Discussion: Early Game Commander Rushes

Exactly!

The TA commander solved most of these issues 15 years ago. It was fairly fragile, slow moving, had a powerful lathe to build up while the enemy was slow moving across the map, and had a radar to detect rushes. Its primary d-gun weapon was crippled by short range(forcing frequent damage on the Comm), and could not function without infrastructure. The secondary laser was terrible and not viable for rushing.

I don't know why most of these lessons were forgotten, especially considering that some of the devs actually worked on TA and were there to see it happen. But they're still there for those who listen.

Solved in TA with cloak. Cloak brings its own set of issues, which are mostly fixed with the TA system and can be easily adapted to PA's circumstances.

Because a defender can ALWAYS build their defense first. Advantage- defender.

Solved by the Comm nuke. Sacrifice one commander to kill the rest. Win.

Changing the way dead Commanders work is more important. If a dead Commander kicks the player, they won't sac the commander and thus lose their ability to play the game. Solved.

It's really not. The Commander's lathe power is tangible early game, but ultimately amounts to a flat worth of about 1500 metal. As a combat unit it is worth FAR more.

"Construction power of 2 workers, combat power of 20 tanks." Someone discovered this balance issue early in the Supcom forums. It is THE REASON why Commander rushing is so predominant, and it has been duplicated in TA clones ever since.

I actualy have to agree with this the commander is the representation of the player
It shall not be just simply a loss of a bit of buildpower energyproduction and combatpower but first and foremost the loss of a teammate

Ok, I just build mine out of the range of yours.

Whilst still inside of your base.

I have a fluid build order.

The ability to build a factory first would be pretty awesome. Would speed up the game and potentially help curb this issue.

You're wrong on this one. In the latest instance of me encountering this issue, we did scout you. I was building pelters. I was having fabricators repair my Commanders. I was building units.

You incorrectly assume that it's "suddenly" an issue. I've watched this issue for some time. Only just now created the thread because of something igncom1 said in a different thread.

Lemme respond to your analysis of our side.

We did scout your Commanders incoming. We had fighters and scouts circling overhead and saw them coming in on radar. We also knew where all of your bases are.

• We knew a comm rush was inevitable as soon as you entered the lobby on a 5v5.
• We did have some pelters building, but your Commanders just walked forward and took them out.
• Support Commanders would have never gotten to the other base in time
• Some of the other players mentioned doing a comm rush, not sure why they didn't. In this particular instance, it wouldn't have mattered. You took out one of our bases and even if we had taken out one of your bases, you would have had 2 bases to our 1. A counter comm rush would have done nothing. Especially since you would have then taken your four Commanders and just walked into our only remaining base – like you did, even though we had 3 Commanders there.

Pelters would have not stopped it easily. I've seen you Comm rush a pelter line. It's not that hard to Comm rush a pelter line.

Do you have any evidence to back up this claim? Oh wait, you don't.

There are many tactics to fending off Commanders. Most of which are not reliable until mid game – especially when there are 5 enemy commanders on the field. For early game, if you do make the investment in anti-com rushes, then you have not expanded. So your options are, protect against comm rushes and have no eco, have eco but get overwhelmed by a comm rush, or comm rush and win.

Ok, so here I come. Read all the posts above me and was kind of excited why noone gone with this idea. It's simple and all you can do is think. Think again how it's so easy and "why I didn't came with this before" :

A Commander cannot attack another Commander. If Com A is being attacked by Com B - it's only Com B whos taking damage (some kind of reflect so to speak). And I would do it with 1 shot on other Com takes 1/3 of your Com life. Com can still overcome your base, but at least they can't rush you with 2-3 of theirs Com - they will just die in the process.

One could easily abuse this situation, and reverse it - so now I would just go to their base and if they will try to attack my Com - it would kill them But here's comes the "but": There should be some kind of "area border" implemented, so if a foreign Com comes to your base - he can now be killed. So to speak "on your soil"

Above could scale up in the game. And for example after first 20minutes the rule stops apply?! I though about this concept long time. Couldn't find any lacks in it. It may sound strange, but just think about it! It's inpenetrable solution !

Hmmm...

Seems kinda arbitrary and complex. How is this border defined? Can it be expanded?

Please define arbitrary as I find it difficult to translate to polish
Border is defnined by your's building field of view + 10 for example. So when you fly a unit to get vision - this doens't apply to your border. But when you build a mex and laser tower this is your area now, if Com will aproach it, it will be voulnerable to your attack - he's "asking for it"

Also Border can be visible to you as a blue/pink area around all of your selected buildings, same way you can see pelters attack area with red fill during game, or radar detect range via green filled circle. If you put many pelters around your base and than select them all it creates some sort of mesh-area filled with red. Same way this Border could be organised

That way we almost fully 99% obliterated Com's attacking your base. Beacuse let's face it - he's used agains enemy base only in two main reasons. As a rusher in the begining or as a last hope in a tragic moment. In the mid game he can be easily killed via ant's/levelers, in the late game via orbital lasers.

You need him only to build faster, start a new life on other planet and sometimes to defend against enemy raids. This what it's for, not to be game changer / main killer and army supporter. I think this is sweet and easy solution to this topic. I would make a poll, but can't as I'm not a topic creator ;(

Arbitrary: based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

just take the weapon away from the commander, done.

They could make the commander able to be upgraded, so no gun in the start/ or a really puny gun, then have a decent costing upgrade for the comm that let's players only get a decent gun in the mid game, where comm charges can be easily held off.

yeah would be great, miss the d-gun from TA

I think it is clearly a problem. Rushes have too high strategic implications that always result in the rushed team being behind. Whether it is building pelters,rushing units, cancelling /making new build orders and of course crisis management. That's before the mobile nukes even go off.

If many agree this is a problem now it will only magnify in this game mode with the intoroduction of transport.

As knight said this will just be a problem in team armies where a commander is just another unit which can die. Whereas in alliance a commander death will result in a all the commanders units being killed too.

what about the fabled egg? something along the lines of a pre-built factory, mex and power gen would speed up early game and hinder rushes. should still be possible though as it allows variety.

also few could pull off this tactic as it takes a fair amount of coordination - most get angry if you dare to touch their com, so its unlikely to affect most games.

would less randomisation of spawn points help, so that one point is unlikely to be surrounded - or would such a restriction hinder game variety too much?

I probably missunderstand something here and hopefully dont mix that up
but inst alliance separate eco and units while teams are shared eco and unit
so why shall in alliance all coms blow ub when only one got destroyed that doesnt mmake sense

As somone else said earlier the player who lost his comm should be kicked out as the commander is the player personified ...

A perfectly cromulent tactic. Perhaps the defender should not have built his base in front of his defenses. I don't know how you managed to build the turret whilst being both under fire and lacking any base of your own. It's probably the dev's fault.

The wreckage can still be reclaimed and moved over a few tiles, so that it is properly behind the defenses.

Arbitrary: Any aspect of any part of any game is chosen out of a hat. It is a fake business term used by dumb people to sound smart.

There are clever and easily understood ideas. There are not clever and confusing ideas. All of them are arbitrary in some way. The bad ideas are called arbitrary to make the other guy feel bad.

Arbitrary example: A Commander can attack any enemy. For some reason he can't attack another Commander. What? Why? No one knows.

Starting all players with the same base does not stop a rush. What stops a rush is letting the defender build enough stuff to be stronger than the attacker when they arrive.

The PA Commander is FAR more capable as a combat unit than as a builder unit. Therefore, the best place for him is on the front line. By comparison, the TA commander was far too important as an early game builder to waste on the front line. Furthermore, the TA commander could not attack without getting energy from a base, which limited his rush power. In addition, the TA laser defense could not operate without building energy structures.

It's like 15 years ago the TA devs discovered the exact same issues and found out how to solve them! Or something.

When the Egg is in the game you could give a range (lets say the range of the anti nuke.). You could make it so the commander can't leave the circle for a certain amout of time or that the commander can't enter the circle of the enemy.

You could also give the Egg a "anti commander" weapon. It shoots only at commander, commander isn't instantly destroyed but has just enough time to turn around an walk away.

Really small planets will always be a problem, but isn't that on purpose so you can messing around with commanders.

Points of intrest
- Enable/disable rush as an option.
- Circle either can't leave or can't enter.
- Origin point circle, Egg or spawn Point.
- Variable timer


On a different note:
If you have 4coms vs 6 coms. You can just walk the 4 coms between the 6 coms and self destuct. This will cause a chain reaction destorying all commanders.

I don't necessarily think that the explosion is bad and if you scout you could see them comming and engage them outside of your base.

1 comm all other teammates get fab bots......... or perhaps a special team army unit, that's just as efficient as the comm but no weapons. Problem solved.

yes Ta is full of solutions to a lot of problems. Not to mention the foundation for which this great RTS love affair many of us have. I came to know TA the year it was birthed and it started my RTS love for sure. problem is that no other rts ever measured up in my eyes when compared to TA. sure we eventually got the SC franchise which captivated me momentarily. Nothing seemed to compare to greatness of such an old game until now. TA is still arguably the best rts ever made. It holds key solutions that shouldnt be overlooked as well as problems. some of you cry out thats lazy but i argue if it works it works....


OH and its sixteen years now there bob-o

The Egg sounds like a promising fix.

Maybe even the boundary thing on top of that, tied into The Egg, could work.

So, possible solutions.

1: On Army matches, all Commanders must spawn together
2: Commander's economy is bumped up to allow for building a factory first
3: The Egg, possibly tied in with some sort of boundry that the Commander can't leave, and/or The Egg has a powerful anti-Commander gun on it. Very slow firing, with lots of damage.