Supreme Commander

Physics 101
Every facet of SC is built to adhere to physics you can see, feel and use as a key gameplay element. A good example of physics is the nukes. In lesser RTS games a missile would launch, disappear off the screen and reappear in an animation blattering the enemy’s base. In SC the game calculates the range and sends the missile on a physics-driven ballistic arc. If the range is longer the missile will fly higher and the arc of its flight will reflect that. When a nuke interceptor missile (the game’s equivalent of the US Patriot missile), is launched, it’s one 3D object moving at high speed vs another. If it hits it’s because it was able to launch in time and the trajectory was favourable. There’s no behind the scenes CPU dice throwing going on here. As Chris Taylor says, ‘The weapons do what they do.’

SC’s physics play a tangible role in game strategy. For example, if two facing armies are separated by hills or obstructions, then missiles will be far more effective than direct-fire weapons.

Physics also apply in a real world manner to air units. There’s a ‘fuel model’ in SC that means air units will have limited range and endurance before needing to return to base for re-fuelling.

Despite the hardcore physics, SC does not support the AGEIA PhysX card, or for that matter, any other third party physics solution, such as Havok. It’s all proprietary. Much of this stems from the need to ensure that networked SC machines could run synchronously across different architectures. So dependant are the game’s laws on physics.



Puts the ‘s’ in strategic
There’s little doubt Supreme Commander will be the most complex and, at first, difficult RTS to master. But the developers have been clever about matching the complexity with game tools to make it all cool fun.

Despite its complexity, SC is a masterpiece of efficient time and motion. Buildings, for example, can be assigned build orders while they are still under construction! Not only that, but you can upgrade a building before it’s even been finished, and gain access to a higher level of unit, and queue them up too!



While SC will most likely end up in time being considered a multiplayer masterpiece, the single player campaign has some really nice missions that open up with new objectives in each. This follows the standard RTS single player method, but given SCs depth should offer a far more satisfying game experience. Skirmish mode will offer pretty much any way to play, including mega games with huge worlds and ‘enough to satisfy gamers that like a long easy paced game that lasts all afternoon’, according to Chris Taylor.
The AI you’ll play can be assigned ‘traits’, or strategic personalities, to keep things interesting. But don’t expect to master a particular AI opponent any time soon, as they can change strategy in the game dynamically.

Fine tuning the AI was, in part, accomplished during development by having a new version of the AI fight the older version. Darwinian AI evolution in a box, coming to shops near you soon.