Suggestion: Comm Ends as default

[trepan]

CA has a LuaRules based comm "stealthing" feature. It costs 1000 energy.

[Dragon45]

I just don't like how the Commander has been nerfed, and nerfed to the point now where he's ridiculously vulnerable. In Balanced Annihilation he has a pitiful amount of armour. He's meant to be the most powerful unit int the game for the first 15 minutes or so. As it stands now he's an absolute panzy.

Yeah, you can make the wreck worth alot. And give him little armour. And cripple you with no storage. But it's not a very satisfying way to do it. Better to make him your king that you have to protect at all costs and make him a dangerous unit that people want to keep rather than throwing away in a suicide mission.

Yes. yesyeyesyesyseyes.

^2

[Warlord Zsinj]

I actually think SupCom is on the right path with upgrades, I just don't think they went about it quite the right way.

I usually hate upgrades in RTS games; they always focus gameplay on economic mechanics rather then spatial strategy - but commanders are the one area where I think an exception can be made.

Upgrades are an excellent way to allow the commander to evolve with the game.

It's a common issue in TA and many mods that the commander is super (potentially over) powerful in the early game, about right in the early/middle game, and a total liability in the late-game. This is because these games all have different currency of weaponry, numbers and damage, and one can't expect a single unit to keep it's relevance throughout the game without evolving with the gameplay.

Allowing forks in research is an interesting, if a little unsubtle (as the divisions are pretty clear cut) means of getting players to customise their commanders according to how they want them. Do they want an aggressive front-line commander? A builder commander? A sensors commander? A stealth commander? etc.

Depending on how well my team can grapple with LUA, I'm hoping to include such a dynamic in SWS.

[Ishach]

The problem for sure lies more in the weakness of the com in BA than the default settings in the client.


You might think the community at large isnt too clever but im pretty sure everyone hosting knows how to change the commander ends settings to their preferred setting and a default wont really mean anything

[Machiosabre]

I agree that the com is a bit of an annoying timebomb lategame in com continues, but its a small price to pay for the crap we used to get with 6k hp coms.

[det]

I just don't like how the Commander has been nerfed, and nerfed to the point now where he's ridiculously vulnerable. In Balanced Annihilation he has a pitiful amount of armour. He's meant to be the most powerful unit int the game for the first 15 minutes or so. As it stands now he's an absolute panzy.

To be fair. You are making assumptions about how NOiZE and DayWalkeR are trying to balancing BA. You say he is meant to be the most powerful unit in the game for the first 15 minutes. I say the intent of the commander's role lies in the eyes of the modder.

[Peet]

I agree that the com is a bit of an annoying timebomb lategame in com continues, but its a small price to pay for the crap we used to get with 6k hp coms.

I remember beating about the first half of the TA campaigns with just the com and a few solars :D

[Molloy]

The thing is he was never that hard to protect in TA. In the late game when you had enough resources you could put him on cloak. And if the map had water you could hide him in there and it was unlikely someone would find him. I like how in OTA how the more aggressively you used him the more effective he was, but you were always walking a fine line between losing the game outright for pushing it too far. Alternatively you could be more conservative with your Commander and the odds of you losing by assasination were relatively low.

[LOrDo]

I just don't like how the Commander has been nerfed, and nerfed to the point now where he's ridiculously vulnerable. In Balanced Annihilation he has a pitiful amount of armour. He's meant to be the most powerful unit int the game for the first 15 minutes or so. As it stands now he's an absolute panzy.

Yeah, you can make the wreck worth alot. And give him little armour. And cripple you with no storage. But it's not a very satisfying way to do it. Better to make him your king that you have to protect at all costs and make him a dangerous unit that people want to keep rather than throwing away in a suicide mission.

Yes. yesyeyesyesyseyes.

^2

Its good to see someone finnaly agrees with me on this.

[Neddie]

I don't think ends is intuitive or forgiving enough, even in the context of BA, for it to be default. Add in the other games on the engine, and making it factory default is merely inconvenient.

[manored]

I think both options are flawed right now: In com ends you start the game with a nuke waiting to be used, and in com continues you start the game with a big, slow and weak target waiting to be bombed or shooted by gunships.

Possible solutions for com ends (That i can think out):

*Add to the game some sort of extremelly tough and still cheap bunker that can only load the commander, so you can hide him inside it and maybe make a lot to confuse the enemy.
*Make the commander tougher and better equiped against gunships

For com continues:

* Reduce the strengh of the com death so its not enough to kill another com. That creates the problem of (whoever dguns first wins). Maybe make the commander extremelly vulnerable to emp and add tech 1 emp kbots and vehicles so its dangerous to send a commander to the front alone?

[Pxtl]

I don't think ends is intuitive or forgiving enough, even in the context of BA, for it to be default. Add in the other games on the engine, and making it factory default is merely inconvenient.

Alternatively, Comm Ends could be the default, and mods that want Game Continues behaviour can achieve it by marking all units as comm.

But either way, I agree about comm-upgrade (or bunker) as the best solution for BA. The weak comm is important in early-game, but is annoying for late-game. The catch is that the late-game weak comm can be killed easy accidentally... although a good player should, in a comm-ends game, be guarding his comm like it was the most important unit ('cause it is) so it should be cloaked, jammed, and surround with defenses. But either way a few stray bertha shells can end a good game, so the upgrade is a better idea.

And as for the suggestions like "make moar reclaim cash for comm" - then you just get players suiciding their comms in a safe location to reclaim it for goodies.

The BA comm is perfectly good for game-continues (although I still think that commnapping is a misfeature), and it's just that there need to be more late-game options to protect the comm.

Personally, I favour having "comm vehicles" - that is, transports you build that are scripted to be nigh-useless until carrying the comm, and protect it from damage... and when carrying the comm, are very powerful. You could have a mega-nanotower-annihilator-superdefense comm-vehicle, an assault-mech comm-vehicle, a high-trajectory-bertha comm-vehicle, etc.

[NOiZE]

There is nothing wrong with the BA commanders.

[Day]

late game com ends LOL I CLAOK IN CORNOR!!

[Neddie]

late game com ends LOL I CLAOK IN CORNOR!!

Almost as funny as the Metal Heck game where a player Nuked each corner, trying to take out the last enemy commander which happened to be cloaked in between two of his allies' bases.

[manored]

There is nothing wrong with the BA commanders.

Only with the weapons that are used against then :)

[Dead.Rabit]

ok well, default is controlled by the lobby, different mods handle it in different ways.

also, spring mods tend to be very heavy on team play, (i play xta) but i can say that 9/10 times i have lost because of an allies mistake, or my ally is taken out.

expansion in a line with several players covering the map is the fastest way to expand, and whoever expands faster (theoretically) should win. you expand faster because you dont have to defend your sides, just your front.

if set to comm ends, destroying just one unit (the most useful unit) in mid- late game, with its lack of late game armour. it would open up 2 undefended sides and probably ruin the game.

this is why most people dont set comm ends to default.

but the main reason is this... spring is a game engine, not the game itself, the game itself is XTA, BA, AA etc etc... although the most commonly played mods are based on the TA series, they are mods for the spring engine.

is it really that hard to push a radial button?
D.R

[manored]

is it really that hard to push a radial button?
D.R

No, but its hard to remember to push it :) . thats why com ends MUST NOT be the default: the majority play com continues.

[NOiZE]

is it really that hard to push a radial button?
D.R

No, but its hard to remember to push it :) . thats why com ends MUST NOT be the default: the majority play com continues.

And i still wonder why...

[clericvash]

The whole point of TA is that the commander is YOU, so why should any TA based mods even have the option of comm continues?