Make Commander useful mid-late game

I don't think the commander needs little upgradey buttons that stick extra stuff to him, but I do think he needs to be a more viable combat unit late game, rather than a dedicated factory builder/assister and a liability if he's not hidden in your base.

The energy change in the PTE will do a good job at letting fabricators take more of the building role than the commander early-mid game, so we might see a bit more combat because of that.

To make the commander more awesome mid-late game these 'ere things could be done:

• Dramatically increase the cost and damage of the Uber cannon. This would allow the commanders effectiveness at dealing damage to increase with the size of your base.
• Rework the combat fabricator assisting, so that if assisting another unit, it stays at it's full range and consistently heals. I.e. if your commander is walking along while damaged, the combat fabber walks behind with a constant stream of heals instead of starting and stopping like it does now.
• Slightly increase the Commanders HP, and slightly lower it's metal cost so that healing is more viable.
• Give the Astraeus significantly more HP, and more reliable picking-up-stuff positioning - allowing you to pull your commander out of direct combat if he is being overwhelmed (if of course you have orbital control of that area) - this could be really intense to watch
• DLC that gives your commander a giant robot shark with spider legs to ride around on.

Its ok to have upgrades. But only armor and build speed.

But i'm against a tech tree or anything like that. Only 1 or 2 upgrades witch for example make him a tech2 builder so you can build tech 2 powerplants and faqtories without a tech1 builder.

And tech2 upgrade should cost the same as 1 tech2 faq.

Armor cost maybe 3 tech 2 faqtories and should maybe double its armor.

No more upgrades then this should be fine.

a commander movement speed upgrade would be ok too

Ya, Make the Commander upgradeable atleast a tiny bit. More construction upgrades at the very least :\ Mid/late game, I dont use my commander at all because its so vulnerable.

commanders are supposed to feel powerful - they are the backbone of these massive machine armies, but in the game, the commander only feels powerful in the beginning of the match, it should stay a force to be reckoned with the entire match.

To me this was also a "problem" that is best solved on a more fundamental level.

For Example, what if your Commander was your best/only expansion tool? Sure your Commander doesn't have direct power in regards to something like combat but it still has a huge effect on the outcome of the game. Mind you this requires some other changes to make work in a reasonable matter but that's the nature of things like this where everything is interconnected and changing one thing can have a huge domino effect to parts of the game you might not expect.

Mike

yepp supposed to protect not supposed to throw Into battle like a dota champion .. he is a kingpiece after all

I'd argue that the commander does have direct power in combat, if only during the beginning stages of the match.

but wouldn't it be more interesting if the commander was the queenpiece? if the commander is so important, why isn't it versatile and upgradable? the commander is the superunit

I never said it didn't, I'm mearly pointing out that the solution to "losing" combat power as the game progresses might not be to simply attempt to "restore" that combat power, but to give it some other kind of power.

Mike

Hello

I still don't see a point not to give upgrades to the Commander.
The commander is locked at T1 that means commander can't really build anything except T1 factories.
I believe AT LEAST building arm upgrade is a must for the Commander enabling the Commander to build more valuable things than T1 factories. BTW T1 units in some cases become less and less useful.

I still would like to see all upgrades possible to make the Commander even more deadly including personal teleporter that allows teleport the Commander within a planet.

Suggested upgrades:

1. Building arm upgrade to enable a commander to build Advanced structures
2. Uber cannon upgrade
3. Regular weapon upgrade
4. Tact missile launcher
5. Nuke-tact missile launcher
6. Shoulder drones to assist construction
7. Personal Teleporter
8. Variety of special weapons (laser (like SC sybrans), range boost, shoulder artelery gun etc.)
9. Personal shield


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Off topic:
why shield generator is not in the game?
why stealth shield generator is not in the game?

like stealth in TA?

He is already ... He can fight tanks, bots, aircraft and ships and also has a powerfull weapon to instakill a small group ... additionaly he can build basic armyunits and defenses ... he is the single most powerfull unit on the battlefield already ...
so he is both a Queen and kingpiece .. yes the Queen in chess is the most versatile unit but it is also fairly easy to kill ... such is the commander aswell ...
the Queen alone does not win you the match but a combination of all your pawns ..

If the Balance was more of a "Flat Balance" this wouldn't really matter

Somewhat, to me cloaking is less about giving the Commander power as much as helping him cope with the loss of power.

Along with the inter-planetary suggestions you could also say that the Commander is usually in a situation where it's "Early Game" Combat power good all game because raiding without asteroid bases and what not is hard, so you're more likely to only land small forces, which the commander can already deal with because it's designed to survive the early game in most circumstances already.

Mike

the commander is less powerful than you think it is
it is the most versatile unit, but barely the most powerful on land, certainly not on the sea

It is the unit that brings in those units in the first place .. Being powerfull is not limited to just combatstrengh .. a fabricator used right can just aswell kill an army on its own regarding in what you have build with it ..

it's an efficient fabber, but that's not enough to keep it as useful late game

You can still use it to assist advanced fabricators ... he simply isn't supposed to be in the Frontline when your enemy comes with bluehawks or shellers .. again it is a commander not a juggernaut ..

I like that! We need upgrades for the commander because in the end commander simply sits in the middle of it's base waiting to be Annihilated XD

In SC FA commander may destroy an experimental, as well as use tact-nuke launcher. I think it is a kind of a Juggernaut