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| Total Conversion to Worker | ||||
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| Total Conversion |
Or TC.
A custom modification
that changes the original game into something entirely new. It goes beyond
patching a few graphics or changing a few sounds and instead transforms
the game completely. The entire graphic and sound line up is replaced; rules
and units are replaced. Usually, fans like to produce Star Wars or Star
Trek versions of their favourite games, or extrapolate on the original story
with their own ideas of how the sequel should go. Sometimes the TC is simply
using the game engine to do its own thing, completely separate from the
original's concept: TC's for games like Quake
or Half-life
extend the original gameplay considerably. Counter-Strike
would be an obvious example, and Team
Fortress and Capture
the Flag are classic variants on the FPS model. In Total
Annihilation, The Lost Legacy,
World Domination mod and TA
Operation Barbarossa are TC's that either add third new race to the
game, or completely replace the two existing races with completely different
sides.  |
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| Tower | A tall, strong building that is used to defend a base or fortify a strategic location on the map. Towers come in two main forms: Lookout towers: these are often unarmed structures that can see further than your other buildings and are used to keep an eagle eye out on your base's perimeter. Armed towers: by far the most frequent
example of a tower. The usual form of a tower is a heavily fortified building
that is armed, and designed to impede the enemy from wrecking your base.
Classic examples are found in historical games like Age of Empires or
Cossacks where castles and keeps are the norm. Towers can be best thought
of as an immobile defensive unit. Some people refer to them as any immobile,
armed unit; so a pillbox, a laser on a tripod, or a giant Tesla Coil could
qualify as a tower. (RTSC tends to refer to these as Turrets. See
below.) |
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| Turret | 1.) An armed Structure. This might be a laser weapon on a stand, a coastal naval gun, or even a Medieval watchtower. Turrets are generally defensive units ('cos they can't MOVE!) although you can use turrets aggressively by building (or "creeping") them progressively into an enemy base. (Actually, this can be a really nifty way to INFURIATE your opponents. I can't recommend it highly enough!) 2.) A rotating weapon housing mounted
on a vehicle. The speed at which turrets can turn to the enemy can become
tactically decisive. In Homeworld
for example, turrets appear on most ship classes; on the big units like
Destroyers or Battlecruisers they're very slow to turn. This allows smaller
and faster fighters to slip past these behemoth's defences despite their
awesome weaponry. The turrets' angles of fire determines whether the unit
has to waste time manoeuvring to line up on an enemy instead of blasting
something else in front of it. And while its not shooting, your worthy
opponent is given the opportunity to run rings around you and dole out
some damage. The same applies in a more two dimensional way to any warship
on the high seas or tank rolling across the battlefield. Faster turning
turrets can trump slower moving ones, even if the slowpokes are more powerful.
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| tvb | Acronym: Top vs
Bottom. In RTS netgames with about four or more people in them, a
TVB game refers to the top half of the player's list teaming up against
the bottom half. Its a quick and easy way to organize a game full of complete
strangers into two teams. Other variants include games based on players'
starting positions on the map: NvS (North vs South),
LvR (Left vs Right), EvW
(East vs West) and other variations such as LvS
(Land vs Sea). |
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| ty | Chat acronym: Thank
You. In the fast and furious world of RTS combat, you don't often
get the chance to thank your team mates when they've helped you out; a quick
ty does the job nicely. |
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| Unit | C'mon! You should know what this
is by now! More details
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| Unit Limit | The maximum number of units
you are currently allowed to build for your economy
at any one moment. This limit can be increased by building additional Farms
(or Houses, warehouses, etc.) to increase the number
of units you can support in your economy. You can extend your unit
limit with farms until you reach your economy's Population
Limit. |
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| Unit Cap | Another way of describing
Unit Limit or Population
Limit, depending on the context its used in. |
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| Vehicle Cap | Like a Population
Cap, this is an arbitrary limit to the maximum number of vehicles
that a player can ever have at the same time in a game. Some games cover
all units in a generic Unit Cap, others split infantry and vehicles into
their own specialised caps. Usually, a vehicle cap is there to keep the
game fair, and is much smaller than a unit cap in order to prevent spammage
and to keep the game fair. A cap may represent the actual number of units
you can have, or is a set of points that represent the total amount of
economic "support" that your forces may require. More
details. |
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| Waypoint | A user defined point on the map, used for marking out, dot-to-dot style, the route for a unit to travel along. A string of waypoints is used to define a navigational route for your units to take, usually to force them to follow the route you want, not the one their primitive navigational skills will default to. Units by default attempt to travel from A to B in a straight line. This
often means the silly fools will stupidly march into the enemy's guns
or get stuck in a dead end somewhere. They aren't that intelligent, although
this is rapidly improving with newer RTS titles. Waypointing is the only
way to go when defining circular patrol routes. For early game scouting,
you really should be clicking out a string of waypoints across your minimap
for your scouts to rapidly explore the map early on. More
details |
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| Wonder | A Wonder
represents the pinnacle of achievement that your side can produce and are
used by many RTS games - and a lot of turn based strategy games - as a game
objective in themselves. This is a huge, expensive and exotic structure
that usually bestows some kick-arse benefits to your civilisation as a whole.
Think of the Great Pyramids of Egypt, or the Statue of Liberty. Rather than
conquering the world, players can win the game by being the first to build
a Wonder, opting for a Wonder Victory. Age of
Empires games and Rise of Nations use them to great effect. Turn based epics
like Civilization use Wonders as both buildings and researchable techs.
They're very slow to build and very expensive, and only one of each can
ever be built in a game. Starting one can often signal that the end of the
game is in sight and this is the last chance for other players to do something
about it. Wonders offer an elegant solution to
giving a game focus or breaking a deadlock that doesn't involve blowing
things up. |
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| Worker | There's lots of terms for workers:
peons, peasants, colonists,
drones, constructors,
builders, settlers,
SCV's, etc. etc. Its a generic reference
to any kind of general purpose unit that builds or repairs units and buildings,
or collects resources. RTS games that use workers (as distinct from
Harvesters) usually
need teams of them to get an economy off the ground. They're often categorised
as civilian units. In wonderful capitalist
style, workers are usually very cheap, unarmed, utterly compliant and pretty
much completely expendable. Experienced players will generate dozens of
them before feeling comfortable with the state of their economy. Some games
like to split the various roles up into separate worker units: e.g. Homeworld
offers the Harvester, Repair Corvette, Salvage Corvette and Support Frigate.
Other examples: StarCraft's
Terran SCV, Zerg Drone and Protoss Probe; Age
of Empire's peasants; Total
Annihilation's many and varied Construction units; and the Settlers
series has a veritable horde of worker subspecies that practically
make up the entire game: Porters, Levelers, Builders, Stonecutters, Woodsmen,
Rangers, Smithies, Fishermen, Farmers, Pig Farmers, Butchers, Bakers, Weapon
Smiths, Tool Smiths... you get the idea. |
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Last reformatted Tue, 08-May-2007 by Lindsay Fleay