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

Core's T2 Heavy Artillery Tank has a large double barreled artillery pulse cannon that features relatively fast fire rate, large AoE and high damage bonus against structures compared to other siege weapons. While not particularly good at taking out single heavy targets, it excels at softening enemy lines and taking out all vulnerable structures in vicinity, such as radar towers. Just like Arm's equivalent unit, this one will also need to remain stationary and deploy support arms in order to fire. Rather than trying to outrange all opposition, T2 Heavy Artillery Tank is bulky and heavily armored even if intended to be a support unit, and as such it is capable of deploying under enemy artillery fire. Anyhow, heavy armor and weaponry make it one of the slowest vehicles around.

Core T2 Heavy Artillery Tank

Defying all logic, GoK's T2 Fast Attack Kbot can quickly traverse almost any terrain to strike where the enemy is most vulnerable. Its photon blasters are powerful against lightly armored targets, and will burst-fire when engaging combat, further enhancing unit's hit-and-run capability. It is also capable of hovering over water, but photon blasters will not be usable while doing so. Since other units cannot usually follow where it goes, T2 Fast Attack Kbot is also equipped with small anti-air gun to give it some degree of defence against gunships. Despite its armament, void shield and some degree of armor, it is still relatively frail unit, and mobility should be considered as its greatest protection.

GoK T2 Fast Attack Kbot

Combining the best aspects of T1 units, T2 Heavy Railgun Tank is Arm's number one choice for direct combat with other heavy units and controlling the battlefield. Its heavy railguns outrange other battletanks, can pierce armor of most targets effortlessly and have enough power to kill T1 tanks with one salvo. Railguns reload slowly, but T2 Heavy Railgun Tank will not still be defenceless against larger amounts of lesser foes because of its EMG sponsor turrets. These EMGs can also prove useful for keeping Core's plasma shields down. While one of the largest and most durable units around, it is only moderately armored and can move at surprisingly high speed.

Arm T2 Heavy Railgun Tank

Designed to be Arm's heavy duty line breaker, T2 Shock Assault Kbot delivers some serious bang for the buck in a highly mobile hull. Its dual plasma bolt guns are most effective against all lightly armored ground targets and can keep up high rate of fire for short perioids of time, but have limited range and penetrative power. In addition, it is equipped with EMP grenade launchers that can be used to disable high priority targets before closing in for the kill. On the other hand, the cost of all this firepower is that the unit is not exactly the most durable or armored one around.

Arm T2 Shock Assault Kbot

As seen in the last update, T2 Ground Factories are quite a bit larger than the T1 ones so as to accommodate some of the bigger T2 units, including Core's massive T2 Battle Tank. This beast is one of the more straightforward T2 units, designed to smash its way right through the enemy. Its huge cannon doesn't have much range, but it does have a lot of power and a large area of effect, making it excellent for crowd control and blasting through defenses. The T2 Battle Tank has a higher MaxDamage and Armor Class than even the T1 Destroyer and features Core's new plasma shield technology. Unlike GoK's more sophisticated void shields, plasma shields simply halve the damage of a single hit once every few seconds (two in this case). This means they are not that helpful when the unit is being bombarded from all around, but very useful for blocking occasional fire, stray impacts, and targeted strikes. For example, the plasma shield can't do much against rapid-fire weapons or hordes of smaller units, but it can protect well against slow-firing rockets and artillery cannons or possibly even a surprise nuclear strike.

Core T2 Battle Tank

Continuing with the most fundamental structures, T2 Power Generators will allow players to efficiently keep up with rising energy requirements without having to resort to making fields of vulnerable T1 energy production structures for their enemy to bombard. T2 Power Generators will produce tenfold amount of energy compared to their T1 counterparts (or twentyfold in case of Arm and their Solar Panels) with greater cost efficiency. Arm and Core T2 Power Generators are also heavily armored, while GoK again mostly counts on more powerful void shield. It is still undecided whether or not Core's one will have a plasma shield.

While higher tier units will not cost crazy amounts of metal in TA Zero, the amount of energy required to build them will be significant compared to T1 units. In combination with how T2 Metal Extractors and various T2 combat units are designed, this will, in my opinion, be the most interesting way to balance the gameplay. Players will still be fighting over control of each metal spot on the map even in later phases of the game as there will be no means to dig more that 6 metal per second out of each, nor will there be ways produce metal straight out of energy. There will be no energy races, cornered players may still win the game with focused attacks and expansions with T2 units, and loss of main energy production will not be entirely crippling, but merely just enforces one to use T1 units only.

Arm, Core, and GoK T2 Power Generators

It's time to start previewing Tier 2 units! These units will be included in the next major release: version Alpha 4. Of course, there will be minor releases before then (Alpha 3b, Alpha 3c, etc.) to address any fixes or improvements to T1 but you'll have to wait until Alpha 4 for T2. Starting today, we are going to show new unit models on a regular basis, probably every few days. Once all of the new units have been modeled, we'll continue to keep you updated as we enter the next phase of development: getting the new units in-game and ready for action. Remember that you can make use of our new subscription feature to ensure that you don't miss any new updates as well join us on the forum to voice your opinions.

Today's units are the T2 Perimeter Defense Turrets for all three factions. These will pack much more of a punch than their little T1 brothers and are more diverse as well. The Arm turret is equipped with a railgun that fires slowly but features extreme range and stopping power. Core's turret is more heavily armored and armed with potent laser cannons, however the range is shorter and the lasers require energy to fire. Finally, the GoK turret (which is shielded, unlike the T1 PD Turret) has the shortest range of all, but its warp beam fires continuously and can penetrate almost any armor. It will also most likely increase its firing rate as it focuses its beam on a particularly tough target. It only makes sense that such a powerful weapon will consume a lot of energy!

Arm, Core, and GoK T2 Perimeter Defense Turrets