Energy Upkeep (for shooting and/or units)

In Total Annihilation, most or many units and structures drew energy whenever they were shooting and some units required energy constantly (e.g. for keeping up a cloak). While the latter was still the case in Supreme Commander and Forged Alliance, the former concept was not used any more across all units and buildings. Only buildings like T3 or T4 artillery required energy for shooting, while buildings like point defenses did not (in TA, even the small laser tower required energy for shooting). Likewise, there were no mobile units any more, that required energy for shooting. They only required energy if they had a shield, stealth or cloak for instance.

Hence, taking out someone's energy source, or at least a large part of it, had a much greater influence on the battle in TA, because you could potentially cripple your enemy, since some units will not be able to fight back any more. This effect is not present in SupCom/FA (except for the ACU's overcharge, which requires a certain amount of energy in storage).


I guess it was made that way deliberately, otherwise taking out someone's energy source is possibly too powerful. I am just wondering what other people think of this.

May be it's more reasonable, that only some units require a general energy upkeep and/or for shooting. For instance, Experimentals (if there are any) could require a general high energy upkeep (not just for its shield, cloak or stealth field, if present), to balance them in a different way (and also provide an alternative opportunity, to defend yourself against them, other than trying to bluntly destroy it).

I just played a bit of TA I think that most smaller units PRODUCED the energy they needed themself. But I might be wrong.

Hm, the only energy producing mobile units (in standard TA 3.1) should be construction units. It may be that the small units never actually require any energy to shoot, I am not sure on that. May be only the big guns require energy (no matter if mobile or not).

Almost every unit in TA had both energy production and consumption, usually in the low single digit figures. For most units, the production matched the consumption, and did not require energy to fire (large laser weapons like the penetrator and laser defences excluded).

Some of these units did not consume energy under certain circumstances, such as aircraft when they didn't fly, or radars when they were switched off (radars were self sufficient and thus always on).

Yeah, you are right, just looked at the unit database again. While units like the PeeWee don't produce any energy, other units mostly have +x/-x energy production and consumption (e.g. +1 and -1 on the Bulldog and the Freedom Fighter). Though now that I look at it, I don't really get the point of the Bulldog having +1 and -1 for instance.

But are you sure that all these units did not draw additional energy when shooting? the +1/-1 is just in idle mode anyway. The Penetrator has +5/-5 too for instance but it had a big spike in energy consumption whenever they were giving off a shot. I am just wondering if all the small units did the same as well, would be less noticeable there of course.

Can't check myself right now

Can you link me TA databse, i've been after it for a while but didn't find it.

I only know of this one: http://units.tauniverse.com/ . It's not very convenient though.

I'm not positive, but if any did, it would only be the laser-based units (I think the core warlord laser did too, actually [confirmed]). The only non-laser weapons that used energy in the game were Berthas/timmys, Vulcans/buzzsaws, nukes/anti-nukes/emp/bio missile and the d-gun.

Try this link; it's just cavedog (official) units: http://units.tauniverse.com/?p=grp&v=Cavedog

Thx, just noticed also, that you can simply click on the weapon and see its resource consumption (if any) there . I thought that the Guardian for example would also require energy with each shot, but that's not the case.

Thx, that makes it a bit easier. Little bit of a bitch otherwise, to search for a specific unit there, if you don't know its name .


Well in any case, no one has given any thoughts yet, on what would they prefer to have in Planetary Annihilation .

I think it would be a pain to constantly need energy for everything to fire. If it's like FA, then you're penalised already from lack of intel if you run out.

Having certain weapons consistantly require energy to fire regardless of what unit they are on is ok though (like TA, but more consistant with the lasers).

Yeah, everything requiring energy to shoot is probably definitely too much.

And, shields, often.

In SupCom/FA I always found it odd, that the super heavy lasers of certain experimentals did not require any energy to fire (since, in TA, they did require energy). I never expected every unit in SupCom/FA to require energy for firing, but I at least expected it from some weapons of some Experimentals.