 Planet Moon designed the structure of the single-player mode to be a gradual learning process for the players; the game would introduce new command sets to the players as they progress, and encourage them to repeat using the new commands for that mission. From the start of the project, the team intended the controls to be simple, and mapped commonly used commands to a few keys. Focus groups consisting more than 25 testers went through this design to verify its ease. Planet Moon aimed for a complex artificial intelligence (AI); computer-controlled characters would evade shots and take cover. The enemy AI would plot its actions according to long-term goals. The development team consulted Mark Frohnmayer, lead programmer of the multiplayer game Tribes 2, for advice on implementing the multiplayer portion. To balance the characters in combat, Planet Moon focused on characteristics that could affect the fighting capabilities, instead of tweaking the damage output. The team faced a tight schedule, and abandoned several features initially in the game. Early designs allowed players to change the landscape; they could gorge out water channels and isolate segments of the land by playing as Reapers. The Kabuto character initially could bake mud into "mud shepherd" units and use them to defend its herd of food.
