Why TA was so Grand?

Two words:

Big Bertha

That gun is the reason why i will always remember TA fondly, i tried going back to play it recently, but a fixed isometric camera, that you can't zoom out with? Too antiquated for me.

I love Supreme Commander, and i'm looking forward to seeing what PA looks like when its all finished, and maybe picking up a copy a few years from now.

Fixed.

big bertha, was cooler. It span and stuff.

double post, my bad

The Bertha did no such thing, you are thinking of the Vulcan repeating artillery, of which is still inferior to the CORE Buzzsaw.

You know, all this talk makes me really want to fire up a game of TA. Unfortunately, updating my graphics card (in order to improve FPS for PA no less), seems to have completely and totally borked all the colours up. I've tried some of the more common fixes on the internet, but had no luck.

I will have to avail myself to a Spring game or FA instead.

You didn't actually read the study. That's for users that didn't adjust the brightness or take breaks. So yes, if you do unhealthy things, CRTs are worse for you because they are brighter by default. Here is a cookie :roll: The original point of using a CRT, as stated twice, is for the unique display characteristics which compliment the visual stylings of the game, and also for their warmth, which is just like love. Please stop derailing the thread with superfluous health warnings because of your own unhealthy gaming habits.

Anyways,

I'm pretty sure Total Annihilation was one of the first RTS games to implement an actual radar that saw through fog of war, as well as "electronic warfare" with the radar jammers. It would be nice to get some radar jammers in PA :twisted:

I also think it was one of the few RTS games that didn't rely on "research" as a means of artificial strategy, if you could afford it, you could build it. It's easy to grasp. Pure numbers and positioning are much more important and exciting than "+1 armor" could ever be

Here's an archive of the articles from when Cavedog closed

I wish I still had my 466 sitting around, with it's HUGE 20GB hdd lol

There were a ton of cool unit interactions created solely by unit size, speed, turn rate, turret turn rate, and weapon ballistic properties.

Everything about the game. It was the best of its time, and today still the best. In my opinion. Battles that would last ages. A game with infinite mods,The bots looks, the upgrades, and the commander.. oh boy was he bad ***. Then came big bertha, the most bad *** killer. Nukes, Air, Water, Ground, Hovering, all the units you need. The music the worlds, and even the campaign.

I never did understand why Core's long range artillery were superior in every aspect compared to the Arm. I mean, I can understand having range as a plus, and something else as a minus, but seriously? Nothing? Core bias much. (Not you, just game balance in general)

I still prefer the design of the Bertha and the Vulcan over the Intimidator and Buzzsaw. The Buzzsaw's design was actually pretty cool, but I've always been fond of gattling-like weaponry, so the Vulcan will always be the favorite in my book.

:roll: Last I checked, you were the one that brought up CRT monitors being a necessity for playing TA, so it's obviously very relevant to the thread, or you wouldn't have brought it up. Logically speaking, anyway. Your statement's incorrect information was corrected as a result. Guess being a computer tech and watching multiple rows of a dozen or more CRT monitors is 'gaming habits'. I'll make sure to fix that and go find some personal experience more suited to your own bias personal judgement.

No, wait. No I won't.

I think this is true. Radar Jammers did exist in Command and Conquer, Red Alert, released in 1996. (If they were added in the expansion, they were released in 97, same year as TA) The way they worked were different, though. Red Alert made the minimap turn into static ghosts when jammers were nearby the radar installation, as well as having Gap Generators which created a consistent fog of war in the immediate area overpowering any radar but not the Allies' Satellite. TA's radar jammers made the units surrounding it invisible to radar, similar to the Gap Generators, but in RA, you couldn't see unit signatures outside of visual range, so that particular structure/unit would have been nearly useless in TA arguably.

The design of TA's Radar and radar jamming is probably the first, if not one of the first of it's kind. (I've played a metric ton of old RTSes, but my memory of them is shot)

This is true, if I'm correctly thinking of what you're talking about.. looking back to Warcraft 2. It did have a very different resource system though. Everything else? Click = use resources instantly = build unit/structure. I think EVERY other RTS not based on TA's system (Other than Spring, TA3D, SupCom, etc) have the exact same resource setup.

I thought at first you were describing the whole.. build *this thing* to get "new construction options". lol nope.

Is there going to be a gatling gun style in pa? I always liked the Vulcan to! Do the guns feel epic in pa? They really didn't feel like that in supcom..

PA's weapons could use a bit more love. Currently its just rockets and tank guns, so that's not a huge surprise.

I really hope whoever worked on TA's sound effects is working on PA's. I would honestly micro my Big Berthas just to hear the glorious sound of them firing. I would do this with the D-Gun too, that thing sounds frigging vicious.

placeholders...

I do severely hope there's going to be a gattling-type weapon of some type implemented.

Of course they could, but they're definitely not working on the look or sounds of weapons right now. I'm totally sure that we'll be getting some majorly awesome weapon sounds and many more types of weapons later as well. But for now, you know as they say. Your Alpha is now Diamon- er.. Beta.

Ok.. not quite Beta yet, but almost.
I just wanna be ready for it shaddap xD!

I hope it blows ta away bc supcom weapons, sounds, effects were not good..I want epic sounds, effects, looks

The current artillery sounds in PA are pretty boss.

pivo the supcom nuclear explosion sound is the best I've ever heard, if you have a sound system with high bass you even need to turn down the bass or it'll make your whole house shake.

You just don't hear it if you're not on top of the unit zoomed in close.

In TA you heard the big guns even from larger ranges. (At least, that's what I remember.)

Sadly the rest was pew pew pew and pshewshoom. I can't even remember the sounds of any of the explosions to give a proper onomatopoeia for. :/

Yes pewpewpew is poo...we want Bertha sounds!