ANNEX NOT DEAD!!!! I'm just horrible at keeping everyone informed and once again I apologize...
So whats new??
If you recall my last news post talked about having later tiered units split between two structures, the Tech Lab and Silo. Now the divide is deepen now that those units require specific upgrades from either of those structures. For example before a MRLS needed a Silo to be produced, now requires a Silo and the "Ballistic Weapons" Upgrade. Each of these two structures have four upgrades that are needed to produce units and give various other bonuses to your faction.
Also hero no longer requires both Silo and Tech Lab, but needs either a Silo or Tech Lab, and her special ability will depend on which you own. Silo gives her the Nuke ability, and Tech Lab gives her Satellite Beam attack. If you have both Silo and Tech Lab she will have both abilities, but they share one counter so only one could be used at a time.
Hero Unit:
Annex: Conquer the World also has a new feature: Ability to customize your single and multi-player battles! In the upcoming beta you will have the ability to choose between 5 modes (tech trees):
Base Battle:
Default gameplay mode. Play with all 3 Tiers including Hero Character. Start with a Refinery and 10 Drone Workers.
Pre - Built:
Same as Base Battle but start with a small functional base with a Refinery, 2 Warehouses, a Barracks, a Factory, 10 Workers and 5 Grunts. Great for those wanting to get into battle quickly!
Tier 1 Only:
Exactly what the name suggests, limits game to only starting units, Which are Refinery, Warehouse, Barracks, Factory, Bunker, Workers, Grunts, Rocket Grunts, and IFVs
Tier 1 & 2 Only:
Exactly what the name suggests, all units as in Tier 1, and includes units requiring the "Advanced Weapons" upgrade, including: Mini Gunners, Mortar Infantry, Harvesters, Battle Tanks, Strikers, Hangar, Scouts, and Gunships, all units requiring a Silo or Tech Lab are disabled.
Infantry Only:
Also fairly self explanatory, Limits gameplay to only combat infantry. However this mode changes tech tree to a new scaled down system, having only 4 Structures: Refinery, Warehouse, Barracks, and Bunker. You can use all infantry from Tier 1-3 as well as your hero, but you must purchase their corresponding upgrade from the Refinery before use. Both starting resources, and structure durability greatly reduced.
And there will be even more in the future!
Each of these mods will contain the East Ocean Alliance as a playable faction.
Well, I'm done with the major part of my file system restructuring, moving all art, and sound elements to their own respective folders and out of the tech tree folder. Since this is a standalone mod I took liberties and changed up the system a bit, which helps in reducing overall game size, and should help speed up performance( I believe ) It also gave me an opportunity to make these new modes using tech trees, while keeping file size down, each added tech tree is a mere 10kb.
Also I gave the player the ability to choose a High or Low detail version of the Annex Tileset.
This turns off 3D grass Fx for those who need added performance.
Whew i'm... outa... breath.....
Other changes are balance changes, bug fixes, and even more optimization.
Beta Release: Beta Version 1 get it here: Moddb.com
Full version includes its OWN Megaglest Install and app data. Just Extract using 7z extractor like 7zip, anywhere you want and run "annex_stable.exe"
Annex is very graphic intensive, so lower end machines will have some trouble, no worries! You can turn off
particles, lower resolution, turn off shadows, and play using the
"wastelands low" tileset to increase performance.
Built on MegaGlest engine, source can be found here: Sourceforge.net
Graphics are Licensed under CC-by-Nc-Sa: Creativecommons.org
