Q: TA crashes! What do I do?
A: If your TA crashes, it might be because you were careless in your installation of third-party content, or it could be that the third-party content are of low quality and buggy. If this is the case, you can try isolating the problematic files and delete them, or you can reinstall your TA.
It could also be due to a display problem; in which case running TA in windowed mode usually leviates the problem.
It could also be because you did not install the 3.1 patch.
Q: I heard that pressing control+shift while ordering units from a factory queues 100 units. Where is this feature?
A: You need to install TA Demo Recorder for this feature.
Q: How do I add more AI opponents in skirmish?
A: Go to the skirmish setup page and press Shift+8+X for ten players. Ten players is the max.
Q: TA crashes with a message saying something is missing.
A: You have downloaded some third-party content that need files from Core Contingency or you have a corrupt TA install. if it is the latter, you need to reinstall TA. It is also possible that you have too many .hpi files in your TA directory. Change these .hpi extensions to either .ccx or .ufo. It is also possible that you’ve downloaded some third-party content that requires some other third-party content. In this case, either track down the offending file and remove it, or figure out what other thing it needs to run.
Q: Why doesn’t TA music work?
A: TA music will not work if your CD is a burned copy and not the original or if you are using a TOTALA_NO_CD.exe.
Q: After I insert the TA CD, the pop-up dialogue box has the “play button” disabled and no option to install.
A: You’ve used CD 2, the campaign CD; switch to CD1, the multiplayer and skirmish CD to install TA.
Q: TA crashes with the error “anims\fog.gaf”
A: Either you’ve got a corrupt TA install and need to reinstall, or you have too many .hpi files in your TA directory. rename them to .ufo or .ccx
Q: How do I make screenshots and where do I find them?
A: You make screenshots by pressing Ctrl+F9 in game. You can find your screenshots in C:\Cavedog\TotalA[Username]\screenshots. Where C:\Cavedog\TotalA is where you installed TA and [Username] is the windows username you took the screenshot under. You can also make a large screenshot of many screens by pressing Enter and entering “+makeposter” into the console that pops up.
Q: How do I run TA in windowed mode?
A: right click Totala.exe create a shortcut. Right click on the shortcut and bring up “properties”. make sure you are in the “shortcut” tab and append a space followed by a “-d” at the end of the “target” field. Click OK. Running the game from that shortcut will now be in windowed mode.
Q: How do I change the amount of units I can build ingame?
A: Find a file called “Totala.ini” in your TA directory (usually C:\Cavedog\TotalA) and change the line “UnitLimit = 250;”. The maximum unit limit if you have the 3.1 patch is 500, you can increase this maximum by downloading the 1500 unit patch and the 5000 unit patch. Note that the 5000 unit patch only allows you to build 100 of each unit type. If you cannot locate TotalA.ini, you can get it here.
Q: After I installed the 3.1 patch, some units are greyed out.
A: If you have not installed any third-party content, then these units are from The Core Contingency Expansion Pack. You need to purchase Core Contingency to access these units.
Q: TA flickers ingame!
A: You can fix this by either pressing Tab+Alt to windows and then Tab+Alt back into TA, try all resolution until I find one that is large enough and doesn’t make TA flicker, or run TA in windowed mode.
Q: After installing the No CD Patch, I have found that while skirmish works, campaign mode doesn’t and crashed my game when I try.
A: To play the campaigns without the CD you need to copy totala4.hpi from the missions disk (or CCMiss.ccx from CC). If it crashes in the campaign battleroom with an error box saying “Error in GUI Layout” this simply means it has been unable to find any missions. If you don’t want to copy & play the OTA/CC missions but are using a one-sided (Arm-only/Core-only) 3rd party mission this error can still occur intermittently if the campaign battleroom tries to start with the other side (Arm/Core) selected. You can fix this by using this dummy campaign.
Q: TA is installed but when I try to run the setup.exe for CC and BT, I get an error
A: Just copy the files from the cd to your TA folder, specifically:
ccdata.ccx (units & features), btdata.ccx can be ignored
ccmaps.ccx* (maps),
ccmiss.ccx* (missions),
btmaps.ccx* (BT maps)
tactics1-8.hpi* (BT missions), rename hpi extensions to ufo.
- if required, when using no-cd.
Remember to apply the 3.1cPatch, if you haven’t already done so.
Q: I see gray-outed maps in my map selection menu!
A: Getting a gray preview for a map means that you have the map ota (text data) but not the map tnt (terrain). Typically this happens when you download a mod or AI, although it may also be the case with the TA Zone map pack, which contains ota files for certain maps in order to change their AI profile or make other tweaks but which does not contain the tnt files for those maps.
The maps you’re missing may be those from CC, found in ccmaps.ccx, those from BT, found in btmaps.ccx, some 3rd party favourites, or the maps which Cavedog released singly, which can be found here.
Q: How do I make TA work with Windows Vista? How do I install expansion packs and patches with Windows Vista?
A: You need to install the 3.1 patch for TA to work on Windows Vista. For 64-bit Vista, you may have to run TA in windowed mode; instructions are available in this FAQ. To install Core Contingency in Windows Vista, simply copy over ccdata.ccx, ccmiss.ccx, and ccmaps.ccx to your TA directory (instructions to get your Total Annihilation Directory are in this FAQ) from your Core Contingency CD. To install Battle Tactics in Windows Vista, simply copy over btmaps.ccx over to your TA directory from your Battle Tactics CD.