Comments on: Things missing in Forged Alliance, Session 4

By: LucusLoC

LucusLoC — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:15:11 +0000

So the sea transports is currently possible? i thought (from reading the forums) that it was an engine limitation. and another question related to moding, what about directional shields?

By: zordon

zordon — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 05:33:37 +0000

Except for the move/build/fire, this is all possible with a lil modding effort of your own.
The replacement upgrade unit limits nothing, it just requires a little more thought when programming the structure.

How about you guys learn to mod sup com before you start saying all sorts of incorrect things.

move/build/fire would rule for carriers.

By: Engineer

Engineer — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 02:21:27 +0000

Funny we got all sidetracked by the naval transport idea. I guess I can see a useful tactical niche for them given that they can’t be intercepted by fighters or shot down by AA. On maps like White Fire they could certainly come in handy.

Overall I think the main point of Lucus’ post is a pretty much given, no one would argue that the lack of simultaneous move/build capability is a flaw in the engine and reduces both the effectiveness and the fun factor of units like the Fatboy. Time to move on to session 5.

By: LucusLoC

LucusLoC — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 20:01:42 +0000

The way i envisioned naval transports working is have them cheaper to build and have more capacity than air. they could be of the fast “beach assault” variety. give them a capacity of, say, 12 t3 bots, and maybe one faction could have one that handles 18 or 24 (2 or 3 of those showing up behind your base where you don’t expect them could be devastating). if you really wanted to get nasty they could even be submersible.

My main point was, of course, that not being able to build and move (and have land transports) was an oversight with the original engine. i mean, even excluding the fatboy (maybe they did not have a concept for that when they were designing the engine) you had to think about aircraft carriers. who though it was ok to not let those build while moving? and sup com was also supposed to be the “most modable game ever.” come on, you just know someone is going to want to make a land/sea transport. to purposefully exclude that as an options seems a bit shortsighted. Meddish’s idea sounds like a good candidate for a community designed t3.5-4 transport, for example.

and whats with the whole “building upgrades via replacement” deal? thats how we got the whole problem with the dual mex exploit. and it seems to have happened with factories as well. it just doesn’t seem to be the best way to handle an upgrade. it limits your options for future building upgrade paths. seems like something they should have realized would cause problems down the road.

By: Monk Ellipse

Monk Ellipse — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:36:50 +0000

Large submersible transports, maybe?

I do like the idea of water transports with lots of HP and capacity, as well. I think it’d have to be T3, otherwise it doesn’t really offset the usefulness of air transports…

By: Baddox

Baddox — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 14:49:50 +0000

I see no need for naval transports. First off, they’d have to be huge, and still probably wouldn’t hold very many T3 units. And since they’re naval I assume they’d be expensive and slow to build, and I can’t imagine them being as fast or as sneaky as air transports.

By: wolf_1

wolf_1 — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 07:39:49 +0000

make air constructors.

land and sea transports would be cool.

By: Meddish

Meddish — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 22:59:35 +0000

a large hover transport built from a quatum gateway would be nice (also makes the gateway a little bit more inportant) being hover it great for both land and water, to top it off behind only a hover unit other stuff could get on to it and be able to shoot out of it (rather then with air transports units are locked in and cant shoot back)
i can imaging it a hovercraft that holds 4×4 units with SABS around the outside and MML’s in the center blowing the crap out of anything that comes near
Also i should note being thats its a hover craft and close to the ground IF its destroyed then the units should be able to suffer 50% damage then keep moveing
i can see it now fields of Isis 8 hover transports moveing in with units stacked on them for a quick strike the transports being taken down by arty and PD just for the units moveing in for the final strike to the heart!

By: Engineer

Engineer — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:57:29 +0000

I’m not so sure I miss naval transports. SupCom has made air transport so viable and easy that naval transport seems to be unnecessary. The naval transports in most games are clumsy and usually require a lot of micro-management. If there were naval transports in SupCom (or Hover transports, as some TA mods had) then they would need to be beasts, huge capacities, tons of hit points, this is the only way they would be useful. Even then I’d rather have a few UEF T3 Continentals any day.

By: Variable

Variable — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:16:30 +0000

More geothermal structures would be great, if I remember correctly there was a powerful artillery battery in a TA mod that could only be built on a geothermal spot. Anything like that would keep those points valuable later in the game.
The lack of a transport ship is fairly poor, they’re almost universal in RTS games with naval units and considering the amount of water on some SC maps… There’s always the air transports but they’re mostly fragile and low capacity. They just don’t fill the same role.