Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS) • Hacker News Board

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#41

Post by embedding-shape » Sun, Jun 21, 2026, 2:07 PM UTC

estearum wrote: post #25

aetherspawn wrote: post #14

Great game, technically impressive, but the community can be quite mean and toxic. I played for around a year after having played other TA Spring RTS for a few years prior, and if you don’t follow the exact meta of the month (whatever that might be) in terms of build order and things, people can get really aggro and your team can vote to kick you and take your units. Also, one particularly aggravating part of the com…

It's amazing the degree to which streaming/online communities around video games have destroyed the games themselves. Every update to every game launches a large scale effort to find the "meta" which is then instantly disseminated to the most try-hard assholes on the Internet. Anyone who dares to develop their own strategy/style/loadout is up against hordes of people (a growing proportion every day) who just copy wha…

> It's amazing the degree to which streaming/online communities around video games have destroyed the games themselves

I think they might destroy the streaming/online communities, but I wouldn't say it destroys the game itself. I play BAR, but never with random strangers, the game works fine, but I also don't participate in any "video game" communities or watch/play with streamers, so what you're saying sounds very foreign to me, and is more about the communities than the games themselves.

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#42

Post by qznc » Sun, Jun 21, 2026, 2:08 PM UTC

zeafoamrun wrote: post #3

This looks really slick and also very detailed. Is it free as in beer or free as in freedom?

Built on the Recoil engine: https://recoilengine.org/

Which is a fork of the Spring RTS engine: https://springrts.com/

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#43

Post by embedding-shape » Sun, Jun 21, 2026, 2:08 PM UTC

RugnirViking wrote: post #18

aetherspawn wrote: post #14

Great game, technically impressive, but the community can be quite mean and toxic. I played for around a year after having played other TA Spring RTS for a few years prior, and if you don’t follow the exact meta of the month (whatever that might be) in terms of build order and things, people can get really aggro and your team can vote to kick you and take your units. Also, one particularly aggravating part of the com…

Wow, that sounds awful. That's beyond optimising the fun out of a game, it's straight up refusing to have fun. One wonders what they get from it?

Different people get different things out of video games (and everything, really). For some, the fun is learning, and the game stops being fun when you understand it (this is me). For others, the fun starts after they're learned, and starts being good at it, but still have competition with others. For yet others, mastering it and being the best is the fun.

All these groups of people sometimes play in the same lobbies, and what the players "gain" from the session can be very different depending on the person. There is no "right or wrong" way to play video games, or the right/wrong motivation for it, it's just different.

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#44

Post by jpwgarrison » Sun, Jun 21, 2026, 2:10 PM UTC

aetherspawn wrote: post #14

Great game, technically impressive, but the community can be quite mean and toxic. I played for around a year after having played other TA Spring RTS for a few years prior, and if you don’t follow the exact meta of the month (whatever that might be) in terms of build order and things, people can get really aggro and your team can vote to kick you and take your units. Also, one particularly aggravating part of the com…

This is a common reaction and the response is common too: this is only the case if you follow the herd to 8v8 and the two club-like maps they fixate on. But if you study the community for 5 minutes first, you can walk past those two “pubs full of toxic jerks fighting” there are a dozen other options. Single player, PvE, 1v1 through 4v4 and FFA. These (smaller) game modes lack the level of drama you see in 8v8. You just have to go into the quiet restaurant with nerds playing chess and other board games instead of the obvious mess of a drunken bar across the street.

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#45

Post by somat » Sun, Jun 21, 2026, 2:12 PM UTC

b3ing wrote: post #29

aetherspawn wrote: post #14

Great game, technically impressive, but the community can be quite mean and toxic. I played for around a year after having played other TA Spring RTS for a few years prior, and if you don’t follow the exact meta of the month (whatever that might be) in terms of build order and things, people can get really aggro and your team can vote to kick you and take your units. Also, one particularly aggravating part of the com…

Does it have a solo mode?

No campain but there are stand alone scenerios you can play. There is also a fun swarm defense sort of thing(rapters) if you like tower defense style gameplay.

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#46

Post by cwillu » Sun, Jun 21, 2026, 2:13 PM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #37

The game itself notwithstanding, is this website marketingslop? I don't think it's AI but it's definitely not written by the developers.

And your evidence for this is what exactly?

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#47

Post by netsharc » Sun, Jun 21, 2026, 2:13 PM UTC

Panzer04 wrote: post #21

plopz wrote: post #16

Theres been some drama with this game where a few of the core admins have claimed ownership and sold out to a publisher. They are taking the free open source game and selling it on steam with a free demo. In addition to the toxic community, its made the whole thing a bit radioactive. Curious to see how it all plays out.

Well, they can't sell out the game code. That's not how GPL works.

I'm pretty sure you can. But if it's GPL, you need to provide source to the buyer, and the buyer can publish that source for free.

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#48

Post by NortySpock » Sun, Jun 21, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

b3ing wrote: post #29

aetherspawn wrote: post #14

Great game, technically impressive, but the community can be quite mean and toxic. I played for around a year after having played other TA Spring RTS for a few years prior, and if you don’t follow the exact meta of the month (whatever that might be) in terms of build order and things, people can get really aggro and your team can vote to kick you and take your units. Also, one particularly aggravating part of the com…

Does it have a solo mode?

BAR does have a series of scenarios for singleplayer / offline play.

Or in multiplayer you can arrange a co-operative game with humans against AI opponents, which often has substantially less flaming involved, especially when playing a "survive against an onslaught of enemies" scenario.

Also the account system of course allows for muting, avoiding-being-paired-with, or fully blocking players. For more egregious behavior a player can be reported to moderators and temporarily / permanently suspended if they break the community code-of-conduct.

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#49

Post by NikolaNovak » Sun, Jun 21, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

RugnirViking wrote: post #18

aetherspawn wrote: post #14

Great game, technically impressive, but the community can be quite mean and toxic. I played for around a year after having played other TA Spring RTS for a few years prior, and if you don’t follow the exact meta of the month (whatever that might be) in terms of build order and things, people can get really aggro and your team can vote to kick you and take your units. Also, one particularly aggravating part of the com…

Wow, that sounds awful. That's beyond optimising the fun out of a game, it's straight up refusing to have fun. One wonders what they get from it?

My best friend is the great optimizer.

In magic the gathering I had dozens of decks trying different things. He had a single deck that he kept tweaking to within the millimetre of perfection.

In overwatch, I would play different characters to experience different parts of the game and try different strategies. He played single character for years, with 10 times the hours in that char than I had in all of them combined.

Heck even in real life, he was a Java developer for decades whereas I was a type of fleeting sysadmin specifically so I could play with different toys in the stack :).

Now, this is a bit side Venn diagram, he'd never be rude on an online game (he does have offline opinions on the meta :). But it let me understand people who have fun in a very different way than I do :). He doesn't see boredom in playing same way over and over (and over and over), I think he sees it as professional athlete being focused and honing their specific craft.

Re: Beyond All Reason (Free Total Annihilation Inspired RTS)

#50

Post by gacgacgac » Sun, Jun 21, 2026, 2:20 PM UTC

Panzer04 wrote: post #21

plopz wrote: post #16

Theres been some drama with this game where a few of the core admins have claimed ownership and sold out to a publisher. They are taking the free open source game and selling it on steam with a free demo. In addition to the toxic community, its made the whole thing a bit radioactive. Curious to see how it all plays out.

Well, they can't sell out the game code. That's not how GPL works.

Yes they absolutely can? Anyone can. I can.

The thing the GPL requires is that I also provide it for free. Now, why would anyone buy a free thing? To support the devs. To encourage this sort of business model. To get a build that's known to be working and supported and not have to deal with the hassle of compiling things themselves.