Supreme Commander Demo released!

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2007-02-13 03:57pm

Try setting your engineers on a patrol route. They'll reclaim automatically, repair automatically, and so on.

Genii Lodus · Post by **Genii Lodus** » 2007-02-13 04:10pm

Can't remember anyone mentioning this (don't know if it's in the tutorials either, didn't feel like dling anymore after getting the demo itself) but it is possible to make the interface a vertical one by pressing ALT+UP (or CTRL+UP one of the two). This makes the game much more playable especially if you have a widescreen monitor. You can also press F12 to view the keybindings.

GPG pretty much shot themselves in the foot by releasing a demo which does a great job of obscuring its best features from players. For a game in which the ease of customisation was hyped it is pretty poor show that even keybindings can't be gotten at from the normal menu, as in every other game I have played which allowed the player to change them.

Macross · Post by **Macross** » 2007-02-15 12:42am

Shinova wrote:Try setting your engineers on a patrol route. They'll reclaim automatically, repair automatically, and so on.

Thanks for the tip, I'm going to give the demo another try. I just played the War Front: Turning Point Demo and I must say that after playing that, all the criticisms and flaws with Supreme Commander Demo now seem somewhat overstated.

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2007-02-15 09:30am

By downloading the last version of the beta and doing a bit of cut and pasting, and some editing of the lua files you can play as any of the factions. I love the giant ID4 saucer the Aeon have.. but maybe that's because the first time I used it it tore through the outer sections of the enemy base and then won me the match when massed AA fire brought it down and it landed on top of the enemy commander.

Hawkwings · Post by **Hawkwings** » 2007-02-15 07:02pm

Ah, you mean the Czar Bomba? That thing is nasty.

Elaro · Post by **Elaro** » 2007-02-15 07:16pm

SylasGaunt wrote:By downloading the last version of the beta and doing a bit of cut and pasting, and some editing of the lua files you can play as any of the factions. I love the giant ID4 saucer the Aeon have.. but maybe that's because the first time I used it it tore through the outer sections of the enemy base and then won me the match when massed AA fire brought it down and it landed on top of the enemy commander.

Step-by-step instructions on how to accomplish this are essential to my continued mental health.

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2007-02-15 08:18pm

http://forum.spacebattles.com/showthrea ... 077&page=8

It's in that thread.

Elaro · Post by **Elaro** » 2007-02-15 08:33pm

Glorious. My sanity gives you a thousand thanks.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2007-02-16 01:31am

You can also change the computer's faction if you feel like playing against a different race.

EDIT:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 1738754535

Here's how to obliterate a whole base with a single air force with a single attack.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-02-16 11:12am

The retail game apparently ships with a "Mod Manager" with three mods pre-installed; two as demonstrations of possible mods and one as a full-fledged mod which doubles all resource production (somehow I suspect that will be a most popular mod).

Mods can be activated and deactivated not only at the main menu but also in the game lobby.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2007-02-16 11:30am

You know... I'd like to mod up the resources ganied from the terrain (both rocks and metal/power locations), I think games would be a LOT more interesting if holding more territory had a major advantage to it (rather build just building lots of reactors, force people to go out and fight over resources). Dawn of War and Company of Heroes does that, and those games are a lot more 'action packed'.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-02-16 11:36am

As I have mentioned to friends already as to what would make this game much better would be a mod where everyone starts off with near-end game bases spread over a decently large area with invulnerable subcommanders already built to manage them. The only buildings in the base would be resource and production, players would set up defenses and military as it suited them. Subcommanders would handle rebuilding any destroyed sections, further allowing the players to ignore the tedious and mind-numbing first ten minutes of the game used to establish a badass economy and instead jump straight into the actual game, which is beating the snot out of your opponent.

I mean seriously, if you fuck up in the slightest in establishing your economy and your opponent doesn't you're so badly fucked it's not even funny, since the overwhelming advantage one recieves from making a badass economy is HUGE.

If you could further mod the game so that capturing subcommanders (or invulnerable subcommand control bases) would increase your resources, that I'd actually be cool with.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2007-02-16 03:06pm

Word on the 'net from some lucky guys who've got the RTM release is that the performance is better than in the demo.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-02-16 03:10pm

phongn wrote:Word on the 'net from some lucky guys who've got the RTM release is that the performance is better than in the demo.

One of my friends snagged it and he seems to concur.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2007-02-16 03:16pm

Uraniun235 wrote:
phongn wrote:Word on the 'net from some lucky guys who've got the RTM release is that the performance is better than in the demo.
One of my friends snagged it and he seems to concur.

I can't quite believe that GPG and THQ dropped the ball so badly on the demo - a few more maps, multiplayer and a newer build would've make people much more receptive.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-02-16 03:21pm

Or even just a better map; Seton's Clutch would have been the perfect demo map.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2007-02-16 03:26pm

Well it is out in the stores here, but I am not sure my comp is up for it, install req is insane. Including 10gb for the game.

But it is on tomorrows shopping list.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2007-02-16 03:28pm

phongn wrote:
Uraniun235 wrote:
phongn wrote:Word on the 'net from some lucky guys who've got the RTM release is that the performance is better than in the demo.
One of my friends snagged it and he seems to concur.
I can't quite believe that GPG and THQ dropped the ball so badly on the demo - a few more maps, multiplayer and a newer build would've make people much more receptive.

They definetly lost me a customer.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-02-16 04:28pm

Shinova wrote:You can also change the computer's faction if you feel like playing against a different race.

EDIT:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 1738754535

Here's how to obliterate a whole base with a single air force with a single attack.

Great video, what a perfect explination and demonstration of why--like I and others have said--they need a 'battle plan' fuction that allows me to plan out an entire attack and give the go command whenever I see fit. What he did was great to get it to work, but we shouldn't have to make the system dance on it's head just to make it easy to queue up commands.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2007-02-16 04:33pm

It also showcases how fucking retarded it is to make the Commander a nuclear soap bubble. The vast majority of the damage done in that assault was in fact dependant on the commander going boom.

Hawkwings · Post by **Hawkwings** » 2007-02-16 05:55pm

Well, it's a perfectly valid tactic. It's just that people will hate you for doing it, and ranked games are assassination. Heck, on Seton's Clutch, one of my clan members on the opposing team would regularly com-bomb our defenses in the middle if he had no other way to take them out.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2007-02-16 06:01pm

There's nothing worse than people who complain about using a tactic the game design makes effective. Don't like com-bombing? Fix the stupid 'exploding commander' thing, don't blame players for doing it.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2007-02-16 06:29pm

Faram wrote:Well it is out in the stores here, but I am not sure my comp is up for it, install req is insane. Including 10gb for the game.

But it is on tomorrows shopping list.

My friend says the full install is about 8.5 GB.

Great video, what a perfect explination and demonstration of why--like I and others have said--they need a 'battle plan' fuction that allows me to plan out an entire attack and give the go command whenever I see fit. What he did was great to get it to work, but we shouldn't have to make the system dance on it's head just to make it easy to queue up commands.

I remember in TA a great way to simulate the "go order" was to make every unit's first order be to guard some worthless extra unit... like a scout or a basic radar tower you could just throw down or something. Then queue up however many other commands you wanted. The unit would continue to hold the guard pattern until the unit it was guarding was destroyed... so you'd get all these units queued up and ready to go, and when you were ready to execute the plan, you'd just self-destruct the guarded unit and BAM! they'd all take off on their assigned plans.

It was beautiful carrying out an orchestrated airlift of heavy units into the enemy's rear quarter in TA, hence why I love being able to transport units so easily in SC.

I wonder if such a trick would work in SC. I bet it would.

Elaro · Post by **Elaro** » 2007-02-16 08:12pm

Covenant wrote:
Shinova wrote:You can also change the computer's faction if you feel like playing against a different race.

EDIT:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 1738754535

Here's how to obliterate a whole base with a single air force with a single attack.
Great video, what a perfect explination and demonstration of why--like I and others have said--they need a 'battle plan' fuction that allows me to plan out an entire attack and give the go command whenever I see fit. What he did was great to get it to work, but we shouldn't have to make the system dance on it's head just to make it easy to queue up commands.

Not having a simple "battle plan" function? Lame.

The fact that you can execute a battle plan anyway? T3h awesome.

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2007-02-16 10:15pm

phongn wrote:
Uraniun235 wrote:
phongn wrote:Word on the 'net from some lucky guys who've got the RTM release is that the performance is better than in the demo.
One of my friends snagged it and he seems to concur.
I can't quite believe that GPG and THQ dropped the ball so badly on the demo - a few more maps, multiplayer and a newer build would've make people much more receptive.

I can, the PR person from THQ responcible for SupCom got replaced with someone who has been doing a horrible job. Remember all those screenshots? They where from the previous THQ PR person, as soon as that person was replaced the screenshots dryed up