On Fri, 28 Jun 2002 16:59:44 GMT, Eric Byers
<eihjelmt@NOSPAMonline.no> wrote:
>On Fri, 28 Jun 2002 07:53:59 GMT, Marco <marcosbox@hotmail.com>
>muttered something along the lines of:
>
>>In TA, you don't pay for the unit until it actually begins to build.
>>Then it begins subtracting resourses as it builds. If the unit is 50%
>>complete, then you have paid only 50% for it so far. If you cancel a
>>unit while in the process of building it, you lose 50% of the resourse
>>already used in constructing it.
>
>It sounds fairly hard to keep track of your resources when building
>several things at once...
>
>But I guess that's what you get when you have an endless amount of
>resources available on every map...and only one resource type...it
>sounds awfully lot like mucho-money maps to me...
Two resources, one of which can be converted to the other. The
convertable one, energy, is freely available through buildings, and
the other one, metal, must be retrieved by buildings on metal patches.
However, all buildings/units cost both energy and metal, so things
*do* get complicated.
There is one type of map, 'metal planets,' in which *all* the terrain
is metal patches, so those definitely *are* $$$ maps. However, most
of the time you *do* have to battle for resources, usually metal,
since that is the most limited/limiting resource. Unless your
opponent takes out most of your energy facilities, in which case
you're in deep trouble.
Yeah, it's different from starcraft. The building/unit creation
aspect is vastly simplified by queueing, but resource management can
be more complicated later, even on $$$ maps. 'Nano-stall', where
every building/constructor unit stops due to zero resources until you
have some again, can be a real problem for newbies. Since mines need
energy to run, they can temporarily stop too, making problems worse.
However, there are no real 'spell units,' and unit groups can be given
more specific orders(1) re: general behavior, so your attention is
freed to work on logistics and squad-level attacks. There are dozens
of nifty tricks you can still pull at a squad-level, though. For
example, firing range often exceeds sighting range, yet you can still
fire on positions, not just units. Indirect artillery can somtimes
be interesting, or you can aim at units by radar positions on the
mini-map, revealed by radar towers, yet still out of 'visible'
main-map range. Automation *never* fully replaces micro-management in
a good game, it just moves it around...
1- Movement- roam/maneuver/hold(to movement orders, firing as
they go, unless you fiddle with...)
Fire- hold/return/at will
any else? Haven't played in a while...
Places where starcraft does better? The lack of spell units does make
the two TA sides somewhat too similar by comparison, unfortunately.
That and the differences in building/unit construction make the three
Starcraft races very different. Battlenet is also a very good thing,
and is the main reason you still see S being sold in Wal-mart while TA
isn't. (at least where I live...)
Forgive me if I spent more time 'praising' TA than Starcraft. I was
simply trying to explain TA to everyone, since Starcraft is freely
available yet TA is fading into obscurity, though with 'classic'
status. In reality, I no longer have TA on my drive since I'm a MP
newbie, and I don't want to jump through hoops to find others.
Total Annihilation was killed by TA: Kingdoms, AFAIK. Chris Taylor
left Cavedog, and Kingdoms couldn't really follow up on the success of
the original. This probably killed Cavedog, which killed Boneyards,
which made MP TA too convoluted for the casual player. Correct me if
I'm wrong.
Jonathan Fisher
who, unfortunately, couldn't find the Core Contingency expansion pack
until Boneyards was dead.
----------
paranormalized man, subnormalized otaku
ROT13 and then delete all instances of the letter after P to email
Yeah, I've been getting my alphabet mixed up the past couple months.
Sorry.
|
There is such a lack of variety it is amazing....
.
You can make 3D meshes for units as they get
