What is Terra?

Terra is a FREE Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) persistent world universe in which Warriors battle with heavy weapons on both personal and team levels to conquer the Outlands!

Terra is a war game unlike any other, modeled after none, similar to absolutely nothing! Terra is a persistent game world in which you fight both Warriors (humans) and Robots (AI) to gain rank/experience and built your own assets, claim land and protect it. Play with friends, create your own clan, or even meet new friends.

In Terra, only skill and battle tactics separate the good players from the bad. Overcome, adapt and conquer! Fly planes and helicopters, drive tanks and fast moving light battle vehicles. Play with a defensive nature or an aggressive one. Build and name your own castles and forts and even design their defenses and defend them in fierce battles that can last from just minutes to an intense several hours.

Terra doesn't sleep. It is a persistent world that exists 24/7, every minute of every day in real time. Your assets exist and are defended by your friends and allies, or their own defenses while you sleep. In Terra, the war is never over, it's always just beginning. Come try a game that's both very simple, but deeply complex in all of it's capabilities. Build your world the way YOU like it and test your skills as a Warrior against others.

Screenshots

Extended Server Downtime on Friday January 27th.

The server, website, and forum will subject to a scheduled power outage tomorrow,  Friday, January 27th.  The expected downtime is from 4PM to 10PM, U.S. Pacific Standard Time.

Check the Terra Facebook page, Twitter feed, or Google Plus page for news during the server downtime.

Server Version 1.32.3

Changes:

• Add "observe_mode" configuration option to control whether or not players are observable before you log in.  Disable observe mode for now.

Changes for version 1.32.2:

• Allow vulture warp to senior and junior ranges.
• Set lower bound on terrain LOS checks for AI.
• Include file cleanup (remove unneeded include files, use consistent order for others).

Weapon Upgrades

The weapon upgrades discussed in the Vehicle Improvements thread have been implemented as of restart today.

A summary of the changes is as follows:

Piranha:

• PLAS load increased from 50 to 75
• Laser replaced with a Machine Gun
• DC load increased to 40 from 20

Barracuda:

• DUP and HEAT loads increased to 75 each from 50 each
• MAG replaced with LDM x 24
• Laser replaced with Machine Gun
• DC load decreased to 10 from 20

Stingray:

• Rocket load increased to 96 from 72
• Laser replaced with Machine Gun

Scarab:

• Laser replaced with Heavy Laser

Re: OP4 Reconstruction Teams clear Sump Beachheads for use!

Update

Regular express Vulture flights are now taking place between the Dregs, Sump, Amok_Home and DesertRats_Home.  The Clan Council hopes that these high-speed transports will allow Clans to more rapidly expand into the distant corners of the Outlands and generate even more tax income for the central government.

OP4 construction crews have also completed repairs to the Sump Power Plant making the rapid movement of warriors between friendly beachhead forts much easier than was previously possible using the back-up generators being used up to now.

Amok_Home and DesertRats_Home

As a trial I have moved Amok_Home and DesertRats_Home to the middle of the North-East and South-West quadrants of the map respectively.  This will allow players to quickly "warp" to these portions of the map which will make getting to distant forts much less time consuming and make it easier for Clans to defend their more distant assets.

Once the Sump beachhead area has been reactivated I have also asked that both the Dregs and Sump be made "warp-able" locations as well.  This will give quick access to all four quadrants of the map.

There have also been Heavy Thugs placed at the two home forts.  I've briefly tested them and it appears that they won't shoot at any Vultures making use of the forts for transport purposes, but they will make it somewhat "interesting" for any players trying to FARP from the forts (except for members of the owning Clan of course).

Please report any problems/issues with this set up to me so that we can assess if this is a good solution or not.

Update on Development Plans

This is a quick overview of some of the projects that we are hoping to tackle going forward.  We don't have a fixed timetable for the changes as each item can pose it's own unique coding problems to be resolved and the amount of development time Jenga has may vary depending on his other commitments.  This is just to give you a rough idea of what we're planning on working on.

Stage 1:

Offlining:  Jenga is going to re-examine the current lockdown code to see where it's not functioning properly.  The goal of the offline protection is not to prevent all offlines, but to at least keep them to a minimum.  If the current system cannot be made to work consistently and effectively then we'll examine alternate ways to minimize the impact of offlines on the game.  Any detailed information from the players on specifics about the failures of the current system would be greatly helpful in resolving the problems. Update:  Implementing mining may have an impact on Offlines.  Different options are being looked at.

Ranking System:  The current player and Clan ranking systems (especially the 30-day stats) have lots of problems with the coding that we'd like to clear up.  Our intention is to replace them with a much simpler "points" based system which will be much simpler to track and get rid of the hundreds of "blank" scores that the current system produces.  In making these changes we also hope to have more facets of the gameplay reflected in the scoring system (things like construction, exploration, and combat for example).  This new system will also eventually allow us to have regular resets of the scoring (like fixed-length "campaigns") WITHOUT having to resort to a map-wipe that takes away all of a Clan's hard-earned assets. Update:  We're discussing player preferences in the Forum as well as looking at what options are technically possible within the coding.  We'll keep you updated.

Gauntlet:  We'll take another stab at the Gauntlet training area and get it working properly (and the Achievement reactivated) Update:  There's a temporary version of the Gauntlet running but there are a few issues.  On the back-burner while we work on other priorities (if you have any suggestions for changes to the way Gauntlet works please share them).

Sump:  [s]The Sump beachhead area will be reactivated giving players another beachhead area to use and the "Sump Commander" (and individual Beachhead) Achievements made available to new players.[/s] Update: DONE!

Training:  We will begin working on updates to the Training tools in the game.  These will include such things as [s]i) a .pdf training manual (a basic manual to start and a more complete one including Outland operations later), ii) Updates to the on-screen help menus in the game to make them much more useful, iii) Update the training/resource information on the website,[/s] and iv) Revisions to TARN's training scripts. Update:  Items i, ii, and iii completed.  Some revised TARN training scripts have been tested and we're looking at a printable Quick Reference Guide for new players

Stage 2:

Mining:  A basic Outland Economy will be implemented.  This first stage will likely involve permanent mining "beachheads" located in the Outlands that the Clans can find, fight over, and use to collect Ore (which will eventually be factored into the Ranking system). Update:  In process.  You may notice that Castles when lased now show an "Ore" capacity as do Hippos that are carrying Ore.  More to follow.

Berserkers:  The code for the Berserker tournaments will be fixed to allow the Zerkboss to again run tournaments.  The ideal goal is to come with a way to automate the Berserker system to allow tournaments "on the fly" without having to be manually configured by the Zerkboss. Update: On hold for the moment while we work on other projects, but still on the "To Do" list.

Stage 3:

This next step is to develop and launch an "automatic updater" for the Terra Client software (the software you each download on to your computer in order to play the game).  This will allow Terra to check to make sure that every player has the most current version of the Terra Client on their computer and automatically update their version if the do not.  This will allow us to make more regular changes to some of the many elements of the game that are hard-wired into the Client and can't be changed by changes to the Server side only.

As part of this process we would also be implementing the new Terrain model that many of you have been testing as well as adding a number of new building models (and other possible behind the scenes upgrades) which will allow us to more easily follow up with further developments (such as Player-controlled mining sites and other types of economic structures, etc.).

Other items:

If other specific problems/issues should arise during this process we will certainly look at fixing them as well as we go forward.  This could also include things such as "tweaking" vehicle attributes (the boat weapon loads for example), or other such things that can be handled on the Server side without requiring Client changes.

That's basically a quick summary of what we're looking at as the next few stages in the development of Terra.  We'd appreciate your feedback (as well as your patience) as we move forward.

Thanks.

Server Version 1.32.1

Changes:

• Better logging for AI movement errors.
• Fix potential floating-point comparison problems (one of these, fixed a while ago, caused a server lockup in line of sight calculations).