Spring RTS Engine

Is anyone working on or know of a mod that is similar to the units and playability of supreme commander?

Main thing I am looking for is upgradable buildings like the mexes in SC and a more efficient diversity of units. Seems to me that mods like BA and such just have way too many units that do a lot of the same thing. Of course this could just be chalked up to me being a newb.

In any case, thanks for you help.

Well CA, Tired Annihilation and FunTA have upgradable buildings. IMO, pretty much every mod has more diversity than SupCom.

tombom wrote:IMO, pretty much every mod has more diversity than SupCom.

I realized after reading my original post that what I said was the complete opposite of what I meant for the units.

I actually like the low unit count that SC has. It makes it easier for rusty old brains like mine to understand. To me most mods, even XTA, that I've played just have way too many units. I like the efficiency in units that SC has. Instead of kbot labs, vehicle labs, hover labs, etc. It just has a Land Factory with units that clearly fill certain rolls.

Hopefully that makes a bit more sense.

Try Kernel Panic, that has plenty of dumb spam .

Check out Expand and Exterminate - I seem to remember that each faction has fairly low unit count with clear roles - though I could be wrong, it was a long time ago I last looked at it.

Nanoblobs too has very few units.

funta only has 1 land based factory, rather than a kbot/vehicle/etc

khanbob42 wrote:...that is similar to the units and playability of supreme commander?

peet made it, check his mod "simbase"

SupCom isn't quite dumb spam, it just follows a different model to all the OTA remakes.

It follows a 'less is more' approach, where every unit has a very tightly defined role, which is (ideally, not quite in practice) not obsoleted by anything else.

Thus, you have very few units with very clear tasks.

This does appear to be changing with the expansion, though.

I probably prefer the TA way, because it is more 'messy', and allows character assymetrical units like the sumo and morty, that you just don't get in a finely defined game like vanilla supcom. That being said, supcom's balance is in turn very robust, very finely tuned (despite pro whinging - they're all still there playing), and very competitive, which is more then can be said for most of the *TA mods.

You dont need to use all the units in BA and XTA to win. In BA, on 90% of maps, its all about T1 vech. You can play a full game using nothing but jeffy and flash, jeffy to scout and flash to attack. If your flash begin to become ineffective mid game, switch them with stumpies (and use them in prettymuch the same way- but this isnt even necessary in a lot of games).

If you want to learn how to play t2 (And in BA, you dont actually need to if you're aggressive enough) for vechs its mostly bulldog and penetrator. Air is more complicated but well worth the effort to learn. So thats what, 4-5 units you need to learn? Not hard.

Id advise you to not bother learning core or kbots for now, they're harder to use.

In XTA, kbots and vech are very similiar, so learning one is prettymuch the same as the other. Either way, devote yourself to learning one tech tree from one faction. You only really need to use one type of combat unit (peewee, ak, flash, gator, stumpy, raider, storm, thud, etc) and one type of missile unit (missile truck or missile kbot) at t1. So thats 2 units to learn. If your micro gets better, you can try using fast raiders (jeffy, weasel, zipper, freaker) but you never really need to. At t2, just pick a favourite unit or two and spam it. Everyone has their favourites (for me, its warriors).

Yeah, I think that's the sort of gameplay that a SupCom balance either tries to avoid, or to intentionally create, and thus be in full control of.

For example, when unit roles are really specifically used, you are forced into using combined arms in order to break through a line, as a certain units are incapable of achieving certain tasks.

In other areas, certain units are intentionally there as 'main line' units that players are supposed to rely on (mantis then rhino for cybran, f.ex).

One of the biggest problems with a 'messy' type TA approach is that it often happens that certain units are far too general purpose in their use, and it simply becomes cost effective to spam them all over the show, and the other problem is that often units are just totally obsoleted by other units and never seen.

I still prefer the latter approach because of the dynamic gameplay that evolves from the complex interactions, rather then the simplified clear-cut balancing of supcom.

This is where TAK is mostly over-looked I think.
Each race has only have 2-3 buildings.
Aramon has 2.
Taros + Veruna + Creon have 3.
Zhon have 0.

Units are more task specific.
Like the assassin kills some units 1 shot.
Or basilisk stones units.
Or you use zombies and put them on move if you want to slow and distract enemy units.
And theres stuff like goblins, that have very low health and attack but kill buildings quickly.

Though there are still units there that never get used due to cancelling out.

Perhaps, but TAK falls down in so many other areas that unfortunately the lesson is lost.

Do we have mobile factories yet? (And not those zwswg ones, like, BIG TANKS THAT BUILD SMALL TANKS.)

no

Can lua it, lua does anything.

zwz found a way to cob it, which seems more impressive. TRO cobbed Commander upgrades and teleporters that work (though they don't work in Spring, of course).

If you're looking for a simple mod that uses morphing and the like, then the simple answer is that there isn't one that's any fun to play. If you don't mind a complex one, then come play [pimp]Tired Annihilation[/pimp] - at least all of the units you can build are worth building. =)

OTA has too many units, and that's a fact. I can't speak from recent experience, but while BA has an overwhelming number of units, it doesn't have "too many".

Caydr wrote:OTA has too many units, and that's a fact. I can't speak from recent experience, but while BA has an overwhelming number of units, it doesn't have "too many".

Interesting logic.

FLOZi wrote:Interesting logic.

haven't you heard of 1<2<3<1??

I think he means that OTA has more units than you need while he hopes AA has only units you need (while actually having more units in total). I.e. many of OTA's units were redundant and badly balanced.