Bleh, I'm replying to the 2 above posts... quote doesn't work in Chrome.
You say that the physics simulation brings a lot of gameplay.
You have to put that into context of:
What true value there is to this simulation versus how much more extra PC Grunt is required to run this smoothly ie the SC syndrome... it runs on my digital watch so you're immediately making it more accessible.
Well, im not sure that the simulation is what takes all the PC’s grunt, I mean total annihilation simulated projectiles too and that game is more than 10 years old. I bought a new PC in 2007 and its run supcom virtually flawlessly (though I tend to only play 1v1 and never against the bugged AI). And yes, I feel the extra grunt necessary is completely worth it, even if other players struggle to run it as well as I can.
Can you give a specific instance where you purposefully alter your gameplay so that this become useful? At the same time, consider that SupCom was built around the whole concept of minimising micro to bring that big-scale battle feeling.
What the simulation allows is a far more dynamic relationship between units. How units behave when fighting each other can depend on movement direction, what type of unit they’re shooting at, where that enemy is moving, as well as a natural, organic relationship with the terrain. Unlike other systems such as DoW1, where a player receives a bonus/penalty for standing on a pre-determined spot the game designers have given +-50% armour to, units in supcom gain natural bonuses by hiding behind a hill or ledge or shield. This means that units behave differently in relation to each other depending on which part of the terrain they’re fighting on, without having to sit in contrived areas for bonus.
It also gives a natural bonus/penalty depending on the formation of troops you’re using in combat. If you have 50 units V 50 units the outcome is far more fluid than in other games, because units can miss, hit other units, or have their effectiveness increased/decreased depending on how their position relates to their allies as well as the enemy’s, which gives natural, transparent bonuses to things like flanking, rather than clicking on a formation that gives you +50% damage like LOTR.
Essentially, you can get the same bunch of units fighting another same bunch of units, and the results will be completely different each time because of the simulation and how units are placed/moved on the battlefield, without the need to create arbitrary armour types.
The great thing about FA is that you can use as much or as little micro as you wish. If you just want to mass tanks and send them at the enemy with one click, you can. Now, I prefer giving different units different orders in a group depending on the situation, but that’s me and how I like to play. You can win games in FA by having superior tactics, superior strategy, or superior economy. Its up to you to decide how much attention you pay to each area.
Also:
The extra bandwidth requirement for SupCom should be ... at least 10 times more than DG purely from a number of units point of view.
Unfortunately, my memory is not what it once was and I can't remember what kind of army size limit you had....
Ranked supcom has a unit limit of 500, so I would agree that it should have more bandwidth concerns than DG. With DG, I suspect its an issue with impulse, as impulse wasn’t designed with p2p in mind, and they had to create an entire system just for DG I believe. As it stands though, as long as the pings are low I don’t experience any issues with performance.