Making commanders usefull

[winsrp]

OK, first off.. yes I know what commanders are for....

In essence they are like a sensor that can handle 6 direct fire units, unlimited amount of indirect fire units, and call call indirect fire support uppon its target... and increase in a rate of 2 direct fire units with each level, plus give it rank bonuses to unit assigned to it.

But the question is... who really uses commander on MP games? honestly...

Why no one uses them... well on my side its because of the 6 unit + 2 from each level... so if you get your commander assigned units to kill more than 1k enemy units you can have a full team of .... 22 direct fire units, not so impressive really. As for having your indirect fire units vtols an all that... I would rather have a sensor (the green one, name slips right now) than a commander, since they are a lot cheaper, and if it dies, i wont feel as bad for loosing all that exp.

Most of my teams from the start of the game start at around 25 - 50 units... and large groups later one go all the way to 100-150 units.... and at the minimum i make the 9 that come as limit for factories to do at the same time (not counting loops).

So why don't we make commander more interesting... lets say that with each level you can increase significantly the amounts of units that can be assigned to a commander, and the initial cap starts at 10.

So it would be nice to have something like

No rank 10
Green 20
Trained 30
Regular 50
Professional 70
Veteran 90
Elite 120
Special 150
Hero 200

Comments on this please. If it has a negative impact, i would like to know where to modify the game in order to make a mod out of this, since I would really like to test the idea myself.

[Avestron]

The reason why few use commanders in multi player is because the biggest advantage it confers is the experience (and unlike single player games there is no experience carried over between MP battles).

Of course, if the commander is a junior then it has very limited value - though its not impossible to build up the experience of a junior commander.

[Corporal Punishment]

The control limitations for commanders are the way they are I think because the commander unit is trimmed for campaign usage. And there, it really works great. I usually go with two commanders and keep them alive all the way through. The biggest bonus a commander offers is that units retreating for repairs return to their group autonomously if assigned to a commander instead of waiting for orders at the repair station delivery point. In MP games, I agree that commanders are a bit useless as human players tend to use bigger groups than AI. In SP skirmish on the other hand, they work again.

[Moro_Nick]

the following thread aggregates most of the ideas over the last 10 years for making commanders viable in MP:

Commander Command Improvements -- What ? Details ?

my best friend in these bbs is without a doubt forum search. xD

and to make a long story short - it all boils down to the full implementation of beta-widget / LUA

[winsrp]

I don't see why increasing the amount of units that can be assigned will need for betawiget or lua???

[Moro_Nick]

I don't see why increasing the amount of units that can be assigned will need for betawiget or lua???

ahhh.. let me clarify.

i was referring to multi-dimensional modifications of extant commander gpms to expand heat of battle decision making in ways both fun and richer to the extent they more resemble RL military command. this proposal is one-dimensional, not a gpm, and actually compounds ALL the problems with commanders at present.

[winsrp]

ok, if someone knows where to change it, let me know.

[Cassador]

I tink if the turret get a cheaper cost it will be used more in MP.

i dont know if in level 0 they give some bonus, but if not is a good idea do it.

[Cassador]

1- Make commander turret cheaper, actualy(at least in 2.2.3) is too costly and no real worthy get ( only if u has many units and still make normal units is a better opitions).
2- i think that should be two tipes of bonus: default and by vet.Default should be 10%,5% and increase in every turret upgrade . the vet bonus is the actual and i think that should bolthy used thogether
this will make the turret used more and make his upgrades useful

[winsrp]

Well in my mod, I have made commander turret a little cheaper, not that much since it really has some potential (which still does not has, but might have), but I have still to figure out some things

Whats with the turret upgrades, are they new turrets or just upgrades to the already available turret... not really sure, I will give it a check on the game files for this I guess.

And can the commander (assigned units amounts be changed), I would actually put a cap on arty units that can be assigned to a commander if we can ramp up the numbers here... like... 10 arty units/20 direct units... or stuff like that.

Cus commander do get useful when you make 50 grenadiers attached to it, but how come they can have only 6 machineguners and 50 grenadiers, its just not logical, and thus not useful.