[WILL NOT BE PRESENT] Commander Upgrades

The commander will not have any upgrades!
Sorry, but this, will be a huge mistake.
The way i see this game has everything to shine, but one of the most important unit of the game, only have the D-gun, will kill in my prespective big part off the PA fun.
The acu showld have various upgrades, its a extremely important tactic unit for big part of this game.
I honestly has a rts player and fan of this type of strategy can not understand why.
Cant imagine have a ACU to not use it ,just to look to him after he build some eco and factories.
Tell us why , one of the most important element ,going to pass through secondary step,when its so important for this game.
Come to this side of players and think with us.
We already got moore units on naval then on ground.
Commander must go to battle with units with special upgrades.

No. Upgrades aren't needed. The Commander has plenty of purpose beyond the first 5 minutes. To read any of the old threads on commander purpose and upgrades.

Mike

Nooo it must not, i always thought having the commander as your only upgradeable unit in SupCom felt like it was tacked as an afterthought when they found out they couldn't balance him.

I'd rather have the commander without upgrades, though having a megabot (experimental-type) that acts as an exoskeleton for your commander late game is something i do like, however uber has pretty much ruled that out as well. But there's always modding for people with niche preferences like us....

It's not necessary in the sense that he is already the strongest unit in the game, 1 on 1 he can take out anything. (correct me if i'm wrong here), but against an army or against nukes and planet busters, one commander isn't enough. I wouldn't mind some sort of advanced building which can be constructed which acts as a commander should yours be destroyed i.e. a command and control back-up hub, or maybe even a sub commander. Making it harder to snipe players late game, at the moment large free-for-all over multiple planets give the impression (this is my opinion based on what we've seen from the game so far) that they would turn into scout-then-snipe turtle strategies for the most players given a certain amount of lapsed time and a lack of proximity to other players. If this idea was implemented, then scout-then-snipe turtle strategies would lose a lot of scope late game, should this prove a necessary balance fix.

In conclusion, commander upgrades aren't what we should be wishing for here.

Every game has to end at some point, the fact that the commander "gets weaker" as the game progresses serves as a sudden death timer. Upgrades counteract this effect and needlessly prolong the game.

Commanders not having upgrades worked just fine in TA. Maybe you should check that out again.

His Dgun was absolutely invaluable. It destroyed anything, EVERYTHING, in one shot. Immense range, Spammable.. It was feared. It could flatten entire armies. Didn't matter about basic or advanced units, any aircraft (gunships mainly), Krogoths, even other Commanders. It oneshot everything.

That's what's missing from PA. The early units in TA are powerful enough to take the commander down, so are the basic defenses. The commander can kill anything in one shot. Once it's gone, you're done. This is why upgrades weren't necessary. Without upgrades or the feared Dgun, the commander is going to feel lacking. All we can do is suggest things, and wait to see what Uber does.

I'm sure the Uber cannon (D-gun) will be iterated on further, making the commander more difficult to kill in the early game. The current method of activating it with a double click is clumsy, unintuitive, and difficult to aim. I'm hoping that it will get its own activation button (like the old D-gun), as well as somehow utilizing the ammo system (like bombers and other units will) to prevent spamming it too frequently.

The ammo system already exists. It's called energy.

Kal, just because you can't understand why upgrades on Commanders are a bad thing (or at the least, a completely unnecessary thing), doesn't mean that they're not a bad thing.

They are not going to be in the game; Commander abilities are.
Please wait until Commander abilities are detailed before claiming that upgrades are needed in any way, shape or form.

I completely agree with Uber that the commander should not have upgrades.

It makes sense from a gameplay and lore perspective.

For lore, these commanders have been fighting battles for centuries. Why weren't they upgraded earlier?

Tactics wise, it also makes sense. Lose the commander, lose the game. Upgrading the commander means you want to throw it into the fray. Which since if you lose it, you lose the game, it isn't a very smart tactic. If you want to upgrade the commander to protect it, that also isn't a very strong tactic since you're better off putting your resources into other things to protect your commander.

ACU without upgrades ok....
I play since TA was in top 30 that time, i play SC now all i need to now about SC,i play FA since 2007 on FAF i now all i showld now about FA ,i play this kind tactical game moore the most players here.
But yes its me who is confused ,i keep think PA belonges to FA series ,and this is totaly diferent game ,indeed wy we need upgrades on Commander ,im really dummy.
Have fun..

The Commander doesn't really need upgrades... Except that, with no ability to build advanced equipment later on, he's most useful if you dump him underwater, surrounded by anti-nukes and fighters.

jesus christ the rename feature was hillarious. If this isn't in PA i'll die a little inside.

Just because Planetary Annihilation is a lot like another game, doesn't mean it has to be exactly like another game.

Just because an upgraded Commander was cool in another game, doesn't mean it's actually a viable form of gameplay.

The commander in SupCom needed upgrades in-order to keep up with the tier system, a system that is frankly rather terrible, and is one of the main reasons why I am a heretic and play the squeal more often then the original.

PA has a basic and advanced tier system like TA, making the commanders starting stats useful throughout the game as enemy forces will only truly increase in volume rather then becoming more high-tech upgrades of the originals.

The right selection of abilities can keep the Commander viable all game long. The best example was with TA. The Commander's D-gun allowed it to always kill any unit that got too close. If the Comm couldn't get close, then it could remain nearly impervious to attack with its cloak power. These two simple abilities allow the Comm to survive at every stage of the game regardless of how powerful or how spamable any enemy unit could possibly be.

Dealing with underwater Comms was annoying because all game variants had ridiculously skewed damage values under the water. A high health Comm becomes even more difficult to kill when it is surrounded by low HP units that can only deal low damage. It also didn't help that no game had viable torpedo Kbots to turn the tide.

The only Update I would give it is an automatic (instant, for no cost) upgrade to being able to build T2 factories/stuff once T2 of the appropriate type comes into play (once you get t2 air/bots/naval/tank/orbital you can use your com to build t2 mex and energy as well as t2 air/bots/naval/tank/orbital)

I like how the commander is currently balanced, maybe with slight revisions. Currently he is tough but only has moderate attack power, unless something gets way too close. Once the game progresses he is better off being protected than using him to attack anything

I don't want him to be a one man army. To me he should be a general, glorified builder, protection against rushes early and a victory condition. This means the game focus's on large armies and the units, not a futuristic rambo. Later in the game he becomes more vulnerable which is great, because it gives a reachable victory condition (destroying all production buildings, like some other RTS's, would take wayyy too long)

I dunno man, after watching some guys in some of zaphod's videos a commander supported by engineers can tank a basic army with relative ease.

Sometimes to the point of being the army's main attack unit.

Until Levellers hit the field, and it's dead.