How the Total Annihilation Economy Works

Total Annihilation has two resources, metal and energy, and every unit and structure costs some of each. Both arrive as a steady flow of income. Builders also spend them steadily while they work, not in one payment.

Income and Spending

The resource bar at the top of the screen shows four figures for each resource: the amount stored, the maximum storage, the production (+) and the usage (-). When a builder starts a job, your stores do not drop by the full price at once. They fall gradually while the work goes on. Hold the cursor over a working builder to see its metal and energy use in the status bar.

Every mission in the original Arm and Core campaigns starts you with 1000 metal and 1000 energy. In multiplayer, the host sets the starting amounts, from 0 to 10,000. The Commander itself makes 25 energy and 1 metal, and construction units make a little of each.

When usage is higher than production, your stores shrink. When one of them is empty, you have a stall, and your builders are held back. The 1997 manual warns that nothing can be built without enough energy, however much metal you have stored. Some weapons also draw on the same energy: the Sentinel heavy laser tower uses 75 energy for every shot.

Metal Extractors

A Metal Extractor mines the ground under it and uses 3 energy to do so. It works best on a metal deposit, a patch of shiny rocks. The more rocks you see, the richer the deposit, and the faster the extractor spins.

Each map sets how much metal lies in the ground. The green planet of A Hero Returns has a surface metal value of 3. The metal world of Welcome to CORE PRIME has 254. On Core's metal planets, the 1997 manual says, you can place an extractor anywhere.

Advanced construction units build the Moho Mine. Its extraction value in the data is 0.003, three times the basic extractor's 0.001. It costs 1508 metal and 8700 energy and uses 15 energy. The Core Contingency added an Underwater Metal Extractor for deposits under water.

Metal Makers

A Metal Maker converts energy into metal at a rate of 60 energy for 1 metal. It costs no metal to build, only 687 energy in the Arm version. Metal makers can be switched on and off, so you can stop them when energy is short.

The Core Contingency added the Moho Metal Maker, built by advanced construction units. The Arm version turns 800 energy into 16 metal, or 50 energy for each metal. The Core version turns 625 energy into 12 metal. The expansion's notes say it works best when a fusion plant powers it.

Solar, Wind and Tidal Power

A Solar Collector makes a fixed 20 energy. The 1997 manual calls it the most reliable source of energy. It costs 145 metal and 760 energy.

A Wind Generator is cheaper, at 52 metal and 509 energy, but its output changes all the time with the wind. Each map sets a minimum and a maximum wind speed. Titanium Fist Bay, from Battle Tactics, has the highest maximum of any mission: its wind runs from 2000 to 8000. On the moons Dump and Aegus, both values are 0, so wind generators there make no energy.

A Tidal Generator must be built in water. Its output depends on the map's tidal strength, which is 0 on 43 of the 175 missions. CORE KBot Base, Destroy It! has a tidal strength of 37, and The Purgation of Aqueous Minor has the highest, 48. The map editor's notes confirm that these two map settings control the two generators.

Fusion and Geothermal Plants

A Geothermal Powerplant makes 250 energy, but it can only stand on a geothermal vent, a spot where steam rises from the ground. The Commander cannot build it, so you need a construction unit. The map editor's notes tell map makers to keep vents rare, because they give so much cheap energy.

A Fusion Reactor makes 1000 energy and needs no special site. The Core Fusion Power Plant makes 1050. Only advanced construction units can build them, and they are expensive: the Arm reactor costs 5130 metal and 36,058 energy. A reactor that is destroyed explodes, doing 2000 damage across an area of 516.

The Core Contingency added a Cloakable Fusion Reactor, which spends some of its output to stay hidden. It also added the Underwater Fusion Plant, which makes 1150 energy for Arm and 1200 for Core.

Storage

Income that you do not spend collects in your stores, up to your maximum storage. Energy Storage adds 3000 to your energy capacity, and Metal Storage adds 1000 to your metal capacity. The underwater versions from The Core Contingency add 4000 energy and 1500 metal. The 1997 manual advises building up stores before you need them.

Reclaiming

The Commander and the construction units can reclaim. Trees, bushes, moss and other plants give energy, but grass gives nothing. Rocks, lumps of ore and the wrecks of destroyed units give metal. The 1997 manual suggests reclaiming trees and rocks when your stores run low. A unit destroyed by the Commander's D-gun leaves no metal to reclaim.

Build Power and Build Time

In the game data, every unit has a build time, and every builder has a build power (its workertime value). Divide the build time by the build power and you get a measure of how long the job takes. A smaller result means a faster job. For a builder whose build power is a multiple of 30, such as the Commander, the result is the time in seconds at normal speed. The game rounds other build powers down to a multiple of 30, so a Construction KBot takes longer than its result (see build power).

For example, the Arm Solar Collector has a build time of 2495:

The Commander's result is about one quarter of the Construction KBot's, and in real time it builds five times as fast. Factories have build power too: a Kbot Lab has 100 and an Adv. Kbot Lab has 200.

Several builders can work on one job. Order a second builder to repair a structure that is still being built, and it adds its build power to the job. The 1997 manual recommends two or three Construction KBots on each job, because one alone is slow. The 2000 manual suggests extra builders when a job is slow and you have plenty of metal and energy.

Sources

• Total Annihilation manual (1997): game components, resource bar, unit costs, the tutorial missions.
• Total Annihilation manual (2000 re-release): resources, construction units, unit descriptions and glossary.
• The Core Contingency readme (taccread.txt) and Battle Tactics readme (btreadme.txt): new economy structures.
• Total Annihilation Map and Mission Editor readme (taeread.txt): wind speed, tidal strength, surface metal and vents.
• Game data from the GOG release of version 3.1c: unit values (units.json), build lists (builds.json) and mission settings, as shown on the unit pages and the Arm and Core build trees.