Planetary Annihilation beta test begins – Watch the beta launch video for Uber’s RTS

If you chipped in with wads of cash for Uber Entertainment’s RTS Planetary Annihilation Steam Early Access then the good news is the game is now gone into the beta test phase.

From this evening the beta version of the game is available through Steam and it should zip its way down to your PC without any problems. PC gamers can still get on the beta by parting with $60.

To celebrate the milestone, Uber has also released a new video to entice you to take part and the fill list of changes/additions can also be found below.

Patch notes for the beta read as follows:

• SMASH PLANETS. Build on other planets. This is still work in progress, and you will see a great deal of iteration in the coming weeks and months. Go forth, Commanders, take over the solar system, fling asteroids at your enemies, dominate the skies.
• Borderless full screen now supported! Alt-Enter (rebindable) to enter the mode. The game will now remember window position and what mode you’re in – full screen, windowed, window-maximized, etc.
• Significant changes to client performance. If you haven’t been able to play much, now is a good time to try again and post in our beta forums with details about your experiences, ESPECIALLY if it’s worse for you now.
• Major overhaul to metal denisty and clustering. Still very work in progress. Reduces overall metal. The actual placement still needs more iteration, as the current system results in too many unusable metal spots.
• Overhaul of the system editor. Play around with it. Much improved flow, saving, loading and customization of planets and solar systems.
• Big changes to landing selection. Still a work in progress. Small games should typically guarantee more reliable metal for all. Larger games can still result in limited immediately available metal. This will continue to be iterated.
• Major changes to how we use video memory. In most cases, you should see a significant improvement in your video cards memory usage. This helps visuals, frame rate, etc.
• Orbital: In addition to units being fleshed out quite a bit, orbital landers now work. With the lander selected, press L to move it to the ground and “load”, select the unit you want to load and right click on the lander to get on board (only some units currently support this – land fabs and the commander), then target another body. Keep in mind, celestial travel isn’t fast. Plan accordingly! Also, don’t let your commander die while on a lander. Game over man! Game over!
• Tons of new art. Orbital units, updated land units, Delta V planet movers, and more.
• The community bug tracker can now be opened in game by selecting Ctrl+F10 (Rebindable)
• Water shader has more transparency now. Should make it easier to see some of your underwater units.
• Torpedos work now. However, they don’t submerge yet.
• ENERGY MATTERS. If you are running at an energy deficit, you’ll notice stuff that requires energy to work won’t, or will work much slower. We don’t have specific notifications about this currently, so keep a lot of energy storage or simply don’t run negative. You’ll regret it.
• Features are now destructible. Sorry, you can’t see them start on fire yet.
• Reclaim, wreckage and overkill are now all using a dynamic system, rather than hard coded numbers. The amount it will take to reclaim a live unit, or wreckage, are components of their total build cost, health and wreckage stability. Fabbers reclaim at a lower rate than they build at.
• AI now builds air scouts
• AI will seek out targets before sending bomber patrols; It will also wait to send a bombing run until it has enough to do an effective run
• AI now builds radar
• Significant Balance Changes – too many to list
• Tanks currently can’t shoot at air. We’re testing this change to see how it feels in comparison.
• More units now can be built on land and water ; We don’t have a visual way to show this yet
• Advanced radar satellite is really worth building now
• Most orbital units can now move between planets