Speeding Up the Early Game

What if we assume that the (competent) player is using this 'idle' time to scan the planet and indeed the rest of the solar system to formulate their strategy? I also find that in a lot of casts, this 'slow' period at the start is a good time for the caster to give a brief overview of the planet and system and present their expectations and 'if I were in their shoes' type analysis. You do this yourself in many of your casts and I feel it adds a lot to them.

The game is already complex enough that having a little time to sit and think before whizzing into action is not necessarily a bad thing!

You might also run into the problem of pacing whiplash. I wouldn't want my early game fast paced sprint to turn into a slog the moment you encounter the enemy... especially if the differentiation between Bots and Vehicles becomes more pronounced it might make that decision to go one or t'other (one you're suggesting should be the first thing you do in a game) into a forgone conclusion.

Those starting seconds are also time for players to perform different actions. A good RTS starts at the first decision. For example, Starcraft 2 starts at the first decision- do I scout the enemy, or not? Zergs have an additional option to 6pool, while other factions have their own early rush options. Players who scout these tactics are at an advantage, while those who don't can quickly lose.

Unfortunately, PA does not have a "scouting first" option. You must always build at least one factory to get a scout, which means you must commit to a factory before you get scouting info. This can be changed in several ways. The first one is to start the player with a free scout. That's kind of weird and defeats the value of the Commander. The second option is to let the Commander build scouts directly on the field, without a factory. That'd be pretty cool.

If anything, speeding up the early game would make comm rushing less powerful as it would allow players to have more of a base with more units faster – which prevents comm rushes.

I do that too. But there's only so much of it that can be done. That can also be done before the match starts.

Factory first is fine with me, but I will repost what I wrote just a few days ago in a topic in the backers' lounge.

Reclaimables in SupCom never seemed like the right way to do it. You never had a choice in what order to do things in, because you would just fall behind if you didn't have the pattern memorized for any given map. This added nothing to strategy and hurt less experienced players much more than experienced ones, resulting in a steeper learning curve with no real gameplay improvement. Gunshin's suggestion was an increase in the commander's resource storage, which seems like a reasonable approach to allow factory first starts. We have a limited amount of time before the game starts to survey the planet and form plans, so I don't see why any decisions need to be made in the first few seconds.

By the way, that thread in the backers' lounge covers the exact same thing as this one. If you aren't interested in posting in it, I suggest you at least read it.

I don't think you have fully thought that through. You enemy will also have a faster start and therefor be able to attack with his commander sooner.

Before the match starts, you don't know who has spawned where. There's a load of 'this team could do this' or 'If I were them I'd do that' and although it does feel like a time-filler (at least when I try casting every so often) it is really useful from a viewer's perspective because they actually get a full view of the playing field.

An attack after building up your base is hardly a rush. If anything it's pretty standard.

The simple fact is that a moving Commander is not building anything. A faster lathe and slower movement decreases the viable rush distance by making every wasted step more expensive.

I am in favor of Commanders with more build power and slower speed, however that's irrelevant to my comment.

Say for example you both sides started with 4 metal extractors, 2 power generators, and a bot factory. That would increase the speed of the initial start, however it won't hurt Commander rushing because you Commander rush after building a very basic base.

Rush to where? Random metal anywhere on the map?

While you do have somewhat of a valid point, if everything stays the same, but the Commander now outputs more economy to support a factory, its a much more important asset early on. If you build a few factories and send your Commander straight towards your opponents as soon as you find them, if you lose that Commander, you're now way in the negative. Making Commander rushes much much more risky, and therefore, less viable.

Even so. In my opinion, something should be done about Commander rushes completely independent from whether the early game stays as is or gets sped up.

Sure it would. An early base is still dependent on the Commander to spend most of its resources, and gets a gigantic discount from his lathe. By failing to use both tools, the rusher is at an automatic disadvantage.

Currently, the Comm's lathe is very unimpressive. The power of attacking with a Comm far outweighs the power of building with that Comm. This is very simple math that leads to an obvious outcome.

Indeed.

If you are rushing your enemy with your commander, 4-5 dox, and 3-4 bot fabs, you still have one or two fabs at your base building eco and one or two factories pumping out more fabbers. Essentially, the enemy is focused on keeping the status quo, which is an intact eco and defending your comm rush, while you are both attacking and expanding.

In almost every situation where both comms survive the encounter, the rusher has the distinct advantage of an expanded economy that is suddenly free to build cool toys like t2 facs or 15 vehicle factories. Or something.

Thus the distinct advantage of rushing your opponent.

There is most definitely an advantage for rushing your opponents in Army matches. 1v1s is different though.

Even so. Commander rushes in army matches is a mostly different issue.

Those boring first few minutes sometimes decide a match.....

The whole point of factory first is that you can't scout until you have a factory and therefore there's zero variance in your game until that point.

This topic has been done to death in other threads, rehashing it here because Brian sucks at searching (IRONY!) is a terrible idea. Just move into one of the other relevant threads.

That was priceless

I'm all for having a boost to commander build rates and slower movement speeds,
here's an idea to discourage com rushing, in a game with multiple commanders why not have a commanders death add a massive negative to resource generation so that the you only get a tenth of the resources you would get if your commander was still alive. it would be a discourage com rushes and put more emphasis on keeping your commander alive.
P.S. The negative value stacks with every commander killed.

not an Eco Boost, but a Storage boost... like ZaphodX said in another Forum

I am not quite sure what your trying to say. One possibility ends with the team with less commanders loses, the other possibility is something that's already in the game.

Care to explain?

(( see you're new to the forums, and welcome!

You should do a search before posting in accordance with forum rules. Someone makes a comment on this topic at least once a month))


H this was really funny ,best joke off 2013