Supreme Commander: First Impressions

The full version has 6 AI settings and they are all pretty terrible. Total Annihilation is the better game by far, admit it. If you don't see it now you will once you play the retail version for as long as I have (~20 hours)
 
TA has also had 10 years of patches, mods and expansion packs. SupCom isn't even out in the US yet. Give it some time, it will mature.

To the people who htink the game is ugly: The graphics aren't supposed to be realistic or "photo-real". They're supposed to be stylized. Think TA style but really, really sharp and detailed.
 
i quit playing RTS games awhile ago and moved over to FPS games, i got too bored of the same ol type of RTS games (kill everything=win), saw SUPCOM on this forum, DLed demo to try it out and am hooked now, even on the stupid skirmish map, i cant wait for this to come out! I love how strategy is actually played in unlike other RTS games which are just amass huge troops as fast as possible and cram them into enemy bases and blow them all to hell. with this you can just hide a rather small but still large attack group somewhere behind them, make a fake battle at the front of their base, wait til they all move in to fend off the front, then bam, hit the commander from behind, and slowly move in your frontal attack. SO many QUE and movement options with troops makes it great too.
 
Does anyone else think the game is ugly?

it will be ugly on your machine *if the one posted previously in this thread*...

i will buy it, but i will never touch the single player, only so i can attempt to trash friends and other noobs (like me) online. i need a new vid card but am gonna hold out until the 8600's roll out i guess.
 
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

There are huge differences between low, medium, and high graphics settings in this game unlike many other games. Yes, I agree the Ai is fairly retarded, but do you buy an fps to load up bots in a multiplayer map? It would be an unfulfillable experience too, so why judge an rts by loading up a bot and skirmishing?

I've got hundreds of hours of multiplayer on this game already through the beta and I think it will surpass TA given the same amount of time TA had to mature.
 
The full version has 6 AI settings and they are all pretty terrible. Total Annihilation is the better game by far, admit it. If you don't see it now you will once you play the retail version for as long as I have (~20 hours)

You're joking, right?

OTA had the most boring pointless AI that was ever written. Only through mods did it get anywhere near interesting. This game hasn't even been released to the public in the US yet. Get a friggen grip on reality.
 
You're joking, right?

OTA had the most boring pointless AI that was ever written. Only through mods did it get anywhere near interesting. This game hasn't even been released to the public in the US yet. Get a friggen grip on reality.

the skirmish crack for the beta had 6 AI's in it, i think thats what he was talking about or maybe he is in Europe since the game is released there. I'm not entirely sure if the crack was just taking the lock off the 'skirmish' button but there were 6 different AI choices
 
After playing the game here is what I think about it -

It takes too long to build any of the cool stuff. An online match would take at least an hour to build up the cool tech 3 stuff, let alone get a chance to use it. And forget about using the nuclear missiles. There is a like a 20 minute build time on the damn thing.

And forget about anything but a tech 3 experimental unit or tech 3 naval unit being able to make a difference in a battle. Everything else you build you have to spam like a mutha-facker to be any use.

The ONLY strategy is to out spam the other guy until you get an experimental unit out.

That being said the game looks pretty good ONLY if you can run it max settings and resolution. I have an 3800X2 AM2 CPU, 2gigs of RAM, and an 8800GTS and I can run it maxed out. My brothers comp can only play it half way up and it looks like garbage.

They need to speed up the game, big time. The game would be crazy fun if you did not have to wait a year to tech up.
 
After playing the game here is what I think about it -

It takes too long to build any of the cool stuff. An online match would take at least an hour to build up the cool tech 3 stuff, let alone get a chance to use it. And forget about using the nuclear missiles. There is a like a 20 minute build time on the damn thing.

And forget about anything but a tech 3 experimental unit or tech 3 naval unit being able to make a difference in a battle. Everything else you build you have to spam like a mutha-facker to be any use.

The ONLY strategy is to out spam the other guy until you get an experimental unit out.

That being said the game looks pretty good ONLY if you can run it max settings and resolution. I have an 3800X2 AM2 CPU, 2gigs of RAM, and an 8800GTS and I can run it maxed out. My brothers comp can only play it half way up and it looks like garbage.

They need to speed up the game, big time. The game would be crazy fun if you did not have to wait a year to tech up.

You can speed up the game yourself using the +/- keys on the numpad.
 
After playing the game here is what I think about it -

It takes too long to build any of the cool stuff. An online match would take at least an hour to build up the cool tech 3 stuff, let alone get a chance to use it. And forget about using the nuclear missiles. There is a like a 20 minute build time on the damn thing.

I can get to T3 in 15 minutes easy. Big things require multiple engies to build fast.

And forget about anything but a tech 3 experimental unit or tech 3 naval unit being able to make a difference in a battle. Everything else you build you have to spam like a mutha-facker to be any use.

The ONLY strategy is to out spam the other guy until you get an experimental unit out.

Different strats require people to think differently. Each unit has situations where it would perform better than another. Also, in the beta you can only choose 1 faction which imposes this "spam" strat mentality. That aside it's still not the only strat you can use. I've won multiplayer games in 15 minutes but I've also had some last 4 hours.

That being said the game looks pretty good ONLY if you can run it max settings and resolution. I have an 3800X2 AM2 CPU, 2gigs of RAM, and an 8800GTS and I can run it maxed out. My brothers comp can only play it half way up and it looks like garbage.

They need to speed up the game, big time. The game would be crazy fun if you did not have to wait a year to tech up.

See first answer. Teching up doesn't take an hour. I'd be hard pressed to wait an hour to get T3.
 
I can get to T3 in 15 minutes easy. Big things require multiple engies to build fast.

Do you know how much directly linking a power gen to (for example) a land unit building will speed up production? Maybe that stuff will be listed in the manual when the game arrives..but yeah, engineers are key to speeding up building.

Different strats require people to think differently. Each unit has situations where it would perform better than another. Also, in the beta you can only choose 1 faction which imposes this "spam" strat mentality. That aside it's still not the only strat you can use. I've won multiplayer games in 15 minutes but I've also had some last 4 hours.

I completely agree. After having only played the demo I still think that there are a lot of possible strategies, and playing against a decently competent player would definitely eradicate the "spam until an experimental unit is available" 'strategy.'
 
You can also use + and - signs to speed up and slow down, It helps to send other tech units including the commander to aid in the factory building and tech upgrades. With a few tech 3 units I was able to build a giant spider bot in 3 mins.
 
Do you know how much directly linking a power gen to (for example) a land unit building will speed up production? Maybe that stuff will be listed in the manual when the game arrives..but yeah, engineers are key to speeding up building.

none at all. It just makes it cheaper energy wise.
 
Do you know how much directly linking a power gen to (for example) a land unit building will speed up production? Maybe that stuff will be listed in the manual when the game arrives..but yeah, engineers are key to speeding up building.

Did not know that. I will have to try this. Will tier 1 power gens be fine or do I need tier 2/3 to notice a improvement.
 
none at all. It just makes it cheaper energy wise.

Ahh, so thats the efficiency improvement. Engineers/SCUs for speed, power generators to make unit production cheaper. Good stuff to know, and I figure I'll understand it more when I've got the full version available.
 
I spend most of my time around Tier 2 anyway on the tech tree, since it has a respectable mid-range of basically all the technologies (defense guns, artillery, shields, power generators, metal extractors, etc.). I just try to work up to Tier 2 as quick as possible and then more slowly advance to the third Tier, which has a lot of good equipment, but I can generally manage for a while with Tier 2 and spread out my base, and construct decent defenses and some offensive capabilities.

Tier 3 is very useful though for ending a game, the Loyalist and Strategic Bombers can come in real handy, as do the Battleships. The Experimental units can be neat, but the time and resource investment isn't always worth it in my opinion.
 
Ahh, so thats the efficiency improvement. Engineers/SCUs for speed, power generators to make unit production cheaper. Good stuff to know, and I figure I'll understand it more when I've got the full version available.

Yeh, thats right. The higher tier of power gen/mass fab(or extractor) you connect to the building the bigger the bonus will be. Adjacency for economy, engies for production.
 
You're joking, right?

OTA had the most boring pointless AI that was ever written. Only through mods did it get anywhere near interesting. This game hasn't even been released to the public in the US yet. Get a friggen grip on reality.

I already dismissed the AI of both games because they are both terrible. I am talking about both games as multiplayer only. The game was released to the public on the 16th :rolleyes:
 
engies and sub comms improve build times like mad, T3 takes me 15 minutes usually as long as i dont stall my economy and building multiple factories also improves build times. i usually end up having at least 3 of land and air factories next to each other and then go from there as needed.
 
I already dismissed the AI of both games because they are both terrible. I am talking about both games as multiplayer only. The game was released to the public on the 16th :rolleyes:

Only in europe. Also, I'm just curious if your comparing TA with Core Contingency (or any other mods) installed or stock. If the former your comparison seems unbalanced.
 
I have beta tested supreme comander and all i can say at 1st impression was eww then i played it the same day after college and i was like this is cool. to note if your system does not have over a gig of ram, a dual core processer and, a last generation highend card or current gen midrange card UPGRADE your system first this game is freaking awsome it grew on me and i love this epic and for any old ta players out there buy it now dont wait just buy :)
 
So, can anyone tell me if im going to be able to use my 7950gx2 to its full potential (Sli with itself) and still be able to throw in a second monitor?

Or am I going to have to run it as a single card (turn off SLi) and add in a second video card all together?
 
It takes too long to build any of the cool stuff. An online match would take at least an hour to build up the cool tech 3 stuff, let alone get a chance to use it. And forget about using the nuclear missiles. There is a like a 20 minute build time on the damn thing.

this isn't starcraft or aoe etc. the tech 3 stuff is rightfully set in build time etc. if you want a short or rushed game the tech 3 units aren't really meant for a rush (imo i should note). this one of the things that set apart TA from everything else out there... i liked how a game with a friemd could take up to 3, 4, 5 or more hours, sometimes we went up to near nine hours.
 
So, can anyone tell me if im going to be able to use my 7950gx2 to its full potential (Sli with itself) and still be able to throw in a second monitor?

Or am I going to have to run it as a single card (turn off SLi) and add in a second video card all together?

It's still two cards, so you won't be able to do anything with it that you would with a two slot SLI set up.
 
winbe2.jpg


I had 40+ t3 power plants and over 60 t3 mass generators making almost 40k energy and 2k mass per second. 5 commanders upgraded to max, 12 nuclear missile launcher with 5 missiles each, 5 of the "experimental" artillery launchers (the ones that have unlimited range) and 10 of the mobile cities (the big tank tread thing with air repair pads on top that can build t3 engineers). I launched 12 nukes simultaneously and decimated them. Game over.
 
lol, freakin 3 hrs thats damn long. did you mass any units or was it just nukes and whatnot?
 
lol, freakin 3 hrs thats damn long. did you mass any units or was it just nukes and whatnot?

unfortunately my system is a little low for this game, had it under 250 units the whole time so it didn't get slowed down. I defended the hell out of my base though with point defense and shield generators.
 
It's still two cards, so you won't be able to do anything with it that you would with a two slot SLI set up.


Ok... so it looks like im stuck using the split screen. Honestly, is a 20" widescreen monitor too small to pull that off? or should I just play it on a projector?
 
I'm using a 22" widescreen lcd and the games ace. My system can't handle it once it gets into late game stuff though. :p I only have a 2.6 Pentiun 4 from like 5 years ago :D

I'll be building a E6600 system within a month or so I think. :cool:
 
But if you split your 22" into 2 screens are they too small to really enjoy the game?
 
But if you split your 22" into 2 screens are they too small to really enjoy the game?

It's too small for my tastes on my 22" widescreen. Then again I dont really have the option to play around with it alot because my system can't handle it atm.

I had 40+ t3 power plants and over 60 t3 mass generators making almost 40k energy and 2k mass per second. 5 commanders upgraded to max, 12 nuclear missile launcher with 5 missiles each, 5 of the "experimental" artillery launchers (the ones that have unlimited range) and 10 of the mobile cities (the big tank tread thing with air repair pads on top that can build t3 engineers). I launched 12 nukes simultaneously and decimated them. Game over.

lol. I knew it. You tried to play it off but you're addicted arn't you. hehe
One side note though there is no unlimited range unit, on larger maps even the Mavor (Experimental Arty for UEF) has some area it cannot hit.
 
It's too small for my tastes on my 22" widescreen. Then again I dont really have the option to play around with it alot because my system can't handle it atm.

Cool, ill give it ago on the projector then. Thanks

And everyone, post more screens.
 
Seems like most of the people bashing the game after playing it for 15 min are all TOO used to C & C and SC games. You dont HAVE to go T3 To win, AT ALL! instead of spending all your resources trying to hit T3, build up a large T1/T2 army, and bring in constant attacks. Taking out a couple power generators before your troops die deals a very large blow to them trying to advance in tech levels.
I can make T3 in 15 min easy and start amassing the T3 robots by the twenties in a matter of minutes.
Dont treat this like just another same ol RTS controllable game, read up on the controls and figure out more of how the gameplay works. Theres so much more controllability in this than any other ive played before. again, you DONT NEED T3/EXPIREMENTAL TO WIN
 
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