Comparaison between TA and Supcom closed view

Honestly, I think the best solution would be to just add the option for the host to lock zoom at a certain height. That way most people won't have it locked, and thus enjoy the benefits, but the people that find it better with it locked can lock it at the point they find best and not have to worry of being at a disadvantage (since everyone else is stuck at that zoom level too).

no air no rush no nukes no experimentals no zoom host no thankyou.

Well, the difference is that I highly doubt there will be a lot of people settings their games to "no zoom", because as everyone has already said, it's extremely useful.

For me Starcraft is micro. While what I describe is not macro, but I would not call it micro either. It's somewhat inbetween.

Wise words
Seeing the trailer and how Uber seems to love TA I'm quite confident that they will come with a good mix between the two. Hopefully, it will satisfy both people.

Now I'm think about upping my pledge to go into the Alpha test

I don't see ANYONE in this thread asking to remove the zoom.
It seems some people complain without even reading what is written.

I saw PKC post stuff about zoom (which really is unrelated to the topic). Didn't want another zoom debate, so I thought to offer a compromise option to get it over with faster. I think it's actually a pretty good one too.

:lol: :lol:

Yes, both games measure distances in "units", obviously, but whether these units translate well to real-world-meters is still debatable. Furthermore, Supreme Commander and Supreme Commander 2 use the same unit system. The units even largely have the weapon range and speed within the reference frame of that system. Seton's Clutch in Supreme Commander and Supreme Commander 2 have the same size within that reference frame, yet obviously it looks smaller in Supreme Commander 2, simply because the units are bigger.

Your post is a bit contradicting . You say that Supreme Commander's units are much bigger than TA ones, but at the same time you say a PeeWee is about 8 meters tall? For reference, here you can see the size of a UEF T1 Tank (Pillar) in Supreme Commander, relative to the in-game size of trees:



And, as I said, relative to the LoS for instance, Total Annihilation's units are extremely huge in comparison.

No, I didn't know that

How is that weird? That's exactly the point of mixing your army with units of varying firing range. Also mobile units that shot "true" lasers in Supreme Commander was the Cybran T2 Amphibious tank for instance. It had a short range and thus you need to put them on the front, not in the back. If you put them in the back, it wouldn't be able to shoot anything, since the laser shots would be blocked by your units on the front.
Also the tank was often very horrible to use in general, since it had such a low profile and any slight terrain variation caused the laser shots to be blocked as well of course.

Units were able to shoot through (own or allied) structures and units far more frequently than in Supreme Commander. Supreme Commander/Forged Alliance had only a few such exceptions.

In Total Annihilation you often only fight radar blips as well, if you either micro your units that way or if you have the -1000 energy structure, that allowed your units to automatically shoot at radar blips. Weapon ranges in Total Annihilation frequently exceeded the unit's LoS as well. This is not something new in Supreme Commander at all. It only feels that way, because, by default, units did not automatically shoot at radar blips within their weapon's range. Only when they had LoS. Core Contingency changed this with that building. I always found that aspect of Total Annihilation waaay to artificial.

lol

While working on the SC:TA mod for Sup Com, I did a fair bit of investigation to determine the unit sizing. I can't remember the specifics off how it was determined off the top of my head, but the end result was 1 map square in Sup Com = 1 map square in TA.

The other thing to note is that there wasn't as much size variation between units in TA. Compare the Peewee to the ARM commander, and the Striker to the UEF ACU:



You can convert the units of measurement into real world figures by using the speeds (Which in TA gave a real-world speed in the in-game info box).

looking at that screen, i like hwo big the SupCom ACU is compared to t1.

Looking at that screen, I much prefer the TA sizes. That tank looks like a rollerskate for the com. Why would the com even bother building a unit that size? Guess it's a personal preference thing... maybe a poll... ?

Because it's much faster and cheaper than, say, a T3 siege bot.


Hell, why build T1 engineers? Let's immediately advance the factory to T3!
Why build a factory? Let's start upgrading the ACU tier from the get-go!
Smaller units? Economy? No! Lets rely only on what the ACU generates on its own and start building Experimentals as soon as the ACU gets upgraded!
Why build units at all? ACU rush!

I have no problem with building T1 units, but I'd like them to look like units next to the commander, not toys.

you know that even the smallest t1 unit in Supreme Commander was about 10 meters in height? You dont get the scale right imo^^
you should have a tree or civilian building next to those units to compare.

That's not really true, unless those trees are all really big sequoias

Then they look stupid.
A unit almost half size the commander in height dies from 2 pew pews from a smaller turret.

Make everything bigger? Then the commander becomes small and visually unimportant, when it should it fact be the tallest biggest badass on the field unless they specifically command otherwise (build a bigger and even badder thing).

The acu is as powerful as a t3 unit. It makes sense that a cheap t1 tank is much smaller.

That's really the crux of the issue. Size variation in SupCom is huge. Different techs of ground unit, and the air units all look good and control best at various zoom levels so you have to zoom in and out to do micro. In TA you have all the action taking place on a similar scale which means more action on screen at any one moment.

Before I'd played Supreme Commander I would have though "Let's have really diverse scale between the units. That way the experimentals will be huge and they'll look way cooler!" but when you actually see it in practice the end result is only one thing on screen looks good at any time. When you're looking at tanks the experimentals and planes are too big. When you're looking at experimentals the planes are too big and the tanks are too small. You might as well just zoom out completely because at least the symbols are coherent even if they're a bit bland.

If all the units had less variation in size, line of sight, weapons range and altitude you'd get more action on screen, and more potential to micro any type of unit at the same time.

If all the units are the same size, and tanks can barely shoot three times their own length, and transports have to be clown cars to accommodate more than one unit, it doesn't feel like a battle between two armies, it feels like someone pushing toy soldiers around. SupCom should be applauded for at least trying to have things on a scale where stuff felt big.

They do, quite easily. You can scale from the destroyed cars in the TA:CC city levels and from the size of humans in the SupCom cutscenes to get that SupCom units are bloody huge, while something like a Flea is about 4m long. Look at this.. See how tiny the humans are? It's because an ACU is, like, 40 meters tall and a Revenant is 30 meters long.

That tank is almost ten meters tall, longer than it is tall, and one of the smallest units in the game. Those trees are just ginormous.

RE: Size Comparison pic,

That's fine, but that's only half the story, get some TA T2 up there along with FA T2 and T3 units.

The SupCom/FA sizes make perfect sense in the context set forth by the game and it's 3 tech levels. They are visually distinct by size, and starting them out too big in T1 would lead T3 and T4s to end by possibly being twice the size they are now, which would be rather ridiculous. And I like the SupCom Scale within it's context, The ACU was powerful in combat against T1 units, and the scale shows that, but as you go up against T2 and T3 units you instinctively understand you don't stand as much of a chance due to their increased size.

Now, we can already see a bit in the visualization(00:53) that the bots are about half the size of the commander, which is a good balance between the two which allows the T2 units a bit more freedom in size should they need it and still let the Commander stand out a bit.

Mike