[img]http://tapower.tauniverse.com/SupComWallpaper9c_1024.jpg[/img]
Supreme Commander (abbreviated SupCom) is a real-time strategy computer game designed by [b]Chris Taylor[/b] and developed by his company, Gas Powered Games. The game is considered to be the spiritual successor to Taylor's 1997 game, [b]Total Annihilation[/b], as well as the Spring remake. First announced in the August 2005 edition of PC Gamer magazine, the game was released on February 16, 2007 in Europe and February 20, 2007 in North America. A standalone expansion, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance, was released on November 6 of the same year. A sequel, Supreme Commander 2, has also been released.
[b]FEATURES:[/b]
[b]Strategic zoom[/b]
Strategic zoom allows the player to zoom in on one unit or zoom all the way out and view the entire battlefield, its one of the features that makes it unique among RTS's
[b]Example[/b]
[img]http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2007/03/supremecommander5wtmk.jpg[/img]
[b]Economy system[/b]
First introduced in Chris Taylors first game Total Annihilation. In Supreme Commander, the economy refers to the production and consumption of energy and mass. Careful management of these resources is crucial to succeeding in Supreme Commander. Unlike many other popular strategy games such as StarCraft in which the total resources on a map are limited, in Supreme Commander, resources are always available. However, many units and structures consume resources continually rather than merely on upon their construction. In addition, unlike in other strategy games, resources must be stored, and resources generated which are not stored are wasted.
Therefore, rather than the emphasis being on seizing control of scarce resources, resource management in Supreme Commander is a matter of ensuring your 'income' and stockpiles of the two primary resources can meet your 'expenditure.' Running out of resources will not only halt construction, but an energy shortage will shut down Radar, Shield Generators and other power-consuming devices.
Energy is more or less the main resource, as mass production needs energy. Energy will be produced in Power Generators and Power Plants. ACU's and SACU's also produce a small amount of mass (+1) and energy (+10), while the ACU and SCUs could be upgraded with a Resource Allocation System which produces a large amount of extra mass and energy. Energy could also be gained by reclaiming.
There are four different structures that produce energy and one Energy Storage.
[b]T1 Power Generator[/b] - This is the basic structure for energy production. It is cheap and produces 20E/s (Energy per second).
[b]T1 Hydrocarbon Power Plant[/b] - The Hydrocarbon Power Plant is a special structure that can only be built on special places on the map. Its cost compared to its output is very good. It produces 100E/s.
[b]T2 Power Generator[/b] - The T2 Power Plant is the next basic structure for energy production. It costs 16x more mass, energy and time to build as the T1 one but produces 25x more energy per second; 500E/s.
[b]T3 Power Generator[/b] - The T3 Power Plant is the last basic energy producing structure. It costs 2.7x the mass and time and 4.8x the energy of a T2 power generator and produces 5x as much energy per second; 2500E/s. This makes the T3 Power Generator the most cost effective energy producing structure. However, when destroyed, the resulting huge explosion will destroy nearly anything in its blast radius.If one exploedes in a large group it will result in chain reaction that can be equal to a Nuke.
All Power Generators/Plants provides Adjacency bonus. They also have the ability to store energy.
[b]T1 Energy Storage[/b] - provides a higher max energy cap and when placed close to Energy producing buildings it gives an Adjacency bonus up to a max +50% to production (All 4 sides of energy producing building is linked to energy storage).
There is not much to say about energy production. Connecting Energy Storages could increase the production rate of a Generator. But Energy Storages are not cost effective for adjacency and it is cheaper to build new Generators. Energy Storages are most of the time only useful when you need temporarily a huge amount of energy, like when using a Scathis. Following a list of production costs.
Structure Building Cost Production Costs per 1E/s*
Mass Energy Time Energy Energy Time
T1 PGen 75 750 125 20 37.50 6.25
T1 HydroPP 160 800 400 100 8.00 4.00
T2 PGen 1200 12000 2000 500 24.00 4.00
T3 PGen 3240 57600 5400 2500 23.04 2.16
EStore 480 4800 400 0 - -
There are two basic ways to produce mass, with Mass Extractors and Mass Fabricators. Both require energy for maintenance. Mass could also be gained by reclaiming.
There are five different structures that produce mass and one Mass Storage.
[b]T1 Mass Extractor[/b] - T1 Mass Extractors are the cheapest way to produce mass and also have the lowest energy maintenance. The downside is that they can only be built on special places on a map. So T1 Mass Extractors are very important in early game. T1 Mass Extractors can be upgraded to tech level 2 and 3. Extractors will always drain more mass than they produce while upgrading, resulting in a negative mass production value. A T1 Mass Extractor produces 2M/s (Mass per second) while draining 2E/s (Energy per second).
[b]T2 Mass Extractor[/b] - T2 Mass Extractors produce more mass then a T1 but are more expensive to upgrade or to build. A T2 Mass Extractor produces 6M/s while draining 9E/s.
[b]T3 Mass Extractor[/b] - T3 Mass Extractors are a good way to produce mass in late game. They cost more mass to build than a T3 Mass Fabricators but much less energy. Also the energy maintenance is lower. They produce 18M/s while draining 54E/s.
[b]T2 Mass Fabricator[/b] - T2 Mass Fabricators cost 100 mass and a good amount of energy. Also they have high maintenance costs compared to an extractor. It is a good way to increase your mass income early in the game if enough energy is available. It produces 1M/s while draining 150E/s.
[b]T3 Mass Fabricator[/b] - A T3 Mass Fabricator is a bigger version of the T2 Mass Fabricator. Compared to that it costs a small amount of mass to build but a huge amount of energy. Also the energy maintenance costs are very high. It also explodes with a large blast radius when destroyed. The blast damage is nearly 11 times more powerful than that of a T1, meaning it can destroy much tougher structures and units around it. A T3 Mass Fabricator produces 12M/s while draining 3500E/s.
All Mass Extractors/Fabricators provide Adjacency bonus. They also have the ability to store mass.
[b]T1 Mass Storage[/b] - The main task of a Mass Storage is to store more mass. Also it could increase the mass production of Mass Extractors/Fabricators via adjacency.
There is more to know about mass production then knowing which structures exists. Together with Gameplay concepts there are several combinations all with advantages and disadvantages.
Extractors have a very low energy maintenance but could be expensive when upgrading them from T1 to T3. First a table for building them directly.
[b]Structure[/b] [b]Building Cost[/b] [b]Production/Consuming[/b] [b]Maintenance[/b] [b]Costs per 1M/s[/b]
Mass Energy Time Mass Energy Mass/Energy Mass Energy Time
T1 Mex 36 360 60 2 -2 1.000 18.0 180.0 30.0
T2 Mex 900 5400 900 6 -9 0.667 150.0 900.0 150.0
T3 Mex 1800 10800 1350 12 -36 0.333 150.0 900.0 112.5
With upgrading them from T1 we have following costs.
Structure Building Cost Production/Consuming Maintenance Costs per 1M/s*
Mass Energy Time Mass Energy Mass/Energy Mass Energy Time
T1 -> T2 Mex 936 5760 960 6 -9 0.667 156.0 960.0 160.0
T1 -> T3 Mex 2736 16560 2310 12 -36 0.333 228.0 1380.0 192.5
Now lets have a look at those Extractors surrounded with four Mass Storages when built adjacent to gain the adjacency bonus. The costs for the storages is included.
[b]Structure[/b] [b]Building Cost[/b] [b]Production/Consuming[/b] [b]Maintenance[/b] [b]Costs per 1M/s[/b]
Mass Energy Time Mass Energy Mass/Energy Mass Energy Time
MStore 160 1200 200 0 0 - - - -
T1 Mex + 4x MStore 676 5160 860 3 -2 1.500 225.3 1720.0 286.7
T2 Mex + 4x MStore 1540 10200 1700 9 -9 1.000 171.1 1133.3 188.9
T3 Mex + 4x MStore 2440 15600 2150 18 -36 0.500 135.6 866.7 199.4
As it looks there would be no need to surround T1 Mass Extractors with Mass Storages from an economical point of view. But when we do and upgrade then the upgrade costs benefit from adjacency. We get following costs including T1 Mex + 4 Storages.
[b]Structure[/b] [b]Building Cost[/b] [b]Production/Consuming[/b] [b]Maintenance[/b] [b]Costs per 1M/s[/b]
Mass Energy Time Mass Energy Mass/Energy Mass Energy Time
T1 Mex + 4x MStore -> T2 Mex 1464 10560 ? 9 -9 1.000 162.7 1173.3 ?
T1 Mex + 4x MStore -> T3 Mex 2878 21360 ? 18 -36 0.500 159.9 1186.7 ?
What are those tables telling us now? T1 Extractors alone are the most effective Extractors economy wise. But there comes a point when no more can be built. The next step would be to build new T3 Extractors and surround them with Storages. But when we don't have any more place to build and we have to upgrade. So the most effective way is to build four Storages around a T1 Mex and upgrade it then. The advantages are clear, extractors produce a good amount of mass with very low energy maintenance. But the disadvantages are that we can't build them where we want and therefore could be hard to defend. Also we need five buildings to produce 18M/s which could be too much when playing with a low unit limit and playing a long game.
Fabricators cost a low amount of mass to produce but a huge amount of energy and have huge energy maintenance costs. So we have to calculate the costs of power generators into the fabricator's building costs. But first a table for only the Fabricators.
[b]Structure[/b] [b]Building Cost[/b] [b]Production/Consuming[/b] [b]Maintenance[/b] [b]Costs per 1M/s[/b]
Mass Energy Time Mass Energy Mass/Energy Mass Energy Time
T2 MFab 0 1000 125 1 -40 0.025 0.0 1000.0 125.0
T3 MFab 800 100000 3000 24 -1500 0.016 33.3 4166.7 125.0
[b]Time[/b]
The most important aspect of the economy in Supreme Commander is TIME! In short, if you can produce more effective firepower on the map in less TIME than your opponent, you win. This is true of every RTS ever produced and is still 100% true of Supreme Commander. There are three concepts involved in time management; "Tradeoff Time", "Catch Up Time", and "Engagement Time".
[b]Tradeoff Time[/b]
"Tradeoff Time" is the time you give in order to build one unit, structure, or upgrade instead of building another -- this is the economic principle of "Opportunity Cost."
For example, given equal resources and build point capacity, for the time it takes to build one Mavor, how many Striker tanks could you build? The answer is quite a few.
So if a player decides to spend all of his resources on a Mavor could he defend against all of the Striker tanks his opponent produces? Probably not, because in the time it takes to build the Mavor the enemy will produce hundreds of tanks that will then traverse the map and destroy his Commander long before the Mavor is up and operating. The "Tradeoff" or "Opportunity Cost" is far too great.
That's kind of an extreme example but it does highlight the point. If you try to build something too expensive, someone with less expensive gear will run you over because it takes too long to build!
[b]Catchup Time[/b]
"Catchup Time" is the time it takes for your more expensive unit or units to become more powerful than opponent who just continues to build a less expensive unit.
For example, player #1 and player #2 start off with equal resources. Player #2 then decides to upgrade to tech 2 tanks. In this example, in the time it takes to upgrade to tech 2 tanks, your enemy has produced 10 tech 1 tanks. Also, in this example tech 2 tanks are produced at the exact same rate as tech 1 tanks, but they are twice as powerful. So once you have upgraded your tanks to tech 2, you are 10 tech 1 tanks behind your opponent, and you will need to produce 5 tech 2 tanks in order to catchup and then surpass the enemy.
[b]Engagement Time[/b]
In the previous example, will player #2 win with his more powerful tanks? Maybe, as it depends on his engagement time. That is the time it takes for your forces to engage the enemy. This is a more arbritrary number that is fairly complicated. But essentially it means the time it takes for your units, or the enemy tanks, to drive up and engage on the map. The larger the map, the longer it takes. Faster units (like aircaft) take much less time to engage than slower units like ships.
So player #2 now has to build 5 tanks in order to break even. If player #1 can attack his base before player #2 can build the 5 tanks, player #1 will have a distinct advantage. If the bases on this map are are four tank builds away, in other words the tanks can cross the map in the time it takes to build four tanks, then given equal player skill, player #1 should win with his superior firepower! But if the map is huge, and it takes 20 tank builds to cross the map, player #2 can defend himself from player #1. And once the catchup time has been overcome, player #2 now has the advantage!
[b]Time Management[/b]
To sum it all up, the engagement time must be greater than the sum of tradeoff time and the catchup time. This is why "rushing" T1 tanks works so well on smaller maps, but struggles on larger maps. If it takes too long for your tech 1 tanks to reach the enemy is large enough numbers you will lose if they have upgraded.
But let's look at a much more applicable example.
If there are two players using the same faction on a map. The map is a very simple flat map, with only one mass extractor location for each player. Each player has simulataneously built one T1 extractor, one T1 power plant, and one T1 Factory.
So both players produce tanks at exactly the same rate. If both players are of equal skill, nothing happens. Both players send tanks at each other and both sides are eliminated. This goes back and forth for eternity (kind of reminds me of a really bad infinite respawn first person shooter but I wont go there :) ).
But, player #1 decides he will upgrade his extractor to Tech 2. If successful in upgrading his extractor, and his opponent does not upgrade his extractor, player #1 will have 3 times the resources. If player 1 has or builds more production capactiy, he will have 3 times the number of tanks than player #2 and will win.
Assuming player #2 never upgrades his extractors, will player #1 win every game with this strategy? Maybe! It depends on if player #2 attacks player #1 before he can upgrade his extractor, upgrade his factory, and before the catchup time is reached!
To give some idea of how Forged Alliance works, the catchup time to upgrade one extractor is *about* five minutes from tech 1 to tech 2, if you are building tech 1 tanks. So if you see your enemy upgrading an extractor, chances are that you have about 5 minutes to "rush" him. Upgrading to tech 2 factories is even longer.
[b]End economy info, continue features[/b]
[[b]projectile simulation[/b]
Unlike most RTSes, Supreme Commander models the trajectory and behavior of each firing of each weapon. Because of this design, hit rate depends on many factors:
Weapon accuracy
Terrain
Passive defenses (shields and walls)
Active defenses (TMDs, SMDs, etc)
Tracking effectiveness (Missiles and torpedos that home in on targets)
Maneuverability of the target
Turret aiming speed
Area of effect
Bullets and munitions travel in arcs, lasers follow straight lines, missiles track targets, and so on. Any of these may collide with terrain or unintended targets. Although projectile weapons are automatically aimed such that they lead their target, the target may change course while the projectile is on its way. Missiles that change course to track their targets may not be fast or maneuverable enough to catch their prey every time.
[b]Factions[/b]
There are four military forces in the galaxy fighting in The Infinite War:
[media]http://bestgamewallpapers.com/files/supreme-commander/united-earth-federation.jpg[/media]
The United Earth Federation
[media]http://bestgamewallpapers.com/files/supreme-commander/cybran-nation.jpg[/media]
The Cybran Nation
[media]http://static.desktopnexus.com/thumbnails/119311-bigthumbnail.jpg[/media]
The Aeon Illuminate
[media][/media]
The Seraphim (Forged Alliance only)
[b]Media[/b]
[img]http://www.fileshack.com/images/finclude/images/052006_supremecommander.jpg[/img][img]http://www.direct2drive.com/images/product/screenshots/5254/normal/ScreenShot1.jpg[/img][img]http://tbandrwcoolstuff.webs.com/photos/Games/supreme_commander_360_251.jpg[/img][img]http://shopeu.ageod.com/images/products/THQ/THQ_Supreme_commander_FA_ss02.jpg[/img][img]http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/765/765774/supreme-commander-20070219100511847.jpg[/img]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABWX6n97S2Y&feature=related[/media]
The Trailer
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ixqj2P-aGh0[/media]
The memories, I used to play this with 2nd47 I belive and we havent played in a long long time.
The first one + forged alliance though, second one was not in my style, was quite too fast and the nuke spams my god.
[QUOTE=Randy;27892474]The memories, I used to play this with 2nd47 I belive and we havent played in a long long time.
The first one + forged alliance though, second one was not in my style, was quite too fast and the nuke spams my god.[/QUOTE]
You mean arty spam.
Nuke spam is easy to prevent.
Arty spam is *impossible* to prevent.
6 heavy arty can demolish 2 layers of shields over a single area in seconds.
In my opinion, SC2 was more fun in SP. The instant action is thrilling but the game is considerably harder. On certain maps, 5 experimentals can mean nothing after 30-40 minutes.
The original was a bit tedious. I didn't have the time to screw my eyes up looking at a screen for 60 minutes just for one match. Campaign was good and the experimentals were game-winners.
What failed in SC2 is that they got the build times right, but the effectiveness of them was pointless. (the most powerful UEF experimental can destroyed with 20 gunships)
What they did wrong with SC2 was to butcher the economy system.
Over the two, is the first one better?
I mean i've never played it but i own Supreme Commander 2 and enjoy it, i'm just wondering what the first one is like.
[QUOTE=CaMpEr_GuRL;27892718]Over the two, is the first one better?
I mean i've never played it but i own Supreme Commander 2 and enjoy it, i'm just wondering what the first one is like.[/QUOTE]
I find the first one better, it's probably because I started on the first on though.
The economy in the first on is a bitch and the AI is terribly unoptimized so your game runs at -5 speed 45 minutes into the game.
Ah yes, this game. Used to play a lot against the AI, mainly because i'd get thrashed constantly against humans :/
Ah, the joy of building giant bases, and making experimentials attack them is always fun.
Ah, I remember when this was first released my local LAN cafe had a few posters up and I took a look at it.
And then it closed down :crying:
Even so, it was an instant hit with my friends even though they barely knew how to play.
I'm still not sure whether 2 or 1 was best though. 2 is much easier to play but I just had more fun in the first game.
This game still runs like shit for me to this day. :byodood:
When there's a bunch of units on screen atleast.
I always loved the way the SC games handled destroyed units, After a big battle its just so satisfactory to look around the map at all those wrecks laying there. I always got pissed off when the AI removed them.
[editline]6th February 2011[/editline]
And ofcourse dropship spam, which wrecks did immense damage to stuff.
Every RTS should have Supcom zoom capability, all of them
Seriously, it makes no sense to restrict you to a tiny main view, with your overview squashed into a minimap in the corner.
Supcom in general just has a better interface than other RTS games.
What I don't like about SC2 is the fact that I really miss SupCom1 (and I guess FA if anyone wants me to include that) having the good units.
The original Fatboy was cool and actually fit was the UEF was. Big, blocky units. Cybran were triangular shaped units. Aeon were circular shaped units. The second fatboy didn't 'feel' like a fat boy. Just like a big tank. The original fatboy was meant to be like the experimental German tank that never got produced. Experimental and lethal if used.
Plus, most look like toys. Srs.
If only SC2 held up to its predecessors.
Either way, Forged Alliance is an amazing game but the only thing holding it back is the reduction of SIM speed as a multiplayer match progresses. After about half an hour it would get to 0 and further than that it's negative upon negative.
I love SC2. I think that there should be a few upgrades to it, and the experimentals don't have the same impact that they should have, but all in all SC2 is awesome too! I would like to see the stronger units cost alot more, and to have Level 2 and Level 3 generators. That way it feels like you have to build up to buying the better stuff. I'm tempted to not even bother with alot of the units because for a little bit extra I can have something much better.
[QUOTE=ChaosUnleash;27894714]I love SC2. I think that there should be a few upgrades to it, and the experimentals don't have the same impact that they should have, but all in all SC2 is awesome too! I would like to see the stronger units cost alot more, and to have Level 2 and Level 3 generators. That way it feels like you have to build up to buying the better stuff. I'm tempted to not even bother with alot of the units because for a little bit extra I can have something much better.[/QUOTE]
Glad I'm not the only one that likes the second game as well, everybody seems to hate it. :(
I always wanted to play this game, but made do with TA:Spring.
WHICH WAS SO AWESOME.
I remember when my friends would play SC1, the time in the game would slow down severely because of all the units. It ended up being like 5 real seconds for every 1 in-game second.
Actually, SC2 has the same problem.
One of my favorite RTS of all time. The Cybran commander with the laser and cloak tore shit up.
We never got around to utilizing T1 and T2. Every game was mostly a rush to T3 and getting the best economy to spam air units, experimentals, shields, nukes and anti-nukes.
I remember playing a game with you guys
I had tons of problems playing online for some reason. I miss it now.
SC2 would be a lot more fun if the maps were bigger.
In my opinion, Forged Alliance was so much better than SC2
[QUOTE=ThePuska;27896918]We never got around to utilizing T1 and T2. Every game was mostly a rush to T3 and getting the best economy to spam air units, experimentals, shields, nukes and anti-nukes.[/QUOTE]
You guys were so easy to pwn.
I've recently installed SupCom + Forged Alliance after ...long time of not coming close to any real RTS game outside of StarCraft II Singleplayer.
I've tried Multiplayer.
Banned.
[QUOTE=Forss;27900451]You guys were so easy to pwn.[/QUOTE]
I based my tactics on whatever worked for me so I disagree.
[QUOTE=ThePuska;27896918]We never got around to utilizing T1 and T2. Every game was mostly a rush to T3 and getting the best economy to spam air units, experimentals, shields, nukes and anti-nukes.[/QUOTE]
From my experience it was mostly the opposite, a T1 rush in the first few minutes, and everyone ignored nukes because they took way too long to build.
To be honest I still find TA the most fun. The problem with supcom was was the overcomplicated economy system. Adjacency bonuses, too many MEX upgrades and stuff like that. I'm not saying it wasn't hard to learn after a while but overall felt like an added extra layer that didn't add too much.
TA's system was simpler in this while still keeping the benefits of the time based one - as opposed to supcom 2 which lost that most important part imho.
If there's anything I really loved on supcom though it was the easy of using dropships.
[QUOTE=ThePuska;27896918]We never got around to utilizing T1 and T2. Every game was mostly a rush to T3 and getting the best economy to spam air units, experimentals, shields, nukes and anti-nukes.[/QUOTE]
Part of why SupCom2 is better in this respect.
Seriously I don't know why everyone says SupCom2 sucks either.
It's a much better game in the sense that all the units and most experiementals are useful (while in SupCom1 it was almost a waste of time to build most of them when you could be building T3 bombers), and that the gameplay itself had a much better flow and wasn't clunky to play thanks to not having the exponentual broken economy of the first game (though there are still some problems with SupCom2's economy, and one of the major problems with it was patched by adding an infinite que system like in SupCom1).
SupCom1 though had a much better sense of scale and unit design, more variety in basic units, larger maps, etc.
In the end I think it evens out. I feel like the feel of SupCom1 is much better, but the gameplay in SupCom2 is better overall.
What I can't wait for is Kings and Castles. It's basically the next RTS they are making, combining the best elements from SupCom1 with the best ones from SupCom2 into a new mid-evil fantasy massive-scale RTS game. Looks awesome.
In my mind there's on SupCom and SupCom: FA.
SC 2 doesn't exist and when I'm forced to acknowledge it does exist, I see it as an independent adaptation of the game, not a true sequel.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
