Don't want to see articles from a certain category? When logged in, go to your User Settings and adjust your feed in the Content Preferences section where you can block tags!
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

The newer team behind Planetary Annihilation: TITANS has put out two new test builds, one built with newer modern tools and the other on their legacy toolchain. It comes packed with new features and updates too.

Why are they having two different opt-in beta versions on Steam? Simple, they wish to test their new modern toolchain versus their older one. You can opt into either and test!

Firstly, they're moving their entire server architecture over from UberNet to PAnet which also means moving their servers from Windows to Linux.

As for the game client itself, the legacy test build is still using the "Legacy steam linux runtime / GCC 4.8.4" whereas the other modern test build is using the "Modern steam linux runtime / GCC 5.4.1 (currently limited by steam linux runtime)". They say that moving over to much newer tools will help them to "lower RAM usage and boost performance, among other benefits".

As for what else is new, here's the short version (full version here):

  • Official PTE (Public Test Environment - the betas) servers using modern toolchain builds
  • 1v1 ranked maps expanded with four community maps
  • 1v1 ranked lobby is now anonymous showing Player 1 and Player 2
  • 1v1 ranked lobby leave option has been removed
  • AI improvements with reworked and retrained neural networks
  • AI commander selection
  • Server crash fixes

I tested the "modern" test build on my NVIDIA desktop and Intel laptop and both worked well. On my desktop, it's as smooth as anything. Surprisingly, on Low settings the game was also very smooth on my low-end laptop. There's a couple minor UI issues on the Intel Mesa driver, but seems to be playable enough.

So very happy they're really pushing forward with development again under a dedicated company. It still has a few hundred dedicated players, so hopefully the renewed progress to update it can boost the player numbers.

You can find Planetary Annihilation: TITANS on Humble Store and Steam (75% off!), probably the biggest RTS available on Linux (outside of Spring RTS games).

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Beta, RTS, Steam, Strategy
11 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
See more from me
The comments on this article are closed.
6 comments

Liam Dawe Dec 23, 2018
QuoteCoherent GT next year will be the big change for Linux.
https://twitter.com/PA_the_game/status/1076810497339514880?s=19

Looks like AMD and Intel UI issues will be sorted :)
MayeulC Dec 23, 2018
It indeed still has a lot of UI issues, with corruption popping up, and Steam crashes (while the game runs fine) if the overlay is enabled. But it seems to be better, as I could finish a skirmish :)

Liam, it seems the website has issues with the comments area, at least on Firefox Android. The smileys cover everything.
pete910 Dec 23, 2018
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
All I see is



Liam Dawe Dec 23, 2018
Quoting: MayeulCLiam, it seems the website has issues with the comments area, at least on Firefox Android. The smileys cover everything.
Just checked, don't see the issue, can you screenshot and report in the bugs area of the forum please.
buenaventura Dec 27, 2018
I just traded for a humble bundle copy of this, great! Will try it out soon.
Grim85 Dec 30, 2018
I am still having the major graphical corruption with mesa, even with the modern toolchain build, in the old builds if you started with --software-ui you could at least play the game, switch doesn't seem to fix it on the new build
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
The comments on this article are closed.