Galactic Battlegrounds. Should it have been produced by the makes of Total Annilation

[Influenza]

Christ, I hate ignorance. Here I go again...

 

Why would anyone want this game to be made by the guys who made Total Annihilation?

Total Annihilation was light-years ahead of its time. So many of the features I've already listed have yet to be supported by any other RTS. The RTS genre really was pushed ahead by TA's debut. If you disagree, check out Gamespot, PCGamer, or any number of game sites and read their reviews of Total Annihilation and TA: The Core Contingency. The author of this thread most likely felt that if the TA team had made GB, they could have made similar leaps in the genre that they did back in 1997.

 

I heard you could like download new units off the internet and have like 600 units or something but that was becaues the units were a top-down, jigsaw puzzle of pixels...with so little time and graphics put into their units sure you could whip up a couple thousand and put em on the internet and they'd probably download faster than standard text!

Your total ignorance to the process of TA unit creation and Cavedog's skill at it is obvious. The birds'-eye-view has nothing to do with being able to release "thousands" of units. Every unit in TA is fully modeled, on top, bottom, and sides, even in places that don't show up in-game. Here's a quick picture of one of Cavedog's original units, the Goliath Heavy Battle Tank: That's an original unit, completely unaltered. So don't say that Cavedog put "so little time" into making their units. You obviously haven't played the game.

 

...in fact, i have honestly seen top down strategy games on the friggin Playstation that looked better than TA!!!

Like what? I find that incredibly hard to believe. Impossible to believe, in fact. Did you look at the screenshots I posted? Or are you going on memory, which is obviously biased against TA?

 

Detail...

Yes, let's talk about detail. Look here . This is a Total Conversion for SWTA called "Dark Suns." Look at the background. Look at the small spaceships...similar, yet distinct. Sure looks a whole hell of a lot better than the cartoons of SWGB.

 

And no, the AoK engine was not built for detail. It was built to be an engine that every user can run games on. Thus the limited colors, resolution, and game speed. The TA engine, on the other hand, was built to display vast armies clashing in detailed environments, all completely modifiable. The TA engine is superior to the AoK engine by a long shot. Anything the AoK engine can do, the TA engine can do better. Give me one example of something the AoK engine does better than the TA engine. I dare you. You seem to know so much about TA.

[Guest StarWarz_Dude]

:mad: :mad: :mad: How could u talk about TA like that, man pull the AoE cd out of ur arse and actully look at total annihilation, STUNNING for its age, i cant believe you, im Fricken speachless

[Guest Bobio]

Originally posted by StarWarz_Dude

STUNNING for its age, i cant believe you

 

Exactly, for its age. TA has been out for what, 3,4 years already. The engine is definately dated

[Influenza]

The TA engine is superior to the AoK engine by a long shot. Anything the AoK engine can do, the TA engine can do better. Give me one example of something the AoK engine does better than the TA engine. I dare you.

[EndSub]

Well a gotta say.....those screenies ARE impressive.....well the landscapes are anyway.....the units still look quite bland (but that could be the jpg talking....) and I still think that top-down view cripples is abit.......

 

I am going to download your mod sometime tonight.....to give it a fair trial......screenshots never tell the whole story........telling me some good maps to download would also be apreciated.....

[Influenza]

Woohoo! Let's see, good maps. Try going to theTotal Annihilation Map Evaluation Center's "Best of TA" section. Any of those maps are absolutely awesome. The ones I used in the above examples are 2 for 1, Hallucigenia, Haunts Of Ancient Peace, Veruna At War V4, and Two Worlds V2. All of them can be found at that link. But you need to remember: in order to use these maps with SWTA, you must rename them to have a .swx extension, not .hpi or .ufo.

 

As for Cavedog maps...they might not be the best-looking, but Red Triangle, Acid Foursome, and Painted Desert are some classics.

 

And I hope you know how to play TA .

 

And if you're really longing for instructions, strategies, or a unit guide, check out the Official SWTA Manual, compiled by yours truly .

 

I hope you enjoy.

[Guest Wettis]

Ok, here's the opinion of another TA fan... The AoK engine isn't the best for a SW game because it doesn't support units moving and firing at the same time and flying units just float. Still, the landscapes will be pretty good looking and the units will be extremely detailed. The downside is that you can only see units from a few directions and that they won't look as sharp as 3d units. Aoks unit size limitations talks against it too.

 

The TA engine isn't perfect for a SW game either, since it's for years old. Units in TA really doesn't look that good, but they're pretty nice. The best thing about the TA engine is all it's features, AoK doesn't even come close to it. The maps are nice too, since they're really bitmaps with a heightmap which makes huge, fast playing maps possible. Overall, the TA engine works pretty well for SW games, but it needs updating.

 

My personal pick for an engine would probably be the ground control engine. The units and environments are beatiful and the free camera works really well. The only downside is the limited number of units allowed.

[Guest crazy_dog]

My opinion exactly.

[Guest PhantomMenace]

WHat do you mean unit limitation...in the AOK engine you can build 200 troops exactly..in starcraft you could build 200 units but some units counted as 2 and some as 8 so you wouldnt really have 200 acutal units..in the AOK engine you do. I looked at the screens for the TA conversion thingy and it sucked. I am not the type of person to arbitrarily trash something but i know those units look funny. AS far as size, AOK has been the only RTS i could think of so far that even made an attempt at gettin the scale reasonable. THere may be better engines for Star Wars than the AOK engine, but it aint the TA engine!

[Influenza]

200 units is a limitation. Total Annihilation has no limit on units, provided you add TOTALA.INI to your directory, containing the line unitmax=5000;

 

That'll give you a unitmax of 5000 units .

 

But I think Wettis was referring to the actual size of the units. I.E. unit scale. With the 3/4 isometric view, you can't have units too large, or else they'll block out units behind them. That's one flaw of the iso-view, and a reason why LA had to screw up the scaling and make everything so cartoony (IMHO). And don't tell me that the scale in SWGB is "reasonable". Troops are too large, "mechs" are too small. Try looking at those SWTA screens again with an open mind...you'll see that the scale there is correct.

 

I'm interested in what you think, EndSub. Keep me posted .

[Guest Wettis]

That's exactly what I meant and probably why I wrote "Aoks unit size limitations" in the first place too

[Eets]

Originally posted by Influenza

Total Annihilation has no limit on units, provided you add TOTALA.INI to your directory, containing the line unitmax=5000;

 

Hmm, you think there might be a way to do something similar in GB?

[Guest Wettis]

We're getting away from the real issues here! The only facts needed here are that units can't move and fire in the AoK engine, and that flying units just hover above the ground, no dogfighting.

[Guest Admiral Odin]

Many RTS games lack dog fighting, it really isn't an issue.

 

Also small units can hurt people's eyes. Some like larger units. LA took the middle ground. They also greatly improved the scale of units.

[Influenza]

Many RTS games lack dog fighting, it really isn't an issue.

But this is Star Wars. This game shouldn't fall under the "many RTS" category. I mean, honestly, who doesn't think that dogfights were the coolest parts of the movies? Not necessarily the best or most influential parts...but in terms of sheer coolness, I bet fully 95% of all Star Wars fans would agree that the spacecraft-battle scenes were the most fun to watch.

 

That's why it's a big deal.

 

Oh...and what are you talking about when you say LA 'greatly improved the scale of the units'? I honestly don't know what that refers to...a little help?

 

And Eets'chula - I sincerely doubt it. Loading TOTALA.INI, if it is present, is part of the Total Annihilation engine, not something that is generally supported by every game. Raising unit caps is something that SWGB's engine would have to be specifically programmed for. Chances are that if it isn't in AoK, it can't be done in SWGB.

[Guest Duncan]

You know I honestly don't really think that it's a problem that LA is using the AOK engine, even though there are other and arguably better engines. What gets me miffed is that LA has the audacity to actually put a glorified mod for the AOK engine on the market and try and charge $50 bucks for it. It's not like they took the AOK engine and made it do stuff that no one ever though was possible. SWGB is still just a bunch of different civs with roughly similar tech trees battling it out in glorious 256 colors. And please don't reply and tell me about the flying units or the power cell thingys or shields. Yes, I know about those things but none of those really count as pushing the envelope on the AOK engine.

 

If I ran SWBG and didn't feel like I was playing AOK (every single menu has the exact same buttons with different graphics) it would be different. Why not bring the game up to 16bit color. How about civs that have radically different tech tree. They are all from different planets so the likelyhood of them all having tech trees so similar is slim. I could go on, but I won't cause it's late and I want to go to bed.

 

All I'm saying is that I'm okay with them using the AOK engine, but if they are going to charge me $50 for it, they should at least bring the game up to today's level of expectations for new games. Otherwise charge me $20-30 for the glorified mod and I'll be happy.

 

Good night!

[Guest Locust99]

i still think the community making their own engine and SW game would be best.... hey.... now i remember...... i already have plans for that when me engine is finished

[Guest DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Influenza

But this is Star Wars. This game shouldn't fall under the "many RTS" category. I mean, honestly, who doesn't think that dogfights were the coolest parts of the movies? Not necessarily the best or most influential parts...but in terms of sheer coolness, I bet fully 95% of all Star Wars fans would agree that the spacecraft-battle scenes were the most fun to watch.

 

Might I recommend X-Wing Alliance if you dogfighting should be an important part of the game?

[Influenza]

No, because I've played Alliance. Great game. My point still stands, though. Honestly, how many of you would complain if the aircraft in SWGB engaged in dogfighting?

[Guest Wettis]

Without dogfighting and movefire units SWGB will be a downgraded version of AoK, for full retail price.

 

Why downgraded then? Because SWGB units mostly rely on guns, not melee weapons which is what the AoK engine was made for. SWGB battles will mostly be soldiers tanks and aircraft standing still firing at eachother until they're all dead.

[Guest PhantomMenace]

Somebody, a real smart guy, made a post a long time ago that should have killed the old, "they should move while they fire" gripe! The same way they made formations so your guys wouldnt bounce around the map like ping pong balls like they do in starcraft, they decided that air shouldnt move while they are firing for the simple fact of CONTROL. In red alert your planes go aaaall the way back to the air port and wait for you to send them on a strike, then they go flying off and strafe and such, but then the situation could have changed by the time they got there. THe enemy coulda have closed up that vulnerability by quickly movin in air defense and your opportunity has gone to crap! Think about it, if your air was dogfighting around and strafing and you needed to have it stop and do somethign else do you realize how big of a pain in the a** it would be to try to click on that thing to select it..or even worse if there was a bunch of em and they were all dodging in different directions!!! I think we should give the guys at lucasarts the benefit of having a brain, and on the same tolkien ignore some of the people on this message board who think they do got one!!!

[Guest Fes2001]

actually the Troopers are so small, the barely need features. Yet the Rebel Troopers, and the Stormies, look bloodly nice in SWTA

[Influenza]

PhantomMenace: I do agree with your points about RA and RA2. Having airplanes stationed at airfields does make the game more realistic for a war on Earth, but isn't practical. And it wouldn't fit in the Star Wars universe either, where spacecraft can land and take off at will. But in the TA engine (which is what we're talking about, of course), aircraft can land and take off anywhere on land. They can be repaired in the field, instead of retreating to base to do so.

 

As for unit control....that's why you have Control Groups

 

I'd like to see that post on why it's ok that units don't fire when they move. Since I think it's utter crap. I guess you'll never know how great the idea of units that can maneuver and fire at the same time is until you play a game that really supports it (::coughs:: TOTAL ANNIHILATION). RA/RA2 does support this, but the ranges on unit weapons are so small, and their velocities so great, that it doesn't really matter.

[Guest PhantomMenace]

If there is no advantage to making a ship land why bother puttin the code hours into it? If the ships do have the ability to land then that would mean that they would HAVE to be attackable by ground troops and thus loose the only advantage they have over ground troops. If you want em to land just for it looking cool, as a programmer i'd tell you to deal with it. Also, so you got your ships making passes. THey do make passes in red alert. Ok, they start off zooming in to attack a undefended mech factory, now as they go blazing past it...a couple feet away they run into an anti-air turrent that would not have reached them had they stayed over there, but noooo...they making those "Top Gun" supersonic passes, so they drop a couple hits on the mech factory then fly to their deaths into the jaws of a anti-air turret. And as your high flying, fast movin, straffin fighters go burning down to the ground the guys controlin the anti-air turrets can be heard yellin, "BWAAAAHAHAHAHAH!!!". If there's no need for it why add it. ANd since total anihilaton has such crappy top down perspective, makin units land is a snap. Probably just addin some code to reduce the scalin to make it look smaller and smaller, and thus givin the illusion of landing.

[Influenza]

If there is no advantage to making a ship land why bother puttin the code hours into it? If the ships do have the ability to land then that would mean that they would HAVE to be attackable by ground troops and thus loose the only advantage they have over ground troops.

*Sigh* You fail to see my points. Or, you fail to accept them as a package, instead treating them as if they were completely separate statements. But I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, and re-outline everything I said.

 

Dogfighting is fun. And it adds a lot of realism to the game. Your example of strafing aircraft that get shot down might work if there's no AA in the area. But what if there's a tower right next to your target, or if your target itself (heaven forbid) is the AA tower itself! What mentally-able fighter pilot would kick in his repulsors and hover in front of the tower? And because I know you're going to reply with "just attack where there aren't towers, or destroy the towers with ground"...sending in air raids to take out air defense prior to a big attack is commonplace in the SW universe. Just read the books.

 

But aircraft which dogfight look dumb unless they can land. Otherwise they zoom zoom zoom, dodge dodge dodge, then STOP! That's no good. So we let them land. But...oh no! Ground forces can shoot at them now. Well...isn't that the way it should be? Why can't a Stormtrooper pull out his laser rifle and take a couple of potshots at a passing Y-Wing? Don't complain that this would make the game "unbalanced"...no one said that every shot would hit, or that they would do insane amounts of damage. It would only make the game realistic.

 

ANd since total anihilaton has such crappy top down perspective, makin units land is a snap. Probably just addin some code to reduce the scalin to make it look smaller and smaller, and thus givin the illusion of landing.

I'm not even going to start with this one. It's blatantly ignorant. Yep. Ignorant. I bet you haven't even played TA. Therefore, my comments will never have any affect on you. So just leave this debate to the people who have experience with what they're talking about, ok? Thanks.