar tips!
Jalapeeno 20 Sep, 2021 @ 4:45pm 
This doesnt seem like Lob spam? tf
rennold 18 Sep, 2021 @ 8:07am 
those mods are actually pretty useful tho
ONDIER 14 Jul, 2021 @ 1:20pm 
"Guide From a Top Player"

Third paragraph: eSseNTiaL mODs
Weather Man 24 Jun, 2021 @ 3:50pm 
:BFG2warning:based and pog signal detected :BFG2warning:
Ill Behaviour 9 May, 2021 @ 4:19pm 
Cover the line has been built into the base game so no longer needed.