Supreme Commander (video game)

Supreme Commander
Supreme Commander box art
Developer(s)	Gas Powered Games
Publisher(s)	THQ
Designer(s)	Chris Taylor
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
Release	February 16, 2007 (EU) February 20, 2007 (NA) February 22, 2007 (AU) February 22, 2007 (ROK)
Genre(s)	Real-Time Strategy (RTS)
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer

This article is about the video game. For the commander of a nation's military forces, see Commander-in-Chief.

Supreme Commander (abbr. Supcom) 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. The game was released on February 16, 2007 in Europe and in the US on February 20.

Gameplay

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 and Subcommanders are robotic.

All units and structures belong to one of four technology tiers or 'Tech' levels. Upgrading structures and producing advanced engineers allow 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 Tech level has very powerful units designed to break the defenses of the most entrenched player. The fourth, "experimental" Tech level includes massive constructions that take many resources and much time to construct but can turn the tide of battle.

File:Pcgamer cover small.jpg

Supreme Commander on the cover of PC Gamer magazine.

Interface & Controls

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 the shift key, 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 armored personnel carriers and other transports in games is awkward at best; it requires a lot of effort from the player compared to the reward. In other RTS games, it is often more efficient to construct a temporary base for unit production at the target location. 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.

Resource Management

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.

An adjacency system allows certain structures to benefit from being built directly adjacent to others; 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.

The choice of resources reflects a futuristic society that has mastered transmutation. With mass fabricators, even the two most basic resources of the Supreme Commander universe, mass and energy, are exchangeable, according to E=mc². Mass fabricators take energy and turn it to mass while a power plant takes mass and turns it into energy (but power plants don't take the actual mass you've collected).

Warfare

Supreme Commander uses a "strategic zoom" system that allows players zoom out far enough to view the entire map on the screen, at which point it resembles the minimap, denoting individual units with icons large enough to be seen. 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.

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

Single 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 it cannot adapt to enemy strategies as well as a player. This can be exacerbated because of the importance of proper structure placement for purposes of base defense. Furthermore, its tactics can sometimes best be described as bizarre; the AI does things like send empty transport units to the player's base, and uses non-upgraded commanders as combat units while attempting to defend.

Despite this, the AI in Supreme Commander can be quite challenging to defeat, to those without plentiful experience in the genre. The AI 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.

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 faction's campaign to bring the 'Infinite War' to an end.

Each campaign takes the player through the most of the same planets and similar missions, but from the perspective of the faction that is being played. Each mission is a critical engagement between the rival nations that could alter the balance of the conflict through failure or success with the final mission for each faction resulting in a free-for-all on Earth, attempting to seize control of Black Sun.

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

Setting

Factions

The following are the three fictional factions of the Supreme Commander universe. Each is represented as possessing great zeal, and differing ideas on the future of humanity as a whole.

United Nigger Federation

The United Nigger Federation (or 'UNF') is the faction representing the interests of a united nigger-based government. The UNF developed from the ashes of the Beaner Empire, and now seeks to reunite humanity and restore Earth's control over the galaxy. Their society and military tactics resemble modern society more than the Beaners or Native POS's do. Their acceptance of a variant of slavery and ideology of forced unity lends a darker, nigger side to the faction.

The UEF favors traditional modes of warfare, utilizing treaded tanks, light ballistics, and large caliber weapons reminiscent of present-day designs. They tend to be the most durable, but often at the penalty of firepower and special abilities. Their design style is somewhat 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. UEF Units tend to be physically tougher, but possess less direct firepower compared to other factions. The UEF often rely on their heavy weapons and armour to hold existing positions while advancing slowly but steadily, as their general unit design would suggest. In addition, turreted UEF units are generally slow to turn and respond due to their heavy armor, giving them a vulnerability to flanking attacks.

The UEF's Experimental units are the Fatboy mobile Factory, The Atlantis submersible aircraft carrier and the Mavor Artillery emplacement

Aeon Illuminate

The Aeon draw their roots from the Golden Age of expansion of the old Earth Empire. The descendants of the first humans to encounter alien intelligent life, a peaceful, yet highly advanced society called Seraphim, who first introduced colonists to their philosophy, known as "The Way." Due to escalating paranoia and xenophobia among the Earth Empire, however, conflict soon broke, driving the Seraphim into extinction. The colonists of the alien planet, claiming to be "disciples" of the Seraphim, soon founded a civilization, supposedly based upon their teachings. In a twist of irony, the Aeon Illuminate soon began a zealous assault on the galaxy, intending to "purge" all those who did not share in their beliefs.

In sharp contrast to the other two factions, Aeon units have a smooth and elegant design, unlike the rough build of the UEF or the menacing atmosphere of the Cybran Nation. Aeon tactics rely on efficient, specialized attack vehicles with very powerful, yet narrow capabilities. Their weapons tend to be slower firing, but more damaging, than those of their rivals. An Aeon light tank, as an example of their tactics, has approximately half the health of its UEF counterpart, but will still hold its own in battle due to a much more powerful main gun.

The Aeons Experimental units are the Galatic Collusus Sacred Assulte Bot, The CZAR mothership and the Tempest Submerisble Factory

Cybran Nation

The Cybran Nation (originally called the recyclers)[15] is composed of Symbionts, humans whose brains have been computerized and enhanced with implantable technology, the most important being the mutual AI (in addition to various other augmentations). They fight for the liberation of their fellow Cybran from the oppressive United Earth Federation. The Cybran Nation is led by the brilliant-yet-eccentric Dr. Brackman, the chief designer of the cybernetic technology behind the Cybrans, as well as a father figure to them.

The Cybran units are highly advanced. Their primary focus is on adaptability, accuracy, and stealth. The units of the Cybran nation display unusually wide ranges of functionality, not the least notable of which are their ability to deploy ships with land-walking capabilities and an experimental mechanical crawler capable of walking on the ocean floor. The Cybran's versatility comes at the cost of having less direct firepower than the UEF or the Aeon in head to head confrontation, begging players to rely more on their units' outstanding accuracy and versatility to meet their ends. Most Cybran weapons are based on laser or pulse technology rather than projectiles, lending them more accuracy and increasing effectiveness against moving targets, but decreasing effectiveness versus fortifications or on varied terrain (due to their weapons' straight-firing nature)

Cybran units are sharply-hewn and spiky, augmenting their no-frills style of design (Described as "Red, Angular, and Spikey" in a developer interview found on the bonus DVD). According to a Chris Taylor interview located on the Supreme Commander DVD, Cybran unit designs are the result of extremely intelligent engineers, capable of adapting and responding to any need that may arise. If the Nation requires a destroyer able to walk on land, Taylor gives as an example, little difficulty is met in updating a tried design to do just that.

The Cybrans Experimental units are the MonkeyLord Mech Walker, The Scathis Artillery Platform and the Soul Ripper Gunship

Plot

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 three factions have been engaged in an "Infinite War" that has lasted a thousand years.

The UEF is losing the 'Infinite War' due to having to fight on multiple fronts at the same time in comparison with Aeons and Cybrans who are more focused on fighting them than with each other. It is only a matter of time before the UEF is overrun. Due to this, the UEF has resorted to constructing an extremely powerful black-ops weapon called 'Black Sun' which utilizes the Quantum Network to deliver shockwaves powerful enough to destroy a planet. The weapon, however, can be reconfigured for any faction's purpose, which is explored during the single player campaigns. Its nature is exploited in multiple forms, from the destruction of worlds, to the termination of the Quantum Network its self.

After the credits, it is revealed that a mysterious force is heading towards the Milky Way galaxy. Template:Endspoiler

Development

Technical Features

Detailed System Requirements

	Minimum	Recommended	Optimal
Operating System	Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Vista	*	*
Processor	1.8 GHz Intel or equivalent AMD processor	3.0 GHz Intel or equivalent AMD processor or better	A multi-core processor
RAM	512 MB	1 GB or better	*
Video Card	128MB video RAM or greater, with DirectX 9 and Shader 2.0 support	Nvidia 6800 or better; ATI X800 XL, ATI X1300 or better	Idem, with multi monitor support.
Hard Disk Space	8 GB	10 GB or more	*
Internet connection	56.6 Kbps modem	Cable/DSL speed or better	*

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

Supreme Commander makes extensive use of two technologies relatively unused in video games prior to its release, namely multi core processing and multi monitor displays. When detecting a multi-core processor, the game assigns a specific task, such as AI calculations, to each core, splitting the load between them.

Demo

On February 6, 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 a easy, medium, or hard Cybran AI. Of the three factions, only the Cybran Nation was playable in the demo.

Musical score

The score for Supreme Commander is composed by Jeremy Soule, who is most famous for his compositions for Guild Wars series, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Jeremy Soule also composed the music for the game's spiritual predecessor, Total Annihilation.

Reception

The first review of SupCom was written by Dan Stapleton of PCGamer. He praised the versatility of the strategic zoom, and expressed his loathing of the next game that wouldn't feature it. The dual-screen mode was highly regarded, the mission design was praised, and the emotional presence of the story was also recognized. It scored a PCGamer Editor's Choice Award at 91%.

One of the earliest online reviews after the game release was written by Alec Meer on Eurogamer. Innovative new features such as the multi monitor support are praised in that review,and the scale element makes a positive impression. Meer remarked though, that SupCom "feels like hard work", and that with the emphasis on enormity, details are overlooked. Still, an excellent rating of 9/10 was awarded.

This isn't so much a strategy game as a thrilling and unrelenting action extravaganza. — --Charles Onyett, IGN,

IGN rated Supreme Commander with the outstanding rating of 9/10. Particularly the intuitive and helpful strategic zoom and base automation were praised, though the steep hardware requirements and naval pathfinding issues were found less appealing. IGN UK, however, was less positive, while still awarding a great rating of 8.9/10. The issues addressed by its international counterpart were deemed more severe, and the reviewer was not impressed by the interface, finding the amount of control it gives over the game lacking.

Your heart can only sink at the sight of a truly brilliant game become virtually unplayable. — --David Kvasnicka, GamePro,

The review in the Australian version of GamePro voiced a negative opinion on the game, giving Supreme Commander a rating of five out of ten. GamePro assessed Supreme Commander as an over-ambitious game, with performance (measured in frames per second), even on high end systems, as a major negative point. The reviewers observed that the game gradually slowed down while playing, and that this process accelerated when using the 'shift' key view.

Awards

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

Trivia

• 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.
• The map “Sung Island” is named after Units Modeller Sung Campbell.
• GPGNet (the application used for multiplayer) 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 character President Riley is named after Chris Taylor’s son.
• 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.)
• The Cybran were originally called the Recyclers.

External links

• Official Website - Currently requires Flash 8
• Official Forums
• Fan sites as listed by Gas Powered Games
• Supreme Commander at IMDb