OK. I'll bite since I have nothing better to do this minute. To match your extremely short thread text which have gone into several other threads already in existence, my short answer is Sins of course.

I prefer sins if only because it gives me greater scale while allowing the game to, you know, run well. With that in mind, as a RTS game, Supreme Commander dominates Sins, especially FA.

They're just too different to really directly compare.

Asking this question on the developer/publisher's website.

Yeah, might have a slight case of bias in your sample set for any reasonable statistical analysis.

SC:
-1000 unit cap
-biggest maps of pure RTT/RTS (i count sins as a RT4X)
-many units
-the 3 sides are very similar
-its scale is such that you have armies rather then squads
-best zoom feature of any RTS, which sins copies.
-it's 3D, as in you can zoom in and look from different angles.
-turrets and such move and fire
-allows for turtling
-more slow paced then most RTS's
-STEEP system requirements if you make out unit cap and more so when you have 8 players.

Sins:
-It blends both 4X and RTS/RTT, but does is not much like either
-It's 3D, like in homeworld you can zoom in and around the units
-its pace is faster the a 4X but slower then a RTT/RTS
-you can micro the fleet battles or let the AI take care of it
-fairly smart AI, which will be further improved in the next patch
-the map makers (there is 2) allow you to make the maps however you want to, be it so you know where everything is down the last asteroid, or to decide what you want to be in the map but have it done in a random way.
-if you don't want to have your ass handed to you, you can play co-op against the AI with a human player
-if you have a router or firewall and are not a expert on both then you're looking at sinking several hours in trouble shooting to be able to host online (you can still connect to games in most cases) *Tip, try DMZ for a router first unless you have issues doing this
-back stabbing in MP
-as your empire expands you get more of a feeling that you have created a empire, like in Civ4.
-no campaign


I would have to go with Sins as being the better.

SupCom is driven by tactics and strategy on a military level greater than another game ever made. You always need to have a good balance between forces (land, air, sea) and have to manage an economy, which sounds simple, but being able to get an economy that can pump out enough mass and energy to build multiple experimental units in under 20 minutes and producing legions of units at the same time, while making strategic decisions based on your opponents maneuvers has almost become an art form. And this is taken even further in online play, where the game becomes extremely competitive. It's almost to the point that the game is so immersive in online play that it almost doesn't become fun, but an actual battle that leaves no room for mistake.

When Forged Alliance (acronym FA), it revamped the entire game, basically making a whole new one. It fixed almost all the bugs and unbalances, and all changes have been welcomed. So with that said, I really have no negative say on the game.

Sins on the other hand is more based on the 4X play, and almost no tactical play. Players focus more on expanding their empire through trade and economy (real economy, not resource intake like SupCom) and having a fleet to conquer disputed planets and kill other players. The only problem with the ships is that ship (other that fighters) will just sit there and take damage. Also, Sins is so much slower that SupCom, and so less hectic. But the problem with that is that it can slow to a crawl that can make it get incredibly boring, especially ship combat.

I really wish that the ships would fight for position, and that taking hits in certain parts of the ships were weaker --- taking hits in the thrusters would deal more damage, and there would be more armor on the fronts, much like the German tanks of WWII. Having this would make controlling your fleet in battle all the more important. To add to that is how capital ships will simply turn to the ship they are attacking, when supposedly capital ships are bristling with weaponry on all sides, which would make the turning into the ships (disregarding when the capital ships that have cannons in the very front of the ship) rather have no point, particularly when dealing with frigates. With SupCom, it is better to have units always move due to the fact that not all shots will hit them. Shots can miss, leading to smaller amounts of units being able to kill larger ones, where as in Sins, battle is really who has more capital ships.

To add to that, it would be nice to have more defense stations other than the single ones provided, as well as cannons that can fire into the phase lanes to a planet 1 phase jump away so that when you jump to a planet that spams the defense stations, your ships won't be killed by the unmissing fire.

In the end, my choice would have to be SupCom. It delivers some faster and better game play, based more on being able to make decisions rather than just sitting there, and the battles are by far much better. But, were there to be and expansion pack or patch/update for Sins that would make some of the changes mentioned earlier, then the race would be too close for judgement. For now, SupCom & FA, but I hope that Sins will get better.

I'm not asking to compare them, I'm asking which do you prefer.

Though they have this zoom feature in common, they were developed independently... I can't remember where I read that (I think it might have been on the Stardock blog site on whatchamacallit)



You can't really say that coz you're talking of the SC campaign, not the skirmish, which would be a better unit for comparison. Remember that an SC skirmish/multi start is as sandboxy, in my view, as a Sins one.

I'd have to say SC:FA, but only because I haven't played Sins I'm sure it will switch once I play it.

I LOVE SupcomFA, truly a great game. The community modding in that game is second to none, and imo is what makes the game shine so bright.

but if you give sins a while longer, while i believe the game isnt as accessible to modders as FA, i am sure the results will be similarly impressive in the end.

So really for me it comes down to what runs better on my PC. And sins wins that hands down. While in supcomFA, playing the largest maps (81x81 or w/e) with more than 2 people would slow down the sim speed so badly it became unplayable.

With sins my friends and i can enjoy a huge map, and except for the odd 1/2dozen fleet gangbang, it runs smooth as butter. And i have the graphics turned up, with FA i was forced to lower it for FPS' sake.

So now all we need is the goodness of mods. Sins vanilla becomes old fast (too little variety anyone? shit.. 4 types of frigates, with only 1 or 2 used to any large extent... just 2 types of strikecraft???? etc etc. admit its pretty weak.)
Maybe i was just spoiled by homeworld 2's tactical fleet simulator.

I agree with you on all your points except this one.
Just because Sins doesn't have a campaign mode (which, in my mind, is indeed a slight disadvantage) does NOT mean that you should compare it with the campaign mode in another game. If you wanted to make that point, then you should say "SC has a campaign mode and Sins doesn't" instead of saying "the campaign missions in SC are soooo different from the skirmish/multiplayer in Sins", which, I'm sure you realize, only aggravates the discontinuity here.
Instead, compare the skirmish in SC with the skirmish in Sins, and the multi in SC with the multi in Sins.

Sins, because they haven't made us buy an expansion pack for almost the cost of the original game to fix their bugs and horrible balance (*cough* forged alliance *cough*).

I am very happy with Sins right out of the box. I couldn't even get SupCom to play for a month or so after it came out. When I did I had to get a mod AI (all hail Sorian) to get a challenge out of playing it.