ARM level 1 ships

This Post will be describing the uses of ARM level one ships. Level one ships are made by a shipyard (really weird, huh?) and the ship yard must be placed in a pretty deep area of the ocean. This seems to beg the question, How do you get shipyards then? Well, you could make a construction aircraft and then have it make the shipyard, but this is usually impractical, but due to some keen insight on behalf of the TA designers the COMMANDER is amphibious!!! Unfortunately, he is defenseless underwater, but what you gonna do?

CONSTRUCTION SHIP This is a useful unit. It make things such as floating turrets, underwater resource collecting structures, and of course, The advanced shipyard. This unit is priceless on a water map where Air and Naval units are your only two options. It is fast and has a decent nanolathe.*****

SKEETER this is the ARM scout ship. It is equiped with a light laser and a guided missle launcher. The missles are weak, but are good AA, infact, many veteran players use about ten of these for AA purposes instead of making the ARCHER the arm AA ship, made by the advanced shipyard. These scouts can be used for raiding (since they are faster than any other sea unit) and can take on a lone destroyer or two if you have enough of them. You will need about ten to destroy a lone Destroyer and you will take high losses if you try. Destroyers are just better at their job. Period. SKEETERs can be used to prevent an early naval expansion by the enemy, if you can get some skeeters to the enemy coast before they make a ship yard. Counter SKEETERS with DESTROYERS and plasma batteries. ****

CRUSADER this is the ARMS destroyer. It has a fast turning main turret compared to the core ENFORCER and is equiped with sonar and depth charges. This ship is easily made and most players love them. Warning: do not think this should be your main ship. A cruiser or Aircraft carrier is much more important to your fleet. This ship should be made in groups of ten and used in anti-sub combat. They are cheap and effective, but remember, a cruiser is far better, and though I won't go into why now a carrier is one of the most valuable ships there is. Also, since a CRUSADERS turret has a faster turn rate, you can run it in a circle around an ENFORCER and destroy it. The destroyer is a priceless unit, but do not think it to be invincable. Counter with Bombers, Warlords, and Plasma batteries.****

LURKER the ARM basic submarine. Most people say these are utterly useless, and they are mostly right. It has high costs and is slow. It's torpedos are unguided and a destroyer can take them out in one on one combat. However, it has the ability to destroy a battleship, Missle frigate, or aircraft carrier with a stunning accuracy. AA ships are also vulnerable. Why you ask? well you see, none of the above have sonar or anti sub weapons so subs are perfect at destroying them. other than this, you can also run up to an enemy destroyer and watch as your torpedos pummel it but their depth charge overshoots. Counter subs with Torpedo launchers, torpedo bombers, and Destroyers. ***

HULK Arm transport. It can hold several units in it's hull and it is called useless by most players. Or is it? People say that an air transport is better at invasion. I admit they drive a strong argument. Only an airtransport has the unique ability to blown out of the sky by any missile equiped unit, making them great for destroying YOUR army, I mean having all those combat units laying around to defend your base and launch attacks is totally overated, right?

Still, sfter driving this point people still say "uhhh... well air trans. are faster" unfortunatly people don't seem to get that having your units make it to whatever your attacking is just as important as attacking it. In fact I have probably used transports to mount an invasion no less than 5 times in the past three days. The best one included a HULK dropping a squad of mavericks on the enemy beach, the MAVs then proceeded to obliterate the enemy base. People will also say that these guys have light armor. This makes me say "as long as they survive long enough to put 4 MAVs on the beach, then Im good" and a Hulk can do exactly that. counter with subs and destroyers. ****

The war that destroyed a million worlds. Part 1

Three Arm cruisers made their way through the tossing waves, running back to their main harbor after sneaking through Core occupied seas, Their valuable cargo still intact. The cargo of Supreme Commander Pyron - 253. Pyron sat quitelly on the bridge of the cruiser Redeemer, content to watch the soft lights of the Distant harbor slowly approach. He sighed, this world, he thought, like so many others was almost destroyed. It was a shame to, this world had been colonized long ago, but a great disaster had destroyed the tecnology of the colony and the war had prevented a rescue team to be sent. The people gradually forgot that they had come from another planet and had been blissfully unaware of the war that raged sometimes just a few lightyears away. Now of course, that had all changed. In the blink of an eye resource hungry Core scouts had landed, and though they were repelled by overwhelming numbers of the populance they had returned later, desperate for metal. The most Ironic thing was that the date the Arm had begun to battle the Core on this system just so happened to correspond with a supposed doomsday prophecy, somthing called 2012.... Oh well, Pyron thought, nothing was going to change that now. The "Earth" as the natives called it had been striped of more than half of it's resources and Billions of locals were killed in the process. The rest had ether fled, joined the Arm, or were patterned. Now that the Core was begining to pull out, The natives would no doubt attempt to rebuild, but that would take years. Pyron looked up, A force of Hawks and some incredibly advanced native fighter (though still very primitive compared to the Hawk's VTOL engines) known as "F-22s" flew above them to provide some air cover. Pyron fingered a control panel bringing up a hologram of the Solar system that Earth resided in and looked at the planet that had been one of the reasons they had come here in the first place. The planet that had been named for the messenger of the gods, but a substance had been found upon it. A substance that would make it the messenger of Death.

Arm Level 1 K-bots

This post will be describing the ARM's level one K-bots (infantry). It will include unit's from all expansions as well as from the original game. This will be true for all unit concerned posts. The guide will also say the best way to use these units and there weapons. The structure that makes K-bots by the way, is called...... A K-bot lab. Confusing, Huh? oh well.... Just have fun reading this!!!

COMMANDER Technically, you can't make a commander, you just start out with one. In the beginning of a skirmish or Multi player game you will start with only your COMY. He is equipped with a D-GUN weapon and is the only unit that can capture enemy units. The capturing is self explanatory, but the D-Gun is a weapon only the commander has. It can destroy any unit in one shot, but takes 450 energy to fire. Useful in the event of an attack. Also if the commy dies you typically lose automatically if the game is set to continue in the event of his death, then you will probably lose anyway considering his explosion will kill most of your base (it's huge) and his high speed construction output would be sourly missed. The commander can make the most basic structures and defenses. Of course since you need him:*****

CONSTRUCTION K-BOT LEVEL 1 This unit is a basic construction unit that makes structures and turrets that are slightly more advanced than a commander's. Unfortunately, it has a lower nanolathe (construction output) than a CON. vehicle. The only reason that you should make a CON. K-bot is to upgrade to an advanced K-bot lab. This unit also has low health and move speed. It can be out run by every unit except a CAN, SUMO, or CRAWLING BOMB. When you consider that there are more than 150 units in TA, this thing is pretty slow.**

PEEWEE Although this is the ARM's basic infantry K-bot, I must say that it can kill every CORE level one K-bot as long as it is in the hands of at least a competent player, Likewise it can even take on some CORE level two K-Bots and come out on top. It's armament consists of two EMGs (energy machine guns) and can use them with deadly accuracy. A good way to use these fast firing weapons is to run the PEEWEE in a circle around an enemy unit avoiding the enemies lasers and hammering them with your own EMGs. The PEEWEE is the most effective tech one infantry you can make (many people say the WARRIOR is but when you think about the fact that you can make three PEEWEEs for one WARRIOR, that advantage disappears) unfortunately, every great unit has it's weakness. For the PEEWEE this is light armor. It holds out well in the first half hour or so of the game but once the advanced units begin to appear (such as the CAN and the MORTY) it's toast. The PEEWEE makes up for light armor with speed, but it's weapons do not have the range to avoid close combat, so they will die going up against a CAN or SUMO. A good way to use PEEWEEs is to raid the enemy early on in 5-10 PEEWEE groups supported by three or so ROCKOS. A player who LOVES to raid enemies early on is Thinair, who is commonly seen on WAR ZONE, one of TA's multiplayer providers. Another PEEWEE strategy is to run right up to a heavy tank and watch as the PEEWEE steadily mows down it's health and the Tank shoots over it's head. counter PEEWEEs with CANS Heavy laser turrets and aircraft****

ROCKO This is the Arms Rocket launching K-bot. They fire a high damage, but unfortunately unguided, rocket. This means that they are utterly useless against mobile targets. They are, Thankfully, good at targeting turrets and structures. They can also shoot beyond their line of sight, which means that they can sit back, relay, and completely annihilate a turret as long as a scout unit is providing line of sight for them. This will not work on Missile and plasma batteries though, because they actually have a longer range than ROCKOs. These units are semi-fast and are a fine complement to a raiding force of PEEWEEs. They can also be used, though not as effective, by themselves. It has decent armor too. Use them to Destroy Turrets and structures. A good combo is to use some FLEAS to scout for ROCKOs, PEEWEEs should also be used for escorts. Counter ROCKOS with Plasma batteries and Light Tanks.***

HAMMER ARM artillery K-bot it is short ranged compared to other artillery units, and it is not commonly made in TA. It is slow and pretty useless. Many argue that it is good in large numbers, but so is a PEEWEE and PEEWEEs cost much less. It also has light armor, and cannot fire without first "unplugging" it's twin light cannons. Do not make this unit. However, do not think the same should be said for the CORE variant; The Thud. The THUD is virtually the same but it has the rare ability to climb straight up a cliff, which is very useful, because you do not have to pay for an air transport to move some artillery into a strategic position, or if your hiding. All in all the HAMMER gets only one *

JETHRO Arm AA K-bot fires a low damage guided missile. This is not very good at it's job and Missile vehicles are much better. Thinair, previously mentioned, always makes one of these at the beginning of a game before he makes a CON. K-bot so the enemy can not swoop in with a Air transport and capture your technology. Other than this it is useless. DO NOT MAKE. *

WARRIOR Arm medium attack K-bot. Good armor but not enough speed it also has a bad armament: one (only one) EMG and a grenade launcher that doesn't really work all that well. It is also expensive and takes time to build. If not for the armor it would be useless. I do not typically make these and there's good reason for it: The resources would be better spent on upgrading to an advanced K-bot Lab. Counter with PYROS, Aircraft, and tanks.***

FLEA I once heard Fleas described as: What's a Cavedog without Fleas? The FLEA is a small, inexpensive scout unit. It is the smallest unit in the game, other than perhaps a crawling bomb. They are VERY fast and can climb straight up a cliff to a place where your opponent may have thought that only AA would be needed to defend. They can then destroy the Solar collectors and Metal extractors at that region at your leisure. Unfortunately, it has non-existent armor and will get chewed up by..... Anything. So make a few of these to scout, but don't overdue em. Even if they are the cheapest unit in the game there is still that annoying little thing called a unit limit. This can be modified, but to many units will cause the connection to lag. so a horde of a thousand fleas is definitely not a good idea.****

UNIT RANKING'S KEY

UNIT RANKING Without this you won't know what the different amounts of * mean at the end of a unit's description. This will be helpful to you if your just skimming and trying to see what I think of a certain unit. OK so here goes:

* = This unit stinks, No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Complete waste of resources. DO NOT MAKE

** = Barely acceptable. Do not make unless you are desperate or need to upgrade via "it"

*** = OK unit, you should make a few of these, but do not depend on these units.

**** = A unit that simply can not survive a late game battle or is only used for one purpose.

***** = An EXCELLENT unit, make as many of these as possible, They are necessary to win.

First tip on TA..... I hope this works.........

Well for all you bloggers that don't know TA (or total Annihilation) was released by Cavedog industries in 1997. It quickly became the most popular game of the year and the year after that and that. It won more than 57 awards including beating world of warcraft for best game of the year award in 2004. For you non-mathematicals out there, thats seven years after it was released. Impressed? Well, another thing is that Cavedog released two expansion packs as well as the original TA and then TA's 3.1 modification. These are titled: The Core contingency and Battle Tactics, you can;t blame cavedog for the lame Battle tactics name though, because Cavedog was bought by infrogames before battle tactic's release. If you get into Ta by reading this blog you may think it's familiar from somwhere... Know why? 'cause Ta's lead designer also designed Supreme Commander and the Sup. com. II. Now for the campaign story....... The basic idea (I'll wright more on this later) Is that somewhere in the far future of our galaxy An empire named the CORE will arise. This is a good Empire, until (duh, duh, duh, duuuhhhhh) It figures out how to transfer somones mind into a Robot, Technically making them immortal. It requires this process for all it's citizens as a Health requirement. Thankfully, The good old ARM rebellion shows up, a group that wants to preserve the "traditional" way of life and prevent the CORE from patterning any more Innocents. Anyway the war drags on for four thousand years (and you guys thought vietnam was bad) until a new commander emerges on one side (you choose) and that commander just so happens to be....... YOU!!!!! You fight for your chosen side through a 25 mission campaign (both campaigns are the same length) until you reach the enemies capitol planet that you spend the last 5 missions of the campaign fighting for. Now the Arm's Capitol (i think this is right) is Empyyrean. The Core's (this is hard to remember) is ........ CORE PRIME a completely metal planet!!! This means that if you run out of metal on this planet TA just isn't your thing. Empyyrean is a very green and lush world though. There are many other planets such as rougpelt, thalasian, Hydros, barathum, Luush, and many more!!! You can find TA on ebay if you are new or if you are a veteran TA player, stay posted for tips and tricks.