Making the Commander Late Game Viable

A thread needs to be refocused when it comes to a debate on the merits of technicalities, and even more so when someone points it out.

Ok, here is my response to the topic of "Making the Commander Late Game Viable."

Why do you need it?!!?!?!?!?!!!?!???!
Why is it worth sacrificing practically the only thing that made Total Annihilation special in its mechanics when making a Total Annihilation inspired game?
Why is the first thing you try and take away, the defining element of a TA-Like Game?

What if the commander takes less energy to build things than any other engineer? Then there would always be a reason for it to be working on something.

That's counter Intuitive, seeing as Metal/Energy drain is fixed(based on the Builder's Buildrate I think?) it's just a lot simpler to have a Commander's Metal/Energy Generation to equal or exceed his "Build Drain".

Mike

Also, I would like to ask "how would you implement it?"

Because as it's been said, at some time x, there will be y number of units that could kill your commander in under 3 seconds flat. At which point you don't want your commander anywhere near that battle.

Given a sufficient number of units in a battle with a commander present, your opponent is going to ignore his losses and focus fire on your commander, because his losses no longer matter; he can win the game.

The Commander is certainly the cornerstone of TA, but it's not the only thing to worry about. TA is also a game about giant robot battles. The Comm doesn't necessarily have to be tough. It just needs to be survivable. If the Comm dies too easily, then there's no way to reach the late game where asteroids and planet killing weapons are flying about.

It would be super effective. Early game, it would allow fast base development. Late game, it could make Comms ideal tools for expansion across worlds. Obviously, this is making the assumption that energy must be rebuilt for every new base/world. The Comm would handle it like a champ.

Letting the Comm supply its own energy needs is not a big deal. One generator vs. three, the only difference is how many you DON'T have to build first thing.

Having the Comm supply its own metal carries a huge number of unfortunate implications. Trying to match both things will mean that the Comm has a HUGE metal generator, or a pathetic lathe unworthy of its role.

In Supcom, SACUs could be spammed for their resource generator ability. Combine that with a Comm's set of innate abilities, and Comm spam could get very ugly.

I, in no way, wish the Commander to be pathetic. Let me make that perfectly clear. I want a Badass Commander with a D-Gun that takes out a line of regular bots like a hot knife through butter.

But he shouldn't be able to get in a Mega-Bot, or upgrade himself to a point to where he can take on... say 30 bots. He can take 3, no problem. He can take 10... with damage. He can take 20... but he's beat up and needed to use a LOT of energy to spam that D-Gun to survive. 30 Bots? He's dead and it's YOUR fault for letting him fight that battle alone... Build defences and your own Bots to support you.

I don't see how the Comm supplying it's own metal is a problem in the context of Scathis' proposed Economy system. Do you have any examples?

Mike

As long as it doesn't provide "Excess" metal, then everything is Ok. The Commander could be special in that he always Lathes at maximum efficiency, regardless of your current Energy or Mass storage Levels.

That's a not-too-powerful way to limit Nano-Stall at the beginning of a game, and late game it shouldn't matter that the Commander is the most powerful Nanolather on the field, because 5 Mobile Construction Units (MCUs) 'Lathe faster than just 1 Commander, but must use energy and mass from your stockpile.

Simple Version; The Commander Matches his output when 'Lathing and is never a negative drain on your economy... but is never in much (if any) "Excess" production of Resources either.

What are you doing, man? That's practically an infinite money cheat. It'll get abused to no end.

One of the big things in PA is the potential to build more Commanders. Every new Comm is a resource generator that can go anywhere. Metal makers are dangerous enough, and this one kicks *** at the same time. It is a recipe for trouble.

Some metal income is okay to play with. Stored metal works well, and reclaimable metal is a great thing to have. But centering resource production around the Comm is totally bogus. The "egg" already exists to get the game started, and there are plenty of better ways to make the Comm effective.

Any basis for the quantities involved? Chances are teh equivalent cost in Mexes and Pgens will far surpass the income a single commander can provide unless his build speed is incredibly superior to Regular Fabbers.

Mike

The TA commander had a powerful lathe, which worked out fine. Supcom's lathe was weird because of tiers and upgrades, but maxing that out worked okay. Every other predecessor's base Commander had low resources, and they worked out fine.

Low income with a strong lathe seems to be a pretty solid choice for a Comm.

I'd hardly call Neutrino ruminating on ways to add commanders AS OTHER PLAYERS to the field while in the game, a sure-fire sign that we will be able to build commanders. So shooting down ideas on the commander based on it being unbalanced when you build 20 of him, really doesn't make a lot of sense.

This is completely incorrect. Energy & metal drain are based on the fabber doing the construction, and different fabbers will have different energy:metal ratios. Build time is purely a matter of unit cost (metal) divided by the amount of metal supplied by the fabber.
For example, T1 Fabber could build at 2 m/s, and cost -10e to run (1:5 ratio). A T2 Fabber could build at 10m/s and cost -20e to run (1:2 ratio). A factory could build at 20m/s and cost -20e to run.

A commander could very easily have 0 energy cost - this would make him the go-to guy in case of a major energy stall, and definitely keep him busy the whole game.

So right idea, wrong terminology? I never really waded into the Eco topic but I was bascially trying to say that if the commander always has the same drain when building(no matter what is being built/assisted) matching it's generation to it's drain is easy.

Mike

Yup right conclusion wrong terminology. I just wanted to make sure the economy isn't being mistaken for the metal=energy one used in Zero-K.

Numerically, yeah. It's easy. However, generating resources doesn't actually make the Comm a good builder. Being a good builder is about spending resources quickly, and in PA's case, cheaply.

Having an extractor or 2 worth of extra resources isn't that bad, although having a lathe that weak would make the early game simply awful. The problems are going to happen on the high end, where a lathe has the power of 5+ extractors, and for some reason the Comm also makes that much metal. The base economy is getting pretty damn big for not putting any effort into map control. Using Supcom as an example, a Comm producing +2-5M and +20-50E is no big deal(in fact, the ACU's pathetic energy production is one reason why a bad build or p-gen loss caused nightmare energy stalls). A TA Comm pushing +20M and +200E is asking for trouble.

A Comm only source of income also helps with Comm rushes. The easier it is to build things without any extractors, and the easier it is to d-gun without generators, the easier it is to push out and go all in.

Because its stale and boring that the only realistic answer to the question of "what should I do with my commander?" is "run and hide because he sucks at fighting anything more than a small raiding force". It also means commanders become extremely vulnerable to sniping. And sniping is bad, mmkay?

We get it, that's all you can possibly think should be used for a commander. Can we please wait till we have an alpha and more detail on Neutrino 'n' co's plans for commanders before insisting they be white elephants?

Sorry for double post, but:

The more I think about this, the more it makes sense that the commander has to have significant combat potential (or else, incomparable engineering, intel, or other abilities). First, let's demolish the concept that TA's lore applies to PA:


The age of humanity has long past. The endless conflict continues to march into the vast darkness of space. Battles rage across the cold void, annihilating planets moons and asteroids, cosmic obliteration for a purpose long forgotten. Technology has been captured assimilated refined and transformed into brutally efficient mechanisms of war.

Versus

What began as a conflict over the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machines escalated into a war which has decimated a million worlds. The core and the arm have all but exhausted the resources of a galaxy in their struggle for domination. Both sides, now crippled beyond repair. the remnants of their armies continue to battle on ravaged planets, their hatred fueled by four thousand years of total war. This is a fight to the death. For each side, the only acceptable outcome is the complete elimination of the other.

The key points being:

* Both of TA's factions are nearly exhausted, fighting on the last of their manpower and accessible resources. They don't have time to fix their existing commander suits, never mind make new ones. PA's commanders, in contrast, are extremely intelligent AIs with access to constant streams of fresh resources and, quite evidently, a hobby of experimenting with finding the best commander. As Neutrino has mentioned, there is the potential to make more commanders, and plus the variants, there is little
* The only practical reason to leave a commander in a minimally combat-ready state is lack of knowledge about the systems within a commander, or the resources to invest in making a commander combat-ready. If a commander is as important to a battle as everything suggests, you sure as hell don't leave it an impotent blob needing babysitting for handling even a small army.


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Here's a bigger question: If the commander isn't actually bringing anything other than a couple engineers + some bots worth of combat ability... Why not build stronger communications relays into units and just send the equivalent in bots+engineers? The bots would be more combat flexible and the engineers would allow better division of construction tasks. And putting a commander into the line of fire is just dumb unless you have very good justification or necessity do to so. And I'm just not buying that they would need him on site because of comm tech being too expensive. TA had them on the field because there WASN'T any real ability to separate the brains from the combat. PA's backstory shows nothing of the sort, and while I like a commander, The general proposal of leaving him unable to engage in realistic combat just doesn't rub me the right way.

Tl;Dr: give commanders an ACTUAL reason to be on the field, not being a white elephant present because past games had them.

@rcix - I always figured that FTL travel in this kind of game is hideously expensive and that the expense is proportional to the mass of the object to be moved. This makes traveling light very important, so the factions produce the smallest robots that can effectively start the Exponential Robot Apocalypse. They want the AI to be near the robot army because high ping sucks for robots, too.

But the lore matters waaay less than the gameplay, so we are probably being very silly.

No we can not. For every advantage you posit I can say that all those advantages can be created by just building more units. Units with those advantages are less of a liability than putting your Commander in a Big-Dumb-Suit.

Considering the terminology of how Planetary Annihilation was pitched, considering its predecessors, considering the Pitch Video is a shot-for-shot recreation of Total Annihilation's intro and considering Commanders have been slated to have abilities that push them more into one war philosophy than another, the idea of the Exo-Suit becomes;

• Unlikely. It's an Upgrade. Commander Upgrades aren't happening
• Counter-Intuitive. A Commander is precious. You NEVER want to put him in danger.
• Counter-Productive. You could make other units that fill the dubious role of Big-Bot. And did I mention the danger part?
• Tone Destroying. You know it, I know it. For me Tone matters. I give a damn about the Tone of this game, and I WILL oppose needless inclusionism if it destroys that tone.

And worst of all,

• Stupid. "Dressing up" the desire for Mega-Bots by extolling the potential for using a Commander in a Counter-Intuitive, Counter-Productive way... is stupid. If you want Mega-Bots, argue for their inclusion. Do not try and say this increases gameplay depth. There is nothing a Commander in a Suit offers that a plain ol' Mega-Bot can't do better and with less risk.

Your Commander cannot be "magically" sniped for no reason. If your enemy has built 30 gunships and you failed to do anything about it, failed to build Interceptors, failed to build more Flak, failed to attempt reconnaissance which would have told you what he has, and where he has it, failed to stop his production... failed, then you deserve to be sniped.

Total Annihilation and Planetary Annihilation are Wars of Deception. Don't be caught out as a fool. Do your scouting. See what's coming and prepare. Failure to do so should be harshly punished, Your Commander is the price you will pay for being lazy.