The real Total Annihilation Vs Starcraft!

[ThePhoenix]

Where as starcraft did just fine with about 30. Every arm unit was just a slightly modified core unit, so that cuts the number of units in half. Sure there were a bunch of units, but they tended to fill very similar roles. Where is a unit like the arbitor, the carrier, the siege tank? Most, if not all TA units have a starcraft counterpart. The same cannot be said for Starcraft units and TA.

 

[dragannia]

Sure in TA they filled the same roles, but they are still different. Sure SC might have more difference between units, but TA's units are different. For example, the Pyro and Zeus are both assault Kbots, but are they the same? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

[ThePhoenix]

Well yeah, but that's because the Pyro sucks. Which brings up another point. Useless units. Starcraft had none. TA? Yeah, it had some.

 

[Noddingdog]

The Pyro rocks, man. I use it quite a lot as a rush unit, with XTA. I'll bet Starcraft has some useless ones as well.

Pyros, Dominators and Informers. Pyros also make very good tree fellers.

 

[ThePhoenix]

The Pyro rocks, man. I use it quite a lot as a rush unit, with XTA. I'll bet Starcraft has some useless ones as well.


Pyros, Dominators and Informers. Pyros also make very good tree fellers.

Pyros can fell trees. Well geeze, that's useful. And please name a useless starcraft unit, I've never encountered one (hard to get, yes, Infested Terrans are a pain in the neck to get ahold of, but very useful).

 

[dragannia]

How about Devourers? In every SC game I've played no-one had ever used Devourers. Most of them just use Scourge. And no unit in TA is useless. You might not use them much in certain games, but they're still there for you to use, such as Instigators. Not many people use them, but you still can in the occasion that you want to rush with Core (not likely, but you could have enough skill to do it.) Pyros can burn trees so you can damage of flush out enemy units hiding in forests.

 

[Noddingdog]

Pyros also carry metal melting flame throwers. And as dragannia pointed out, what if you have enemies cowering in the forest? Mr. Pyro or the handy nuke silo will sort them for you, or of course our good friend Mr Krogoth.

 

[dragannia]

Mr. Krogoth...ahhhhhhhh. Although I'd much prefer to use the Kargeneth. Yup, I've got TAUCP as well. I live the mod, and the AI is really good.

 

[dragannia]

Sorry that was 'love the mod' not live

 

[ThePhoenix]

How about Devourers? In every SC game I've played no-one had ever used Devourers. Most of them just use Scourge. And no unit in TA is useless. You might not use them much in certain games, but they're still there for you to use, such as Instigators. Not many people use them, but you still can in the occasion that you want to rush with Core (not likely, but you could have enough skill to do it.) Pyros can burn trees so you can damage of flush out enemy units hiding in forests.

Heh, never played much starcraft then. Devourers are the zerg's only defense against Battlecruisers. The battlecruisers powerful guns easily take out a scourge per shot, idly destroying virtually unlimited number of scourge. The devourers armor draining attacks and high damage make them ideal anti-battlecruiser units. They also function very well against the protoss scout and carrier, and the Zerg mutalisk (The purple slime is a splash ability that effects the entire stack of mutalisks, draining the armor of every one). In fact many people include one or two in air to air battles simply for the armor draining effects, as the splash purple ooze effects a large number of units, making it very useful when backed up by the higher damage mutalisks. Also REALLY helps make the mutalisk's bounce attack useful, since most units have enough armor to reduce the damage on the bounce to one - unless something drains that armor.

 

[dragannia]

Well, to tell you the truth, in all my time playing SC (about 2 years) and all the multiplayer games I've had (average 100) and most people play either Zerg or Protoss, me playing Terran, I have never seen anyone use Devourers in more than a pack of 2 and they die quickly up against my Valkyries

 

[BladeZ]

Amen. TA has many more strats, as Simon had said. Why wouldn't you try an Instigator Rush? Every Unit is useful in their own way. You might think that most units are useless later on, but you're wrong.

Peewee - Excellent spotters
Doomsday Machine - Even though it has less range than an Annihilator, it is still useful.

There are many more, but i Can't remember...

 

[ThePhoenix]

Well, to tell you the truth, in all my time playing SC (about 2 years) and all the multiplayer games I've had (average 100) and most people play either Zerg or Protoss, me playing Terran, I have never seen anyone use Devourers in more than a pack of 2 and they die quickly up against my Valkyries

A hundred? Newbie. I've clocked in nearly a thousand, and I do know what I'm talking about. They're NOT a massing tool. They're not a pack beast. What they excel at is making the mutalisk usable. Lets run some stats

Mutalisk damage - 9 (12) + 1/3rds damage per bounce.
Damage table
9
3
1

So this is 12 damage. However lets consider what a devourer adds to an attack. Lets say you have 3. Each spore increases damage by one. Attacking a unit with 2 armor, this leads to the following increase after ONE volley.
10
4
2

So after a single volley from a small number of devourerers you have a damage increase from 12 to 16, 33% damage increase. The next volley makes it
13
7
5
or 25 points of damage! That's more then a 100% increase from 3 devourerers. But worse, they can stack still more spores to make it
16
10
8
or 34 damage! That's nearly triple. And that's with NO damage upgrades for the mutalisk. Now do you understand their true power?

 

[Noddingdog]

Well, firstly, dragannia is not an SC fan as far as I am aware, so it would hardly be appropriate to call him "newbie". Unfortunately I do not know the functions of each individual SC unit off by heart but I can rattle on about TA units for hours, as I am sure you can with Starcraft units. There are obviously some less-used units in both Starcraft and TA: the Devourer in SC, and the Luger/Pillager in TA. However, the true power of these units is often underestimated and when coupled with correct strategy they can be effective.

 

[dragannia]

That true too. Many people dismiss Lugers/Pillagers because they'd much prefer to use Merls/Diplomats, but I personally like the mobile artillery better. They have better splash damage. People usually dismiss Instigator rushes because most people are smart enough to mass Slashers, and only if you are very good can you pull it off or the enemy has unguarded Mexxes. People usually use Weasels as scouts too. But like you said, if you have some strat to pull off an Instigator rush you can. Underneath are some offensive rushing strategies I use for Arm:

1. The good ol' Flash rushing backed up by Samsons
2. Mass Samson rushing
3. The cheap load enemy commander into Atlas and self detonate (don't use much-lowers rep and lots of people build Samsons so they know how to defend)
4. Pewee rushing backed up by Jethros and Rockos.
5. Defender line (build lots of Defenders and slowly crawl towards enemy base)

I got lots more but I have to go now

 

[ThePhoenix]

Well, firstly, dragannia is not an SC fan as far as I am aware, so it would hardly be appropriate to call him "newbie". Unfortunately I do not know the functions of each individual SC unit off by heart but I can rattle on about TA units for hours, as I am sure you can with Starcraft units. There are obviously some less-used units in both Starcraft and TA: the Devourer in SC, and the Luger/Pillager in TA. However, the true power of these units is often underestimated and when coupled with correct strategy they can be effective.

He stated he masses Valks as an anti-air strategy. If this actually works you're playing newbies, especially against the zerg (No race switches production lines faster then the zerg).

 

[Noddingdog]

Heh, try massing Total Annihilation Valkyries. You won't get very far

dragannia is obviously a TA fan though, so it would be unfair to call him a newbie based on the few SC games he has played.

As for siege tanks though, they have very short range compared to some of the Total Annihilation units. And I might be wrong but I don't see many Big Bertha/Intimidator (LRPC) equivalents in Starcraft.

 

[Bowser]

As for siege tanks though, they have very short range compared to some of the Total Annihilation units. And I might be wrong but I don't see many Big Bertha/Intimidator (LRPC) equivalents in Starcraft.

You have to understand, though, that the map scale of the two games are drastically different. We all know Starcraft plays on a relatively small map scale whereas you have said that TA has a very large one. With that in mind you cannot have a Arclite Siege Tank fire the same distance as a TA tank. And I hardly think that the distance a tank fires in the two games is an arguable point, anyway.

 

[dragannia]

Maybe not, but there are plenty more arguable points

 

[Noddingdog]

You have to understand, though, that the map scale of the two games are drastically different. We all know Starcraft plays on a relatively small map scale whereas you have said that TA has a very large one. With that in mind you cannot have a Arclite Siege Tank fire the same distance as a TA tank. And I hardly think that the distance a tank fires in the two games is an arguable point, anyway.

And there's one of the problems - Starcraft must be technologically behind TA, playing on a small map scale. It can't support large maps then?