Fake buildings and the joy of misdirection

I always liked the concepts behind RUSE's development, but I think the execution could have been improved. (But then, it was essentially a console RTS, so . . .)
That said, many of these misdirections from RUSE can be utilized in any TA based game, though their implementations are different. (Speed attacks is an exception, but I never cared for the concept in RUSE either.)

A key aspect to remember is that RUSE essentially had an omnipresent "radar" of sorts, as you had general knowledge of all units on the battlefield. (The reason behind this being that on the real life battlefield, most general information is known about the enemy anyway.)
Thus a lot of the misdirection plays in RUSE depended on this global knowledge, which is essentially what we expect in a TA style environment due to radar.
Covert bases and hidden units are achieved with radar jamming. In RUSE, these can be spotted with visual confirmation, such as aerial scouts. This is the same in TA style games.
Decoy units can be achieved with a decent number of inexpensive scout units, which are indistinguishable since they just show up as dots on the radar. Again, visual confirmation is the foil.
Decoy bases is the main lacking area with this system, as it's a bit hard to make a convincing fake base using just the radar system.

So in the end, a lot of this misdirection play is already available in a TA-style RTS, it just needs a bit of refinement to encourage players to use it more often.

(Of course, that won't happen if you severely limit, or even remove the radar, which far too many people on these forums seem to want to do.)

There is more to a ruse then simple radar trickery.

I would be a fan of a limited amount of mis-information techniques, but I have no love for fake buildings, as they really hard to pull off and take far too much time to set up to really warrant something that doesn't actually work in the way it is masquerading it's self as.

Seems like a lot of work for little pay off.

This is true. Despite the greater availability of knowledge, RUSE had a more limited system for hiding that knowledge, closer to how it would be done in a tabletop wargame. (And I'm just referring to information warfare here. It also had a simple logistics system, etc, but those aspects are beyond the scope of this discussion.)

But the overall key mechanic is the concept of managing the information that you provide the enemy, and managing the information that you receive about the enemy through the global vision system. In TA-like games, that global vision system is more specifically set up as the radar. It's a lot more limited than RUSE's global vision, as you only see dots. But the opportunities to manage this information were a lot more flexible than they were in RUSE, as managing information isn't limited to the "cards" you choose or when you are arbitrarily able to play them. Instead, you can choose to manage information when and where you like. And because the vision system is limited, there are still enough restrictions to keep the info management system in check.

In any case, looking to RUSE for inspiration is always a good starting point, but it's also important to consider how the proposed goals could be achieved within the current gameplay model, and improve the model as the concept matures.

I see your scanner spoofer and raise you a:

1) Just f'in shoot it, like anything else it dies if you shoot it hard enough, oh and it's fake so it'll die real easy.
2) Taste it to see if it's real or not.

Commanders are the only things really worth faking. If you're a fan of shell games it could be a valuable addition to the game, or it could end up extremely annoying. Probably both.

I will like it if it is possible to convert a fake building to the real one.

You could do this in TA, and to an extent in SupCom (SCUs look like ACUs in icon mode).

Decoy commanders should definitely be in PA, regardless of the verdict on decoy buildings.

The problem I see with decon commanders in PA is that you have more than one battlefield. Imagine a large game with maybe up to 20 or even 40 players. Now imagine the last two players trying to find each other while decon commanders are running around on several different planets. Could take a loooooooooooooong time till you have found the real commander...

Not really. Decoys can be fairly expensive, so that they eat into your offense options in favor of Comm safety. I'm thinking a cost comparable to sACU, since that's basically what they are.

It's easy to see when a Comm does something that a decoy can't. Fire the Ubercannon? It's real. Reveal the cloak? It's real. Super strong build power? It's real. Gigantic thermonuclear explosion? It's definitely real. A good eye would be able to determine when a Comm is legit and when it's not.

As awesome as that is I have to wonder what EA's legal department would think of it. Granted the original C&C is so old that only die hard fans from back in the day will be even remotely interested in it and as such EA isn't going to loose any money from a free version of the original C&C running around on the net. But even so EA is not known for being benevolent when it comes to, well, anything.

Just to make things clear, I believe that engineers will have fixed mass and energy rates. Thus, if you want them to be less resources, then you will need them to take less time.

It's a great idea. If you make decoy buildings, give them animations that are similar to the real buildings, and build a few tanks to stage in it, all of a sudden, if an enemy flies over, they can't tell the difference between it and the real thing.