Sign up here if you'd like to get access to the Escalation private beta.
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I sent you a PM.
not working for me either 111mb download and says missing executable
Still not working here either. Tried regular and vip builds.
Try restarting Steam again and let me know if it works now.
i just went under beta and picked vip, its defaulted to the none one which is 111mb, seemed to work after i changed it, maybe restart steam after you pick it?
Never mind. I reread the thread as see we have to right click on Escalation not the current game. Didn't even know that was in there. lol
You guys showld let Ticktoc start try escalation, hes the most active player here, and the nr1 who is always ready to help and answer community .
He deserve this early gift.
Another thing that i think is very important.
You guys showld let 3 top players test it, its always bether have with us players that understand very well the game.
Wy not make a tournament where the best 3 have the choice to try escalation for 2 days.
That is very kind of you to say Utter. But it is okay 
If I was Stardock though I would open it up to all founders who are interested and even contact a few of the top 1v1 players who may not be founders to test it out. The top players tend to analyse and adapt to new play styles rather then trying to force one place style that the more casual players do, so that makes them good at finding true OP or under powered things, even moves that the devs hadn't thought of themselves.
So I live in hope I'll still get try it before release
(And feel free to post feedback about it on here, they haven't said you can't...what are the new start options they have mentioned and how different is the UI? )
UI is quite different, everything is smaller to accommodate the new options. I do agree about top 10 ranked being allowed to test. i was speaking to NEVER who isn't a founder. you defo should get his feedback on it, he beats me in ranked with one hand tied behind his back and only plays substrait, just explain the NDA. I dont feel like i would be losing out at all letting top 10 join in, if anything there feedback would make it better for me in the long run.
I really liked the new up-gradable turrets. Dont entirely agree that they should be out of action while they upgrade, that makes it a very heavy cost for upgrading on top of the actual upgrade cost and you should be able to select a group and upgrade them at the same time but i definitely feel like its more depth. And there are lots of further options with regards upgrading of turrets... i mean you could just keep adding more and more upgrade options with higher costs. doesn't matter if they dont get used its about having loads of choices. Level 1 level 2 level 3 level 4 etc... for all of the turrets. would be nice if it moves to buildings too.
Bit miffed that there was no air dreadnought added.. i was half expecting a giant flying saucer donut thing. The T3 planes on phc where a little lack luster.. i set a single gunship over to a metal point which had an avatar on it and the t3 gun ship took about 5 mins to kill the avatar on its own haha which can be produced at the start not towards the late game like the t3 gun ship.
i liked the strategic zoom though i have to be honest i didn't spend that much time in it, which is funny considering how many arguments where had on the forums about if they added stat zoom that players would just be in it all the time. was deneb though against painful ai so not the biggest map.
Bit miffed there was no portal-able orbital jammer, thats like a big thing for escalations. So you can actually move your armies across the map with out being droned / nuked to death before you get there. I liked the orbital jammer ability that helped move a little further forward on the ai.
liked the lazer beam anti air, looks cool! and no more pesky t2 bombers from the ai swamping me!.
There was one bug with the brute, if you set the factory way point right at the start to go to a capture point, the first brute out the factory just went and sat next to the neutral enemys. i had to select him and tell him to attack them. bit weird.
overall seems much better. i wonder how that new artillery will play in ranked ! haha mental range!
If you guys have a list of active players you would like to nominate to be upgraded to lifetime edition, post here:
I nominate TicToc.
as mentioned above gotta nominate NEVER as he is rank 1 or 2 currently, but also for his commitment to making youtube vids for newbies.
+1 for a feedback thread that isn't related to 'balance'
I've got some nit picking to do. A fair bit of it.
+1 for letting Ticktock in too. Heck, he even knew about this VIP beta before I did.
Sounds like a good idea...no bias here 
Other have also put forward Never, and I would add DasUnding. Never for top level Substrate and DasUnding for top level PHC. They also sometimes play non-ranked 1v1 with each other, testing things, so it seems a good pairing. DasUnding also consistently puts up youtube videos.
Guys have to ask you all lets make a bit press in the good way 
to ashes team let ticktoc pass to lifetime member so he can try escalation or other option to him.
I'm downloading a 6.5 GB file. I had to restart the whole process. Code and resume downloading. Unfortunately I'm travelling so no game for me until a few days.
Im not going to have any structure to this post, it's just what comes to me after I've had a few games.
AI feels nerfed, especially on normal.
STILL getting hangs when a game finishes.
STILL getting checkerboard when a big explosion happens near the screen. (Even with a different graphics card)
Formations seem prone to breaking and trails of units become a thing, sad!
Unit clumps appear to be fixed, great!
If some units arrive at a waypoint early they wont attack anything nearby until other units catch up. Real pants down moment.
Dreadnoughts seem weak now the new defensive turrets exist. TOO easy to turtle. Totally spoils the point of them IMO.
STILL NO NAVAL.
Still no bodies of water as either obstacles or decoration.
STILL NO SCRAP.
New Brute only comes as one and looks more like a Substrate unit.
Hera is fun, perhaps not boxy enough. Could be substrate or PHC.
PHC T3 Bomber looks nice, explosion is great.
Gunship is fun to use but looks like ASS. The weapon really shows off poor hit boxes too.
No new Dreadnoughts. WHYYYYY???
Too many reused graphical effects for a lot of the weapons. Cheap!
No small Lava or Crystal maps. Tragic.
The lines between resources no longer look like baby diarrhoea but instead a dried dog poop trail. Gross!
No third faction. Sad!
I'm seeing very little which appears to offer value for money, but I can't complain since I am a lifetime founder right? I'm just disappointed.
Needs to be a graphical swoosh between the mega map and gameplay view. Mega map looks nice enough to appease the SupCom miseries.
I also felt ripped off when I bought the most recent Sins standalone though, perhaps I expect too much for a full price game. This will be a hard sell for a lot of people I fear. It might be better to release as early access for a while and add some more to this.
I only say all this as a fan, and a believer.
Some of the things you list are not in the remit of this expansion (Naval,3rd faction). But:
This has been a big worry of mine. Defences are already pretty strong and the expansion seems to add a lot more. Unless units or upgrades are changed up then defences could easily become OP.
I noticed this in the Twitch preview we got. I mentioned it in the Steam forum though at the time I was assuming they were place holder until they got their own effects. Hope this is still the case.
I agree that from the picture I saw a while back its aesthetic doesn't match current PHC. But it is a brand new unit so lore wise you could argue they have taken some inspiration from Substrate. Will have to make up my own mind when when I see it finally.
Tried the new campaigns?
Not sure what game you have been playing where base defences are op haha base defences in ashes where weak and needed buffing big Time. I mean 1 artimus could take out all your base defence in ashes. have you seen the range on the new cruiser ? Mix those in with a radar .. it's better than artimus.
if you think ai is nurfed I would suggest painful ai on a large map. He had me restricted to about 3 node points for 2hrs. My game went on so long I left it on and went out leaving it on fastest. Came back and my base was still there, i then used the 30k quanta to nuke a path for 40 Cronus to the enemy's construction yard.
I prefered the previous brute agreed but the path finding was terrible for 3 units it would get stuck all the time when used in meta group. At least now one brute will not get stuck behind. Though as I mentioned it is bugged and doesn't fire when coming out of a factory.
Its not the base defences that need nurfing they have berm finally given some options and depth it's now dreadnaughts, and experimental t4 which need depth and extra attention So there is more options on large scale games. It just falls apart when played on a massive scale. I prefer smaller maps which shouldn't be the case not for what the game is trying for.
I play a lot of 2v2 or 3v3 custom games. When you get people of a similar level (and who are decent players too) it often comes down to people setting up choke points fairly early. Then the other side has to do the same. These choke point defences get ever bigger and tougher until players can either work around them, work on a weaker player, but most common is when a side gets up a critical mass of Dreadnoughts. So games can feel pretty slow and stuck for a long time. Throw down a few cheap Smarties at the beginning and that will hold up a force of Zeus and brutes and archers for a long time. But of course the smarties get backed up by troops too. By the time you get better units down there to kill them its been made stronger. It is true Substrate are weaker when it comes to defensive setups, but the PHC are strong. Yes they might not be able to stop a few dreadnoughts used well but only serious turtlers will think that means they are not strong enough. If defences get any stronger then the battlefield is going to be even more static and it will all be about who gets down their defences first.
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