TA Spring

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TA: Spring, or Total Annihilation Spring (a rename to SpringRTS or just Spring is under consideration), is a program originally created as a 3D Total Annihilation demo viewer by the Swedish Yankspankers, but that has since progressed into a full 3D open source RTS engine. The core game engine is released under the GPL License; however, to play the prepackaged mod that comes with the full installer, you must own a copy of TA to legally play it, there are other mods however, both in development and released, that are completely free to use. It is being developed by the Swedish Yankspankers and the Spring community, currently led by Jelmer Cnossen. The initial goal was to have the game run the mods and 3rd party units from Total Annihilation. This goal is now mostly complete, and the project has moved on to including additional features. The game is mainly focused around multiplayer games over the Internet or a LAN connection. There are currently no single player campaigns or missions, although there is some basic support for this through Lua scripting. There are also many skirmish AI's under development, allowing for offline play or extra players in an online game. Two such skirmish AIs (JCAI and NTAI) ship in the game package.

Contents

1 The source code
2 Features
3 Mods
4 Community
5 The future
6 References
7 External links

The source code

TA Spring's source code, licenced under the GNU General Public License, is primarily written in the C++ programming language with the exception of the lobby which is written in Delphi, and the server and client which are written in Java. The C++ code structure is written in an object-oriented manner and is documented using doxygen standards in addition to non-standardized formats. The official source code package includes project files for various IDEs and building tools, including SCons, KDevelop, Microsoft Visual C++ 7.0/8.0, and XCode.

Features

Some of the defining features of this game are:

Large battles, with support for up to 5000 units per player.
Unlimited resources
Ability to handle "large" maps.
Fully 3D camera view, allowing for completely free movement.
Realistic 3D trajectories for weapons
Fully 3D air combat
Detailed terrain. Some maps are directly exported from terrain rendering tools such as L3DT and Terragen.
Deformable terrain [(example)]
Compatible with unit files from Total Annihilation, allowing 3rd party units to easily be moved into Spring.
Large Total Annihilation mod base, ranging from the popular TA mod, Absolute Annihilation, to spaceship wars in TA: Final Frontier, to modern day warfare in World Domination and Star Wars-based combat in Star Wars TA.
Frequent updates, bug fixes and additions.

Mods

There are several mods currently available for TA: Spring. These include:

Absolute Annihilation: Spring
*Author(s): Caydr, BSR, and various 3rd-party groups
*Copyright status: TA models, textures, sounds, concepts.
*Description: Based on 3rd-party units created by various Total Annihilation unit groups and BSR's Uberhack, this is a port of the popular Absolute Annihilation mod to Spring. It is developed by Caydr, and is the most played mod on Spring.http://taspring.clan-sy.com/stats/ It is an attempt at a balanced version of Total Annihilation.
XTA.
*Author(s): Swedish Yankspanker Clan
*Copyright status: TA models, textures, sounds, concepts.
*Description: This mod is packaged with the game, and developed by the Swedish Yankspankers. It is also designed to be a further balanced mod of Total Annihilation, but does not have the number of units that AA has. Starting from the 0.70b1 version of Spring, XTA: Pimped Edition is included with TA: Spring, which includes more advanced graphics than the original XTA. This mod is the second most played mod on TA: Spring.
TA: World Domination.
*Author(s): GrOuNd_ZeRo, Maestro
*Copyright status: Some TA textures, sounds from several sources.
*Description: This mod is designed to simulate modern combat.
Final Frontier "The Next Generation of War".
*Author(s): Savant, Optimus Prime
*Copyright status: TA textures, sounds, concepts.
*Description: This mod features spaceship combat.
Star Wars TA.
*Author(s): Gnome, Warlord Zinsj
*Copyright status: Fan art.
*Description: This mod is designed to simulate combat as shown in the Star Wars movies.
Gundam Annihilation.
*Author(s): Smoth
*Copyright status: Fan art.
*Description: A mod focusing more on building than resource collection, Gundam Annihilation features Gundam combat.
The Lost Legacy.
*Author(s): M3G
*Copyright status: Unknown
*Description: This mod adds a new race to TA Spring, featuring 150 new units.
UberHack.
*Author(s): BSR
*Copyright status: TA models, textures, sounds, concepts.
*Description: Another rebalanced take on Total Annihilation gameplay.
Expand & Exterminate
*Author(s): Fang
*Copyright status: TA textures, sounds.
*Description: A mod featuring three sides that each focus on a different strength; Speed, Power, Versatility
Xect vs. Mynn.
*Author(s): Chris "Xenoclone" Jorgensen, "Foe OfTheBee" and a others.
*Copyright status: GPL
*Description: The original Xect vs. Mynn ported to the Spring engine.

Community

Spring has a small, close-knit community that evolved from the original Total Annhilation community. At any given time, one can find many users online on the main Spring server. The more experienced users tend to know each other. A rank system is maintained to demonstrate the experience of its members. The different ranks are:

Newbie, shown by one chevron. These users have played for less than five hours.
Beginner, shown by two chevrons. These users have played for between five and fifteen hours.
Average, shown by three chevrons. These users have played for between fifteen and thirty hours.
Experienced, shown by three chevrons, one pica. These users have played for between thirty and one hundred hours.
Highly Experienced, shown by a star. These users have played for more than one hundred hours.

The future

As TA Spring continues to grow and improve, additional features will be added. The following is a list of currently planned features that are not yet implemented in TA Spring:

A new unit scripting format to replace the outdated COB scripting language used by TA. A new unit format has already been made, replacing the outdated .3do, by adding UV mapping, self illumination, and better support for team colours.
A new map format, similar to Warcraft III's map format.
A totally reworked GUI.
Dynamic explosion, weapon and unit lighting.

References

External links

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