8 ms·

Supreme Commander Graphics Study (2015)

133 points by UglyToad 2y ago

datadrivenangel 2y ago
To this day, still one of the best RTS games of all time.
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  Let's say you're not too familiar with the genre, but you've been curious for a while and want to explore more. Maybe you played some Starcraft at a friend's house in high school, and that's pretty much it for genre exposure. And by you I mean me. What games would you recommend for a newcomer in 2024? What are the genre-defining classics, and which ones still hold up? What's the recent hotness? The modern classics?
  - pdntspa 2y ago
    Supreme Commander is a great start Personally, I'd also recommend Homeworld and the Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War series On the free-and-open-source front there is Zero-K (which I don't care for) and Beyond All Reason, both of these are Spring Engine games, and Spring Engine started out as a 'modernization' of Total Annihilation. Most games built with it don't fall too far from the original Homeworld 3 comes out in May, I can't wait :D :D :D ps- I'd be remiss to omit Command & Conquer... Red Alert 2 and Generals are my favorites. I don't care for Starcraft but that series is worth mentioning too.
    - Log_out_ 2y ago
      It actually started out as a ta3dviewer of total annihilation replays
      - pdntspa 2y ago
        Indeed. I think I discovered it while wish searching for a TA where I could get up close with the models.
    - Spellman 2y ago
      If you specifically want more Total Annihilation style RTS games, Ashes of the Singularity scratches a similar itch. And of course Planetary Annihilation does TA IN SPACE with the ability to sling asteroids at your opponents. Personally switching to a 3D sphere world broke my brain.
      - pdntspa 2y ago
        I didn't like Ashes of the Singularity, I really don't like the capture point game mode that it seemed to revolve around (though Dawn of War did the same thing and that didn't bother me...) Planetary Annihilation is cool too but I really didn't like the spherical maps SupCom really is the sweet spot
  - Synaesthesia 2y ago
    Personally the only entertaining ones to watch are Starcraft Brood War or Starcraft 2 right now.
  - ijk 2y ago
    Depends on which branch of RTS design you want to explore. Age of Empires 2 still has a significant player base, for example, so it's both a genre-defining classic and modern ranked multi-player. Other RTS design traditions include Total Annilation, etc. Plus there's adjacent stuff, such as They Are Billions which just does the base building part and drops some of the other mechanics.
  - jimbob45 2y ago
    There's still nothing that comes close to Warcraft 3 (the original, not the remastered abomination, don't fucking touch it). Dawn of War 40k had some neat ideas as well. So probably WC3 -> DoW 40k -> Starcraft 1/2 -> weep because the genre is dead
    - jamie_ca 2y ago
      Not for lack of trying, though. Stormgate and Tempest Rising are boty trying to take on the mantle of Starcraft 2 with probable releases this/next year. But yeah overall high production values pickings are pretty slim - last year saw Company of Heroes 3, 2022 had a Dune game, 2021 had Age of Empires 4. 2020 might be a high point with Warcraft 3, C&C, and AoE 3 remasters.
  - araes 2y ago
    Mostly, I tend to put the RTS' into ideas about "real-time strategy." Dune II: One of the first, one of the best. 3 factions, all very different, story mode with scope. Interesting units when "harvesters" was a new idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II Command & Conquer / Red Alert: Excellent unit select, very orthogonal unit choices, live-action cutscenes (which while of questionable quality, were still pretty amusing) Red Alert also has an excellent soundtrack (although extremely facist march themed with "Hell March", yet quite listenable). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Red_Alert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Red_Alert Age of Empires: Artificial Intelligent opponents that didn't "cheat" with extra resources or out-of-game knowledge, they were simply competent opponents. Age of Kings is probably the showcase. Rotational rock-paper-scissors unit effectiveness. Several "victory" types. Gameplay that tended to support longer games, rather than 3-minute rush (Commander vs Legacy in an MtG context). Only complaint is unique units were often not enough for long enough to really be special. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Empires_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Empires_II Warcraft II: Not sure how relevant today, yet one of the first to feature an online matchmaking service that was not utter misery (and actually had players at lot of the time!) Also, neat cartoony style that became the basis of WoW, DOTA, and many others. Possibly the best though, first game where you could spend half an hour just cycling through all the quotes ("I can see my house!") for units (and their annoyances at your clicking "Are you still touching me?"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_II:_Tides_of_Darkness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_II:_Tides_of_Darkness Homeworld: There is Still not a significant other 3D RTS franchise (EVE Online is very close for an MMO). Basically, about the only game that does actually 3D strategic space combat in an actual spherical playing field over vast distances, with multiple-ship scales, and per unit positionable cameras ("camera can be set to follow any ship and view them from any angle, as well as display the ship's point of view"). The story's also quite well written, and at least provides a plausible reason for each of the missions. I watched Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and thought "You people should have played Homeworld, you would have written such better space battles. Somebody over at Battlestar Galactica must have played Homeworld." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeworld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeworld Sins of a Solar Empire: Neat game design based on solar system "zones", where you can only really fight around solar systems, and then transit is mostly hands off (often with surprises when you exit jump space into fog of war). Planetary and solar system upgrades that are inherent to the idea of "planet" rather than just tower defense. Multiple ship styles and races with fairly different play styles depending on the build choice. Been a while, yet from what I remember, also not quite as punishing as Starcraft about choosing the "correct" choice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire Warhammer 40K Dawn of War: Gameplay that's not built on mining anything, rather more like capture the flag, holding locations for time frames to accumulate "something". And then pretty much all the pre-existing craziness of Warhammer that is far too long for a single game recommendation. LOTS of units and armies though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000:_Dawn_of_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000:_Dawn_of_War Total War Franchise: (Medieval II, Rome, Shogun, and Warhammer are notable entries) Scope. Massive scope. Battles with 10's of 1000's of soldiers on the field. Became a bit much to deal with in some of the games, yet neat to be able to create your own LotR "Ride of the Rohan" scenes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_War_(video_game_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_War_(video_game_series) Achron (have not played, would like to try) Time travel RTS with three time-frames units fight in, and propagating time waves that erase the future. You can "chronofrag" yourself, by having future self meet past self. A Grandfather Paradox resolution system, where units are removed if they fall out of the "possible futures." Supreme Commander: (and prior Total Annihilation) are the subject of this article. Also massive scope. Huge, smoothly scalable maps. Tons of unit choices. Enormous numbers of on map units simultaneously.
  - paulddraper 2y ago
    Starcraft II still has a big player base. (Pre-release Stormgate is the closest successor.) Age of Empires and Total Annihilation still have fan bases. Supreme Commander and Command and Conquer do as well. AFAIK, Beyond All Reason is the most popular "large-scale" RTS.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
liotier 2y ago
Enjoy that style ? Go play Beyond All Reason, its free and open-source spiritual heir - https://www.beyondallreason.info https://www.beyondallreason.info
- bloqs 2y ago
  Thank you for this, had no idea it existed
  - vladms 2y ago
    And, for completion, with the same engine that beyond all reason is done, but with a different game play feeling: https://zero-k.info/ https://zero-k.info/ I personally prefer Zero-K (flatter tech tree, territory can be more important), but both are great games.
    - concordDance 2y ago
      Also prefer Zero-K. The economy system design results in better team games imo. Though obviously it's a lot less pretty.
      - mcbuilder 2y ago
        I've never played much Zero-K, but from I understand the eco in BAR is truely exponential, after you get to the top of the tech tree and have a metal maker economy. It's an interesting design, since late game human becomes the bottleneck in expanding the eco, since exponential growth also means you have to increase your attention in managing it. Zero-K from what I know has overdrive fusions, which isn't really exponential in the same sense. In the end, both are great games.
        Log_out_ 2y ago
        It's limited by builds pace though
        paulddraper 2y ago
corysama 2y ago
If you find graphics studies interesting, you can find a few more at http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2020/12/29/graphics-studies-compilation/ http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2020/12/29/graphics-stud...
jsheard 2y ago
An underrated aspect of the SupCom engine was that it natively supported multiple monitors, with independently controllable cameras on each one so you could keep an eye on any two parts of the map, or just zoom the second one all the way out to get a giant minimap. That's something you never see today even though it would be easier to pull off with modern graphics APIs (IIRC SupCom actually runs two copies of the game simultaneously, driving one monitor each, to get around DirectX limitations of the time).
- YurgenJurgensen 2y ago
  Slightly less impressive was the minimap, which was also an entire second(third) copy of the game's graphics process. (Although really you weren't 'supposed' to use the minimap, since strategic zoom took its place.)
  - m463 2y ago
    I find these kinds of bend-over-backward-things amazing. It is probably not a good ROI to get it that correct, but it admirable and makes the game lots of fun. In a similar vein, I think fallout4 lets you use an ipad as a pip-boy to do maps and other management things.
    - yayitswei 2y ago
      if it makes the game lots fun then there's a good case for the feature!
  - RGamma 2y ago
    And our LAN games became soo slooow over time..
  - reactordev 2y ago
    It's trivial to render to a texture (framebuffer) using a separate camera matrix and shader pipeline to make a minimap. It was in 2015 as well. Rendering to two separate windows is also trivial if you're rendering to textures first instead of directly to the backbuffer. Making use of those two windows is not trivial. All in all, SupCom had issues with the number of units on screen (or in general) and would slow down considerably under heavy troop battles. Still, it was awesome. Ever since 2006 or so it's been standard practice to break up the rendering pipeline and render to textures that you would combine in various ways in post (deferred shading came about around this time). So it's not an entire graphics engine process. It's just simply a render target.
metadat 2y ago
There's also LOUD, the mod version of the game which adds even more dynamics and higher tier skill trees. https://www.moddb.com/mods/loud-ai-supreme-commander-forged-alliance https://www.moddb.com/mods/loud-ai-supreme-commander-forged-... I've actually playing this the last few days :)
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
elromulous 2y ago
Since the article opens with discussion of RTSs in the (late) 90s, I feel it would be a crime to not include Dune 2[0], largely considered to be the first "modern" RTS. Edit: Dune2 came out in 1992, so it's understandable that it's not mentioned, I meant more in the broader discussion of RTSs. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
mrguyorama 2y ago
If you also happen to think SupCom was the most ultimate superior RTS ever made, because it's truly strategy scale with a thousand units PER PLAYER including on 8v8 maps, and the simulated ballistics of almost all weapons means you can defend your base from an incoming nuke by scrambling your jet fighters so that they run into the incoming warhead and airburst it "safely" above your base, and love that artillery shells can also hit those same planes, or that a plane shot out of the sky can fall on a tank and destroy it, or that you think a giant walking mech with a backpack nuke launcher is the metalist fucking thing, Check out Forged Alliance Forever. It's a community made, open source, "launcher" for the Supreme Commander game, that patches it, mods it, allows you to interact with other players and find games and get ranked against them, and also is a replay viewer, so you can watch how the pros actually do the insane micro and economy play that earns them the 2000+ ELO score, and also a mod manager, and also a friends list. If you are like me, and love all that but actually suck at playing strategy games in general, check out Gyle on youtube https://www.youtube.com/@GyleCast https://www.youtube.com/@GyleCast who has been casting SupCom games for at least a decade now, and really shows off some of the best that the game has to offer, including multi-hour "EPICs" that can involve ten thousand units controlled by several semi-pro players.
- newZWhoDis 2y ago
  Shoutout to FAF. Best RTS I’ve ever played. Been meaning to check out Beyond All Reason, supposedly it’s a FOSS spiritual successor to FAF
  - sabartonn 2y ago
    Total Annihilation (1997) was the predecessor to Supreme Commander (2007), both by Cavedog. Beyond All Reason is pretty much a remake of the former.
    - limbicsystem 2y ago
      I was completing my PhD at the time. I called it 'Thesis Annihilation'.
  - 2y ago
heelix 2y ago
Supreme Commander is still pretty active, via the FAForever community. The original single player maps were converted to co-op. Lots of game modes, a new race, unit tweaks, new maps - very much a game that still gets love. When the next steam sale hits, you only need the Supreme Commander: Forged Alliances game (Under $3) and https://www.faforever.com https://www.faforever.com installer and it all updates lovely. Works on Linux, multi monitors, and a dozen or so players connecting. For me, I found this was the open source project I used to keep my SpringBoot skills current. Nothing but positive things to say.
daveidol 2y ago
One of the best video games ever made
trashface 2y ago
I liked the voice acting. Especially the cranky military guy. Ordered to attack a base on some planet: "Are we gonna hold it this time? Or are we gonna abandon it to the cybrans in a month?" Ordered to help PC on another mission: "Arrgh how much longer do I have to hold this guy's hand?"
- pdntspa 2y ago
  "Get it done, commanderrrrr" lives rent-free in my head for as long as it wants

133 points by UglyToad 2y ago

datadrivenangel 2y ago

To this day, still one of the best RTS games of all time.

VyseofArcadia 2y ago
Let's say you're not too familiar with the genre, but you've been curious for a while and want to explore more. Maybe you played some Starcraft at a friend's house in high school, and that's pretty much it for genre exposure. And by you I mean me. What games would you recommend for a newcomer in 2024? What are the genre-defining classics, and which ones still hold up? What's the recent hotness? The modern classics?
- pdntspa 2y ago
  Supreme Commander is a great start Personally, I'd also recommend Homeworld and the Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War series On the free-and-open-source front there is Zero-K (which I don't care for) and Beyond All Reason, both of these are Spring Engine games, and Spring Engine started out as a 'modernization' of Total Annihilation. Most games built with it don't fall too far from the original Homeworld 3 comes out in May, I can't wait :D :D :D ps- I'd be remiss to omit Command & Conquer... Red Alert 2 and Generals are my favorites. I don't care for Starcraft but that series is worth mentioning too.
  - Log_out_ 2y ago
    It actually started out as a ta3dviewer of total annihilation replays
    - pdntspa 2y ago
      Indeed. I think I discovered it while wish searching for a TA where I could get up close with the models.
  - Spellman 2y ago
    If you specifically want more Total Annihilation style RTS games, Ashes of the Singularity scratches a similar itch. And of course Planetary Annihilation does TA IN SPACE with the ability to sling asteroids at your opponents. Personally switching to a 3D sphere world broke my brain.
    - pdntspa 2y ago
      I didn't like Ashes of the Singularity, I really don't like the capture point game mode that it seemed to revolve around (though Dawn of War did the same thing and that didn't bother me...) Planetary Annihilation is cool too but I really didn't like the spherical maps SupCom really is the sweet spot
- Synaesthesia 2y ago
  Personally the only entertaining ones to watch are Starcraft Brood War or Starcraft 2 right now.
- ijk 2y ago
  Depends on which branch of RTS design you want to explore. Age of Empires 2 still has a significant player base, for example, so it's both a genre-defining classic and modern ranked multi-player. Other RTS design traditions include Total Annilation, etc. Plus there's adjacent stuff, such as They Are Billions which just does the base building part and drops some of the other mechanics.
- jimbob45 2y ago
  There's still nothing that comes close to Warcraft 3 (the original, not the remastered abomination, don't fucking touch it). Dawn of War 40k had some neat ideas as well. So probably WC3 -> DoW 40k -> Starcraft 1/2 -> weep because the genre is dead
  - jamie_ca 2y ago
    Not for lack of trying, though. Stormgate and Tempest Rising are boty trying to take on the mantle of Starcraft 2 with probable releases this/next year. But yeah overall high production values pickings are pretty slim - last year saw Company of Heroes 3, 2022 had a Dune game, 2021 had Age of Empires 4. 2020 might be a high point with Warcraft 3, C&C, and AoE 3 remasters.
- araes 2y ago
  Mostly, I tend to put the RTS' into ideas about "real-time strategy." Dune II: One of the first, one of the best. 3 factions, all very different, story mode with scope. Interesting units when "harvesters" was a new idea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II Command & Conquer / Red Alert: Excellent unit select, very orthogonal unit choices, live-action cutscenes (which while of questionable quality, were still pretty amusing) Red Alert also has an excellent soundtrack (although extremely facist march themed with "Hell March", yet quite listenable). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Red_Alert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_%26_Conquer:_Red_Alert Age of Empires: Artificial Intelligent opponents that didn't "cheat" with extra resources or out-of-game knowledge, they were simply competent opponents. Age of Kings is probably the showcase. Rotational rock-paper-scissors unit effectiveness. Several "victory" types. Gameplay that tended to support longer games, rather than 3-minute rush (Commander vs Legacy in an MtG context). Only complaint is unique units were often not enough for long enough to really be special. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Empires_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Empires_II Warcraft II: Not sure how relevant today, yet one of the first to feature an online matchmaking service that was not utter misery (and actually had players at lot of the time!) Also, neat cartoony style that became the basis of WoW, DOTA, and many others. Possibly the best though, first game where you could spend half an hour just cycling through all the quotes ("I can see my house!") for units (and their annoyances at your clicking "Are you still touching me?"). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_II:_Tides_of_Darkness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warcraft_II:_Tides_of_Darkness Homeworld: There is Still not a significant other 3D RTS franchise (EVE Online is very close for an MMO). Basically, about the only game that does actually 3D strategic space combat in an actual spherical playing field over vast distances, with multiple-ship scales, and per unit positionable cameras ("camera can be set to follow any ship and view them from any angle, as well as display the ship's point of view"). The story's also quite well written, and at least provides a plausible reason for each of the missions. I watched Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and thought "You people should have played Homeworld, you would have written such better space battles. Somebody over at Battlestar Galactica must have played Homeworld." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeworld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeworld Sins of a Solar Empire: Neat game design based on solar system "zones", where you can only really fight around solar systems, and then transit is mostly hands off (often with surprises when you exit jump space into fog of war). Planetary and solar system upgrades that are inherent to the idea of "planet" rather than just tower defense. Multiple ship styles and races with fairly different play styles depending on the build choice. Been a while, yet from what I remember, also not quite as punishing as Starcraft about choosing the "correct" choice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire Warhammer 40K Dawn of War: Gameplay that's not built on mining anything, rather more like capture the flag, holding locations for time frames to accumulate "something". And then pretty much all the pre-existing craziness of Warhammer that is far too long for a single game recommendation. LOTS of units and armies though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000:_Dawn_of_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000:_Dawn_of_War Total War Franchise: (Medieval II, Rome, Shogun, and Warhammer are notable entries) Scope. Massive scope. Battles with 10's of 1000's of soldiers on the field. Became a bit much to deal with in some of the games, yet neat to be able to create your own LotR "Ride of the Rohan" scenes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_War_(video_game_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_War_(video_game_series) Achron (have not played, would like to try) Time travel RTS with three time-frames units fight in, and propagating time waves that erase the future. You can "chronofrag" yourself, by having future self meet past self. A Grandfather Paradox resolution system, where units are removed if they fall out of the "possible futures." Supreme Commander: (and prior Total Annihilation) are the subject of this article. Also massive scope. Huge, smoothly scalable maps. Tons of unit choices. Enormous numbers of on map units simultaneously.
- paulddraper 2y ago
  Starcraft II still has a big player base. (Pre-release Stormgate is the closest successor.) Age of Empires and Total Annihilation still have fan bases. Supreme Commander and Command and Conquer do as well. AFAIK, Beyond All Reason is the most popular "large-scale" RTS.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

liotier 2y ago

Enjoy that style ? Go play Beyond All Reason, its free and open-source spiritual heir - https://www.beyondallreason.info https://www.beyondallreason.info

bloqs 2y ago
Thank you for this, had no idea it existed
- vladms 2y ago
  And, for completion, with the same engine that beyond all reason is done, but with a different game play feeling: https://zero-k.info/ https://zero-k.info/ I personally prefer Zero-K (flatter tech tree, territory can be more important), but both are great games.
  - concordDance 2y ago
    Also prefer Zero-K. The economy system design results in better team games imo. Though obviously it's a lot less pretty.
    - mcbuilder 2y ago
      I've never played much Zero-K, but from I understand the eco in BAR is truely exponential, after you get to the top of the tech tree and have a metal maker economy. It's an interesting design, since late game human becomes the bottleneck in expanding the eco, since exponential growth also means you have to increase your attention in managing it. Zero-K from what I know has overdrive fusions, which isn't really exponential in the same sense. In the end, both are great games.
      - Log_out_ 2y ago
        It's limited by builds pace though
      - paulddraper 2y ago

corysama 2y ago

If you find graphics studies interesting, you can find a few more at http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2020/12/29/graphics-studies-compilation/ http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2020/12/29/graphics-stud...

jsheard 2y ago

An underrated aspect of the SupCom engine was that it natively supported multiple monitors, with independently controllable cameras on each one so you could keep an eye on any two parts of the map, or just zoom the second one all the way out to get a giant minimap. That's something you never see today even though it would be easier to pull off with modern graphics APIs (IIRC SupCom actually runs two copies of the game simultaneously, driving one monitor each, to get around DirectX limitations of the time).

YurgenJurgensen 2y ago
Slightly less impressive was the minimap, which was also an entire second(third) copy of the game's graphics process. (Although really you weren't 'supposed' to use the minimap, since strategic zoom took its place.)
- m463 2y ago
  I find these kinds of bend-over-backward-things amazing. It is probably not a good ROI to get it that correct, but it admirable and makes the game lots of fun. In a similar vein, I think fallout4 lets you use an ipad as a pip-boy to do maps and other management things.
  - yayitswei 2y ago
    if it makes the game lots fun then there's a good case for the feature!
- RGamma 2y ago
  And our LAN games became soo slooow over time..
- reactordev 2y ago
  It's trivial to render to a texture (framebuffer) using a separate camera matrix and shader pipeline to make a minimap. It was in 2015 as well. Rendering to two separate windows is also trivial if you're rendering to textures first instead of directly to the backbuffer. Making use of those two windows is not trivial. All in all, SupCom had issues with the number of units on screen (or in general) and would slow down considerably under heavy troop battles. Still, it was awesome. Ever since 2006 or so it's been standard practice to break up the rendering pipeline and render to textures that you would combine in various ways in post (deferred shading came about around this time). So it's not an entire graphics engine process. It's just simply a render target.

metadat 2y ago

There's also LOUD, the mod version of the game which adds even more dynamics and higher tier skill trees. https://www.moddb.com/mods/loud-ai-supreme-commander-forged-alliance https://www.moddb.com/mods/loud-ai-supreme-commander-forged-... I've actually playing this the last few days :)

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

elromulous 2y ago

Since the article opens with discussion of RTSs in the (late) 90s, I feel it would be a crime to not include Dune 2[0], largely considered to be the first "modern" RTS. Edit: Dune2 came out in 1992, so it's understandable that it's not mentioned, I meant more in the broader discussion of RTSs. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_II

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

mrguyorama 2y ago

If you also happen to think SupCom was the most ultimate superior RTS ever made, because it's truly strategy scale with a thousand units PER PLAYER including on 8v8 maps, and the simulated ballistics of almost all weapons means you can defend your base from an incoming nuke by scrambling your jet fighters so that they run into the incoming warhead and airburst it "safely" above your base, and love that artillery shells can also hit those same planes, or that a plane shot out of the sky can fall on a tank and destroy it, or that you think a giant walking mech with a backpack nuke launcher is the metalist fucking thing, Check out Forged Alliance Forever. It's a community made, open source, "launcher" for the Supreme Commander game, that patches it, mods it, allows you to interact with other players and find games and get ranked against them, and also is a replay viewer, so you can watch how the pros actually do the insane micro and economy play that earns them the 2000+ ELO score, and also a mod manager, and also a friends list. If you are like me, and love all that but actually suck at playing strategy games in general, check out Gyle on youtube https://www.youtube.com/@GyleCast https://www.youtube.com/@GyleCast who has been casting SupCom games for at least a decade now, and really shows off some of the best that the game has to offer, including multi-hour "EPICs" that can involve ten thousand units controlled by several semi-pro players.

newZWhoDis 2y ago
Shoutout to FAF. Best RTS I’ve ever played. Been meaning to check out Beyond All Reason, supposedly it’s a FOSS spiritual successor to FAF
- sabartonn 2y ago
  Total Annihilation (1997) was the predecessor to Supreme Commander (2007), both by Cavedog. Beyond All Reason is pretty much a remake of the former.
  - limbicsystem 2y ago
    I was completing my PhD at the time. I called it 'Thesis Annihilation'.
- 2y ago

heelix 2y ago

Supreme Commander is still pretty active, via the FAForever community. The original single player maps were converted to co-op. Lots of game modes, a new race, unit tweaks, new maps - very much a game that still gets love. When the next steam sale hits, you only need the Supreme Commander: Forged Alliances game (Under $3) and https://www.faforever.com https://www.faforever.com installer and it all updates lovely. Works on Linux, multi monitors, and a dozen or so players connecting. For me, I found this was the open source project I used to keep my SpringBoot skills current. Nothing but positive things to say.

daveidol 2y ago

One of the best video games ever made

trashface 2y ago

I liked the voice acting. Especially the cranky military guy. Ordered to attack a base on some planet: "Are we gonna hold it this time? Or are we gonna abandon it to the cybrans in a month?" Ordered to help PC on another mission: "Arrgh how much longer do I have to hold this guy's hand?"

pdntspa 2y ago
"Get it done, commanderrrrr" lives rent-free in my head for as long as it wants