Making the Commander Late Game Viable

This is simple- the commander needs the same capability as the commander in TA, no more no less.

The key ability he currently lacks? The cloak!

In TA the cloak used too much power for early game (although in the hands of a pro + lots of e storage you could selectively use it for a few seconds at key moments). Late game you have the energy supply to support it.

The key difference it makes is simple- the PA commanders uber cannon is good (not quite as powerful as a D-Gun but still packs a punch) but is seriously out-ranged by almost everything. Add a cloak to the mix and you can get him in close for an uber cannon attack, then retreat and re-cloack before he's blown up. It also means that to kill off a commander late game you first need to disable your opponents power supply rather than just going for a snipe with aircraft. As far as I can tell the PA commander otherwise has all the standard abilities (build, repair, capture, light gun, Uber cannon, basic radar etc).

The other point- these abilities should be common to all types of commander just as in TA between arm and core. At the end of the day this change would make him much more formidable which makes sense as the game revolves around the commander. I agree that reducing micro in general is a good idea but I think its OK for the commander to have a couple of killer abilities. Now combine this with some form of radar jamming and you open up possibilities of some really awesome commander moves (sneak into enemy base under cloak / radar cover then uber cannon some t2 reactors...)

The TA cloak was insanely fickle and could be broken by just about anything. It was not useful on the offense, as revealing your Comm usually meant that he was screwed.

The TA cloak however solves many issues such as with air sniping and Comm trading. It does help the comm rush, but that can be addressed player side with chokepoints, scouts and walling.

I can't believe I forgot about be comm cloak! Damn. I don't remember if combining the Cloak with a Radar Jammer would make the Comm entirely invisible, but it should.

But yeah, this would be an excellent solution to the current problem of the Comm being too vulnerable to being Snipered. The only issue that might arise from it is that it would increase the priority of Power Generators in the eyes of players... Which may end up resulting in a health buff to PGens, because currently they are very vulnerable to Catapults, raiding bots and Bomberswarms. And how do you find the comm? Blow up the power gens.

Comm cloak should also cost a decent amount of power, 10k or maybe even 15k.

and this is favorable to newbs... :|

I don't care, but the counter to that is bound to require more micro. ...so pick your poison

(I'm really all go for cloaking, don't diss me on that I'd love it but I'd feel guilty using it against newbs, kinda like the czar ground fire...)

Other options are also possible such as carpet bombing, combing the ground with scouts, or flat out nuking anything and everything.

Comms aren't terribly fast so once they're found, it's a simple matter of focusing on the area until you get them.

Nah. That's WAY too expensive. Cloaking the Commander is mutually exclusive with doing anything else and benefiting from the Comm's other options. The dagger can be driven in further by:
- stopping metal and/or energy production.
- blindness to deter solo expeditions
and all the other bad things that happened with the TA cloak. Then you only need a cost closer to 4-8K. Even then, the higher cost of staying hidden will put the defender at a growing disadvantage.

The solution to news is to have a tutorial that explains cloaking mechanics thoroughly. Obviously this isn't feasible in an Alpha where everything is changing, and the devs are too busy devving to help out newbies.

Also, by that logic Tatsu, you should feel guilty using anything but wallspam and PD spam against newbies

Edit: I like discussing with you Bobocules, it's fun. You're assuming that the Commander with a cloak will always be on the defensive. I'm assuming a fair game where primary conflict is over raiding metal points, and the game will most likely be won by tankblobbing the enemy's economy or a bombersnipe. The cloak would make an excellent counter to bombersnipes, which would be a solution to that problem without nerfing the already expensive, fragile T2 Bombers.

:lol: I fell guilty, doesn't mean I'm not going to do it

Im pretty sure that the commander is too viable right now the last thing he needs is a buff lol. generally when one is killed its because of a giant army of tanks or a bunch of t2 bombers both of which should be able to kill a com. If he were more powerful what would stop people from just upgrading him the whole time and using him rather than actually making armies?

The primary reason the Comm is killed by a big blob of tanks or T2 Bombers is because he has an honor guard consisting of a few hundred tanks and 50+ Fighters. They have to be through those first to kill the Comm.

He's actually very fragile. Catch him off-guard with 4 Levelers and you can inflict some serious damage. Heck, I sometimes get a Commsnipe with Slammers, those things do insane amounts of damage.

r u kiddin? here I KILL with 4 t2 tanks http://youtu.be/ZIOvXdK6Dr4?t=3m4s

=D

really I don't think the com has any late game viability.

That's because we can't send him to other Planets/Moons/Asteroids yet.

Mike

Just a half assed idea. What if there was a decoy commander?

What if it looked like your commander, only had the operated like a t1 fabber, and cost as more than a t2 fabber?

Then you could send those tactically into combat behind your army to draw your opponent into combat, or keep several around your base besides towers to bait a failsnipe.

Then, if you do something with your commander, the enemy will also have to suspect it could be a fake, suddenly making him plausible to use in combat.

Do you play R.U.S.E. by any chance?

TA had Decoy Commanders, except that the enemy could click on them and clearly see "Decoy Commander". I guess it was for balance or something, kinda lame though.

I hope PA has quality Decoy Commanders, good gods are they fun to play with.

or supreme commander?

Hi all, I've been perusing alot of the posts, seeing if there's anything interesting I can contribute.

Noooo you are wrong (I think), the decoy commanders had exactly the same name as the commander, which was your name, whatever it was. Except unlike support commanders in Forged alliance, decoy commanders could only attack with a regular laser, and help assist construction.

I'm not going to double post, so here's where I got this thread from
https://forums.uberent.com/threads/super-units-as-exo-suit.44581/page-9

Basically, I wonder if as a solution to "megabot", there is some kind of commander specific not-upgrade.
maybe exo suit, which provides a level of finality to battles. Maybe take it off in order to transport between planets? Point being, it'd be the mega weapon like the krogoth/monkeylord/etc etc, but at the same time, you'd still be protecting it, because if it died you lose. So even though it "can" go on the front lines up against waves of advanced units and artillery and tanks, doesn't necessarily mean you want it to.

I wonder if that's an interesting compromise between lategame megabot and lategame commander viability
without breaking the game. You wouldn't have the problem of spamming "x unit=win" and I'm sure many of the other balance issues are fairly minor compared to that. Since there's obviously a demand for bigger units like the krogoth, and there's obviously concerns about balancing it against orbital and dropping moons and asteroids on your neighbour. So, rather than simply giving a megabot, or simply giving the commander an upgrade, make the commander upgrade 'the' megabot.

Yes I do know I'm pretty much restating both these posts in one neat little summary.
But I'm hoping by putting it all in one bit it'll catch the imagination a bit better and get people thinking more creatively. I'd never considered mixing the 2 like that until i read them concurrently.

Woah! Thread resurrection!

Keep in mind that the Commander is not supposed to be viable late game.

Also. Commander cloaks are coming.

"Let's make our ultimate weapon of self-replicating war out of tin-foil so he won't be any use in an actual war" Makes sense to me.

Generals and leaders of war aren't supposed to be on the front lines. They're not supposed to be of any use in combat. Their use isn't in their guns, but in their coordination and leadership.

I don't get why people want to put their Commander on the front lines. If the commander dies, you lose the game. It is not supposed to be on the front lines.

This is different. You're taking the "commander" term a little too literally. You're forgetting this the first unit deployed, the one that makes everything else. It even has a fairly powerful weapon. It's clearly designed for fieldwork, not a desk job.