Here is a little Christmas present for you! Version Alpha 4d of Total Annihilation Zero!
Unlike the previous releases, Alpha 4d does not expand the game with new units, but rather focuses on finalizing the current content and fixing old mistakes. Most notably, this includes a complete overhaul of all weapon sound effects, new water and lava splash animations, reworking parts of oldest unit models, and over 200 balance adjustments.
The main theme of these balance changes is trying to slightly shift focus away from the heaviest units of each tier, and allowing players to field tier 2 light units a little bit faster, without changing the overall cost of getting a single tier 2 heavy hitter by much. Another sweeping change then is that weapon ranges of most units have been reduced, primarily to fit them within sight ranges.
In addition to the usual mod content, ddraw fix version 10 (made by ajh2794) is included in the Alpha 4d download in a separate folder. While it is still work-in-progress, it should result in increased frame rates for all users, and should allow people who have previously needed to use the hotfix to play without any issues. The old hotfix is still included as a backup option.
Download TA Zero Alpha 4d here, and visit the official discussion thread.
Nice. Slowly but surely you make progress on this. Hopefully you get free time in the future to make some bigger content pushes.
I’d like to share something interesting in hopes of it might give you a little motivation to keep you going on the project.
My girlfriend saw me playing TA Zero a few days ago and ever since she refers to it as “the game with the nice graphics” which was unexpected for me as both me and her brother regularly play modern games with big budget.
I showed her the current forks of TA (even Beyond-All-Reason) and still she thinks yours looks the most cool.
I personally like Zero because of the damage system, the comprehensive stuff I can read about it on this well arranged website, personal shields and (really) amazing models and will totally replace Supreme Commander for me once you get to finish 3rd tier.
Please also consider updating Excess as a Christmas present, IMO it is still superior to even the recent release of Total Mayhem due to more polished economy stages, 3rd faction, good balance, cool mechanics on units, however lack of order accessibility (most notably repair and reclaim) on build tab, 6 build options limit per page and lack of megamap make it unfun to play.
My apologies. Your comment was sitting in spam queue for two weeks.
And yes, good aesthetics is way more important than good graphics, even if many people seem to forget this these days.
Tier 3 is in plans soon after I finish tier 2 air units. Check the TAU forum or Discord, and try out the current test build. Several new units have been added since Alpha 4d along many bug fixes.
I am not intending to do anything about the old Excess project anymore. Overhaul like that would be a lot of work, and I think my time is better spent on Zero or other new projects.
No harm done.
I do try test builds every now and then but they tend to crash erratically. Sometimes after 15 minutes, sometimes after 2 hours but I usually cannot finish a larger map.
Guess with Excess not being an option I have to stick to Total Mayhem for now, however I totally get your point of view, it does make sense to put all your available effort into Zero.
Hi guys!
Hello guys. And Bye.
neversurrenderboys ;)