[General Battuta]

Fury, I have to disagree with your assessment of the game as generic. 

The shift-button management feature alone is something that's completely changed the RTS experience for me.  The use of queuing is brilliant.  The economy model, based around flow rather than raw quantity, allows continual production of units instead of those irritating spending sprees. 

As for your complaints regarding the use of the expanding-map gimmick, try some skirmishes.  It's not present at all there.

[ChronoReverse]

While I can appreciate someone not liking the game, simply not understanding the game still needs correcting.

- Most mobile units are nothing but cannonfodder, often the most officient and quickest way to finish a mission is to send your commander over, except cybran commander which sucks at offensive. Aeon commander on the other hand is so good at offensive that it feels overpowered.

Um, Stealth+Cloak+Microwave Laser upgrades?  The Cybran ACU is the only one that actually can stand against an army and easily survive.  Even then, it can't walk into a base because of the omni-range of the T3 omni rader.  If you weren't playing easy, even a T2 army would easily destroy an ACU, shielded or not.  T3 destroys ACUs in SECONDS.

in SC we finally have static defenses being as strong as they are supposed to be. The downside is that it makes most mobile units often nothing more than cannonfodder unless you send over as swarm of different units, or a few experimental units, or a commander. The turning point of a game seems to be when you get access to T3 unts and buildings, including static artilleries.

Except artillery units outrange their corresponding PDs.  So are you complaining that you CAN'T just send in units here without thinking?  And this is a BAD thing?

Which brings me to another issue, artilleries like other units have a priority list of targets, the commander being at the top of the list. This means that if commander is in the range of the artillery, the artillery can finish the game for you without you even needing to step on enemy base. Things get both funny and sad if you get UEF's Mavors built, these things have the range of a whole map, have pinpoint accuracy and fire shells rather rapidly, if one gets built you better say goodbye to your commander.

Look, if you've spent all the time defending and building the Mavor, OF COURSE YOU WIN.  I guess you're not used to having to scout?  No one should be able to build a mavor (unless in a corner of an 81x81 map) without you noticing.

Besides, there are four game modes in Skirmish and only one of them is ended by the ACU death.  Not to mention that's the whole point of Assassination that you've got to protect your ACU and use stealth.  Are you complaining that if you expose your ACU, it gets shot?

Anyway, SC is pretty generic albeit decent RTS which overuses its fresh features along with gameplay that aims to drag playtime to as long as possible.

Hmm.  Let me ask you a question that will explain everything.  How many factories and units do you have at the 10 minute mark?

[Zuljin]

Also, commenting on the Mavor artillery.. considering how much time it takes the build the thing, it's pretty much your own fault if an opponent ever finishes building it

[DragonClaw]

I think I like playing Cybran best. Monkeylords are easily mass producable, and extremely destructive. The other factions' T4 units are either stupid(factory, wtf? Useless), or take way too long to build.

It'll be interesting to see how well the modding community turns out for this game. From what I heard it's an extremely moddable game, might be wrong though.

[Fury]

ChronoReverse, for the record I have yet to play a single skirmish or multiplayer game. The comments are all based on campaign mission experiences, these games I'll get into once I have beaten the three campaigns, if I bother at the time. BTW, T1 artillery has exactly same range as T1 PD, at T2 artilleries gain larger range than PD.

[ChronoReverse]

BTW, T1 artillery has exactly same range as T1 PD, at T2 artilleries gain larger range than PD.

That is incorrect.  Only Cybran T1 artillery have equal range.  In exchange, their artillery has a stun effect.  And it works against PD =).  Frankly, it's pretty crappy still since they tend to get slaughter while you wait for the shells to land.

[Fineus]

That's because T1 arty is a mobile unit, T2 and T3 arty can be fixed and have far longer ranges than any PD.

As for the UEFs Fatboy factory-on-tracks - it doesn't have much use up close and certainly couldn't stand against the Aeon Colossus or - probably a Monkeylord either. But if you keep it at range it has some rapid firing powerful guns that can really mince other units - who can't even fire back on account of being too far away. Range is the winner there.

[ChronoReverse]

Actually there are T2 and T3 mobile artillery/missile units too.  And rather devastating if deployed well.

For example, a mobile stealth generator would usually allow a couple of artillery pieces to easily destroy a fire base since omni radars aren't put up in remote bases as often (it's T3 and eats a huge amount of energy).  Even without stealth, T2 arty slightly outranges T2 PD while T3 Artillery is fearsome in range and power.

I've also had a battlegroup of mobile shields with some AAs, a couple scouts and lots of artillery.   In formation, it makes for a (really) slow group that can literally blast apart equal sized groups of direct fire types.  You simply slowly march it up and watch it slowly blow stuff up =)

The Fatboy actually has the equivalent of 4 battleship artillery cannons.  That's why it's dangerous at range.

[Ace]

I'm loving it, a resource hog and I'm still trying to wrap my head around the resourcing but overall fun.

Nothing quite like fortifying an island with shields, AAA, and pulse turrets (with the shields tripeled up so it can survive any barrages) and then building aircraft, cruise missiles, and nukes to break the siege and blast them to bits.

[Ashrak]

tbh the ai dosent build nearly enough defence, i can do the campaign on hard pretty easy

[DragonClaw]

I must really suck at RTS games lol, it took me like an hour to get through that Aeon defense in mission 2 of UEF. I sent like 100 T2 tanks a time and they got blasted to hell before I could get close enough to shoot. Eventually resorted to building tons of T1 bombers and destroying one shield gen every wave I sent. Took forever :/

[gevatter Lars]

It also takes me forever but that its because I like to build bases. Just sitting their, building up my base bigger and bigger...then when the enemy comes put some turrets in front of him and then back to base building...and when I am finaly bored with base building I sent in a big army to finish the game.

What I allways tried in to demo was to find a way to stop a monkeylord just with my base defence. That things are real bastards and most likely the strongest superunit in the game.

[Starman01]

Guys, how is the performance in the release version ? I always loved Total Annihilation for it's mass battles and certainly want to play this one here. Is it safe to play in 1024x768 (or even higher ) ?

[Fineus]

Starman 01: Depends on your system specs. SC is very hungry for CPU and RAM power. Dual core systems really benefit. Turning down details can really help but of course then it doesn't look as good. Make no mistake, SC is quite a demanding game.

gevatter Lars: I can assure you they're not. The superunits in the game all have strengths and weaknesses. The Aeon Galactic Colossus is damn tough and kicks some serious ass to boot but it has no anti-air defences and a very slow turning circle so if you can get some fire to bear behind it - and stay there - it can't do anything about it. But if you sit infront of it, it will waste you.

The Monkeylords are very quick to make but not the hardiest. Their laser is pretty hardy though which is handy, and they're fast too.

The UEF Fatboy (mobile factory) isn't fast but it's kinda tough, has anti-air defence and - most importantly - massive range with its (equivilant) battleship guns.

But each unit has its own weaknesses which is quite a beautiful thing as - if you're prepared - there's a way to counter most attacks.

[Starman01]

I'm running a 3,1 GHz Intel with 1GB Ram and a Radeon 98oo Pro .  Is that enough (for high resolutions with good detail). After I saw the game yesterday on Giga TV I even more eager to buy it, but I want to make sure

[Fineus]

I'm afraid to say it probably isn't. You have the CPU power for sure but really you need another gig of RAM and a better graphics card if you're going to really take advantage of what the game has to offer.

For about £150 you can get a rig like that I reckon. Of course, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't have that kind of money to splash out on getting just one game running!

[Starman01]

Of course, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't have that kind of money to splash out on getting just one game running!

**Cough**  Let's say I have money to splash out, what would be recommended ?   I'm not really uptodate what kind of stuff can give my machine new power

[DragonClaw]

I don't think SupCom is really all that RAM intensive. It's mostly all CPU. I run it fine on a mobile dual core with 1gb of ram... Even with a LOT of units. Now, fine is relative but I think ~20fps is good compared to what a lot of ppl are getting

[Fineus]

I have to admit my FPS are also around the 20 area and I'm running:

AMD 3500+
2GB RAM
nVidia 7600GT

So you're sorted for the CPU and while I think some more RAM wouldn't kill you, it does seem the graphics card is the most likely cause of performance issues. That said the 9800 pro is AGP only isn't it? I have a feeling you might need to think about upgrading to PCI-E which most likely means a whole new motherboard and processor as well. I fear you'd be getting into expensive territory there.

That said the nVidia 7600GT (my card) is an excellent runner for its price - to me it's in the same vein as the 9800 Pro I had before it was, great bang for buck. It's not the fastest but it's still exceptional. If you can go straight for a PCI-E card then I'd recommend it.

[starbug]

The only grip i am having with the game is when you order groups of units to move, they seem to take a couple of seconds after where you have clicked on the map before they start to move! which i can say can prove disaster if you are trying to move them into range of enemy units, over half of them are dead before they start to move. Also is the AI in the campaign different to the one used in Skirmish? because when playing the campaign ie UEF, if i have a base with heavy ground defense's i have noticed that the ai will use aircraft instead and will direct its ground units around to the weak point in my defense's etc, but it doesnt do this in skirmish and i have tried all the AIs, it just builds en-mass and sends always on the same route and into a killzone.

i have found my games peformance to be not to bad i get a few slowdowns which i find odd since i have

athlon 64 3200+
2GB DDR ram
radeon X800

i expected it to run very slow. But i still love this game i can't really stop playing it, like FS