Discussion: Early Game Commander Rushes

The energy change is unneeded and probably makes him too ' good ' a builder, to the point at which you completely discount the Commander from doing anything but building or assisting 24/7 or else you're screwing yourself over, which doesn't seem quite right either.

Other than that, the only thing that's missing is a slight health nerf, a cloak and a D-Gun and you have the TA Commander.

You should be screwing yourself by not building 24/7. That's his #1 job -- or should be, at least until sometime after T2, when he largely just becomes a king you have to protect.

Health nerfs will make him easier to assassinate, so I would prefer to avoid that.
I do think the cloak is needed but has nothing to do with early comm rushing.
The D-gun (and presumably the TA style commander explosion) just creates a M.A.D. situation which, while possibly better than what we have now, has its own problems.

(D-Gun with no TA style explosion would just lead to a "first to shoot wins" situation, which would be worse.)

Sorry to disappoint, but Neutrino has already said that the D-Gun style Commander weapons are coming back
I can't confirm that it'll be 1 shot instagib kills against other commanders... but my suspicion, based on what Neutrino has said is that it won't be far off that.

And the ' should be screwing yourself ' sentiment just doesn't feel right. Yes the Commander is a micro focused unit... but not one that should be distractingly and detrimentally so if you fail to babysit him constantly. Remember we're trying to downplay micro in this game, not move it around into a Hero style micromanagement nightmare.

There's just no progression with the style of Commander that you're proposing... you babysit him in the early game, you babysit him in the mid game, and you babysit him in the late game. You're babysitting him in different ways, yes, but the task is the same regardless. It's a bit monotonous, wouldn't you say?

Building is a Commanders' #1 job, yes. Doesn't mean it's his only job and that you should be punished for not doing it 100% of the time.

I'm no longer afraid of commander rushes... here's why.
Pelters, scouting, a 5 dox reserve to flank the commander and kill the fabbers, and SCOUTING

Just want to clarify: Scouting?

I don't understand your argument.

You seem to be suggesting that the solution to Commander micromanagement is to use him as a micromanaged combat unit? Making him primarily a builder means there is very little micro. Queue him up and go focus on something else. Keeping him as a devastating T1 combat unit necessarily keeps him as a high-micro unit.

Possibly we have different definitions of "micro".

Queueing him up to build and assist a factory = not micro
Sending 200+ actions per minute dictating the movement of the commander, his repair bots, and the flanking units and directing all targets one at a time while conducting a commander rush = micro

Watch that video Zaphod posted -- when the comm rush starts, he's micromanaging the fight, and that's why he wins. The enemy micro was not very good.

As long as the Commander is primarily a T1 combat unit, this type of micromanagement will be the way we play the game (unless the enemy start is just plain too far away).

Nothing of the sort. I'm saying reduce the severity of the punishment for ' forgetting ' to use him to build constantly. Nothing more.

' Primarily a builder ' is not something that should preclude him from any other function.

Straightforwardly, it's a balance problem. The Commander is too powerful versus any other military unit in the early game to the point where the only counter to a commander is a commander. "Comm rushes" of various forms are a consequence of this.

The easy fix is reducing the combat power of the commander and/or improving that of its possible foes (specifically laser towers, and maybe to a limited extent standard combat units.)

Commander detonations and economy power are a little besides the point - meta fixes rather than actual fixes. The commander is already pretty strong economically, and practically speaking it's difficult to make it better. It's already extremely efficient with a strong nanolathe and resource production would have no effect on how you used the commander. I'm leery of an even stronger nanolathe personally. You'd be forced to have the commander constantly building to remain competitive, even more so than now.

Heh. This shows the problem with commanders as much as anything. You're trading 900 metal of Dox to kill 360-540 metal of Fabbers and gain a *momentary* advantage in the Commander vs Commander fight.

From the start, everyone has said that you have to get to (multiple) pelters to have any chance of driving off a commander, but at that point you are past the commander rush danger zone anyway. The funny part is that the Commander is actually pretty decent against Pelters; it's just that they are the only thing that can do anything other than die ignobly.

Commanders don't have much of a problem at all against Pelters. 1 Commander can take out several pelters without fabricator support.

And the other big issue is rather simple. When one player Commander rushes with a bunch of Commanders, the defenders have to invest what little economy they have into defensive structures while the attackers continue expanding their economy. If the defenders manage to fend off the attackers, the resulting Commander explosion takes out a lot of buildings including what defensive structures that survived. This means, with no metal investment, the attackers just nuked the defenders and the defenders have a very very weak economy when compared to the attackers.

There's no investment or risk required in a comm rush on army matches. Only something to gain.

Still not sure what you're going for here.

I think you should be fairly severely punished for forgetting things. It's practically half the point of PA. Forgot to build an anti-nuke? You're dead. Forgot to get deep space radar to check for incoming laser satellites? Dead. Forgot to check that small moon for Halley rockets? Dead. Forgot to build enough fighters? Dead.

I actually think we don't nearly punish people enough for an idle (or travelling) commander right now.

Yes, he has feet and a gun and can do things other than build but we have greatly overemphasized those other things. The fact that he builds is very rapidly irrelevant as the game stands right now.

And the Commander should be penalised for doing anything... even MOVING, that isn't building or assisting?

I can not agree with that viewpoint. It makes the Commander one note and useless at doing anything other than building. Again, it should be his #1 job; not his only job, and certainly not actively hurting you if you stop building for any reason whatsoever.

I build with him all game pretty monotonously. However, if he is ever building, and I see units about to tear down towers, I run him up to peck from the sidelines. He deals like 3 turrets worth of DPS to invading armies. He is the invasion-repelling champ, even against levelers if supported with turret line, fabricators, and other units, which says something considering levelers usually kick down the door they go up against before dying reguardless of it's size.

That being said, I build with him monotonously, but if I see him in the area I stomp an army with him while migitating losses, and that's okay because his gun is underrated, he decides skirmish outcomes.

But that already happens. Any time the Commander is not using his lathe or gun, it should be moving to a better position to do one of the above.

The Commander's lathe is its second weakest point (The ubergun is the weakest). Math it out. The lathe is not worth that much. A 1500 energy advantage is worth about 1000 metal, and the lathing power is worth maybe another 1000 of bots. That's worth about 2000 metal, tops.

Now figure out how strong the Commander is being a warrior. It's worth MORE.

It's straight forward and the outcome is obvious(one could say it's elementary). It can not be mistaken for anything else.

Failing to use a powerful unit to its full potential is harmful. This is an inescapable fact for everything in the game. Don't worry about it.

Zaphod realized early on that the Commander is worth more as a warrior than as an economist. An obvious favoritism in the game rules suited his faster and more aggressive play style. Nothing more.

The Comm is really tanky. Without going in depth on the MMORPG holy trinity, attacking the low-damage-high-health TANK is the fastest way to lose.

Everyone saying that the best way to discourage commander rushes is to weaken the commander isn't considering that being a strong combatant is actually one of the commander's main functions.

The best way to discourage commrushing is to make the commander even better as a builder. This will cause the player who isn't commrushing to have more assets, because their commander has been building while the rusher's commander has been walking. And then, once the rushing commander arrives, the defender has not only a commander, but also whatever that player constructed in the meantime.

The only time i see comm rushing even working now is in the first 5 minutes

Seems nerfed? nah

Just reworked

This has been mentioned several times on this thread and I agree with it a lot.

If you can spot a blob of units with a really slow guy at the head on radar or you get los on him with a scout before he is halfway to your base, you have enough time to set up adequate defenses, as well as a small flank team of Doxen

What about the possibility of an anti-rush mechanic going along the lines of if your commander is near another commander and a good portion of their buildings your commander actually takes more damage than normally but this only happens for like the first 5 minutes?

That, my dear fellow, was sarcasm.

The Joke
My head