I want to build trains in SC

Hello? The whole genre of Supreme Commander is based around Quantum Tunnelling. That means instantaneous transportation to the front. No sabotageable track, and much faster.

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"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most"
-Ozzy Osbourne

Maybe this is just me, but this is starting to sound like Supreme SimCity 5 instead of Supreme Commander. I know trains and supply lines belong in a war, but I dunno, maybe it's just me.

It's just you, man. This idea is bitchin'. With all the throwback to WWII in the aircraft gameplay dynamics, it would be cool to see a train on the field. You could call it the HyperRail or something. The only complication I see would be defending it. Maybe the tracks could be as hard to destroy as dragon's teeth were. As far as balance, I know this would never happen, but here is my idea: The UEF should get the train. The Aeons should get teleporters. The cybrans should get a long-legged, rapid spider transport than can cross virtually any terrain, has weapons, and can mount smaller walker units on it that can fire while riding. Sounds kind of imblancing, but the factor here would be that it wouldn't be as fast as the train, and it would only be able to mount certain units, whereas the train would be able to load any ground unit. Maybe it could even carry the really large units, too. The teleporter wouldn't be able to do that.

=$= Big J Money =$=

Can't say I like the train idea too much. Given the large maps and the sheer scale of this game I wouldnt want to be bogged down looking after train lines.

they're supposed to keep you from getting bogged down by making transportation fast and easy

-I have spoken.

Hell, as long as they got mag-levs that go about 800 miles an hour, I won't care if it looks like "The Sims". I see your point BJ Money (lol), this idea IS bitchin'.

You could also have one the factions have a tunneling train. You just build one station at point A, and another at point B, and the train moves from Point A to Point B. The train wont have any weapons, but you could be able to add seperate sections so it could hold more or bigger units. You couldnt destroy the train while its underground, but if you destroy one of the station, it will cause a tunnel collapse, eventually destroying the train whenever the collapse reached it. So, you would have to protect the train to avoid losing it, and any units currently on it.

Well, that certainly is a more sound gameplay concept, but it kind of defeats the purpose of the train idea for me. For one thing, the look of seeing it fly by on rails. For another thing, the throwback to WWII supply lines. Heh, they didn't use subways for them. An underground train pretty much ends up being the same thing as a teleporter, only slower. I'm not saying it's a bad idea; I'm just saying I think an above-ground train would be cooler.

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Well, yeah, they didnt have subways back in WWII. But of course, this takes place in the far, far future, so it would be easier to think that they would have thought up something to tunnel underground. Hmmmm, building on the rail train idea, you could probably have seperate buildings that you could build on the side of the rails, like turrents or AA guns.

How about tunneling as in quantum tunneling, or have y'all read the storyline?

i like the idea but were talking about Supreme Commander, the age of cybernetics and robots, not slow vanurable train tracks. Besides who needs it when you have fly ins plus the fact where would the supplies on the trains be coming from

lol, i just had this thought: An opposing player dropping a huge nuke on your base, and everything has been destroyed, or is on fire. Then, you click the little fire station button, and the little mech fire trucks come out and put out the fires.

Dirge, that's EXACTALLY what I thought about when I said Sim City 5. Then I thought about a police force keeping your worker peons in line. After all, making hundreds of tanks with no pay isn't exactally a dream job.

Wow, this is one of the best ideas (and coolest) I've seen in a while. Well, I think this is a great idea for super fast transports, and it would be pretty balanced out, even though air transport aren't as fast they can go any where and they'd cost less.

There is one problem though as some one else said "they'd be as strong as dragon's teeth" I was thinking about this too but people would start using the tracks as a type of wall that would be too affective and this creates a potential problem.

So the question is should it be under ground? Nah I wanna be able to see it zoom by above ground, don't you?! It should have pillars to support it so ground units can just flow right under it!(It should still be as strong as dragon's teeth though, so your not having a derailment as often as cars pass by on the freeway) and what the heck, might as well have it be able to go over water with floating pillars.

Just to make it look cooler (and to make more sense of why it would go so fast) it should be inside of a tube that sucks air through it pushing the train along at speeds of up to 5 times the speed of sound (wouldn't that look cool whizzing by?!?). And after a while of the enemy's suppressing fire and a track section is destroyed imagine just HOW cool a derailment would look like! Train cars flying through the air until it they crash destroying all units aboard!

Finally how you build it... well GPG can decide that but there should probably be 2 stations, or how ever many you want along the track! And sure it should probably be built by the U.E.F.

I really hope that if any idea this train idea IS took in to consideration by GPG.
-- the infamous wandering idiot

I was thinking that if you really wanted to go over train tracks, you just drive over them. I mean, we do it with cars all the time. Why not tanks?

I don’t want to go off on too much of a tangent, but that is just bad history. An enormous amount of resources went into building train tracks during WWII(especially in Russia). They were built in Europe, Asia, and(believe it or not) the United States. Trains and tracks were also high priority targets for aircraft flying behind enemy lines.

I'm not the brightest guy in the world, but

"I don’t want to go off on too much of a tangent, but that is just bad history. An enormous amount of resources went into building train tracks during WWII(especially in Russia). They were built in Europe, Asia, and(believe it or not) the United States. Trains and tracks were also high priority targets for aircraft flying behind enemy lines."

Haven't they ditched mostly trains in favor of just planes and ships nowdays?

But the idea of a super fast train that uses sucktion technology like i was talking about before is infact the way of the future, thus, making trains go faster than most if not all commercial airlines (besides when the had the concord, possibly going faster than that).

"Haven't they ditched mostly trains in favor of just planes and ships nowdays?"

I used to think that too until I worked for Union Pacific Rairoad for several years. The railroad is 'super' lucrative today. It's one of the oldest businesses in the US second to the government. Many major cities were built around them. The governemnt still depends on them alot for miltary transport today. At times I would see trains come through the yards with armed military escort that meant business, you didn't come close unless you were suicidal, this was more than just troop and tank movements. At time of wars the military still depends heavily on the railroad so the government takes care of the railroad.
Trains can just move soooo much weight it's really hard for anyone that needs to move massive amounts of anything to compete. Automotive, chemical, coal, beer, use them alot - did I say lucrative. Large imports go like this-ship to intermodal yard to train to intermodal yard to truck for local deliveries.

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"The world moves, and ideas that were once good are not always good. In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Maybe so, but a lot of the rail that was used was there before the war. Adding to the network makes it *more* useful, but they didn't start from scratch, and most probably would not have if they had to.

Note that in the game, you will most likely be starting from scratch.

Nothing ever lasts. The important thing is that it works while it lasts.

Good idea!
We really need this feature for walls and such. There was nothing worse than taking the time to build a wall of 40 sharks teeth, it felt like I was pulling my own out

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"The world moves, and ideas that were once good are not always good. In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

Ok... I was talkin about the train tubes but, that also sounds like a good idea, thx for relpying any how
-- the infamous wandering idiot

lol, yeah I knew it was off topic but you kicked off that thought. I di d make a 'train' post elsewhere in the thread

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"The world moves, and ideas that were once good are not always good. In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable." - Dwight D. Eisenhower

I like the train idea. I hope GPG considers this.

How to defend the train? Maybe by mounting turrets on the train. Soviet (and others) attached flakguns, cannons and the like onto their trains in WW2. It was easier just to drop a bomb on the railroad and let the train derail itself and then pick it apart.
And, you could always use air patrols to cover your railroad tracks.

Also, a train is (should be?) able to transport a lot more troops to their destination. We have all seen the air transport, but that can carry 15 troopers or a couple of tanks. But imagine a huge train thundering down the lines with a small army in its cargo belly.

And, if you build a single track, why not an "upgrade" which will allow you to build a second track adjacent to the first? Need another track? Just equip the option and voila : another railroad. This would solve the "line is busy" problem and would allow a better transporting easyness.

This train idea is awesome, I'm even drooling right now.

i've read every single post of this, and some were even funny about how they thought of about trains. they should be used to connnect bases and estanbish supply lines. (like you build base, send out troops, later after you estabished a "supreme" terrortary grasp in the area around you, you lay down tracks so as to speed up troops retreating back for repairs and fresh troops going out.

thats how i envision trains. they should be above ground, lightly armed (flak cannons here and there) another thing is, teh stations could only be a limited distance apart, this would stop "train walls" and other such tactics and also, wouldn't stretch out the train lines where you can't defend it any more. (sortof liek the planes where you have to keep building an air base so your planes have neough fuel to get where their going etc)

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How deep is the river, if you cannot see the bottom?

Also known as peeweedesigner

Why is everybody thinking of rails that are way above the ground... Why not a gap-track in the ground, where units can still walk over, and which can be destroyed. Just a track building unit that lays this ditch (mono-rail).

no refuel stuff.. you have energy! en the train drains energy from the track...

and when a part is damaged o destroyed, your train will crash... or just stop.

quite nice idea.. just dont like huge big monorails wiht pilars en stuff... just small guide tracks to the front.

by the year 2819 i don't think having a railroad to transport units is a good idea

so come on guys, think something better to transport the units..transporting them by air is the fastest way and its already in the game

Yeah i must agree. If there (and probably) will be more transports and bigger ones available in SupCom. Then I also prefer Air transport.

- Total Annihilation 2 Vault - http://www.icexuick.dagdief.nl/ta2/ -

But transporting by air doesn't allow for huge numbers to be transported. Trains allow for larger (and heavier!) forces to be moved quickly from one zone to the next. Even if the air transports were huge, they would be bulky, slow and easily picked off by fighters. I do like airdrops, but still, somehow trains seem more logical to me. And you don't want to give the "air" side to the game too much attention as well. I have always been a footslogger.

And the idea of teleporting as a possible alternative doesn't appeal to me. If you can teleport, why move at all? Just take a super-duper warp generator and FLASH, you are where you want to be.

I prefer my little trains. Besides, it might be the year 2819, but why have planes moving around like WW2 then?

Ok, of COURSE it's easiest just to build an air transport but thing is the air transport WOULDN'T go any where near as fast nor would it be able to carry as many units. Now im not saying it would be instantaneous transtport, but at about the speed of, or maybe a little faster than the rocket of a nuke in TA. -- the infamous wandering idiot

Ok first of all IceXuick, if they did have this feature you must realize Japan's bullet trains must have NOTHING on the tracks to keap them safe and operational. So if they did have these little gaps where units walk over the tracks if they did collide the train would also be detroyed, or at least derailed.
People would start puting there tanks on the tracks waiting for the train to come by (and a tank would probably be worth nothing comepared to a full sized train). So to prevent this I still like my idea of keaping it supported by pillars. I mean like every one says if they have the tech why have it speeding across the ground derailing from every pigeon on the tracks, so I still think it should be in an enclosed tube that is supported by pillars. However, I do like your idea of having the train take up energy as it moves along.
-- the infamous wandering idiot

Instead of trains, why not have the option to have portal devices set up, such that you can send units through 'em back and forth between different your bases that may have 'em set up?

To me, that sounds a lot more intuitive and with the "style" of the technology that this game would employ. I just don't see Aeons, the uber-advanced, alien-humanoid race that they are, utilizing simple trains of any sort to get their crap around, but that's just me.

If you read this whole thread you would have noticed some one already posted a comment talking about this they said that U.E.F. would get the train and AEON would get a type of teleporter and the cybrans would get some sort of spider transport and i agree with this
-- the infamous wandering idiot

who would be stupid enough to have a rail road tracks leading to their base? unless you have the overwhelming advantage and they are basically beaten, that is the stupidest idea ever. if i was palying i would keep my railroads in a secondary base. why risk letting them know of the location of my main base.

also if you have a factory in front of their gates... dont you think that they would come and destory it?

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How deep is the river, if you cannot see the bottom?

Also known as peeweedesigner

"who would be stupid enough to have a rail road tracks leading to their base? unless you have the overwhelming advantage and they are basically beaten, that is the stupidest idea ever"

Ok, just because there are super fast transports this doesn't mean you have to send ur train right into the enemy's base. Lets just say they used my idea of making the train be supported by floating pillars this would be a great idea for an island map to be able to send a lot of units over the water quickly or maybe you have a secret station sort of close to your enemy's base and it's guarded by a bunch of heavy guns that would be a nice way to get your army to there base quick.
-- the infamous wandering idoit

Whether train would be useless or not all depends factors that we aren’t sure about yet such as the cost in resources, the size of maps, the speed of laying track and speed of the train. The developers can make trains useful if they want.

All that really matters is would it look cool or not. I say that a train could look awesome; especially if they make it look big, mean, and powerful.