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http://taspring.clan-sy.com/

Spring is an open source RTS Engine, created by fans of Total Annihilation. There is actually an active gaming community, and mods based on the engine, like Star Wars : Spring, based on the SW:TA mod.

hells yeah. also best intro ever.

http://www.planetannihilation.com/taucp/main.htm

http://supcom.gaspowered.com/

i know this is incredibly off topic, but for some reason or other i cant submit a story, but i can comment, anywaym if someone out there cares goto http://www.planetannihilation.com/Planet Annihilation and submit the story of the TA sequal... and just to add a comment on the hd dvd, will sony have the blue-ray format in the ps3?

We all dream of a metal ground and string winds!

http://www.planetannihilation.com/image.asp?src=/g ames/ta/screenshots/images/13.jpg

My kids and I are gamers. We've seen games come and go with a few that remain fun for a decent amount of time. But TA? I bought the game in 1997 by recommendation from a friend, and it is still played to this day.

The original with the Core Contingency and Battle Tactics was great. Loved it. I don't know about you TA games out there, but I think my favorite unit was the Brawler (or bee as I liked to call it). The AI was terrific, the units looked great, the multiplayer gameplay was a lot of fun. In 2001 or so, I introduced it to my kids (6 and 7 at the time) who immediately were hooked. No killing people or anything. Units. My kids would play head to head with me all of the time. Now they can kick my ass in it (which really sucks!).

Later - some mods were independently released. New units, some cheats & stuff, etc. etc.. Then more - huge units bigger than the Krogoths.. some for the Arm (man am I a TA geek or what). It just kept getting better. Mods and TA sites are still in action today:

http://www.planetannihilation.com
http://www.tauniverse.com
http://www.tafansite.com
http://www.tadesigners.com
http://www.fileuniverse.com (for some files)

Examples of great mods (my son asked me to list these!!):

UTASP
Absolute Annihilation
Uberhack
a Starwars mod
etc. etc...

There's even a program called TA: Mutation which allows you to switch between the many mods, change AI's, change units, etc. etc..

If you have TA still - you must check out the mods. They completely renew the game, which you may be able to still buy in bargain bins for $5 - $10.

So - my point is - which has nothing really to do with Stardock with a Sims + TA game - is that TA was probably one of the best games that came along in a LONG time. A computer game that people still play after 8 years?!?!? Name me another one that is that good.

And now - my kids have both taken to modifying the units themselves - messing with the build times, unit speed, etc. etc...

Check it out again!!!

If you have an old copy of Total Annihilation, you can get a fantastic Star Wars RTS with the SW Conversion pack.

I do belive this is a Krogoth Experimental Assault Kbot.

Ah, memories...

I remember the halcyon days of my youth, stomping across the countryside, totally annihilating things in this baby. I never thought I see her again, but there she is in all her OpenGL glory!

I do belive this is a Krogoth Experimental Assault Kbot.

Ah, memories...

I remember the halcyon days of my youth, stomping across the countryside, totally annihilating things in this baby. I never thought I see her again, but there she is in all her OpenGL glory!

I still bought Total Annhilation in 1997 and I still play it regularly. The game was great out of the box. The game was genuinely improved with the expansion packs. Cavedog made a great move in releasing its map development tools early. After Cavedog went under the gaming community did great work in improving the game in all the little ways that a version 2 should have. Releasing a true sequel will require a bit of innovation and a lot of commitment to quality to impress the many still rabid fans.

This site has a great community created expansion pack for TA that I highly recommend. It includes a patch that improves key board short cuts, adds a lot of weapons and units, improves unit strength balance, increases the power of the top end units, and adds higher levels of difficulty for the AI. The high end units are super rocking: If you remember the Krogoth as the most powerful unit then you are out of date. There are units in this expansion pack that can eat 10 Krogoths, and the new bigs don't sacrafice play balance!

TA2 should learn from these expansion packs and try to incorporate these features:
- map creation tools, of course.
- super large maps. If the high powered big bertha artilary cannons can fire a mile, then the maps should be able to reach several miles across. Modern processors can handle it.
- At least 500 units per side should be available in TA2. In fact, there should be no hard limit - just a setting somewhere. When first released TA1's limit of 200 units per side made 133mhz processors of the time crawl. But over the years even 500 per side and 10 sides is handled quite easily by my 2 ghz processor.
- Fully rendored 3d units rocked then. They rock now.
- The music from TA1 could be reused. The score was awesome. Keep it or improve it; just do not give it up.
- Smarter, larger, multi-functional factories. Maybe even make them mobile. Of course, fancier factories should be more expensive in resources and time.
- Allow for more elevations. TA1 allowed for about 4 elevations: Flying, raised ground, normal ground / floating, and underwater. The game used real trajectory calculations to determine hits. Keep that, but do so from even more elevation possibilities. Flying units could occupy the same space and not collide - that might be an improvement area too.
- Definitely keep the mutliple weapon types, even add some! Again see the community expansion packs for excellent ideas.
- Release unit creation tools. Make creating home grown units even easier! Let the user select a walking kbot, or rolling tank, or flying, or floating, hovercraft, or even amphibious. Let the user select the weapon types, and how many weapons. Let the user select the number of guns, the unit size, and how much armor it has. Allow special functions to be added such as sonar, radar, cloaking, self repair, others repair, unit capture, reincarnation, etc. Then to keep the game balanced make the unit cost in resources what the requested features should require. Very Excellent!
- Make the environment even more destructable. TA1 allowed for burning forests and that was cool at the time. Make the ground shaking weapons really deform the ground, and thereby potentially change the strategy of the map during game play. It is kind of annoying when a nuclear blast only leaves a black mark on the ground instead of creating a rough crater. Also, there should be units that allow strategic shaping of the envirnonment - Examples: build hills for cannons, extend coasts, or make smooth roads.
- Make the game work well for a quick 30 minute skirmish or for a 9 hour megawar (not underheard of). TA1 did a good job of this.
- Create a game mode where each side gets to pick a set number of unit types to play with (instead of making all units available all the time). Sometimes having hunderds of unit choices is Excellent (super war) and sometimes annoying (quick skirmish). Let the players pick. This feaure

I still play the Absolute Annihilation hack atleast once a week.

Much improved AI, many more (diverse) units, and best of all, it's still maintained. They made a new release yesterday.

For those that would like to see some great TA games - more than just newbie vs. newbie on an all metal map - you might want to check out the excellent fan-created Demo Recorder. Then, you'll probably want to download some TA game recordings.

... FileFront and GameTab ... are really only useful as an initial index source you can trust

You trustfileplanet?

I'll save you a click and the approximately 45 ad impressions you'd suffer as you try to scroll down to read the relevant entry at that link:

From planetannihilation.com:

Virus Warning, Thursday, June 19, 2003

If you've downloaded the Cavedog maps from Fileplanet (all except Tropical Islands) I suggest that you scan them for viruses. We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this, I can't remember which virus it was, something to do with Kazah however and was not very harmful to you rmachine. I recommend downloading something like Norton Antivirus Trial Version if you are not sure or don't have one. The maps have all been removed to prevent similar accidental infections from happening, until we can reupload them, only Tropical Islands is available since it was originally in .UFO format rather then the .EXE setup file which was infected.

I'll be enforcing the mandatory scanning of all files being uploaded to Fileplanet and the TADC ftp due to this.

Posted by: Zxythe

Emphasis mine. Note the future tense in reference to the scanning of uploading files. Then note the date. Gametab is no better (and neither are most everyone else, really). You need trusted checksums/MD5 hashes for the source file, then it doesn't matter where you get it. (Except you may have to download it again if you get a bad, broken, or infected copy, but that's still better than not knowing and having to double-click that .exe, scanned or not -- there are new viruses, after all, so scanners will fail at some point . . . )

Who do you trust, again? :)

I see people saying TotalA is can be modded, but I think it's way too limited. Just creating new units and maps, and changing the rules a bit is not enouth.

I (and my TotalA friends) have some great ideas for modifying the game, but it's closed, and we don't have the chance. I'm even considering creating a new RTS game from scratch.

How hard it would be to try to get access to the code of TotalA? Certainly those enthusiasts out there already have tried.. Any ideas?

Perhaps this was one reason for the success of Cavedog's excellent Total Annihilation RTS. The game itself was good, but it was also designed from the word go to allow the incorporation of new units, maps, etc. Cavedog made several available on their web site over the months after the launch, and released an add-on (Core Contingency) that included whole new types of unit and terrain.

Today, even after Cavedog are done, there are still enthusiasts out there working on quite ambitious extras, and this is something like four years after the game first hit the shelves, and when you apparently can't even buy it in the UK any more. (Anyone know a good way to get it in the UK, BTW? None of the usual shops lists it any longer, and there's nothing on UK E-bay.)

To continue your excellent rant, I've played RTS games since Warcraft, but I always go back to TA. Why? Because of all othe RTS games, it has the most Strategy. SC, WCII, CC all involve way (way way) too much micromanagement. (I haven't played AoE or AoEII yet). Everytime I play SC, I long for TA's movement and attach profile. Also, the small unit grouping limit is a huge pain in the ass. With TA, setting the profiles for Movement (Hold Position/Manuever/Roam) and Attack (Hold Fire/Return Fire/Fire At Will) can make a huge difference in how unit behave. This is exactly what you want when you send units out to patrol vs. guard vs. attack vs. sneak attack vs. targetted attack etc. Another big plus is the ability to have construction units patrol areas to repair structures and units.

Over all strategy is incredibly important in TA (when played well) mind you. With a good defensive structure/web up (laser cannons and plasma cannons and missile turrets, Oh My! Oh and dragon's teeth, lots of dragon's teeth) I can guarantee that any rush without huge air support will get annihilated (haha).

TA is still one of the few games where a mostly defensive posture is possible. SC, WC, CC and WCII all favor very aggressive postures. In TA, against someone who knows how to scout and scan their radar screen often, extreme agressiveness will get you wiped out quickly. Especially on metal deprived maps, attacking early can give your apponent a huge advantage in metal.

On small maps, the race is usually who will get a (protected) Fusion Generator + Bertha/Intimidator up first. Note that if it isn't well protected, a full flight of bombers supported by distracting fighters/scout planes will reduce it to a pile of twisted metal in a blink of an eye.

On large maps, air power/mobility is (IMHO) the way to go (with sufficient ground protection for your bases of course). The one thing I wish CD would have released before they went under is a heavy air transport (4-6 units). Radar cloaking can also make a huge difference against opponents who aren't thorough. I think of navies as primarily air support platforms and spy sub intelligence gathering.

Check out planet Annihilation's Strategy Page if you want to see some of the depth of TA. I think it's still the RTS game with the most "S" out there.