Lessons learned from TA and SupCom

That's why it's an option.

I quite liked the automatic grouping system. Since it was quickly toggleable, iirc, it made quickly controlling large blobs all around the map easier.

Anyone have the thread where AdmiralZeech talked about how to make those groupings better? I always wanted these to be useful, but the haze that came up when you hit O was enough for me to turn them off. In theory they seem like they would be useful.

Also, if there are ambient sounds that are dependent on your zoom/camera level we need an option to turn them off. Cool at first, but they get old quick.

Also... Where do I find number 10 on my keyboard?

Nowhere; you'd click the 10 that appear above a group of 10 units.

An interesting and potentionally useful system, but very poorly implemented, so meh.

Ok... Using keyboard based ctrl groups might be harder to learn for a newbie, but it's definitely much more efficient than any mouseclick-triggered grouping.

I think that one thing that could totally change gameplay, since it appears there are going to be air construction units, is whether or not the air units "take up space." In supcom/Supcom2/TA air units could simply fly right through each other, as if they weren't even there. In supcom2, it appeared that the unit AIs were programmed to avoid this, but in massive air battles, they would still end up flying through and into one another, taking no damage, etc.

I understand that this was probably done so we didn't see massive amounts of aircraft bumping into each other, but I believe that at least the Air Construction units shouldn't be able to occupy the same space.

My reasoning for this is simple: In TA, you could mass virtual clouds of Advanced Con airs and make anything you wanted extremely fast. (assuming you had resources). The best I've ever had was three seconds for a fusion reactor, 22 seconds for a krogoth, and 77 seconds for a VULCAN. (For non TA players, imagine a Gattling gun that shoots heavy artillery and can fire half way across the map)

That kind of spamming should not be possible, as it enable the player to construct virtually anything they want in virtually no time. Even if you don't have the resources to start spamming heavy artillery, then you can just order up a line of Advanced energy, and some MMs. Wait two minutes, and suddenly you have an income of 35,000 energy and 500 metal! (an absolutely huge amount for TA)

As fun as this could be in a skirmish, I think it could be annoying in multiplayer, especially since the swarm of resource collecting aircraft might even be on the other end of the solar system, and therefore out of your reach until further notice.

Basically, please make ConA take up space. Please.

I look forward to playing this game in the hopefully near future.

Lessons learned from TA & SupCom:

- TA's default Left-Click Controls are much more intuitive than the Right-Click Controls (sadly, the latter are industry standard nowadays, but in TA you could switch depending on whether you liked WarCraft or Command & Conquer better)

- Transports kidnapping units was an element of skill and needs to be brought back!

- Commanders should have a modicum of anti-air capability (more than in TA, even).

- Higher Rates of fire mean better engagements. (SupCom battles feel much more like wild firefights than TA's battles did)

- Strong Defense Structures make the game better, turtling is valid even though the turtler loses if all he does is turtle.

- Some of TA's units were broken, like the Necro and the Pelican, some were imbalanced, like FARK or Maverick.

- Fragile Buildings + Tough Units = Great Mix! (in Supcom, you have Fragile Units, but Tough Buildings)

- Fragile, but Cheap Resource Buildings are a must! (T3 Mexes in SupCom were too expensive and too durable)

- Strategic Zoom is a huge boon to the Genre.

- Cartographic Mode looks cool, but confuses the player.

- Maps with Asteroid Showers saw very little play time (too frustrating).

- D-Gun was awesome fun, Overcharge felt less gratifying and less immediate.

- TA's Commander was massively OP in Early Game, and massively UP in Mid-Late. SupCom:FA did it much better (especially with the new Overcharge-needs-Energy-Storage-First mechanic).

- SupCom had the better soundtrack. Seriously. TA's soundtrack was incredibly good, but you could only do so much with Redbook Audio back then. And the calmer tracks were too much in contrast with the battle tracks.

- Experimentals are Fun, but hard to balance against T3! In FA, T2 and T3 is less time-efficient for large economies, favoring experimentals over anything else.

- Aircraft Blobs really need to go away.

- Amphibious units are fun!

- Navies with long ranges and versatile units are fun. (Destroyers with Direct Fire, AA, Sonar, Anti-Torpedo, Water Vision, and Depth Charges; Cruisers with TMD, Radar, Anti Air, and Cruise Missiles, etc.)

I cant play with left-click at all. It feels totally wrong and not intuitive.
Might be because I grew up with right-click-styled games.

so make it configurable, I guess or just stay with right click.

I don't think that Left-Click Controls are more intuitive.

In that case, you do two different things :
Left : Select (+ select rectangle)
Left : Actions
Right : Unselect
I find this quite confusing. You have to do almost every thing with left-click...

But with the actual way, each mouse button do separate things :
Left : Select (+ select rectangle) / Unselect -> Unit Selection
Right : Actions -> Unit Orders

So in fact, Left-Click Controls just seem wrong.

What? No, it's the opposite if anything! Longer reload times mean you can more meaningfully maneuver between shots, and what target to pick is more crucial. Low reload time is very simplistic to control.

Though best is to have a mix of low- and high RoF units both. They act differently and serve somewhat different purposes so it's interesting that way.

Can't agree with this at all. TA's soundtrack is one of the only soundtracks I've ever truly enjoyed for an RTS. I never even notice the music from the other ones. Sure that might be better when chatting with other people in multiplayer games, but it's not as good for people who are playing single player or aren't using VoIP.

I loved how the music in TA actually made you feel like you where in a war. It just feels plain wrong for me to listen to calm music with death, explosions, and armies everywhere.

They both had their place really. From the glee of pelting your enemy with an endless steam of shells from a peewee's EMGs to the tense anticipation of your annhilator's next shot (or bertha if you're into that sort of thing).

Sorry, I'm not much of a wordsmith, but I hope you get my point .

Both the TA and Supcom soundtracks had their merits. TA's was a more bombastic and varied soundtrack while Supcom's was more majestic and grandiose. They each conveyed the style of their game perfectly.

And while I hate to jump on the ravaging Zero K fanboy train (<3 you guys ), the ZK music is also very nice. It has a good amount of variety, which I think both TA and Supcom need just a bit more of. (Sticking to a music theme is nice, but if that same theme is constantly repeated with minor variations for 40 hours of gameplay, it does start to wear thin.)

Manoeuvring units between shots? Micro! :x

Micro?! Units should detect incoming shells and auto-dodge! =D

I think it would remove a tactical play style if you remove the focus firing upon first sight of enemy. Think about the strategy involved with doing a bombing run and you want your bombers to survive, what do you do? You send in some peeper/scouts and bombers right after for more effective bombing runs.

Well if you're at a point that you're building a Vulcan every 77 seconds, that is one long awesome game. Not over powered if you are having an awesome game like that.

It's a matter of personal taste, obviously. I think it's more intuitive, so I'd very much welcome at least having the choice.

Some details explaining why I prefer Left-Click (which is very rare - the original TA had it, the original C&C had it)... I grew up with Left-Click Games, so I am on the opposite side of the argument as Cola Colin is:

Left-Click Scheme
1. Left click is the default action FOR THE CURSOR, which, when in the state of no unit selected, is "select units", and in the state of selected units is "issuw context sensitive commands to the units".

2. Right click is always cancel / discard / deselect / back.


Compare this to the standard controls nowadays:

Right-Click Scheme
1. Left click is select and deselect. Right click issues context sensitive commands. Left click "cancels" the selection if you click onto an empty spot. So far, so good.

2. But - right click is totally backwards as soon as you use the keyboard to play. All of the sudden, when you type "A " or "M" to issue a specific command, or try to place a building, suddenly issuing that is done via left click, and cancelled via right click?


So right click controls have frequent inversions of context interpretation.


Another disadvantage of right-click controls is that, with the frequent context inversions, you could end up losing your (complex / far away) unit selection when a keypress didn't register or you accidentally clicked twice.

Admittedly, a similar disadvantage exists for left-click controls that involves accidentally issuing move commands when you were trying to change your selection (or have forgotten you had a selection). The correct default behavior would probably be "shift to add to selection, default context sensitive action for left-clicking on units with selected units is ASSIST or GUARD".

On a related note, I'd like to see SupCom's CTRL/SHIFT/ALT modifier system futher refined; using the key "names" as context here would help.

Examples for the Attack command:

• no modifier key - default behavior
• SHIFT key - add behavior (e.g. also / later attack this here, too)
• ALT key - alternate behavior (e.g. attack all targets of a certain type instead of just attack 1 target; if no target: move towards point, stop and engage anything in range)
• CTRL key - controlled behavior (e.g. attack this point / target, no matter what it is; aka. ground fire)
• SHIFT-ALT - alternate add behavior (e.g. also attack all targets of this additional type)
• SHIFT-CTRL - controlled add behavior (e.g. also attack this other point, group splits fire across the two points
• CTRL-ALT - alternate controlled behavior (e.g. area attack)
• SHIFT-CTRL-ALT - add alternate controlled behaviod (also attack this other area, group splits fire)

Examples for the move command:

• no modifier key - default behavior
• SHIFT key - add behavior (e.g. also / later move to this point)
• ALT key - alternate behavior (e.g. move as a group / in formation)
• CTRL key - controlled behavior (e.g. move forward at all cost, move in as direct a line as possible, only stop when directly in front of a blockade and no trivial way around it)
• SHIFT-ALT - alternate add behavior (e.g. also move here in formation)
• SHIFT-CTRL - controlled add behavior (e.g. also move here in the most direct fashion possible)
• CTRL-ALT - alternate controlled behavior (e.g. move as group, but again as straight as possible)
• SHIFT-CTRL-ALT - add alternate controlled behaviod (also move here as a group as directly as possible)

These are just suggestions, but a solid modifier system would be nice to have. SupCom was big improvement over TA, which was a big improvement over other games.

I think the jury is still out whether unit states (like Roam / Hold Position, etc.) are actually as good as they seem (I didn't like the ground attack toggle in SupCom at all, and I didn't like how in TA, without hold position, defensive lines were difficult to micro, kind of like herding cats).

I'd rather have ad-hoc modifiers to my unit commands as I issue them, either way.