Spring began as a mod of TA. Somewhere along the way, it became its own engine. It's actually a really cool project now that supports all sorts of RTS games and even some other quirky games.
Now I think they have several TA mods on Spring (rather than Spring being a mod of TA) that try to replicate TA or improve upon it. I think you need to or are supposed to own a copy of TA to play the TA mods, but I haven't tried it for over a year now and my memory is a little hazy on how it works. I have some of them and they play pretty well, but I still prefer the original game myself. The good thing about Spring is they have servers so you can find games against other people at any time as long as you have the software.

Two recommended mods:
TA: Independence War - Another space themed total conversion. 3 factions, units ranging from fighters to capital ships. It is in beta, but it's still awesome. http://taiw.tauniverse.com/
TA: World Domination - America vs Russia in a modern war style. Infantry, tanks, navies, and more aircraft and helicopters than you can poke a cruise missile at. Awesome fun. Original TA: http://sites.nomadcf.com/gaming-files/total-annihilation-3/ta-world-domination
Spring version: http://www.springfiles.com/show_file.php?id=2402 (Can't say if this version is any good, never played it)

moo

So its a mooing competition you want is it? Your on!

MOOOOO MOOOOHH MOOOOH!!
I'm beating you.

MOOOOH MOOOOOOOO MOOOOOO!

No you arnt. Since "moo" has no H on the end!

MOO MOO MOOOOOO MOOO MOOOOOO MOO MOOOO!!!!!!!!!

It does if your a mutant cow.

MOOOO MOOO!! MOOO!
MOOOOH MOOOO

Scottish Cow
McMOO MOO the NOO

MOOS HAVE NO H'S.

MUTANT COWS HAVE NO PLACE IN THIS CONTEST

MOO MOOO MOOOOO MOO MOOO MOOO
MOO MOOOOOOOOOOOOO

No mutants allowed?

Racist.

Well before the thread dissolves completely, I'll just point out that link you gave to final frontier mod isnt working

I found a working one at the file universe mirror.

[url=]http://files.tauniverse.com/fu/Files/TotalAnnihilation/Mods/TATheFinalFrontier.aspx[/url]

Should be compatible with TA mutator with a little work.

You mentioned the Absolute Annihilation mod. Development stopped on that in 2005, but it continued on as Total Annihilation: Twilight, which is still releasing new versions (We actually should have a new one out in the next few weeks).

Basically, TA: Twilight took over where Absolute Annihilation left off, so if you liked AA, it's worth checking out.

It's installed without TAM, meaning you just download it, copy the "rev31.gp3" file into your TOTALA directory, and that's about it.

http://twilight.tauniverse.com/install.html

Thanks,

Twilight

Some people PREFER TAM you know :P thats the point of giving TAM instructions.... so that you can use TAM with non TAM mods... personally id never do anything but TAM, and wish more mods came out with pre-done installers so I didnt need to jury rig it like I did in the OP

Your list of mods left out the BattleTech mods.

Unfortunately, both of them (MechWars & Total BattleTech) replace the EXE with one that still needs the CD. :(

(Doubly frustrating since they were one of the main reasons why I bought TA.)

HA! sticky'd? nice.

Updated links, screenshots, and all that jazz would be nice.

Geeze all the old map sites are GONE. Anyone know of a mega map pack with all the cool third party tilesets and maps?