Supreme Commander Forged Alliance Shortcut Keys

[Ashlie Mealey]

FA Forever isn't just the lobby, it also comprises a set of community patches that change the game balance substantially. As a veteran FA player, I'd like to quickly see how FA Forever is different in gameplay terms: how units are stronger or weaker than before, and what the additions like the HQ factories do. The online unit database is a good starting point, but only shows each unit on a separate page, and doesn't compare units to the base game. OTOH, the patch notes are confusing to read, because they describe one change at a time instead of the overall change (some changes are modified further in later patches, etc.).

The Normal changes nothing except that it is (much!) cheaper and faster to getThe HQ cost more takes longer to upgrade to and possesses the tech for that tree (land, air, sea). You must posses at least one HQ for the "normal" upgrade choice of that tree to unlock and you are allowed to possess as little as one (for savings and speed) but if it gets destroyed. You must upgrade another t1 factory through the HQ line back up to that tech level for the other factories to be able to produce anything other than tech 1 again (yes, in the meantime you will be tech-locked meaning "normal" factories, upgraded even to tech 3 can only produce t1 units until there is a T3 HQ again). This is not shared with teammates. each player must have his own HQ.

The reasoning behind this change is that it makes the game run much smoother (no more t1 engineer spam) as well as validating the option of building more than one factory which before was a "noob alert!". Now all options are viable and the one that demands less micro/encourages a more macro focus, E.G. : building more factories, is also the one that lags the game less.

Before, if you built many t3 engineers to assist a factory or t4 construction, you were a noob because between you and the same level player who used the same amount of mass making t1 engineers to assist, the player with the t1 engys got much more build power.

The Donut (otherwise known as the Czar, T4 Aeon air experimental) no longer deals 100% damage with it's ground beam to fighters trying to shoot it out of the sky with fly-bys, and because of the games's design (the center of the unit being both the target reticle for the fighters and where the ground beam of death comes out of, the fighters "must" fly through it).

Rushing to enable ground fire and picking a spot on the ground for your Donut to blast away at if ever it's caught off guard by a swathe of T3 fighters is still a valid reaction, but said swathe will only loose some 10-15% of it's fighters instead of 100% and the Donut gaining instant 5-star veterancy.

This makes the Czar a squishy unit once again, meant for punishing ground once air is won, as it was intended. It also means you don't need to micro fighters to fly parallel to their normal attack path, avoiding the beam (a technique that would cut your losses at the cost of only using a fraction of your actual air firepower).

Bombers t1 and t4, can no longer be hover-bombed microed. this ended up being deemed an engine exploit as it was all we would ever see in higher tier competitive play. First-bomber (the name for a build order starting with air factory in which a bomber is queued as the first unit) was rampant. Hover-bombing allowed the negation of any retaliation.

General adjacency bonus meta : now there are more possible combinations and the values for adjacency other than mass storages have been buffed in order to make almost any adjacency a valid choice depending on the context. (encircling a mass extractor with 4 factories is now not only no longer frowned upon but encouraged in small map-size 1v1). Also if you control several races, cross-race adjacency will work, so long as you own all buildings involved.

Veterancy is no longer a system out of five stars but a meter to next level with very fine detail on the points on the meter. Also it used to be that any kill was equivalent, now the kill is scored on value of the target over killer.

For example a Donut/Czar killing t1 engineers will have a hard time leveling up but if it kills another Czar it should get a rank in vet on the spot (so the difference in the old rank system and new swings both ways).

Shields will not shield individually as they did (this lead to stagnant end-game T4 artillery turtle base vs T4 artillery turtle base meta, which you can still very much do btw, but just not as long, it breaks down after 5mins tops). Shields whether touching or not have a proximity percentage to one another that serves to spread damage received. This generally means if your shields have caved they really deserved to.

Firebeetle drop Ctrl+K has been patched out. People found out you could load a transport with the Cybran t2 land suicide bomb unit and simply immediately destroy the transport when it was over the Commander. The explosion was strong enough that it made an inescapable radius. this also meant shields and anti-air batteries, no matter the amount were no good. the transport capacity nerfs and changes to the Firebeetle (transports dying no longer trigger the Firebeetles explosion and fall damage will kill them without explosion) helped quell this exploit.

More focus has been put on t1, t2 and t3 which both in vanilla FA (where t4 and late game was a go-to for every situation) and relatively recent FAF balance (where t2 skip was a valid strategy not only for Aeon but for every race). t2 especially has been revitalized and can now hold it's own (sometimes vs t3). likewise t3 land can now hold it's own against t4 land. similarly Support SCUs are now much more useful, they can also fight better against t4. The sparky (t2 UEF field engineer which can fight and build offensive and defensive structures) has also been buffed twice in a row because of it's under-use.

Support Commanders (SACUs can now be built with an upgrade schematic already completed (a set of upgrades optimized for different things) this is balanced with their price and build time. It's helpful to give newer players an edge where they lack incentive to build these otherwise very powerful units because they forget to/don't have the micro for upgrading them.

This is more fair-play for players spawning on the lower or left side of the map as before they would be disadvantaged in a situation where them and an enemy building a turret at the same time (the enemy's turret would start shooting right away as it was already on target and theirs would first have to slowly turn all the way around).

Friendly fire to structures on commander explosion, nukes, and tactical missile launcher is nullified entirely = no more rage-quit bomb your teammate if you didn't like the outcome of a team-game. Also a prompt for reporting will pop up, allowing you to report the attempted teamkilling if you so wish.

Target priority overhaul. the target priority menu is now much more feature-packed and the default is ground fire and the default priorities have been tweaked to reflect what a human player would want in every situation (some of the old target priority's choices were rather odd).

New: All 24 campaign missions from (both Supreme Commander and Forged Alliance) can be played cooperatively with up to four players.The difficulty of the campaigns ramps up as players are added. Friendly fire may occur.

Mods: FAF allows you to turn on or off mods independently of each other; you can use any, all, or none of them.Each mod changes gameplay differently; some add unit/buildings/experimentals, some rebalance existing units, some change the game rules when playing a skirmish, and some just change what the game looks like (UI mods) but don't otherwise affect gameplay.Because there are so many mods and ways to combine those mods, attempting to describe what exactly FAF is in comparison to the vanilla Forged alliance is almost impossible to do. Take a below to see what some of the FAF mods do.

Civilians Defense: (Rules change mod). A mod that gives the defending side mass and energy bonuses for evacuating civilians, while the other side gets bonuses for killing them and can win if they kill enough of them.

Murder Party mod: (Rules change mod). All players in a skirmish are assigned a unique other player to defeat. Bonuses for doing so, penalties for killing the wrong other player (including the person trying to kill you!). You get points for how long you last, but match winner is the person with highest score, not the last survivor. See =25&t=300 for details.

Phantom X: (Rules change mod). At 8 minutes into a skirmish some players are designated 'phantoms' (usually 25-40% of the players). Phantoms get an energy and mass bonus and form one team vs. the rest of the players.

Diamond: (Rebalance mod). A rebalance mod designed for professional players. Tighter gameplay than original Forged Alliance There are less 'shortcuts' to victory so you have to really dominate your opponent to get a win. Fixes most of the bugs in the vanilla game.

My recommendation: Watch some of the excellent videos of ranked games with commentary by ZaphodX. He takes recordings of games and comments on correct or incorrect things the players do. This is, other than actually playing games yourself, probably the best way to get a feel for how to play well.

Darth Sidious
Sheev PalpatineBiographical informationHomeworldNaboo[1]Born84 BBY, Naboo[2]Died

• 4 ABY,[3] Death Star II, Endor system[4] (original body)[5]
• 35 ABY,[6] Exegol[7] (clone body and spirit)[8][5]

Descriptive informationSpeciesHuman (Naboo)[9]GenderMale[9]PronounsHe/him[9]Height1.73/1.78 meters[10]Mass75 kilograms[11]Hair colorRed,[1] later white[4]Eye color

• Blue[1]
• Yellow (dark side)[4]
• White (deteriorated clone body)[7]

Skin colorLight,[1] later pale[4]CyberneticsOmmin harness[5]Family informationFamilyPalpatine family[7]ChildrenDathan (through cloning)[7]Chronological and political informationAffiliation(s)

• Sith[10]
• Royal House of Naboo[1]
• Galactic Republic[10]
  • Naboo delegation[10]
  • Office of the Chancellor[12]
• Trade Federation[1]
• Confederacy of Independent Systems[12]
• Galactic Empire[10]
• Sith Eternal[7]
• First Order[5]

MastersDarth Plagueis[13]Apprentices

• Wilhuff Tarkin (protg)[14]
• Wullf Yularen (protg)[15]
• Darth Maul (Sith)[1]
• Darth Tyranus (Sith)[12]
• Darth Vader (Sith)[16]
• Inquisitorius (Jedi hunters)[17]
• Gallius Rax (protg)[18]
• Enric Pryde (protg)[7]
• Snoke (puppet)[8]
• Kylo Ren (secretly)[7]

[Source]

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