Absolute Annihilation (AA) is a custom unit pack that is based on the ÜberHack mod. In a nutshell, it basically picks up where the famous ÜberHack mod left off. AA is a mega-mod, but not quite the unit mash of UTASP or TAUCP. All its units are selected from a selection found from high quality unit sites or those that have been tested to destruction in Unit Review Central.

The basic philosophy behind AA is imagining what Total Annihilation might have looked like if Cavedog hadn't died and had kept producing a downloadable unit once every week. At first glance, this looks and feels like ÜberHack with extra units, but there has been a lot of fine tuning and adjustments made. Most units have been extensively modified to fit in. Actually, Its not too shabby at all. For some time during its lengthy development phase, it suffered from inherent instability and crashing, but the latest versions seem to shrugged off most issues and this modification is eminently playable. The mod attempts to keep every unit usable and useful throughout the game. While there are a fair few advanced units, and even a nice selection of Krogoth level super units, there aren't any super-sized resourcing facilities or units that instantly render all others obsolete. Producing a Krogoth level unit is a bit of an event in the game, and requires a considerable amount of time and effort trying to build up an economy to mass produce them.

The Readme sums up its philosophy in one sentence: "For every form of attack or defense, there must be a countermeasure; there are no defenses too strong, and no attack too potent to route entirely."

Current version 6.0. Absolute Annihilation incorporates some of the TA Evolva mod's texture "upgrade" for a lot of the original TA units, comes with its own special AA Maps Pack, and includes within the one (big) file a number of mapping and AI resources, all designed with its own custom units in mind. Note: this mod requires its own pristine installation of TA and is NOT TA:Mutation compatible. See also AA's ModDATABASE Listing.

Current Spring Version: 2.11. AA has effectively moved across to the 3D world of the TA Spring project. Its alive and well and still developing. See its Spring Wiki entry for more juicy details. You can find its old Planet Annihilation hosted web site or access its current SourceForge homepage here.

Current version: v3 build 12 beta at Mayhem, Inc. GMTA hasn't posted anything new or any news since 2003...

The Pack is yet another custom unit mega-pack based on the ubiquitous ÜberHack mod, this is notable for being the only mega-pack to be designed for the Macintosh first and then ported to the PC. There are a number of maps expressly made for it, and it comes both in standard and Macutator format. It combines not just the old ÜberHack mod but also its two expansion packs: the Community and Tech4 Packs to produce a mod that maxes out all the unit and weapon slots in the game. The Pack originates from a LAN group in Vancouver, and has been hammered out and tempered for LAN play - so it should give you plenty of solid netgaming action. Its also very much alive and under development, and while the mod itself may not be getting much attention, there seems to be a constant stream of some truly splendiferous epic class maps for it coming out.

Give it a whirl! Current version: 1.1 both in "standard" and Macutator versions.

The Raven TA Compilation Mod mostly adds just advanced units, so your opening moves aren't going to that different from a regular TA game. However, things rapidly get interesting when the advanced bots, tanks and artillery click into high gear, and by the time you've installed the Krogoth Gantry you're faced with a bewildering choice of ultra-units. If you've dabbled with some of the mega mods like UTASP or TAUCP, you'll recognise many of the elements in play, but if you felt that the aforementioned mods were just too big and clunky, then Raven TA may just be the thing. It doesn't try to fill every available unit slot in the game, and unlike its contemporaries keeps its mega resourcing and turrets far up the build tree locked away in their own special Krogoth level constructor bot. By limiting the number of customs, this mod seems less prone to unit duplication, redundancies and endless balance issues. It emphasises Arm's high tech special units versus Core's heavier armour and harder hitting weapons. Arm also gets a Spider Lab, and a wonderfully hideous, giant black bug called Monstro.

This is very recommended! Current version: 1.02.

Spring: or TA:Spring, is not mega because it has units coming out of its ears, but for a bigger reason: this is a homegrown RTS project with its own 3D game engine, currently in development by the ubiquitousSwedish Yankspankers. Using TA's units and data structure as a starting point, the YankSpankers intend to build the "best RTS ever". The ultimate goal is to make something completely unique and independent. Yep, you get to order stuff around just as you always did, except now you can actually be in there. You get three modes of operation: the classic, top down RTS interface; a Total War style battlefield camera; and a first person shooter perspective that actually lets you drive a units around by hand, as well as control and sight down the barrels of individual turrets.

TA Spring is networkable, has its own game lobby, and its own burgeoning online subculture. It seems to have reinvigorated the TA community into yet another round of life. There are two custom AI's for it: JCAI and NTAI, and a number of existing TA custom mods, such as Absolute Annihilation and the ÜberHack have been ported across to it and are constantly posting updates. It has its own Wikipedia detailing everything about the game, including how to make maps and units for it, and there's a Guide which will get you over the initial hump of trying to work out Spring's weeeird 3D interface.

There are same basic shaders in the engine, so now water looks rather nice, the ground has proper texturing and grass, and all the metals now glint and reflect their environment. The air wars are genuine 3D, not the flat, "glass pane" affairs of the original TA. With the air full of aircraft, - aircraft that actually dogfight, that is - battlefields really come alive.

It might be amazing, but it's still a backyard operation and lacks some polish. Beginners should start with the trilingual Spring Wiki which takes through all the basics. Nevertheless, the results are pretty amazing. Definitely worth keeping an eye on.

You can find all of the custom mods developed for Spring at their various forums here.

This is open source, so you yourself can contribute to this project. Current version: 74b3.