Total Annahilation Spring.

[Xinos]

http://taspring.clan-sy.com/
Spring sort of a remake of Total Annihilation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_annihilation) which uses all the old games units and puts it into their new 3D engine. This game is constantly being patched and worked on.

I've known about this game for over a year or so, and my friends have been playing it since it came out, but I only recently got interested (since I didn't like how it played earlier). We used to play loads of Total Annahilation over the internet, but they all swithed to Spring and left me behind since I thought TA was still way better than Spring. But constant uppgrading to the game have made me change my mind.

There is also a large fanbase with plenty of mods and units and way to many maps available.

It's basicly multiplayer only, but there is some singleplayer stuff, however, you should really just ignore that =P
This game should be good practice and get you all hyped up about Supreme Commander ;)

[Plasma]

Currently downloading.
(And I bet Kelster will be even more annyed that I'm getting another new game!)

[Paul.Power]

Heh, I reinstalled TA again recently. Arm Mission 7 is still a *&%£^€@

[Xinos]

Heh, I reinstalled TA again recently. Arm Mission 7 is still a *&%£^€@

Don't play Singleplayer, you will ruin the experience. Get someone to play against ;)
Though the narrator is awsome.

And one needs TAUCP (http://www.planetannihilation.com/taucp/main.htm) me thinks.

[Paul.Power]

Don't play Singleplayer, you will ruin the experience. Get someone to play against ;)Someone actually did offer to give me a game, but they'd probably slaughter me because I'm not very good (because I keep forgetting to leave my factories producing. Although I think in future I'll just set my K-Bot lab to produce 50 PeeWees and let it get on with it ;)).

I have recently learnt the joys of sending PeeWees forward en masse suicidally so my Guardians can actually fire at the enemy.

[bonz]

Hey, I could install TA again too.

The last time I played via the Phoenixworks client a few years back.

[Xinos]

You really build a lvl 2 kbot lab =)

Don't trust your base defense to much, I've spent many games builing only base defence just to have my enemies build mostly units and they just smash right through my base anyway :(

[SupSuper]

I've been wanting to get TA for ages yet never find it. :(

[bonz]

I've been wanting to get TA for ages yet never find it. :(
I bought the Commander Pack (http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00001XDTT.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg) back in 1999. :)

[Paul.Power]

Just played a game against the AI: me (purple) and another AI (green) as Arm allied vs. two Core AIs (red and yellow) on that Core Prime map with a lot of little pathways over oil lakes. Once I'd taken the centre, I started to notice that a few of the enemy air patrols had pretty high tech in them, so I stepped up my own.

So, I sent out a squadron of Brawlers to see what they could see. And what they saw were little oily lakes JAM PACKED with destroyers, missile frigates, cruisers and battleships. Needless to say, my Brawler forces kept getting annihilated.

Right.

I built a Retaliator nuke launcher and got lucky against Yellow, destroying their Commander within the first couple of nukes. Red took ages: I kept throwing nukes at them, but couldn't hit their Commander. I resorted to my "mass PeeWee assaults" to try and spot him, but they kept getting creamed by Warlords and Executioners. Meanwhile, my AC KBot was building Advanced Radar Towers like crazy to give me more intel.

I was in the process of sending up some Bulldogs to give me a slightly heavier form of "scout", when I noticed one red blob drift away from the others on the Radar. I sent a couple of spare PeeWees over to try and work out what it was, but they lost contact. Eventually, my Peeper spy plane that had been circling Green's base (always a good idea to know what your allies are up to) told me that Red's Commander had just arrived on scene, and Green's own silly navy made short work of him, resulting in a (slightly sheepish) victory.

[Plasma]

Just played a game against the AI: me (purple) and another AI (green) as Arm allied vs. two Core AIs (red and yellow) on that Core Prime map with a lot of little pathways over oil lakes. Once I'd taken the centre, I started to notice that a few of the enemy air patrols had pretty high tech in them, so I stepped up my own.

So, I sent out a squadron of Brawlers to see what they could see. And what they saw were little oily lakes JAM PACKED with destroyers, missile frigates, cruisers and battleships. Needless to say, my Brawler forces kept getting annihilated.

Right.

I built a Retaliator nuke launcher and got lucky against Yellow, destroying their Commander within the first couple of nukes. Red took ages: I kept throwing nukes at them, but couldn't hit their Commander. I resorted to my "mass PeeWee assaults" to try and spot him, but they kept getting creamed by Warlords and Executioners. Meanwhile, my AC KBot was building Advanced Radar Towers like crazy to give me more intel.

I was in the process of sending up some Bulldogs to give me a slightly heavier form of "scout", when I noticed one red blob drift away from the others on the Radar. I sent a couple of spare PeeWees over to try and work out what it was, but they lost contact. Eventually, my Peeper spy plane that had been circling Green's base (always a good idea to know what your allies are up to) told me that Red's Commander had just arrived on scene, and Green's own silly navy made short work of him, resulting in a (slightly sheepish) victory.
Speaking of which, what AI do you use?

[Paul.Power]

Easy. Although as I understand it, the only difference is in enemy production rates and number of units in an attack wave. AI isn't TA's strong point. Physics, now...

[bonz]

Easy. Although as I understand it, the only difference is in enemy production rates and number of units in an attack wave. AI isn't TA's strong point. Physics, now...
There are user edited AIs that better suit certain map types (land, air or sea battle).

[Xinos]

If your playing regular TA i suggest getting TAUCP anyway, even if you disable all 3'rd party units you will get a list of AI difficulty's to choice from.

The hard ones (boost) cheat... I captured his metal extractor and it gave 13 metal instead of 1 which I would get from mine. ;P

[bonz]

The hard ones (boost) cheat... I captured his metal extractor and it gave 13 metal instead of 1 which I would get from mine. ;P
If you want even harder AI, you should get Switeck's modified galactic gates.
They can only be built by the AI and produce and store lots of metal and energy. This prevents the AI running out of them.
There's also an edited nuke silo for the AI.

[Xinos]

Why is everyone playing TA instead of Spring? =/

Spring has people to play against.. and there are lots of things they have improved. Like units will now get out of the way from where a builder unit is about to put a building. In TA units would just stand still on that spot and the builder would complain about something being in the way. Very annoying for when the builder is guarded by a large group of other builders.

You can also hold shift and drag long rows of buildings. Instead of clicking 20 times for 20 solar collectors you just make a row or two instantly =)

Things like that make it hard to go back and play TA..

[SupSuper]

Probably the same reason people still play TTD over OpenTTD, or original KQs over their VGA remakes, etc. They just have nostalgia value.

[Xinos]

TTD over OpenTTD? Blasphemy!

Edit:
Japan has caught the fever!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVwbUljGs3g