/vr/ - Retro Games

Way less competitive ceiling and micro-macro feasibility but honestly still extremely fun to sandbox and fuck around.

>>7429401
You might get better responses over at /vst/.
I also love TA because it's different from Starcraft or CnC. It's scale it much larger than the prior two. Also I know it might not be /vr/ yet but have you tried SupCom?

>>7429401
It is a great game, but some of the missions can get a little tedious - the water planet in the Core Contingency was painfully annoying.

Nothing can match an 8-10 player skirmish on a metal map where multiple AI opponents are all blasting away at each other.

>>7429401
Arm rules, motherfucker! Fuck the Core,you. Ugly ass bastards

>>7429401
Fun game but pretty clunky since 1997 release, some of the missions are batshit hard. Lots of units and buildings to choose from, and the power and mass system is a great alternative to the traditional gathering system found in most RTS games. SupCom took the same gameplay and made it bigger and more controllable, which is why it's still played to this day but TA has some neat characteristics too.

>>7430049
Suck my autonomous robotic cybercock.

I've had battles on Yerrot Mountains that lasted six hours. Fuck that map.

>>7429401
Anybody still play this online with randoms or is it pretty dead?

>>7430126
some guys play the escalation mod on gameranger but you'll find more people playing supcom faf.

>>7429401
I played this a lot as a kid, the way I did any other RTS - like a sim / tower defense game and trying to build a tidy base.
Fun, but Red Alert / Tiberian Sun was more memorable for me.

More people play spring these days.

>>7429401
>my first and favorite rts
mine as well, despite;
-1 not having stats, meaningful for the units or description that are worthwhile
2-having two factions that are in effect the same
3-having a campaign that is kind of lame

despite this i played the skirmish for endless hours for years.

Music is great, gameplay is great, aesthetics are great.

>>7430049
>ARM cuck
Get Krogoth'd faggot

>>7429695
I will definitely try out supcom!!

>>7430074
I agree, I love the metal and energy system and the ability to turn them into each other via certain units and shit

>>7430126
years ago we used to do game nights on /v/ but this was like 2010/11

bump

>>7429401
Is the Arm one the better expansion pack?

>>7430262
>despite this i played the skirmish for endless hours for years

Nothing is as intense as a battle on a metal map where you can build infinite armies.

Sea maps are always a PITA.

>>7434407
Honestly i loved the big sea battle maps, arm had better late game ships i think though

>>7434407
>>7434486
Are there any mods to force the AI to engage in more sea battles?

>>7434531
That would be so tight. They never seem to want to engage via brawler aircraft or boat. Just bombers and cars and k-bots

So as I said earlier, set up several AI allies and opponents and watch them blast away when you're on a metal map. It gets pretty intense.

>>7434908
The AI is really TA's biggest letdown

>>7429401
it needs a troop formation mod like the capacity that exists in myth, but for large numbers of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PySrgfe6pr4&list=PLA7845A9E3AF69863

integrated in AI so we don't have straight lines of enemies marching like morons. For players and the computer. It will fundamentally upgrade the game.

Short Line
Bungie says: Units in this formation will line up four abreast.
Long Line
Bungie says: Units in this formation will line up eight abreast.

and the rest; https://lparchive.org/Myth-The-Fallen-Lords/Update%2011/

bump

>>7437321
Do you really want an AI that's cracked the tactic of 'build a shitload of Peewees and shit them all over your base?'

>>7440262
No but they'll still zerg rush you anyway since the AI can multitask while you can't. On open maps like Greenhaven you'll get bum rushed constantly and have to always be building defenses. It's quite stressful actually.

Always hated Four Continents since that island at the top of the map would crash the game if you scrolled over it.

http://www.ratpacker.com/Maps/20-29.html

man there's some wild fanmade maps out there

Soundtrack is stellar, to boot

>>7430006
Yeah water maps kinda suck not in the least because your commander has nowhere to run from being torpedoed by random attacking submarines. And gameplay is slow too. Ships take forever to build and don't move very fast.

>>7437321
Fun pointer: The standard AI does not know how to use nuclear mission silos. It will build them but it never fires the things. There are AI patches however that enable this fun feature.

i never knew that. kek.

not many people know this but total annihilation has a spiritual successor called zero-k that's pretty good.
http://zero-k.info/

>>7442171
call us when its on gog

the AI got better in the 2.x patch, and then regressed in the 3.x patch for whatever reason.
it was so frustrating seeing them mass up land units on water maps that would just get stuck on the shore. or a full attack force turning back over and over again just to regroup with newly produced units.

>>7430262
>-1 not having stats, meaningful for the units or description that are worthwhile
..and at the same time you could hit F1 on a unit for info and see that Vamps travel at 140 m/s. fun but completely useless info.

>>7442383
i thought if they had some more stats and lore behind them it would be much better.

>>7442383
Young me thought it was hilarious the way they massed up on the shore and were easy pickings for a sub to blow them all up. The computer really was retarded sometimes. All it had to do was take the useless land units away from the coast on which they were all dying.

>>7442383
I'm not sure what would be a good way to program the AI to avoid that. It's not like there's any good way to detect "Oh I'm on Seven Islands, better not build 50 K-Bots I can't move anywhere."

>>7442383
I'm not sure how you could program the AI to avoid that. It's not like there's any good way to detect "Oh I'm on Seven Islands, better not build 50 K-Bots I can't move anywhere."

maps with only a few metal deposits are super fun to duel in
my friends and i always ban air in TA since it trivializes fights pretty hard

Over Crude Water is another typical example where the AI will build ships in the little bodies of water it can't move anywhere.

Gameplay becomes completely different depending on the map. For example a small land map like Red Planet or Dark Side of the Moon is going to lead to quick short battles while stuff like Ring Atoll will be very slow and drag on forever.

Always fun plugging up those narrow bridges with dragon's teeth so your opponents can't get out of them.

>>7429401
I think TA is one of the greats. Though one thing I absolutely hate when playing MP is that if you control-click the map with bomber planes they beeline to the position and drop the bombs immediately, but if you click on an actual enemy building/unit, they first do a "recon run", then turn around, THEN drop the bombs. The click-glitch or whatever it is makes them OP in my eyes, you can have as much AA as you like, they're still coming through.

>>7429401
Whats your fav 3rd party unit that isnt bullshit OP cheese Anons?
I really liked this Design-X custom Annihilator ship as a counter against the Core battleships laser battery since the Arm ones lacked a secondary weapon for closer ranges.

https://members.tripod.com/chaosoverlords_clan/stratta.html#clusterfreak

Ever tried using a Valkrie to nab an enemy commander? Fun.

Yerrot Mountains is a beast of a map, easily one of the hardest OG maps in the game. Not for sissies who want a short easy speed burner round. That map will test your endurance.

I've had casualty counts run into the thousands, in fact I'm sure I've topped 10k before. Also you can tell the beige Core team got killed a few minutes into the game when its commander was blown up.

you can get third party AI packs that improve a lot on the original and add fun features like the AI actually being able to fire nukes. some of them are offensive and others defense-oriented and geared to constructing fortress bases.

bump

The original AI just wants to attack, it has little concept of base defense.

>>7444495
>Try to hijack enemy Comm with massed air transports for guaranteed success
>AA guns kill their own Comm once he gets lifted up
Works everytime vs computer

>>7429401
It was featured in game magazines in the late 2000s
Doesn't mean it's good though, it's long been in obscurity

>>7446405
If you can nab him since he'll often try to shoot at you.

Anyone here play TA: Kingdoms? I always found it to be much more enjoyable than the original TA.

>>7430262
>-1 not having stats, meaningful for the units or description that are worthwhile
>2-having two factions that are in effect the same
>3-having a campaign that is kind of lame
>despite this i played the skirmish for endless hours for years.
>>7447541

it was fun
compared to TA robots
1-same flaw; not having stats, meaningful for the units or description that are worthwhile
2-many different factions
3-good campaign

but had too many flaws, TA robots was better.

>>7447625
So you think Kingdoms fixed 2 of TA's biggest flaws, but still think TA was better?

>>7447661
yesm i played single player for a long in TA, but in TaK the campaign a little of the skirmish. But skirmish in TA, for years.

bump

>>7447742
That's funny, I played many hours of skirmish in TaK. I may have to go back to the original.

>>7443278
actually they're just annoying

Another popular trick you can do with Valkries is having one carry a Roach as a flying bomb, but it's tricky to pull off since you need to hit Ctrl+D to start the destruct sequence and time it just right.

Favorite Unit Go!

There's also a hax trick you can do by having a dozen construction units reclaim a single rock at once and all of them will individually reclaim the full metal value of the rock. Thus you can get 1000 metal from a 100 metal rock if you have ten construction units reclaiming it.

Note this does only work with rocks, not wreckage.

Different maps have different gravity levels which affects the trajectory of units such as Stumpies that make ballistic shots. The lunar maps like Full Moon have very low gravity, and these units can shoot halfway across the map there.

On the big water maps like Seven Islands I often just build a couple of nukes and blow up all the enemies' shit. That's the best way to do it.

Evad River Confluence

>>7430090
Painted Desert is a tough map too, one of the hardest.

>>7447661
i liked TaK it was comfy and had some good aesthetics. But it was incomplete for skirmish.

bump

>>7443259
Pretty sure the absence of wind on moon maps wouldn't stop it from building windmills either.

>>7448940
based, I love that chubby slow lil shit

bump

bump

dark reign is better

bump

Water maps like Polyp Fields are a PITA.

>takes forever to get up and running
>not a lot of metal and ships need tons of it
>your commander takes forever to move through water and has no place to go to escape submarines; once you have enough energy you can cloak him but that takes forever as well

>>7438046
>troop formation mod like the capacity that exists in myth, but for large numbers of course.
this would be great

>>7443335
is annoying

I miss the days I used to trill my buddies by picking up their commander with an ATLAS and then letting their AA defenses shoot it down while they rage.

>>7429401
Fuck flashes. There, i said it.

>>7429401
Also...
Earth 2150..
Warzone 2100...
And ta kingdoms.

Whats everyones best units? I loved the maverick, and sumo.

>>7447541
>Anyone here play TA: Kingdoms? I always found it to be much more enjoyable than the original TA.

I did, varuna warrior spam was the flash of tak

>>7459008
build some defenses, dude

>>7459008
Use more flashes/slashers

Greenhaven is always good one for fast fierce battles.

Stacking 100 construction aircraft in guard mode on top of the airport to build 100 more construction aircraft

bump

>>7429401
Oh nice a Total Annihilation thread on /vr/. This is an unexpected surprise.

>>7463246
indeed it is

bump

>>7443467
water maps are annoying

ok

trying to remember all the map types:

>metal
>grass/forest
>Mars
>desert
>ice
>acid
>crystal
>water
>cloud
>jungle
>urban

The acid and crystal maps didn't appear in the campaign IIRC.

>>7467270
Yeah they're "bonus" maps.

>>7448940
The Commander

>>7469932
Hell ya the commander is so dope. I’d take a paper craft of the commander

>>7467096
Among aquatic maps, there's beach and dry islands.

>>7467270
Shame, crystal maps always looked dope to me. Time to boor up Battle Tactics again...

>>7470507
In the campaign there's two or three different island planets.

>>7448940
Pretty much a tie between Pelicans and Sumo - but only the buffed versions from some mods that gave the Sumos either a Warlord-style longer ranged HvyLaser turret weapon, or that short range BLoD from the Doomsday Machine...
Honestly vanilla Sumos are kinda shit despite their coolness factor (obvious AT-AT vibes)

anyone else remember when Chris Taylor teased a sequel to this and we ended up with planetary annihilation

>>7447541

Yes, the community is still active believe it or not. You should check it out anon

>>7448940

Those dual pistol ARM tier 2 units called Mavericks

>>7470978
Actually I forgot about the Arm cloakable shiper Kbot (Shooter) so its more like this:
-Vanilla:
1.Shooter
2.Pelican
3.Sumo
-Modded:
1.Sumo
2.Shooter
3.Pelican

Is there a complete unit list of TA or Kingdoms anywhere? Finding only incomplete garbage lists.

>>7429401
The Commander Pack was $11USD on a Black Friday sale. It was so amazing, I was hoping Supreme Commander would match its awesomeness. My first RTS was the original Warcraft, but I play at the lowest speed setting to get the ideal formations/positions leading to quite the surprise at how fast my friends prefer playing the games. I think the genre may have passed by me, but in its day it was so much fun at lan parties as a change of pace from FPS.

>>7430049
CORE rulez you fucking gay piece of steaming shit

bump

>>7475552

CORE was for autistic children that wanted to be edgy because their stepdad beat them

bump

>>7429401
My fav RTS ever. Just feels grand on a scale nothing else does, even things made more recently fail to capture the sheer feeling you get having hundreds of units slam into eachother. The soundtrack only made it better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOvyR6hd0Kw

I used to set it as me vs a full team of AIs working together on that map with clouds and purple land, where there's one small island in the top left and a huge landmass that dominates the rest of the map. Was so much fun trying to survive against the ludicrous amount of planes and long range canons and nukes being endlessly thrown at you. There were a so many damn mods too, you could endlessly find new ones that made it more fun like better AA defence and smarter AI.

>>7430049
CORE is the only team worth playing, senpai.

Flys bro

Hell yeah Core contigency

What's the best way to play this currently with all the mods?