I wouldnt be able to play it cause my comp is slow as it is :(

First, thanks to the people that actually read what I had to say Re: TA engine, especially to those of you who realize the difference between an engine and a game. And for those who DO realize the merits of the TA engine, go download SWTA. You won't regret it :D.

Hockey: the TA engine isn't true-3d, so you'd be able to play it fine. I used to play TA on a P133 with 32 MB RAM :eek:. Of course, I've since moved on to bigger and better things...*cough*Athlon 1.3 GHz 256 MB DDR RAM Radeon 64 MB DDR*cough*:cool:

Funny how as soon as some real arguments are offered all the "TA ***XOR" people who have nothing concrete to say just disappear. Man, and I thought I was going to get a good laugh out of people's responses to my queries :(.

I have already shown you told you the reasons why TA engine would not be good for SW:GB.......I don't need to reapeat myself......

Yes, you did. I actually meant to commend you for that, but forgot to while writing the post. My apologies.

Look, it is simple, TA engine would have been the best to use.

But they did not.

So..... go buy Total Annihilation - Ј5 from shop and download swta

What the hell are you guys talking about?
TA would be the best engine. First thing, alot of you people have to agree about how lame the lasers look the the BG demo. Its like they are throwing light sticks at each other. In TA they actually look like lasers. Another thing.. why dont the tie bombers bomb do a bombing run in AOK? Because the engine sucks, They just sit there like an ass and fire. In TA you can pretty much have any kind of unit behavoir because each unit has its own scripting and such, in the SWTA mod for TA the TIE BOMBERS do bombing runs which is very cool to see. When the Units in the BGs demo rotate its just sprites shifting very unrealistic. WHen somethign turns with the TA engine it actually TURNS. One thing that I really thought was crap was the AT-ST firing in the BG demo. It looked so freakin retarded. When I played the BG I could tell right from the get-go that it was using the AOK engine, BG is basicaly a Total Conversion of AOK to StarWars. As for until detal in TA it just depends on how well the unit modeler is at making units. Ta uses 3d models for units making everthing really smooth and nice. The terrain in TA is hands down alot better then RA2, AOK, or anything else. Mainly because you dont see blockly slops just smooth terrian. And in TA the unit limits are alot more then in BGs making bigger and more intense battles. The only reason I would say the the AOK engine is better then the TA one is because with the AOK you can have more then just 2 sides, but then again.. in the starwars universe there are technically only 2 real sides. Imperial and Rebel. Hey im not saying that BG is going to suck. I'm just pointing out that its not the best engine to be used. If SWTA sucks I'll go out and buy BG if it doesnt I wont. As of now Im like'n SWTA better, and thats only in the beta version.

thank you, SWTA is the best, I'll show you a quote from the SWTA forums

Influenza
Hah. Well, give us a professional team of game developers, pay us each $100k US/year, and we'll have it dones reaaaal quick .

anyway it is stupid that the bombers just sit their like dead duck dropping bombs even i ESB when they went into the asteriod feild the TIE bombers did bomb runs

The only problem with the TA engine, and I've not seen this addressed in either TA or TA:K, is its horrible ability to render people. They end up looking like a collection of rectangular prisims, IMO. Now this really doesn't take away from the efforts of the SWTA team and once the mod is finished I'll reinstall my copy of TA to play it but lets not kid ourselves and start to think that it would make a decent retail game especially since several years after its release melee units are now where in sight.

Let's look at the facts. Rebellion and Force Commander REEKED. LucasArts is looking to fix up their rep. and start selling the kind of games that turned people like me into hard-core gamers. Games like Xwing and Jedi Knight really brought lots of people towards PC gaming.

Now, lets look at SWGB. They wanted to make a good RTS? Ok let's stress the number one, most infinitely importing thing about RTS's, gameplay. I still like Starcraft, even though the gfx are absurd, because the gameplay is fantastic, fast, and exciting. Runner up in my book would be AOK. It allowed you to amass large armies, the interface was simple, nice unit formations, simple to grasp, tons of ways to play and win (or lose).

I am sure Lucasarts looked at TA, RA2, and these other engines, and look at which RTS series had the largest fan base, and the longest history of followers. I believe that is why they chose Ensemble's Engine. Personally the graphics arent the greatest, its not 3d, but I am forever hooked on this gameplay. That battles are good, and are fun to watch. I am sure when the full game releases and we can all play at 1280x1024 the gfx wont look so bad and if the trailer is any indication it looks like they revamped some the effects like explosions and the shield effect from the generators.

Originally posted by Influenza
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:

To my knowlege, there is no SC engine. SC was made using the WCII engine.

Ease of development and modification. The TA engine is very easy to learn and modify to do close to anything.

Let's say that I want a jedi that stays faithful to the movies and also doesn't look like a robot. Could TA accomodate my wish? :biggs:

this game and aok kicked some serious ass so don't ***** about who made it because ensemble rocks.

OK, I jump in here.

To start I must say I have not read every post in this thread and I am not about to. So if someone has mentioned this already forgive me and discard this post.

Here goes.

The question was never should GB be based on the TA engine, but what if the crew from CaveDog did the game. I dear say if they did they would not dig up the old TA engine, but design it fresh.

I personally think TA blows SC out of the water but the is me and you are you. Let me just say control 12 units at a time, gag, gag, gag!

OK, I know I am drifting now, so I stop.

Toothless-OMO

More people have played AoK than TA.

TA might be a great game, but more people have AoK.:p

Wow, I really thought this subject had died.
The question was never should GB be based on the TA engine, but what if the crew from CaveDog did the gameYou're right, but somewhere someone brought up that "TA SUCKS!", and I just could not let that slide ;).

More people have played AoK than TA.Point being? Is LucasArts selling this game as Age of Kings: Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds? No, they aren't. The game is being sold on its own merits (or lack thereof ;)). If it were being sold as an addon/mod, then Yes, it would be important to use a widely-distributed game.

Hell, FAR more people have played Tetris than AoK. Should GBG have been designed with the Tetris engine?

To my knowlege, there is no SC engine. SC was made using the WCII engine.IIRC, StarCraft was made with a modified WCII engine, updated to allow control over more units, a wider array of spells and spell types, and different damage/armoring types.

Let's say that I want a jedi that stays faithful to the movies and also doesn't look like a robot. Could TA accomodate my wish? Absolutely. Have you played SWTA? The Stormtroopers and other infantry look very good, both to myself and everyone who has commented on them. As for Jedi, why not? It could certainly be scripted. I'll have you know, that if/when SWTA debuts a Darth Vader character, it will not take more than one slice of his lightsaber to kill a Rebel Trooper. How is that faithful to the movies?

Please delete this thread. All it is is a flame war. All I see are people saying Starcraft suck, AOK sucks, TA sucks blah blah blah. I just hope that someone besides me realizes that they are all good games and each have their own merits. In my opinion, Neither three games are any better than the last. If all people want to do is to flame GB go to TA, SC or whatever forum and do it there. I am sick of this.

Originally posted by Influenza
Absolutely. Have you played SWTA?

Not as of yet. I've been following the mods progress for about a year off and on but I've been waiting for it to get closer to being complete before I install it.

As for Jedi, why not? It could certainly be scripted. I'll have you know, that if/when SWTA debuts a Darth Vader character, it will not take more than one slice of his lightsaber to kill a Rebel Trooper. How is that faithful to the movies?

It would impress me to no end if you could do that, esp. in light of the difficulty in scripting melee units. BTW, has there been any progress on mission scripting? IIRC, you guys were planning on adding a campaign to go with the mod a while ago. Was that idea dropped?

The missions are on the backburner, for now. We're aiming at releasing most/all of the units first, then going back and developing missions.

And you'd (probably) be surprised how far along TA scripting has come the last year. It really isn't that big a deal to make melee troops which only "fire" in certain directions... especially for HANSOLO, our project lead :D.

bah, I thought this thread died.......

See: Top-Down View

See: Bland LandScapes

The End....

See: Star Wars: Total Annihilation TC, which proves that a top-down view is an excellent one for an RTS.

See: fact that TA engine can display anything you want.

The End...

I wasn't arguing that BIV wasn't a great view for RTS's (TA was an AWSOME game) I was arguing that it isn't the best view for a SW game because of the lack of detail you get......

Show me one TA landscape that is almost as detailed as the ones in AoE and I will fold right now........

You called down the thunder...now, reap the whirlwind.

(I spent a while taking and resizing these pictures, so please do me the courtesy of looking at all of them objectively and honestly)

[Edit: click on a link, then once the 404 stops displaying, delete the "http://") in the front of the link. That should display the pics right. Sorry about the inconvenience]

SWTA Interface (storm.prohosting.com/polygrad/swta/layout.jpg): a little fuzzy and downsized to make the file size acceptable. The general SWTA layout, with unit commands and build menus on the left, under the radar minimap. Actually takes up a much smaller area of the screen, leaving more room for the important part: the battlefield.
Airspeeder (http://storm.prohosting.com/polygrad/swta/airspeeder.jpg), Hallucigenia I (http://storm.prohosting.com/polygrad/swta/SHOT0003.jpg), Hallucigenia II (http://storm.prohosting.com/polygrad/swta/SHOT0004.jpg): pictures of the Hallucigenia tileset, a third-party tileset developed for Total Annihilation. Not exactly 100% Star-Warsy, but if you can play on something as radical as this, terrain like Endor and Hoth should be a piece of cake to design.
Landspeeder (http://storm.prohosting.com/polygrad/swta/landspeeder.jpg): a landspeeder scout hovering over open water. Notice the bubbles from the speeder's repulsors. Taken on the Total Annihilation: Kingdoms "Veruna" tileset, which was ported back to TA. That just shows you the power of the engine, when it can display a tileset designed for a more modern and powerful engine.
A-Wings on patrol (http://storm.prohosting.com/polygrad/swta/awings.jpg): a group of A-Wings flying over another Veruna map. Yep, flying, not hovering like in SWGB.
Veruna Landscape (http://storm.prohosting.com/polygrad/swta/veruna1.jpg), Veruna Coastline (http://storm.prohosting.com/polygrad/swta/veruna2.jpg), Imperial Base (http://storm.prohosting.com/polygrad/swta/veruna4.jpg): all detailed shots of the Veruna landscape. The last is a small Imperial outpost, defended by ranks of Stormtroopers, a few TIE Interceptors (and one TIE Scout, just finished), a company of TIE Crawlers, and a few Speeder Bikes. I had to resize that picture to make it all fit.
Another Landscape (http://storm.prohosting.com/polygrad/swta/green1.jpg), Second Shot (http://storm.prohosting.com/polygrad/swta/green2.jpg): shots of C_A_P's (a very famous and influential TA map designer) "Evergreen" tileset. The "gasbags" in the second shot actually sway with the wind in-game. C_A_P is also working on converting all of TA's trees to animated ones, thus livening up the battlefield in a way never seen before. It's supposed to be absolutely stunning.
Interceptor Escort (http://storm.prohosting.com/polygrad/swta/int-bomber.jpg): a squad of TIE Interceptors escort TIE Bombers on a bombing run. If the Int's look a little strange, it's because the model for the Int got a little crossed with the TIE Advanced. We've fixed it, but are releasing the fix with the next pack.
Gunboat Assault Group (http://storm.prohosting.com/polygrad/swta/tie-gunboat.jpg): a handful of TIE Fighters lead the way for some Assault Gunboats.

That's what I managed to make this afternoon. Many of the terrain-only pictures are resized to be smaller, but I tried not to do that with the unit-pics so you could get a sense of scale. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Why would anyone want this game to be made by the guys who made Total Annihilation? First off, as stated before, the top down perspective sucks..and the units were cheesy.. 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! Why do people constantly trash the graphics on this game....it uses the Age of Kings engine...that engine was built for detail. Detail...look at those sith lords..look at the r2d2's...as small as they are you can almost make out every little curve and notch on em. Lucasarts used the best 2d engine out there right now, and most of those 3d games are going back to "fixed perspective, 3/4 view" anyways. I had a friend who had allt he liltte Total annihilation games including kingdoms and i felt like i was watching an old Sega Genesis strategy game...in fact, i have honestly seen top down strategy games on the friggin Playstation that looked better than TA!!!

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:http://www.tauniverse.com/visual-ta/Graphics/Thumb_Golly.gif) 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 (http://www.unituniverse.com/tads/common/content/pics/eyecandy/fullsize/taakshot1.jpg) . 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.

:mad: :mad: :mad: :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

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 :eek:

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.

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.....

Woohoo! Let's see, good maps. Try going to theTotal Annihilation Map Evaluation Center (http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~tamec/Maps/TA/output/Best.htm)'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 (http://storm.prohosting.com/polygrad/swtareadme.doc), compiled by yours truly :D.

I hope you enjoy.

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.

My opinion exactly.

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!

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 :D.

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 :).

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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? :naboo:

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?

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.

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!!!

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

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 :p

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.

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.

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.

I cast my vote for Zuxxez's (http://www.zuxxez.de/) Reality Pump Engine, featured in Earth 2150, The Moon Project, WWIII Black Gold, and a few other forthcoming 3d RTS titles.

Render and collision engine is fully 3d. Not locked to overhead view. Full-blown rotatable 3d. Units are customizable. Unit behavior can be scripted by the gamer real-time. Cycling of day to night, dynamic weather effects such as fog, snow and rain. Real-time deformable terrain (craters, engineer a defensive berm or trench), subterranean combat through tunnel digging. Very good graphics. Sample screens here (http://luke2840.tripod.com/no/screen.htm) and here (http://earth2150.narod.ru/gallery2150.htm). Plenty of dogfights with air units too. Reality Pump is probably one of the best 3d RTS engines available.

I would have voted for Ground Control's engine, but the unit count limit might get in the way. Still, if GB didn't require collection of resources such as 'carbon, food, and nova,' Ground Control would have been an oustanding engine.