40 reasons why Total Annihilation owns StarCraft

1) Starcraft only has 84 units, over half of which are buildings and their add-ons! Total Annihilation has over 250.

2) In Starcraft, only 12 units can be in a group at once. Note that this was claimed to help "prevent rushing", not that it really does because rushing consists of attacking at the early with a small group. Of course, Total Annihilation has no limit. You press Ctrl-P and by that highlight every plane with weapons and then send them towards the enemy. The engine doesn't care if you have 4, 40 or 400 planes.

3) In Starcraft, a maximum of five units can be queued at once by each building except Zerg, who can only build three and only at certain times. Total Annihilation has no limit. You can set a plant to build 200 Rockos and it will build them without demanding your constant attention to refuel the queue order.

4) In Starcraft, only nine commands can be given to one unit at once and you can't see what has been queued or in what order, nor can you undo any specific queued commands and the commands can only be spells or movement orders. In Total Annihilation there is no limit, and you are shown exactly what each unit will do and in what order and you can undo and redo any of the commands in any order.

5) In Starcraft, when a construction unit builds a structure, or a unit plant builds a unit, no other units can help construct, hence the build speed cannot be augmented in any way. In Total Annihilation, you can have as many units as you want help construct buildings and even units to speed up the production rate. (Note that even in WarCraft II, you could make an extra peon help build a structure.)

6) There are a limited number of resources on any given Starcraft map. Total Annihilation has no limit. However, when making a map, you can simulate the 'limited resources' concept by restricting all resource units (Solar Collectors, Metal Extractors etc.), and place lots of debris, rocks, and trees. That way you will have to reclaim them, much like in gathering your resources in Starcraft.

7) In Starcraft, you can select all units of the same type, but only on the screen, and only 12 of them. CTRL-Z in Total Annihilation selects all units of that type on the map. Ctrl-W selects ALL units with weapons (except the commander).

8) Starcraft does not have a water terrain. They only have blue ('water'), red ('lava'), and black ('space'), colored terrain that can't be crossed by land units. Not only has Total Annihilation fully functional water masses that can be crossed by normal units if the water is shallow enough, but you can construct entire bases on or under the water surface and defend them with cruisers and torpedo launchers or attack someone on another island by sending amphibious tanks.

9) In Starcraft, there is no way to reclaim the minerals of dead units, buildings, and incomplete buildings (not that there is any debris from buildings, of course, as they "magically disappears"). In Total Annihilation, all destroyed units and buildings leave behind scrap metal which can be extracted and reused, unless they are blasted by a powerful weapon like a nuke. You can even extract the metal from operational units and buildings, friend or foe.

10) In Starcraft, all units see in a circular radius, with small line of sight restrictions from large mountains. In Total Annihilation, you can choose between circular line of sight as in Starcraft, permanent line of sight as in Command & Conquer or true line of sight, where units cannot see through walls and hills or over cliffs.

11) In Starcraft, all units shoot in a circular radius, including through wall and over cliffs. The projectiles are not effected by elevation, wind, or gravity. Total Annihilation uses true physics to determine the path of projectiles and so it is harder to hit units that moves. Certain units have actual inaccuracy built in as a deliberate disadvantage. In Starcraft a marine can shoot a burrowed Zergling on the other side of a mountain wall past a barracks behind a tree underneath a Siege tank with pinpoint accuracy! In Total Annihilation you cannot.

12) In Starcraft, the only change in elevation is onto plateaus and bridges and such, but you're not really "above" anyone as far as the game is concerned. Total Annihilation has everything from small hills and pits to huge mountains and deep canyons that affect the game dramatically.

13) You can not see the energy of a unit unless it is selected in Starcraft. In Total Annihilation, you can see the remaining armour of all units on the screen at once, or turn that off if you prefer more atmosphere.

14) In Starcraft, aircraft can not land. In Total Annihilation, not only do aircraft land, but some can do so underwater. Aircrafts also automatically return to base for repairs if an Air Repair Pad is present.

15) In Starcraft a unit armed with more than one weapon (Wraith, Goliath, Scout) cannot shoot both of them. In TA certain units have several weapons and can target several enemies at once.

16) In Starcraft, you can't deselect your selected unit ever, unless they die or go into a assimilator/extractor! In Total Annihilation, you can always deselect everything by right clicking.

17) Right clicking in Starcraft uses "smart commands," but left clicking only uses commands that have been selected. In Total Annihilation, left clicking uses "smart commands," unless you have a command selected. Then it uses that command. Right clicking deselects. Note that you can change the mouse settings in the options window in TA to mimic that of StarCraft.

18) In Starcraft, the only way to have a unit hold fire is to move him around or to ally with the enemy. In Total Annihilation, you can set units to hold fire, to return fire only, or to fire at will.

19) At a Starcraft unit constructing building, the only command you can give units built there is a rally point. In Total Annihilation, you can tell units where to go, what way and maybe an eventual patrol route; you can have them hold fire, return fire, or fire at will; and you can have them hold position, maneuver, or roam at their destination.

20) StarCraft only has one construction unit per side while Total Annihilation has as much as nine different construction units. Each of them can build different types of structures at varying speeds and have different advantages/disadvantages.

21) Starcraft defences are overpriced and mostly obsolete. Total Annihilation keeps a fine balance between defence and offence so that both type of players can win.

22) Starcraft has one graphics mode: 640x480 256 colors. TA can take advantage of higher resolutions.

23) In Starcraft, flying units do not fly; they hover. They are more like flying vehicles. All air units in Total Annihilation use a physics engine to determine the flight path, really bank, and do not stop in mid air like all flying units in Starcraft. They do also occasionally execute rolling maneuvers.

24) Projectiles in Starcraft always hit their target and do damage, whether it appears so or not. Weapons in Total Annihilation use a physics engine to determine whether they hit or miss their targets and the damage is determined by how close the explosion was to the target. There is always a chance that even the best weapon can miss you

25) Units in Starcraft cannot fire while moving. If you set them to, every unit in Total Annihilation will automatically aim and fire at enemy units in range, moving or not. This is great for hit and run missions or 'driveby shootings'.

26) Many weapons in Starcraft do not have projectiles. For example, there is a siege tank with its massive artillery shells and marines' gauss rifles that travel at infinite velocity, and then the explosion just appears on the target. Every weapon in Total Annihilation fires a projectile using a physics engine that determines how to hit the target.

27) In Starcraft the largest maps are 256x256. Total Annihilation has maps at least four times that size, for longer and more thought out strategies.

28) In Starcraft there are only two ways to get resources - mining minerals and vespene gas. In Total Annihilation there are several ways to get resources. You can reclaim plants and rocks, you can use metal extractors, metal makers, many different energy producers, and most units produce a bit of energy and metal themselves.

29) In Starcraft if your hatchery/command center/nexus is destroyed, you keep your resources somehow, so that marine had better have deep pockets. When the commander in Total Annihilation dies, you lose storage capacity and most likely quite a lot of resources along with the storing space. You can also build metal and energy storage facilities so you can have a higher maximum capacity. Construction plants and several units also store resources.

30) Starcraft has crystals and Vespene geysers growing out on every world you come to, including the hard, cold surface of space stations. Total Annihilation simply drills the metal out of the space station.

32) Units in Starcraft are totally not to scale. Since when is a bunker for four persons larger than a nuclear silo or why only three hydralisks seem to fit in the entire Hive. The sizes and costs in-between units and their plants in Total Annihilation make perfect sense.

33) In Starcraft, you cannot choose your colour. It is selected for you randomly. You are just as likely to get purple or brown as something you actually want. In TA, you have a choice of ten different colours, including black.

34) Starcraft has no way at all to get new units/structures into the game, other than expansion sets, because the units are hard coded into the StarCraft engine. Total Annihilation's game engine was built specifically to load units found in the directory. When booting up the game it searches the directory and says "Oh a new unit, I'll just add him in here!" and you can then play with it normally. You can also download literally thousands of extra units that you see fit from many sites across the web.

35) Multiplayer lag in Starcraft is presented by the game momentarily pausing and commands being delayed by up to five seconds. Lag in Total Annihilation multiplayer simply slows the game speed down.

36) In Starcraft it's harder to control your units because of the unsatisfactory unit AI. For example, when trying to move a dragoon up stairs he will move jerkily up the stairs, and then decide to go back down and try to go onto the higher platform in a different way. You have to manually click for each step you want him to take. In Total Annihilation units go where you want, when you want, in the most efficient way possible most of the time.

37) In Total Annihilation multiplayer, you can loan, or give resources to your ally, and give your ally units and even entire bases. You can also set it so that if I have more than 2000 metal or energy, it automatically spills over to my allies metal to ensure that all recourses are used effectively. Starcraft can do no such thing.

38) In Starcraft if you want to restrict units from play, must build a custom scenario and disable the desired units for each player. In Total Annihilation, when hosting the game, meaning you can edit the unit restrictions with a few clicks you can limit the number of that unit available in the game at any time by one player, or completely prevent them from being used altogether. Other players in the game can also view the unit limits/restrictions.

39) In Starcraft, you have to micromanage a ghost in close proximity to the target base to launch a nuclear missile. When a nuclear missile is completed in Total Annihilation, you can launch it anywhere, anytime, even if the target is placed in the middle of an otherwise impenetrable base. It is also possible to shield your own base with anti-nukes to avoid important structures being blown up. The only way to stop spellcasters from demolishing your Photon Cannon array in Starcraft is to kill them before they come in range.

40) In Total Annihilation, most weapons as well as units are an object in the game, meaning that a Big Bertha could very well hit a bomber flying past or a nuke could hit a fighter flying overhead. In Starcraft, all weapons are mere graphical effects, and nothing like this can ever happen.

41) When a unit encounters an enemy in Starcraft, both get into range, stops and start shooting. This also include the planes. In Total Annihilation, unit try to move around to avoid being hit and air battles are really impressive dogfights.

42) If 8 marines attack 12 marines, the 12 marines will always win (unless for some reason moving, since they can't shoot then). In Total Annihilation you can take advantage of elevation, different obstacles, direction of impact and movement to engage and win against a superior force of the same type of unit, not to mention what it's like to play with mixed forces.

43) Units in Starcraft are simple animated pictures in only sixteen different directions, which sometimes make a Siege tank roll sideways. All units in Total Annihilation are in complete 3D and can therefore be shown in as many directions as the screen can handle to show. Units on hills can also tilt in almost every possible direction in the three dimensional axises.

44) Total Annihilation does support and promote correct turret aiming, barrel tilting, barrel alternating, recoil and occasional put-away-gun animations plus the folding/unfolding of many construction units and landing airplanes. Of course in full 3D in as many angles as you ever can see. The only example of this in Starcraft is the Siege Tank transformation.

45) Units in Total Annihilation can inflict massive friendly fire damage on each other if controlled incorrectly and small amounts of FF are generally unavoidable in combat. Units that are destroyed do also explode, sending debris high in the air for all to see while damaging all nearby units, friends or foes. The concept of FF in Starcraft is completely unknown, except for the siege tank.

46) The only way to find the enemy in Starcraft is by sending out a probe and by that losing recourses. In Total Annihilation, you can and you will build radar stations that can warn you of soon to be coming attacks and be used to pick off the enemy from a safe distance by targeting enemy dots on the radar vision. There are also special units with jamming capabilities that can't be seen on the radar vision.

47) There are no really long-range units in Starcraft. The Siege Tank having one of the longest ranges in the game. In Total Annihilation, you can shell the enemy halfway across the map.

48) Only cloaked units in SC can hold fire. In Total Annihilation all my units can be ordered to hold fire, return fire, or fire at will. You should place your cloaked TA units to return fire when you cloak them.