Supreme Commander: The Annihilation is Total

DeadOnArrival

Supreme Commander has been released! It came out on the 16th in the UK and the rest of Europe. The US release date is set as the 20th February.

Time to get our games on and start making a player list. Someone more dedicated than me should probably make the PA Clan too.

GPG Net Names:
PA Name - GPG Net
DeadOnArrival - DeadOnArrival

Screenshots:









Latest News:

US Release (tuesday 20th)

Euro Release (friday 16th)

Demo (tuesday 6th), source: Gamespot

Demo links:
Gamespot
Fileplanet

RoyceSraphim

*SCHWING!*

YodaTuna

woohoo

bombardier

This game will be a blast to play at a LAN.

I'll probably buy it just for the game-ons (even without captain k!)

DeadOnArrival

I posted screenshots to the OP. Let me know if any aren't showing up.

Szechuanosaurus

I'm probably going to get this when I go back to work. Figure it's probably the sort of game I play play in 1 hour blasts in the evenings?

cdneger

System requirements?

You played the beta you say, what kind of system do you have?

Drez

This looks like Massive Assault to me.

Any relation?

I'm reviewing Massive Assault Network 2 for eToychest right now...this looks...intriguing.

Darmak

Szechuanosaurus wrote:

I'm probably going to get this when I go back to work. Figure it's probably the sort of game I play play in 1 hour blasts in the evenings?

I don't know about anyone else but for me the games seemed to stretch out to several hours each when I played it during beta. Of course, that may be due to how I play the game but I don't really see this as a game to play in 1 hour increments.

s3rial one

cdneger wrote:

System requirements?

You played the beta you say, what kind of system do you have?

Hellish.

But, back when I played it, it had a wicked memory leak. I'd start at 25 FPS, and 10 minutes into the map, I was down to 5 or so, and had to quit.

System was...
Radeon X800XL
A64 3500+
1GB DDR400 RAM

cdneger

s3rial one wrote:

cdneger wrote:

System requirements?

You played the beta you say, what kind of system do you have?

Hellish.

But, back when I played it, it had a wicked memory leak. I'd start at 25 FPS, and 10 minutes into the map, I was down to 5 or so, and had to quit.

System was...
Radeon X800XL
A64 3500+
1GB DDR400 RAM

I have just about the same system, but with a slightly worse processor. So, I can run it? I will probably have to cut the detail and resolution but I can run it?

Szechuanosaurus

Darmak wrote:

Szechuanosaurus wrote:

I'm probably going to get this when I go back to work. Figure it's probably the sort of game I play play in 1 hour blasts in the evenings?

I don't know about anyone else but for me the games seemed to stretch out to several hours each when I played it during beta. Of course, that may be due to how I play the game but I don't really see this as a game to play in 1 hour increments.

But playing solo I can save mid-battle though, right?

Monoxide

Drez wrote:

This looks like Massive Assault to me.

Any relation?

I'm reviewing Massive Assault Network 2 for eToychest right now...this looks...intriguing.

Not really.

I loved Massive Assault, though. I previewed the first one for eToy, it was a blast.

Rook

s3rial one wrote:

cdneger wrote:

System requirements?

You played the beta you say, what kind of system do you have?

Hellish.

But, back when I played it, it had a wicked memory leak. I'd start at 25 FPS, and 10 minutes into the map, I was down to 5 or so, and had to quit.

System was...
Radeon X800XL
A64 3500+
1GB DDR400 RAM

When you say 25fps on that system, is that with Super Low Detals, 640x480, Looks worse than the original TA etc. Or is that a reasonable level of detail.

strategery

I was just playing the beta of this yesterday . My system runs it like friggen butter, and the game is SEXY with 2 screens.

My PC

Core 2 Duo E6400
2gb PC2-5400
Sound Blaster X-Fi
eVGA 8800GTX

Doronron

On the fence on whether or not I'll actually get this. For the most part, the only style of RTS I really enjoy are Relic's CoH or W40K resource capping. However, this game does alleviate one of the problems I had with RTS's in general. It's in no way small scale.

But...

Judging from what I'm reading, my system will meet the requirements but run like ass.

So, I could finally find myself an RTS that's on a scale similar to TOAW, but be turned off by crappy framerates and conventional resource gathering.

Hmm...

DeadOnArrival

Darmak wrote:

Szechuanosaurus wrote:

I'm probably going to get this when I go back to work. Figure it's probably the sort of game I play play in 1 hour blasts in the evenings?

I don't know about anyone else but for me the games seemed to stretch out to several hours each when I played it during beta. Of course, that may be due to how I play the game but I don't really see this as a game to play in 1 hour increments.

Not really. It can happen in an evenly matched game (or a game with many players/large maps made to accomodate long games) but on 1v1s or 2v2s with land based maps that aren't too large the games can take as little as 30 minutes.

The beta worked on my machine, and was certainly playable, but I couldn't max out the settings or anything like that. Though I do believe that they have optimised it a lot more now than it was at the beginning of beta.

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
2GB DDR400 RAM
Sound Blaster Audigy
Powercolor Radeon X1800XT 512Mb

strategery

Doronron wrote:

On the fence on whether or not I'll actually get this. For the most part, the only style of RTS I really enjoy are Relic's CoH or W40K resource capping. However, this game does alleviate one of the problems I had with RTS's in general. It's in no way small scale.

But...

Judging from what I'm reading, my system will meet the requirements but run like ass.

So, I could finally find myself an RTS that's on a scale similar to TOAW, but be turned off by crappy framerates and conventional resource gathering.

Hmm...

Actually the resource gathering really isn't conventional. There's little points all acrossed the map that you go and build shit on top of them(I can't think of their name for the life of me for some reason). The only resource that is really conventional is just the power resource you collect by building, get this, power generators in your base :P.

Think WH40k/CoH Resource capping, only instead of capping a point you just build something on top of said point.

Drez

Monoxide wrote:

Drez wrote:

This looks like Massive Assault to me.

Any relation?

I'm reviewing Massive Assault Network 2 for eToychest right now...this looks...intriguing.

Not really.

I loved Massive Assault, though. I previewed the first one for eToy, it was a blast.

I think I reviewed Domination - the sequel. I have to play MAN2 later. Anyway, the game in the OP looks good.

s3rial one

Rook wrote:

s3rial one wrote:

cdneger wrote:

System requirements?

You played the beta you say, what kind of system do you have?

Hellish.

But, back when I played it, it had a wicked memory leak. I'd start at 25 FPS, and 10 minutes into the map, I was down to 5 or so, and had to quit.

System was...
Radeon X800XL
A64 3500+
1GB DDR400 RAM

When you say 25fps on that system, is that with Super Low Detals, 640x480, Looks worse than the original TA etc. Or is that a reasonable level of detail.

Medium-lowish settings... 1680x1050, IIRC.

DarkPrimus

I don't know if my computer can take this much awesome.

IonMage

I really need to upgrade my system. Its sounding like even with minimal settings my 9800XT won't cut it in even the remote sense. I'd be so over it otherwise, though.

Doronron

strategery wrote:

Doronron wrote:

On the fence on whether or not I'll actually get this. For the most part, the only style of RTS I really enjoy are Relic's CoH or W40K resource capping. However, this game does alleviate one of the problems I had with RTS's in general. It's in no way small scale.

But...

Judging from what I'm reading, my system will meet the requirements but run like ass.

So, I could finally find myself an RTS that's on a scale similar to TOAW, but be turned off by crappy framerates and conventional resource gathering.

Hmm...

Actually the resource gathering really isn't conventional. There's little points all acrossed the map that you go and build shit on top of them(I can't think of their name for the life of me for some reason). The only resource that is really conventional is just the power resource you collect by building, get this, power generators in your base :P.

Think WH40k/CoH Resource capping, only instead of capping a point you just build something on top of said point.

Capping is preferrable to chopping, so that's a notch in its favor. Still worried about sys reqs, though. Judging from what I'm reading here, mine will run the game, but quite poorly.

It's another one of those points where you ask yourself, do I want to make another major financial and time investment into the hobby or not?

The current machine I have is:

500 Watt PSU
3GHz Pentium 4
1 GB PC3200 RAM
ATi Radeon X1600 w/256MB RAM (AGP)
Sound Blaster X-Fi

To get a system that "runs like butter", I'd be replacing everything above with the exception of the sound card, and probably dropping about $1500 to do it. A major expense, to be sure.

On the other hand, the system I have runs everything I've got just fine. The only games that might see noticable improvement would be Far Cry, Company of Heroes, and Supreme Commander. But I don't play RTS's all that much and Far Cry still runs great on high settings with 1280x1024. My work software could run on a quarter of the machine I've got now.

It's Hellgate that concerns me. If its requirements are anything near as demanding as SupCom's apparently are -- and they probably will be -- I'll have a serious financial issue on my hands. Or not.

Damn it.

Drake

I'm very stoked for this. The spiritual sucessor to Total Anihilation, one of the greatest RTS games ever.

For those who haven't played TA, it was the only RTS that I know of where you could command ground fources, air forces and naval forces. Often on the same map. Combined arms ( and Big Bertha ) truly is the name of the game in TA. With Chris Taylor, TA's creator, behind Supreme Commander I think we can be confident that we will get bucket loads of more of the same. More of the same in this case though is like more sex with fabulous porn starlets.

strategery

Doronron wrote:

strategery wrote:

Doronron wrote:

On the fence on whether or not I'll actually get this. For the most part, the only style of RTS I really enjoy are Relic's CoH or W40K resource capping. However, this game does alleviate one of the problems I had with RTS's in general. It's in no way small scale.

But...

Judging from what I'm reading, my system will meet the requirements but run like ass.

So, I could finally find myself an RTS that's on a scale similar to TOAW, but be turned off by crappy framerates and conventional resource gathering.

Hmm...

Actually the resource gathering really isn't conventional. There's little points all acrossed the map that you go and build shit on top of them(I can't think of their name for the life of me for some reason). The only resource that is really conventional is just the power resource you collect by building, get this, power generators in your base :P.

Think WH40k/CoH Resource capping, only instead of capping a point you just build something on top of said point.

Capping is preferrable to chopping, so that's a notch in its favor. Still worried about sys reqs, though. Judging from what I'm reading here, mine will run the game, but quite poorly.

It's another one of those points where you ask yourself, do I want to make another major financial and time investment into the hobby or not?

The current machine I have is:

500 Watt PSU
3GHz Pentium 4
1 GB PC3200 RAM
ATi Radeon X1600 w/256MB RAM (AGP)
Sound Blaster X-Fi

To get a system that "runs like butter", I'd be replacing everything above with the exception of the sound card, and probably dropping about $1500 to do it. A major expense, to be sure.

On the other hand, the system I have runs everything I've got just fine. The only games that might see noticable improvement would be Far Cry, Company of Heroes, and Supreme Commander. But I don't play RTS's all that much and Far Cry still runs great on high settings with 1280x1024. My work software could run on a quarter of the machine I've got now.

It's Hellgate that concerns me. If its requirements are anything near as demanding as SupCom's apparently are -- and they probably will be -- I'll have a serious financial issue on my hands. Or not.

Your system will be fine provided you aren't cranking every detail to high, running at full AA/AF, and the highest res possible.

I'd actually say you could probably get SupCom to run fine at med settings at 1024x768. The last batch of optimizations they did improved things a lot.

bongi

the beta was a huge letdown for me, but i want to try it at a lan before i completely write the game off

rayofash

I hope this game is better than the beta.

Cronus

I've heard good things about the duel screen support. I'm curious what people here who were in the beta thought, and if anyone in the beta with two screens uses ultramon. I'm wondering if Ultramon would screw up the dual monitor support in the game.

LockeCole

Cronus wrote:

duel screen support.

<ass>

Dual

</ass>

Scrumtrulescent

This game looks beautiful.

But I've promised to wait for him.

He said he would come home.

Oh God, please come home soon, TS3.

DeaconKnowledge

Shit, this is coming out already?

I wanted to upgrade before it launched.

Dusda

LockeCole wrote:

Cronus wrote:

duel screen support.

Dual

Shut up man I wanna see my screens brawl.

Darmak

Cronus wrote:

I've heard good things about the duel screen support. I'm curious what people here who were in the beta thought, and if anyone in the beta with two screens uses ultramon. I'm wondering if Ultramon would screw up the dual monitor support in the game.

I don't know anything about ultramon but Supreme Commander with dual monitors is fucking awesome. Having that extra monitor as a tactical map really made things great, and if you don't want it to be a map you can zoom it in as well so you'd have two screens focused in on the action in different areas. I really see that being useful at lan's because since you and allies share vision (at least, you did in beta) and your buddy(s) could use that second monitor to coordinate attacks, etc. I don't even know why I'm so impressed with it, I guess because it's the first game I've played on the computer that supports dual screens (that I know of).

The Deliverator

I was in the beta, and used the dual screens. I also use UltraMon. I had no issues at all with it. The game actually runs as two "windows" when you do that, and even uses your desktop settings for window positioning.
It's seriously awesome to use. Having a giant tactical map on the second screen is awesome, plus you can zoom it in to keep a closer eye on things if needed. It's slightly unbalancing, to be honest, becuase you can still split the main viewport giving you yet another view.

Kiwistrike

I thought the general consensus from the beta stamped this as a disappointing lack of progress... is that right?

FreddyD

Kiwistrike wrote:

I thought the general consensus from the beta stamped this as a disappointing lack of progress... is that right?

Performance-wise I would say yes. I'm not overly concerned about the gameplay, however. The sheer scale of the game ending battles was jaw dropping. The game also has many helpful features that other similar RTS games strangely lack (building build queues, ETA markers, unit and missile tracking camera, editable waypoints, dual screen support, fully zoomable map, moddable UI, etc.)

Captain K

I already know I'm going to buy this game, but I'm pretty sure I won't be happy about it. The beta was a huge disappointment for me. It felt like a step back from Total Annihilation--a ten year old game.

Still, I'm going to try my damnedest to like it.

Morninglord

FreddyD wrote:

Kiwistrike wrote:

I thought the general consensus from the beta stamped this as a disappointing lack of progress... is that right?

Performance-wise I would say yes. I'm not overly concerned about the gameplay, however. The sheer scale of the game ending battles was jaw dropping. The game also has many helpful features that other similar RTS games strangely lack (building build queues, ETA markers, unit and missile tracking camera, editable waypoints, dual screen support, fully zoomable map, moddable UI, etc.)

I stand by the idea, now and forever, that TA doesn't need any kind of vast update to be enjoyable. If you really feel that it does, you are too used to small scale strategy games.
Damn game supposed to be epic. It is. You don't care about grunt a, because hes cannon fodder. So you don't need to set him his tactical options, because not many tactical options survive a nuke.
I don't get the hate.

Captain K

It's not so much that there's a "lack of progress".

It's not that it's "not more fun enough" than TA, it's that it's less fun than TA.

rayofash

What you do is have the second monitor a projector screen and have the giant tactical map projected onto your wall.

It's hot.

subedii

So anyone from the Beta care to tell me how the 3 sides balance out? And what the significant reasons would be to play / not play each side?

IIRC, TA had decent balance, but that's because the two sides shared most of their units and structures, with Core being "bigger, slower", and arm being "lighter faster", and a few uniques on each side ( CANs FTW).