Total Annihilation was the first to have projectile physics for artillery and other weapons. One could actually have, for example, an artillery projectile in mid-flight accidentally collide with an aircraft.
[EDIT] Not mentioned on the BAR front page but also pioneered in TA was wreckage. Destroyed units left wreckage behind that had to be navigated around or fired upon to clear a path. Wreckage could also be scavenged to recover the material used to construct them, allowing the construction of more units. In the race to build enough infrastructure to overwhelm the enemy, this could be the difference between life and death.
Correct.
We recently even saw that a tactical nuke dropped from a bomber, created a blast-wave that pushed 19 flash-tanks so much their got a temporary 300% movement speed (if they weren't flying/crashing/exploding). https://www.twitch.tv/tarnishedknight/clip/AssiduousAttracti...
One favourite of mine is the recent Zero-K/Spring example of an Athena (cloaked gunship constructor) sneaking on the top of a silo launching its nuke, with just the right timing so that the missile hits it and explodes still partially inside the silo, before the Athena is shot down by AA (because decloaked due to proximity to the silo) :
Or maybe also this (BA?)/Spring one, dating back to the time when shields were invulnerable to plasma shots and deflecting them, featuring a shot being randomly diverted to hit a commander that was hiding in a bunch of buildings, wiping out half the base in the resulting death explosion !
> One could actually have, for example, an artillery projectile in mid-flight accidentally collide with an aircraft.
Or, anti-air units used as ground defense and ground assault units :). In my TA days, I had plenty of cases where I saved my base by ordering AA bots to fire on the ground, counting on weaker but much further-flying missiles to accidentally collide with the attacking force.
Also, Commander's D-gun. That one was an exercise in aiming, but early-to-mid-game, one well-placed shot could cut the attacking force in half.
I also appreciated the little things - like the solar generators automatically closing down when hit, to protect themselves.
Or, dropship bombing - IIRC when a dropship gets shot down, it crashes with all its load, which can sometimes be pretty explosive.
Maybe I'll just stop now. I have a lot of good TA memories.
[EDIT] Not mentioned on the BAR front page but also pioneered in TA was wreckage. Destroyed units left wreckage behind that had to be navigated around or fired upon to clear a path. Wreckage could also be scavenged to recover the material used to construct them, allowing the construction of more units. In the race to build enough infrastructure to overwhelm the enemy, this could be the difference between life and death.