Re: Supreme Commander

Ian Galbraith <me privacy.net> wrote:

On Tue, 14 Feb 2006 16:05:48 -0600, Jeremy Clark wrote:


I can barely wait for this game to be finished. I was a huge fan
of Total Annihilation and I still haven't found any RTS that
comes close to matching it in scale. Looks like GPG just pushed
back the release date a few months into 2007, but if they make
good on all of their promises, it'll definitely be worth the
wait.

Will it have a random map generator?

Hopefully the effort will be spent on improving the strategy game.

And of course the maps should show terrain at start up, like
everybody plays it nowadays. As I recall, that's how Total
Annihilation did it.

If they want to make it even more of a strategy game, they should go
ahead and reveal the terrain and all player activity (plus
statistics). That way if your opponent is the best mouse slinger in
the West or (like me) he has automated the
meticulous/micromanagement part of the game and is totally
outbuilding/outgathering you, you can resign early and save the
effort. And that way you can tell if your opponent is cheating. All
of the secrecy stuff was probably based on infatuation with computer
technology and the fact that it could be done. Knowing what I'm
doing and seeing my resource levels isn't going to stop me from
blowing some inexperienced player off of the map.

And, hopefully they will include an enhanced version of Total
Annihilation's resource gathering, energy expending model.
Currently, resources like food are gathered and spent as units are
trained. Instead, a better model would be to use resources as units
and equipment expend energy. They can use a preset inflow of energy
or allow the inflow to be based on the usual building of farms and
mines, either of those can be combined with a preset maximum
resource capacity. Whether the inflow of resources is preset or is
based on player activity, that inflow combined with usage based
expenditure of energy is more realistic and allows for doing away
with the inept and rarely used game speed control. The visually
simplest implementation would probably do away with resource
gathering, and would be a preset energy flow into both players'
energy bar with activity constantly draining energy from that bar
(the bar having a maximum capacity at which energy flow into the bar
is wasted). That would allow you to concentrate on building and
fighting instead of planting beans and knitting sweaters. Very much
like the original Total Annihilation.

Have fun.







--
You Can't Stop The Signal


Path: newsdbm04.news.prodigy.com!newsdst01.news.prodigy.com!newsmst01b.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!newscon02.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.net!nx02.iad01.newshosting.com!newshosting.com!newsfeed.kamp.net!newsfeed.kamp.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail
From: Ian Galbraith <me privacy.net>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic
Subject: Re: Supreme Commander
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2006 17:53:47 +1100
Organization: ROU Necessary Evil But Still Cool
Lines: 16
Message-ID: <ia3nxrdsd24a$.1fg3v4nl2m3ja$.dlg 40tude.net>
References: <FBoIf.18510$vU2.11353 newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net> <6vsIf.9$xH.4 dukeread03>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Trace: individual.net fwZUWLeudxm6nWJYdcachgHxcVotgY0wW/E/sb0t71oMBv3mdI
User-Agent: 40tude_Dialog/2.0.15.1
Xref: prodigy.net comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic:864217





.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Resource Units
    ... exact same resource to those exact same tasks a second time, ... because of the energy taken up by his other duties with the fids, ... It serves as the default assignment level when you estimate ... duration, assign the resource without specifying a percentage, and let ...
    (microsoft.public.project)
  • Re: Which is more rational -- arithmetic mean or geometric mean?
    ... resources or "cost" of different values - eg, by energy, or by ... This means specifying a "resource function" Rfor ... Entropy may also be characterised as an average information ... replaced by a statistical weighting. ...
    (sci.physics.research)
  • Re: For Slowmans Annoyance of the Day...
    ... resource called spaceship Earth, there are bound to be many damaging ... Renewable energy is a good idea when it is ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Renewable energy alternative
    ... You are looking too narrowly at "energy supply situation". ... cost of the resource in the overall society. ... But this is also true if we tax the fuel. ...
    (sci.energy)