Cortex Command

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== Story ==
== Story ==
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Earth would never recover. Once peaceful, the world was awash in bloodshed, wracked by wars backed by holy men. And in humanity's darkest hour, the boldest decisions were the only ones left.  
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Earth was over.  
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The rush of war forged a curious symbiosis between man and machine. Cybernetics led to casting off the entire body. Brain and mind melded with machines, the person became more spirit than creature-- one mind, but one body was no longer its limit.
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Once peaceful, the world was awash in bloodshed, wracked by wars backed by holy men. And in humanity's darkest hour, the boldest decisions were simply all we had left.  
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This new form offered the only escape from the corpse of our world. Needing life support only for a brain, it became possible to build interstellar rocket ships for the decades of flight needed to reach new worlds. And as this interstellar era dawned, so did peaceful contact with other intelligent life in the universe. In time, interstellar trade flourished, and with it rapid expansion. Humans again knew peace and prosperity.
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Forged by the rush of war, a curious symbiosis between man and machine formed. Our numbers bleeding away, technology enabled the survivors to control robots and clones from safety. And in the end, we found the body an obsolete constraint, and cast it off. Brain and mind interfaced with machines, we became more spirit than flesh-- one mind living through many bodies.  
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But war always comes home. Expansion created an ever growing hunger for resources. So, once again, all prepare to fight in order to assume... '''Cortex Command'''.
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In this new form we found escape from the corpse of our world. Interstellar rocket ships for the decades-long flights to reach new worlds became common once life support for entire bodies was unnecessary.
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Fleeing into unknown frontiers, humanity learned it was not alone, but also not important. Intent on peace, humanity struggled for acceptance in this community, eventually forming the Orion Spur Amalgam. Interstellar trade flourished, and with it came rapid expansion. As this new era dawned, humanity lived again in peace and prosperity.
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But our nature wasn't so easily cast off. For every new city and space station brought its own ever-growing hunger for resources. Resources that were exhausted in civilized sectors where law ensured worlds were conquered by the highest bidder. So all eyes turned outward, to star systems where no law existed but what you could enforce yourself.
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As the gold rush brings several rival groups to one such world beyond the far eastern fringes of the OSA, all prepare to assume... '''Cortex Command'''.
== Techs ==
== Techs ==

Revision as of 01:20, 24 June 2012

Contents

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About

Cortex Command is the primary project of Data Realms LLC. The game is still in development.

"In Cortex Command, you play as a prospector and explorer in a time where complete cybernetics and whole-body amputations are common practice. Your severed brain is able to control many different types of bodies remotely from its underground bunker: clones, robots, spaceships, defensive turrets, and so on.

A typical scenario starts with a building phase where you get to construct your own bunker complex from scratch. Then you need to mine precious gold from the deformable pixel terrain in order to buy more and better ships, soldiers, weapons, digging tools, and deployable defenses. Use these assets to defend your disembodied brain and destroy or bankrupt your opponent!

Control your team of remote bodies either directly or let the friendly AI do your bidding through real-time strategy elements built into the game. Play with up to four players in split screen -- 2 vs. 2 players, or all four cooperatively against the computer. Eventually, you can play the campaign missions together with friends..."


Story

Earth was over.

Once peaceful, the world was awash in bloodshed, wracked by wars backed by holy men. And in humanity's darkest hour, the boldest decisions were simply all we had left.

Forged by the rush of war, a curious symbiosis between man and machine formed. Our numbers bleeding away, technology enabled the survivors to control robots and clones from safety. And in the end, we found the body an obsolete constraint, and cast it off. Brain and mind interfaced with machines, we became more spirit than flesh-- one mind living through many bodies.

In this new form we found escape from the corpse of our world. Interstellar rocket ships for the decades-long flights to reach new worlds became common once life support for entire bodies was unnecessary.

Fleeing into unknown frontiers, humanity learned it was not alone, but also not important. Intent on peace, humanity struggled for acceptance in this community, eventually forming the Orion Spur Amalgam. Interstellar trade flourished, and with it came rapid expansion. As this new era dawned, humanity lived again in peace and prosperity.

But our nature wasn't so easily cast off. For every new city and space station brought its own ever-growing hunger for resources. Resources that were exhausted in civilized sectors where law ensured worlds were conquered by the highest bidder. So all eyes turned outward, to star systems where no law existed but what you could enforce yourself.

As the gold rush brings several rival groups to one such world beyond the far eastern fringes of the OSA, all prepare to assume... Cortex Command.

Techs

Note: Techs replaced Factions in Build 27. Techs are distinct groups with their own sets of units, weapons, tools, bombs, and even vehicles, as well as access to Free Trade products. The player acts as a kind of local commander or franchisee of one of the Techs competing with the others. Cost to buy from Techs other than your own are double.

Coalition

A militarized organization, the Coalition produce a large array of units and weaponry to choose from. They are versatile and powerful, making them a strong ally or a dangerous foe.

Dummy

These robots were originally designed as test subjects for weapons, vehicle safety measures, and other lethal experiments, but an AI controller became sentient and broke off from its manufacturers, starting a new line of robots and weapons to defend itself.

Ronin

Rag-tag parties of bandits who prey on weak and unsuspecting explorers. Their soldiers are unarmored and weapons primitive, but they manage to get the job done.

Browncoats

A strong mercenary group who are fearsome when confronted up-close. What they lack in range is made up for in durability, allowing them to close distances while soaking bullets.

Imperatus

The Imperatus rely on pure brute force and the reliability of their sturdy and easy to produce armored units. They use simple low rate of fire guns and cannons which tirelessly deals out good damage.

Free Trade

This is the "default tech" as any buyable item not assigned to any .rte tech will be in the top-level of the Buy Menu. You cannot campaign as Free Trade, nor are they part of skirmishes.

Free Trade is a super corporation which owns and operates TradeStars, including TradeStar Midas which transports everything you purchase in the Buy Menu. They also sell a few units and weapons of their own as well as most all the tools available.

Factions

Some of the factions that are featured in the game. Some of these have yet to be implemented and there are more to be revealed. Some are only involved with services or storyline fluff, thus may not have soldiers or even equipment for sale.


Wildlife

The critters that inhabit the gold-rich planet you're on, primarily crabs. Unfortunately for them, your fighting and mining is killing them and is laying waste to their planet.


Techion

An elite faction formed by a few high-tech corporations. They focus on expensive units and exotic weaponry, and have the distinction of being selected by Free Trade to occassionally provide security for TradeStar activities.
Known until recently as the "Whitebots", they appear in the opening cinematic for Cortex Command but have yet to appear in any game demonstrations. However, they are actively being developed post-Build27.


Green Dummies

Largely identical to the familiar orange Dummies, these general purpose labor robots are only for use in the Tutorial Mission. They are what the Dummy forces were before their AI control unit became a sentient computer.


Aliens

Aliens, sure; you really can't tell what species the brain is can you? You might be a Zxolophlox controlling those human bodies, because human bodies makes nice organic meat puppets. The opening cinematic briefly shows various alien lifeforms that may be integrated into the game.


Alchiral

Alchiral is one of the largest manufacturers of organic human bodies. Most or all TradeStars in sectors with human populations carry a compliment of Alchiral VAT arrays. The technology is under strict control by Alchiral's overseers to ensure that their monopoly is maintained.


Undead Became "Culled Clone" units sold by Free Trade as of Build 27. They formerly were a faction first encountered in a "Zombie Cave" mission also featuring a Ronin hit squad.

Modding

Cortex Command uses a simple variable-base object designing system to allow modders to create their own entities, along with lua for more complex features. Modding is easy to learn for Cortex Command, and currently there are many mods being released every day. Released mods may range from serious and realistic to fun and silly.


To find and download mods, you can go to Mod Releases.
For help installing mods, you can go to How to install mods.

History

The first recorded development of Cortex Command started on the 22nd February 2001, and was originally called D.I.R.T, by Daniel Tabar (a.k.a. DaTa, or Data), and a working alpha was released publicly some years later. Since then "Cortex Command" has gone through numerous changes and updates.

As the game carried on DaTa realized that he wasn't exactly the best artist and sought the help of Promster (a.k.a. Prometheus). Promster's graphical changes were implemented on the 27th of July, 2004 and gave Cortex Command the graphical style that it is now known for.

In 2008, he contracted several members of the community to do work for the game. These contributors included capnbubs, TheLastBanana and numgun. Following a huge amount of community support, CaveCricket48 was included onto the team, shortly followed by Lizardheim, and Abdul Alhazred.

The time lapse between public releases has occasionally been extensive, and it was for this reason, amongst other things, that the developer numgun left the team, and indeed the community. There was a gap of two years between builds 23 and 24, which was due to a lack of dedication from Data himself, and between those builds it was felt very much by the community that not enough had been accomplished. Following the release of build 24, Data improved his relations with the fans, and gave regular updates via his Twitter Updates. Very quickly build 25 was released, which was, by all accounts, a rousing success.

Build 27, the last public testing release before the full version of the game, incorporated a nearly fully working campaign, and de-activated the ability to injure team-mates, amongst other modding tools.

The project has been in development for eleven and a half years. It has been submitted to the Independent Games Festival four times, and the forth time it won two awards; one for technical excellence and the other an audience award. Cortex Command has a feature on the Great Games Experiment, and was featured in Play magazine. It was also one of the prestigious Humble Indie Bundles, where it was widely well received.

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