New member!

    Posted by The Silencer, 08-06-2005


  We welcome to GreyBeard as new member here at TA-Power. He's going to contribute at map designing and helping ChinaHook at completing the new cool tile-sets he is working on; which are going to be released in brief.

  Be welcome aboard GreyBeard!.


  And stay tuned..




  Preview part II available at GameSpy!
  Unit Packs section updated

  Posted by The Silencer, 07-09-2005


  GameSpy posts the second delivery already. It goes with an Interview with Chris Taylor, new exclusive pictures, and more cool info on Supreme Commander's gameplay!. So take a breath and.. ready?.. now you run to check this your self!!. 


  Unit Packs section has been updated with current and status info. Now, the section reveals what units have been revised already and what is the role of the upcoming Spider Egg unit ;)




  Supreme Commander: First online preview at GameSpy!

  Posted by The Silencer, 07-08-2005


  The GameSpy's folks show a first delivery, which includes more than 50 exclusive pictures on Supreme Commander, directly from Gas Powered Games. And even more... wait.. you still here?... run to watch it!!. 

  So this time I better say... Stay hyper-tuned! ;)




  Terrorist attacks on London

  Posted by The Silencer, 07-07-2005


  Unfortunately, terrorism hits our lives again, this time on the U.K. Coward acts like that is what strongly reinforces even more our conviction in democracy. Our most sincere condolences to our friends and families in London.




  Units section updated

  Posted by The Silencer, 07-01-2005


  The Units section has been polished and shows some of extra info for better understanding. Also I've placed a link to download the 3DO Dry Cleaner™, for those unit makers interested at using the tool.




  Supreme Commander officially announced!!
  New unit revision

  Posted by The Silencer, 06-26-2005


  Chris Taylor, the creator of Total Annihilation (1997), is about to genreform™ the RTS again with a brand new and revolutionary War Game: Supreme Commander (Coming in 2006).

  Moreover, the Gas Powered Games SupCom's web site is open to the public already. Are you in the SupCom's Website already?.. you hear the background?.. heheh.. that's music to my ears! =). So we keep an eye on these great news because, as Chris Taylor said already, "SupCom will be the spiritual successor of Total Annihilation"!



  OK, i have revised the old Arm Demolisher, which completely deserved one, IMO. OTA version this time, which means the unit is prepared for the Original TA game only. Improvements are listed below:

  That's all for now.. have fun! ;)




  Anomalies

  Posted by The Silencer, 05-30-2005


  Seems to be that some of the content is outdated. We are verifying and/or fixing that.




  On the TA movie posted during Christmas
  New unit incoming

  Posted by The Silencer, 05-29-2005


  On the TA movie made by Benito: You can post forward your questions or comments to him on the forum.


  OK, this is the build picture of the last unit i make for the Spider Pack.

  Stay tuned.




  Merry Christmas!!
  You ready?... Mega release!

  Posted by Benito, ChinaHook and The Silencer, 12-25-2004


  Very special day, indeed.. thus special releases for you all!. 

  Here we go first with an awesome TA movie made by Benito, our Rendering Dep.'s Head here at TA-Power. This is what he has to say on this cool material:

  To wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, TA-Power are celebrating the festive season by releasing a movie thats been in the making for the past 9 months (has it really been that long?). Based on the intro movie to Warcraft II, it explores what TA II might be like if Blizzard ended up with the licence. The movie comes in two flavours, a high quality version for broadband users and a low quality version for those on modem.


  And we got more gifts for you today: ChinaHook has designed a cool TA map based on the Adamantine World (I do love this tile-set made by C_A_P). Here's what he wants to tell you all on this new TA battlefield:

  As I promised some weeks ago, here's another new map of our collection. As you can see on the minimap view, the map has five rocky mesas whose only vegetation is moss and some trees fitted to rocky terrains. Four of these mesas are located in the four map corners and the fifth is in the center. There's some access to the high land of the mesas which will become important control points during the game. Metal is plentiful all over the map, and it allow you to create an army quickly. Energy will be suplied in the first game moments by vegetation (moss and trees), by geothermals later (one per start position) and finaly by fusion plants. Players will start the game on the mesas. The start positions lay-out is optimal for a game north vs. south or east vs. west.

  The map was initialy designed for multiplayer, either free for all or team play game, but I have included for lonely players a custom AI which will allow the offline game. More info about it is included into the doc file (Read it!).

  The most remarkable issue of that map is the tileset I've used. The tiles belong to the Evergreen II tileset, a new tileset that I will try to release as soon as posible for your enjoyment. These tiles have been obtained from a C_A_P's map entitled Adamantine Mountains, published time ago in TAMEC. I downloaded and played that map and it liked me, so I tried to locate the tileset used but it wasn't possible because there wasn't such tileset. In this situation, I though it would be a pity to loose the oportunity to get a tileset like that and I decided to create it.

  You will not need the TA's expansion TA Core Contingency but TAMEC2004.CCX to play on this map. Said all that; stay tuned!. ;-)


  Hope you all enjoy this new material!. Have a great Holiday and even better New Year 2K5!! ;)




  We welcome a new member in TA-Power!

    Posted by The Silencer, 12-16-2004


  We welcome to Broken as new member in TA-Power. Can you hear the techno loop as page's sound background?. Yeah, it's made by him, who is going to help in the making of general sound as well as audio SFX here; so welcome aboard Broken!.

  On the other hand, stay tuned during this weekend given that ChinaHook is packing a new cool TA map for you all ;).

  And one last thing; if any of you has sent E-mail to the Hotmail account during these last couple of weeks, then resend again please. That's all for now; stay tuned.



  New map available for the download: Hergest Ridge!

  Posted by ChinaHook, 10-30-2004


  As you can see on the minimap view, there's a ridge which crosses the map from upper-left to bottom-right: 

  The high land on the ridge can be accessed by means of some slope ways located in different points. These points will become into key points, as you will be able to check during the game. The same can be said about the two passes (map center) which cross the ridge and connect both sides of the ridge.

  In the bottom-left, there's an old core base. It was abandoned many thousand years ago and vegetation has launched its particular counterstrike to recover the terrain lost time ago, covering the base almost fully. This means that there's no metal in metal zones, but you can extract metal from some metal pits.

  Vegetation is plentiful, which means that you will have an extra source of energy when you need it. Moreover, there are two geo vents in each side of the ridge. You can use these geothermal holes in the first game momments. Metal is copio us too, but not as plentiful as energy (vegetation), and it is spread all over the map. There's a good ammount of metal patches on the mesas.

  If you play the map off-line, I have prepared an AI which could entertain you for about one hour, depending on your skill. The AI uses nuke silos by Switeck, so install it if you haven't done it yet. If you w ant to know more about the AI, read the doc file included into the .zip. By the way, the AI file is packed into the .ufo file.

  You will need the official TA's Expansion Pack TA:CC, TAMEC2004.CCX and TAK_2004_BETA.CCX files in order to load and play this map (both files available at TAMEC).

  That's all. I promise you more maps soon... ;-)   Download Hergest Ridge and enjoy!




  Advanced RFMRPCs revised
  Some of maintenance on the site

  Posted by The Silencer, 10-21-2004


  Here we go with a couple more of revised units. This time what I polished is our Rapid Fire Medium Range Plasma Cannons. What a mouthfull.. I know =P. This is what I did:

Deterrer Scatterer   New Build Pictures Models have been Dry Cleaned™ ( using our own Dry Cleaner™ tool) as well as slightly modified. New textures work on them Both units go with a new unique weapon ID 119 as well as a new weapon sound. General Features File improvements.

  On compatibility: These units are to be played in the OTA (Original TA game). No ÜberHack revised versions are available yet (the next version of the EU pack for the UH is still being play-tested).

  On gameplay & strats: What you get with these Level 2 units is better fire-rate as well as slightly better armor. Some few of well placed RFMRPCs can decimate light and medium unit balls sent by your opponent. On the other hand you may use air units, vertical launched rockets, TRONs/Paralyzers and/or LRPCs to erase enemy RFMRPCs over the map.


   As maintenance on the site: General improvements. The News and Units Sections can be explored at 1024x768 or higher resolutions from now on. As soon as possible, I'll upgrade all the others pages of the site.


   Said all that ..     Download the TA-Power's Adv. RFMRPCs. Have fun!




  3DO Dry Cleaner™ v1.1
  Units Section updated

  Posted by Benito, 06-04-2004


  As you probably already know, the 3DO Dry Cleaner™ is an utility to clean up 3DO files. It was designed to perform the function that 3DO Builder's 'Clean Up Model' should have done.


  Our own TA utility has now been updated to perform the following functions:

  1) *New feature* Selectively remove all faces that are a certain color. This can be done for multiple colors at once, and gives you more control compared to the previous version, which would automatically remove all faces of color index 0 (black).

  2) *New feature* Selectively replace all faces of particular color with another color. This can be done for multiple colors at once.

  3) Remove any duplicate or unused vertexes.

  4) Remove duplicate and unused texture names.

  5) Maintain compatibility with 3DO Builder.

  The aim of all this is to reduce the file size and memory usage of models, which should help to improve in-game performance.

  An easy-to-use-in-2-steps tool (click on its 'About' button to see complete info). Check it for yourself.. and as always... it is for free ;)




  Advanced Gunships revised and ready for the download

  Posted by The Silencer, 05-27-2004


  I reckon that our old Adv. VTOLs deserve a revision. So I turned on the lights of our Units Lab one more time. This is what I did:

Dart Black Dawn   New Build Pictures Models have been Dry Cleaned™ ( using our own Dry Cleaner™ tool) as well as slightly modified. New textures work on them Its shared weapon has been rebalanced: What you get now is better accuracy, and pretty decent damage/range ratio. No special damage values against heavy vehicles anymore. 105 damage points to Commanders only. (Weapon ID number is 250) General Features File improvements. Arm's version is no longer called Blade but Dart from now on.. I think it fits better when you stare at the model =) From now on these Gun-ships are built in the Adv. Air Plants only. (Previous versions shared their production with both Seaplane Plants)

  On compatibility: These units are to be played in the OTA (Original TA game). No ÜberHack versions on the lab table given that this mod does not need units like these IMO.

  On gameplay & strats: What you get with these units is specialized AG (Air-to-Ground) firepower. 'Hit and run' and the surprise factor may be decisive. On the other hand, you may build AA (Air-to-Air) and/or fighters to counter them. Flakers will cut them in pieces, being this the best way to stop any opponent who likes to mass-produce them. 

  To conclude, I'll give you a piece of advice: If you realize that your opponent plans to send them to you while you have not any decent AA support up... then well.. better you run your a$$ off towards the Galactic Gate! ;P


    Download the TA-Power's Adv. Gunships

  Stay tuned and.. Have fun!




  What if we post an eye-candy session?...

  Posted by The Silencer, 04-24-2004 / 04-26-2004


  Go it!... This render has been produced by Benito to celebrate the imminent release of the 2004 Arm Expansion Spider Pack.

  Rendered in POV-Ray, it took two months to produce, working on and off, and more than 17 hours to render!:

Choose your screen resolution and click on the following link to enlarge the picture 800      1024      1280      1600      2048

  "For days the Core artillery had pounded distant Arm positions on this inhospitable ice planet. The Arm Commander was determined that this would not be allowed to continue. Under cover of one of the planets all too frequent blizzards the Arm started jamming the Core radar and secretly put together a large swarm of Spiders to cross the rough terrain separating them from the Core base.

  Setting out early in the day, they almost reached the Core positions unnoticed when the blizzard covering the Core's artificial eyes lifted. Already too close for the artillery to fire on the Spiders, a defense force was hastily dispatched from the base. However, the Spiders quickly paralysed this force and proceeded to annihilate every unit.

  Their path was now clear to assault the defenses sitting atop the steep cliffs surrounding the Core base. The Spiders regrouped and advanced, their plan, not to destroy, but to disable and capture the Core heavy guns. A Core armored column was on its way to reinforce the base, this would have to be done quickly..."


  And yes, we got more for your all pleasure:


  This render was originally going to be a view of a massive battlefield from the perspective of the Arm Commander and a Big Bertha. However, while changing the camera view to look at something else, Benito accidentally found a camera position that seemed to work so much better. Re-working the scene from this view, he removed the battlefield and replaced it with the dark green ocean, adding the might of the Arm navy to defend the land from the (unseen) Core armada.

  Also, it was produced in POV-Ray in about a week, and only took a few hours to render. It uses a mixture of OTA (Original TA) and TAAN's Evolva models:

Choose your screen resolution and click on the following link to enlarge the picture 800      1024      1280      1600      2048

  So perhaps is being time to renew that desktop's wallpaper? ;)

  I've uploaded re-compressed pictures, so if you downloaded any of the pictures on Sunday then you may do it again, given that the new ones are pretty smaller.

  Hope you enjoyed these visuals. Stay tuned..