The reason why PA bores me (feedback)

the com-block exploit???

the "commander won't move because too damn low in the pathfinding queue when it's being strated" moment? yeah...

I'm not sure - maybe you missed it - but there are community map packs, so even now you don't have to spend hours to create such a map, just download a map pack from pamm, or search for single map files in the forum if you don't like pamm (like this one: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/alpha2546-maps-mangrove-20-05-2015-on-pamm-too.66508/ ).
And the best thing is, your friend doesn't need to know anything about it, he just needs to join your lobby.

Nooooo, stop speaking of that horrendous aberration that was the pathfinding queue!

doesnt change the fact that the random generated maps are flat because they cant use those mechanics
And as i said, playing the same map over and over again is exactly as repetitive as playing a flat map.
so stop with the covering there. the random map generation is simply not good, and modding a game to change those flaws is a solution...but a sad one.
the random generation is there for a reason, so that no system plays the same...obviously the current attempt failed, not just because of the maps, most games are very predictable. moon? well...there will be a fight. metal planet? there too. whoever gets it has a high chance to win.

You're only going to get so much out of randomly generated systems. Has there ever been an RTS with randomly generated maps that came close to hand made?

With hindsight we may say that Uber's focus on procedural planets was a mistake, but on the other hand perhaps it was the most effective utilisation of a limited budget. They have been including more hand-designed maps recently, though admittedly this is with a 1v1 focus. As others have pointed out though there is a wealth of community designed maps, and I think it's fair to point to them given that a lot of the most popular maps in long-term RTSs tend to be community ones not official maps.

I will say that my favourite game of all time was a 3v3 on a random planet, one where terrain played a big part in the outcome and the failure of my team (including me) to properly utilise it led to our downfall. I've always felt terrain played a bigger part in games than people give it credit for though, and certainly my experience is that terrain in PA plays a bigger role than it does in SUPCOM (though I will be the first to admit my SUPCOM experience is far more limited than my PA experience). Of all the games to point to for terrain I think SUPCOM would be at the bottom of my list. I'd put Total Annihilation, Starcraft 2 and any Company of Heroes game well ahead of it.

I would make the assumption that going for procedural generated planets was helping a lot to speed up the development process. And it's nearly obvious to me that Uber did not have time to work on this further. Not blaming at all, some sort of cutting off needs to be done when working on such a technical project. I simply hope that we'll eventually get a very good editor and the ability to add addition CSGs.

Woah does this use the Planetary Annihilation engine? It looks exactly the same.

but this is rather unjustified as you might find once playing more SupCom.

Terain is made a use of in this game tenfolds more than in SC or COH. terrain interaction mustn't be understood as "unit has X interaction with terrain gimmick at X point".... this is unfortunately what people usually like to remember about terrain interaction and they cite SC maurauder's jump ability or COH 'get into building' ability but this is actually a fairly limited use in terms of quantity compared to SupCom's for which all units are concerned and which is constantly influenced by a 'unit can shoot you, same unit can't shoot back' type relation that is in constant fluctuation as the SupCom terrain is Litterally never flat.

Say a t1 artillery is atop a high plateau, via the simulation of it's projectile that draws a specific arc, it's projectile can go much much further and thus it's effective range is calculated in real time. But a unit below will almost always have insufficient effective range to shoot back and sometimes even if it does, if the artillery shooting down is slightly in retreat of the cliff border the situation will be such that the projectile will always impact on the hillside and the target will be entirely unreachable.

It forces you to tactically mull over your point defense placements and it can influence army composition 100%. this is the crazy bit : according to terrain (and time of game), every single unit in the roster can be invalidated. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

I hear you shouting "bullsh**!! what about the engineer?" -- There's a map (that used to be on the ladder) called hardffa, where all coms start underwater right next to each other in a very big lake, the first 5 minutes of the game there are no engies (nor factories). (in fact I can think of a couple maps where you all start right next to each other and this rule applies, but this one in particular since it's underwater). the meta for this map is to start as UEF (if you didn't, well you're going to have a very bad time) then start the shoulder drone upgrade immediately, as soon as it completes you can either build your first naval factory or some mass points then walk straight to the shore and continue the base that your drone started there.

There's a case figure for every other unit as well. They can literally be null and void, all depending on the map and time.

There are also maps that make all units be viable at all times, for example : setons. (there are a few others but they'd have to have been played much more to be absolutely certain of that)

-"what? no! t1 doesn't stay viable"

Yes it does, given context that I'll expose if asked they stay viable down to the very last second. (I played a setons no later than two hours ago where I utilized t1-artillery (to get a kill and wipe out a base, no less) in a game that had reached the experimental stage).

Now if that isn't terrain interaction I don't know what is.

You really don't understand the Essence engine that powers CoH, do you?

No, but it certainly would be interesting to make and/or play like that on the PA engine.

I think you kinda neglected the whole part where I explained it's way with intervening with unit validity there...........

saying "Terrain in supcom is completely cosmetic" is utterly false.

Oh, I'm sorry, the term "creating a good map" you used made me think that you just wanted a single map. Of course the random map generator isn't perfect, but at the other side there are a lot of custom maps floating around.
What do you think could be improved in the map generator?

even slight differences to hight would work. something like the cliff planettype mod. the terrain there looks just awesome, and from the description it was a planet type, not a custom made map, so it sounds like a complete change in the random generation...sadly its outdated, so i cant try it out
it gives a reason to use for example airforce instead of tanks/bots at the beginning, gives defensive advantages and all those things.
you cant just build a huge blob of a base because the terrain is not flat, it has hills and cliffs, so you have to work with outposts.
the planets simply look more like planets instead of marbles

another thing that could be interesting would be a slight random factor for the different tiles, so instead of a fixed list of static tiles, it would randomly generate a structure.
so you could have a looong stretched mountain instead of several lined up rocks with the same design.
one huge mountain where not even aircraft can fly over, or just a plateau where you can build on.

those would be things that would be fun for me to create an interesting randomly generated map.

Universim is built using Unity for graphics, with a custom simulation engine the devs are building over the top of it for the underlying game.

Whilst the visuals look similar the way the game will play is very very different. Essentially (from what I understand at least from their forum) you'll only ever have control over a single planet at a time (there will be multiple planets in the end game, and you'll be able to switch between however it will likely be more like switching city plots in the latest Sim City where you have to load between them, rather than the concurrent seamless transition that is possible in PA. I think that is something people miss, PA's engine is a *really f****** clever* system. I really can't stress that enough.

Universim looks to be a really nice game, although it's underlying engine (for the 3D stuff at least) isn't any special.

Completely agree, especially about the flat boring planets. I think this is the single greatest issue and Uber refuses to issue any sort of comment about it. I doubt it will ever be fixed. Even a simple "we are aware planets need work and are looking into it" would suffice.

In fairness there was lots of this during Alpha / Beta which resulted in the hand CSG tools we have now. I know the *next* thing we want is the ability to manually manipulate the underlying height map, with that about anything is possible, however if that will ever get added or not I don't know.

I feel the main issue with the csg editing stuff simply is that it seems a lot of people have bug issues with it.
And yeah the height map.
Once those two things are fixed/in it's pretty much as good as it can get I think.

Heightmap and planets needs another pass at graphical polish to make it feel more alive and less lifeless. Really would like to see a statement from uber if they ever plan to work on terrain features and height maps.

they don't want to do promises ...
i also don't see any real worth from a mere statement .. even if they were to say anything it may take another 6 months or more before they can get started on it ... additionaly people simply may ask them again in 2 months for another mere confirmation question ...

Yeah, in fact, lets take it on step further. Uber should cease all human contact with any and all customers altogether. I mean, there is really no point since they can't address anything and people will just ask a week or two later.

Keeping silent and not talking to people about upcoming features is a great way to get customer support riiight?!?