Supreme Commander: First Impressions

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alhava

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Hello! I'm so excited, I just wanted to share this with someone.
Today marks the first day of European Release of Supreme Commander, and I have my hands on it.
I was a part of the Beta, so though I've never won a game against a human opponent, I have a good idea how the game is played.

I have a P4 2.6 HT, and a GeForce 6800, crammed into a shuttle XPC that has to run toppless, or risk overheating.

This game is absolutely amazing. It is everything I've always wanted out of a strategy game.
The incredible zoom levels allow me to manage a multi front battle, and queueing build orders allows me to do all my base setup at once, and let my workers do their thing....
Provided I can manage the economy. All the problems with the interface have been cleared up, and the game has an excellent tutorial.

However, it's none too stable.
I have to save my game fairly often, because I'm having frequent crashes in-game.

It's system reqs are steep. I play in dual monitor mode, and I have to put all the detail down as low as it can go. That is reasonable to me, because I can't tell my ships apart unless I zoom out to the point where they are icons anyway.
Even then though, there is slow down when we have 200 units on the map.

I'm going to get back to my game (saving often). This is the game I've been waiting for my entire life.
 
Wrong forum.

I have almost an identical rig. 2.66P5 1.5gb pc3200 7600GS.

I'm running it at 1440x900 with most of the stuff at medium or high and its running fine until late game stuff.
 
dude you need to cool that down if your getting crashes
are you getting crash to desktop or is the whole comp restarting
 
so what kind of game is this exactly? rts? turn based? a mix of both?
 
how good is the zoom? what i think would be great would be the zoom from black and white 1 till city level, and then the zoom from civ4 to planet level. something like that? fraps a full outward zoom movie?
 
Martyr said:
how good is the zoom? what i think would be great would be the zoom from black and white 1 till city level, and then the zoom from civ4 to planet level. something like that? fraps a full outward zoom movie?
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You can zoom up pretty close in. Then zoom all the way out where you see the entire map. It all can be done seamlessly.

http://files.filefront.com/Supreme+Commander+Demo/;6698411;;/fileinfo.html for a alternate d/l location. The screen shots on filefront seem to be really old as the game doesn't look like that.
 
it wasn't upgraded in that pic, but they are correct.
Theres a missile backpack upgrade for the UEF ACU. Once you get that theres another upgrade for a nuke warhead. Its expensive and still arcs (and thus takes a while to hit the target) but its a lot of firepower.
 
GLSauron said:
it wasn't upgraded in that pic, but they are correct.
Theres a missile backpack upgrade for the UEF ACU. Once you get that theres another upgrade for a nuke warhead. Its expensive and still arcs (and thus takes a while to hit the target) but its a lot of firepower.
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one would expect so
 
I really like it, best RTS i've played since the first Ground Control I think.

Nice to see they've beefed up the Ai a bit since the demo as well. It's still quite laid back and doesn't attack you very much but by god it defends :)
 
are you guys starting out with one of each factory, several of each. do you guys use engineers to help your main commander or have them help factories or neither? whats the key to getting new tech upgrades as it appears random which factories allow me to upgrade to l2 or l3. thanks
 
DruSi3r said:
are you guys starting out with one of each factory, several of each. do you guys use engineers to help your main commander or have them help factories or neither? whats the key to getting new tech upgrades as it appears random which factories allow me to upgrade to l2 or l3. thanks
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You have to use a mix of all three of those. Engies building, engines assisting, and multiple factories. Also, your factories should be upgradeable form the minute they are built in a skirmish/multiplay. The single player limits it to teach you how to play the game i believe.
 
DruSi3r said:
are you guys starting out with one of each factory, several of each. do you guys use engineers to help your main commander or have them help factories or neither? whats the key to getting new tech upgrades as it appears random which factories allow me to upgrade to l2 or l3. thanks
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Any factory can upgrade to T2 or T3, but the campaign maps restrict when those upgrades are available.

My general build for the skirmish map is 2 or 3 mass extractors (2 if I'm going air, 3 if land), and 4 to 6 power gens, then my first factory.
The first factory dumps out about 4 T1 engineers then a couple scouts, and then the infinite build queue for combat units.
The T1s work on keeping me in positive resource production, while my Commander throws down a few more factories.

I build assist tech upgrades to factories, some big T2 units (like destroyers) and most T3 factories, but for the most part I use it for constructing T2 and T3 buildings. Even defensive buildings in T1 build quickly with engineers.
 
Well, I'd love to play the game, but I get massive lag whenever something in game makes a sound. I searched this problem on their forum, and apparently others get this as well. I won't buy a game if the demo does not run well for me.
 
Demo runs great for me. Not a single crash yet and no major lag. Must be a certain hardware config that is giving people problems.
 
expect some 0day patches, there were alot of issues in the BETA that were patched up but im not entirely sure if they implemented then n the whole game yet (balancing and all that was taken care of in the beta). 1 thing t remember though, start building those mass extractors!!! and expansion is good. lol. btw any1 get the collector's editions?
 
FreiDOg said:
Any factory can upgrade to T2 or T3, but the campaign maps restrict when those upgrades are available.

My general build for the skirmish map is 2 or 3 mass extractors (2 if I'm going air, 3 if land), and 4 to 6 power gens, then my first factory.
Click to expand...

This is going to put you behind in multiplayer. Try 1 mass extractor, 3 power gens, then your first factory. Then pop down your remaining 3 mass extractors, 4 more power gens and another facotry. Continue as you see fit.
 
miskari said:
btw any1 get the collector's editions?
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I was under the impression that the special editions were only available overseas for some reason...

I preordered my copy and they never asked me about a special edition :(
 
I'm not too happy with it. I LOVED Total Annihilation (for reference).

1) My tech 3 artillery which took 30 minutes to build does not obey my orders. It targets whatever it wants no matter what I tell it to do. Because of this it spent its entire lifetime of a 4 hour match hitting the side of a hill because it was targeting a goddamn mass extractor behind the hill.

2) Units will not move as a group, I set up a group of 10 heavy tanks with 2 mobile shield generators and it is practically impossible to keep the damn tanks shielded. I lost 7 of them immediately while the 3 that happened to be under the shield lasted about a 1000x times longer.

3) The AI is either way too easy (they sit there at there base and do nothing), or it is way too difficult. I considered the original TA a multiplayer only game for just this reason but I thought they would have fixed it by now (what, like 10 years later?)

4) Fixed view. Sure, you can zoom in and out, big deal. Would it have been so hard to allow you to rotate your view around? Oh wait, I develop games using D3D... no, it wouldn't have been.

5) Units are too small. I don't mean in general, I mean at a decent zoom level that is actually useful in some way it looks like you are commanding an army of ants. If you zoom in so you can actually differentiate your units you cannot be effective in giving them orders. I think the ranges (fire, scanner, visual, et al) should be reduced to help fix this.

6) Not enough units. I know you can download user made ones and that this game has 3 factions instead of the 2 in TA but still, there are only half as many units and they are not as varied as they where in TA. They all look the same and do practically the same thing.

Anyways... its still a fun game, please don't not buy it because of what I said here, I just expected more for the sequel to one of my favorite games ever.
 
CodeX said:
I'm not too happy with it. I LOVED Total Annihilation (for reference).

1) My tech 3 artillery which took 30 minutes to build does not obey my orders. It targets whatever it wants no matter what I tell it to do. Because of this it spent its entire lifetime of a 4 hour match hitting the side of a hill because it was targeting a goddamn mass extractor behind the hill.

2) Units will not move as a group, I set up a group of 10 heavy tanks with 2 mobile shield generators and it is practically impossible to keep the damn tanks shielded. I lost 7 of them immediately while the 3 that happened to be under the shield lasted about a 1000x times longer.

3) The AI is either way too easy (they sit there at there base and do nothing), or it is way too difficult. I considered the original TA a multiplayer only game for just this reason but I thought they would have fixed it by now (what, like 10 years later?)

4) Fixed view. Sure, you can zoom in and out, big deal. Would it have been so hard to allow you to rotate your view around? Oh wait, I develop games using D3D... no, it wouldn't have been.


Anyways... its still a fun game, please don't not buy it because of what I said here, I just expected more for the sequel to one of my favorite games ever.
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1. Its a bug im sure will be fixed.

2. press ctrl then click to move in formation, alt to attack move, and ctrl-alt to attack move in formation

3. the demo ai is only 1/2 of the available ai in the full game.

4. space bar allows you to rotate your view to any angle u wish.
 
pain.angel said:
1. Its a bug im sure will be fixed.
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Hope so.

pain.angel said:
2. press ctrl then click to move in formation, alt to attack move, and ctrl-alt to attack move in formation
Click to expand...

Probably should have done the tutorials :D

pain.angel said:
3. the demo ai is only 1/2 of the available ai in the full game.
Click to expand...

Full version...

pain.angel said:
4. space bar allows you to rotate your view to any angle u wish.
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OMG THANK YOU, lol. *edit* too bad its springloaded to go back to the default view
 
Im installing it right now on my MBP (running XP)

Ill let you know how it runs

x1600 256 mb
2.16 ghz CD
1 gig ram
 
CodeX said:
OMG THANK YOU, lol. *edit* too bad its springloaded to go back to the default view
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Yeh, there was once a key to lock the viewpoint, however, it was taken out for some reason. I'm sure it will be added back in either through a patch or it's already in the retail version. The demo and the retail had separate dev groups I believe (don't quote me though) so some of the features are semi-incomplete as compared to what should be in the retail release.
 
CodeX said:
I'm not too happy with it. I LOVED Total Annihilation (for reference).

1) My tech 3 artillery which took 30 minutes to build does not obey my orders. It targets whatever it wants no matter what I tell it to do. Because of this it spent its entire lifetime of a 4 hour match hitting the side of a hill because it was targeting a goddamn mass extractor behind the hill.

3) The AI is either way too easy (they sit there at there base and do nothing), or it is way too difficult. I considered the original TA a multiplayer only game for just this reason but I thought they would have fixed it by now (what, like 10 years later?)
Click to expand...

Tech 3 arty hits anywhere on the demo map. I put mine in the back of my base and it hits their base no problem. It attacks the closest target. I havent had any problems with telling it what to fire at. You could try holding its fire, target something then resume fire.

The AI on hard is pretty good. They just need to reach tier 3 and get experimental units.
 
The trouble with hard AI is it fails miserably to rushes. And turtling. It's ok against booming because it will harass you if you give it everything on a platter. Still, it's pretty bad. No where near as good at it was in the early BETA.

I have to coddle it and encourage it to do anything for the early part of the game to get it to be a challenge at all.


I don't understand how the game calculates the score. On the last game I played I was dominating the AI, but it's score stayed higher until I finally wiped him out. I was worried he might have a scathis or something up his sleeve but nope, just a crappy base from which he'd sent groups of 20 light bots against my defenses every so often.
 
Those light bot rushes are perplexing.

For my first real game against the skirmish AI, I spent a lot of time just setting up some defenses and exploring the tech tree, figuring that Medium should be a respectable challenge for someone who just picked up the game (although I'm a fanatical Total Annihilation follower). At first the AI would send those groups of a dozen or so light bots. Then nothing, then another rush exactly the same.

I sent over scouts to check out what it had, and I saw advanced shields, leveled up factories, and other toys I would assume would have lead to it throwing something more impressive my way. But no dice.

It was nice practice to learn the tech tree and the general swing of things, but I really expected more. A couple times the rushes moved slower than usual, so I actually thought it might be throwing some heavy units at me, but it was still that one weak rush. A couple of the lightest defense towers and a couple heavier ones dispatched all of them each time, often without taking any damage at all.

The only exception seemed to be the naval units. It tended to build a pair of submarines or a pair of level one boats that could be a bit of a pain before I put up any kind of naval units (I usually don't build navies, I prefer the mobility of land units). It once sent in one of the walking ships, which surprised me, and was the only time I lost some of my defenses, but I had some heavy bots in reserve that came up to dispense with it. Was very disappointing, though as a whole.

I haven't had time to play more than a couple games since I downloaded the demo, so I haven't tried Hard yet. I was really hoping that Medium might be a fun middle ground between a vicious AI that takes a while to master, and the usual Easy AI's that you can smack around, cripple, sit on, and just toy with while learning the game. But can probably always be patches for it, and maybe even some modifications that can help things along.
 
The hard AI does pretty much the same thing as the medium you described. Never got much but wave after wave of light bots.
 
to rotate the camera use the DELETE and INSERT keys (one of those keys in that block of keys :/) i dont have any problems with the units being small because most of the time i am zoomed out, and big units will really rape your system. The units are not varied becuase it simply takes toooo much time to make and render and design say 500 different units vs 100. All that comes down to development cost, its not like in the days of TA when each unit took 5 guys 30 mins to make (this is all out of Chris Taylor's mouth from a podcast, he also said that originally he had hundereds of various units but there was simply not enough time or resources) having said that, the game does not completely slouch on varied gameplay on the different factions. After playing for a while each faction has its strengths and weaknesses, for example Cybran are geared more towards stealth and surprise attacks, with their T1 Mantis' holding the enemy back. whereas the Aeon have a stronger Navy and will rape any other navy (if used correctly) and the Terrans have those god damn gunships!!! and each of the ACU's have some specialty upgrades that are very helpful in many diff situations. i could write more but then no1 would read :p
 
ive only given this game half an hour, but I have to say im dreadfully bored.

its dull dull dull and the AI does suck. Does anyone else think the game is ugly?
 
Table said:
ive only given this game half an hour, but I have to say im dreadfully bored.

its dull dull dull and the AI does suck. Does anyone else think the game is ugly?
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Specs? Also can you list a recent RTS that will have 4000 units on the map in a full game(500 per player with 8 total)? While the graphics may not be as good as COH, they arent ugly. Plus you should be spending a large amount of your time zoomed out, not close in.
Cant help you if you find the game dull. The game is slower but once things get going its fast.
Multiplayer will be 10x better(true with any RTS). Apparently full version game will have better AI or being patched/modded to be better.
 
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