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Core and GoK T2 Anti-Air Units

Core T2 Pulse Kbot is armed with a rapid-firing area-effective pulse cannon which is primarily intended as an anti-air weapon, but performs quite well against hordes of light units. The pulse cannon is particularly effective against groups of gunships, but cannot reliably hit lone strafing fighters or reconnaissance aircraft. With its all-terrain spider tank chassis it is able to get into good positions, and perhaps also avoid enemy defences to launch a surprise attack from an unexpected angle. Anyhow, it is not as heavily armored as most of Core's T2 units.

Much similar to Core's equivalent unit, the GoK T2 Starcannon Runnerpod has weaponry designed to mercilessly destroy enemy gunship hordes with salvo after salvo of area-effective projectiles. It is a surprisingly capable and versatile unit due to its combination of mobility, moderately good armor, and powerful shield. It is not the cheapest unit around though.

Core T2 Pulse Kbot and GoK T2 Starcannon Runnerpod
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Core T2 Spy Kbot

So far Core has not really had a dedicated reconnaissance unit, all related abilities instead having been spread along various combat and support units. This will change along addition of Core T2 Spy Kbot. Not only is it the first unit so far to have both cloaking and radar jamming abilities, it is also capable of moving through roughest of terrain, climbing up and down steepest ravines. Anyhow, Core T2 Spy Kbot is not completely undetectable as its cloaking has standard detection radius, and its radar jamming only works when stationary, so its presence may still be uncovered with radar.

In addition to just straightforward reconnaissance, Core T2 Spy Kbot also has a minuscule nanolathe with which it can build T2 Cloaked Sensors, T2 Radar Jammers, and T2 Plasma Mines. T2 Cloaked Sensors are small and cheap surveillance towers that can be quickly built to keep eye on crucial locations of the map. T2 Radar Jammers are inexpensive, but still take a while to set up with the limited build speed of T2 Spy Kbot, and they are not particularly efficient either. T2 Plasma Mines are powerful multipurpose mines that have large AoE and are effective against most targets.

Core T2 Spy Kbot, Cloaked Sensor, Radar Jammer, and Plasma Mine
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T2 Stealth Field Generators

Information warfare has not really been a thing yet with just T1 units. Some sure have cloaking and can snoop around for a bit, but there is nothing to mask the presence of your units from enemy long range sensors with. T2 Stealth Field Generators will allow commanders to turn the tables big time, potentially hiding an entire field base with just one of them. With the advent of T2 Radar Towers and a host of medium to long ranged ordnance, an ability like this should find a lot of use. Anyhow, energy cost of continuously running multiple of these devices will most likely necessitate use of T2 Power Generators.

Arm, Core, and GoK T2 Stealth Field Generators
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T2 Ground Construction Units

Most fundamental of T2 mobile units, Ground Construction Units will allow commanders to enhance their economy with T2 Metal Extractors and Power Generators, fortify their bases with heavy T2 Point Defence Turrets, and also bombard their enemy from afar with T2 Medium Range Plasma Cannons or Artillery Turrets. Arm T2 Construction Vehicle is lightly built and only moderately armored, but is cheaper and faster to manufacture than other factions' equivalent units. Core T2 Construction Vehicle then is larger and more armored, while GoK's T2 Construction Hovercraft once again counts on its void shield instead of heavy armor or sturdy hull. All of these have double build speed compared to their T1 counterparts, which equals to what Commanders have.

Arm, Core, and GoK T2 Ground Construction Units
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Arm T2 Field Engineer Kbot

Should an Arm commander ever find himself in need of a construction unit well suited for the frontlines, T2 Field Engineer Kbot would be that unit. It is tougher and more mobile than most construction units, armed with a versatile light railgun, and equipped with a radar jammer and small nanolathes. Arm T2 Field Engineer Kbot can build a variety of T1 and T2 fortifications, including T2 Anti-Armor Mine and T2 Radar Jammer, both of which are exclusively built by it alone. Compared to its T1 counterpart, T2 Anti-Armor Mine delivers a powerful and highly penetrative explosion, but with limited blast radius. Small T2 Radar Jammers then are fast and cheap to build, but offer only diminutive radar jam radius and are rather energy inefficient.

Arm T2 Field Engineer Kbot, Radar Jammer, and Anti-Armor Mine
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Improved Commanders in upcoming Alpha 4 release

Release of Alpha 4 and T2 ground units and structures is drawing near, and within next days we will start previews once again and take a look at all remaining T2 units that have been made so far, and also recap what has happened to earlier previewed units as they have been implemented to the game. Anyhow, first I will bring up recent changes to the commanders.

Arm, Core, and GoK Commanders in Alpha 4
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Since T2 units are generally very powerful and many have highly penetrative weapons, all commanders have been adjusted to be more capable at fighting them. Arm Commander's EMG has been replaced by a much more potent plasma bolt cannon, which allows for the most vulnerable of commanders to reliably deliver damage to heavier enemy units before having to pull back. Core Commander now has a plasma shield to help deal with enemy heavy weapons. This shield will recharge faster when stationary, keeping it primarily a defensive ability. Due to scripting improvements, GoK Guardian can have an actual void shield again, now set up as a heavy void shield that is more efficient at blocking heavy weapons, while taking increased minimum damage from light weapons. In addition, the wrist-mounted ion blaster has been upgraded to a more penetrative ion beamer. While these changes don't particularly benefit the commanders against T1 units, discounting Arm Commander's new plasma bolt cannon, they still need something to limit their ability to go on rampaging around the map in early phases of a game, and to that end their movement speed has been reduced by some in Alpha 4.

TA Zero Alpha 3c and TA Zero Map Pack Version 1

After the flurry of releases and previews in the beginning of the year, we became very busy and TA Zero development had to be put on the back burner. However, we've still been making steady progress throughout the year and now have all of the T2 units previewed earlier working in-game, plus a few more. There's still more work to be done before we can post the Alpha 4 release, so you'll have to wait a while longer for the T2 units.

Today we are releasing the new Alpha 3c version of Total Annihilation Zero as well as Version 1 of the new TA Zero Map Pack.

TA Zero Alpha 3c contains a host of bug fixes and minor improvements to various things, as well as new floating missile turrets for all factions (current names are just placeholders) and a nano decomposer weapon for all ground construction units that instantly clears away trees and other vegetation that can get in the way of your base building. There are also a lot of balancing changes (the most notable of which is that all T1 mobile unit wrecks are now passable) that have been implemented in preparation for the large and game-changing T2 units that will be included in the upcoming Alpha 4 release. As usual, you can view the full changelog for Alpha 3c at the Version History page. The rest of the site, including the unit guides, has also been updated.

Download TA Zero Alpha 3c Here!

Don't forget to visit the official discussion thread.

The TA Zero Map Pack Version 1 contains updated versions of all previous TA Zero maps as well as two unique and brand new maps: River of Flame and Raindance. River of Flame is a hellish lava map with several choke points and a new fiery rain effect. Raindance is a lush battlefield with plenty of routes to the enemy and features a dazzling thunderstorm effect with constant rain and lightning. The TA Zero Map Pack will be updated whenever there is a map release or update and can also be used with original Total Annihilation or other mods.

Download the TA Zero Map Pack Version 1 Here!

Owners of Windows 8 and/or a new NVIDIA GeForce 600 series GPU may notice some game-breaking bugs when playing TA Zero or any other mod that uses a custom DirectDraw DLL. Please visit the FAQ for more information about these issues.

As we edge closer to the release of Alpha 4 we'll start showing T2 units again as well as doing more general previews of what's coming up next. Remember to subscribe if you want to be notified whenever there's news. Have questions or comments? Feel free to leave a comment here or visit the forum.

TA Zero Alpha 3b

It's now been just under two months since we launched this website and released the last version of the mod, and since that time we've had almost 30,000 views from over 5,000 unique visitors from 85 countries. Hopefully the eventual addition of T2 units with Alpha 4 will really get an online scene going, but today we have for you version Alpha 3b, the newest release of Total Annihilation Zero.

Naval gameplay has been improved with balancing adjustments, the removal of amphibiousness for kbots, and the addition of some new units (which were previewed earlier this week). New AI enhancement techniques have been implemented and the mod has also undergone some massive technical enhancements, such as dramatically enhanced pathfinding, improved smoke and damage effects, and customization of data structure, dlls, ini, registry entry, and savegame format, making TA Zero fully conflict-free with TA and any possible mod, unit pack, hack, or patch. The full changelog for Alpha 3b weighs in at 96 entries and you can read it at the Version History page.

A new Controls page has been added featuring a comprehensive list of the controls, commands, and cheats in TA Zero. Even TA veterans might want to look over it as we've changed and added a lot of things for TA Zero. In addition, the Installation page, FAQ page, Features page, and unit guides have all been updated to reflect the changes in Alpha 3b.

Download TA Zero Alpha 3b Here!

Don't forget to visit the official discussion thread.

We'll also be taking a break from T2 unit previews and don't know when we'll be resuming them, but you can subscribe to this news page and get notified whenever there's a new post, ensuring that you don't miss any updates or releases.

Finally, just how much of an improvement in pathfinding does Alpha 3b bring over the original TA pathfinding used in Alpha 3? See for yourself:

Core T1 Support Hovercraft

Core has so far been in trouble without any early game reconnaissance unit for maps with water areas, which often resulted in Marauders being unable to ever fight fairly against Arm's mixed groups of Outriders and Vikings. Against GoK this has not been so problematic as Scourges do not have any range advantage and Faerie are much more costly than Outriders and have less sight range. Scourges anyhow have been clearly superior to Marauders, and relations between these two units have been adjusted with a couple careful changes which in practice do not really affect anything else. Core T1 Support Hovercraft was basically created just to give Core some affordable naval reconnaissance unit, and to that end it features sight, radar and sonar ranges of 600. In addition, it has a nanolathe that can be used for repairing, reclaiming and capturing. Anyhow, it has slow build speed and cannot start any build processes by itself.

Core T1 Support Hovercraft
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T1 Floating Point Defence Turrets

We have had a patch release Alpha 3b under work for a while now. Along a multitude of technical improvements and bug fixes there will be several significant changes to units. In order to clarify gameplay and give players more reason to build naval units, amphibiousness will be removed from all ground units apart from construction units and commanders. Several new units have been added and hovercraft and ships have seen dozens of adjustments, which should balance naval combat nicely. Most prominent part of these added units are T1 Floating Point Defence Turrets that can be used to boost your defences on watery maps. They all feature weapons well suited against hovercraft and provide large sight radius similar to basic turrets on ground, which can be really useful for your own hovercraft with their limited sight ranges. Should be noted that these are fairly easily overrun with focused attacks by hordes of hovercraft if left alone and are generally of little use against ships and their longer ranged artillery weapons.

Arm, Core, and GoK T1 Floating Point Defence Turrets
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GoK T2 Artillery Turret

GoK usually does not put much focus on artillery units. There is no specialized T1 mobile artillery unit like Arm and Core have, nor will there be any long range artillery turret available at T3. Some artillery capability is anyhow required, and T2 Artillery Turret will deliver that. Unlike Arm and Core Medium Range Plasma Cannons, this one is purely offensive unit and has weapon range beyond all other T2 artillery. It is not intended for claiming surrounding area as yours, but for bombarding enemy bases from afar. GoK's T2 Artillery Turret is costly to build and will require protection of other units since it has no heavy armor and is only moderately shielded for such a high priority target. Its warp cannon will also require large amounts of energy to fire and reloads slowly, so shooting stuff at random is more or less wasted effort.

GoK T2 Artillery Turret
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T2 Medium Range Plasma Cannons

T2 Medium Range Plasma Cannons will be the heaviest defensive area denial units available. Arm and Core both have a turret falling into this category, but their abilities are not very similar. Arm's T2 MRPC aims to be more affordable and faster to set up than its Core counterpart. It is a sturdy and heavily armored design, and its twin heavy plasma cannon features relatively fast firerate and high damage output. Core's T2 MRPC takes armor and durability a step further and adds up plasma shield system, making it nigh indestructible monument. Its siege plasma cannon is basically the same weapon that T2 Battle Tank has, but with three times the range and slower fire rate.

Arm and Core T2 Medium Range Plasma Cannons
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GoK T2 Heavy Artillery Runnerpod

GoK's designs usually do not follow any conventional logic and T2 Heavy Artillery Runnerpod is no exception to this. It is armed with a scaled up version of Black Dawn distort cannon, which is an extremely powerful siege weapon, but features poor range compared to other heavy artillery and will require energy to fire. Cannon is also located so high that the unit is quite defenceless against smaller assault units. Unlike cumbersome vehicles of Arm and Core, GoK's T2 Heavy Artillery Runnerpod has good mobility and is less restricted by rough terrain. While it does have to stop to use its cannon as the other heavy artillery units, it does not need to waste time deploying support arms.

GoK T2 Heavy Artillery Runnerpod
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Arm T2 Flak Tank

T2 Flak Tank provides Arm's mobile forces with heavy anti-air coverage for those days when amounts of enemy gunships or bombers become unbearable. While flak shots do not carry much power or area of effect individually, T2 Flak Tank features whole arrays of cannons with extreme fire rates to pepper the skies with shrapnel. Just like T1 anti-air missile weapons, flak cannons can also fire to ground at a shorter range, allowing this unit to hold its own against enemy light attack units. Anyhow, Flak cannons are effective only against groups of enemies at short ranges and are inaccurate compared to missiles, so these units are inefficient for dealing with enemy fighters or any single heavy units. Cannons will also need to keep reloading breaks after every few bursts. Unlike T1 Missile Hovercraft, T2 Flak Tank is armored enough to resist attacks of most gunships and bombers.

Arm T2 Flak Tank
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Core T2 Laser Kbot

Unlike the Core T2 units previewed so far, the T2 Laser Kbot is designed to take out specific high priority targets. It's not exactly the toughest or most armored unit around, but its plasma shield, mobility, and potent laser cannon allow it to get the job done. The high penetration laser cannon is especially effective against both medium and heavy units and is one of the few weapons in the game that has an anti-heavy bonus. While powerful, the weapon requires energy to fire, does not reload especially fast, and may also require a one second charge-up time to fire, rendering this unit useless against swarms of light units.

Core T2 Laser Kbot
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