I really feel sorry for all of you that think the Total Annihilation engine is "horrible." I'm going to give you a list of reasons why the TA engine is better than either the SC OR AoK engines:
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The real big one is true-3d units. No sprite animation here, boys and girls. All units in TA are rendered in real-time according to the *exact* angle and pitch that they exist at in the game. None of this we're-too-cheap-to-make-more-than-8-unit-angles bull**** that everyone seems to love. Yeah yeah, we all know graphics don't mean everything, but you really can't appreciate how much better units look in 3d than when sprite-based until you've seen it, as I have.
A true physics model. Ballistic-type weapons use effects of gravity (different on every world), firing angle, and shot velocity to calculate flight time and distance. I'm not aware of any other engine that supports physics on the level that the TA engine does. While it's true that the majority of SW weapons are laser-based and therefore not affected majorly by gravity, things like proton bombs and torpedos would greatly benefit from being rendered with TA's engine.
Sophisticated animation scripts. Because TA's units are 3d-modeled, making complex animations is much easier than using sprite-models. You will never find a sprite-based unit more beautifully animated than TA's Krogoth unit. Or, hell, the Beezlebub, a third-party unit which is perhaps the single-most-impressive achievement I've ever seen in third-party development for *any* game.
Ease of development and modification. The TA engine is very easy to learn and modify to do close to anything. Check out the SWTA conversion. We're (yes, I'm part of the team) doing things no one thought possible with the TA engine: restricting unit firing arcs; rechargeable shields; overheating E-webs which fire at a fast rate for a given time, then must "cool-down" before being used again; and a shield generator which acts true to its nature, stopping all fire within a certain radius, both friendly and hostile. And this is all fairly basic stuff. There are developers who have made things like teleportation systems, units with destroyable parts, transports which allow their cargo to fire while in transit, and map features that add strategy to the game with destroyable bridges, exploding barrels, meteor storms, and earthquakes. All this from a game that originally featured only turret-ed tanks and mechs with lasers.
AND all this came from third-party developers who did it for fun. With LA's budget and staff, who knows what could have been developed? Probably something on the order of [shameless plug]Star Wars: Total Annihilation (
http://tauniverse.com/swta)[/shameless) plug] :D.
Aircraft which actually move and dogfight. I'm sorry, but aircraft that hover a la SC and BG are just crap. That is so incredibly pathetic (strangely, they only occur in engines that are fairly unsophisticated, too). BG would be *FAR* better if we actually saw real dogfights between starfighters. SW:TA will have this, as does the original TA game. The difference it makes is HUGE. If you think that having two aircraft hover in midair and fire at each other like SC and BG is "cooler" than actual movement and dogfighting, then I'm sorry, but you're WAY past help.
Expandability. It's insanely easy to make add-on units, structures, and even races for TA. LucasArts COULD have and SHOULD have taken this fact and run with it. Cavedog used to release new units on a weekly basis, as well as maps, AI's, and missions. All from a small startup company releasing its first game. With LA's team and resources, they could have REDEFINED what "supporting" a game means. Too bad .
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That's part of my general "why TA is cool" list. Now on to some of your comments and showing why they're just plain wrong.
TA was good for its time, but that times gone.Nonsense. TA's engine, as I've just partly-shown, is still lightyears beyond the vast majority of today's games. Everyone just assumes that Good Graphics+Good Gameply=Good Engine. That is NOT the case. SC had fair graphics and good gameplay, yet its engine was a joke.
RA2 has a more futuristic/modern setting, and the units and buildings and such fit in with that. An example is the thing with ranged units. Almost everything is ranged in RA2, and the same with GBOk. Guess what? EVERY unit in TA has a ranged weapon. Not that melee weapons aren't possible or anything. Like I said before, Just About Anything is possible with the TA engine. And again, TA's engine is superior to RA2's. If you want an example, take aircraft that can actually shoot down other aircraft.
The other reason is AoK engine is a proven one, that many people enjoy. TA seems to have mixed resusts.It seems so few people know what an engine actually is. No one enjoys playing the AoK engine. They enjoy playing AoK. If you enjoy an engine, it means you really like if statements, while loops, file input/output, physics calculations (unless it's the AoK/SC engine), etc etc. An engine is what interprets game files under a certain set of game rules and runs/displays the game itself. Good gameplay can exist without a good engine. Just look at Windows Solitaire.
The TA engine SUCKS!Wow. I am utterly speechless from your incredible depth, observation, and persuasiveness. Pat yourself on the back. Your ignorance has served you well.
they want detail to be incorporated into this game b/c let's face it, the universe of star wars is pretty detailedIn context, I have to take that to mean that you think the TA engine is incapable of detail. In which you're completely wrong. The TA engine will display anything you want in terms of map and feature visuals. The SWTA conversion has Hoth, Tatooine, and Dantooine tilesets to make maps with. And a number have fans are developing tilesets for Bespin and Endor.
And if you're referring to unit and not map detail, then rest assured that a *good* modeler and texture-er can create anything imagineable in the TA engine. Cavedog's units weren't the greatest imaginable, although the Krogoth unit comes close. HANSOLO, lead developer of SWTA, is just brilliant when it comes to modeling/texturing/scripting/gameplay in general. His/our models are waaaay more detailed and better-looking than GB's. It's almost funny, that three college students can produce higher-quality material than an entire team of paid professionals. Oh wait, that IS funny.
...all the units look so much better in 2D. 3D wouldn't do them justice.Oh, whatever. That's like saying that a picture of my 1967 Ford Mustang does more justice to the car than seeing it in person.
The Total Anihilation game engine sucks! It's worse than the Warcraft II engine and that's old old. It a totally top down perspective, not even the isometric halfway top down perspective like Warcraft II and Starcraft. You cant see good unit detail with a perspective like that!It's almost pointless to respond to your first comment. Hopefully you'll read and comprehend everything I've said thus far. As for perspective...WCII *was* top-down, so I don't know what you're smoking. Yes it had a *very very very slight* angle to it, but so does TA, if you look closely. Go to
www.tauniverse.com) and ask "does TA have a top-down perspective" and you'll get 3000+ people saying "NO!"
(TA) is an older RTS that is an ok game except for the limited amount of unitsLimited amount of units?!? Are you insane?!? Original TA shipped with 150 units, and the Core Contingency expansion pack added 75 more. 225 units. By my calculations, that's more than RA2 and SC combined. And that's because TA doesn't need 500 animations per unit. Just one script and one 3d model.
Total Annihilation. It is the greatest game in the world. Star Wars GB could be the greatest but it would be for sure if Lucas Arts had resurrected the crew of Cavedog the company that made TA.
That would have been the coolest everThat's exactly correct :D.
If my abundance of facts and direct examples have overwhelmed you, it's ok. Admittance is the first step towards the cure. But be sure to actually play Total Annihilation and really learn its engine before you start blindly bashing it next time.