Accessibility of debug features and console?

Like with supreme commander you had the awesome console to use and abuse, filled with cheats and stuff to help you stage battles for videos and have a sandbox. Which also helps in testing mods and other things one might do.

Two things I want to ask, will we even have it, and the same fully featured kit you all used. And can we get it so a client can rcon a server to run debugging and cheating in private, lan matches if enabled?

Console would be a must for modders.

This way they can test stuff really fast. Also named: Debug mode.

Keep in mind that the server controls the sim. So any console command would have to control the server. We've already said you can hit up a server with a web browser for config...

but if im running a lan game or skirmish.. then consoles would be usefull!

It would be great to be able to start games with cheating enabled so we can test things with our friends in multiplayer. That's where the console would come in, along with providing detailed information about units and the game state and other debugging info.

It's also helpful to have access to the console in-game in single-player mode where your system is the server so you can test things and debug.

The only thing I ever used in SupCom when modding was the Log. If this is accessible in PA as well, I am satisfied.

There will definitely be logging. If you run the server you'll be able to get that as well as client logs.

I was thinking of a rcon like system

You can set a server side rcon password then on the client and by other methods be able to rcon the server with the password. This should allow server owners to control the server, change game rules, kick and ban, the usual.

just for giggles

i read about 40 players battling it out. What kind of computer would you need to stage a game like this?

the physic's processing of that many units would surely be a crazy task. Not to mention all the shadows and such that would tax graphics cards.

Simulation is ran on a server type system, For the client it doesn't process all that crazyness.

In self hosted matches I assume the player cap would be lower.

most servers don't have gpu's. Would have to be a HPC. But regardless we have no idea of the system requirements of this game, nor the overall scale (how many units are likely to be buzzing around. Nor exactly how the the server client would process the data.

I have a high end pc. Ie a 3930x@ 4.5ghz with dual Amd 7870 graphics cards, 32gb of ram. Etc etc. (yes its rock solid stable) Granted it doesn't have near the combined power of a server cluster, but much more power than a single node. Graphics wise more power, again servers don't usually even have graphics cards. Talking about a different class of computer there.

I hope there will not be a player CAP. You will simply find you cannot run it. In 10 years, you should be able to play on any PC with the amount of players you'd like.