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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 gam…
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Also prefer Zero-K. The economy system design results in better team games imo. Though obviously it's a lot less pretty.
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 expone…
Also, when the games do last a while, it is truly amazing to watch. [1]
When the next steam sale hits, you only need the Supreme Commander: Forged Alliances game (Under $3) and 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.
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 gam…
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.)
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.
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 gam…
Enjoy that style ? Go play Beyond All Reason, its free and open-source spiritual heir - https://www.beyondallreason.info
I played Total Annihilation as a kid. Finding Beyond All Reason was amazing. And spectating 8v8+ with tens of thousands of units is something else. It's unfortunate that large scale RTS isn't a more popular genre. Instead it's all Fortnite/CoD/WoW
That said, there's still some RTS games in the indie space / on Steam, like Homeworld: Deserts of something. But that one was ultimately disappointing overall.
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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
Total Annihilation (1997) was the predecessor to Supreme Commander (2007), both by Cavedog. Beyond All Reason is pretty much a remake of the former.
To this day, still one of the best RTS games of all time.
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?
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.