Last day of classes open thread
Hey everyone, what’s on your mind Supreme Commander-wise? This is an open thread like any other. Oh, and today is the last day of college classes for Grokmoo and I — graduation in less than two weeks! Huzzah, almost out of here.
Anyway, here’s a topic of discussion if you can’t think of anything else: Would Supreme Commander be a better game without mass fabricators? Someone should go make a mod and we could see what it’s like. Certainly fighting for territory would be more important than anything.
Update: This open thread has lots of new patch information in the comments. Check them out.
May 10th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
you don’t need a mod for that. just play a custom and tell your opponent that the rule is not to use mass fab. I think that should be fun to play with this rule.
Cyde Weys: what is the url for that replay : replay:Doddler/5-9-2007-12-19-12.SupremeCommanderReplay . I remember you posting the solution in a comment a couple of weeks ago.
congrats for school, btw.
May 10th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Fabs are an important means. Map control is an awful way of deciding a game because it is slippery slope- once you lose it, its nigh on impossible to get it back with the extra resources that your opponent is generating from that control. Fabs let you pull that back.
May 10th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I agree I think fabs should stay in the game… And you do need quite a bit of room to build them if you don’t want to build them in matrices, and if you do build with bonuses in mind…. BOOM!
May 10th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
It’s too hard to defend a spread out base in this game once you get to tech 3. If the game was about controlling territory the whole thing would collapse once one of the players gets siege bots.
In TA you could be spread out all over the place because everything was predominatly one tech level. Even if you lost a few legs of your octopus you could expand quickly in lots of other directions.
May 10th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
L.: You mean like so?
May 10th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
I think fabs need to be more expensive. Make them cost 60e per. E is cheaper in SC than in TA, yet massfabs take less to produce. Additionally, I agree with Molloy in the comments about defending a spread out base. My roommate and I played a game on Finns last night where he moved his main factory away from the start point, and when I got to T3 before he did (he reads the blog too, sorry, man, way before you did), 2 Loyalists were able to completely wipe out his extractors and the rest of his lightly base. SABs can only really be countered by SABs, gunships or T4 experimentals. There is no set defense that will protect you against them.
Hm… Maybe a nice, short range, T3 “Shot Gun” defensive structure would fit nicely in the game…?
May 10th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Cyde: That link dosn’t work.
Vipe: A shortrange “Shot Gun’(lol I shot my gun) would not work because sab’s would outrange it!
May 10th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Already released a mod for it. I think the no-ras mod is probably more significant, but eliminating fabs and ras makes territory control a lot more important.
http://www.jrpereira.com/supreme_commander_mods/#nofabs
May 10th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
It’s just too bad that mods and custom maps don’t auto-download. They really should. It wouldn’t even cost GPG anything in terms of bandwidth, as the players would be uploading them to each other.
May 10th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Just came from Tech Talk
Woohoo!
Random Tech Talk notes –
!!! Carriers (incl. Czar and Atlantis) can build up to T3 Air now! Can be assisted, build slightly slower than T3 Air fact (Atlantis is faster) !!!
Atlantis can build underwater, less HP, torps not as good
Cybran TML-4 Nerfed ( :( )
Cybran Destroyer pathing better, doesn’t land walk as much, is faster on land.
All T4 got some kind of buff, ML, GC, FB 20% cheaper
T3 more expensive, T2 more viable all around
Cybran Shields upgrade like UEF now
Soulripper 2x Damage vs Land, .5 vs Air
Scathis fires cheaper
Tempest range buff, eco reduction
GC Faster
T3 air mostly same, Spy cost reduced
T3 Nuke subs much cheaper now, nuke still expensive
Czar + 50% HP
New features – No Rush option for custom game, build enclosure for 5/10/20
Idle Engies – can select multiple engies and queue orders easier
Tester comments – Factional balance much better, Mental, TheBigOne, others said they’re going to play UEF now. T2 will be a major component in ranked games now. Walls more useful. TheBigOne suggested T3 not viable until 70 mass. Most testers felt SCUs and RAS needed a nerf. Other comments were TMD (esp. Loyalists) now OP, balance changes may not bear out over lots of ranked games.
Official notes will be posted tonight on the forums, but I’m feeling very positive!
May 10th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
I don’t think that it would be better without fabs. Without any kind of fabrication the game would be very mass limited in my opinion.
May 10th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
I mostly play against the AI in skirmish and find I rarely need to build any mass fabs, especially on maps with a good supply of mass piles.
Also what’s on my mind is WHERE’S THE PATCH ALREADY.
May 10th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
“New features – No Rush option for custom game, build enclosure for 5/10/20″
that’s unbelievably dumb.
also they didn’t do anything to change SCU volume? that’s dumb too. at least it doesn’t matter so much to me since i play skirmish mostly.
any comments on the map editor? is it worth the wait? heh.
May 10th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
No comments on Map editor. I think the no rush (which won’t happen in ranked) is a viable feature for newbies. Also, lots of comments were that SCUs and ACU upgrades were going to be addressed in the next patch.
Mentel and Brainiac said they were going to play a 20min no rush game. I want to see that.
May 10th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Very nice Viperion, we should get you on as a reporter. Did they mention when the patch was going to be coming out?
May 10th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
““New features – No Rush option for custom game, build enclosure for 5/10/20″
that’s unbelievably dumb.”
As a map scripter, I’m looking forward to this feature to make Point Defense maps in which you have to defend an area with just structures within a no rush zone.
To each his own.
Full balance change list here: http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=10338
May 10th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
GPG (SoS and CeeA) repeated again and again that they would not say when the patch was coming out, although I felt the subtle feel in chat and in Halycon afterwards was soon. They also ignored all questions about engine optimizations and new units. This leaves me hopeful that there will be new units, since we know there will be optimizations and they refused to answer those questions (Recognizing the hole in the logic, as they didn’t talk about ponies either, but I don’t expect those to be in the patch.) There are also obviously going to be other new features, you don’t just pick two to talk about if those are the only two.
Another thing I didn’t mention above is that they adjusted AA targeting prioritization, so bombers, gunships and transports will always have priority over interceptors. So, your interceptor spamming with a bombing run won’t work as well, if at all. I didn’t get a clear picture on how this worked, exactly, but maybe what we’ll see more of now is T1 bombers mixed in with 3’s, or timing a bomber run with a gunship attack. Mixed air forces, think of that!
The chat was fairly well run for an open-voice chat, there was one whiner that got kicked. I think in the future I would rather see a couple of voiced folks and less chatter and cacaphony.
I should clarify that Mental and TheBigOne did not say they were going to play UEF exclusively, just that it was a viable option.
All in all, I think there are some good things going on here. The No Rush is a nice feature that can be used to promote the game to newbs (Supreme Commander, where you can choose how to play the game!), the idle engies feature is going to be helpful to power players. The game is going to be more viable on all levels, cheaper T4s mean you’ll see them used in ranked games more frequently, more expensive T3 means that you’ll see T2 battles that don’t suddenly end when one or two SAB’s walk in on 4 or 5 T2 tanks. One of the testers said that if you tried to rush to T3, you’re going to lose on open maps like Palms, period. AngryZealot posted on the forums that the game is going to be more action-packed, yet have more viable strategies to winning. They’ve also removed some of the easy ‘cheap’ kills like TML sniping (NOO!!! for my beloved Cybrans).
Also, the carrier building addition might not make much difference in most games, but it’s a ‘wow’ feature, one that really makes the game feel more full, somehow. Same with the making the T3 missle sub cost reduction. It’ll be interesting to see how people start utilizing it on maps like Roanoke, Sung Island, White Fire.
Mentel and some of the other testers also had critical comments, so don’t think they’re entirely thrilled with the patch. I think that all in all, however, it’s going to bring a much more dynamic game to the Supreme Commander scene.
I really want to see a replay of a 20 min no rush with pros. That’s going to be some awesome conflaguration at 22 minutes.
The Hyper Viper
May 10th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
I’m looking forward to building a bunch of UEF SCUs, giving them resource allocation systems, and setting them to build an entirely underwater air production facility. You wouldn’t need any land units at all (although nuke defense could be a problem, since you can’t build them on the water anymore).
May 11th, 2007 at 3:49 am
My graduation ceremonies are today and tomorrow. Probably going to be pretty solemn due to the shooting (I go/went to VT and was on campus, though fairly far away, during it).
May 11th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Build times are stupid. They shouldn’t be encouraging them. It’s just promoting a slow, defensive type of game with no movement.
A 10 minute build would be tolerable. But at 20mins you’re getting to the stage where someones going to be able to speed build to nukes or something with a really good build order.
May 16th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
I know this is an old thread, but it is an open one, and I wanted to ask you a question Cyde. Would there be any way I could play a game with you a week from this coming weekend? Ever since I saw your replays, I thought it’d be awesome to play with or against you (even though you’d own me if you played against me). Anyway, just thought I’d ask. Thanks for your time.
May 16th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Coridan: Sure, just catch me on GPGnet. Or contact me via AIM at Cyde2.