Supreme Commander Demo released!

[Laughing Mechanicus]

I've got the full game now and am enjoying it. The only thing that irks me is the pace. I keep finding it takes me forever to get a decent economy up and running (especially if I also want to have a credible defence).

So has anybody got any economy related tips (for skirmish)? I usually immediately try to grab my "half" of the maps share of mass extrators, and keep them safe with a small force of bombers and fighters. At this point I either A) fortify the extractors, which horrendously slows down my climb of the tech tree or B) Go straight up the tech tree with few defences for my scattered extractors... which usually ends up with my economy stalling later because the enemy has been picking away at undefended extractors.

Also is it always a good idea to use mass fabricators? I used to ignore them and concentrate on upgrading my extractors but I've had a bit of luck rushing up to tech level three then building lots of T3 power plants/fabricators in order to remove my dependence on the vulnerable exterior sources of mass.

[Hawkwings]

Here's my econ-build that has served me well. It's slightly vulnerable vs rushes, but you can out-resource your enemy if you do it right.

Start with 4 power gens, somewhat near your starting mass, but not touching. Make them all in a line. Next, take the mass points. Then build a land or air factory (depending on the map/your style of play) adjacent to the 4 power gens. Crank out 4 engineers, a couple scouts, 4 more engineers, and some land units for defense. Send a couple engineers to get more mass points, and build at least 8 more power generators.

Now you have a choice. If you're feeling lucky, build a mass gen field. Basically, lay down power generators and mass generators in a checkerboard pattern. A decent sized field will net you 20 or so extra mass. That's enough to do basically anything you want in t1. Start upgrading your mex soon though. Watch out, a bomber raid can completely destroy your mass gen field. They will all chain-react and explode when one mass gen is destroyed.

If you're not feeling lucky, start upgrading your mex immediately. If you have +9 mass income, you can tell a mex to upgrade, and your mass income will change to +0. However, that's kinda slow. I use my engineers and commander (if he's not busy) to assist the mex. It'll probably make you go into negative mass income, and stall your econ for a while. That's ok. Upgrade 2 mex to T2, then you should be relatively stable in your mass income. Once you've got all 4 of your starting mex upgraded, upgrade one of your factories to T2 (with engineers assistance), and start working on more defenses. Slowly start upgrading the rest of your mex to t2. If you've got a nice income and lots of mass storage, assist a mex in going to T3. Once T2 is done, build T2 engineers first, and lay down at least 2 T2 power plants.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Got the full game, and been playing skirmish ever since I got it. Setons Glutch is an awesome map, even though with 3 AI players the game runs almost as slowly as a damn slideshow after an hour. The skirmish map on the demo was really poor for judging this game properly, on a large scale it really starts to show how much fun it can be. I can almost forget the near identical factions, and the too lengthy startup. But still, its an ok game.

On large maps, nukes really start to fly nicely. I ended up lobbing 9 nukes in my last game, wiping out AI secondary bases, troop formations and main bases while my ground, air and naval forces proceeded to hammer the enemy front to pieces.

On another note, I really like the UEF. The Fatboy über tank is utter coolness. Someone from GPG has definitely read about Bolos when designing this thing. The four arty cannons can hammer any ground units from extreme range with impunity, and anything that gets close enough to fire will meet the shield and the close in rapid fire cannons. The Monkeylord is no match for these things, the tank can destroy the Monkeylord from beyond the Lord's own range before it can even come within range. Even if the Monkeylord gets within range, it doesnt seem to have the firepower to destroy the Fatboy before being annihilated. The only downsides of the tank are the very slow speed and lackluster AA capabilities. But still, I love the unit

I really hope there is a patch coming soon to address the performance issues even on smaller maps.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

That was the one biggie with me. Get too many units on the screen, and it really starts to chug, even at low resolutions and settings. And my system is no slouch. For a game that's designed on such a massive scale, they really should have paid more attention to large numbers of units not causing such a performance hit. Also, the smallest widescreen res the game seems to support is 1440 x 900, which completely brings my system to its needs. The stretching on smaller 4:3 resolutions isn't noticeable, though.

[wautd]

I bought it. My main gripe is how annoying it was to find a decent multiplayer game. Hopefully this will get fixed soon

http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic. ... sc&start=0

I'm sure that once the game has been out for about a week, you'll have no problems finding multiplayer games to get horribly utterly demolished play in.

Don't get me wrong, I had no trouble finding games. I had trouble finding games where all other players showed a ping (and nog ping = no game). Hopefully this will improve over time because 40 minutes to get a game started sucks the fun right out of it.

[Elaro]

That was the one biggie with me. Get too many units on the screen, and it really starts to chug, even at low resolutions and settings. And my system is no slouch. For a game that's designed on such a massive scale, they really should have paid more attention to large numbers of units not causing such a performance hit. Also, the smallest widescreen res the game seems to support is 1440 x 900, which completely brings my system to its needs. The stretching on smaller 4:3 resolutions isn't noticeable, though.

Bzzt. The smallest widescreen res is 1280x768 (in the demo).

Also, is it odd that the highest framerate I can get is 20 fps? I get the same fps for 1024x768 and 1280x960. I can only conclude that my processor, not my video card, is the bottleneck, but I have trouble believing that with a C2D E6400 and a Radeon X1300. Maybe I don't have enough RAM (I have 1 gig)?

[wautd]

I get Insanely low FPS as well, even tough my system is still quite powerfull. Hopefully a software issue that can be patched because I don't feel like upgrading just yet

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

I improved my FPS a bit by updating graphics drivers and shutting off background CPU/RAM hog programs such as Java platform and Azureus. But still, the performance is lackluster at best. With a A64 3700+, XFX 7900GT and 2GB of RAM I would expect the game to run somewhat smoothly with medium or low settings. Though it seems that changing the graphical settings doesnt really change the issue at all. Well, the GPG guys have said on the SupCom forum that they are looking into the problem.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Bzzt. The smallest widescreen res is 1280x768 (in the demo).

Well, it doesn't show up as an option for me.

Also, is it odd that the highest framerate I can get is 20 fps? I get the same fps for 1024x768 and 1280x960. I can only conclude that my processor, not my video card, is the bottleneck, but I have trouble believing that with a C2D E6400 and a Radeon X1300. Maybe I don't have enough RAM (I have 1 gig)?

NWN2 was the same for a lot of people unless you changed some settings in .ini files and forced off vsync in the drivers. Could just be wonky software here, too.

[Hawkwings]

http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=424

This might fix some performance issues.

[Uraniun235]

Also, is it odd that the highest framerate I can get is 20 fps? I get the same fps for 1024x768 and 1280x960. I can only conclude that my processor, not my video card, is the bottleneck, but I have trouble believing that with a C2D E6400 and a Radeon X1300. Maybe I don't have enough RAM (I have 1 gig)?

Your CPU shouldn't be the problem. Try turning off Vsync. Also see below.

I get Insanely low FPS as well, even tough my system is still quite powerfull. Hopefully a software issue that can be patched because I don't feel like upgrading just yet

Are your drivers up to date? I noticed in the beta that updating to the latest drivers helped a lot.

[Companion Cube]

I'm enjoying the single-player campaigns quite a lot; the AI has a decently varied bag of scripted tricks when it comes to attacking your base or mobile forces, and I think I actually noticed them changing tack once or twice. Some screenshots for you, courtesy of the UEF campaign (sorry about the low resolution and lack of anti-aliasing):

The Aeon keep some pretty respectable pressure on the front line, and only allowed me to inch forward for the first half of this mission.

Aeon transports obviously have some kind of special Asshole AI that encourages them to chase my bomber squadron.

[Hotfoot]

Okay, I'm tempted to get SupCom, as it does have a nice engine and such. However, I'd like to create a mod for it, because the stock game irritates me.

Here are the changes I'm planning on making so far:
-No more Commander Nuke on death.
-All resourcing is upgradable. All of it. No more fucking farms upon farms.
-Tweaks on resource rates, making it easier to set up a stable economy without flooding players with it.
-Complete rebalancing of ALL units. Especially superunits.
-Removing units that are made worthless later in the game. For example

T1
-Recon Buggy, racial specials apply? (stealth, cloak, sensor spoofs). Light laser, fast, weenie. Main use in late game: increasing sensor range for ground forces with ranges beyond LOS. Maybe specials apply to a radius.
-LAV, fast, more heavily armored, light autocannon, useful for hit and runs, effective against fast vehicles, moderately effective against slower, low-flying aircraft.

T2
-Artillery. Long range, high damage, AOE, very slow tracking.
-Sheild Generator/Cruise Missile defense


T3
-MBT Heavy armor, slow moving, slow tracking. What do you expect?
-Dedicated AA, low armor, high tracking speed, moderate speed, can tag all aircraft

Air
T1
-Scout Plane/Awacs
-Interceptor


T2
-Bomber
-Gunship

T3
-Torpedo Bomber
-Troop Transport

Naval
Mostly unchanged, it largely follows the above example.

[wautd]

I get Insanely low FPS as well, even tough my system is still quite powerfull. Hopefully a software issue that can be patched because I don't feel like upgrading just yet

Are your drivers up to date? I noticed in the beta that updating to the latest drivers helped a lot.

They are now, but I couldn't see much improvement (it even seems a bit worse now).

I think it's my CPU. 2GHz is quite below the recommended system requirements

[Ace Pace]

I get Insanely low FPS as well, even tough my system is still quite powerfull. Hopefully a software issue that can be patched because I don't feel like upgrading just yet

Are your drivers up to date? I noticed in the beta that updating to the latest drivers helped a lot.

They are now, but I couldn't see much improvement (it even seems a bit worse now).

I think it's my CPU. 2GHz is quite below the recommended system requirements

My 2GHZ 3800+ X2 is working fine, with 1GB RAM.

[Xon]

The retail game runs like a dog when I'm slinging around +100 air units around the map desperatly fending off assults +60 strong from the AI in the campaign.

Unit cap is too low and I want my fast air-superiority fighter with missiles damnit. The UEF t3 air-superiority fighter's range is too damn short todo more than 1 pass against a fleet of incoming tech 2 air transports. And they cant turn around fast enough to catch the buggers after that.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I'm just curious why people don't like the Commander-nuke. If the Commander dies, the game's over anyway, so who cares if he takes the local area with him? I suppose it might lead to a cheesy tactic where a 2 vs 1 team could have one player sacrifice his commander in the middle of the other guy's base, but I can't really see the harm outside of that.

[Uraniun235]

I'm just curious why people don't like the Commander-nuke. If the Commander dies, the game's over anyway, so who cares if he takes the local area with him? I suppose it might lead to a cheesy tactic where a 2 vs 1 team could have one player sacrifice his commander in the middle of the other guy's base, but I can't really see the harm outside of that.

I think part of it is an objection to the very premise of "one single unit dies and it is game over". Stofsk mentioned something about not wanting it to be a death sentence for the forces attacking the Commander too, although given how many RTS sessions are 1v1 it's not like that's particularly a problem.

I think it's potentially a Big Problem if you're playing Commander Death = Rock On, because then yeah it opens the door to some vicious commander bombing. Dollars to donuts says one of the first mods released will be to eliminate the massive Commander explosion.

My 2GHZ 3800+ X2 is working fine, with 1GB RAM.

Maybe he's talking about a Pentium 4?

Or maybe he's just got the visual settings cranked too high.

Unit cap is too low

I've noticed that in the campaign, as the 'operational area' expands, so does the unit cap. The latest Aeon mission I played, I bumped into the unit cap at 250 early on, but later in the mission near endgame I had a unitcap of 500.

[Hotfoot]

I'm just curious why people don't like the Commander-nuke. If the Commander dies, the game's over anyway, so who cares if he takes the local area with him? I suppose it might lead to a cheesy tactic where a 2 vs 1 team could have one player sacrifice his commander in the middle of the other guy's base, but I can't really see the harm outside of that.

No, that's just frankly not the case. The commander is not an essential unit unless you happen to be playing the assassination game mode. Once you have ~10 engineers of any type, the Commander ceases to be a vital unit at all. In fact, once you have enough engineers, the commander actually becomes less useful unless you take the time and resources to upgrade him.

Add to that the fact that subcommanders go up like party favors as well means that instead of focusing on destroying defenses, resourcing areas, or construction yards, all ANYONE has to do is find out where all commander-like units are, focus all firepower on them, and once they go off, THEN it's game over. If they died like any other unit in the game, you could easily keep going without a care in the world.

[Xon]

Upgraded SubCommanders piss all over Tech 3 engineers. +2.5k energy, +12 mass, un-capped usage of resources when building (engineers have a hard cap on how many resources they can use when building, regardless if thier building power would allow it to go higher) and massive building power at the same time.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

So I'm assuming in the full game there's an option for the game to keep going once the Commander's been taken down? Because in the normal game, Commander death = you lose automatically, whether he explodes or not. In that case, I suppose it's reasonable to want to tone down the explosion.

Anyway, sub-commanders don't go all Tsar Bomba when they get capped, so that part isn't a problem.

[Hotfoot]

Upgraded SubCommanders piss all over Tech 3 engineers. +2.5k energy, +12 mass, un-capped usage of resources when building (engineers have a hard cap on how many resources they can use when building, regardless if thier building power would allow it to go higher) and massive building power at the same time.

Whoop dee fucking doo. It takes almost zero time to build a few extra engineers, and in the time it takes to simply build one subcommander (never mind upgrades), you can easily have those same T3 engineers build enough resourcing to surpass the subcommanders when fully upgraded.

And once you have 10-20 T3 engineers working on something with the lesser engineers supporting, you can easily blow your entire economy on whatever it is you want to make without spending 10+ minutes building a subcommander and crippling your enconomy just for upgrading something that is essentially a big nuclear soap bubble that, if destroyed, will wipe out most of your base.

Again, let's review: engineers are cheaper, easier to get, and not big fat nukes waiting to go off in your own base. I mean seriously, you need T3 engineer just to get subcommanders. The only real use for subcommanders is that they can automatically rebuild destroyed sections of your base, assuming, of course, they're still alive. Frankly, anyone who doesn't beeline straight for all commanders and commander-flavored units is being idiotic, because doing so is like using a free, unblockable nuke that's already deployed in the heart of your enemy's base.

If they made commander units: stronger, tougher, and NOT nuclear bombs on legs, I might agree that they're worthwhile to build. As it is, their best use as far as I can see is packing them off to the enemy base and committing suicide.

So I'm assuming in the full game there's an option for the game to keep going once the Commander's been taken down? Because in the normal game, Commander death = you lose automatically, whether he explodes or not. In that case, I suppose it's reasonable to want to tone down the explosion.

Anyway, sub-commanders don't go all Tsar Bomba when they get capped, so that part isn't a problem.

If you're playing the demo, play on hard and you'll see what I'm talking about. From the beta, there are four game modes: Assassination, Extermination, Domination, and Sandbox (games end when: commander dies, all forces die, all buildings are destroyed, game does not end).

I'll admit I haven't seen a subcommander get capped yet, but that's simply because that by the time I get subcommanders out in the demo, the game's already over. However, when I hover over them, they do have the meltdown tag, indicating that they do go kaboomski. I'm pretty sure that in previous games I have killed subcommanders that the AI pumped out with similar results.

[SylasGaunt]

THey do explode but not in the krakatoa fashion the ACU does.

[InnocentBystander]

The explosions are small, but nasty enough to cause them to chain, so using them as field troops is foolish (:twisted:) unless they're upgraded and against a significantly weaker opponent.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Right. They don't go Tsar Bomba, they go Davy Crockett. Or some such. I built one and sent it on a suicide run against the enemy base hoping it would wipe it out, but all it did was kill a couple of T1 units and damage some adjacent power generators. Less impressive than one bomb from the T3 bomber.