the ability to create commanders

It does seem a little crazy that by destroying a single unit you destroy a massive army. So let's say that the commander can copy its design and design a factory optimal for commander construction. Keep in mind that a commander is a very evolved AI. Hence it will try to keep up the campaign for whatever empire it served, even though that empire is long gone, lost in whatever ancient war that destroyed humanity. It will find a way to replicate so when the original is destroyed , its"children" can continue its goal.

Building a commander will not be cheap because you have to create its features like the X91 D-Gun, the X24 Reactor Unit, the X45 Metal Converter, the X67 Nanolathe Construction/ Repair/ Recycle Unit and a adaptable AI unit. Building commanders is for late game when you are trying to prevent massive bomber/ snipes and to replace those lost in team games. Make them cost a stupid amount of resouces. Please state your opinions on this topic. Thank you.

I agree that it seems strange that a whole army can die when it's commander dies, but the idea of the game is to kill any/all enemy commanders, and if they can be replicated, the game could last forever, or even a little bit longer.

I remember Uber talking about the idea of wanting matches with hundreds of players, that can span over the large part of a day. Also, of the possibility of not requiring the players to always be in front of the game (players could play at different intervals, like in a slow paced game).

I don't know if it's still a goal. But if it is, it will require a lot of work. On the engine capabilities of course, to optimize performance and bandwidth. On the units scale and map size to accommodate 100+ players, of course.
On the way that the players can interact (first steps are done via the alliances game mode, but a lot of work on the UI needs to be done).

also lot of things PA matches of that scale will require a very high level of macro, at a point that having even 5 - 10 commanders less that the other team won't be considered an automatic game over (though of course will put you at some disadvantage).

And all this when scaled to matches of the current size, must preserve a game play similar to the current one . Ugh, my head.

But yeah, if this is going to happen ( and it's not a problem for me if it doesn't , i like the game even in game play state ), Replicating commanders could happen.

Say it's a separate game mode , let's call it "Historical" just for the heck of it.

You start with a 1v1 or a a small teams battle, but you are able to build new commanders, at very high costs, and said commanders can be controlled by the ai and eventually by new players ( random players? coming from a faction rooster? idk).

Also, we could shift the goal of the teams from "destroy all commanders" to "destroy a structure of interest". Maybe everybody has a supreme AI in the stile of the CORE faction in TA?


Anyway, it would come years from now, if at all. Or at least partially developed by modders. What Uber really needs is to offer the performance capabilities to create large scale games like the ones they described. The rest can be "easily" developed by an interested modding community.

I think as long there is assurance there is only one commander per player it allows players to make all-ins (f.e. with bombers) to destroy it despite of potential inadequatly heavy losses, which i think is not that good.

If not the ability to replicate a true commander, I think Uber should at least give us a 'Decoy commander' as that was a key unit from the early days of TA.

It was particularly useful when attempting to D-Gun a krogoth!

You guys should explore our vast forum more. We're not going to be limited to this single game type by any means, however in rts genre this is generally the most popular.

To answer your question, decoy com is fine but making it so you can continue from a decoy I have to say no.

The comms should be STUPID expensive. Like supcom experimentals expensive, making comm building a risky endeavor.

10x sup com experimental cost... as a start../.

It would be a nice addition for the domination game mode where you have to kill EVERYTHING like there was is SupCom.. but only for that mode

well My answer is this : no for 1 v 1 yes for those 40 player, 2-week long games Jon talked about, as the mechanism by which to add a player.

Does it make sense at all? I mean, personally I endeavor the implementation of super costly units, 'cos after a while your eco simply goes stratosphere. Plus there are some issues to be resolved regarding long sessions of play, like planetary invasions.

However, I understood that by design and intention the Commander is the avatar of the player, and similarly to the game of Chess, once your King is down, you're down.

Not sure i Like this route of "experimental". However, in this case its basically like building an "extra life" instead of building a super laser wielding spider monkey. Which isn't very game breaking, might be interesting to see though.

However, I'm pretty sure a computer wouldn't want a clone of itself walking around unless it was dumber then it significantly. If anyone has played red alert 2, you would know that the cloned yuris were a little "slow".

in the story, only the faction leaders were able to reactivate by themselves, the rest of the commanders had to be repaired from their broken bodys.
I think its a good idea to inplement that into the game, so you can reactivate the lifeless corpse of a exploded commander so that when you lost a commander in multicommander battle, you have to recapture and repair it on that spot, or when your too late, your enemy might have already reclaimed it, this would be handy if your commander got nuked, or the commander blast wiped out the remaining enemies or something. i always thought those dead commanders could have been used for more then only scrap, theres good balancing options too, you can make it that enemies can capture it, or that there is a panelty of getting it destroyed, weakening its maximum potential evry time it "dies"

Might be cool. Extra Commanders extend the game by acting as a 1-up. An accidental loss won't kill ya.

However, the real use is for a tech victory mode. This one is based around the lore one would expect from a Commander-centered game. The ultimate goal of any conflict is to build more Commanders and unleash them on the galaxy. That's not unreasonable to have as an in-game objective.

i have made a poll about the 1up commander problem, id rather reactivate commanders instead, they cannot reproduce in the lore only reactivate not completely obliterated commanders i have added the building of them in the poll through and is not very successfull https://forums.uberent.com/threads/reactivating-commanders-better-poll-repost.55883/ edit: might remove the option to make room for more succesfull ideas

While I do agree that when a commander dies, it kinda sucks because you're automatically defeated, but I don't actually agree with making a new commander. I think this because it makes your commander more valuable and something you must defend at all costs.

EDIT: Oops, clicked 'yes' by accident

People keep on saying things along the lines of "I want this super powerful unit/structure. Just make it super expensive."

Players seem to forget that PA is of a scale much larger than any other RTS in existence. Economies will be so large that producing these large units, be they Commanders, Experimentals, or anything along those lines, will change the game so drastically. The game will be entirely all about this large unit and would completely negate most everything else.

Just look at SupCom and SupCom's combat is small compared to what PA will be like.

Would be cool to have, just let it be an option so people can play with it if they so wish, but don't make it the default way to play the game.

Y'know, the thread title has actually given me a fantastic idea.

Similar to Valve's Steam Workshop - what if players were able to submit their own fully modelled custom commander for sale in the upcoming PA store, with revenue split between Uber and the creator?

The poll sucks so I didn't vote. I would prefer Sub-commanders or a sort of Phylactery (if you are familiar with Lichs in D&D):

"An integral part of becoming a lich is creating a magic phylactery in which the character stores its life force. As a rule, the only way to get rid of a lich for sure is to destroy its phylactery. Unless its phylactery is located and destroyed, a lich reappears 1d10 days after its apparent death.

Each lich must make its own phylactery, which requires the Craft Wondrous Item feat. The character must be able to cast spells and have a caster level of 11th or higher. The phylactery costs 120,000 gp and 4,800 XP to create and has acaster level equal to that of its creator at the time of creation.

The most common form of phylactery is a sealed metal box containing strips of parchment on which magical phrases have been transcribed. The box is Tiny and has 40 hit points, hardness 20, and a break DC of 40.

Other forms of phylacteries can exist, such as rings, amulets, or similar items."

Basically The undead lich hides his tiny box (or, in my campaign, a sphere of annihilation located in the negative energy plane LOL) somewhere he knows no1 will find it and respawns near it if he dies. If the Phylactery is destroyed and THEN the lich is killed BEFORE he has a chance to make a new 1 he cannot re-spawn and dies forever. I imagine an AI would probably be able to pull something like that off...