Commanders role on the Battle field

Then you've fundamentally missed the point of the Commander.

What many people seem to not grasp is the Commander is's not supposed to be ' useful ', but that doesn't make him worthless. He's essential in the very literal sense. You always need your Commander. Early game he is a powerhouse of a unit, arguably overpowered. His purpose is to de-incentivise the 'rush' that ends the game prematurely as he is essentially invulnerable and unassailable. However he is designed to not scale well. In fact he is intentionally designed to scale terribly. Late game he is your weakest link by far. Your strategy must adapt to protect this near-completely helpless unit, the one thing that stands between you and Annihilation.

This is by design.
If you don't think the Commander being a weak-link lategame is a good thing then you've not understood a very basic rule of game design.
The Commanders ' role ' on the battlefield is to not be anywhere dangerous.

Same as in TA, the Commander is powerful, but personally I wouldn't use it on the front line, at that time the plan is to have a small army of construction units and combat units to do that for it.

I prefer it in the main, not anywhere else, even when I'm moving to an other planet, adv constructors are way more useful there. (better building choices from the moment when landed) and in Supcom the upgrading of a commander was nice, but in my case it always went to a bigger construction unit.. In Supcom2.. well my therapist helped me from recovering myself from the experiences with it, I can't and I'm not allowed to talk about it.

I don't need a commander for combat, it would be nice if it is able to make it more combat potent, but there is the Ubercannon (btw how do I fire it?).

why lose when you are winning?

At the moment the range is about half that of your normal attack and it will automatically fire once it's in range.

The plan is that it'll eventually be bound to a key, just like in TA.

The commander starts as the most powerful builder on the field. At the end of the game he's still the most efficient builder on the field.

What's the problem?

No one has provided anything approaching any kind of justification as to why he should be able to fight T2 units.

Like I said, 2-3 commanders in a circlejerk.....

I'd say this is more so an effect of how Advanced is more or less flatly superior in balance to Basic currently, being limited to Basic structures, might not actually be a limit later on once some serious balancing has happened.

Mike[/quote]
I agree mike 100%, late game the commander Is a soft target, liability/base killer. I hate having to set my raptor to patrol to keep him safe from sat sniping. Please understand that I love the idea of commanders I just feel in there current state that thier worthless. Not being negative and it is my opinion.

I dont want him as a t2 combat unit, I want him to have the ability to build t2 at some point. And no not a upgrade system, I would find him alot more usefull If he could also build t2 structures in the late game.

the commander does not need Dmg or HP boost

but some way to build T2 would be nice

MAAAYBEEEE after you build a T2 Construction Droid plane or something your commander would be able to Deconstruct it and gain the ability to build T2 stuff.

nothing less nothing more

just some idea that popped in my head

Greetings!

I just wanted to take my part in this great topic. Here are some of my thoughts, feel free to take them or add to them First of all I don't like two situations in this game. One is giving players something that can be too OP, which could potentially ruind your gameplay. By that I mean making Com more powerfull, no matter them way choosen (better weapon, faster building, more hp, or some area bonuses), because I think this could lead to situations where players would abuse that. Second thing I don't like is in the late game, where I will (with God's helping hand) escape nuke rain drop - I bassicly have to start over from the begining, building T1, than T2, than more T2 etc. So this makes late game more or less "0,1" like in chess. You will lose or win. I think there should be a change to that. But maybe it's not the right time for it yet?

Here are my solutions, would be great to hear your thoughts on those:
1. Some units, can land on the commander and become his parts, modules of him. In the lore of the game this could be easily achived, as Com is the "father" of all, so he could just take some of his bots and make them his mounts or assistans. To make this change not "abuseable" (don't know if such word exists) I would give him 1-2slots, and make those slots permanent per game. Benefits from such mods could be various, and only our imagination stops us here We could for example land a plane on his back, giving him significant improve of vision. We could give him a tank, so he could fire more quickly or with more power. We could give him and artilarry bot and he could use his weapon. He could take advantage from submarine, to become 'not seen' when in water. We could use some fast unit to give him better engine to work faster - you name it, he'll do it

2. We could benefit from the lore once again, and say that he has some operational protocols, some offense systems that are build inside him over time. So he's not able to instant kill anyone in the first 10minutes of the gameplay. But after that, some of his fire systems are unlocked. Now it's 10minutes in game. People have their defences up. His power is compensated by other player already made units or structures. He can now easily overcome some stronger rides though. He's gaing strenght, he's also gaing more energry, so if he dies, he makes more damage. His nuclear core (of what ever his going on) get stronger and unstabile, making it risky to take him out head to head. This could lead to some very intese and micro requireing battles Com vs Com possible?

3. Promotion system. Let's say we could implement promotion system to the game, but as game is "palnetary" oriented, simple units are just sand compared to Com. So promoting would take only Com's in mind. Killing and desrtoing other structures or units would lead to variaty of Com's promotinos, presented by stars and badges. He would get benefits from it. Could build faster or could unlock some abbilities like healing nearby units or call and airstrike, artilery, or make a cloud of plasma shield around him, making him "shielding unit". Also I would like to see with this 3rd point - a change or abbility which would make him 'not usable' but giving him some ultimate weapon. Making him some sort of (previously mentioned Father) who can give his life to his children. So he overcharges his core and dies during the process, but make all units +5% more life or any other benefit I leave that to your imaginary. This could make Com death not a failure or game end, but game change, an extra last hope and chance to win.

4. Lastly I have an idea to make Com and OP unit. It's very easy. Make him a supporting unit. Same as above ideas, this could be unlockable, time dependent or unit/building requireing. But he would gain DEFENSIFE benefits only. He could be still as fragile as now in terms of firepower (strong in the begining, easy to overcome in the late game) but could get aditional armor over time, or use his nuclear core to make 10-100 more energy in exchange for his life. Some kind of overcharge here again. This come to may attention during a watch of game from Zaphadox1 on youtube (sory if I misspell your name). It was a long game that he didn't participate in, just commented. It ended because one of the them, violet if I remember correctly, haven't got an energy. They got planetary lasers or something that could give the easy win, but they had 1 radar some where in the universe, hard to find to conserve energy, and they faied. It could be very helpfull, to use overcharge ability on Com's core. He could give 100x more energy for give it - 60seconds. After that time he will die, and so will all your units, so you have to use it wisely. This ability (or other based on the same rule) would be "slot" dependent. 1-2 times per game. To not abuse it.

I think that all for now, atleas int his field of the game. I still have a lot of ideas, but not too much time ot spread them as I would like. This game give me great ammount of fun. Thank You!

Hope I'll be able to nuke you all in the game!
Bart

Please sort out your quotes in that post, you're quoting two posters but only crediting one.

I don't care what you want, I care for rationalisations of why.

Most (if not all) people will agree that the commanders main purpose is to be a builder. Yes he can do combat, but he should never need to fight.
As such, the commander pretty much sucks once you get T2 fabbers, and now you need to chain him to a T2 fabber (assist) to get any more use out of his sprayer.

This is why I have suggested that once you get an Advanced Building, and a Advanced Fabber that the commander should be able to build T2 buildings as well as T1. This then makes him the most useful fabber at ALL sages of the game, and becomes very useful for moving him planet to planet to build (like most people do now).

Why does he need to be the most useful fabber?

the commanders role is being the alpha and the omega of a match ... he is what starts the match with his appearence on the battlefield and finishes it with its death ... changing his abilities or his overall power can and will change gameplay ... it may make lategame situations rarer or more common ...
the commander is designed to conquer uncolonised planets getting the tools for building up a base and an army ... getting tools for building a base
and an army ... getting the tools for building a base and an army ... no my disk is not broken btw ...
his ubergun is among the more powerful weapons but is not meant to be a offensiv weapon ... it is for when enemy units get dangerously close to it to defend it self
it is a last effort weapon to get rid of attacking units

just as i care not what you think, thats the beautiful thing about opinions. that was a little uncalled for on your part.

I like the idea of merging the commander with one or two units to add capabilities for the rest of the game. But any move to remove the commander as a win condition, I think, would be a bad move.

Right now the sneaky *** commander snipe is the only way to snatch victory from defeat. If a player gets complacent, because they think the game is over, and they leave their commander exposed, they deserve to lose.

Again, I think this is mainly symptomatic of the way Basic and Advanced are balanced currently, if Basic units are always useful to have, the Commander being "limited" to Basic structures isn't really a problem anymore.

Mike

You keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means. :^)

Look all I'm inferring is that these commanders....are not like normal commanders....

I would only like one buff for the commander. An AA rocket launcher in his arm. That's all.