Command Relay Center

[TheDaze]

Well for the most part Commanders were useless do to the fact they die to easy, yes that could be fixed, but when you kill one all units that were hooked to that Commander become useless and basicly sit there till you go round them back up.

Yes, that's one of the major problems with commanders. All of the units that loose assignment, scattered around, some in combat some on the way from the factory, some on the way to repair turrets...  There is a shortcut to view unassigned units (d) which means units not assigned to a group. It will show all of the units assigned to commanders, which is nonsense, really. We would need two shortcuts that will SELECT all UNASSIGNED COMBAT UNITS, meaning not assigned to commanders nor groups, one for non-artillery and one for artillery. That should be the means to quickly regroup and assign units to a new commander.

Now they were nice for targeting long range fixed a mobile artty that you had, or use them for CB fire, hell I recall one game where I took out all enemy CB towers with them and then let my artty go to town. In the SP game they were a nice thing to have at times, but once you learn most of the hot key commands you can do just as good without them, and in MP games they are just basicly cannon fodder. Also in MP games they dont last long enough to get high enough rank to make them worth usings.

The most powerful aspect of commanders is to be able to "organize" supply routes. They keep fightworthy units in frontline, let units return to fight after they are repaired and gets new units where they are needed. That's a lot of micromanagement taken care of.

I agree, they tend to get killed too easily. The main reason for that, in my opinion, is that they are too shortsighted. The get too near to the enemy instead of having combat units in front of the attack route. They have to get near, otherwise they cannot assign fire. I believe a longer sight range will solve a number of commanders' problems.

[RBL-4NiK8r]

Well Daze most of the things you can do with the Commander you can do on your own, like bringing units up to the front of the battle, you either build factorys closer, or click on the number outside of the factory and move it to a better spot, and I did both thru out a game. As for repair factorys I used them sometimes, but this had a lot to do with the map or how much power I had, most of the times I used them to recycle units not repair them if you can make more, well thats for MP games SP games are different, but you can also adjust the way point for Repair factorys to so they come up near the battle. It could be just me, but I could micromanage my units on my own then I could with a Commander.

If I was doing a T3 game all my trucks would be under 2 or 3 hot keys depending on what all I was doing at the time, sometimes I would pull 1 truck off from a group to do single set of tasks. Then I would use 2 or 3 for my combat units, say my main force was HC Mantis Hovers, but I had a few Bunker Busters mixed in, so I would ground them up by them selfs, or with VTOL's that I might be using to take out Sensor towers or Hardpoints. Its been awhile but on the map Teamwars I could have a full base with 5 Factorys, 5 Research Centers, and 5 Power Gens up and making tanks around 4 mins and 30 seconds. In T1 no base I could have 50+ Twin MG Half tracks at the 5 min mark, and found any holes in your defense before that so I know where I can sneak my main force into your base or extra oil wells. I may not win with them, but that was not always my goal, most of the time it was to slow you down and distract you from something like me getting Lancers at 8-9 mins.

Anyways the thing I am getting at is that the means are in the game to micromanage your army by your self, and do a damn good job at it, granted it might take awhile to figure out all the hot keys and some of the tricks to make you faster, but thats how we won MP games in the old days.


4nE

[TheDaze]

So basically what you are saying is that commanders are useless and that's final.

Of course when the stategy is to build 30 chaingun trucks, rush them in and win, well yes, there's no use for commanders. But this strategy, however valid, may not always work. And anyway, strategy is not an issue here. What we are discussing here is what can be done to make commanders more suitable for our ideas of tactical deployment. This is where I get my fun from wz. I like the concept of commanders and would like to see the concept developed.

When I think about wz an what sets it apart... I guess it's actually the feeling that you can deploy buildings and units in a way that will respond to threat more or less by itself. You OWN land by building sensors and have it covered by artillery and VTOLS. Commanders do fit into this feel and that's the whole point.

[psychopompos]

what if command relay centre modules allowed command turrets to launch UAV's?
+ allow some of the other advantages.
like the multiple vectors thing.
or shared los with assigned units.

[RBL-4NiK8r]

Daze dont get me wrong I think Commanders are a very big part of the SP game, but when your in the heat of battle in a MP game you dont have time to deal with them. Now IF they were made a lot stronger then they are now, then maybe they could work, and also fixing some of the problems with them like leaving an ant trail of new units if its kills, I think all the units should go to the spot of the commanders death or at lest the next vehicle close to the dead commander.

I also think it should be given more abilitys make it like a Truck so you can build with it, and do basicly the same as you could with any other vehicle in the game. Like it could have Radar or some kind of weapons system to but only for short range.

In SupCom they have a Commander type unit for all sides, but its higher in the tech tree, and a real bitch to kill, granted its not the same as the one in WZ or have the same abilitys, but having something thats able to take a lot of hits would be a nice touch. Say when a Commander comes into play it could not be one hit by ANY T1 tech, and by the time its had all of its upgrades it cant be one hit by anything in T3. Just some ideas.


4nE

[psychopompos]

the commanders perpose is to make units go back to where the combat is going on, and to focus fire of assigned units.
instead of firing randomly, then disappearing back to repair facility, not to be seen at the front untill you summon them again.

would you still think them useless if the lowest rank command turret could get 10 (or 15) units assigned right off the mark, and used shared los to stay out of harms way?

[doom3r]

What was the crc modules supposed to be used for??

[psychopompos]

aparently no one was told after pumpkin took its dirt nap.

but im gonna guess, more then 5 commanders?!

[TheDaze]

If I think about it, I am not that fond of the "shared LOS" idea. It is simply not realistic. Units in combat do not share LOS, they take directives. Some specialized units, however, do extend the LOS, thus we have "sensor" units.
Maybe it would make sense if commander's LOS was combined/replaced by sensor units attached to him. So that the commander would act kinda like an artillery unit, only that it would still have to attack the enemy closest to him, not to the sensor. And there we go with "shared LOS" again.

Soshite, shared LOS is more complicated to code than simply increasing commanders sight range. Furthermore, shared LOS would most certainly have an adverse impact on performance. Which is already being a problem as it is.

So, I would still suggest a simple increase of commander's LOS. Let's see what effect that would have on gameplay.

More than 5 commanders? Maybe on really huge maps where you have to fight on three fronts simultaneously...?

About SupCom; the game is a zombie. The commander in SupCom is a dumb, useless piece of junk, nothing to be taken role model of. TA cannot and should not be resurrected.

[doom3r]

i dont think you would ever need more than 5 commanders, since the 100 units limit, that means 20 units per commander. 20 is not too much if you use experienced commanders...

[psychopompos]

If I think about it, I am not that fond of the "shared LOS" idea. It is simply not realistic. Units in combat do not share LOS, they take directives. Some specialized units, however, do extend the LOS, thus we have "sensor" units.
Maybe it would make sense if commander's LOS was combined/replaced by sensor units attached to him. So that the commander would act kinda like an artillery unit, only that it would still have to attack the enemy closest to him, not to the sensor. And there we go with "shared LOS" again.

not realistic your... joking... right?
at what point can you say units in the field IRL dont share target data?
cause, they really do... its imperative for efficient engagement of enemy that they do.
they not only share target locations! but size, type, direction and speed! also topographical info as well.

which is increasingly done via ROV borne video, if not live feed from inside some newer ground vehicles.
such forms of live Intel is becoming more important even now! let alone in the world 100 years from now.

and as i said elsewhere, extending the LOS is no more then a quick fix!
as, with the exception of the vindicator sams, the ground blocks everything including vision.
a wide LOS is pointless on a map thats not flat.

[Rman Virgil]

not realistic your... joking... right?
at what point can you say units in the field IRL dont share target data?
cause, they really do... its imperative for efficient engagement of enemy that they do.
they not only share target locations! but size, type, direction and speed! also topographical info as well.

which is increasingly done via ROV borne video, if not live feed from inside some newer ground vehicles.
such forms of live Intel is becoming more important even now! let alone in the world 100 years from now.

and as i said elsewhere, extending the LOS is no more then a quick fix!
as, with the exception of the vindicator sams, the ground blocks everything including vision.
a wide LOS is pointless on a map thats not flat.

* Right-on, dude !

* In a word - M.A.V.s (as part of a Commander's "Digital Battle Space" command & control, ie the Velocity of Asymetric Engagements which are the total opposite of "Rush").

- RV

[RBL-4NiK8r]

About SupCom; the game is a zombie. The commander in SupCom is a dumb, useless piece of junk, nothing to be taken role model of. TA cannot and should not be resurrected.

Well this all depends on the game your playing, from my POV with there Command Que you can set them up to building sh*t for most of your game, or you can take and rush them with some lvl1 tanks and arty, and put a major hurt to someone if the map is not that big. Oh and if by dumb luck they do get taken out they set off one nice NUKE, so taking out a lower lvl base or a good part of it can always be something to think about. On a big map I tend to walk them out to the middle of no where, and build a new base, but then again I used to do that in WZ also if I was not playing on Teamwars or one of its clones, because on them you didnt have the room or the cover to build more then one base, and I think you can understand why having more then one base is better ? Not sure if you ever played my last map BigArticMyst but I had a few places for players to build.

As for TA, I dont think SupCom was coping it, though you do see somethings that were common in TA, as it was i think TA:Kingdoms was a great game built a few maps for that back in the day, and had a blast playing it, but it was an over all flop, because most RTS nutts though of it as an RPG, and that was not the case.



4nE

[Spaceman]

Command Center Modules, I wondered about them for along time. I've come to a conclusion. Based on modules generally make things faster/better. That command center modules would probably allow for more/better commanders and/or more units to be commanded (which is the whole command control limit thing, or what I think it is). Other than that I'm clueless

This would fix both problems suggested earlier, only problem is can your computer take it.