I'm sure optimisation will do a lot to fix this in some computers, but I was thinking of how to avoid the framerate drops that occur during big battles etc. Computers more toward minimum spec will likely have this issue going forward, and there's nothing worse than furiously trying to move your comm when he's getting bombed and the framerate has gone down to slideshow level. Could the game: a) Detect current framerate b) Based on a 'floor' threshold set by the user, use strategic icons instead of the full models temporarily. If they specify a floor of 0, it never occurs. c) When the number of units/projectiles etc drops back, models reappear as normal. Given there has to be a model/icon swap algorithm in place anyway, it would be a matter of changing the 'threshold height' of when it kicks in to a lower altitude when framerates are low. I know it wouldn't aid immersiveness, but I'd prefer retaining game control during huge battles vs pretty things at unplayable framerates. How doable would this be?
Nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution. If developers have framerate drops they should optimize code rather than create "models replacement" hacks. And even optimization always done when most of code in it's release state and currently it's alpha where anything may change. Also I personally think that game shouldn't be designed/tested as "icon wars" because for me it's one of faults of supcom when I compare it's to TA. It's probably nice option that game playable as "icon wars", but when you forced to do so it's kills many fun moments of gameplay. So when game released and Uber will can spend more time on options for very slow hardware, but not before.
