News Total Annihilation: Extinction Officially Announced!

[Killing_You]

Total Annihilation: Extinction has been announced! Read more on the forums!

Introduction

Greetings and salutations, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, of all ages, genders, sexualities, preferences, colors, and religious beliefs or lack thereof. It is my pleasure to announce that we are officially developing Total Annihilation: Extinction, which will be a total conversion modification for Renegade, and will put players in the four thousand year conflict between the supremacist CORE empire and the ARM resistance!

Background

This mod has actually been around for a while. Danpaul88 started working on it before he joined the AR team, with many of the earliest models dating back over ten years!

In the more recent past (probably about 5 years ago) cnc95fan had a stint at the helm of the project, but it never gained much traction and has mostly lain dormant on dan's NAS all these years.

We're hoping to revive this nascent project and finally bring a compelling TA experience to the W3D engine!

The concept

Danpaul summed it all up perfectly internally, so I'll just repost what he said here!

Base Development
At the start of the match your base is extremely basic and will consist of only a few resource structures and one or two factories (and in fact we will likely spawn in more starter buildings based on the number of players, to avoid queues at the factories, but more on that later). The base will be constructed (and re-constructed for that matter) by the Commander unit during the course of the match.

Unlike traditional W3D games no base structure is ever truely destroyed as the commander will simply rebuild anything that gets destroyed... but building takes time and this will delay advancing through the tech tree. Thus taking out key structures is vital to delaying your opponents tech progression.

Players will be able to assist the commander by purchasing construction units and contributing their own resources to the structures it is building (they won't be able to build any major structures themselves however). Additionally they can venture out into the field to capture resource points to increase both their own and the commanders resource income (and thus construction speed!). During the early game capturing and holding remote resource points will be the key objective for players. Players will also have access to construct some tier 1 base defences (mostly LLTs) to protect these resource points.

The Commander
We've already mentioned the commander is involved in base construction, but what exactly IS it? As in TA, the commander is the most important unit on your team and must be protected at all costs, because losing the commander is an immediate defeat.... and killing the enemy commander is your victory condition. The commander itself is an AI controlled unit, if you were wondering.

So, kill the enemy commander and win the game, how hard can it be? Trickier than it sounds actually, for the commander is not simply a construction unit, it is also the most deadly combat unit in the game with a range of weaponry including the Disintegrator Gun (D-Gun for short) which will insta-gib any other unit AND ANYTHING BEHIND IT! Even without his other weaponry a commander can single handedly obliterate an entire army using that weapon alone. Players will need to learn how to take on these commander units if they wish to be successful (tip: The D-Gun requires tremendous amounts of power to operate... perhaps some of those squishy power facilities might be worth killing en route to the enemy commander?)

The commander also plays a role in stalemate resolution, whereby any commander who finds their base destroyed to the point of no return (loosely defined as no resource income remaining OR no factories remaining) will embark upon a suicide mission to eliminate as much of the enemy base as possible before dying... or even winning, if the enemy commander was much lower on health than it was!

Factories
In TAE there are no "infantry" type objects, at all. All units will be implemented as vehicles and players will spawn as a floating orb (team visible only) which can interact with terminals around the factories in their base to select a unit to construct. The player will then be placed into a freshly spawned vehicle as it gets constructed (or placed into a queue). Construction times will vary from 2-5 seconds for tier 1 (to avoid bottlenecks at factories) right up to 20-30 seconds for high tier units.

Economy
Players will only have one resource - metal - which they use to purchase units or construct things (including assisting the commander to construct main base buildings - sacrificing your own resources to speed up base construction / repairs). The commander and the base in general though actually rely on TWO resources, metal and energy. Energy will be used in a more abstract way, whereby a lack of energy imposes time penalties on construction / unit purchasing etc and also shuts down or degrades the performance of defensive structures. Metal will be the only resource with an actual "value" for how much is currently available.



{{more info to follow, feel free to ask questions}}

The Premise

"What began as a conflict over the transfer of consciousness from flesh to machines escalated into a war that has decimated a million worlds. The CORE and the ARM have all but exhausted the resources of a galaxy in their struggle for domination. Both sides now crippled beyond repair, the remnants of their armies continue to battle over ravaged planets, their hatred fueled by over four thousand years of total war. This is a fight to the death. For each side, the only acceptable outcome is the complete elimination of the other."
-Total Annihilation Intro

Thousands of years in the future, humanity reached an age of prosperity. Hunger, disease, poverty... all were eliminated as we colonized the galaxy. Then, a group of scientists discovered one possible path to immortality: Planting their minds into machines. This process was called "patterning," and quickly became mandatory. However, many people disagreed, and were vocally opposed to this process. Soon, the debate became violent, and war broke out between the CORE empire and the ARM rebellion.

CORE


Hailing from the metal world of Core Prime, The CORE Empire seek total control of the galaxy, and the elimination of organic life. Preferring artificial intelligence to pilot their units, they are almost completely geared for combat. Their units are more expensive than their ARM counterparts, but they make up for it with superior armor and firepower.


ARM

Based on the distant world of Empyrrean, the ARM rebellion rose against the patterning process, and now seek to destroy the CORE empire once and for all. All of their pilots consist of clones. Although not as strong as their CORE counterparts, ARM units enjoy being faster and less expensive. They also carry a number of specialized units that, if used properly, can turn a tough struggle into an easy victory.

Tasty Images

Would you like to see some special behind-the-scenes screenies of some of the stuff we have? Wish granted!


Here we have an early wireframe of the ARM's primary KBot, the PeeWee!


This is a model of the ARM's early defense, the LLT!


And a beautiful shot of the ARM Thunder flying around!

We want YOU!

We've got a great team here at W3D Hub, but most of us are dedicated to other projects at the moment. So there's no time like the present to lend a hand! We need people who are experienced with modeling, texturing, animating, mapping, and coding! If you are interested in this project, just shoot a PM to either myself or danpaul88.

If you're interested in helping W3D Hub in general, fire off a PM to:
-One Winged Angel
-Teamwolf
-danpaul88
-moonsense715
-Wallywood
-Jerad2142

We'll get back to you asap!

In Conclusion

We're excited to get this project going, and we will keep you all posted as development unfolds! See you next time!

[ganein14]

Whoa...am I the only one getting Deja vu from playing Supreme Commander?

[Killing_You]

Considering that Supreme Commander was considered to be a spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, I'm not surprised.

[delta]

I played the demos for Supreme Commander 1 and 2, but found I couldn't really get into it. I did enjoy Total Annihilation though.

[Dadud]

oh great. another mod that we wont get to touch for at least 5 years.

[Einstein]

oh great. another mod that we wont get to touch for at least 5 years.

 

Hearing people with attitudes like this is what discourages the developers and lengthens the time it takes for a project to reach completion. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a fine example of how not to be. Lets stop with the instant negativity on everything shall we?

[DeviousDave]

NO... GORNDAMN... WAY...

 

 

I WAS RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

TOTAL AAAANNNIIHHHIIILLLLAAAATTTTIIIOOONNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Can you tell I'm excited

 

Seriously, best of luck with this, you guys rock! I take my hat off to you for doing this!

 

 

And that has made my day!

Edited January 24, 2016 by DeviousDave

[Lord_Kane]

oh great. another mod that we wont get to touch for at least 5 years.

 

This is why you are still shit at life Dadud. Do you remember that furry porn disguised as a APB Beta you leaked in order to come out as a furry? yeah I still remember that.

 

Killing_You: if you need help just ask me, I was a huge TA fan back in the day, in fact I think I bought you TA from GOG way back when.

[Killing_You]

Thanks a bunch for that again, Kane. I don't know what all skills you have with W3D, but just let me know how you can contribute!

[Lord_Kane]

Thanks a bunch for that again, Kane. I don't know what all skills you have with W3D, but just let me know how you can contribute!

 

No probs man, If you want to shove assets at me and ask "hey does this look like how it did on TA?" you know where you can talk to me.

[lynx]

Total Annihilation goes fps Thanks ThanksThanks :dance: ,it is best RTS in history for me

[delta]

I assume the floating orbs will be somehow limited to traveling within the base? Otherwise you could just float on over to enemy base and look at everything they're doing.

[Killing_You]

Yes. You will be restricted to the base unless you buy a unit.

[Aprime]

 

oh great. another mod that we wont get to touch for at least 5 years.

 

This is why you are still shit at life

And yet this guy is a mod.

[VERTi60]

 

Making Commander AI to actually work as designed will be tricky. I wish players could assume the role of commanders though and have AIs work for them

[DeviousDave]

Making Commander AI to actually work as designed will be tricky. I wish players could assume the role of commanders though and have AIs work for them

 

You could have a voting system I suppose to elect a player as a commander or kick him from the role if he/she sucked.

 

Don't know how the UI for a player commander would work

[TeamWolf]

And yet this guy is a mod.

 

Stay on topic.

[Lord_Kane]

Killing_you do you have any videos of the mod in action yet? I am eager to see this in motion, even at this stage.

[Killing_You]

Killing_you do you have any videos of the mod in action yet? I am eager to see this in motion, even at this stage.

 

Not at the moment. I'll probably be putting together a video when we have stuff for both sides (right now we have almost exclusively ARM hardware).

 

 

 

Making Commander AI to actually work as designed will be tricky. I wish players could assume the role of commanders though and have AIs work for them

 

You could have a voting system I suppose to elect a player as a commander or kick him from the role if he/she sucked.

 

Don't know how the UI for a player commander would work

 

 

We decided that the role of a Commander was too important and complicated to be left in the hands of a player. Since they're essentially just going to remain at the base and build/rebuild structures as needed, we shouldn't have too much to worry about. We could probably implement Decoy Commanders, however, which won't have a nanolather or a D-Gun, but will still be a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.

[Dadud]

 

oh great. another mod that we wont get to touch for at least 5 years.

 

This is why you are still shit at life Dadud. Do you remember that furry porn disguised as a APB Beta you leaked in order to come out as a furry? yeah I still remember that.

 

 

HATERS GONNA HATE