Forged Alliance trailer and more screenshots released
The trailer for the Supreme Commander stand-alone expansion Forged Alliance has been released (direct link). Also, new screenshots have been released. Let’s try to figure out what these new units are in the images. We’ll start off with these two and then continue in subsequent posts. Let’s just say the air is rife for speculation.
What is this new Seraphim unit? It could be either a transport, gunship, or new experimental unit. It doesn’t have anything loaded up in it in this pic, but I’m still going to have to go with transport, because that’s just the vibe I’m getting off it. I must admit, I really like the Seraphim look and style. They’re much more ethereal than the rugged military hardware that UEF and Cybran bring to the field. It’s like they’re pulling off whatever Aeon are trying to pull off, but successfully. My only fear is that these new Seraphim units will make everything else on the battlefield look hideous.
This unit is clearly a Cybran Spiderbot: Monkeyking. I would say it’s patently obviously an experimental unit, and judging by the looks of its two dual cannon, I’d say it focuses a lot more on ranged combat than the Monkeylord does. It seems to be a Cybran equivalent of a walking Fatboy, which should be an awesome unit to play around with. I’m sure that there’s more than meets the eye, though, and I bet it has other tricks up its four robotic sleeves. In particular, I wonder what the abdomen hanging off the back houses? My first guess would be mobile factory, but that’d be copying the Fatboy too much, and that isn’t really a good ability anyway. I’m betting something more exciting.
But please, feel free to discuss amongst yourselves. I know you’ve got to be as excited as I am.
July 6th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
My trailer download just completed and I got a chance to watch it. Let me be the first to say: Damn. The trailer shows lots of new units in action, including the two I was puzzling over above, which I think we can figure out now. I betcha somewhere someone is watching this trailer frame-by-frame and taking screenshots of all of the new units and trying to figure out what they are. And I hope their post their findings for all to see.
Speaking of which, if anyone needs image hosting for SupCom-related images (hint: think trailer screenshots), this server has more than enough free space and bandwidth.
July 6th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
That unit might actually be both experimental and a transport. A transport capable of carrying lots of tech 2 and tech 3 units at once would be a great experimental unit.
July 7th, 2007 at 12:09 am
One thing I notice about the unidentified Seraphim flying cruiser is that it appears to be shooting lots of individual bolts, almost like a T2 ghetto transport, except it’s empty. It’s a very interesting unit design: a floating platform for lots of independently firing small guns.
July 7th, 2007 at 12:33 am
Strange, because it really, REALLY looks like those transports do have units loaded up. Just look closer.
July 7th, 2007 at 12:50 am
Yeah, I’m hoping the lots of small independently firing guns are simply a sign that’s its a beefed up version of the UEF t2 transport (bigger guns, more guns, more hp, much more unit carrying capacity).
That trailer was pretty amazing though…the Seraphim bombers were probably what impressed me most. It doesn’t seem like they are experimental units considering that everytime they were shown there were three or four of them, but they also seemed much larger than your normal strategic bomber. Maybe a cheap experimental like the czar perhaps? Regardless, there were a ton of new units in that trailer..
July 7th, 2007 at 1:42 am
NoPantsJim: Now that you mention it, you could be right. It does look like the one in the foreground is loaded up with infantry and the other is loaded up with tanks, which curiously enough, are firing out of the transport. I guess this mystery is solved. I was thrown a bit because the Seraphim units are so unfamiliar, and it does look like they’re a part of the transport at first glance.
July 7th, 2007 at 2:42 am
I count a total of 16 slots in those transports. Sucks to not be seraphim…
And maybe that thing on the back of the MonkeyKing is a jet-booster. Imagine!
July 7th, 2007 at 3:37 am
Total_Inhalation : CnC 3 anyone?
Can’t wait for the trailer to finish downloading
July 7th, 2007 at 4:12 am
Something I just noticed in the trailer. This new “Monkeyking” unit is still partially above water when submerged. I think the cannons were even still firing as it walked along the ocean floor. I’m at work and my computer here is painfully slow so I can’t get the video to work properly, but I am fairly sure that is what happens. Can anyone else confirm?
July 7th, 2007 at 4:53 am
I just want to know why VLC started acting up ever since I updated to the most recent version. I’ve had trouble watching a few high-res videos in it and I never had trouble before. This one works fine in WMP so it’s got to be a VLC issue. :[
Seraphim units look really cool, though. I suspect when the game drops everyone will play as Seraphim. D:
July 7th, 2007 at 5:56 am
To me it doesn’t look as if the transports are firing (nor the units on them), looks like the ship in the background is firing the shots, it’s probably the seraphim destroyer (or maybe the battleship?)
July 7th, 2007 at 6:02 am
Oh another thing to say, I do think everyone will be seraphim when the game is released, I know I will :)
July 7th, 2007 at 7:13 am
To me, that new Cybran unit looks like the results of joint Cybran/UEF efforts to crossbreed a Monkeylord and a Fatboy.
I really hope GPG has the guts to name it the Fatlord.
July 7th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
I just realized what the Seraphim ships and transports look like: the Covenant ships and transports from Halo. not to say anybody is copying, and i definitely like that look, but they both have the colorful/metallic theme going on.
July 7th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Hmm, I must have missed the announcement that the new race was the Seraphim, not that it wasn’t expected.
July 7th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Well, I hope there is a Seraphim campaign of some sort. I noticed throughout the trailer that there were UEF/Cybran/Aeon units all working together, and their bases even contained structures from the other factions…if you could play as the Seraphim, it could open up new strategies to deal with the potential strategies of this “unholy alliance” of sorts.
On a second thought, has anyone suspected some of the units featured in the new trailer might just be the units GPG promised to release over the internet for free? (I know they said no weekly units, but it’s been months since SupCom’s release…and it makes sense to release new units sometime before the stand-alone, to hype people up about this new addition to SupCom lore.) :)
July 7th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
>I really hope GPG has the guts to name it the Fatlord.
Are you kidding? “Monkeyboy!”
July 7th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
So do you guys think that with the push to move on to ‘the next thing’ that gamers are often left with a half-finished product that’s never patched fully to get it to where it should be? I get that feeling with SupCom. Released without some features that were hyped, released without other features from TA that we all rightfully expected, and patched half-heartedly and only with much delay. Now I bet they are already near a code freeze for Forged Alliance which will come out and be the same sort of unfinished experience of patching and lacking features.
July 7th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
(btw i’m talking about a push at the developer studio level.)
July 7th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
I haven’t finished downloading the trailer yet, but the Seraphim transport-like things definitely seem like they’re loaded, and from the looks of it, the one in the background is carrying tanks that fire out, and the one in the foreground has a bunch of T1 engineers (they look like the Aeon sphere-gineers).
July 8th, 2007 at 7:44 am
@bob: no. SupCom at release wasn’t in such a bad shape as other recent RTS games or even TA. I would have loved to have some extra features which they now have announced for FA but the main game was more than decent already and offered enough stuff that you didn’t find in TA or anywhere else imo.
July 8th, 2007 at 10:50 am
The shots aren’t from the Seraphim transport. They appear to be from the tanks behind it.
July 8th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Ok I could be waaay off on this, but it looks like the aeon SABs have a shield now? You can see it at 1:03 on the trailer. Is this new or is it something I just never noticed before…
July 8th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Yeah, I noticed that, too. I don’t know what that bubble is, but at first glance it seemed to be a personal SAB shield…however, there are a few Aeon SABs without the shields, either.
There seems to be a new UEF point defense cannon, check out around 1:10…they look a lot like Tactical Missile Defense, the only weird thing is that there is a long line of them, and they are shooting at ground units (can they do that normally?)…
July 8th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Yes, I saw that UEF structure as well… Tier 3 PD ftw!
July 9th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
u know what t3 PDs mean? More arties! They are very likely to be game enders now.
July 9th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
i think they transports.The 1st one(the one thats higher) seems to be unloaded and those glowing poles look like the brackets for the units.and the 2nd one looks like it has units in. and is being used as a ghetto gunship. I thought it was a trannie from the beginning…I mean it don’t look big enough to be a experimental
July 10th, 2007 at 12:49 am
quote: j10: that trailer was pretty amazing though…the Seraphim bombers were probably what impressed me most. It doesn’t seem like they are experimental units considering that everytime they were shown there were three or four of them, but they also seemed much larger than your normal strategic bomber. Maybe a cheap experimental like the czar perhaps?
I remember reading somewhere that Seraphim units were going to be more powerful than the starting races, but more expensive (and hopefully take longer to build). It makes sense to me that strat bombers would be that powerful (and large) to me then