Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency
Encyclopedia
The Core Contingency is a 1998 expansion to the popular 1997 real-time strategy
computer game Total Annihilation
. It contains extra units and maps, as well as a campaign of 25 missions and a long-awaited (although glitchy) official map editor.
Core Prime, in their Galactic War of over 4,000 years. With the Core supposedly wiped out of existence, the Arm undergoes one-hundred years of reconstructing civilization.
However, a lone Core Commander survives, hidden away in a distant system. The Core Commander, the heart of the Core's Contingency plan in case the Core would ever be defeated, is charged with a single mission: to search for a powerful and ancient alien artifact hidden in the region. With modifications, the beacon could supposedly be converted into an Implosion Device—a single, phenomenally powerful superweapon
which, when activated, would cause the entire galaxy to implode into itself, with the Core's pure intention to permanently extinguish the Arm. The Core Commander would stay inside the gigantic machine as it causes the galaxy to virtually self-destruct, then step out unscathed and rebuild the entire Core race.
Meanwhile, rumors circulate amongst the mending Arm over the said Contingency Plan, so an Arm Commander is dispatched along with sizable reinforcements to confirm or eliminate the gossip.
"Krogoth Encounter" is an Arm bonus mission, set during the time of the original game (which allows it to technically be considered a "lost mission") during the Galactic War on the metallic world of Core Prime, as the Arm was slowly making its way to domination. The level is available only in Hard difficulty, its highlight being experimental, super-powerful Krogoth Kbots which the player must overcome and whose production facilities the player must destroy. Because it chronologically occurs before The Core Contingency, new units introduced in the expansion pack are not available during the mission.
The Core Contingency missions provide new worlds with their idiosyncratic natural disasters, such as the planet Temblor, whose only habitable land lies on mountains high above clouds, which suffers frequent, unpredictable earthquakes that can damage structures and ground forces. It additionally features native, hostile alien inhabitants of various planets, such as dangerously powerful sea creatures on the campaign's opening planet, Hydross, an ocean planet
.
s), hovercraft, amphibious Kbots, pop-up turrets, and rapid-fire plasma cannons, among many others.
Many of the Core Contingency units are included in the 3.1 patch except for some very important ones. For example:
The Core Krogoth is a heavy level-10 Experimental Kbot that is produced in the Level 3 Krogoth Gantry. Its high cost of 29489 Metal and 116664 Energy makes it difficult and slow to produce. It has a head-mounted Annihilator laser, arm-mounted gauss cannons, and a pair of starburst missile launchers on its back. It can wreak much havoc if accompanied by radar and a Targeting Facility and is heavily armored, capable of withstanding a direct nuclear strike, but like all units can be destroyed by one shot from a Commander's Disintegrator Gun.
The Arm Pelican is an amphibious level 2 Kbot produced in the Advanced Kbot Lab. It can skim the surface of water and takes little damage from missile fire. It is armed with a red laser and missiles. It costs 255 Metal and can dominate naval battles.
The ARM Maverick is a level-2 gunslinging Kbot, with two high-damage plasma weapons and a metal cost of 492. They are intended to be Kbot destroyers and can take out a Commander easily, but are weak in armor.
The Arm Vulcan and its counterpart, the Core Buzzsaw, are rapid-fire plasma cannons (abbr. LRPCs) that require huge energy supplies for their continuous fire, and are devastating when combined with advanced radar and a Targeting Facility. The Buzzsaw has a lower rate of fire but a longer range.
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....
computer game Total Annihilation
Total Annihilation
Total Annihilation is a real-time strategy video game created by Cavedog Entertainment, a sub-division of Humongous Entertainment, and released on September 30, 1997 by GT Interactive for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. It was the first RTS game to feature 3D units and terrain...
. It contains extra units and maps, as well as a campaign of 25 missions and a long-awaited (although glitchy) official map editor.
Story
The Core Contingency picks up where the original game finishes with the Arm ending, in which the Arm achieved final victory over the Core in its homeworldCore worlds
Core worlds or core planets often exist in works of science fiction, especially space operas. They are usually at the center of the galaxy or of colonized space, occasionally both. Core worlds are densely populated with long histories, advanced technology, and/or highly-developed culture. The...
Core Prime, in their Galactic War of over 4,000 years. With the Core supposedly wiped out of existence, the Arm undergoes one-hundred years of reconstructing civilization.
However, a lone Core Commander survives, hidden away in a distant system. The Core Commander, the heart of the Core's Contingency plan in case the Core would ever be defeated, is charged with a single mission: to search for a powerful and ancient alien artifact hidden in the region. With modifications, the beacon could supposedly be converted into an Implosion Device—a single, phenomenally powerful superweapon
Superweapon
A superweapon is an extremely powerful weapon by the standards of its time and its scale. Examples include the Tsar Bomba , various superguns and other various weapons employed to give a decisive advantage over opposing countries or forces. The given advantage is usually based on intimidation and...
which, when activated, would cause the entire galaxy to implode into itself, with the Core's pure intention to permanently extinguish the Arm. The Core Commander would stay inside the gigantic machine as it causes the galaxy to virtually self-destruct, then step out unscathed and rebuild the entire Core race.
Meanwhile, rumors circulate amongst the mending Arm over the said Contingency Plan, so an Arm Commander is dispatched along with sizable reinforcements to confirm or eliminate the gossip.
Missions
The Core Contingency features 25 new missions following the events of the original game's Arm campaign. 12 missions pertain to each side for the Arm and the Core, and a bonus mission is included, named "Krogoth Encounter.""Krogoth Encounter" is an Arm bonus mission, set during the time of the original game (which allows it to technically be considered a "lost mission") during the Galactic War on the metallic world of Core Prime, as the Arm was slowly making its way to domination. The level is available only in Hard difficulty, its highlight being experimental, super-powerful Krogoth Kbots which the player must overcome and whose production facilities the player must destroy. Because it chronologically occurs before The Core Contingency, new units introduced in the expansion pack are not available during the mission.
The Core Contingency missions provide new worlds with their idiosyncratic natural disasters, such as the planet Temblor, whose only habitable land lies on mountains high above clouds, which suffers frequent, unpredictable earthquakes that can damage structures and ground forces. It additionally features native, hostile alien inhabitants of various planets, such as dangerously powerful sea creatures on the campaign's opening planet, Hydross, an ocean planet
Ocean planet
An ocean planet is a hypothetical type of planet whose surface is completely covered with an ocean of water.Planetary objects that form in the outer solar system begin as a comet-like mixture of roughly half water and half rock by mass...
.
Units
The 75 new units that the expansion pack comes with include: seaplanes capable of landing underwater, aqueous metal deposits and structures (such as the floating "Naval-Series" heavy laser turrets and missile turretMissile turret
thumb|French [[Malafon]] Anti Submarine Missile on its turretA missile turret is a specific type of weapon turret -- a device for aiming missiles towards their intended target before launch. Similarly to gun turrets they have been used on warships and vehices on the ground. In most roles...
s), hovercraft, amphibious Kbots, pop-up turrets, and rapid-fire plasma cannons, among many others.
Many of the Core Contingency units are included in the 3.1 patch except for some very important ones. For example:
The Core Krogoth is a heavy level-10 Experimental Kbot that is produced in the Level 3 Krogoth Gantry. Its high cost of 29489 Metal and 116664 Energy makes it difficult and slow to produce. It has a head-mounted Annihilator laser, arm-mounted gauss cannons, and a pair of starburst missile launchers on its back. It can wreak much havoc if accompanied by radar and a Targeting Facility and is heavily armored, capable of withstanding a direct nuclear strike, but like all units can be destroyed by one shot from a Commander's Disintegrator Gun.
The Arm Pelican is an amphibious level 2 Kbot produced in the Advanced Kbot Lab. It can skim the surface of water and takes little damage from missile fire. It is armed with a red laser and missiles. It costs 255 Metal and can dominate naval battles.
The ARM Maverick is a level-2 gunslinging Kbot, with two high-damage plasma weapons and a metal cost of 492. They are intended to be Kbot destroyers and can take out a Commander easily, but are weak in armor.
The Arm Vulcan and its counterpart, the Core Buzzsaw, are rapid-fire plasma cannons (abbr. LRPCs) that require huge energy supplies for their continuous fire, and are devastating when combined with advanced radar and a Targeting Facility. The Buzzsaw has a lower rate of fire but a longer range.
Maps
The expansion comes with 53 multiplayer maps, featuring all-new environments such as lush grassland/rainforest, slate, crystal, urban, and sea-coral. It also fixes various bugs and glitches from the original game. Many popular online TA maps come from the CCexpansion.System requirements
- Minimum
- PentiumPentium compatible processorA Pentium compatible processor is a 32-bit processor computer chip which supports the instructions in the IA-32 instruction set that were implemented by the Intel P5 Pentium processor family...
100 MHz - 32 MB RAM
- Windows 95Windows 95Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
- VGA video card
- Sound BlasterSound BlasterThe Sound Blaster family of sound cards was the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system platform, until the widespread transition to Microsoft Windows 95, which standardized the programming interface at application level , and the evolution in PC design led to onboard...
-compatible sound card - 4x CD-ROM drive
- 100 MB hard-disk space
- Pentium
- Recommended
- Pentium IIPentium IIThe Pentium II brand refers to Intel's sixth-generation microarchitecture and x86-compatible microprocessors introduced on May 7, 1997. Containing 7.5 million transistors, the Pentium II featured an improved version of the first P6-generation core of the Pentium Pro, which contained 5.5 million...
350 MHz - 128 MB RAM
- Pentium II
Platforms
- Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
- Windows 95Windows 95Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
- Windows 98Windows 98Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid...
- Windows MeWindows MeWindows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006....
- Windows NT 4.0Windows NT 4.0Windows NT 4.0 is a preemptive, graphical and business-oriented operating system designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetric multi-processor computers. It was the next release of Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems and was released to manufacturing on 31 July 1996...
- Windows 2000Windows 2000Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
and Windows XPWindows XPWindows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base... - Windows XP x64 {Requires manual installation}
- Windows VistaWindows VistaWindows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
- Windows 7
- Windows 95
- Apple Macintosh (PowerPCPowerPCPowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
)
See also
- Total AnnihilationTotal AnnihilationTotal Annihilation is a real-time strategy video game created by Cavedog Entertainment, a sub-division of Humongous Entertainment, and released on September 30, 1997 by GT Interactive for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. It was the first RTS game to feature 3D units and terrain...
- Gas Powered GamesGas Powered GamesGas Powered Games is a video game developer located in Redmond, Washington. The development studio was started in May 1998 by Chris Taylor, creator of Total Annihilation, and several other ex-Cavedog Entertainment employees....
- Supreme Commander
- Total Annihilation: KingdomsTotal Annihilation: KingdomsTotal Annihilation: Kingdoms or TA:K is a medieval fantasy real time strategy game created and released by Cavedog Entertainment on June 25, 1999...
- Total Annihilation: Battle TacticsTotal Annihilation: Battle TacticsTotal Annihilation: Battle Tactics is the second of two expansion packs for the popular RTS computer game Total Annihilation, released on June 30, 1998 in the United States. Its features include 100 new missions as either the Arm or the Core, four new units and new keyboard shortcuts...
External links
- Official Web Site (Mirrored 2000-12-07)
- TAUniverse
- TA Downloads