Some general questions regarding SupCom and FA single-player

[XenoRad]

Hello guys,

I'm new here but I'm a returning SupCom and FA player.

I've taken a break from the games some years ago because I wanted to get a better PC and wait until some of the remaining issues/bugs got fixed.

Eventually GPG went down, patches stopped being released and while I did get a better PC, the discs stopped working in Win 7 so I never got to replay the games. Until recently that is, since upgrading to Win 10 made my old discs work again .

So I'm looking into getting back into the games, but I intend to start with the campaigns, then move on to some skirmish for FA, then try some multiplayer.

In general for the campaigns and the skirmish I'm looking into staying as close as possible to the vanilla feel of the games while having as many issues resolved.

I understand that for multiplayer the FAF lobby is the way to go with automated patches and such.

Can I use this to also play the original campaigns with movies, cutscenes & such?

If not, are there certain patches that I can apply outside of the FAF application to resolve certain still standing bugs as of versions 1.1.3280 for SupCom and 1.5.3599 for FA (the last released patches by GPG)?

I heard of the Sorian AI and Duncan's AI as well. Do these also work for the original SupCom and if yes, can they be installed together? Will they break anything during the campaign?

Any other fixes /small enhancements (UI, graphics, sound) for both SupCom and FA that will help with the campaigns?

One last thing. I'm playing with a 5.1 surround system, and while I can hear the music, menu sounds & unit acknowledgements through the front speakers the majority of the "battle sounds" are heard through the rear speakers. I also can't hear the impact sounds for shells or units moving. I'm not sure whether these sounds actually did exist but if so what can I do to fix this?

As far as I know the game doesn't use EAX and has no sounds settings that can be changed outside of the volume sliders.

Regards,
Radu

[Exotic_Retard]

first of all, welcome!

if you want to stay close to vanilla you came to the right place.
faf has 49 patches after the steam version, with many bugs fixed, as well as additional functionality and ease of use.
its also a preservation project, and keeps the game feeling the same.

if you haven't already, you can get it set up with the help of the wiki: http://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?tit ... ing_Up_FAF
you can find much more useful info there as well, and dont hesitate to ask if you have any problems.

as for disks - you can get a steam key for free if you enter your cd key into steam, so you dont need disks anymore.

you can play the original campaign, including vanilla. our version is patched to the latest patches and has more features to boot.
however currently its undergoing an overhaul and so needs to be played offline with a manual download. setup FAF and then follow the instructions on this link:
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=11868

yeah supcom doesn't play with 5.1 too well - i believe that stereo is best for it. likewise use windowed mode to avoid any possible issues.

dont install any scd mods. they dont really work with faf. sorian ai comes standard with it and does not need to be installed. likewise for hotbuild and GAZui. see wiki for more details: http://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?tit ... %28Mods%29

hope this helps, and once again welcome ; )

[XenoRad]

Thank you very much for the warm welcome and the help,

I managed to get the Coop Mod setup and play a bit with UEF mission 3 (where I got in the regular SupCom campaign).

It's quite a different feel from vanilla SupCom. I'm not sure how much is due to having the missions ported to the FA engine or due to the enhancements the community brought in. I'm seeing some new graphics effects which I like and (some) units have different stats. The ships from that mission in particular are much more maneuverable now.

From tinkering a bit with this mod and from further reading here it appears that the only way to enhance the original SupCom experience is to play the coop missions in the FA engine with the extra enhancements/patches brought by the community.

So in other words the latest version for the original SupCom is 3280, which is the last official patch for it. After this everything that the community fixed was for FA exclusively. Is this a correct assessment?

Any way to manually port some of the bugfixes, enhancements to the original installation of SupCom? Likewise for FA so that I can still use the original menus and only use the FAF lobby for skirmish/multiplayer?

[Exotic_Retard]

ok so:

-FAF runs exclusively on Forged alliance. vanilla supcom only serves to provide the videos/voices for the ported campaigns.
-FA brings more changes from vanilla supcom than FAF to FA.
-It is not possible to port things from FAF to vanilla supcom without an absurd amount of work.
-The assessment that FAF fixes only for FA is correct.
-Your best course of action would be either
1. live with the things you dont like because they are outweighed by the benefits.
2. find/make/request mods which restore changes you dont like.

i cant think of any mods which restore the original supcom menus (i know this is opinion but how in any way is fa not vastly superior in that sense? xD)

[XenoRad]

Thanks again,

I'll have to continue setting up FAF since I can't find nor host games on the Play tab. The other tabs seem to be working fine. From what I saw there is a guide on setting up the router and there's also a log file for the application which lists the problems it encounters.

Indeed the benefits outweigh the negatives. One thing I do like about vanilla SupCom is that the UI icons are bigger. At 1440p the FA UI with the unit info enhancements is hard to read. I do know there is an option to increase the size of the strategic icons, but are there any plans on enlarging the UI itself for modern resolutions?

Also while I understand that the original SupCom won't benefit from the new enhancements, can the original FA?

So from what I've gathered the original installation is left unaltered, however following the link you posted about setting up Coop offline the way to launch it is to click on Coop.ink and then go to Skirmish and select one of the campaign missions. If instead I go to the FA campaign does this mean that I can play the original FA campaign (without coop obviously) with the new patches and enhancements?

Or due to the way that FAF patches FA, these benefits only appear in skirmish/multiplayer modes?

[speed2]

You kinda can play the original campaign if you click on campaign instead of skirmish, but there is a high chance there will be roken things.
Because FA campaign has it's own balance mod that is different from FA balanace. So game would load base FA, on top of that FAF changes, and then FA campaign balance. And that could break things. And most likely will.