Total Annihilation: The Core Contingency

The Core Contingency (abbr. TA:CC) is a 1998 expansion to the popular 1997 real-time strategy computer game Total Annihilation. It contains extra units and maps, as well as a campaign of 25 missions and a long-awaited (although glitchy) official map editor.

Story
The Core Contingency picks up where the original game finishes with the Arm ending, in which the Arm achieved final victory over the Core in its homworld Core Prime, in their Galactic War of over 4,000 years. With the Core supposedly wiped out of existence, the Arm undergoes one-hundred years of reconstructing civilization.

However, a lone Core Commander survives, hidden away in a distant system. The Core Commander, the heart of the Core's Contingency plan in case the Core would ever be defeated, is charged with a single mission: to search for a powerful and ancient alien artifact hidden in the region. With modifications, the beacon could supposedly be converted into an Implosion Device—a single, phenomenally powerful superweapon which, when activated, would cause the entire galaxy to implode into itself, with the Core's pure intention to permanently extinguish the Arm. The Core Commander would stay inside the gigantic machine as it causes the galaxy to virtually self-destruct, then step out unscathed and rebuild the entire Core race.

Meanwhile, rumors circulate amongst the mending Arm over the said Contingency Plan, so an Arm Commander is dispatched along with sizable reinforcements to confirm or eliminate the gossip.

Missions
The Core Contingency expansion features 25 new missions, with 12 for each of its campaigns and a bonus mission, named "Krogoth Encounter."

Krogoth Encounter is an Arm bonus mission, set during the time of the original game (and thus could technically be considered a "lost mission") during the Galactic War on the metallic world of Core Prime, as the Arm was slowly making its way to domination. The level is available only in Hard difficulty, its highlight being experimental, super-powerful Krogoth Kbots which the player must overcome and whose production facilities the player must destroy.

The Core Contingency missions also feature native, hostile alien inhabitants of various planets, such as dangerously powerful sea creatures on the campaign's opening planet, Hydross, a water world.

Units
The 75 new units the expansion pack comes with include: seaplanes capable of landing underwater, aqueous metal deposits and structures (such as the floating "Naval-Series" heavy laser turrets and missile turrets), hovercraft, amphibious Kbots, pop-up turrets, and rapid-fire plasma cannons, among many others. It also, aside from the addition of new worlds, adds new natural disasters, particularly those of Temblor, a planet whose only habitable land lies on mountains high above clouds, whose unpredictable earthquakes can damage structures and ground forces.

Many of the CC units are included in the 3.1 patch except a few most important ones. For example:

CORE Krogoth is a heavy level 10 Experimental kbot that is produced in the Level 3 Krogoth Gantry. It high cost of 29489 Metal and 116664 Energy make it hard and slow to produce. It has a Heavy Blue Laser in its head, Heavy Plasma Cannons in its arms and two Starburst missile launchers on its back. It can wreak havoc if accompanied by radar and a Targeting Facility. The Krogoth however can be destroyed by a direct shot from a Commander's D-Gun.

ARM Pelican is an amphibious level 2 kbot produced in the Adv. Kbot Lab. It moves on the surface of the water and takes little damage from missile fire. It is armed with a red laser and rockets. It costs 255 Metal and can dominate naval battles.

ARM Maverick is a level 2 gunslinging kbot, it has two high damage plasma weapons and a metal cost of 492. Few of these can take out a Commander easily.

ARM Vulcan & CORE Buzzsaw are Long Range Plasma Cannons or LRPCs with rapid fire. They require huge energy supplies to fire effectively but are devastating with radar and a Targeting Facility. The Buzzsaw has a lower rate of fire but a longer range.

Maps
The expansion comes with 53 multiplayer maps, featuring all-new environments such as lush grassland/rainforest, slate, crystal, urban, and sea-coral. It also fixes various bugs and glitches from the original game. Many popular online TA maps come from the CCexpansion.

System requirements

 * Minimum
 * Pentium 100 MHz
 * 32 MB RAM
 * Windows 95
 * VGA video card
 * Sound Blaster-compatible sound card
 * 4x CD-ROM drive
 * 100 MB hard-disk space
 * Recommended
 * Pentium II 350 MHz
 * 128 MB RAM

Platforms

 * Microsoft Windows
 * Windows 95
 * Windows 98
 * Windows Me
 * Windows NT 4.0
 * Windows 2000 and Windows XP
 * Windows XP x64 {Requires manual installation}
 * Windows Vista
 * Windows 7


 * Apple Macintosh (PowerPC)