Rushing

In Every Thread, ever, I think you mean

Rushes in general are fine as long as they are rather hard to pull off and, if done successfully, neither end the game nor push your opponent past the point of no return. Rushing to win the game immediately should not be possible at all.
Don't get me wrong, if the game is designed that way rushes can be important and sometimes fun too (e.g. StarCraft) but in a real strategy (or grand strategy) game I just don't like them cause the screw with the whole massive battle idea.

As for PA I really hope that the Commander will effectively deny most rushes but hit and run resource harassment rushes. Build a few fast units, send them over to your opponent, attack his mass extractors and retreat as soon as the defenders (especially the commander) come close to you and attack somewhere else. If done correctly you can take down an extractor or two before you lose your first or second wave of rush units and so delay but not cripple your opponents eco. The game will still take a while, but you will have a slight advantage.

The D-Gun protects the Commander. Base defenses help protect against the Comm.

correct me if I'm wrong, but in a game where the enemy location isn't known ab initio and you have to actually scout to find his base, rushing isn't that much of a problem. The scouting time would serve as a buffer for an initial defense build up or whatever you want to do in that time.
(and that's assuming the enemy is even on the same planet )

I'm going to potentially open a massive can of worms here, but it looks like every poster has a different interpretation of what a 'rush' is.

I think it would be helpful to define what we're actually talking about.

* All-in Zerg Rush, where if the attacker doesn't win, he loses?
* Early raiding, e.g. 2 tanks and a scout taking out engineers and mexes?
* Tech rush? And if tech rush, what sort?
* Making thirty tanks and swarming your opponent's base (differentiated from Zerg Rush because it is not an all-in, and it cannot be accomplished in under five minutes)?
* Something else entirely?

These are all very different things, and at the moment Person A is arguing for the viability of Rushtype X, and Person B 'counters' by pointing out the unviability of Rushtype Y.

Let me put it that way: No rush should be able to end the game in less than 20 minutes.

Then what CAN end the game in less than 20 mins?

Why are you setting an arbitrary time on when a person can and cannot win?

I'm going to put something out there, but honestly, I don't think you can "rush", in the classical sense, in a Game like SupCom and hopefully PA.

Think about it, how do you Rush in a game where the first thing you build, is a factory?(SupComFA)

How do you Rush in a game, where the Commander can fight off a constant stream of units from 1-3 factories while building up it's own units?

Honestly, I'm not all that worried about "Rushing" in PA.

Mike

That was a rather silly balance desicion and one of the many reasons I far prefer unpatched vanilla to fail alliance.

Ideally your starting resources are enough that neither building econ first or production first are suicides. Both should be viable depending on what you want to do.

Rushing, destroying my economy and then overwhelming my commander is a rush that I like.

But a rush that just kills the commander straight off is not something that I would like.

That's why I can't wait for the Uber-cannon to be the new D-gun.

Besides having a very unskilled opponent? Nothing.

At the end of the day it all comes down to personal taste and I simply prefer longer battles over shorter ones. I'm not against shorter matches on rather small maps, but the time frame for a typical match on a mediocre sized map should be at least 20 mins.
Grand strategy games where you can defeat your opponent during a coffee break just don't feel as epic as they should.

It's all relative, what bigger longer games? Play on bigger maps, don't hamstring the entire game.

Mike

Correct, but still: There has to be a goal for how long a typical game on a mediocre sized map should take and whether or not it should be possible to win those games by early rushes.

And, by the way, I could make the same argument as you do: If you want tank rushes to count play on smaller maps, don't hamstring the entire game.

What would you consider a medium sized map then? There doesn't have to be a set 'goal' for how long a game has to be as long as people are having fun, plus I doubt many people will rush in the first place. People who have backed the game want to see giant battles across planets, not a 10 minute tank rush, so it is unlikely many of these players will emerge. And like knight said, It's all relative.

No, because we aren't proposing arbitrary time limits, if anything our whole point is that the game length is fairly dependent on Map size and how comparable Player Skill is and that in a game the nature of SupCom/PA you don't get the traditional "Rushes" you would in say CnC or Starcraft, as I said earlier;

FA in particular you were producing units in very short order, and due to the game's focus on Map control in order to hold Mexes encourages quick production all round along with more of a broader "frontline" based on where you have your Extractors instead of just protecting "isolated" bases in a game like Starcraft.

Mike

I guess it depends on the map, from the games I have watched the centre bases can produce this effect, as well as zerg creep giving the impression of zerg territory and map control.

We don't know how big the default planets are, how fast units can travel, how much time it will take to build a unit, how far they will be able to shoot or how much units our commander will be able to take on on its own without the risk of getting killed, so it's impossible to say what a medium map should look like.

Based on what I know all I can say is that, in my book, matches on medium sized maps should take 20 mins more.

You might not be proposing arbitrary time limits but allowing early tank rushes to end the game definitively hamstrings it. If your commander can be killed by an early rush you always have to prepare for it and therefore you don't have much choices during the first few minutes of the game. It's either make that rush impossible by walling in or building lots of defensive units or go for an even faster rush.
Just take a look at StarCraft, although we don't see much games won by early rushes the whole early game is all about them and that's something I really dislike.

nachtnebel, are you even reading what I'm saying?

The point I'm trying to make is that you can't perform any kind of 6pool type strat in a SupCom or PA style game for reasons I've already explained.

Mike

I'm seriously confused about what you actually think is the problem nachtnebel.

Commanders from TA and SupCom have never been able to be rushed unless you LET it happen by not preparing some form of defence. If you don't prepare then you deserve to die to an early rush.

"All-In" rushing in SupCom and TA has never been an issue.

(Mikeninja!)

EMG rushing in TA was, until Core Contingency added a riot tank, and then later in unofficial patch a T1 flame-thrower tower.