Tech Annihilation and other thoughts

[ContiX]

(I wasn't quite sure where to put this, so I guess here's as good as any.)

Been looking around for about a year now, and I've found myself extremely attached to Tech Annihilation. Barring the rather silly name, I love the sheer number of units you can make, and the morphing/upgrading system.

It doesn't seem to be as refined or as popular as BA, but BA doesn't seem to be adding any new content, just...well, balancing all the time. Actually, this seems to be the case for basically all of the other "(LETTER)A" games. I haven't noticed too much of a difference between any of them.

Is there a generic Spring Wiki somewhere? Something that I could look at that would explain the differences between the multiple InsertWordAnnihilation games?

[Godde]

http://springrts.com/wiki/Games

[Godde]

Subforums are also somewhat descriptive.
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=47

[ContiX]

http://springrts.com/wiki/Games

This page only briefly discusses a few of them...

[knorke]

This page only briefly discusses a few of them...

There are more projects but their authors did not consider them good enough, so they did not add them (yet)

[1v0ry_k1ng]

you should try out ZK..

[ContiX]

What makes ZK different from BA or TA or XTA or SA?

[klapmongool]

What makes ZK different from BA or TA or XTA or SA?

For me the difference between zK and BA or TA is the annoying music playing during the game and the childish interface and graphics.

They also have less (or no) focus on tech tree.

[ContiX]

TA has a relatively diverse tech tree, but maybe I'm missing what you're meaning...

[gajop]

TA has a relatively diverse tech tree, but maybe I'm missing what you're meaning...

ZK has no tech tree
it also has a more stable economy model, a larger variety of general purpose units, and much better graphics (BAR level)

[luckywaldo7]

childish interface and graphics

What?

[ContiX]

So, is ZK's lack of tech tree a good thing or bad thing? When I tried it briefly a few months ago, it reminded me very much of Supreme Commander 2.

[smoth]

ContiX, there are many people who believe that their opinion is the word of God and you should not question it. Play what seems fun to you. It will take a bit of time to find something you like but don't take the community here too serious. They have very strong opinions and value their own opinions way too highly.

Currently the only game in spring that has a true tech tree is gundam rts and that is the version that is not even released. When people here talk about tech trees in the context of *A, they mean build level 1 factory to build level 1 con bot to build level 2 factory. Not normal tech like you would see in supcom or C&C. ZK breaks away from that pattern so that is what klapmongool is talking about.

[ContiX]

A tech tree like that is basically the reason I like Tech Annihilation so much. BA, XTA, SA, PA, etc (with the exception of ZK) all seem to basically be the same game with really minor tweaks. TA has 10x more units and 4 tech levels, although most of the construction units can build the same things as other constructors on the same level.

I'm not advocating how greak TA is, just trying to find why other people play the variations, I guess.

[CarRepairer]

The preference is subjective, but there are advantages to no tech tree.

Almost any unit can show up in any part of the game. In a tech tree, low tech units only show in the early game because they get obsoleted by high tech units. High tech units only show in the late game because they can't be built for a while.

With no tech tree, every unit is designed to interact with every other, not just those in its tech level. More interactions means more variety in game play and strategy. The big guys can be fighting the little guys at any point in the game.

It's uncommon, but have an open mind.

[smoth]

OTA/TA = total annihilation to most people here just an FYI.

The *A projects are based on OTA. OTA used that sort of tech tree. It is hard to find logic in their choices, mostly it boils down to that they like the spin their favorite *a put on OTA. There are a lot of differing opinions and people get really defensive about their choice. If you like something you like it, others may not. Others may like another *A project because of a random emotional reason. The different *A projects have changed greatly over the past 5-6 years so I am not really sure where they all are and frankly, don't care enough to try them any more .

From what I have observed: Tech A put a bad taste in many people's mouth because senna was piggybacking it into his variants of popular maps. I don't *think* a lot of people still begrudge it for that, but I could be wrong. On top of that many of the BA players are pretentious twats who act like they are great RTS players and require a perfectly balanced gaming experienced(expect a visceral rebuttal of this). So to them, changing things which "break" the years of balance BA has worked towards "ruins" their experience.

I honestly don't play TechA, OTA mods are old hat for me and I am tired of looking at those ugly dated models. <- perfectly illogical emotional reasoning :).
*edit* verbiage changes for clarity

[ContiX]

I kind of got that impression of BA players from the "Balanced", which implies that others aren't balanced...some of the other *A derivatives seem to just be "re-balanced" BA mods, which makes things even more complicated...

[klapmongool]

From what I have observed: Tech A put a bad taste in many people's mouth because senna was piggybacking it into his variants of popular maps. I don't *think* a lot of people still begrudge it for that, but I could be wrong. On top of that many of the BA players are pretentious twats who act like they are great RTS players and require a perfectly balanced gaming experienced(expect a visceral rebuttal of this). So to them, changing things which "break" the years of balance BA has worked towards "ruins" their experience.

ContiX, there are many people who believe that their opinion is the word of God and you should not question it. Play what seems fun to you. It will take a bit of time to find something you like but don't take the community here too serious. They have very strong opinions and value their own opinions way too highly.

Although the differences between something like Red Alert and BA are massive I still think there is considerable difference between BA/Tech Anni/zK etc. Smoth speaks the truth; play what seems fun to you.

childish interface and graphics

What?

Yes? That was my experience in zK. Designed like stuff in a toy store..

[smoth]

I kind of got that impression of BA players from the "Balanced", which implies that others aren't balanced...some of the other *A derivatives seem to just be "re-balanced" BA mods, which makes things even more complicated...

Not entirely true. They all have the common ancestor of OTA. Hence *Annihilation, I don't think writing out all the family trees is what you are interested in, many of them I don't 100% know anyway. The short form for BA is that it is a "balanced" version of Absolute Annihilation, it's predecessor. TechA sought to add to BA.

klapmongool: "From what I have observed" means just by my observations, making it very obvious that is just my opinion and may be subject to disagreement. Don't quote out of context when English is your second language, it is just dumb.

[ContiX]

Actually, a "family tree" would be perfectly fine as long as the "reason for splitting/what each subsequent update has" was included. However, I doubt anyone is willing to do all the research for that. :)