For those of us who are not into RTS games, which of the features listed on this front page are ones that Total Annihilation was known for (and which other RTS games presumably failed to follow up on), and which ones are further innovations this game is making atop TA’s take on the genre?
Two key characteristics of TA/SupCom that set it apart were economic.
First, map resources (metal patches) were not depletable. So, the game would see massive economic growth as every metal patch would give resource indefinitely. Big econ ramp up, and a marked ability to come back due to non-exhausting resource patches.
The second characteristic is the flow-based economy that worked with build queuing. A player could queue up as many units or structures to be built as desired, as opposed to "buy and build" where you must currently have the resources necessary to build something.
"Queue" may be an imprecise word here, as the player could, for example, have ten factories all attempting to produce a series of units simultaneously (and similarly, have a swam of engineer units all attempting to build a number of structures simultaneously). That is, it was simultaneous building that would consume resources on the fly as they came in that was the core of this model.
The flow economy model meant that a player tracked resource income and resource usage: kept positive, all the queued up units or structures could be built. Go into the negative, however, and the resource buffer would be eaten into and the player would see all currently-building units/structures slow down in their rate of build progress, awaiting resources to come in.
The last bit was disabled in SupCom 2, out of concern that newer players often bottomed out their economy and had a bad time. However, after fan outcry, the flow-model and infinite queuing was re-enabled as an option.
Unit count and "planning" were the two things that separated TA from others for me.
You could build more units and you could command larger groups of them compared to something like SC where you couldn't group more than 12 per hotkey. The sheer number of units you could crank out also had interesting strategic effects if, say, your opponent had a balanced defense but not quite enough flak cannons, say, to hold up to a giant swarm of air units. I remember having to worry more about the specifics of what they were building than in games where there was a unit cap that increased the relative value of fortifications and defensive structures.
Sequencing was great too. Tell your commander to build a factory, then another factory, then a solar plant, etc, with seemingly no queue size limit. Queue up dozens of things in each of those factories too. Etc.
It always felt less "clicks per minute" dominated because of these things for me - though I was not a high level player or anything, just playing for fun - while the industry went the opposite, way into the Micro side and turned into things like Warcraft 3 and then LoL.
(I forget the name of Cavedog's TA sequel set in a fantasy world, but even that, IIRC, backed away from the giant armies thing.)
Total Annihilation was the first to have projectile physics for artillery and other weapons. One could actually have, for example, an artillery projectile in mid-flight accidentally collide with an aircraft.
[EDIT] Not mentioned on the BAR front page but also pioneered in TA was wreckage. Destroyed units left wreckage behind that had to be navigated around or fired upon to clear a path. Wreckage could also be scavenged to recover the material used to construct them, allowing the construction of more units. In the race to build enough infrastructure to overwhelm the enemy, this could be the difference between life and death.
Correct.
We recently even saw that a tactical nuke dropped from a bomber, created a blast-wave that pushed 19 flash-tanks so much their got a temporary 300% movement speed (if they weren't flying/crashing/exploding). https://www.twitch.tv/tarnishedknight/clip/AssiduousAttracti...
One favourite of mine is the recent Zero-K/Spring example of an Athena (cloaked gunship constructor) sneaking on the top of a silo launching its nuke, with just the right timing so that the missile hits it and explodes still partially inside the silo, before the Athena is shot down by AA (because decloaked due to proximity to the silo) :
Or maybe also this (BA?)/Spring one, dating back to the time when shields were invulnerable to plasma shots and deflecting them, featuring a shot being randomly diverted to hit a commander that was hiding in a bunch of buildings, wiping out half the base in the resulting death explosion !
> One could actually have, for example, an artillery projectile in mid-flight accidentally collide with an aircraft.
Or, anti-air units used as ground defense and ground assault units :). In my TA days, I had plenty of cases where I saved my base by ordering AA bots to fire on the ground, counting on weaker but much further-flying missiles to accidentally collide with the attacking force.
Also, Commander's D-gun. That one was an exercise in aiming, but early-to-mid-game, one well-placed shot could cut the attacking force in half.
I also appreciated the little things - like the solar generators automatically closing down when hit, to protect themselves.
Or, dropship bombing - IIRC when a dropship gets shot down, it crashes with all its load, which can sometimes be pretty explosive.
Maybe I'll just stop now. I have a lot of good TA memories.
In addition to what majormajor said, there TA had a bigger sense of scale than Starcraft or Command and Conquer. There was a greater discrepancy between the size of large and small units and the size of the units had a bigger impact on the movement speed and how much room on the map the unit took up. This went a long towards making the game feel bigger in scope whereas SC and C&C always felt more tight and controlled.
One thing TA and all of its successors kept was the ability to have units assist in construction. For instance, you have your commander plunk down a factory, then order the commander to assist with anything the factory is doing. Early on, this will be creating engineers (builders) and your first defensive units. Then you have your commander and engineers build/upgrade your level 2 factory.. rinse and repeat. It turns into a virtuous cycle.
The upshot of this is that it creates opportunities for prioritization (and opportunities for blowing past your income if you're not careful).
Oh, yeah, THIS was a huge one. As well as just how construction/payment worked in general. This thing costs you X metal, and this factory can deliver metal at a rate of x/sec... but if you throw in all these helper units, you can up that. Very interesting and unique twist.
You also didn't have to pay up front when queuing things, like you say with the opportunity to blow past your income, so your cash flow was the counter-balancing production speed limiter, but not in a way where you had to be constantly watching that bank account dollar amount before clicking "build."
The BAR music is really good, in the same theme done by a professional composer. It's not a full orchestra on the level of the TA soundtrack, which is simply one of the best of all time, but it excellent on its own and captures much of the essence.
I really hope its better than Zero-K's music, their "professional" composer produced some of the most eye-rollingly awful syntesized orchestral music I've ever heard
Same. Although I do remember the graphics and number of simultanously visible independent units as being impressive...
But the music was magnificent orchestral work. It was also so depressing [ https://youtu.be/ljDyp__ejco?t=995 ] that I decided to play the game without music after a while. It's gorgeous, but too emotive.
I found the non-combat music in TA strikes a very compelling balance between emotion and tranquility without becoming monotonous, but I definitely agree that the in-combat music is a bit too bombastic for its own good
Along with the soundtrack, John Patrick Lowrie's amazing voice work also form some of my most vivid memories of the game. I still get goosebumps when I hear his narration of the opening cinematic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6mZZiI4ShQ
