In the original supreme commander and FA there were about 9 or 10 standard naval units per faction, it varied by faction and which version of the game. but in supcom 2 there are only about 3 per faction and none if you are aeon.

Yup.

Mike

does anyone know why

Because that's how GPG designed it.

You'll also note there are less air and land units too.

Mike

why did they make it like that

Most likely in order to simplify the game to try to open it to a larger audience.

Mike

We only really lost the frigate which was mostly just for radar and a bit of anti air, both of which are done better by fixed emplacements.

We gained some faction diversity as certain factions specialise in certain types.

The frigate was not only for radar and aa, but it also had a cannon for harrasment and many other uses. buildings aren't mobile, I can't remember the last time I was invaded by aa towers and lost. pd creeping can be easily countered.
Explain how we only lost the frigate. The cybrans have no submarine, no cruiser, none of the factions have strategic submarines, The uef doesn't have a destroyer, and a battleship doesn't replace it. A t2 destroyer can be built earlier than a battleship can be.

Welcome to Supreme Commander 2!

If you don't like the changes, stop playing it, it's what I did.

Mike

I'm not saying it was all good choices, but you have to admit that most of your points make for faction diversity

Its would be good if at least one faction had a nuclear sub maybe as an experimental.

gameplay balance, lots of unit types > faction diversity
just my opinion

I would agree with:
"gameplay balance > faction diversity"

However it doesn't follow that faction diversity ruins gameplay balance if done right.

I DON'T agree with (and I'm sure many others don't either):
"lots of unit types > faction diversity"

More units dont make a better game if they are just useless units.

Gambled and lost.

Yeah keep bitching about how bad SC2 was.

While the amount of naval units was a bit too low for my tastes, its WAY too high in FA and down right confusing. At least all the unit roles are clear, even though terribly balanced. If GPG wouldve tweaking unit stats a little bit more, naval couldve worked just fine like this.



This.

I think it was to actually keep the total number of units as low as possible... fewer units means it will run better on systems with less system resources, including consoles. This is the same reason "research" replaced "tech levels".... because it enables fewer unit types. FA have over 400 units... supcom 2 has less than half that and it was intentional

So.....still trying to appeal to a larger audience? ;p

Mike

That's the point of the game industry: get as many customers as possible to make as much money as possible. There is no equivalent of a Ferrari in videogames; no one will pay enough for a well-made videogame to justify a super-niche market. If you are willing to pay $300 for a single copy of a perfect successor to FA, then maybe GPG could afford something like that, but that depends on how many other people will pay $300 for an FA-like game.

I don't criticize GPG for the decisions they made in SupCom2. I understand their reasoning and I cannot put them at fault. Making the game appeal to a wider audience was the most economic choice, nothing bad with that considering we live in a capitalistic society.

I dont blame GPG, I blame SE...

THQ did let them do pretty much what GPG wanted on FA, right?

Except patch it. Also, I get this feeling that FA was even more rushed than SupCom2 was given the very short delay between the release of vanilla and the release of FA (9 months). Very odd scheduling by THQ no doubt. And THQ didn't advertise FA anywhere near enough for what it was.

I'm not getting the same feeling, considering it was just an expansion rather than a whole new game its fairly reasonable.

Mike

Ofcourse they didnt advertise FA a lot. They wanted to make a quick extra buck. Development of FA was cheaper in both production time and advertisement, and they got some extra money from the people already hooked on SC1. Everyone interested in RTS and in posession of a huge rig already heard of SC1 anyhow.

I actually didn't own SupCom1 until after FA came out. I got both for Christmas, along with the PC I still use today.

Best Christmas ever.

i think people should thank THQ for publishing FA rather than whinging about its (supposed) failings.

Yeah, I dont understand the THQ whining either. SC1 was quite a high-risk project after all.

If you don't like the Naval Aspect of SC2, why not pick up the Revamp mod? It brings back a lot of the classic SC1/FA Navy units, but doesn't make the new SC2 units redundant.

Also, EVERY faction gets their own sub. UEF retain the Tigershark, Cybrans get the classic barracuda, and the Aeon have the Vesper. They also have strat/tac missile subs, but those only fire when on the surface so your mileage may vary.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/revamp-mod/
Here's the mod link.