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Supreme Commander (video game)

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Supreme Commander is a real-time strategy (RTS) computer game, developed by Chris Taylor's Gas Powered Games. It was first announced in the August 2005 edition of PC Gamer magazine and is referred to as the spiritual successor to Taylor's 1997 RTS game Total Annihilation, which was listed by Gamespy as the number one real-time strategy game of all time.[1] The game was released on February 16, 2007 in Europe and was released five days later, February 21 in the U.S.

Supreme Commander
Supreme Commander box art
DeveloperGas Powered Games
PublisherTHQ
DesignerChris Taylor
PlatformWindows
ReleaseEurope February 16, 2007 (EU)
United States February 21, 2007 (NA)
Australia February 23, 2007 (AU)
GenreReal-Time Strategy (R-TS)
ModesSingle player, Multiplayer
This article is about the video game. For the commander of a nation's military forces, see Commander-in-Chief.

Factions

There are three factions in Supreme Commander. They are all human, but differ violently in their opinions on the path humanity should take.

In the wake of the events that led to the creation of the Cybran Nation and the Aeon Illuminate, the Earth Empire dissolved into anarchy. Since then the three factions have been engaged in an "Infinite War" that has lasted a thousand years.

United Earth Federation

Background

The United Earth Federation (or 'UEF') is the generic human side. The UEF developed from the ashes of the Earth Empire. They seek to re-unite humanity and restore Earth's control over the galaxy. They resemble modern society more than the Cybrans or Aeon do. But the use of Cybran slaves and ideology of forced unity lends a darker side to a faction that might otherwise be described as the good guys. Additionally, their faction art is reminiscent of Fascist propaganda. Many have found the UEF to be similar to the Terran Federation from Starship Troopers[citation needed].

Tactical Overview

The UEF favors tanks, bullets and plasma weapons, utilizing large caliber weapons. They tend to be the toughest of all three factions, but often at the penalty of firepower and special abilities. Their structure and designs are the most clearly derived from 20th and 21st century mechanized warfare and technology, having inherited neither the alien tradition and methods of the Aeon, nor the ultra-integrated cybernetic mentality of the Cybran.

Aeon Illuminate

Tactical Overview

Aeon units have a clean, silvery design and use energy weapons. Their names ('Oblivion', 'Sacred Assault Bot', 'Harbinger') reflect their missionary outlook. Aeon units also tend to be very specialized; for example, both UEF and Cybran attack submarines have deck guns they can use while surfaced. Aeon attack submarines have only torpedoes.

Cybran Nation

Background

The Cybran Nation is composed of Symbionts, humans whose brains have been computerized and enhanced with implantable technology, including most importantly a downloaded mutual AI (in addition to various other augmentations). This allows them to think more quickly and more precisely, to be more perceptive, to have greater and more accurate memory recall, and to be more easily controlled. They fight for the liberation of their fellow Cybran from the oppressive United Earth Federation, which fears their unrestricted potential and treats them as human computers and general technical laborers, due to the seamless ease with which they interface with technology. The UEF seeks to maintain the position of inferiority and service of the Cybran to natural humans, whereas the Cybran Nation demands emancipation and a society of their own in which they would not be forced into a frustrating reliance on humans.

The Cybran Nation is led by the disturbingly unfocused Dr. Brackman, the genius who invented Symbiont technology.

Tactical Overview

The Cybran units are cybernetic, reminiscent of mecha anime. Their focus is on adaptability and stealth. Their units can often do things that others just can't; most notably, the Cybran destroyer can deploy legs and slowly crawl up onto land, and the Monkeylord Spider Bot can crawl underwater. However, they tend to have the least direct strength.

Campaign

The single player campaign consists of 18 missions, 6 for each faction. The player is an inexperienced Commander who plays a key role in their factions campaign to bring the 'Infinite War' to an end.

Though there are fewer campaign missions than most games, each mission can last some time. When players accomplish objectives, the map is expanded and new challenges are revealed.

Gameplay

File:Pcgamer cover small.jpg
Supreme Commander on the cover of PC Gamer magazine.

Chris Taylor believed that most modern strategy games were actually tactics games, simply because they operated on too small a scale. His stated intention with Supreme Commander was to create a game that was strategy-focused by virtue of scale.

Supreme Commander centers around the 'Armored Command Unit', or Commander. These suits are designed to be transported through quantum gateways across the galaxy and contain all the materials to create a 30th-century war machine from scratch. All units except Commanders are robotic.

Resources

There are two types of resources: Energy and Mass. Energy can be obtained by reclaiming organic debris or by constructing power generators. Mass can be obtained by constructing mass extractors on mass deposits and by building 'Mass Fabricators' which consume a great deal of energy. Mass can also be obtained by "reclaiming" wrecked units, rocks, and trees. Both resources can also be generated by certain unit upgrades. Each player has a certain amount of resource storage which can be expanded by the construction of storage structures. This gives players reserves in times of shortage or allows them to stockpile resources. Resources can be generated at a faster pace when the generating buildings and storage buildings are constructed next to each other, granting that player an 'efficiency bonus'.

The choice of resources reflects a futuristic society that has mastered transmutation.

Unit scale and Zoom

Supreme Commander uses a "strategic zoom" system that allows players zoom out far enough to view the entire map on the screen. It can do this smoothly and quickly. As it becomes difficult to distinguish individual units, they are replaced by icons denoting their type and role. Players can also zoom in close enough that the larger units such as battleships fill most of the screen. This system allows Supreme Commander to have vast units and maps.

In most RTS games, units must be sized to fit reasonably on the screen. This imposes minimums and maximums to unit and building sizes for the game to remain playable. For example, Act of War had to use two entirely separate zoom scales in order to implement realistically scaled naval units.

To accomplish this, Supreme Commander uses fully 3D terrain that is dynamically tessellated as the camera is moved around. Both units and maps also use normal maps in order to allow for a large amount of detail.

Advanced Interface

Players often had a difficult time controlling everything going on in Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander's "spiritual predecessor". In order to help players with this and to make the game more appealing to casual gamers, the game uses a number of labor and time-saving features. Factories still under construction can have items added to their queue; by holding Shift, players can view all the move and construction orders they have issued, and once placed construction orders are seen as faint green outlines, without the need to hold down the SHIFT key. Idle construction units can be selected by type. The game also uses a number of optional Overlays that help the player take in information at a glance. The Intelligence overlay shows the range and type of every radar, stealth generator, jammer, and sonar; the Economy overlay shows the mass and energy consumption or production of every unit on the screen.

Another notable feature is the ferry system. Typically, the use of armoured personnel carriers and other transports in games is awkward at best; it requires a lot of effort from the player compared to the reward you get from doing so. It is often more profitable to build some buildings on enemy islands and create from there. In Supreme Commander, air transports can be ordered to use ferry routes. Other units can be way pointed onto the ferry beacons, automatically shuttling them to the other end of the route. Combined with the ability to issue detailed orders from factories, a player can produce units far behind the lines and have them automatically ferried to the front.

Supreme Commander natively supports multi-monitor displays and split screen on one monitor. Players can view the entire map or track a specific unit on it. However, no audio from secondary displays is played.

Simulation

Supreme Commander does not use probability tables to calculate hits or misses. Instead, each projectile is individually tracked in the world to see if it impacts a target. Accuracy depends on maneuvering, speed, and angle.

Tiers

All units and structures belong to one of four technology tiers or 'Tech' levels. Upgrading structures and producing advanced engineers allows the player to produce higher Tech units. The first Tech is available at the start of the game and consists of small, relatively weak units and structures. The second Tech expands a player's abilities greatly, especially in terms of base defenses and shielding. The third and fourth Tech levels have very powerful units designed to break the defenses of the most entrenched player.

AI

Supreme Commander features unusually varied skirmish AI. There are the typical Easy and Normal modes, but there are 3 variations on Hard. Horde AI will swarm the player with lower level units, Tech AI will tech up as fast as possible and assault the player with advanced units, and the Balanced AI attempts to find a happy medium.

However, it does suffer from the typical problems that plague RTS AIs. No AI understands placement as well as a player does and cannot adapt to enemy strategies as well. This can be exacerbated because of the importance of proper structure placement for purposes of base defense. Despite this, the AI in Supreme Commander is much more effective than those of past RTS games, and can be quite challenging to defeat. It will scout to determine its course of action. It will build effective clusters of defenses and artillery rather than placing them randomly across the map. It will even airlift ground units into your territory where your anti-air defense is weaker. It also sends its units in complex ground sweeping patterns rather than the usual RTS-AI style of building a mass of units and sending them directly at the nearest enemy unit.

Experimental Units

The fourth tier consists only of the "Experimental" units, all of which are large, expensive, and powerful. Each faction has 3 of these units. These units have unique capabilities, and are typically difficult to kill. Designed to end the game, some experimental units take as long as 90 minutes for a single engineer to construct. (More engineers will speed up construction.)

The experimental units, sorted by race, are:

United Earth Federation
  • "Fatboy" Mobile Factory : A tracked mobile base that can crawl across land and the ocean floor. It has a variety of weapons, including 4 battleship turrets, torpedo tubes and anti-aircraft capability. The Fatboy can construct land units at high speed and can repair and re-arm aircraft, but can only do any of this when on land, underwater it's a proverbial sitting duck. These are joined by a strong shield.
  • "Atlantis" Submersible Aircraft Carrier: Can hold, refuel, and repair a great number of aircraft. It has several anti-aircraft missile launchers, mainly Surface-to-air missiles and AA guns, but primarily relies on powerful torpedoes (from four torpedo tubes) to inflict damage.
  • "Mavor" Strategic Artillery: An extremely expensive artillery structure, the Mavor can fire precision artillery across the largest of maps. Requires a very long time to build, and has very high energy costs. The shells are of the same basic design as the UEF's nuclear weapons, and they arm in mid-air to prevent accidental detonation.
Cybran Nation
  • "Soul Ripper" Experimental Gunship: A very tough beetle-like gunship. Has a number of air-to-ground and air-to-air weapons. Low firepower, but very mobile. Usually meant for frontline help with air support and anti-air weapons, the Soul Ripper, if used smartly, can do a great deal of damage to the enemy.
  • "Scathis" Experimental Mobile Rapid Fire Artillery: The Scathis consumes a considerable amount of energy, but can quickly blast apart the toughest imaginable defenses. It is notable for its extreme vulnerability, for which it is the subject of much debate in the emerging Supreme Commander community.
  • "Monkeylord" Spiderbot: One of the most flexible units in the game, the Monkeylord can go anywhere and fight almost anything. Mounts torpedoes, heavy cannons and a powerful microwave laser, it is also undetectable by radar installations. The concentrated microwave laser is fired in three or four second streams because of the time it takes to constantly turn it on and off as it aquires new targets.
Aeon Illuminate
  • "Czar" Flying Fortress: The Czar is usually described as an Independence Day-style flying saucer, complete with a massive beam weapon that annihilates anything in its path, but the Czar must be directly above to fire correctly. In addition to its main weapon, anti air weapons line the perimeter of the Czar, and it can carry a large amount of aircraft.
  • "Galactic Colossus" Sacred Assault Bot: This is the most resilient unit in the game and is the only one that can survive ground zero of a strategic nuclear explosion. It has a head-mounted (and very powerful) Photon Beam Cannon and two 'gravity claw' arms. It is, however, extremely slow and lacks any anti-aircraft capabilities.
  • "Tempest" Submersible Battleship: Carries a long range energy cannon and torpedo launchers. The Tempest can quickly construct naval units, however, like the "Fatboy" mobile factory, it can only attack or construct while surfaced.

Features

Chris Taylor has publicly stated that his goal for Supreme Commander is for it to be the most customizable RTS ever made, and would like to ship the team's development tools with the game itself. However, this goal was not achieved and the editing tools were not sold with the game

An adjacency system will allow certain structures to benefit from being built directly adjacent to other structures; energy-consuming structures will use less energy when built adjacent to power generators, power generators will produce more energy when built adjacent to power storage structures and factories will consume less energy and mass when built adjacent to power generators and mass fabricators/extractors, respectively. Players must balance taking advantage of the adjacency system and spreading their structures apart, so as to not make them an easy target - threats from projectile splash damage, inaccurate weaponry and friendly-fire damage from exploding buildings are reduced in relation to the empty area present.

System requirements

The bare minimum system requirements were not immediately divulged by Gas Powered Games and were only later made available to those chosen to participate in the beta program.

Minimum

Recommended

  • Windows Vista (for DirectX 10)
  • 3.0 GHz Intel or equivalent AMD processor or better (A dual-core processor is greatly recommended for acceptable performance.)
  • 1GB RAM
  • 256 MB Video RAM, with DirectX 9 Vertex Shader/Pixel Shader 2.0 support (Nvidia 6800 or better)
  • Internet connection with Cable/DSL speeds[2]

Supreme Commander is designed to take advantage of the special features in Windows Vista and DirectX 10. All capabilities of the game, including the dual-monitor support, are still supported in the DirectX 9 version, although the DirectX 10 version might have improved graphical features.[3]

Performance Issues

Players can lower graphical quality (or 'fidelity' as it is referred to in game) by a large degree. Players can also dynamically raise and lower the game speed to keep performance adequate.

In multiplayer, the game automatically lowers the game speed so slower systems can keep up.

Musical score

The score for Supreme Commander is composed by Jeremy Soule, who is most famous for his compositions for the Guild Wars series of games. Jeremy soul also composed the music for the first game in this game's "franchise", Total Annihilation.

Awards

At E3 2006, the game won the following Game Critics Awards: Best Strategy Game. [4]
IGN ranks Supreme Commander as the best upcoming PC game (ranked 19th against all consoles). [5]
IGN gave Supreme Commander it's "Editor's Choice Award" [6]

Demo

On February 6th, 2007, a demo for Supreme Commander was released. It included a tutorial, a portion of the single-player campaign, and a two-player skirmish map called "Finn's Revenge" in which the player could fight against easy, medium, or hard Cybran AI. Note that of the three factions, only the Cybran Nation was playable in the demo.

Trivia

  • Although Quantum Gates exist in space in the SupCom fiction, sending ships through them is exceptionally dangerous. That is why the three factions employ land-based Quantum Gates.
  • The Mavor is named after Lead Programmer Jon Mavor.
  • The Wagner is named after Producer Gary Wagner.
  • ‘Scathis’ is an online handle used by Lead Content Engineer John Comes.
  • The map “Ian's Cross” was named after Terrain Artist Ian Walker.
  • The map “Finn’s Revenge” is named after Chris Taylor’s youngest son.
  • GPGNet was originally a working title, and it was sure to be replaced at some point. There were dozens of suggestions for new names, but the original name stuck.
  • The map “Sung Island” is named after Units Modeler Sung Campbell.
  • Several of the minor characters are named after friends of the design team (e.g., Sweeney, Elliott, Stensen).
  • The character President Riley is named after Chris Taylor’s son.
  • The character Mach was originally named Janus, which was changed to Mercury, and finally to Mach.
  • The character Toth was originally named Ochiba, which was changed to Camille, and finally to Toth. (The name Toth is an homage to comic book artist Alex Toth, who passed away in 2006.)
  • Marxon’s first name is Jaran.
  • The Cybrans were originally called the Recyclers.

References

  1. ^ GameSpy (2004-02-31). "Top Ten Real-Time Strategy Games of All Time". {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ http://www.ebgames.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=B646595A
  3. ^ http://garage.gaspowered.com/?q=supcomfaq
  4. ^ "2006 Winners". gamecriticsawards.com. Retrieved 2006-06-25.
  5. ^ "Top 100 Games". ign.com. Retrieved 2007-02-16.
  6. ^ "IGN Review". ign.com. Retrieved 2007-02-16.

Community sites

Trailers

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