TA:Enhanced (Alpha 0.3e)
Official forum: http://www.tauniverse.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=172


- Fast-paced mod, featuring a meticulous but hopefully interesting and challenging gameplay (weapons do cost ressources when firing, units do 
use ressources when moving, 100% strategy oriented mod...).
- Several new units included, all carefully balanced and polished. Clear ingame description texts, telling exactly what a unit is meant for.
- Each race may now call help from different factions. A faction is a whole new technology on its own, working like a race though in 
considerably smaller proportions. Currently available factions for ARM are Mechs, Poseidon, SpiderBot, XBot, and Behemoth, Mammoth and 
Praetorian for the CORE. Note that this feature is still on early alpha state.
- Plenty of new high quality sounds and nice ingame effects, with many of them being totally new in the world of TA.
- All weapons are 100% unique, both visually and technically speaking.
- Many OTA/3rd Party units re-textured, mostly to give them a more modern, heavier, metallic and basically a more awesome look.
- Full Ai support, but only on classical land maps with not much water at the moment.
- Many bugs from OTA/Unofficial patch fixed.
- Very early alpha version. Is (hopefully) bugfree, however many units from the original game are not included yet (mostly ships, hovercrafts,
T2 planes, ect...). May have some balance issues.


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Requires Total Annihilation patched to v3.9.02.
To install the mod, please make sure to back up the following files: totala1.hpi, ccdata.ccx, btdata.ccx and rev31.gp3. Then extract all files
from this archive to your main game directory (example: C:\CAVEDOG\TOTALA). Be aware that this process will override the four files listed 
above.

IT IS ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED TO OVERRIDE THE THREE FILES KNOWN AS TOTALA1.HPI, CCDATA.CCX AND BTDATA.CCX FROM YOUR MAIN GAME FOLDER WITH THE ONES
LOCATED INTO THIS RAR ARCHIVE OR ELSE THE MOD WILL NOT WORK PROPERLY, AND WILL CRASH EITHER AT START OR DURING A GAME.

To those who don't own the commercial version of either Core Contingency or Battle Tactics add-ons, make sure you don't have any file named 
"CCunits.ccx", "CCfeatures.ccx", or "BTunits.ccx" in your TA folder: they will strongly mess up the mod and make it unplayable. Simply back up
such files and place them in a safe subfolder, basically anywhere except where TotalA.exe is. 
And please just go buy TA (google "Total Annihilation Commander Pack") :)

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Notes about factions:

Factions in this alpha version aren't 100% done. You can have access to any one by building the appropriate lab/plant. Each faction will offer
you a new range of structures, units and workers. Factions all have their specific features, which you should know before attempting to choose
one. Note that any unit of a faction will use a prefix meant identify it quickly as belonging to a said group. For example, the Construction 
KBot of the Behemoth faction will be named ingame "Behemoth Construction KBot", and so on.

Now, here's a quick overview of the currently available factions. But before going further, let me say few words about the categories I used
as a mean to classify each of them:

"Main strenght": basically the main type of strong units the faction will allow you to build.
"Main ressource": which ressource (energy or metal) the faction tends to give priority to. This mostly refers to weapons (energy weapons like
laser beams, pulse weapons, ect...) that might use more or less great amounts of the said ressource. But, as a result of that, this often also
means that the faction tends to focus on plants that produce the ressource needed.
"Main role": is the faction better for assault, defence, tech, amphibious operations, tactical strikes, air strikes, ect...
"Visual identity": the mod being still in alpha, this one might not be that accurate depending on the faction. It aims at describing what makes
a group to be easily recognizable on the battlefield. Are the units it provides mostly dark, or white/grey, metallic; do they feature visible 
or rather discreet team colors, ect...

All right, so here are the factions you will be able to play in this alpha version:

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ARM Mech faction

Main strenght: heavy Mechs
Main ressource: energy
Main role: assault
Visual identity: golden/light brown, shiny, metallic

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ARM Poseidon faction

Main strenght: heavy amphibious XBots
Main ressource: metal
Main role: amphibious operations, multirole faction
Visual identity: dark/black, alien, high-tech

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ARM SpiderBot faction (only one unit for now!)

Main strenght: very heavy assault SpiderBot
Main ressource: both
Main role: assault, tech
Visual identity: brown, light brown

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ARM Thunder faction

Main strenght: heavy lightning tanks
Main ressource: energy
Main role: assault
Visual identity: light brown, camo textures, metallic

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ARM XBot faction

Main strenght: heavy XBots
Main ressource: both
Main role: assault, tech
Visual identity: grey, metallic

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CORE Behemoth faction

Main strenght: Behemoth Commander
Main ressource: both
Main role: assault, tech
Visual identity: shiny, light brown, camo, metallic, very visible color teams

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CORE Krogoth faction

Main strenght: heavy Xbots, Krogoth Commander, very heavy assault SpiderBot
Main ressource: metal
Main role: assault, tech
Visual identity: grey/black/dark tones

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CORE Mammoth faction (only one unit for now!)

Main strenght: heavy artillery tanks
Main ressource: metal
Main role: artillery
Visual identity: grey, armored, massive

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CORE Phaser faction

Main strenght: heavy laser/phaser/ion tanks
Main ressource: energy
Main role: assault
Visual identity: camo textures, grey

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CORE Praetorian faction

Main strenght: heavy amphibious Xbots
Main ressource: both
Main role: amphibious operations, multirole faction
Visual identity: white/grey, clean, high-tech, discreet team colors

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Notes about T1, T2, T3 and T4:

Due to the nature of this mod, the system of technologies (T1, T2, T3, T4) doesn't work as with OTA, and may need few precisions. At the
moment, there are three levels available: T1, T2, T3. When playing, you will discover that certain units, such as the ARM Mech Agamemnon, do
require four labs (actually three plus one gantry) to be built. You may then think that this unit is thus T4. But it doesn't work that way
in Enhanced, and the unit is still considered as T3. A unit being T3 or T4 is more of a matter of overall balance (cost, price, strenght,
role...) rather than one of amount of plants built. T3 does have a wide range of units, including some that are extremely powerful. The two 
spiderbots the mod currently has are still considered as T3, for example. So are the big long range cannons built by the faction Commanders
such as the CORE Behemoth Orb and the ARM Poseidon Emancipator. They are at the top of the T3 panel though, and anything more powerful than
them to be added in later releases will be considered as T4.




Notes/Known bugs:

- Certain special weapons may take long (about one minute sometimes) to reload. Best examples are the CORE Pyro's grenade (29 seconds), the
ARM Zeus' paralyser lightning (31 seconds), the ARM Poseidon Emancipator's cannon (46 seconds), the CORE Praetorian Geo. Powerplant's and 
the CORE Behemoth Orb's pulse weapons (43 seconds and 44 seconds respectively).

- Certain weapons may require huge amounts of ressources in order to activate. If a unit doesn't seem to fire, build more energy storages. At 
the moment, the most demanding weapons may require about 20 000 energy to work properly. They are mostly the ones listed just above.
 
- The mod has currently limited Ai support. There's only one Ai profile available, and it works mostly on classical maps with little 
to no water at all.

- The mod is meant to be played on stereo/3D mode (check your ingame options menu), otherwise certain sounds might not play properly.

- The ARM XBot Fury may not engage other units properly unless you use the "stop" command from the "orders" menu whenever one of their weapons
seem to freeze. Note that this issue is quite rare in alpha 0.2 (and any further version) as the unit's script has been arranged.

- The CORE Krogoth Chaos Lord's stomp effect will start automatically about one minute after the unit has been built. However, you can enable 
this special weapon at once, and thus allow the unit to crush everything in front of it, simply by force-firing the ground (only once) using 
the main "attack" command from the "orders" menu. Note however that, even without doing this, the unit will move everywhere without any issues.
Only thing is that it will appear to be moving through everything lying on the ground (trees, rocks, wrecks...) instead of crushing it.

- The ARM SpiderBot Great Tyrant and the CORE Krogoth Chaos Lord may somewhat act as ender units in current state of the mod. This will be
tweaked in next versions, with the addition of more and more units.

- The CORE Behemoth Rhino won't fire unless attacked. This is not a bug.

- Certain buildpics need work.




Changelog:

ALPHA 0.1 - first release

x



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ALPHA 0.2

Units -

* Added the ARM Stignus, a T2 medium missile tower built by common T2 builders.
* Added the CORE Eradicator, a T2 medium missile tower built by common T2 builders.
* Added the CORE Behemoth Rhino, a T3 mobile radar unit. Will only fire back at other units when under attack.
* Added the CORE Behemoth Odin, a T2 heavy assault KBot.
* Added the ARM and CORE Advanced Construction Aircraft units from the original game.
* Added the ARM Hawk and the CORE Vamp from the original game.
* Added the CORE Krogoth, and the Krogoth faction.
* Added the CORE Krogoth Gantry. Note that it now uses the model of the previous CORE Behemoth Gantry, and that this last one actually uses
the smaller OTA model.
* Added the CORE Krogoth Commander.
* Added the CORE krogoth Saigneur, a T3 heavy long range plasma cannon.
* Added the CORE Krogoth Rumen, a T3 advanced metal extractor.
* Added the CORE Krogoth Radar Tower.
* Added the ARM Poseidon Vesper, a T2 AA KBot.
* Added the ARM Mech Drake, a T2 heavy assault mech.
* Added the ARM Poseidon Commander.
* Added the ARM COntroller, a T2 AA Missile Tower, built by common T1 builders.
* Added the CORE Nightflower, a T2 AA Missile Tower, built by common T1 builders.


Gameplay -

* The CORE Behemoth Gemini's shield now reduces damages by 54% instead of 62%. The unit is thus a little less strong.
* Rocket weapon of the CORE Behemoth Gemini does no longer cause the ground to shake insanely.
* the CORE Inferno's rockets now deal more damages (+50). Cost in ressources of the weapon has been tweaked accordingly.
* Damages dealt by T1 AA fighters know as ARM Mely and CORE Echelon have been slightly increased (+18).
* Fixed the CORE Behemoth Chaos Lord's pathfinding: the unit will now move everywhere without any issue, with or without the crushing weapon 
activated. The unit still requires to use one of its normal weapons (at least once) to activate the crushing effect, but even without this 
the unit will move perfectly without constantly seeking its way.
* Fixed the CORE Behemoth Chaos Lord's weapons: the unit will no longer refuse to shot at other units without any reason.
* The CORE Behemoth Chaos Lord has been deeply reworked. First off, the unit is faster. It may over-run a ARM SpiderBot Great Tyran. It has
a greater firerange, but still not as good as the one of the ARM counter. Its main weapon has been arranged/rebalanced accordingly. Secondly,
and this is the most notable change, the unit now belongs to the Krogoth faction, and is now renamed "Krogoth Chaos Lord".
* Reduced the firerange (-33) and the damages (-10) dealt by the ARM Kengu. Cost in ressources of the weapon has been modified accordingly. 
The unit should no longer be overpowered.
* Overall cost, armor, ect... of the CORE Behemoth Gantry has been reduced (and it now uses a different model), mostly as a mean to balance
it better with the newly added Krogoth faction.
* The ARM Poseidon Bantha now moves a bit faster (+0.23). The unit is still slow somewhat, but it should no longer be sort of useless.
* Fixed the ARM XBot Fury's weapons: the unit will no longer refuse to shot at other units without any reason. You will notice that its two
miniguns are now permanently raised. To be honest, the unit may sometimes still get confused but this is quite rare, and nothing comparable
with how it used to be in alpha 0.1.
* Much like the CORE Behemoth Orb can only be built thanks to the Commander of that faction, the ARM Poseidon Emancipator can only be built
by the newly added ARM Poseidon Commander.
* Faction Commanders are now killed by ARM and CORE normal Commanders' death explosions.
* Geothermal Powerplants on both sides are now more costly (+1000 energy and +300 metal). They take a little longer to be built.
* Increased the firerange (+60) and damages (+20) dealt by the CORE Behemoth Juggler. Tweaked the cost in ressources of the weapon accordingly.
The unit is also a bit more costly (+100 metal and +1000 energy). It is meant to be a bit better than the newly added classical T2 AA towers, 
notably against gunships (thanks to the short reload time of its weapon).


Visuals -

* Retextured the CORE Energy Storage.
* Changed the model and textures of the CORE Behemoth Chaos Lord (now Krogoth Chaos Lord).
* Fixed some minor parts of the red team color (thanks to SnakeInTheMirror).
* Added a new buildpic/unitpic to the CORE Praetorian Gantry as the previous one was not fitting the actual unit ingame.


General -

* Minor fixes and improvements.



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ALPHA 0.2b

Units -

* Replaced the CORE Krogoth Rumen with a totally new unit specifically created for the TA:Enhanced mod (model, script, buildpic/unitpic). It 
has the same role/stats than in previous version.


Gameplay -

* Reduced greatly the damages dealt by CORE Weasel's machinegun weapon (from 5 to 3). Cost in ressources of the weapon modified accordingly.
The unit was just overpowered when used in groups against other bigger vehicles and tanks.
* Reduced the damages dealt by ARM Jeffy's laser (from 43 to 30). Cost in ressources of the weapon modified accordingly. Same reasons than 
above, although the Jeffy wasn't as overpowered as its CORE counter.
* Decreased slightly the reload time of the ARM Controller's and the CORE Nightflower's main weapons (-0.4 for both).
* Faction Commanders can no longer be cloaked. Contrarly to what has been said before in this very readme, a faction Commander's death won't 
cause the game to end (I have yet to understand why but that's another story...). Finally, I find this better, but I just couldn't leave them 
the possibility to approach a normal Commander while cloaked and then dgun him quietly without causing the player using such a tactic to loose 
the game as well (due to the normal Commander's death explosion).



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ALPHA 0.3e

Units -

* Added the ARM Advanced Vehicle Plant from the original game.
* Added the ARM Advanced Construction Vehicle from the original game.
* Added the ARM Bulldog from the original game.
* Added the ARM Luger from the original game.
* Added the ARM Rebel, a T2 shielded assault tank.
* Added the ARM Radeon, a T2 builder allowing the gantry of the Thunder faction to be built.
* Added the ARM Thunder Vehicle Gantry, and the Thunder faction.
* Added the ARM Thunder, a T3 assault tank.
* Added the ARM Thunder Hound, a T3 tactical tank.
* Added the ARM XBot Acolyte, A medium T3 XBot.
* Added the CORE Advanced Vehicle Plant from the original game.
* Added the CORE Advanced Construction Vehicle from the original game.
* Added the CORE Goliath from the original game.
* Added the CORE Mobile Artillery (but now named "Vizir") from the original game.
* Added the CORE Reaper from the original game.
* Added the CORE Fabricator, a t2 builder allowing the gantry of the Phaser faction to be built.
* Added the CORE Phaser Vehicle Gantry, and the Phaser faction.
* Added the CORE Phaser, a T3 assault tank.
* Added the CORE Phaser Ion Tank, A T3 tactical tank.


Gameplay -

* Decreased the speed of the CORE Weasel and ARM Jeffy (-0.25).
* Decreased the speed of the ARM Kengu (-0.35).
* Reduced the damages dealt by ARM Kengu's laser weapon (-8). Cost in ressources of the weapon modified accordingly.
* ARM XBot Fury moves much faster (+0.27), as this unit was quite useless in previous version, and clearly underpowered specially when put in 
comparison with the other heavy T3 KBots.
* Tweaked the main weapon of the CORE Commander as a mean to make it a little more accurate and effective.


Visuals -

* Totally reworked the buildpic of the ARM Poseidon Commander.
* Replaced the unwanted construction textures on the ARM Poseidon with better ones.


General -

* Removed several textures that were either unused or duplicate.
* Fixed many weapons that had invisible projectiles/explosions in multiplayer games (they work fine in skirsmish), due to a bug or a bad
setting I have yet to find. Until then, more weapons will be fixed in future versions. This is a long and a boring process, as I have to
basically retexture all affected projectiles with colors instead of pure textures, which is why it'll take me some time to fix the whole thing.
* Original ARM Thunder (the T1 bomber from OTA) has been renamed to "Mist", to make it clear that it doesn't belong to the new Thunder faction.
* Minor fixes and improvements.




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Credits (note that the units listed below may have recieved more or less important modifications):


AfterMath Design (ARM Valiant, CORE Behemoth Gemini, CORE Manjo)

Bidigam (CORE Praetorian Metal Storage)

Central Conciousness (ARM Poseidon Commander)

Conrad Units (CORE Behemoth Lab, CORE Mammoth Plant, CORE Mammoth Demolisher)

Core Prime (ARM Advanced Solar Collector, ARM Mauler, CORE Kemu, CORE Advanced Solar Collector)

COUNTERSTRIKE MOD (CORE Phaser Vehicle Gantry, CORE Phaser Ion Tank)

Creation Matrix Units (CORE Praetorian, CORE Praetorian Lab, CORE Jumbo, CORE Praetorian Gantry, CORE Bypasser, CORE Praetorian Hysteric)

Design-X (ARM Bumblebee)

Draconious (CORE Krogoth Commander)

FurtiveFox Creations (ARM Poseidon Lab, ARM Poseidon Gantry)

Killer TA Units (CORE Inferno)

Mayhem Inc (ARM Mech Azue, ARM Rebel, ARM Radeon)

MD Design (ARM Vermin)

Mutual Assured Destruction TA - MADTA (ARM Mech Metal Maker, ARM Bubble, ARM Mech Lab, ARM Mech Metal Maker, ARM Mech Mining Station, ARM 
Poseidon Vesper, CORE War Hog, CORE Behemoth Metal Maker, CORE Paguro, CORE Ravager, CORE Behemoth, CORE Obice, CORE Behemoth Juggler, CORE 
Behemoth Rhino, CORE Behemoth Odin)

Nova Design (ARM lizardo)

Omega Design (ARM Mech Gantry)

RUMAD RACE by MADTA (CORE Praetorian Radar Tower)

Scientific Design (ARM Kengu)

TA Design Division (ARM Mech Super Fusion Reactor, ARM Mech Radar Tower)

TA-Designers (ARM Enforcer, CORE Skull)

TA Arsenal Network - TAAN - Arsenal - M3G (ARM Mely, ARM Artic, ARM Tera, ARM Poseidon, ARM Poseidon Bantha, ARM Poseidon Emancipator, ARM 
XBot Fury, ARM Poseidon Blue Eye, ARM SpiderBot Gantry, ARM Thunder Vehicle Gantry, ARM Thunder, ARM XBot Acolyte, CORE Tarentule, CORE 
Echelon, CORE Runner, CORE Krogoth Chaos Lord, CORE Krogoth Saigneur)

TA Blasting Zone Advanced (CORE Phaser)

TA ESCALATION MOD (CORE Praetorian Energy Generator, CORE Praetorian Super Plant)

TA-Power (ARM Poseidon Metal Extractor, CORE Eradicator)

TA Supremely Epic Creation Team (CORE Behemoth Metal Extractor)

TA Weapons Factory (ARM Mech Vigil)

TAWP MOD (CORE Behemoth Commander, CORE Praetorian Geo. Powerplant, CORE Krogoth Gantry, CORE Krogoth Radar Tower)

THE LOST LEGACY MOD (ARM Poseidon Construction KBot)

Total Obliteration (ARM Poseidon Energy Storage, CORE Behemoth Vulcano)

UTASP MOD (Most buildpics of OTA units, ARM Mech Oppressor, ARM Poseidon Smart Metal Extractor, ARM Poseidon Dragon Slayer, ARM Stignus, ARM 
Controller, CORE Praetorian Assailant, CORE Behemoth Orb, CORE Mutilator, CORE Praetorian, CORE Yelkin, CORE Shiva, CORE Fabricator)

Wormhole Productions (CORE Avalanche)

Xubor (ARM Mech Razorback, ARM Mech Agamemnon)

Unknown author (ARM Thunder Hound, CORE Praetorian Intercepter)


Thanks to Wotan, Rage, macraig, Zippo, Idec Sdawkminn, JezeY, gamma, MattyWS, BlueWolf, Psycros, M1Garland, TaShadan, thaldren17, Vohvelielin,
SnakeInTheMirror, Viperion, Muzzleflash (and anyone else who posted in the first TA:Enhanced thread) for their comments and critics.



Mod created by Firmament, as known as Franois.