Starship Troopers: Terran Command - survival RTS from Order of Battle devs

[Infinitron]

Demo is out.



https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1202130/view/2892990827430402980

Steam Next Festival - Demo available and pre-orders
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The Steam next Festival has begun and we are going to WAR!

You can now download and play the Starship Troopers - Terran Command demo.

The demo contains three scenarios from the early stages of the story campaign, including Peace of Mine, which will feature most of the gameplay mechanics and some of the unit types you will command in the full game. You will need to deploy the Mobile Infantry to defend a central outpost, which will serve as the staging point to reactivate mining facilities and clear out all bugs nests in the surrounding area.

We have prepared a tutorial video that should help you and teach you the basic and intermediate gameplay mechanics you'll need to beat the scenarios.

Your feedback is valuable

We know that you’ve been looking forward to more news about the game. From our side, we’re looking forward to hearing what you think. We only ask you, if you’re willing, to give us your honest opinions on the missions you’re going to play, so that we can ensure that the game lives up to fans expectations.

You can share your feedback on the new Starship Troopers - Terran Command Discord server, which you can join by clicking here: https://discord.gg/ZqKTQPRBqj. You can also help us by filling this form.

The Starship Troopers - Terran Command demo will be freely available on Steam until Thursday, October 7th at 5 PM GMT.

Pre-orders are available

But that's not all - in case you liked the demo and you would like to pre-order the game, you now can! You can pre-order the game from its store page.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

For fucks sake game!
Make command groups visible at glance!

Would you like to know more?

Spoiler

I would call game light RTT rather than RTS.
Reminds me of somewhat about Ground Control 2.
2 levels I've played so far are very on rails tutorial stuff.

Also some screens.

 

[karoliner]

It's very rough right now it's missing a lot of basic stuff. Units don't even have voices.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

After finishing the demo I can say the following:

- gotta admit that I was huge into Starship troopers: Terran Ascendancy as a kid, hoped to get a sequel and I am kinda butthurt that they made a fairly standard RTS instead
- comparison to Ground Control 2 is apt, the game is quite similar in terms of basic systems
- one somewhat original thing the game does are lines of fire that can be blocked by friendly units (ie if you place a unit behind the other one, the unit in the back will not be able to shoot through the unit in front), this can fuck you up really bad if you dont pay attention to it, though people might see it as an annoyance rather than a challenge I guess
- other than that, its an OK RTS with the (movie) Starship troopers in it, I sure hope that power armor becomes available later on

Not terrible, not great. Might still get it for the setting, but tbh its nothing special.

 

[80s Stallone]

Making a ST game and not turning up the gore is just fail. Starcraft is bloodier.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Does it have any elements from the book ? Like the other aliens that are mentioned in the beginning of the book, where they assault an alien city to show their dominance.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

There is no way Skinnies are going to be in the game (it appears the whole game is set on a single planet some time after the failed assault on Klendathu). I would love to see the neodogs as a unit, but I seriously doubt the devs are that cool. There probably will be power armor suits, but thats about it, the game is about the "movie" Starship troopers, not about the book ones.

IIRC there was talk that the canceled expansion for the Starship troopers: Terran Ascendancy was supposed to have neodogs and their handlers as a specialised unit, but unfortunately, it never saw the light of day. IMO the adherence to the movie setting is a considerable problem for the game the way it was designed (ie. Ground Control 2 clone). A good RTS should strive to present a diverse lineup of units - in the book there is at least a logical reason why the Federation relies just on the Mobile Infantry since the power armor suits are just too good (Rico even mentions at one point that the Mobile Infantry made tanks useless due to its massive mobility and comparable firepower), but the movie version has the same reliance on MI, only the MI are just guys and girls in funny uniforms who fuck all the time in the pauses between combat. No tanks, no arty, no anything, even though it makes zero sense.

Now in the Terran Command you apparently only get a handful types of infantry squads (riflemen, engineers, snipers, radio operators in the demo, I guess there will be some "heavies" and possibly psykers in the full game, along with some sort of power armor suits), which IMO needlessly limits the gameplay. Maybe there are some legal reasons why the devs didnt add more unit types, but maybe they are just lazy... Terran Ascendancy handled things much better with its focus on command over a single strike team and micromanagement of loadouts and weapons fire, that way the individual troopers didnt feel samey.

 

[Dayyālu]

, only the MI are just guys and girls in funny uniforms who fuck all the time in the pauses between combat. No tanks, no arty, no anything, even though it makes zero sense.

The old and discontinued tabletop game for Starship Troopers (the miniature one, a valiant attempt but doomed to fail) had a fairly interesting way to blend the movie mobile infantry with the power-armoured troops: the MI we see in the movie are a peculiar innovation born for the Klendathu campaign, masses of conventional infantry closely supported by airships and air transport (so theoretically keeping some of the mobility of proper Mobile Infantry) but far cheaper to equip and train, to respond to the needs of a massive campaign. One could argue that it was fanfiction (and it was) but it managed to marry both book-faithful MI armies with power armour, TV-series armies with Marauders an' combat robots and movie armies with masses of conventional infantry supported by orbital artillery and air power.

Look, how to have variety for the Federation forces!

 

[Dexter]

Played the Demo. A bit of a Dawn of War feel to it, but less action-y. Narrated campaign with a bunch of intermissions where they talk. Able to request reinforcements from radio towers when a troop loses units. Units level up and become better till they reach "Elite" status. Its gimmick is "Line of Fire", your troops can't shoot if there are other troops standing in front of them other than if you're on high ground. As missions progress and you hit certain triggers you encounter new kinds of bugs like Spitters or Hoppers indicated in red at the top right of the screen. Short low-effort animated introductory cinematics to each level. Kinda Easy on Normal and all Difficulty Options seem to change is a Weapon Damage modifier so you do more or less damage. Units are easy to replenish. Gotta build Turrets with Engineers to defend and take on bug nests that replenish with time. Eh, it's Okay, but I expected more. It's off my Wishlist for now till they're further along and we find out more. I don't think these types of missions could sustain an entire campaign without getting really old fast.

Spoiler

 

[Alienman]

Would you like to know more?

 

[Infinitron]

 

[luj1]

funny but i always wanted a Starship Troopers rts

Think this game would work really well with some features from DoW1... like squad based mechanics, kill anims and cover

 

[luj1]

For fucks sake game!
Make command groups visible at glance!

Would you like to know more?

Spoiler

I would call game light RTT rather than RTS.
Reminds me of somewhat about Ground Control 2.
2 levels I've played so far are very on rails tutorial stuff.

Also some screens.

agreed about Ground Control 2 comparison... it was a great game imo

 

[Togukawa]

Doesn't look nearly as interesting as terran ascendancy was

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.slitherine.com/news/imp...rs-terran-command-will-be-released-on-june-16

Today we are making an important announcement related to the release date: Starship Troopers - Terran Command won't be releasing on March 31st as previously announced.

The new and definitive launch date will be June 16 2022.

We know many will find this announcement disappointing and we apologize. We truly feel that a few extra months of further polish and bug fixing will make a significant difference.

We intend to deliver a finished and polished game, and it is very important for us that you are able to fully enjoy the game from day 1, without any issue spoiling your fun or without having to wait for future patches or hotfixes.

The game is now content complete and all remaining development time will be entirely focused on refining what already exists. We can't wait to reveal more, and we plan to show you a lot in the months leading up to the launch in June.

 

[Angelo85]

I was already wondering why there was no obvious marketing effort around the (supposed) release. So it wasn't a case of "better set embargo date for Reviews to after release" after all.

 

[tindrli]

well 3 months is not that far

 

[Tyranicon]

Not a RTS, but there's actually a decent Starship Troopers mod for Running with Rifles.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Looks interesting. If it doesn't work out then there's also Alien Marauder in a similar vein.

On a related note, I'd like to play a game where you play as the bugs (or demons, undeads, whatever). I tried the bug campaign in StarCraft and didn't like it because the script felt like it was written by several different people with completely different ideas of what they wanted the story to be.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I'd like to play a game where you play as the bugs (or demons, undeads, whatever)

Attack of the Earthlings does something like that.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I'd like to play a game where you play as the bugs (or demons, undeads, whatever)

Attack of the Earthlings does something like that.

I've seen that. Haven't bought it yet, but it looks interesting. Anyway, I have a preference for games where you're playing bugs invading human colonies rather than being invaded and attacking in self-defense. In terms of pure mechanics, StarCraft: Heart of the Swarm fit that. The only problem is that the story they went with is completely disconnected from the premise of horrible space bugs devouring worlds and doing body horror R&D. Again, it's like they had multiple different designers with completely different goals in mind and just smooshed their ideas together into a schizophrenic whole.

 

[Lyric Suite]

funny but i always wanted a Starship Troopers rts

It's amazing we never got one in the 90s, unless they did make them and i just missed them because they were shit and nobody talked about them.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

funny but i always wanted a Starship Troopers rts

It's amazing we never got one in the 90s, unless they did make them and i just missed them because they were shit and nobody talked about them.

They did. It was alright. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers:_Terran_Ascendancy

The cinematic universe sucked. I get that the source material is absurdist (e.g. society collapsed because parents didn't spank their children), but you can create adaptations that don't suck. The Roughnecks cartoon is pretty nice (for a 1998 CGI cartoon), at the cost of being completely at odds tonally with the source material. The tone in that cartoon is more "war is hell" (but censored for kids) and they have episodes where the characters send word back to their families or wonder whether robots are people too. The cartoon also gave the bugs genetic engineering capabilities that they use to make new castes, which is a pretty good way of keeping them unpredictable and fresh.

It's unfortunate that the franchise is more or less dead outside of the new video game. We don't have any decent military scifi franchises at the moment.

 

[Tyranicon]

The Roughnecks cartoon is pretty nice (for a 1998 CGI cartoon), at the cost of being completely at odds tonally with the source material.

The Roughnecks was the shit. Pretty decent kids cartoon, all around.

Now I'm wishing there was another armored suit sci fi series that isn't anime .

Also, isn't the latest "canon" movie an actual anime? That was a strange choice. Wonder how that happened.

 

[Togukawa]

There have been two of those CGI anime abominations. The visuals are nice, but the writing in both of them is so horrendously retarded that they are physically painful to watch.