Annihilation. Not Planetary. Better.

Hello. As you probably know Ubers currently developing Planetary Annihilation and promoting it in scope that loads of casual players which played OTA(original Total Annihilation) in childhood would think that it is only one rts true to OTA in general. Allow me to smash such promoting tactics by introducing something that you might have missed.
Introducing springrts:
http://springrts.com/
This engine started some time ago in 2004 as full 3d viewer for Total annihilation replays and over the time grew into full-scale OTA replacement. It is opensource, it has dozen of projects - some of them represent TA, and some are completely new with mechanics similar to Total annihilation (here are some highlights):


http://zero-k.info



Zero-k. A recent rework of old Complete annihilation project which revamped most of units and remade balance from the scratch creating engaging experience for new-coming players to attend and enjoy.

http://springrts.com/wiki/Balanced_Annihilation
Balanced annihilation is perhaps closest thing you get when you want OTA feeling. It took whole load of original units and added some third party units maintaining pinnacle of balance between factions. Considered most popular game on srts engine.


http://www.imperialwinter.com
Star wars imperial winter is another interesting project which does its take on battlegrounds of original star wars conflict. Though it doesn't have Jedi, there is plenty of action still going on as Empire and Rebels duke it out in massive scale battles.

http://www.evolutionrts.info
Evolution rts - another newcomer complete with gorgeous graphics and some interesting mechanics on battlefield and beyond that.


http://spring1944.net
Spring 1944: Another game on srts engine - this one is based on WW2 combat between multiple factions.

http://www.moddb.com/games/gundam-rts
Gundam rts - now this is an interesting game - technically this is considered true to original gundam series by multiple fans, mainly because it has most of mechs from both factions, complete with 3 type resource system and hot action (well not as hot as in original anime but still - plenty of interest there)

http://springrts.com/wiki/Kernel_Panic
Kernel panic: Another highlight - this is perhaps smallest (by amounts of units) and most original (by mechanics) mod.
As you can probably guess its based around inner-pc wars, darwinia/tron-alike.



All these are completely free to play and have loads and loads of joyful/frustrated (depending on how good you'll get) hours of gameplay.

XD no, no I truely think the most people here are not only TA fans, and that maybe there's even more FA fans, but that's okay we're not expecting SupCom 2.1 and neither are TA fans expecting TA 2.1, it's a different game and we respect that and are happy for it because WOW, allll the goodieeeeeeeees.


And I know this may come to you as a surprise but I think anyone here who knows about TA is in the case scenario of never having heard about spring and all it's offsprings

quality thread, 10/10 would read again

also

well, I kind of am

I've deleted all the . posts for you guys

@Topic: The problem with this is that there are so many variations that the amount of players is so crazy split up that it's not fun. Also the default UI of all Spring games I've played so far was worse than what PA had in prealpha and the zoom of Spring is pretty weak as well. It's just not my type of game UI-wise I guess. It suffers too much from typical open source-game problems.

Also, pair of trailers:
Official

one of oldies - my alltime favorite

well tough. cuz you ain't gettin it.

+ spring already gives you that.

Try zero-k - they added new gui for it, also for Evorts and gundam rts.
Also for the ui of BA - classic OTA UI. I don't know what's wrong with that.

I've tried it in the past and gave up after maybe 30 minutes of not understanding most of the UI at all. Basic things like zooming were so weirdly different from what I am used to that it felt just bad.
I actually tried a bit of BA a few month ago. What annoyed me the most was that the zoom height was limited so I could not zoom out completely. Instead the game forced me to push tab to go to a mini map view. That made the zoom useless in a pretty artificial way.
In the end I don't have time to play another game atm anyway, as PA and modding PA eats all my time

I dunno, I mean I don't have the alpha, but judging from the videos I think PA looks like TA 2.0. Spring is more like an elaborate TA fan patch.

I've played Spring, it's alright. I know there are lots of not-TA mods for it, they just don't really interest me.

*shrugs* i sense 2 things:
Subjectivity - these are subjective experiences, i so far never had problems with scaling and controlling battlefield.
Snobbish attitude - if it is opensource doesn't mean its bad. And don't get me wrong - i give credit where credit is given- to example Blender is imo piece of crap for all right reasons - worst gui for 3d editor i've seen period (seriously - just use Wings3d if you need free 3d editing software) - springrts might be flagship of opensource gaming as it is most powerful and usable rts platform so far.

I will concur that the UI is really off-putting due to all of the widgets and options that newer players will find hard to understand.

People like things when they are simple, even 'plug and play' so I agree that the spring stuff is really shooting it's self in the foot in that regard.

You didn't try it hard enough M8, just give it another go. It really is TA 2.1
PA is different from TA. It really is. Strategic zoom , strat icons, sphere maps, multiple battlefileds. physics, simulated projectile, one race. orbits, black holes. too many differences.

Again - GUI is mod-dependant. Zero-k eliminated that with new gui.

Speaking of which - srts has physics and sim projectiles too. You will never be able to shoot through units, and if unit gets in path of ally projectile which were shot - it will get hit by it.

Zero-k is good.

But i'll admit to having a bias against spring for one reason, I don't like playing against people.

I'm here because the Kickstarter video was awesome and because it is being worked on by the same amazing minds that conceived Total Annihilation, and who have many years of RTS development between them.

I think you're very much mistaken if you believe that there are many on this forum who are not aware of the games you've listed above.

I'm also not sure where you picked up the line that this was marketed as the 'only one true' successor to Total Annihilation. Yes it's being developed by the same people, as I've already mentioned, but I have never heard Uber say that it is going to be the 'only' good successor to TA. For goodness' sake most of them worked on Supreme Commander, which was considered a successor itself. I don't know, something about the tone of your post really rubbed me up the wrong way.

Mind your attitude citizen, i was definitely not enough cocky in OP to get this kind of reaction. So don't get offended.

ahahaha You were born one generation too late then! xD

I didn't really like Spring. I know, in my mind, that Balanced Annihilation is pretty much TA with new, better, more balanced units and unit loadouts...

But my heart tells me the spirit of TA was taken away in Spring. It just feels wrong.

Well I did spend my childhood playing the original CNC and Tiberian Sun.

So id say I was right on time