Krogoth

The Krogoth is a towering Kbot used as a late game assault unit in Total Annihilation. A Kbot (Kinetic Bio In-Organic Technology) is a mechanical or cyborg unit, driven by a sentient originally biologically derived mind. It is distinguished from robots, androids, or other artificial intelligence by its sentient mind and by the synthetic muscles that allow it to move more efficiently. Arm Kbots are controlled by cloned biological beings. Core Kbots are machine based intelligences derived from their original organic 'donors'. The war itself is over the act of conversion from organic to machine, with the Arm fighting to retain their organic nature and the Core fighting to convert all of sentient life in the galaxy to machines.

Origins
The Total Annihilation game expansion pack The Core Contingency added 75 extra units to the game (not counting third party downloadables). Easily the most powerful of these new units is the Krogoth; a unit exclusive to the Core, supposedly fabricated to ensure the Arm's destruction.

Statistics

The Krogoth is extremely heavily armed and armored and is useful both for defeating large armies of conventional enemy units or for assaulting heavily fortified bases. The physical dimensions of the Krogoth are unknown. A rough estimation, based upon other objects in the game, places the Krogoth from 11 to 15 meters tall (the height of the Arm "Defender" missile tower). However, Total Annihilation fluff calculations place the Krogoth at over 100m tall. The Krogoth is a level 3 unit, ie, it can only be constructed by a manufacturing facility (called the Krogoth Gantry) built by a level 2 construction Kbot. The Krogoth Gantry is only able to construct Krogoths. It requires 29,489 units of metal resources and 116,664 units of energy to construct one, which relative to the other units in the game is extremely expensive and requires a substantial amount of time to complete, but with a TA Trainer one Krogoth can be built in a few minutes. It has 29,918 units of health, requiring approximately 7 nuclear missiles to take it down. Though it is a biped, the Krogoth still has the largest footprint of any mobile land unit and is not amphibious or transportable by aircraft so can sometimes be stymied by terrain obstacles.

The Krogoth's weapon systems are:

*1 Annihilator laser (or "Blue Laser of Death") mounted on its head; this laser requires large amounts of energy to fire and has a slow cycle time (4 seconds) but delivers 2,500 units of damage to its target, similar to the power and damage levels of the Core's Doomsday Machine and the Arm's Annihilator emplacement, making it ideal for destroying heavily armored units or structures.
*2 vertical-launch heavy rocket launchers mounted on its back; these rockets have relatively weak warheads but launch rapidly, require no energy to fire, and are able to home in on aircraft to provide some degree of anti-aircraft defence. They also have the greatest range of the Krogoth's weapon systems.
*2 gauss cannons mounted on its arms; with shorter range but more stopping power than the rockets, these weapons are useful for destroying swarms of light combat units that the slow-firing Annihilator laser would have trouble with.

Debut

The Krogoth made its debut in a bonus mission in the Core Contingency designated "Krogoth Encounter", which although surmountable, usually seems impossible at the first playthrough. Even though the Krogoth debuts in a mission set before the Core Contingency, when playing for the Core a gamer still can construct one in the last mission of the Core Contingency Campaign and also starts the mission with a damaged Krogoth.

History

The Krogoth was developed by the Core near the end of the 4th millennium as a land-based method of eradicating any surface opposition. The experiments and prototypes were held in an isolated region of Core Prime, and were attacked when the Arm began its invasion. Although all prototype Krogoths and Krogoth Gantries were destroyed, the design had been installed into a sole surviving Core Commander. Despite the failure of its attempted contingency, the Core rapidly reappeared. It revived the long war, which had been over for a hundred years bringing with it the experimental Krogoth Kbot.

Strategy
Strategy concerning the Krogoth is limited; since it is so destructive and so powerful, after it is completed Core players can often achieve an easy victory by walking the Krogoth into an enemy base with the +shootall command activated (This command causes all player units to automatically attack enemy buildings). The overwhelming power of the Krogoth can initially be very fun to use; however, the lack of play balance can spoil the game if a player has more than one in play at a time. The best defense is usually preventing it from being built in the first place.

Defending against the Krogoth
Large numbers of artillery turrets (the Core's Punisher or the Arm's Guardian) can defeat the Krogoth. Several of these can take down a Krogoth in a matter of minutes, and because of the Punisher and Guardian's long ranges the Krogoth will not immediately destroy them. As with all units the Krogoth cannot survive a direct hit from a Commander's D-Gun, although getting close enough to take advantage of this is a risky proposition. The Krogoth is also of much more limited use on water maps, as it can't be transported by any of the transportation units.

The "Shooter" Arm Sniper KBot was designed against the Krogoth. The Shooter's laser gun is more effective against the Krogoth than any other units however it still needs a lot of shots (or a lot of Shooters) to take the Krogoth down.

The simplest defence against Krogoths are the Arm tanks known as Spiders. Spiders are armed with a paralysing laser which first cripples the Krogoth's armaments and, through prolonged shots, cripples its movement. Because spiders are easily destroyed, a handful of gunships harassing the Krogoth can distract it long enough for the spider to get within range, leaving it free for an Arm commander to capture or destroy.

Alternatively, you can use several small, fast units (e.g., the Flea) to counter the Krogoth, as they are harder for it to target and attack.

Alternatively, large numbers of aircraft can be used to counter the Krogoth. The hawk is one example. While the Krogoth does have anti-aircraft weapons, it can only fire two missiles at a time, leaving large numbers of aircraft unharmed.

Also, you can load suicidal bombs onto air transports and self destruct them when they are near the Krogoth, dealing approximately 10% of its total health damage.

The last and riskiest strategy is to get a radar jammer and three decoy commanders. Cloak the decoy commanders and your original commander, and move those units and the radar jammer to the Krogoth. D-gun the Krogoth uncloak the decoy commanders and run your original commander back toward your lines.

Krogzilla

A later mod for Total Annihilation called Uberhack improved the Krogoth's design, making it amphibious, immune to paralyzers and more effective in terms of armor, cost, etc. Though this was merely an advanced version of the original Krogoth design, some fans of the modification referred to it (and still continue to refer to it) as "Krogzilla". The nickname is derived from Japanese movie icon Godzilla, often seen destroying cities and wading in the high seas.

Finally, after development of Uberhack came to an end, Absolute Annihilation continued this trend with the Krogoth. Its physical size was increased and it was given substantially more health and firepower. Arm's counterpart Orcone was similarly sized and armed, making these two mechs the very pinnacle of both Arm and Core tech trees, and a valuable asset in any late-game engagement.

In the more recent "Twilight" versions of Absolute Annihilation, the Krogoth and its Arm counterpart were boosted yet again, turned into what the head Modder calls "Primal forces of Nature", in order to counter the extreme logistical and economic difficulty of getting one of them onto the battlefield.

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