We've made a quick HOTFIX to address a problem with a nasty exploit. Please download 6.3.1 if you have already downloaded 6.3.0 - sorry for the mishap!
Go get it! And grab our new Map 'Inversed Conflict' while you're at it!
Are you ready for more units, more explosions, and most of all, more games!? If you are, you've come to the right place! TA:Escalation (TAESC) continues and expands the eternal war between the Arm and Core and brings you the quality and content you would expect from an official release.
TAESC delivers over 75 new Cavedog quality units from the minute scavenger bots to unprecedented experimental engines of war. If that is not enough, we have expanded and redone the GUI, added top-notch explosions of every size, and developed new gameplay concepts including mass teleportation and transports, configurable omni intel, unit upgrades, mobile factories and surfacable subs, and even adjacency bonuses for many resource units. Further, we have rebalanced and refined nearly every unit and tested them over thousands of games online from players of every skill level to ensure a nearly endless variety of strategies to wipe out your enemies.
If you are prepared to escalate your TA game to the next level then get moving Commander!
The TA:Escalation team is proud to present the biggest and baddest battleships in the history of TA modding (imhho). You will find the highest standards and styles most adherent to Cavedog's original lineup in the Arm Triumph and the Core Sovereign (as well as the rest of TA:Escalation).
Crafted to official Cavedog style and quality with the same high standards you've come to expect from us, these Floating Fortresses are the pinnacle of Arm and Core naval engineering. Unrivaled amongst surface combatants with their assortment of plasma cannons and Blue Lasers of Death and projecting power far in land with their nuclear artillery, The Triumph and Sovereign displaces the venerable Arm Victory and Core Tyrant class Dreadnaughts as the naval game-enders of TA:Escalation.
TA:Escalation is not just about big units however, it is also about innovation and polish. Instead of including hundreds of units that do the same basic pointing gun and shooting, we are proud to present these unprecedented and previously thought impossible features to the TA engine:
- Polished automated transports, with the best multiple unit air transport.
- Top tier sensors that provide the choice of line-of-sight, radar, jamming, radar-targeting, and a clever "Commander hack" feature that reveals the location of enemy Commanders (and Decoy Commanders).
- Polished teleporters that automatically ferries your troops across the map.
- Inverse kinematics of the Core Spiderbot, perhaps one of the best walk scripts for TA.
- Automatic repair towers that repairs nearby units!
- Upgradeable buildings! Like upgrading your Gaat to a Viper for additional firepower, or upgrading your Fusion for more armour and energy output.
- Adjacency bonus that provides your power plants and energy storages with more energy output at the price of more vulnerability to chain reactions.
- Ballistic missile subs that are not just surface ships with submarine graphics like all previous variations. Hide your strategic arsenal under the waves!
- Massive shield domes! Instead units with shield graphics and some additional armour, our shields actually block shots! These are the only shield domes that also work in multiplayer.
- Unit upgrades! Upgrade your Commander by building upgrade centers!
- And much much more we don't have room to mention here!
To add to this list. I present to you, hovercraft carriers with shadows!
Wait what? You ask. Hovercrafts of Original TA did not have shadows, but we've discovered a way to provide hovercrafts with shadows, and this trick has been shared with some of the best TA mods of today, such as TA:Excess II. However, due to the quirkiness of the engine, we were unable to display the landed aircraft properly on the correctly-shadowed hover carriers like on the ship carriers and air repair pads... Until now!
Like many of the features listed above, there are no other third-party mods or units that contain hovercraft carriers with shadows. While this may seem trivial, but such is the spirit of innovation we bring to this ten-year old engine and the dedication we approaching making mods for our favourite RTS game.
So come join us in our TA:Escalation forums, visit our website, watch us on Moddb, or join us in the running TA:Escalation battles on GameRanger. We need you to give us feedback on our ever updating private test releases and help us in our constant drive to perfect multiplayer balance.
Beta 4.2 is finally here! As usual we're late in releasing, but it is not for a lack of effort. Over the past few months we've been quite busy working with the multiplayer community ironing out bugs and balancing issues – thanks to Jono, Machine, Boogie, Zangofett, and many others for their continual feedback in this process. Especial mention of our Russian contingent must be recognized though, and none more than Gbopkuh and Norfolk for their input and tons of game recordings despite the disagreements here and there – their contributions were essential in keeping important balance topics on the table.
As mentioned in another thread, Beta 4.2 will be the last public beta of TA:Escalation. Over the next two months, a series of final test alphas will be released based on remaining feedback from this release and the subsequent games online. During this period, we'll likely introduce a few more changes, including restored mission support, a new AI, and perhaps a fun unit or two, but most of the effort will be focused on tweaking balance and any remaining bugs. We're hoping to see more input on Sea and Level 3 units to wrap things up nicely, but we expect that there will be subtle changes required in other areas as well.
Please let us know what you think of our latest release in the meantime. Be sure to check out the new Commander Upgrade Facilities and Arm's Maelstrom sub. Most of all, keep us informed on anything you would like to see going forward and remember, this is the last round of Arm/Core before we release TA:ESC Official 1.0!
In upcoming versions of Total Annihilation: Escalation, you will be able to upgrade your Commanders and Decoy Commanders by building an upgrade center. The Commanders will get new rapid-fire repeating lasers, vertical launch missiles, and better armour after upgrade. Pretty cool stuff. Here are some previews:
Here is also a video by Darkvamp demonstrating the use of the upgraded Decoy Commanders in multiplayer games:
TA: Escalation is back! This time with more units, features, fixes, and now all new explosions to light up the battlefield! With version Beta 4.1 we are nearing production quality and it won't be long before TA:ESC official version is released! Don't wait around though, we need your feedback, thoughts, and most importantly YOU online gaming with us.
For those unfamiliar with TA: Escalation (TA:ESC), TA:ESC is a Cavedog quality expansion to Total Annihilation which can be enjoyed in both Skirmish and Multiplayer settings. TA:ESC offers significant enhancements to the venerable TA gaming engine, including:
Cavedog quality models, textures, and presentation.
All new EXPLOSIONS!
New GUI and extended menus.
Unique upgrading system for defenses and resources and now mobile units!
Deflective Shield Generators.
Mass unit Teleportation Gates.
Automated mass loading and unloading transports.
Multi-Unit-Air-Transports.
Proximity bonuses for adjacent Fusions and Energy Storages.
Surfaceable subs.
Walking ships.
Omni Intel Towers capable of massive radar, jamming, LOS, targeting, and Commander hacking.
And much, much more!
With all these exlclusive features, there are also over 75 new units ranging from Level 1 battlefield scavengers to massive experimental weapons of pure destruction. Come and see what all the hubbub is about over at our forum and get the latest info and release updates...
What are you waiting for?!
Celebrate the New Year with TA: Escalation Beta 4.0!
The war continues Commander - both sides continue escalation of new and experimetal technologies as well as refinement of existing units in an all out effort to end the eternal conflict in the coming year... Are you ready?
For those unfamiliar with TA: Escalation (TA:ESC), TA:ESC is a Cavedog quality expansion to Total Annihilation which can be enjoyed in both Skirmish and Multiplayer settings. TA:ESC offers significant enhancements to the venerable TA gaming engine, including:
Cavedog quality models, textures, and presentation.
New GUI and extended menus.
Unique upgrading system for defenses and resources and now mobile units!
Deflective Shield Generators.
Mass unit Teleportation Gates.
Automated mass loading and unloading transports.
Multi-Unit-Air-Transports.
Proximity bonuses for adjacent Fusions and Energy Storages.
Surfaceable subs.
Walking ships.
Omni Intel Towers capable of massive radar, jamming, LOS, targeting, and Commander hacking.
And much, much more!
With all these exlclusive features, there are also over 75 new units ranging from Level 1 battlefield scavengers to massive experimental weapons of pure destruction. Come and see what all the hubbub is about over at our forum and get the latest info and release updates...
The galaxy has been forever altered after the events of The Core Contingency. The empire is no more, the rebels now reign within its former domain, and a new threat looms over the former enemies. Three powerful factions now fight in an epic struggle for galactic supremacy. Choose your side: protect your new home as the Arm Dominion, restore your empire as the Core Insurgency, or exact your revenge as the Talon Crusade.
The long awaited new version of Talon is finally here! The new Talon v1.03 brings this 10 year old game back to life with a slew of innovative features that tests the TA engine's limits:
Completely new faction with new look, new design philosophy, and new gameplay.
Completely faithful to the original look of the game. Arm and Core units look and feel like they rolled right out of cavedog and shipped with the original game.
Powerful Experiental units such as rolling cathedrals, massive dreadnaughts, land battleships, hover cruisers, carpet bombers, siege tanks, star cruisers, deployable mobile factories, and gigantic motherships.
Towering Experiental structures such as orbital ion cannons, upgradable super fusions, and long-range nuclear/emp cannons, and ceasefire generators.
Previously unimagined units such as mobile factories, teleportation gates, unit upgrades, structure addons, mind-control towers, orbital ion cannons, ceasefire generators, fusion adjacency bonus, missile subs, base shields(ala gungans in phantom menace), light of sight generators, commander hacking, accurate turret arcs, walking ships, multiple unit air transports, and much more.
finally, Talon is alive and active. It is undergoing constant updates, so your suggestions (if acceptable to me) will not fall on deaf ears! I want your feedback!
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