Originally developed by Cavedog back in 1997, the rights eventually came into the hands of Atari who has given us permission to re-release it.
Stardock is handling the support for Total Annihilation directly and includes a new launcher that helps automatically configure the game for modern systems, streamlines getting multiplayer games going and includes easy access to tips and tricks for getting the most out of it.
As part of Stardock's support for the game, it will be releasing subsequent updates (with Atari's permission) to further streamline multiplayer, incorporate Impulse Reactor and work with fan sites to incorporate new content into the "official" release. It will also be further enhancing the release to prepare it for eventual availability on other digital distributors.
In other words, we’re treating Total Annihilation similarly to a newly released title with ongoing updates wherever possible.
The package includes Total Annihilation + Core Contingency as a single integrated package.
What makes Total Annihilation particularly special is that (depending on your modern setup and trouble shooting skills) you can get the game playing at crazy high resolutions and the game runs fine.
Total Annihilation at 2500x1600
Now, a word of warning – if you’re a PC novice, Total Annihilation won’t be for you. It’s a serious RTS and, depending on your setup, we are talking about a game developed 14 years ago when DirectX 3 was state of the art. Running it in a window has had good success for me on my Windows 7 64-bit desktop.
If you try to run it full-screen at a very high resolution you can end up with a goofy color mess of it. Anything beyond 1024x768 in full screen can be a crap shoot but if you run it windowed, you can go nuts. Back in 1997, anything beyond 1024x768 probably seemed like science fiction. The fact it will run at 2500x1600 is just…wow.
To get it, go here:
http://bit.ly/amPYVd
Ah yes on the Soundtrack front, TA has -THE- best soundtrack of any computer game, ever.
If it was a movie it would be an oscar shoe in. Soule outdid himself.
Frogboy: how did you set it to 2560x1600 in windowed mode? TA offers me only 1280x1024 max in windowed mode .
Making maps in TA,you can use Terragen and Photoshop. Drop by to TAUniverse forum to see mapping tutorial. NLJ there is an excellent mapper, he makes good maps to play with. Maps in TA can reach up to 63 X 63, which is the epic sized map.
Plug your computer to a projector or HDTV and enjoy TA in widescreen.
I had tried it once, with my home 50-inch LCD tv. Plugged HDMI just to test it out.
Btw, you can versus up to 9 AI players in skirmish by pressing shift + X + 8 during the skirmish screen. Try fighting against 9 AI alone on Hard with game speed of +10.
The reason why frogboy got that kind of high resolution probably caused by the highest resolution supported by his comp's display. That's what i can infer. Frogboy, the problem of funky colours at high resolutions in full screen can be easily fixed by adjusting the "Gamma" brightness of the game visual option. That's one fo the easy fixes but does not prevent the problem. Try it out. Since TA runs mainly on CPU power, so if you got i7, it prolly will run smooth on epic-sized battles of thousands of units in the same time.
Note that TA does not take advantage of multi-core processing. Can Stardock make a patch that take advantage of multiple cores for TA?
Binary modification of unoffical patch found on FU can raise the unit limit up to 5000 per player, but it's unstable and can lag your TA very quickly because of the huge number of units existed. Btw, a standard TA install should have TA, TA:CC and lastly 3.1 patch. 3.1 patch is the last official patch from Cavedog. Other patches, such as NoCD exe patch, 16K ID patch and BugFix Patch are fan made patch. Oh, and TA Demo recorder too, it enables you to record your multiplayer games and contain macros for placing DTs, and queueing 100 units per click and a slew number of others. Check FU to get TA Demo Recorder.
The music alone is worth the price.
My favorite games ever:
1. CIV IV
2. Shared between Total Annihilation and Master of Orion II
GO STARDOCK. I have the game, but will probably buy it just to get it on impulse.
Grat news, Mr Wardell, it looks quite intersting. Would you consider adding content of the official expansion: "Battle Tactics" in one of the updates, mentioned in your opening post?
Frogboy, do i have re-purchase/register TA in order to get such updates from Stardock? I read that Stardock promised some *patch* for TA. I stated before, i got a install of TA + TA :CC + 3.1 patch on my comp atm. (Standard CD install, Non-Atari Version). I purchased the CD a long time ago, so burned multiple copy of it. If you asked where the recipt or where i purchase it, i forgot, it's a long time ago.
That would be so much win.
Oh, can Stardock intergrate/make better the modding tools for TA? Scriptor (for scripting bos script file), Cobbler ( change script cob file to bos), 3do Builder ( For texturing and import models from modelling program to TA format), TA Conflict Crusher ( check for any errors and fix it when the unit is in TA install), HpiViewer ( to extract TA files and decompress it) , HpiPacker (make the unpacked TA files into packed TA files again) and some sort of modeler program. Currently any modeling program can be used to model TA units, such as Blender 3d, Rhino3d, Maya 3d, and Wings3d. Wings3d is open source and make a good modelling program for TA, given it's free to use.
Better pathfinding support and graphics card support patch would be greatly appreciated to take the load off CPU when playing an epic TA game.
Frogboy, you may want to check for TA3D project on www.ta3d.org.
Fyi, minimum system requirement is Windows NT and 256MB RAM as far i remembered.
Original TA from Cavedog can run on various platforms, as i said before, on Mac, Wine and even Linux. Would Stardock version retain such high level of system compability?
I'm currently writing a fictional thesis on nanolathing in TA, prolly will be up a few days somewhere on TAU or moddb.
Your Impulse ad need some elaboration.
1) Ability to create own content ( textures, uber scripts, uber cool looking models, and custom sounds) from scratch, units, whole races or a TC itself and use it to play using the TA engine. You can even make your own custom exe to use with your custom TC in order not to interfere with your normal TA install.
2)Unlimited build queues and command orders.
3) True weapon physics, all weapon projectiles are real objects which interact with the game, a slow cannon will miss a fast unit, a nuke might as well hit a flying aircraft flying overhead and a cannon can as well hit a plane half-way across the map. There is a chance even the best weapon can miss hitting your own units.
4)Realistic terrain, unit tilt to face ground when facing a cliff, cliff block cannon fire and block LOS when True LOS option is selected.
5) 230 realistic units which uses 3d model which can be viewed in any possible angle. Parts fly and smoke billows in true 3d as units explode. Dead unit leave wreckages(certain wreckage can block weapon fire) which can either reclaimed for resource or ressuracted to have that unit alive and fighting for you.
6) 16 music masterpiece which change according to condition of the game, fast paced music during battles and serene music during peace time.
7)Awesome air dogfights, plane turn and dodge, even do barrelrolls to avoid being shot down while trying to score a hit on the enemy plane.
Shooting some random description!
In Total Annihilation, you're one of the greatest army commander able to construct whole massive bases and the largest mobile army force from scratch. Your presence can change the outcome of the war, the war which lasted for 4000 years between the rebel Arm and the ruthless Core. Construct entire bases underwater, build the toughest defense ever, and lead the biggest assault ever TA had to offer. Control more than 150+ units real-time and responding to your orders. From massive airforce comprising of hundreds of aircraft to a huge naval force with assortments of various ships and subs to the largest land army of KBoTs and tanks, you can construct all that, and control them all at once in real time. Prepare yourself, Commander, the only acceptable outcome is the annihilation of the other side.
Sounds like Supreme Commander? Wait, TA have lower system requirement than Supreme Commander.
There is a post regarding playing TA music with no TA CD mounted somewhere on TAUniverse forum. I think it's possible to play TA music directly from the game itself, but i can't confirm it. Btw, Battle Tactics expansion only adds new missions to TA :CC, more than 50+ i think.
Gonna make a short video of TA: Esc T3 Aurora Bomber showcase.
Don't mind me, I just got something in my eye.
Seriously though, Steam can keep their SupCom 2 exclusive. If you could have revived the matchmaking system, this 12 1/2 year old game would beat SupCom 1 and 2 in every way except graphics. For those who bought it already, I would strongly recommend you get the following mods from http://switeck.tauniverse.com/:
-TA Bugfix 1.6 - an unofficial patch that basically fixes all the issues with the game that Cavedog didn't get around to.
-MostlyHarmless AI - drastically improves the AI in skirmish mode.
Also, there's some non-cheat cheat codes you have to enter to enable certain features:
Use these in-game, just type a message with this as the text.
+sharemetal - gives allies access to your metal pool
+shareenergy - gives allies access to your energy pool
+shareradar - shares rader vision with allies. Does NOT share vision, there's not way to do this AFIAK.
+shareall - in multiplayer games, this shares energy, radar, metal, and map info with all your allies.
+setsharemetal X/+setshareenergy X - sets limits for resource sharing to X (where X is a number, you keep X)+shootall - if units equiped with weapons see an enemy unit, and they are set to fire at will, they will automatically fire at it, no matter what kind of unit it is. Needed to get units to shoot at most buildings automatically. +noshake - stops the screen from shaking when something is killed. +bps - shows the transfer rate in a multiplayer game. In a Skirmish battle, if you want to play against up to 10 AI controlled opponents, type in '*' (asterisk) at the screen where you select options for the battle, and then the Roman Numeral of the number of players you wish to play against. e.g., if you wished to play against 10 computer controlled opponents, you would type '*,' then type 'x.'
sharing LOS with allies in multiplayer is possible using .sharelos command if you got TA Demo Recorder installed with your TA install. There are several macros which TA Demo Recorder have, but idk much of them. TA Demo Recorder is mainly for multiplayer games. IMHO, the max number of player per one game is 10, so you can only fight against 9 AI opponnent in a skirmish.
Note that +share/+set commands only work when you play multiplayer. Such commands do not work in skirmish mode.
+clock = a command which display a clock during playing. Idk what it does than displaying a time counter for your game.
+makebigposter = command which makes a big poster of the screen during a game.
press CTRL + F9 to take TA screenshots. How does this forum image function work? Can i paste some screenshots of TA here?
Your screenshots can be found in (: TOTALA/Username/screenshots). It's in .pcx format, use photoshop to open it and to convert it to .png format by clicking Save As.
TA has one of my favourite intro moives.
Plot setup: simple. Total Annihilaiton.
Then some awesome action as you went from one commander to the other. I loved it.
The graphics must be horrible today...
I think I see the option of the map editor in one of the screenshots he posted.
Not to bad with some 3rd party stuff Sure isnt the same as SupCom but hey.
I can play at hi res without any mods.IMO the only thing that holds TA back is the lack of a movable camera it sure would be nice to zoom in.(I know about Spring but didnt like it near as much)
Heres a couple poster shots i did earlier.
Hehe I am a dumbflour
Double post for the win.
frogboy, I will buy when there is a new patch for it, but as I have the orginal 1997 TA the BT AND cc with all official patches and units, and copies of most of the units/mods released since, and also have figured out the installer issue from the expansions into 64 bit windows, I do not need to buy yet.
and one quick question will the impulse install of TA/bt/cc look for the original location of \cavedog for an existing install?
harpo
@Jerry: do you run in windowed mode?
Nope I run full screen with no screen flicker,no color distortion or any of those bugs.
System Specs are
Athlon 2500+ @1875 MH
Radeon 9800xt
1 G memory
and WinXP sp3
http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1056170
Very nice news
Is it available for download yet? I bought it but it hasn't shown up in my downloads yet.
T&A!!!
I WANT T&A!!!!!
Ok I am going to try this again last 4 times it would not post.
I dont do anything special to get that res.I have a fresh TA install.TA,CC,3.1 patch and the 6 CaveDog units.
Other than that I have 2 maps by CAP (The Garden of Eden in the above post) and the TA Features.ccx for 3rd party maps.
The only thing I probably have different than other people is that I run PowerStrip because I have to lock my AGP at 4x in order to get a stable cpu overclock.I also use Omega Radeon drivers instead of ATi catalyst.
Wow, this brings back a lot of memories. TA was the first computer game I ever played.
How are you running 3400x2400 ? What kind of monitor is doing that?
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
