================================================= Hard Core A map for Total Annihilation created by Mike_Vox. vox@bellsouth.net vox@tamec.org ================================================= Briefing ----------- Now that you have the real Heavy Metal banging, it's time to get Hard Core. Eight metallic platforms stretch across Core Alpha Station. The gutters connect certain platforms together to provide fast transport. The main ramps will lead you to the ground level where you can plan a larger assault. Instructions ---------------- 1. If your reading this file, I'm assuming that means you must have un-zipped the main file. This means you should now have the following files: Hard Core.ufo Hard_Core.txt 2. Move the two files listed above into your main Total Annihilation directory. Of course, it's not necessary to keep this text file in there, but I suggest it in case you want to re-zip these files to give to someone else. If you do re-distribute this map, please give the courtesy of including this readme file. The Story Continues --------------------------- The Arm engineers had been going over the data for months. With the failing war effort starting to reach closer to home, Arm could not afford the unexplained disappearance of the commander to what seemed to be stable coordinates on the galactic gate. Losing to something you cannot see was far worse than the visible beating they were taking on the front line. Yet it was a familiar situation, analogous to Arm's darkest moments in history. It was known as the "Core paradox". Despite Core's rabid exhaustion of planet resources and their excessive need for metal, they almost always managed to produce three times as many units than could possibly be supported by the planets they conquered. Where were the unknown sources supplying their war effort? The admiral scanned through the latest report: "Our galactic gate became active today, but not from our end. In accordance with regulation, the gate was quickly surrounded with fully armed k-bots as the signal began to materialize. What we received were a hand full of modified nano-bots equipped with an encrypted message. They were damaged during the transfer, but we have confirmed the message is a distress call from the lost battalion sent months earlier from this same gate. They arrived on Core Alpha Station, once thought to be abandoned. From the up-link they were able to achieve with Alpha Station's systems, they were able to determine the station was moved to a distant quadrant not on our charts. Alpha Station is now fully active and far from the wasteland of a galaxy where it once collected rust. Even stranger, the battalion suspects the station has a massive cloaking system currently in use. The old, malfunctioning gates on Alpha Station must have been re-activated when the station went back on-line. The station's fluctuating gate signals linked up with our gate's out-going signal and thus the transfer was made. But the station's damaged gates must have made it impossible for our battalion to return without the possibility of getting shot off into an empty region of space. Instead, they sent in the modified nano-bots, in the hopes their unstable signal would link up with ours long enough to get some through. They got lucky, it worked. With the coordinates they sent us, we can transfer our troops to the nearest planets and make a drop onto Alpha Station from there. The uncharted quadrant could be a source for Core's hidden resources, which would explain their odd interest in the area." Putting down the report, the Arm admiral quickly summoned all of his available troops for a briefing, "It's time to hit Core where it will really hurt!" Technical ------------- Size: 18 x 19 Ram: Minimum 32 MB Number of players: Suggested 2, 4, 6, 8. Supports up to 10 players. Uncompressed size: 1.6 MB Compressed size: 1.6 MB Credits ---------- Many thanks go out to the following people who made creation of this map possible: TAMEC http://www.tamec.org/ Total Annihilation Map Evaluation Center (visit TAMEC for all your map needs) Programmers of The Map Annihilator http://www.annihilated.com/Annihilator/ Hot Lizard Software (all height editing and tile placement was done with this excellent editor) Programmers and maintainers of POV-Ray http://www.povray.org Persistence of Vision Development Team(tm) (all image rendering was done with this amazing freeware application) Everyone at Cavedog http://www.cavedog.com/ (I manipulated Cavedog's metal textures to create new texture patterns)