Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Titan on April 12, 2009, 01:34:31 pm
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I was wondering- does anyone here (other than dekker) have Supreme Commander Forged Alliance, and plays multi?
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I have it. Haven't tried multi. I can't say I'm all that into it.
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How good of a connection you have doesn't seem to be a problem- as long as your computer runs it pretty good, you'll be fine.
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I know, my connection's superb. I'm just not into the gameplay mechanics. It's a bit too dry.
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there does seeme to be a problem with experimentals :P get a few and you have the i win button :P
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I'd like to pick it up, funds are rather dry after the whole $1700 laptop rig thing though.
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It's better to play with the unit restrictions disabling expirementals. But then most people won't want to play.
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I play occasionally when I've got time. I'm awful at it, but I love it.
And yeah, I don't think I'd want to play without experimentals. I feel like their presence provides more structure to the game.
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I agree, experimentals feel necessary.
Some of the standard units take so long to build they're practically t4s, though. t3 bombers?
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That's because they're mini nukes, sir. ;)
IF three more people post, maybe we can start an HLP clan or something.
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Always enjoy a good game of SupCom FA, especially those epic ones that take hours to resolve. Got quite fond of the Seraphim, myself.
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Mayyyybe we should start a group. Play some games.
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Special HLP rules. Like, only 3 expirementals at a time.
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I don't think that's necessary. Experimentals are well-balanced by their cost and the difficulty of getting them.
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Yeah, but people build hundreds of them.
And... i'm only somewhere between normal and adaptive ai.
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I should pick up FA some time, dun have it. If/when I do, I'd be glad to participate in some sort of HLP group.
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Yeah, but people build hundreds of them.
And... i'm only somewhere between normal and adaptive ai.
If people build hundreds, it's because nobody's properly harassing or pressuring them. Similar to complaints about mass battlecruiser/carrier fleets in Starcraft.
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Yeah, but people build hundreds of them.
And... i'm only somewhere between normal and adaptive ai.
If people build hundreds, it's because nobody's properly harassing or pressuring them. Similar to complaints about mass battlecruiser/carrier fleets in Starcraft.
Until I come along with 100 wraiths. :p
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Yeah, but people build hundreds of them.
And... i'm only somewhere between normal and adaptive ai.
If people build hundreds, it's because nobody's properly harassing or pressuring them. Similar to complaints about mass battlecruiser/carrier fleets in Starcraft.
Until I come along with 100 wraiths. :p
100 Wraiths won't stop a 160-food force of battlecruisers and science vessels, not least because that player will have SCVs and you won't. Wraiths are, unfortunately, too fragile to stand up to a critical mass of battlecruisers, especially when defensive matrix comes into play. Even attacking the science vessels is usually suicidal due to hotkeyed comsats.
If you mix in Lockdown first, however, you stand a decent chance.
A better question would be how the heck you let your opponent get battlecruisers if you have the economy and positioning to get Wraiths that fast.
Goliaths are a decent counter to battlecruisers, though not quite mobile enough.
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all you need in supcom is to get that cybran multibarrel atillery thing up and running and you win, aslong as you have it shielded well enough.
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Yeah, but people build hundreds of them.
And... i'm only somewhere between normal and adaptive ai.
If people build hundreds, it's because nobody's properly harassing or pressuring them. Similar to complaints about mass battlecruiser/carrier fleets in Starcraft.
Until I come along with 100 wraiths. :p
100 Wraiths won't stop a 160-food force of battlecruisers and science vessels, not least because that player will have SCVs and you won't. Wraiths are, unfortunately, too fragile to stand up to a critical mass of battlecruisers, especially when defensive matrix comes into play. Even attacking the science vessels is usually suicidal due to hotkeyed comsats.
If you mix in Lockdown first, however, you stand a decent chance.
A better question would be how the heck you let your opponent get battlecruisers if you have the economy and positioning to get Wraiths that fast.
Goliaths are a decent counter to battlecruisers, though not quite mobile enough.
Trust me, they will. I've done it before. Mostly because it seems most people are too stupid to build any detectors before it's too late. But screw it, 3 years of StarCraft has bored me.
Now, the real question is, How are the modding and mapping capabilities of SupCom?
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I definitely like to play SA once I get a better computer.
It looks extremely interesting, but I'm wondering how good its replay value is.
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Yeah, but people build hundreds of them.
And... i'm only somewhere between normal and adaptive ai.
If people build hundreds, it's because nobody's properly harassing or pressuring them. Similar to complaints about mass battlecruiser/carrier fleets in Starcraft.
Until I come along with 100 wraiths. :p
100 Wraiths won't stop a 160-food force of battlecruisers and science vessels, not least because that player will have SCVs and you won't. Wraiths are, unfortunately, too fragile to stand up to a critical mass of battlecruisers, especially when defensive matrix comes into play. Even attacking the science vessels is usually suicidal due to hotkeyed comsats.
If you mix in Lockdown first, however, you stand a decent chance.
A better question would be how the heck you let your opponent get battlecruisers if you have the economy and positioning to get Wraiths that fast.
Goliaths are a decent counter to battlecruisers, though not quite mobile enough.
Trust me, they will. I've done it before. Mostly because it seems most people are too stupid to build any detectors before it's too late. But screw it, 3 years of StarCraft has bored me.
Now, the real question is, How are the modding and mapping capabilities of SupCom?
At any of the higher metagames they'll have hotkeyed comsats, and science vessels are almost always used in conjunction with battlecruisers.
SupCom is very moddable. That was one of the developers' goals, I believe.
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SupCom to the RTS genre has been what Freespace was to the SpaceSim genre.
There are no other games that really compare or offer similar depth in their respective genres and either absolutely deserves to be played till my fingers fall off :)
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I never felt that SupCom exceeded Starcraft. Company of Heroes, the original Total Annihilation, and Homeworld are the only other big RTS movers I can think of.
At its heart, SupCom is Starcraft with less character and a tremendous focus on macro.
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I definitely like to play SA once I get a better computer.
It looks extremely interesting, but I'm wondering how good its replay value is.
Very good, especially if you play multi.
It seems that unless you're super good, you can only scratch the surface of the multi experience.
all you need in supcom is to get that cybran multibarrel atillery thing up and running and you win, aslong as you have it shielded well enough.
It's called a game-ender. That, the Mavor, the Expiremental Bomber, the Aeon T3 rapid fire artillery, and the Aeon resource thing (dammit, can't remember the name!) Basically are a guranteed win if they're built.
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I never felt that SupCom exceeded Starcraft. Company of Heroes, the original Total Annihilation, and Homeworld are the only other big RTS movers I can think of.
At its heart, SupCom is Starcraft with less character and a tremendous focus on macro.
Agreed 100%. I had a lot of hope for SC II as the next great RTS, but now... :blah: Regardless, I'll probably pick up FA due to the flashy ordinance flying everywhere.
Edit: Crap, FA is standalone, right?
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Yep!
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Wait... but IIRC it needs a SupCom key, which I have lost. Any way to dig my old one out of my registry or something, I wonder?
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It should come with its own key. It's totally standalone.
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I never felt that SupCom exceeded Starcraft. Company of Heroes, the original Total Annihilation, and Homeworld are the only other big RTS movers I can think of.
At its heart, SupCom is Starcraft with less character and a tremendous focus on macro.
I disagree. SupCom's scope opened up the potential for strategic depth like i haven't seen it in any other game.
On the larger maps, with skilled opponents, when you wage war on multiple fronts/theathers, where distance and travel time actually matters, where counter meets countercounter, with strategies on several levels and timeframes evolving, with battlefield "intelligence" actually mattering as you try to discover your opponents strategy(ies) while trying to hide your own - gameplay becomes so different to the typical "Starcraftish" RTS, it's pretty much a different genre alltogether. It's kinda hard to explain with mere words... but SupCom is pretty much a prime example of a whole being so much more than the sum of it's parts.
It's the scope of the game with all the different layers of possible strategies and tactics with varying time horizons and counters as well as countercounters that combine into an overall gameplay experience like i haven't found it in any other game ... /shrugs. Maybe you have to delve deeper and find challenging opponents to really appreciate it, i just know that i really do ;)
Starcraft (and the dozens of similar games it spawned - which would includes CoH, although CoH comes with the unique and very well done cover system and through it with a much greater focus on tactics) has(have) always been too "gamey" for my taste, with way too much focus on micro clickfests and too little on actual strategy. That doesn't mean Starcraft is a "bad game"... the contrary and it's an incredibly well balanced and very competitive game and it's also quite popular in e-sport, ... it just offers a quite different overall experience with a very different focus.
Ultimately it's propably a matter of taste, but for me personally it's no contest... Starcraft may be a good game, but it simply doesn't offer what i am looking for in an RTS... SupCom however does and does so pretty much perfectly and it's the first game to actually do so that also offers solid multiplayer gameplay (which is what disqualifies TA btw. TA simply didn't work very well in multiplayer at all, as it was never balanced for it right and it didn't offer a viable/hasslefree platform for internet play either. And as far as Homeworld goes, while being an absolutely superb game that i played to death as well,... Homeworld multiplayer matches simply don't even begin to reach the levels of complexity that a good SupCom match offers. The PDS mod - if anyone remembers - might have been more interesting in Multiplayer, but just as TA, it's lacking a platform, solid playerbase and proper multiplayer balancing.)
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It should come with its own key. It's totally standalone.
To play multi as anything other then the Seraphim, you need to Vanilla key. I just checked out the copy from the local library.
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Mikes, I like to refer to that as the "Epic" factor, which Sup Com so well achieves do its support of larger maps. Basic gameplay remains the same, it's just like an elongated battle of StarCraft on a bigger map.
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I dunno, I kinda see what he's saying. I'm not completely convinced that all those elements aren't present in a Starcraft game when you get to the higher metagames, but at the very least SupCom does them well.
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Hey wait a second, how do you get 160 battlecruisers in the first place? The limit is below 50, last time I checked :wtf:
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Offtopic?
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Hey wait a second, how do you get 160 battlecruisers in the first place? The limit is below 50, last time I checked :wtf:
I said a 160-food force of battlecruisers and science vessels vs. 100 wraiths (200 food) and no SCVs, which you mentioned.
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Mikes, I like to refer to that as the "Epic" factor, which Sup Com so well achieves do its support of larger maps. Basic gameplay remains the same, it's just like an elongated battle of StarCraft on a bigger map.
Again, i have to disagree.
Starcraft constantly forces you into Micro, more to the point, a large part of gameplay revolves around it and manually triggered abilities of individual units are critical to winning a skirmish. In Supcom on the other hand, while Micro is still present to some extent, you can never afford to spend much - if any - time on it, nor would it be wise to do so, as you usually have several larger issues/battles to attend to simultaneously - If you start Microing too much you may gain an advantage in one area, but lose in several others, quickly lose map control as a result (map control in SupCom = resource control), or fall behind in other areas. SupCom's scope means that you actually have to decide which areas of the map are important to you and where you want to concentrate your forces, or how thin to spread them and where you can risk an airlift without being intercepted by fighter patrols and where not, which parts of the map are worth considering for static defenses and where you need reserve forces in case of a breakthrough or air-lift based attack (if your air control is suppressed enough in that specific area).....
I guess it's kinda hard to explain if you haven't gotten into it yourself too much... but maybe consider this metaphor: Starcraft is kinda like playing with a ball that you can do all kinds of elaborate and difficult things with, like throw it into a basket with precision. In Supcom... you have 10 balls, you don't have to do anything elaborate with a specific ball... you just have to keep them in the air somehow, all of them, at once. ;) Yes that analogy is lacking on several levels so don't please scrutinize it too closely, but maybe it still serves to demonstrate a basic difference.
The focus of each game is entirely different and (meta-)gameplay changes radically as a result. Most of what Starcraft gameplay is all about is all but irrelevant in SupCom and vice versa.
The only way you could change that fact, would be to heavily mod one game to be more like the other, lol ;) ... Except that it wouldn't work. You couldn't have a game that has the strategic depth of SupCom and the importance of Micro of Starcraft at the same time without turning gameplay into a muddlet distorted mess... there is only so much information that one can process at a given time and there are only so many actions one can take at the same time and that is why the focus of each game is actually quite important... it is what makes either game playable.... and it also is what makes each game really radically different.
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Supcom is so full of nuances. But too often it degrades to having XXX more units then the enemy, while keeping your mass at +YYY and energy at +ZZZZ. Despite that, you still have to be constantly thinking 'What do I have to achieve? Where is the enemy moving their units? Do I have units in position to counter a thrust from THERE, etc'
The only problem is, sometimes you do need to get in and basically manually control a skirmish, which means you'll most likely fall behind.
Really is a good game.
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Supcom is so full of nuances. But too often it degrades to having XXX more units then the enemy, while keeping your mass at +YYY and energy at +ZZZZ. Despite that, you still have to be constantly thinking 'What do I have to achieve? Where is the enemy moving their units? Do I have units in position to counter a thrust from THERE, etc'
The only problem is, sometimes you do need to get in and basically manually control a skirmish, which means you'll most likely fall behind.
Really is a good game.
Having more units than the enemy is a start.... but it isn't what makes you win, which is the whole beauty of SupCom to begin with. Maneuvering, distance and position of said units is what it's all about. Finding out what your enemy does where comes next... not being killed by an inferior force while your units travel somewhere around the map is always a good thought as well.... and bogging down your enemy with several silly skirmishes just to keep his attention occopied while you plan his doom can actually be a quite successful strategy. You might lose most battles/skirmishes, but if your opponent is really all busy fighting/microing all the time and you can also control a decent slice of the map, you will actually win the war rather quickly harr.
And yes... i am talking strictly Multiplayer. SupCom Singleplayer sadly isn't all that great at all, since the AI, by its nature, is simply way too predictable and the campaign scenarios are even more so. It really is all about the Multiplayer with SupCom, for me anyways ;)
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I should try multiplayer, then.
Starcraft is actually a good micro/macro balance (the early game focuses on very intense small-unit micro, and then map control becomes utterly paramount), whereas I felt SupCom erred too far towards the macro side. But that's a matter of personal preference.
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Well, I think that's the core of it. The games were built for very different audiences. Micromanagement completely turns me off most RTS games, Starcraft included, and to people like me SupCom is a godsend.
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I know theres a bunch of good UI mods to help with most of the base and resource stuff, if you just want to focus on combat.
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Nah, the FA UI is fine. I think I'd enjoy multiplayer. Maybe we should all set up a session? Time zones are kinda different, but I'm sure we could work something out.
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Dun do it without me. I'll pick up a copy of FA today if I can.
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OK, we'll have to wait until... at least sunday, seeing as I won't be able to do it predictably tommorow and saturday.
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Alright, who did this?
(http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/9884/sccain.jpg)
The post (http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?p=571434#571434)
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Devils_Hitman did it. He was also behind the first Freespace mod for Homeworld 2, from memory.
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I was wondering if he was part of this community. :)
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Tried singleplayer at a friend's but meh, I ended up cheating anyway and watched the nukes fly XD
What about that Sorian AI? Anyone tried it?
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Too tough for me.