TGEA concerns

#1 1. Yes. TGEA is shader-driven. TGE uses older, fixed-function device targets.

2. TGEA is quite stable, though the documentation is on the scant side. It is also a programmer's engine in that to make heavy modifications for gametypes, you will need a programmer. Many of the underlying tech in TGE is available in TGEA. TorqueScript, for example, is the scripting language for both engines. The engine documentation was recently opened up. If you click the documentation link on the menu above, you should find it. TGEA is not going away for quite some time. GG announced Torque 2, their next generation of engine technology, at IGC in October, but it is still in early development and quite a ways off. It is recommended that if you want to work on a game in the next year, you should look at the existing engines.

Of the things you want in the engine, documentation is the light spot. GG has been working on remedying the situation for a long time, but back-documenting is much more difficult than creating new documentation for products.

#2 Thanks for the response. I think I'll go with TGE for now as it has better documentation and a lot of samples. After I reach a working gameplay prototype, I will port it to TGEA. I'm assuming it won't be a huge overhaul since I will be writing components that will (and should) be independent from graphics layer. I'm aware that it will still take some time though.

Oh and I'm a seasoned programmer, so "a programmer's engine" is totally fine by me :).

#3 I recommend you to directly buy TGEA and start your game development on it. Anyway you won't spend less time studying TGE instead of TGEA. The main difference between them is that you have "extended material system" , with other words you have shaders in TGEA.

#4 Is TGEA TGE (as in documentation from TGE could be used in TGEA) but with the additional features mentioned in the TGEA page? I'm entirely new to the game development scene and I wanted to know if I'll run into any bumps with TGE that TGEA remedied by providing additional functionality.

#5 That would be correct Kevin. any paraphenalia or documentation you find about tge will most likely be applicable to tgea as well. in particular, the scripting language and syntax is identical. classes are identical as well with the exception that tgea introduces a few new classes for handling shaders and materials. in other words, even if you're using tgea, dont overlook information regarding tge because it'll usually apply as well.

#6 Sean told you almost everything i was going to tell you, Kevin. In fact some things that work in TGE will not work in TGEA, so some functions and scripts you find around will not work. For instance StartFade() function works in TGE but not i TGEA. You have to do some changes to the TGEA SDK to enable it. As i told you above you'd better start learning with TGEA.

#7 In my case, I would like to base my project off RTS starter kit which is only available for TGE. That is the reason I will start on TGE and move to TGEA later. I wish there was a TGEA port already.

#8 Hm, you haven't got the idea yet. TGEA and TGE are almost the same thing. In TGEA you have ability to use custom shaders, in TGE you haven't. TGE was released before TGEA. The guys from GG just made another engine with some more abilities which TGE hasn't. Also TGEA was named TSE in some of it prior versions.
And one more thing , some scripts for TGE (from the resources here) won't work in TGEA due to the missing classes or functions in TGEA. I gave you an example with the StartFade() function which is disabled in the TGEA SDK. But start learning, you will soon find the answers to these small questions in your learning proccess.