Author Topic: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE  (Read 135614 times)

Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #30 on: August 17, 2012, 02:01:52 am »
Yeah my comment on SC1 was mainly aiming at... that despite community demands (or requests) Gas Powered games never gave a damn AT ALL and then threw out FA which not only broke the balance entirely but made modding even more a pain in the backside. But worse maybe, added units for which the AI was so terribly that their own unit AI broke their OWN UNITS. And let's not even get me started on Dungeon Siege 3... shudder ;/ So yeah, having anyone from GPG included in that kickstart makes me doubt the game even reaches completion, and if it does, it's probably gonna be some consolized mess like Dungeon Siege 3.

And imo as Generals showed, a modable RTS is the core requirement for it being a success. Unless you are Blizzard and can call upon endless hordes of zombie "it's from blizzard we ought to buy it" customers....

Nevermind, I am just using mods for so long my definition of "large" is completely-game-changing and Black ops is not exactly all that different from native.. commanders and few new units.. but when it comes down to it, the games core problems are un-fixed (because unfixable)
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #31 on: August 17, 2012, 02:10:27 am »
I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to massively disagree with FA breaking balance. It did everything but. The community literally cried in joy over turtling finally being murderered with a shotgun. FA made several really good changes to the game, including an engine update that made it run almost twice as good on older systems, waaaay better UI and nerfed those stupid T4 units.

A regular match in SupCom prior to FA would involve building 6 million mass fabs and corresponding power and rush experimentals. GG. That sucked. Badly.

As for the AI, don't make me laugh. The stock AI really is terrible :P Thank god for after market mod AIs ;)
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Offline chemical_art

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #32 on: August 17, 2012, 04:44:21 am »
Get stealth field.

Get a nuke.

Watch enemy cry.

It worked 25% of the time but was worth the attempt.
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #33 on: August 17, 2012, 05:22:42 am »
Get stealth field.

Get a nuke.

Watch enemy cry.

It worked 25% of the time but was worth the attempt.
Do that in FA and you'll find yourself under a metric ton of T1 bots and tanks before you can even spell "stealth field".

The only map I've managed outnuke an opponent (usually you're dead LONG before you finish the nuke, since your opponent sunk all those resources you sunk into your nuke into actual offense) was on "Four Corners", an semi-small map with four islands on it. I added a 15 minute no-rush timer (you can't leave your island) and perfected my economy until I could have a nuke up by 10 minutes and launch it seconds after the no-rush timer was out.

Fun, but useless. I was instantly obliterated by the other two players. Did get one guy to do "O_o" though.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2012, 05:25:43 am by Moonshine Fox »
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Offline chemical_art

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #34 on: August 17, 2012, 05:24:11 am »
Get stealth field.

Get a nuke.

Watch enemy cry.

It worked 25% of the time but was worth the attempt.
Do that in FA and you'll find yourself under a metric ton of T1 bots and tanks before you can even spell "stealth field".

Should have clarified it was a late game strategy.


You certainly don't try it anything short of late game
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #35 on: August 17, 2012, 05:27:16 am »
Should have clarified it was a late game strategy.


You certainly don't try it anything short of late game
Ah yes. Late game strategies varied widely with the situation. Tankspam only works so far :P A favourite of mine was to try and push offense so much that I threated the enemy commander and push him out of his "safe zone" and then pinpoint him with Strat-bombers. Always awesome to hear "Nnnnnoooooooo!!!" over voice chat as the bomber-fleet sails above his base undisputed :P
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Offline chemical_art

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #36 on: August 17, 2012, 05:31:10 am »
Should have clarified it was a late game strategy.


You certainly don't try it anything short of late game
Ah yes. Late game strategies varied widely with the situation. Tankspam only works so far :P A favourite of mine was to try and push offense so much that I threated the enemy commander and push him out of his "safe zone" and then pinpoint him with Strat-bombers. Always awesome to hear "Nnnnnoooooooo!!!" over voice chat as the bomber-fleet sails above his base undisputed :P

Ah strat bombers.

Fun to take advantage of sam's lack of aoe and send in two dozen for that one suicidal raid to cripple the base / commander.
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #37 on: August 17, 2012, 05:35:43 am »
Ah strat bombers.

Fun to take advantage of sam's lack of aoe and send in two dozen for that one suicidal raid to cripple the base / commander.
Yep. Aside from Tactical Missile Launchers, those are my favourite units. TMLs are my favourite due to the absolute sense of RAAAAAAGE that comes from your opponent when you precision strike his freshly upgraded T2 Mass Extractors and he realizes he forgot his TM-defenses.
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #38 on: August 17, 2012, 06:06:55 am »
Nevermind, I am just using mods for so long my definition of "large" is completely-game-changing and Black ops is not exactly all that different from native.. commanders and few new units.. but when it comes down to it, the games core problems are un-fixed (because unfixable)
Ah, then no, there were no large mods for it. There was one called "Phantom" something that introduced an entire new game mode, but that's probably the biggest I know of it terms of changes.
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Offline Wingflier

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #39 on: August 17, 2012, 07:32:44 am »
I've been following this "Revamp" mod for SupCom 2, which basically rebalances things a bit and adds the original SupCom 1 units and buildings to the game.  There's an early beta out right now, but it's pretty poorly balanced from my experience, it basically just unlocks all of the SC1 units as a "tier" in each category (Air, Land, Structure, etc.).  The way the SC1 units act though is completely faithful to the original game.  It looks like it's pretty far off from completion, but it may worth be checking out in the future.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/revamp-mod

As a person raised on Total Annihilation, the problem I had with SupCom 1 was that the design was so schizophrenic.  In FA there were 4 races, but no race really felt unique or consistent.  It seemed like they made a large group of units designed for each race, then shuffled them all and distributed them randomly among the 4 factions.  The only place you really saw each race's unique feel was in the T4 units...ironically the least-used units in the game.

SC2 was a lot better in my opinion, though a bit oversimplified. It could have been great, but Chris stopped supporting it the same way he does for all his games.

If you guys loved Supreme Commander 1 you should really come try Balanced Annihilation in Spring RTS.  Total Annihilation and SupCom 1 have a lot in common (Supreme Commander was supposed to be the "spiritual successor" to Total Annihilation after all), so you'll find yourself at home with many of the same playstyles and strategies as before.  The only key differences I can think of is that there are two races instead of four (though I like to think the two races are much more well defined), there are no "Sub-Commanders" (I never understood the point of these anyway), and there are 3 techs of units instead of 4.

You've still got a Commander, metal (mass) extractors, energy collectors, geothermal powerplants, tiers of units, metal makers, engineers, etc. 

The Tactical Nukes still exist, though they've taken a bit of a different flavor than before.  Core gets Tactical Nukes while Arm gets EMP Launchers, which disable everything in a small area for 60 seconds.  The range of the EMP launcher is 50% larger than the Tactical Nuke, which makes it better in many situations and keeps you safer while using it.

One thing I like a lot more about Balanced Annihilation than SC1 is that the Tier 1 units stay useful all game long.  Obviously they're never as useful as they are in the early to mid-game, but even lategame if you have enough of them (and use them correctly) they can be really powerful.  One of the additions I hated most about SupCom was shields.  Even in FA, I felt like they just made the game into a turtlefest because they could basically repel a weaker attack indefinitely, forcing you to tech up every game to even make a dent in your opponent.  BA has shields, but they're really expensive and they only block Kinetic weapons.  This means they're good against long-range artillery and some ground units (like Tanks), but they won't block missiles, lasers, bombs, or Nukes; in other words, they aren't the end-all defense and they don't completely negate lower-tier attacks.

So anyway, if you loved Supreme Commander and haven't given Balanced Annihilation a try, I would highly recommend it.  In my opinion it's the best ground-based RTS on the market today.  It's very critical thinking and grand-strategy based, while still managing to keep the importance of micromanagement to only a moderate amount (compared to a game like Starcraft for example).  All of the map content is made by the community so you'll never run out of different battlefields to play on, and the mod is being constantly updated and balanced by the developers.  It can also support up to 16 players at a time and has a consistent number of people who play it.

edit:  I forgot to say that because of the different economy and unit mechanics, the action starts a lot faster in TA, and stays exciting for most of the game.  This obviously depends on the players (there's nothing FORCING you to fight after all), but in general, the games seem to be a lot more involved.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2012, 07:50:55 am by Wingflier »
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #40 on: August 17, 2012, 07:37:40 am »
Sub-Commanders were rarely ever used since the resources spent into building them far outweighed their benefit (and your opponent again sinking said resources into offense) so the only time they made sense to build was when you were winning...when you should sink more resources into offesnse to solidify your lead...yeah...they made no sense.
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Offline eRe4s3r

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #41 on: August 17, 2012, 10:09:51 am »
Did I ever mention I do not play RTS games online? Like... ever? So that is where my opinions come from ;p No idea what is balanced or not, but I do know that building a hundred heavy helicopters and sending them straight at the AI bot never failed to win the match....

And I also like to turtle.. if the game offers a dozen defense techs it is imho balance breaking when that all becomes useless (as happened in FA)
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Offline RCIX

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #42 on: August 17, 2012, 10:11:00 am »
Did I ever mention I do not play RTS games online? Like... ever? So that is where my opinions come from ;p No idea what is balanced or not, but I do know that building a hundred heavy helicopters and sending them straight at the AI bot never failed to win the match....

And I also like to turtle.. if the game offers a dozen defense techs it is imho balance breaking when that all becomes useless (as happened in FA)
Well yeah, I don't know of many RTS games where that doesn't work :P
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #43 on: August 17, 2012, 12:10:33 pm »
Since I have only played RTSs competitively with friends and sometimes online, I've been forced out of the turtle mindset and now I loathe it. It makes for a long, boring and uninteresting game. Mainly because of the above mentioned heavy copter tactic. Build tons of defenses, build tons of powerful units, win. Yay...
« Last Edit: August 17, 2012, 12:45:29 pm by Moonshine Fox »
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Planetary Annihilation: Total Annihilation IN SPACE
« Reply #44 on: August 17, 2012, 12:15:15 pm »
Since I have only played RTSs competitively with friends and sometimes online, I've beenforced out of the turtle minset  and now I loathe it. It makes for a long, boring and uninteresting game. Mainly because of the above mentioned heavy copter tactic. Build tons of defenses, build tons of powerful units, win. Yay...
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