If they'd have interviewed Cliffy B. it would have had a lot more whining and crying about piracy and that's why they're not gonna develop for the PC anymore, etc. :?
Guest-22: Hey there Chris, I can't wait for the game and LAN play is a big part of it for me, sometimes over vLAN too, so I was wondering if you could go into more detail about how that will work with Steam?
ChrisT-Square: Steam is really awesome, and much more so than I thought when I first started working with it. It's so seamless, that you don't even think about some of the old school ways of doing things. My favorite is just inviting a friend to play, and no matter what they are doing, they can accept my invitation and jump into my lobby! It's really smooth!
Guest-3: Cool thx Chris. Will there be a pc demo pre-release?
ChrisT-Square: Yes, and we'll release the date shortly!
...
Guest-51: What about the Xbox demo, same time?
ChrisT-Square: The Xbox demo is due to come out a week or so later, as the street date is set for later in March.
...
Guest-61: So the PC demo already has a date ? If so, when ?
ChrisT-Square: Okay, just checked, and it's looking like Feb 24th! and for the 360 it's March 4th. However, take those with a grain of salt, as anything can go wonky to delay those a few more days. Just saying!
So from the sound of it, it looks like the game is having full integration with your Steam friends list. Which means you can see people that are online and doing whatever, and send them an invite straight to your game like you can in Left 4 Dead. Which is pretty awesome. Certainly a lot better than GFWL friends features, which you need to be in-game to even be able to access.
And hey, there's a demo coming, I didn't really know that. The interview is actually from today or yesterday, so I'm surprised that there's supposed to be a demo coming out tomorrow, or within the next few days. At the least it's likely to drop before the game releases. The demo will apparently be singleplayer but from some of the later missions in the game so it's not just training stuff.
Also:
Guest-2: Chris will the UEF submersible aircraft return in SC2?
ChrisT-Square: Yes, and we've increased the capacity! And speaking of Naval, all of the Cybran naval units can crawl on land now too.
Hahaha. So I guess the UEF are the only side with a dedicated "Navy" Navy.
He also said you can e-mail him at crackedout@gaspowered.com if you've got more questions / comments and he'll try to answer. Which is a very "Valve" thing to do.
Also also, if we have any 360 players here, I'd be interested in hearing your opinion of the 360 version when the demo lands. Chris Taylor claims they've done a good job, but RTS's are notoriously difficult to do on the platform.
Game is fun, I like it a lot more than the original. They did a good job. Can't say much more at this time though. 360 version runs pretty well too, the controls are awesome.
This post is all I can find on this thread about the 360 version first hand.
I'm just wondering if whether even if they do have a really good interface that makes the 360 version work well, whether there's going to be audience for the style of game they're offering.
IIRC Halo Wars didn't do all that brilliantly, and that's from arguably the 360's chief franchise. Then again, it's possible that Starcraft fever could stoke a bit more interest in RTS's on the 360 in general. I have little doubt that a lot of studios are going to "re-discover" the RTS once Blizzard releases Starcraft 2.
I'm not surprised. If you have the choice, obviously go for PC, but I like the option to get it for the 360 if my computer is just too bad. Option here meaning it doesn't feel like you're punishing yourself.
I got the first from Gamefly on 360 and holy fuck, I played about then minutes before shutting it off. The framerate plummeted when my four bombers attacked a small scout.
What I really wish they would add to supreme commander is intelligent subcommanders. So, if you built a second command unit, you could march it over to an area and say "Using 10% of my available resource flow, secure this area" or "Using 15% of my available resource flow, harass the enemies left flank here" or "Using these units, support my attack on this base in 15 minutes" or "Minimizing losses, assault this position and secure it within 30 minutes"
Making you the true 'Supreme Commander' and allowing conflicts of truly titanic scale. You might be commanding an assault position yourself, while a subcommander held the line on another continent to defend your main base, and a second one exploited resources far to the south to produce air units to support you directly.
Game is fun, I like it a lot more than the original. They did a good job. Can't say much more at this time though. 360 version runs pretty well too, the controls are awesome.
This post is all I can find on this thread about the 360 version first hand.
There are quick shortcuts to select all units of a certain type on screen (Air/Navy/Land), you can also double tap on a unit and it will select all units of that type on the screen. The build screen is where you can see like idle building units and cycle through them (which is awesome), and I'm trying to think of more specifics but overall it just felt really good. If I didn't have a PC capable of handling the game, then I would probably be just fine with the 360 version frmo what I lpayed. Obviously the 360 version isn't as pretty as the PC version, but it runs smooth. Some of the UI even changes if you are running at lower resolutios (480p) so that you can actually read/see things.
I don't have much to say about the specs, the PCs we played on were all beastly and ran the game maxed with full everything, I have no idea what the specifics were.
What I really wish they would add to supreme commander is intelligent subcommanders. So, if you built a second command unit, you could march it over to an area and say "Using 10% of my available resource flow, secure this area" or "Using 15% of my available resource flow, harass the enemies left flank here" or "Using these units, support my attack on this base in 15 minutes" or "Minimizing losses, assault this position and secure it within 30 minutes"
Making you the true 'Supreme Commander' and allowing conflicts of truly titanic scale. You might be commanding an assault position yourself, while a subcommander held the line on another continent to defend your main base, and a second one exploited resources far to the south to produce air units to support you directly.
That kind of AI is way beyond what most games are even capable of at the moment. I'm tempted to say it's an AI challenge beyond games in general right now. How do you define a "flank"? Where does it start and end? How am I supposed to intelligently maximise the usage of these units that you've given me in order to support you the best? It's not just a case of giving the right command instruction tools to the player (although that's a big part), the AI needs to be able to contextually interpret the orders.
I mean intelligent sub-commanders is also something I've wanted for years now, so that it's more a case of overall command instead of concentrating on the smaller stuff, but we're not there yet, and we probably won't be there for a long time yet.
I forget how useful they actually were but I remember a game that noone played called Conquest: Frontier Wars that had sub-commanders like that. It was actually pretty handy at least in Single Player.
I forget how useful they actually were but I remember a game that noone played called Conquest: Frontier Wars that had sub-commanders like that. It was actually pretty handy at least in Single Player.
What I really wish they would add to supreme commander is intelligent subcommanders. So, if you built a second command unit, you could march it over to an area and say "Using 10% of my available resource flow, secure this area" or "Using 15% of my available resource flow, harass the enemies left flank here" or "Using these units, support my attack on this base in 15 minutes" or "Minimizing losses, assault this position and secure it within 30 minutes"
Making you the true 'Supreme Commander' and allowing conflicts of truly titanic scale. You might be commanding an assault position yourself, while a subcommander held the line on another continent to defend your main base, and a second one exploited resources far to the south to produce air units to support you directly.
That kind of AI is way beyond what most games are even capable of at the moment. I'm tempted to say it's an AI challenge beyond games in general right now. How do you define a "flank"? Where does it start and end? How am I supposed to intelligently maximise the usage of these units that you've given me in order to support you the best? It's not just a case of giving the right command instruction tools to the player (although that's a big part), the AI needs to be able to contextually interpret the orders.
I mean intelligent sub-commanders is also something I've wanted for years now, so that it's more a case of overall command instead of concentrating on the smaller stuff, but we're not there yet, and we probably won't be there for a long time yet.
Here are 300 metal per second and 300 energy per second. Attack the waypoint I have indicated. Destroy everything within 3000 meters of it using your own choice of targets. Complexities in wording were how a human would think of the order. Any of those orders could be given with simple logic steps.
Honestly, it's trivial. The computer already leads attacks and chooses targets, if you gave it it's strategic goal. The AI is already good at choosing targets, and minimizing losses etc, if you told it a simple order then it could implement it since it already does so for it's own side. It chooses targets, sets build orders, tries to adapt to your plans etc.
What I really wish they would add to supreme commander is intelligent subcommanders. So, if you built a second command unit, you could march it over to an area and say "Using 10% of my available resource flow, secure this area" or "Using 15% of my available resource flow, harass the enemies left flank here" or "Using these units, support my attack on this base in 15 minutes" or "Minimizing losses, assault this position and secure it within 30 minutes"
Making you the true 'Supreme Commander' and allowing conflicts of truly titanic scale. You might be commanding an assault position yourself, while a subcommander held the line on another continent to defend your main base, and a second one exploited resources far to the south to produce air units to support you directly.
That kind of AI is way beyond what most games are even capable of at the moment. I'm tempted to say it's an AI challenge beyond games in general right now. How do you define a "flank"? Where does it start and end? How am I supposed to intelligently maximise the usage of these units that you've given me in order to support you the best? It's not just a case of giving the right command instruction tools to the player (although that's a big part), the AI needs to be able to contextually interpret the orders.
I mean intelligent sub-commanders is also something I've wanted for years now, so that it's more a case of overall command instead of concentrating on the smaller stuff, but we're not there yet, and we probably won't be there for a long time yet.
Here are 300 metal per second and 300 energy per second. Attack the waypoint I have indicated. Destroy everything within 3000 meters of it using your own choice of targets. Complexities in wording were how a human would think of the order. Any of those orders could be given with simple logic steps.
The thing is once you get to that stage, I honestly wouldn't trust the AI to carry out those orders, at least not unless it was very complex. How would it judge whether it's best to attack with land / sea / air units? Which parts of the enemy's defence should it focus on first? What if it's hammering against a brick wall, does it know what it's doing wrong? Or it's accomplishing the task but in a ridiculously slow manner because there are more obvious and easier tactics to adopt? Does it understand to keep units at different ranges, and to adapt its units and tactics depending on whether it should stay outside the enemy field of fire, or whether it should charge in? Does it understand what to do when a counter-attack happens? Does it understand to be prepared for a counter-attack or specific counter-strategies?
AI as it exists in RTS's doesn't know how to formulate strategy, it just knows how to work with pre-defined scenarios and contexts. And once you start telling it to work on its own, you need to define a LOT of case scenarios.
As things currently stand, people complain about what limited autonomy the AI is given in RTS's today. Take cover auto-seek in DoW2 for example. It's a simple thing, and a good idea in theory for a unit to head to cover in its immediate area. The thing is there are loads of scenarios where this falls down:
- The AI units move out of the position you wanted them in.
- The cover is close to the enemy so they're at greater risk now.
- The cover is farther from the enemy and so out of range.
- Moving to cover stops them from firing or makes ranged accuracy less efficient
- In the short time they were moving forwards towards the enemy (before you could override them), they got too close to the charging enemy army and got engaged in melee (this one probably happens the most).
- The units get into cover but it's actually on the wrong side of it. Or otherwise they don't understand how to maximise their cover when being attacked from specific directions or from two flanks.
That's just for one simple instruction: Telling the AI to move to nearby cover. It still needs huge amounts of contextual understanding and tweaking in order to perform correctly. Organising a full blown attack on an enemy position is something I don't think AI as it's currently used is really capable of yet, at least not in RTS's.
What I really wish they would add to supreme commander is intelligent subcommanders. So, if you built a second command unit, you could march it over to an area and say "Using 10% of my available resource flow, secure this area" or "Using 15% of my available resource flow, harass the enemies left flank here" or "Using these units, support my attack on this base in 15 minutes" or "Minimizing losses, assault this position and secure it within 30 minutes"
Making you the true 'Supreme Commander' and allowing conflicts of truly titanic scale. You might be commanding an assault position yourself, while a subcommander held the line on another continent to defend your main base, and a second one exploited resources far to the south to produce air units to support you directly.
That kind of AI is way beyond what most games are even capable of at the moment. I'm tempted to say it's an AI challenge beyond games in general right now. How do you define a "flank"? Where does it start and end? How am I supposed to intelligently maximise the usage of these units that you've given me in order to support you the best? It's not just a case of giving the right command instruction tools to the player (although that's a big part), the AI needs to be able to contextually interpret the orders.
I mean intelligent sub-commanders is also something I've wanted for years now, so that it's more a case of overall command instead of concentrating on the smaller stuff, but we're not there yet, and we probably won't be there for a long time yet.
Here are 300 metal per second and 300 energy per second. Attack the waypoint I have indicated. Destroy everything within 3000 meters of it using your own choice of targets. Complexities in wording were how a human would think of the order. Any of those orders could be given with simple logic steps.
The thing is once you get to that stage, I honestly wouldn't trust the AI to carry out those orders, at least not unless it was very complex. How would it judge whether it's best to attack with land / sea / air units? Which parts of the enemy's defence should it focus on first? What if it's hammering against a brick wall, does it know what it's doing wrong? Or it's accomplishing the task but in a ridiculously slow manner because there are more obvious and easier tactics to adopt? Does it understand to keep units at different ranges, and to adapt its units and tactics depending on whether it should stay outside the enemy field of fire, or whether it should charge in? Does it understand what to do when a counter-attack happens? Does it understand to be prepared for a counter-attack or specific counter-strategies?
AI as it exists in RTS's doesn't know how to formulate strategy, it just knows how to work with pre-defined scenarios and contexts. And once you start telling it to work on its own, you need to define a LOT of case scenarios.
As things currently stand, people complain about what limited autonomy the AI is given in RTS's today. Take cover auto-seek in DoW2 for example. It's a simple thing, and a good idea in theory for a unit to head to cover in its immediate area. The thing is there are loads of scenarios where this falls down:
- The AI units move out of the position you wanted them in.
- The cover is close to the enemy so they're at greater risk now.
- The cover is farther from the enemy and so out of range.
- Moving to cover stops them from firing or makes ranged accuracy less efficient
- In the short time they were moving forwards towards the enemy (before you could override them), they got too close to the charging enemy army and got engaged in melee (this one probably happens the most).
- The units get into cover but it's actually on the wrong side of it. Or otherwise they don't understand how to maximise their cover when being attacked from specific directions or from two flanks.
That's just for one simple instruction: Telling the AI to move to nearby cover. It still needs huge amounts of contextual understanding and tweaking in order to perform correctly. Organising a full blown attack on an enemy position is something I don't think AI as it's currently used is really capable of yet, at least not in RTS's.
Except for the fact that the AI does organise attacks on enemy positions all the time. Yours. It builds units, attacks, defends, tries to flank and scout. Furthermore, by giving a limited operational scope you make it much easier for the AI. The overall enemy AI operates with the vague order of 'Win', your subcommander AI simply has to follow your orders. I don't expect it to do anywhere near as well as a human, I just want to know my units and resources are being used to a better effect than I could alone on a massive scale conflict.
The AI cheats to put it mildly. It has vast resources from nowhere and IIRC a total map knowledge, and even then, its attack orders are limited to how many units it can bring to bear on a point, which is why it's so easy to counter (just build a wall of static defences in its way). It doesn't understand how to attack a layered defence. And its defence of its own bases is usually pretty bad unless it's the SP campaign, where somebody actually too the time to map out its defences.
I want to be able to give attack orders like that to my sub-commanders, or even just economics ones like "make my economy better" (I think that one would actually be pretty feasible). But I think unless it was a core game mechanic (as in, you took no or little direct control yourself), or the AI was vastly improved, people would just see the whole thing as something to be avoided, or actively complain about the many bone-headed things it then proceeded to do.
My biggest complaint about the first game was scroll to zoom to mouse location ala Sins of a Solar Empire. God this game needs that.
My other complaint was how navies don't act like navies. On their own they don't maneuver. They roll up to the enemy, stop, and shoot. They won't react to things they can't fight, like a submarine. Destroyers just sit there and fire depth charges. Almost everything for the water units weapons was a projectile but the A.I. would not dodge.
If they fix that then I'm a happy man. Ships should be going all over the place, twisting to get into fire positions or scooting to avoid torpedoes. They need to MOVE.
Sonar on
I'm building a real pirate ship. Really. Wanna help? Click here!
caffron said: "and cat pee is not a laughing matter"
I agree but there is something so satisfying when you watch the shell travel across the damn map to hit their reactor farm in the face.
Not to mention that the round looks like a cartoon bullet, like bullet bill with a spiral trail. Makes me think that this is happening in the enemy base. Also fantastic is setting off the chain reaction of tech 3 power plants in the enemy base.
The AI cheats to put it mildly. It has vast resources from nowhere and IIRC a total map knowledge, and even then, its attack orders are limited to how many units it can bring to bear on a point, which is why it's so easy to counter (just build a wall of static defences in its way). It doesn't understand how to attack a layered defence. And its defence of its own bases is usually pretty bad unless it's the SP campaign, where somebody actually too the time to map out its defences.
I want to be able to give attack orders like that to my sub-commanders, or even just economics ones like "make my economy better" (I think that one would actually be pretty feasible). But I think unless it was a core game mechanic (as in, you took no or little direct control yourself), or the AI was vastly improved, people would just see the whole thing as something to be avoided, or actively complain about the many bone-headed things it then proceeded to do.
But the AI is bad precisely because it's scope is large. It doesn't understand that making sacrifice A here is a disaster and that you should actually attack over here. You as a player do, but might not have the time to manage the attack.
Hell, even an AI general would be useful, so you could select a group of units and say 'Prioritize anti air units' to use a ground assault to soften up a target for air units. Then when you moved them in, their passive targetting would pick an anti air capable unit if one was around.
What I'd really like is an RTS where all the commands and UI are in an accessible scripting language, so that players could put together their own commands, input methods, etc. I remember being really frustrated in Dune 2 that the AI harvesters were so much better at murdering infantry just because the player couldn't be everywhere. Or in Warcraft 1 because there was no reason archers couldn't kite normal infantry, or mobile troops get out of the way of catapult fire, except that player attention thing.
Ideally, players could write their own default behaviors for units to perform such actions automatically. If writing a script to "attack the left flank draw out the anti-air units and then destroy the power generators and leave" is hard, even "cycle units wounded to 50% to the medic" would be a good start. Or even something stupid, like "build 52 crap tanks and spell 'cocksdickslol'". A behavior that says "targets being shot at should run away from enemies, and everyone not being shot at should attack" might force the other player to revise his unit behaviors so that units pick random targets instead of fixating on the initial target.
For controls, players could design their own buttons and menus, set up complicated keyboard macros, type commands into the console, whatever. Like ~b(24bo,10fi),a(mouse click) to build 24 bombers and 10 fighters and then click on the map to tell them where to attack once they've all been built. Or maybe it's more effective to have a right click on an enemy unit and have a menu that gives you options like "Artillery attack with..." "Close range attack with..." with nested menus. Or maybe not, whatever.
If you already know your build order, the game could let you just click where you wants the buildings to go and then just follow the script so that you don't have to hold the game's hand for menial work. Unit groups and names, so that in the previous example ~b(24bo,10fi)"Alpha" would automatically name the group "Alpha" for later use (bring Alpha here, double Alpha's size, delete Alpha). Let players edit the scripts in text files so that they're can be easily shared and edited outside of the game, or set up preset unit groups such that ~b("BombGroup") automatically builds 24 bombers and 10 fighters.
Even for basic readouts like metal harvested, time played, etc. players could set up their own readouts to show it took this many minutes to build up this much production, or log it for future reference. I think WoW has a ton of this kind of thing? The idea would be to give players whatever tools they need to put their strategies into action, and speed up the evolution of RTS controls. SupCom's automatic transport ferrying was cool and all, but it's the kind of thing that I want to be able to think of and implement instead of waiting for the developers to do it for me.
This riveting, first-look opportunity for consumers will contain two levels of the tutorial as well as two missions for the United Earth Federation (UEF), one of the three factions of the Colonial Defense
It's not different from original supcom like I'd expected, it's just old supcom with pieces cut off.
Oh, there's a tech tree added which is ok I guess. Seriously, that's the only thing that is actually new. It also runs slightly smoother than Forged alliance.
Wow, I'm actually blown away by how thoroughly mediocre this title is.
Posts
Anyway, since I'm info-dumping, may as well throw this interview out there:
http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?p=735481#735481
Some choice quotes:
So from the sound of it, it looks like the game is having full integration with your Steam friends list. Which means you can see people that are online and doing whatever, and send them an invite straight to your game like you can in Left 4 Dead. Which is pretty awesome. Certainly a lot better than GFWL friends features, which you need to be in-game to even be able to access.
And hey, there's a demo coming, I didn't really know that. The interview is actually from today or yesterday, so I'm surprised that there's supposed to be a demo coming out tomorrow, or within the next few days. At the least it's likely to drop before the game releases. The demo will apparently be singleplayer but from some of the later missions in the game so it's not just training stuff.
Also:
Hahaha. So I guess the UEF are the only side with a dedicated "Navy" Navy.
He also said you can e-mail him at crackedout@gaspowered.com if you've got more questions / comments and he'll try to answer. Which is a very "Valve" thing to do.
Also also, if we have any 360 players here, I'd be interested in hearing your opinion of the 360 version when the demo lands. Chris Taylor claims they've done a good job, but RTS's are notoriously difficult to do on the platform.
This post is all I can find on this thread about the 360 version first hand.
IIRC Halo Wars didn't do all that brilliantly, and that's from arguably the 360's chief franchise. Then again, it's possible that Starcraft fever could stoke a bit more interest in RTS's on the 360 in general. I have little doubt that a lot of studios are going to "re-discover" the RTS once Blizzard releases Starcraft 2.
I got the first from Gamefly on 360 and holy fuck, I played about then minutes before shutting it off. The framerate plummeted when my four bombers attacked a small scout.
Making you the true 'Supreme Commander' and allowing conflicts of truly titanic scale. You might be commanding an assault position yourself, while a subcommander held the line on another continent to defend your main base, and a second one exploited resources far to the south to produce air units to support you directly.
There are quick shortcuts to select all units of a certain type on screen (Air/Navy/Land), you can also double tap on a unit and it will select all units of that type on the screen. The build screen is where you can see like idle building units and cycle through them (which is awesome), and I'm trying to think of more specifics but overall it just felt really good. If I didn't have a PC capable of handling the game, then I would probably be just fine with the 360 version frmo what I lpayed. Obviously the 360 version isn't as pretty as the PC version, but it runs smooth. Some of the UI even changes if you are running at lower resolutios (480p) so that you can actually read/see things.
I don't have much to say about the specs, the PCs we played on were all beastly and ran the game maxed with full everything, I have no idea what the specifics were.
That kind of AI is way beyond what most games are even capable of at the moment. I'm tempted to say it's an AI challenge beyond games in general right now. How do you define a "flank"? Where does it start and end? How am I supposed to intelligently maximise the usage of these units that you've given me in order to support you the best? It's not just a case of giving the right command instruction tools to the player (although that's a big part), the AI needs to be able to contextually interpret the orders.
I mean intelligent sub-commanders is also something I've wanted for years now, so that it's more a case of overall command instead of concentrating on the smaller stuff, but we're not there yet, and we probably won't be there for a long time yet.
Hey
Conquest was the shit.
Where's my fucking demo?
Pleeeaaaase?
Here are 300 metal per second and 300 energy per second. Attack the waypoint I have indicated. Destroy everything within 3000 meters of it using your own choice of targets. Complexities in wording were how a human would think of the order. Any of those orders could be given with simple logic steps.
Honestly, it's trivial. The computer already leads attacks and chooses targets, if you gave it it's strategic goal. The AI is already good at choosing targets, and minimizing losses etc, if you told it a simple order then it could implement it since it already does so for it's own side. It chooses targets, sets build orders, tries to adapt to your plans etc.
The thing is once you get to that stage, I honestly wouldn't trust the AI to carry out those orders, at least not unless it was very complex. How would it judge whether it's best to attack with land / sea / air units? Which parts of the enemy's defence should it focus on first? What if it's hammering against a brick wall, does it know what it's doing wrong? Or it's accomplishing the task but in a ridiculously slow manner because there are more obvious and easier tactics to adopt? Does it understand to keep units at different ranges, and to adapt its units and tactics depending on whether it should stay outside the enemy field of fire, or whether it should charge in? Does it understand what to do when a counter-attack happens? Does it understand to be prepared for a counter-attack or specific counter-strategies?
AI as it exists in RTS's doesn't know how to formulate strategy, it just knows how to work with pre-defined scenarios and contexts. And once you start telling it to work on its own, you need to define a LOT of case scenarios.
As things currently stand, people complain about what limited autonomy the AI is given in RTS's today. Take cover auto-seek in DoW2 for example. It's a simple thing, and a good idea in theory for a unit to head to cover in its immediate area. The thing is there are loads of scenarios where this falls down:
- The AI units move out of the position you wanted them in.
- The cover is close to the enemy so they're at greater risk now.
- The cover is farther from the enemy and so out of range.
- Moving to cover stops them from firing or makes ranged accuracy less efficient
- In the short time they were moving forwards towards the enemy (before you could override them), they got too close to the charging enemy army and got engaged in melee (this one probably happens the most).
- The units get into cover but it's actually on the wrong side of it. Or otherwise they don't understand how to maximise their cover when being attacked from specific directions or from two flanks.
That's just for one simple instruction: Telling the AI to move to nearby cover. It still needs huge amounts of contextual understanding and tweaking in order to perform correctly. Organising a full blown attack on an enemy position is something I don't think AI as it's currently used is really capable of yet, at least not in RTS's.
Except for the fact that the AI does organise attacks on enemy positions all the time. Yours. It builds units, attacks, defends, tries to flank and scout. Furthermore, by giving a limited operational scope you make it much easier for the AI. The overall enemy AI operates with the vague order of 'Win', your subcommander AI simply has to follow your orders. I don't expect it to do anywhere near as well as a human, I just want to know my units and resources are being used to a better effect than I could alone on a massive scale conflict.
I want to be able to give attack orders like that to my sub-commanders, or even just economics ones like "make my economy better" (I think that one would actually be pretty feasible). But I think unless it was a core game mechanic (as in, you took no or little direct control yourself), or the AI was vastly improved, people would just see the whole thing as something to be avoided, or actively complain about the many bone-headed things it then proceeded to do.
My other complaint was how navies don't act like navies. On their own they don't maneuver. They roll up to the enemy, stop, and shoot. They won't react to things they can't fight, like a submarine. Destroyers just sit there and fire depth charges. Almost everything for the water units weapons was a projectile but the A.I. would not dodge.
If they fix that then I'm a happy man. Ships should be going all over the place, twisting to get into fire positions or scooting to avoid torpedoes. They need to MOVE.
caffron said: "and cat pee is not a laughing matter"
Not to mention that the round looks like a cartoon bullet, like bullet bill with a spiral trail. Makes me think that this is happening in the enemy base. Also fantastic is setting off the chain reaction of tech 3 power plants in the enemy base.
But the AI is bad precisely because it's scope is large. It doesn't understand that making sacrifice A here is a disaster and that you should actually attack over here. You as a player do, but might not have the time to manage the attack.
Hell, even an AI general would be useful, so you could select a group of units and say 'Prioritize anti air units' to use a ground assault to soften up a target for air units. Then when you moved them in, their passive targetting would pick an anti air capable unit if one was around.
Ideally, players could write their own default behaviors for units to perform such actions automatically. If writing a script to "attack the left flank draw out the anti-air units and then destroy the power generators and leave" is hard, even "cycle units wounded to 50% to the medic" would be a good start. Or even something stupid, like "build 52 crap tanks and spell 'cocksdickslol'". A behavior that says "targets being shot at should run away from enemies, and everyone not being shot at should attack" might force the other player to revise his unit behaviors so that units pick random targets instead of fixating on the initial target.
For controls, players could design their own buttons and menus, set up complicated keyboard macros, type commands into the console, whatever. Like ~b(24bo,10fi),a(mouse click) to build 24 bombers and 10 fighters and then click on the map to tell them where to attack once they've all been built. Or maybe it's more effective to have a right click on an enemy unit and have a menu that gives you options like "Artillery attack with..." "Close range attack with..." with nested menus. Or maybe not, whatever.
If you already know your build order, the game could let you just click where you wants the buildings to go and then just follow the script so that you don't have to hold the game's hand for menial work. Unit groups and names, so that in the previous example ~b(24bo,10fi)"Alpha" would automatically name the group "Alpha" for later use (bring Alpha here, double Alpha's size, delete Alpha). Let players edit the scripts in text files so that they're can be easily shared and edited outside of the game, or set up preset unit groups such that ~b("BombGroup") automatically builds 24 bombers and 10 fighters.
Even for basic readouts like metal harvested, time played, etc. players could set up their own readouts to show it took this many minutes to build up this much production, or log it for future reference. I think WoW has a ton of this kind of thing? The idea would be to give players whatever tools they need to put their strategies into action, and speed up the evolution of RTS controls. SupCom's automatic transport ferrying was cool and all, but it's the kind of thing that I want to be able to think of and implement instead of waiting for the developers to do it for me.
http://store.steampowered.com/news/3515/
So far I built some battleships and a submersible aircraft carrier, so it's still SupCom I guess?
I only played the demo of SupCom 1 so I'm not really the best person to compare the two. I will say that the up-front spending feels very strange.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
It's not different from original supcom like I'd expected, it's just old supcom with pieces cut off.
Oh, there's a tech tree added which is ok I guess. Seriously, that's the only thing that is actually new. It also runs slightly smoother than Forged alliance.
Wow, I'm actually blown away by how thoroughly mediocre this title is.
Unfortunately not which is my main draw to this game, but I'll take what I can get at this point.