Total Annihilation Remake Released

Pxtl writes "The long-awaited remake of Total Annihilation (considered "#1 RTS of All Time" by Gamepsy), "Spring" has hit its first official public beta release. The game reimplements the original Cavedog game in a full 3d environment, replacing TA's fixed-angle view. It also brings other new features to the table, such as revised physics and a 1st-person-shooter mode. Spring reuses the original TA content and is backwards compatible with the old unit packs. While the game is currently win32 only, its source has been released under the GPL, so fixing that is only a matter of time. Get to the download page now and help out with the torrents."

Comments

Sweet Crackers!

[Maradine]

Now I can once again . . . well, rush my Peewees. Never mind. You had to be there.

Not familiar with it

[Nos.]

Okay, I've heard of, but never played TA. I had a look at the website and am definitely curious and will probably download it tonight and give it a try. Can anyone give me an idea of the game play and such. The FAQ seems to focus mainly on details and differences between it and the origintal TA. I'm a big fan of RTS games (I still play starcraft), and would more than likely love this game. Is it multiplayer?

Re:Not familiar with it

[ZosX]

I'm not a big fan of RTS for the most part, except for maybe homeworld and dungeon keeper 2 (was this the first to introduce 1st person shooting?), however, that being said, Total Anihilation is one of the best games I've ever played period. I don't even think starcraft can compare from the little that I've played of it. The technology is awesome (create minerals from energy for instance) and the weapons get more and more powerful to the point where you have tactical nuclear weapons. Then the fun really starts. A game that truly lives up to its name in form and function!

Definately worth checking out. I don't know if you'll need the CDs to play the open source engine, but either way, you should definately check out what TA was like because very rarely does a game of such greatness ever come around.

Re:Not familiar with it

[jimi the hippie]

If you don't own TA, you can't "legally" download this clone. :-P

Re:Not familiar with it

[KDR_11k]

It's online multiplayer only. Which sucks since my network doesn't permit any connections that don't use the proxy or run on anything but port 80 (and 53 I assume). Neither of which this thing can be set to use.

Re:Not familiar with it

[jimi the hippie]

It says right on the download page: "This category contains the latest releases from the TA Spring project. Some of the downloads includes the TA mod XTA which, like all TA mods, contains content from the game Total Annihilation. Therefore you will have to own a copy of TA to legally use this content."

TA Reminiscing

[Necroman]

Total Annihilation was an awesome RTS type game. It was great because there were so many different units you could use and build. Plus there were tons more available units and buildings to download off the company's website and fan sites.

I just remember downloading an addon building that was a gatling gun version of a gun called "Big Bertha". It was really long range with huge destruction power. It was a great time.

Re:TA Reminiscing

[KDR_11k]

Yeah, with a range of 4 and 2 kilometres, respectively. Seriously, sometimes that's less than the size of your base (and nowhere near the enemy base on 32MB and up maps), I'd rather build 3-4 Intimidators with their 8k range and actually have a chance of hitting anything. No need for that rapid firerate anyway. They are excellent base defenses but for offense you'd often need an outpost to get close enough to the target. And try building such a fragile and expensive thing this close to the enemy base...

Re:TA Reminiscing

[Cecil]

The Vulcan was a truly awesome weapon. Admittedly, it was slow to build and relatively fragile. It's range was not nearly as limited as you imply though, in my memory it fired at least 3/4ths as far as a Bertha.

I'll agree with you that it was an excellent base defense but not so great as an offense. For a obsessive porc like myself though, they are a dream. On large metal maps, you *need* a vulcan, if not several, to defend your base. It is absolutely unbelievable the amount of bots the AI will send at you if you give him a good 4 hours to get his base setup.

The major downfall of the vulcan was the fact that as you let it collect kills (it would generally have at least 200 after a few minutes of operation) it would be upgraded to uber-veteran status until it was pinpoint accuracy. That's nice for most units, but for the vulcan, it's massive spread was the best thing about it. I don't think I've ever had a vulcan that got over about 400 kills. It becomes nearly impossible to get the kind of widespread destruction it enjoyed in its non-veteran days. :P If that problem had been fixed somehow, I think the Vulcan would've been an indispensable unit for long games. As it stands, it's just "good". Although the satisfaction of watching it firing for extended periods of time is still worth it.

I definitely agree with you on the immense utility of Bertha/Intimidator batteries though. Not only are they reasonably quick (albeit resource intensive) to build, but as soon as the first one goes online you can start firing, you don't have to wait for them all to finish. They also take much longer to succumb to the veteran problem, since the kills are distributed across the entire array.

Personally, my favourite was when I built a battery of roughly 150 Berthas, and (this was the hard part) enough fusion plants and energy storages to power them all. A Vulcan is satisfying, but there's nothing quite like the ominous turning of 150 barrels, and then the roar of all the berthas firing simultaneously at my command. Best done after pressing 'T' to track their shots. Follow the swarm of tightly grouped little yellow plasma pellets into the enemy base, watch it as it gets literally wiped off the map.

I have yet to discover something quite as enjoyable as that in any other game.

Re:TA Reminiscing

[ljaguar]

Maybe I'll charm in here for all this Vulcan discussion.

Hard core people don't use Vulcan cannons. Seriously. I don't remember the math off the top of my head, but I've seen it done.

Vulcan cannons are expensive. very expensive. You can build couple of bertha/timmy (intimidator) with the same resources and you can fine tune those better. (you can turn a few of them off and what not) and real hard core players know how to take out one of those real quick so it's a big investment for nothing.

There is no such thing as impenetrable defense. I know in TA, you can get pretty hardcore defense. And one of the main strategies of playing is Porc where you build an impenetrable base and start amassing your kickass army (some prefer air, some go for tanks, some go for artilleries). This strategy sounds really good and a lot of beginner players will try to perfect this strategy.

But this strategy does not work against good players. They'll hit hard and early and prevent you from building your defenses. And it's the simple idea that the opponent had the same amount of time that you did. If you are focusing on your defenses and don't heckle your opponent, that's that much time that he had to concentrate on his armies too. And if he's better player than you, he can build his armies better than you can build your (so called impenetrable) defenses with the same amount of time/resources.

You think your fusion/timmy/vulcan/nuke/whatever are impenetrably defended and it's the shit. But good players know how to focus and take that shit out. (bombers anyone? reconnaissance?) That's why you want to diversify.

I mean if you are just getting into it or playing with non-hardcore friends, vulcans are the shits and is definitely part of the unreasonable displays of power. But if you are playing the game for real (you are considered good on online communities/rankings) you are either dead before you can finish a vulcan/ the conditions of the game will make vulcan an unworthy investment.

If I start building timmies (one by one) and you start building a vulcan, I'll have a timmy done before you finish the vulcan. I'll start shooting faster than you can. And when we both finish our project, we'll have approximately the same firepower. And I'll have better ranges too.

The point is, if you can build 150 berthas, one of several is true.

Your opponent is an idiot for letting you get that far. (stop playing the stupid computer, and play real people. Even the most advanced cheating AI on TA have weaknesses depending on the particularity of the specific map.)

You could have killed your opponent without building 150 berthas. I mean if you had that much resources and your opponent is that lax, you should have been able to kick his ass by your 10th bertha. So, as much as your opponent sucks, you don't know how to attack for shit. I mean get some ground troops and air strike force for crying out loud!

noob

This is informative.

Re:TA Reminiscing

[snorklewacker]

The other thing that takes out berthas nicely is, of course, nukes. Yes, there's ABM's, but you can pretty well overwhelm them as well. I loved the ever-escalating arms race of TA ... I just wish it didn't stop at the small nukes, I sort of wanted it to get all the way up to real armageddon causing weapons (short of the Core Contingency weapon anyway). Gives people an incentive to wipe out the other guy, before *everything* is blown away.

Re:TA Reminiscing

[ljaguar]

also consider krogoth part of the arms race.

it one-upps nukes; it can survive two nukes. (maybe just one. one will do about half damage. so it depends)

it's got scary ground range (short line of sight, but if you have recon, the range is truly large.) and its anti-air capabilities are unmatched.

of course, the same problem exists for krogoth as for vulcans. if you have enough resources/time to build krogoth, 1) your opponent isn't putting enough pressure on you, 2) the resource is better spent somewhere else (with more immediate results)

Re:TA Reminiscing

[Goldberg's Pants]

Good post. The poster you responded too is the exact reason I no longer play RTS' online. They believe that the destination must be reached as quickly as possible, completely ignoring the fun of the journey.

I don't think I've ever FINISHED a game of TA. (When the "Dead commander ends the game" option is off anyway.) Playing the AI, it's dragged on for hours. The game didn't end, but I had a blast. Not played the game in a couple of years, but I used to play until my aging system started creaking due to how much was going on, then quit.

Best map I ever played was the Lone Ranger map. Player at the center starts with a ton of resources, and everyone else teams against them. Fantastic. I love Starcraft, Warcraft etc... Warcraft 3 especially. But nothing matches the unbridled insanity that is TA.

Only game I'd rank up with TA is Myth II. Another game which is still going strong, thanks to Project Magma.

TA and Myth = Gaming Nirvana. Warcraft 3 is the only RTS to come close.

Middle of the day

[Asgard]

Why couldn't the editors wait for the evening hours; now I have to wait until quitting time to play!

Single Player

[dsparil]

4.14 - Will TA Spring support campaigns?
No. TA Spring will only support multiplayer.

4.18 - Will there be an AI or a "skirmish" mode?
No. There is no AI or skirmish support planned.

I lost all interest after reading that.

Re:Single Player

[wongn]

I lost all interest after reading that.

It's quite possible that someone will be nice and make a mod for single player.

Re: Is it multiplayer?

[Richard Steiner]

Oh yes. :-) TA is, anyway, up to ten (10) people in a given level. With all the units running around in that game, things can get messy rather quickly.

Now... I wanna see a Linux port!

RTS

[MyLongNickName]

I didn't know what RTS was, and I couldn't follow the link (company policy blocked site). So I did what any intelligent person would do. I Googled it.

Turns out RTS is Royal Televison Society.

This was a public service announcement. Please mod insightful.

Mirrored at Open Source Gaming

[prezkennedy.org]

If you don't feel like dealing with BitTorrent, you can download the full version or the source from Open Source Gaming.

And WINE

[MoogMan]

While the game is currently win32 only,

It also works under WINE, it seems :)

Re:Obelisk of Light

[Richard Steiner]

There's an Obelisk of Light in the Stormbots mod for Tribes 1. I corrected it in my own hacked version so it would take a heavy in full health down to one red pixel in a single shot at around 800 meters or so.

"Here I go, Heavy O! I wonder what's over this ridgZZZZZZZTTTTT!!!"

"Uh. Medic!!"

Spring

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a dev on the team, JouninKomiko. There IS a skirmish AI planned, in fact I am working on it now. There is no TA code in this, just a use of the original TA content until the community remakes the units and scripts to make this standalone. Our FAQ guy stopped updating long ago for some reason.

ATTENTION!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The game sent along the Spring engine is NOT original TA. It's a mod called XTA, also created by the Swedish Yankspankers. The mod's purpose is to drastically change the balancing and gameplay. If you want to play with Original TA, you better fetch yourself the OTA patch. This is, btw, Storm.

gawd I luv TA

[bonezed]

these days I play the Absolute Annihilation mod
http://www.planetannihilation.com/aa/

lots of extra units, patches and balancing makes it the best mod

New Chris Taylor game coming

[fleabait]

I have to say TA:Spring looks very impressive in its own right, but I can't help but bring up this:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zd1up/is _200403/ai_ziff122201

Gas Powered Games is making a new RTS. Of course not a sequel to TA, but could be very interesting.

For a little background, Chris Taylor is the man credited with creating Total Annihilation. However he left Cavedog to start up Gas Powered Games some time before Cavedog produced TA:Kingdoms and subsequently went under.