Age of Wonders: Planetfall

Hello, and long time no see!

Sorry that it has been a while since I posted to this forum. I have been quite busy over the past 5 months. Hopefully I will be able to get back into the swing of creating more content like this again.

Satonir joined me for this video on how the Xenoplague parasitic infection points are used to spawn in and evolve Xenoplague units. Here is a link to the video:

If you would prefer to read the guide, here are my notes that I used for this video:

General thoughts on infecting units:

You need at least ten infection points to either spawn in or evolve a unit**.**

you gain 1 point per unit tier killed

+ you get more points if u kill infected units twice in battle like syndicate runner

Cannot infect mechanic, ethereal, or mineral units

You don't always spawn or evolve exactly at 10 pts threshold

It's kinda random but you don't lose any pts

The spawned pustule gets the movement of the infected unit after battle so sometimes it starts with 32 then back to 40 nxt turn

Satonir's Recommendations:

Those who played against a good tempo xenoplague often say it is goddamn broken and nothing can be done to counter it

Those people are right

But I would never put xenoplague is the best secret tech

xenoplague will give you strong units for free

but for that you have to exterminate all biological and cibernetic life on your way

Its good if you start on a map where dwellings are Growth or those mutants

but if the map gave you Psyfish and Autonom, hard times are coming. Off course, nothing catastrophic, as you can always go into using racial units, using xenoplague mechanics as supportive, but in this case you are not about to dream of a good tempo

also in order to push the tempo you strongly have to sharpen xenoplague like a knife.

This is the only algorithm I can recommend:

1. pick amazons

2. Star union scholar, Energy cache, APC, Decadent/Party animal

3. when the game starts take the first quest and if the target is well-placed, go complete it. If not or once you finished the quest, immediately wage war upon a biological/ciborg dwelling that has its armies near your capital.

4. manual every fight on first turns in order to get as many pustules as possible.

5. Once you have two stacks and a second hero split your forces and continue devouring all what is living with double speed

6. Put most resources you get into cityspamming when game starts - a good economy is the only thing that will protect us from spending all energy we find somewhere on maintaining numbers of our gigantic army of plague.

this is our military tech tree. The main branch of it is off course the secret tech, in which we do our best to reach plague lords asap

weapons branch is for making our lords unstoppable machines of death

they do not need any defensive mods unless you are in very special cases. That's why we just give them 3 biochemical mods and watch them burn it all

researching amazon units in this tech tree is the lowest priority. The main reason I usually do that is that harrier is the best mount for :amazons: hero

all things not pointed on the picture are totally situational

society tree is needed for all about applying 3 doctrines that will make us unstoppable: Ecological warfare, Biomatter preparation training, Advanced Wildlife Militarization. All else is completely situational. Biomatter preparation training gets better with the more heroes are in a single stack.

This is what you are about to have on turn 30-40 (standard settings) when you are lucky and you did everything right:

Winslaya's Recommendations:

Starting with the xenoplague close combat equipment loadout allows you to start applying infection on turn 1.

Star Union Scholar is a must, as you will need to almost exclusively focus your military research into your ST if you are using this strategy. The good news is that Xenoplague has a lot of fun mechanics and tricks

Biomatter Preparation Training = 30% less points needed for evolution and spawning

Ecological Warfare = applies poison on melee and bio ranged attacks, making it easier to apply infection

Advanced Wildlife Militarization = boost to xenoplague units as they are also animals

Hero Skill: Animal Discipline

Parasitic Infection

Saving the organic stacks for when you can easily apply infection with operation and/or your other units pays off fairly quickly (around turn 7?) That is, using mods to apply infection

In the meantime it is good to do some scouting, so that you can make a general plan for where to send your stacks

While I was told that the game always prioritizes evolutions over spawning in pustules, I had a couple times where a destroyer didn’t evolve and I got a new pustule

Sleeper xenomones gives a whole stack infection. I prefer skipping sleeper pheromones and going for Hyper Accelerated Evolution, which turns a pustule into a destroyer (and uses a fair bit of operational points)

Parasitic strike is a solid source of infection

Plague pods can apply infection from a couple hexes away (instead of on melee), and can be useful for healing xenoplague units too!

Melee mod greatly increases melee damage output, but is fairly redundant on xenoplague units (pustule, destroyer + lord). I tend to put on t2 melee units. I know ninjew like putting them on aspirants (works well with against all odds)

Waging wars can be a good way to get xenoplague points (Most colony militias tend to have a lot of easy to beat organic units; kirko and amazon only have organic militia units)

When a pustule or destroyers evolves, they lose their experience.

I have started driving lessons recently. Done five so far. Five hours. I am experiencing a lot of stress tho. I keep forgetting stuff that I know. Out of stress. Like the fact I should go back to gear one when I am starting from a stop at an intersection. And other such things. Switching gears is a pain. Why do I have to do it so often, my god. just let me drive in a straight line forever.

I also don't seem to be great at telling where the front of my car starts, so I can stop at the stop line, instead of like half a meter in front of it or whatever.

We're in the future, why do I even have to learn to drive manual, bruh.

Anyway.

Give me some brilliant driving advice (can be serious, can be a joke) and I will select a winner maybe tomorrow or maybe sooner.

Thanks for participating and have a wonderful day.

EDIT: Game given to S3RG1_T. Thank you all very much. :)

Greetings fellow space commanders. This is not a ranting or biased discussion am starting but rather what I feel is breaking the fun and roleplaying aspect unlike the previous aow3 had. Without wasting time, I will list the bad and the good things I noticed after some hours of gameplay.

1. Race vs Class: The class in aow Planetfall feels very unnecessary or a subclass of the race unlike aow3 where the class was like the main element while the race was a subclass. What I mean is that most of the time, you research the class tree just to get one or two mods and spells without the need for the units. I just literally spammed tier one units every playthrough and tier 4 for my hero unit and they were all from the race. In aow3, 90% of what you use is your class and trait making every play different.

2. Npc Rivalry: Spacer gives me a quest to kill 5 psi-fish but then growth gets mad for completing it. Growth and Psi-fish aren't even related. The same goes from all the Npc factions. Ok I start with the spacer next to my base then I say great let me plan a strong relationship with them, moves South with my scout and then I meet another Npc faction. What this means is that after doing 2 quest for each, they warn me not to help the other faction. No boundary warning of the Npc factions. Now I have to ignore the remaining quests of the Npc factions to prevent unnecessary early aggression.

3. Happy-happy behavior: My hero is psy class and I want to be evil. The Npc factions don't like it, no other player wants to be evil, the other players get free casus belli on me and my faction support is unhappy because I declared war on a high rating opponent. What happened to roleplay personality. No you meet a psy class opponent and his behavior says he wants friends. Aow3, you pick evil trait and your people get happy for being evil.

4. Hazards immunity: why doesn't hazards affect the neutral enemies. I can understand those spawned with the hazard like abyssal tear enemies. A world event hazard that removes the shield of all units (that's what it wrote) and yet it was only my squad getting hit.

5. Unit combo: There is hardly any reason to pick some units and it's not because they are bad but they don't have a role to really play. Ok aow3 has engineer who reduce reload cooldown and repair machines, spear charges against mounted units, assassin's focus on flanking. In Planetfall, it's mainly the kirko that has uniqueness. Other factions either affect armor, accuracy, damage or state of unit so in battle, all you need is avoid being flanked and do those four abilities.

Now the good features which I enjoy in Planetfall

1. Mod galore: let's face it. The mods give awesome buffs and debuffs with the promise of adaptation in every encounter. It helps to create crazy builds for each unit.

2. Tactical Ai: The Ai seems ok as it tries to flank, stagger, and debuffs your units while also relying on covers and eliminating weak or important units first. I feel for a strategic game Ai, it's very good.

3. Rich landscape: both the strategic and tactical map looks very good. The addition of alot of obstacles in the tactical map which can be used in both the enemy and your advantage. The method to acquire strategic defense systems seems nice as well.

4. Garrison: sectors required protection and I feel thats where the Garrison idea came in. It's a good design as it fixes the Ai issue of only having one unit defend a base like in aow3. The upkeep is similar to making the units but would have love it if I could mod them.

I might be wrong and some will say, "get good" or "it's not the same as aow3". Can't deny that but at least that's my experience so far.

Yo, 

The video version of this guide/discussion can be found here:

I had two guests join me for the recording of the video: Orangelex44 and Ninjew.

Below I have the notes that I took before and after our discussion (please feel free to add anything that we may have missed):

Generic Tips: 

1. Good in auto combat due to engagement relatively high range, with strong single action shot. 

2. Can do full damage if staggered. 

3. Trenches provide cover, give +10% accuracy to the unit in the trench, and increase the damage output of the spike gun by 20%. (boost defensive and offensive capabilities)

4. Trencher's come with Melee overwatch

5. Easy and cheap to replace

6. Prospectors will provide tons of energy and production for producing more units. 

7. The dvar hero skills are some of the best in the game, and pair nicely with trencher spam. 

8. You can get the armor on these things to be around 8 or 9 through the use of things Fallout Protocols (+1, promethean) + Armorer (+1, dvar) hero skills, the Phoenix Defense Protocols (+2 dvar), buildings like the Reinforcement Factory (+1, production landmark) or Military Engineering Guild (+1, or +2), as well as a variety of mods. (Purification fields is amazing on them.. And so is fortification field).   

9. The aegis protection field (+3 shield, prometheans) operation

10. Plasma Ray defense hits hard (immolation), feeds into fighting defensively which pro dvar does really well. (especially if you want to go for a doomsday victory)

11. Dvar get a reduction in the ‘buy now’ option = more spamming of units.

12. Trenchers can be summoned.

Commander Perk notes:

• Veteran, star union scholar, or martial tradition

• Energy Cache

• Sniper loadout (dvar have stagger immunity as a hero skill)

• Kleptomaniac or no vice

Secret Tech Notes

• Promethean - increased accuracy from burning making it easier to shoot target.s lots of defensive bonus that synergize with the dvar's optimal playstyle. 

• Celesitian - early stagger res is not useful for trencher spam, as the ycan do full damage with one action point.

• Heritor  - siphoner’s can reset the trenchers so that they can finish off a target. Extra essence charges = more damage.

• Psynumbra - consuming gaze + mark of the dark sun + embrace the dark = early efficient site clearing stacks. (best for spam)

• Voidtech - focus on kinetic damage channel. Phase walk module will allow trencher to shoot from more hexes (by running through obstacles).

• Synthesis - Guardian Daemon Shell is a great t1 mod for the trenchers as it great increase the survivablity of the trencher. 

• Xenoplauge - Mr No like putting xenografted muscles to make trenchers into a melee focused unit. Pustules + trencher spam should give you lots of units that you can throw away to clear out sites.

My Early Game Build:

• Fortified trenches 

• Purification Field (or another Secret Tech mod)

• Maybe a third mod, maybe not. If your going for spam, it should be a low cosemite build. 

My Late Game Build:

• Fire Burst

• Purification Field

• Rail Guns Accelerators

Hello,

The video version of this guide/discussion can be found here (sorry about the poor audio quality):

I had one guest join me for the recording of the video: SinSling.

Below I have the notes that I took before and after our discussion (please feel free to add anything that we may have missed):

- What are ranks?

Ranks are "level up" that boost a units health at all levels. There are 5 levels. The 3rd and 5th "level up" give extra accuracy, and the 5th level up also grants a prime rank skill, like +1 range, or +10% critical chance.

T1 units require 4 xp to get to Novice rank, 12 xp to get to Veteran rank, 24 xp to get to Expert rank, and 40 xp to get to Prime rank.

T2 units require 6 xp to get to Novice rank, 18 xp to get to Veteran rank, 36 xp to get to Expert rank, and 60 xp to get to Prime rank.

T3 units require 8 xp to get to Novice rank, 24 xp to get to Veteran rank, 48 xp to get to Expert rank, and 80 xp to get to Prime rank.

T4 units require 12 xp to get to Novice rank, 36 xp to get to Veteran rank, 72 xp to get to Expert rank, and 120 xp to get to Prime rank.

- How to gain experience/ "level up"

You can gain experience and rank up a number of ways: defeating enemy armies, clearing imperial standards, making the research exploitation building, clearing anomaly sites, the Vanguard Combat Simulation Center, Vanguard commander give all of their units the first rank for free, and the psynumbra doctrine, Initiation Strike, gives a free rank as well. 

- Evolving units

A lot of psi-fish units, and animal units evolve into a stronger unit when they get to their "prime rank".

- Ranking Prime Ranks

My ranking: 

1. Range (indentured, arborean queen, network controller, high lord, initiate)

2. Evasive (huntress, shrike, lancer)

3. Bypass Cover (trencher, hidden, vorpal sniper)

4. Firm (PUG, siphoners, bombardon, dissembler, tormented)

5. Shrug-off (Transcendent, biomancers, melters, autonom golem, Forgotten golem, Eater of the Dead)

6. Critical (scavenger (4 assem units), harrier, bulwark, engulfer, mirage, raider, deadeye)

7. Morale (foreman, overseer)

8. Ignore overwatch (frenzied, wrecker, vanguard echo walker)

9. Improved overwatch (vanguard trooper, vanguard walker)

10. Overwatch (Assembly Inspector, Shakarn refractor, Wraith, kirko harbinger, amazon aquatica, phase manipulator, paragon heavy soldier)

Sinsling's ranking:

Amazing - Range

Good - Evasive, Ignore Overwatch,

Bad - Overwatch, Improved Overwatch

Yo,

The video version of this guide/discussion can be found here:

I had one guest join me for the recording of the video: SinSling.

Below I have the notes that I took before and after our discussion (please feel free to add anything that we may have missed):

Generic Tips: 

1. Indentured Contracts reduces upkeep and allows your early game economy to support more units. 

2. You can turn any non-syndicate infantry units into an indentured units with the cerebral control collars mod (don’t benefit from indent contracts)

3. Indentured get +1 range when they reach prime rank of experience. 

4. Production exploitations work really well for this strategy (as you will hae plenty of energy for pumpkin out units.

5. Overseers =  can reset an indentured’s action points

6. Subjugators = can resurrect a indentured once per battle

7. Arc damage is weak against amazon, and assembly. (no channel swaps)

8. Putting control amp of overseers increase indentured effectiveness

9. Mantra of life and other psi buff apply through mods like control amplifier (same is true of enforcers and mirages defensive modes, but those defensive modes only can effect a handful of units)

10. Recommended units compositions per stack: 5 indentured and an overseer OR 4 indentured, 1 overseer, and 1 hero OR 4 indentured, 1 overseer, and 1 guild assassin.

Commander Backgrounds:

• Martial Tradition (will allow you to the mods you need to get this strategy to work a bit faster)

• Any option works fine

• Any option works fine

• Just don't pick Party Animal

Secret Tech Notes:

• Promethean - easy healing (purification field) for bringing indentured back up to full health after a round of. Lots of way to boost accuracy (burning) allowing indentured to stay at a relatively safe distance to shoot melee targets. Syndicate Purifier come wit heh indentured tag,and do not need the mod to get the special indentured interactions. Plasmoids are another spammable unit that pairs decently with indentured.

• Psynumbra -  indentured boost the damage potential of initiates and malictors that are in the same stack as them.  

• Heritor - siphoners and overseers can rest units to get high dps units more attacks per turn. Siphoners can wear the mod that makes them into indentured.  

• Synthesis - guardian demon shell will keep indentured from taking a lot of ranged damage. This ST has lots of accuracy boosts, and cheap healing, which are both great for indentured.

• Celestian - lots of healing

• Voidtech - extra mobility for optimal positioning. Focus on arc damage. Can evacuate with the phase manipulator to pull indentured to a safe distance. 

• Xenoplague - Pustules are another spammable unit that pairs decently with indentured.

My Early Game Build:

• Static Build up module

• Healing mods, like Purification Shield

• Damage boosting mods like mark of the dark sun, can be a good option (go for cheap mods as indentured are somewhat easy to pick off.. Less so than other t1s when paired with an overseer) 

Maybe use psitec vision enhancers.. You want your spammable units to be cheap (in terms of cosemite), so modless is better in the early game.

My Late Game Build:

• Stun Module 

• Arc Extension 

• Psitec Vision Enhancers 

Salutations!

The video version of this guide/discussion can be found here:

This video is quite different from the guides that I have done in the past, as I had two guest join me for the recording of the video: Sinsling and Mr No.

I did this because I was unaware of how good the hoverbike was until Sinsling told me about it during an MP match, and he said that we may want to include Mr No in the discussion as he plays Syndicate a bit more than Sinsling.

Below I have the notes that I took before and after our discussion (please feel free to add anything that we may have missed):

Generic Tips:

1. The hoverbike is essentially a sniper that only require one action point to use.

2. It is floating, which gives you a huge advantage on the strategic map, as you can pull it off of the stack to quickly scout out the surrounding area. You can also send hoverbike heroes towards anomaly sites, due to their high mobility.

3. You can bypass cover by targeting it with alt. 

4. You can hit 3 enemies in one turn with its primary attack.  

5. Resetting this unit (with things like Ruthless Killer, or the Sequential kill system mod) is powerful as its primary attack only uses one action point. 

6. The Veteran background + level banners + clearing anomalies quickly = early extra level ups

Commander Perk Notes:

Mr No - hates most of the vices

Both Agree - that energy cache is overpower when used to rush your first colonizer 

Mr No likes

• Veteran (great for quickly clearing anomaly sites)

• Energy Cache

• Syndicate Assault Equipment (easy enough to get piloting and buy the bike)

• No Vice

Sinsling likes

• Martial Tradition -> (high level mods)

• Energy Cache

• Syndicate Sharpshooter Equipment (easy enough to get piloting and buy the bike)

• Kleptomanic (just don’t take party animal) 

I like

• Martial Tradition

• No Colony Supplement 

• Syndicate Assault Vehicle 

• Kleptomanic

Secret Tech Notes:

• Psynumbra can do psionic damage, which applies broken mind, making psionic attacks do more damage. Mark of the Dark sun allows the bike to do even more damage. Psy collar psi check. 

• Celesitian has a powerful early heal + collars = cheap indentured.

• Promethean can apply burning to get extra accuracy. Focus flames + Thermal Targeting Relay = +50% damage.

• Voidtech - can apply phasewalk. Echo Walkers come with universal camouflage, and can keep up with the hoverbike decently well. 

• Heritor - essence seeker (boost damage) MrNo - Adding the ability to apply debuffs is great.

• Synthesis can apply “electrified”, which is a DoT that also reduces accuracy. MrNo - Adding the ability to apply debuffs is great. Total network integration is always great.

• Xenoplauge doesn’t have synergy with the hoverbike. 

My Early Game Build:

• Exploitative Targeting System

• Mantra of Clarity

• PsiTec Vision Enhancers 

Singling - Switch psi vision enhancers out for focus flames. 

Mr No - Switch out the flanking mod as syndicate can get that stuff from hero skills.

Both say - you want at least one damage increasing mod on a hoverbike hero.

My Late Game Build:

• The Forbidden Mantra

• Mantra of Clarity

• PsiTec Vision Enhancers 

• Arc Retaliation

Sinsling - Maybe replace Mantra of Clarity + Arc Retaliation with Mantra of Control + Aether storm

Yo,

The video version of this guide/discussion can be found here:

I had one guest join me for the recording of the video: Orangelex44.

Below I have the notes that I took before and after our discussion (please feel free to add anything that we may have missed): 

What are summons and why do you want to use them:

- There are two main ways to summon in units: Strategic, and Tactical operations. 

- You can “build” a unit anywhere on the strategic map with a strategic summoning operation. 

- You can get an extra unit in the tactical map (which typically disappears after the combat) with a tactical summoning operation. This allows you to place the unit in the most optimal position, which can draw other units away from you main force. 

- Summons can also be used to get more units into a fight, allowing you to get more action points and damage than you otherwise would have. Unless a summon dies on the next turn of tactical combat, it typically will deal more damage than an operation.

- Summons can replace a units that died recently, taking a stack back up to six units on the strategic map.

- Summons are great for rushing, as you won’t need to wait your newer units to catch up to your other stacks in the enemies domain

- Summon Focus = less need for colonies (for producing units) = more cosemite in the short term (from not building colonizers.. Although you still want to get a few cities with cosemite nodes) = more mods in the early game

- A few late game units can summon in units that inherit the mods from the unit that summoned them

Tactical Summons

1. Assembly - Constrictor = lock in place with “”

2. Amazon - Luring Field Pylon

3. Dvar - sapper (large stagger)

4. Kirko - Abyssian 

5. Syndicate - Sentinel 

6. Vanguard - Valkyrie, heavy launcher turret.. engineers  

7. Sharkarn - N/A

1. Voidtech - create phase echo

2. Synthesis - N/A

3. Celestian - N/A

4. Promethean - N/A

5. Heritor - Drained 

6. Psynumbra - Echo of Despair, Sacrifice to the Abyss

7. Xenoplague - Bloated pustule (enemy units have to scatter after deployment to avoid the bloated pustules aoe on death)

1. Forgotten - Desolate 

Strategic Summons

1. Assembly - N/A

2. Amazon - Clone Predator 

3. Dvar - trencher

4. Kirko - emergent

5. Syndicate - N/A

6. Vanguard - owl (better than getting a monitor station)

7. Sharkarn - N/A

1. Voidtech - N/A

2. Synthesis - Reactivate Imperial Androids 

3. Celestian - Ascended Teacher

4. Psynumbra - whisper of a discord

5. Promethean - plasmoids = backlash

6. Xenoplague - If you use the infection mechanic to build up charges, you can get a kill in a sector that needs an extra unit. They also can summon 2 pustules with Xenobonic Plague Bomb

7. Heritor - N/A

1. Hero resurrection protocol 

Summoning Skills

1. Paragon Technoprophet - can summon in a random paragon unit

2. Autonom Network Controller - can summon in a random autonom unit

3. Drone Carrier - can summon in 3 types of drones

4. (T4 units like the Medusa, Arboreal Queen, and Plague Lord revive units that fall in combat, so slightly different)

5. Call of the Wild - Amazon hero skill which summon a random animal unit

6. Call Insider + Insider’s Insight - Shakarn hero skill

7. Tactician = One of Us spawns in a sleeper agent

8. Vanguard engineers can summon in turrets

9. Heritor Doomsday spawn drained (Final rapture)

10. Synthesis - Deployable malware demon = inherits mods of the unit that summon it

11. Guerilla strike spawns in an NPC stack to attack the targeted player 

12. Awakened guardians is op

13. Voidbringers: call spawner, spawn army

14. Reverse Engineers can summon in constructs

15. Ravenous can spawn in “larva”

16. Resetting summoning skill is hilarious

Greetings commanders!

I have been working towards this post for a while now, and am very excited to share my tier list with you! If you want to watch the video version, here is the link: 

FULL DISCLAIMER: My tier list was put together using my preferences and playstyles that I have developed over the past 9 months of playing planetfall. I have a lot more experience with some doctrines than others, and I did ask others a few questions about the doctrines that I am less familiar with. If you have any strong opinions about where they doctrines should go, please keep that in mind, and know that this is a general guide to help new players understand why I choose to use some doctrines over others. With that being said, I want to encourage the discussion of my tier list, so please feel free to let me know what you would change in the comments down below. Likewise, if you do agree with my assessment, then I would find it helpful to hear those thoughts as well.

In this post, I will cover how to use my tier list, and my plans for talking about each set of doctrines in more detail. 

General Explanation:

Doctrines in the S tier are what I consider the best in the game. Doctrines in A tier are slightly less useful than the ones in S tier. Doctrines in B tier are slightly worse than those in C tier. Doctrines in D tier are my least favorite, and what I would recommend you avoid, expect in a few very specific situations. For example, Inner communion only allows every one of your units to carry a single extra charge of essence, which is fairly negligible, unless you heavily invest in a strategy that generates essence quickly, then it can be okay. Doctrine that are further left within each tier are better than the doctrines that are to the right of them.

Legend Explanation:

Doctrines with a number on the top left corner can be research in the tech tree. The number represents how far down the tech tree a doctrine is. Noble Diplomats has a 1, because it can be research from the beginning of the game. Divine Legion has a 7, because it is a "tier 7' technology (it is 7 slots from left, requiring that other doctrines are researched before it is). 

Doctrines with NPC written on the top left corner are doctrines that are unlocked by befriending a NPC faction, like the Growth or the Psi-fish. 

Doctrines with a E on the top left corner are doctrines which are unlocked by completing empire quests. 

Doctrines with a L on the top left corner are doctrines which are unlocked by clearing a landmark. 

Doctrines with the blue arrow and a circle on the top right corner are doctrines than can get significantly better with the use of other doctrines or strategies that synergise with this doctrine. With that synergy, those doctrines can be consider as good as the doctrines in the tier above them.

Doctrines with the two swords on the bottom right corner do extra damage to specific unit types. 

How to use this Information:

You only get access to 7 doctrine slots in Planetfall (Syndicate get 8 doctrine slots), so you only want to pick doctrines that you think you are going to use for a while or the rest of the game, making your decision on which doctrines you use one of the most important decisions in a game. If a doctrine you want to use is further down on the list make sure you are not passing up on an better option. It maybe that a doctrine that I ranked lowly will benefit you a lot more than one I ranked highly, so use your best judgment (for example, Indentured Contracts may save you a lot more energy per turn than Noble Diplomats makes per turn).

Future Doctrine Tier Lists:

I am going to be releasing videos that break the doctrines into smaller sets so that I can talk specifically why I like each one as much as I do, and why I placed each one where I did. I am currently planning on talking about the Vanguard doctrines next week, but Cknoor and Jimmy said in yesterday's Planetfall stream that there maybe some new about Planetfall coming in the near future, so that may interfere with my plans for releasing the tier lists. 

If you enjoyed reading this, then maybe you could do me a favor, and like the video on YT as well as leave a comment. Cya around!

Hello again Planetfallers!

As much as I wanted to cover every aspect of making a melee commander this week, I was advised by many prominent members within the community to focus in on a handful of archetypes, and to explain why I paired certain mods with others, so that new players do not get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of options available to ranged heroes and so they do not end up choosing things that look good but do not synergize well together. (my explanations are in the video, but will be written here soon)

Here is a video version of he discussion:

Rifle Archetypes

Attacks are more likely to hit attacks and apply status effects. This is especially noteworthy for stacking statuses like charred or for exploiting stuff like applying burning. the Autonoms Immolation Matrix still has a guaranteed burning applied and the Thermal Targetting relay for significant damage and status increases. Vanguard are the only race that starts with the laser rifle, altho other can get it by conquering a vanguard colony. The assembly basic loadout is the best basic loadout in the game. one of assembly's few strengths is access to the electrocutioner gun, which is exactly like the hasher smg, but with an electrify inflict attached, and you get that in the 0 cost loadout.

Vanguard Early Game

Vanguard Late Game

Assembly Early Game

Assembly Late Game

Shotgun Heroes

These heroes are great at flanking and dealing lots of damage even after being staggered. There's also the difference of having a range 5 hero vs a range 7 hero with a single action attack. The traditional shotgun range is going to require you lean more on defense, whereas something like the omni cannon let's you lean more offensively. Skills/mods that add an extra AP after kill (ruthless killer commander perk or sequential kill system vanguard mod) are extra awesome for heroes (or units) with shotgun-like weapons (single attack that uses only one AP). Omni Cannon fall in this category even though it has long range, because it only requires one action point. Bringing grenades on them can be more usefu. 

Syndicate get a very early (think you can research it first thing) tactical operation that costs 2 points and gives your hero always flanking for 3 turns. Combine with the mod unlocked by same research that gives 25% (iirc) extra damage on flank attacks for easy synergy.

Early Vanguard

Late Vanguard

Early Assembly 

Late Assembly

Omni Cannon/ Rancor/ Range 7, single action weapons

Sniper Heroes

Being staggered is horrible for these heroes as their primary attacks require 3 AP. Free action mods (like jetpacks) are a bigger deal for them. Activated abilities are more useful for when they do get staggered or need to move (things like consuming gaze)

Early Vanguard

Early Amazon

Early Syndicate

Late Vanguard

Late Amazon

Late Syndicate

Vehicle Heroes

Hoverbike

Wraith

Rift Generator 

High Lord

I have this Awesome bridge battle with Tik Gi'Glux during the Kir'Ko campaign. I love how the game throws in the area on the map into the battle.