Nobody has attempted to refute your claims because they are ridiculous and irrelevant. Your main post basically theorizes that every change to the game from FA to SC2 was not made, for example, because FA was a flawed game formula that Total Annihilation did better, but purely to increase engine performance. Not only are your reasons for these claims baseless, unproved speculations, but even if what you were saying was true, it wouldn't matter because the first game's PC requirements were batshit insane.

Even if all the changes to the game were purely in the name of performance, which you could never prove, it is still be a superior game to the first, and with 10x better performance to boot!

You obviously suck at SupCom2, because your analysis is completely SupCom1 based. It shows no rational understanding of how to play SupCom2, what's fun about SupCom2 or what is important stategically in SupCom2, so rather than learning to play a new game you have decided to throw negativity at it.

Gotcha

Oh, this just gets better. The other guy said I was provided with numerous explanations, yet you say that nobody has attempted to refute my claims. Which one is it???

And how are my claims ridiculous? Is it not true that an idle unit uses the cpu less intensively than an active unit? Is it not true that simply clicking an icon to have something instantenously unlocked as an upgrade uses the cpu less intensively than upgrading via the economy as if one were building a unit? Is it not true that having only 1 unique unit in the game will be less cpu intensive than 2 unique units in the game? Are these really baseless claims and unproven speculation?

Major changes to SupCom 2 gameplay are related to cpu performance.

Also, take a look at the following 3-page interview with CT: http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/features/53364/Supreme-Commander-2-PC-Interview. It's a pretty in-depth interview. But what is just as important as what is said is what is NOT said. At the beginning, there is a very brief mention of A* vs. FlowField pathfinding to increase cpu performance.

Don't you find it interesting that in one of the most detailed and straight-to-the-point interviews that CT gave, the very first item of discussion (and 1/3 of the article) is about hardware and software limitations?

Are you prepared to theoretically debate A* vs. FlowField at the mathematical level? Please, amuse me.

Then don't listen to me. Let's see what CT himself said in an interview (http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/features/53364/Supreme-Commander-2-PC-Interview):

"Are you using a modified version of the Demigod engine? Does any component of the original SupCom engine remain?

No, this is actually the original SupCom 1 engine but with a brand new rendering component. We also rewrote the UI system and the pathfinding system. As part of the rendering engine we introduced global illumination and a lot of other awesome visuals. You will be blown away by how smooth and beautiful the game looks and plays."

What, what? SupCom 2 uses the SupCom 1 engine but with a brand new rendering component (which is irrelevant since the vga was not the bottleneck) and pathfinding system (which in itself is not enough to completely eliminate the cpu bottleneck).

Blah blah blah... sounds about right to me, but not from me.

I'm no longer feeding the troll. I've said this many times, but you are arguing over nothing.

Even if it were true that most of the changes from FA to SC2 were to increase engine performance, SC2 is still a far better game, and so the why is irrelevant when the result speaks for itself.

You can go on and on making claims that are still baseless and unjustified. Just because Chris Taylor said they made some major optimizations to the game, does not mean that SupCom 2 is FA on a diet, or that the entire game was based around those changes. Even if it did, it's irrelevant, because it's a better game.

You're being a troll and wasting everybody's time, good day sir.

Good bye.

Since I didn't get this answered before.

There are really only a handful of things I do like about SupCom 2:

• The factory addons
• That experimental units are produced in facilities
• The new pathfinding algorithm (but only as a temporary workaround. As hardware improves in the future and can actually handle A* pathfinding on the scale of SupCom, then I would like to see it revert back to this)

But the first two can be modded into FA.

My question was directed at The Word.

I'm ambivalent about A* because it works exceptionally better in robotics than in video games. I suspect it's because a video game is a perfect Cartesian universe with an absolute coordinate system. Real life doesn't have that, so you can bump, shift, and deform coordinates to make things work better.

I felt like chiming in because there seems to be the impression that there is absolutely nothing I like about SupCom 2. Just wanted to use the opportunity to throw in a few words about this.

As for A*, even if we are working with cartesian coordinates, what about the possibilty of using meshable terrain instead of evenly distributed quadrants? For example, if there is a big boulder blocking the path, the mesh system around that boulder would be more refined to allow for greater path calculations.

Also, what about the possibility of each map having an associated table that provides rough estimates of the shortest path from various points around the map. I'm not talking about every single possible path calculated beforehand, but several key ones involving the points of interest on the map. Then, the game would at list have an index lookup as a first guess instead of calculating everything from scratch each time.

Also, SupCom 2 switched from calculating the movement of each individual unit individually to treating several units together as a cluster, and then calculating the movement path of the cluster.

A mesh would be better, but that would take a lot more effort to calculate. I suppose that's why existing robots are quite slow to navigate. The pre-computing idea is a lot like the flow-field, except that FF recalculates with updated values of where new things are.

FA, and most games, use a table of pathing hints to help speed up things. The problem is that you can favour the hints too heavily, and ignore small paths that are better, but unmarked.

There is absolutely nothing I like about you either. Go away troll.

SupCom 2 is what happens when you get SupCom/FA, remove a significant amount of needless complexity and make a few different design choices.

I think it turned out quite well and is a lot more polished (especially as a game a year after release compared to the FA/SC1 setup). I can see why people don't like some of the changes, but most of the issues people have with the game really do feel like sour grapes that people didn't get FA the engine performance patch.

You still haven't answered my question, TheWord.

Lol I didn't see it. Tbh I don't want Supcom2 to be like FA, because Supcom2 is just better than FA.

So no. I wouldn't help any effort to mod supcom2 to FA.

I never asked that.

My point was that there are some who like FA's gameplay better (conversely, there's some who like Sup2's gameplay better). But the unanimous agreement is that the engine used in Sup2 is better than that of FA's.

People decry FA as being worse because of the engine differences. I think that's a foolish point of view to take. What if the tables were turned? Say Sup2 came out first, on the FA engine... then FA was released on the Sup2 engine. You, preferring Sup2's gameplay, would naturally want to see it on the better engine too. Right?

If the answer is yes, then why are you telling people to piss off back to FA? It strikes me as hypocritical.

there is only one thing that i do not like in this game

the stupid tiny factory units, they are so small that i can't distinguish them(if i do not zoom in)... for the rest, is a great game and reserch sistem is also very good, but i would get rid of mass convertor and take back the tech 2 mass extractor from TA(only tech 2, not tech 3) as upgrade in the research windows of course...

But the tables aren't turned. FA is worse because of the engine and the gameplay. So I see no reason to detract anything from supcom2 to give some FA fans something that they will still whine about.

I believe what you want is ctrl-Y iirc.

I think we can all agree that supcom2s engine is better in terms of CPU and GPU performance. Supcom2 may have cut features, like user edited maps, but I and many others still believe Supcom2 has significantly better gameplay that Supcom1/FA.

So WHY do you think FAs gameplay is better? I know we have all discussed this before, but it bears restating for madface (NOTE to Madface: I have spend many hours of time with supcom1 and FA including significant mods and rate it as one of my favorite games ever!).

The common reason is economy. FA is NOT better when it comes to economy gameplay. Upgrading each individual mass extractor was a MAJOR flaw in FAs gameplay. Likewise the tier system of both factories and power was not a positive gameplay element. It required way to much micro. Supcom2 fixed both these gameplay issues. Any talk about flow vs pay-to-queue is just distracting from these issues.

Have I missed it? Can you express in 25 words or less why FA gameplay is better?

Oh and happy new year to all

Why do you like a particular type of music? Why do you like your favourite food?

In this case, the why doesn't matter; it's entirely subjective. You have very little right saying that upgrading individual mexes was a flaw - I may believe that it was a major attractor. Conversely, I could say that research was a major flaw. Who is the authority here? Who is to say what is or isn't fun? Post count doesn't give the right, neither does having mods released, nor does having a high rank.

Otherwise,

Starcraft IS better than Sup2.

The engine is the only objective matter being discussed. Right now, I'm only discussing the engine. Please, don't do yourself a disservice by deflecting the matter.

I have the right to freedom of speech (even here in oz).

That aside...

I believe upgrading individual mexes was a flaw in FA. You dont. One of us is WRONG. How do we decide?

EDIT: To further confuse things....A musically analogy....

When I was playing FA I thought I was listening to Metallica, but it turns out it was Creed. When I was playing supcom2 I thought I was listening to DreamTheater, but it turns out it was Queen.

If modding support were possible, I don't see what the problem would be either. The measure of how fun it was is the community such a mod would build up for itself. Also I think very few people liked the supcom 1 economy in the regard of upgrading mexes, if only because it was a very fiddly thing to get right (Can I afford this T3 mex based on reclaiming these rocks or should I just build mass storage around it that gives it 50% production bonus). A refined supcom 1 economy might be very interesting to try again, but I suspect it may have blown its chance, and the current compromise works absolutely fine for me.

The trouble is, modding support isn't possible, which is a legitimate complaint, but one that has already been made, ad infinitum

Neither of us is wrong, right and wrong isn't applicable at all. You believe upgrading individual mexes was a flaw - I simply believe otherwise.

Why must there be an absolute truth to personal preference?

I believe that mex. upgrading itself wasn't the issue, but that the measure of risk-reward to upgrading was the problem (I've spoken of the 22x cost increase for 3x mass output before, I don't need to repeat that). There's two options to fix it; remove upgrading entirely, or rebalance it to a better value. It's clear that GPG believed the first option was the best, I believe the latter should have been taken.

[PS:] Spuddy ninja'ed me.

except that it was bogus and irrational part of the gameplay having to upgrade each building individually. it takes so much attention from fun combat gamplay to boring economics stuff.
that is the issue, not risk-reward.
well it is quite contrary, risk-reward of a T2 mex is almost copied to SupCom2 mexes. making it correct/intended value. not the value of t1 mex obviously.

and why do you think that having 7 times less profitable mex than SupCom1 t1mex is wrong?
because you afraid of actually thinking and making strategic choices and instead prefer having one obvious answer "always build everywhere" to everything?