Some groups just don't get along.
KKnD2: Krossfire is the sequel to Krush Kill n' Destroy (KKnD) released on October 31, 1998. It is set 2179, 100 years after the World Nuclear War. After spending another 4 decades underground, hiding from the first war against the Evolved, the Survivors rose up to a new enemy: the Series 9. The Series 9 robots are machines that have advanced from their farming origins (having the original programming damaged by the nuclear radiation) and taken up arms against the humans, Evolved and Survivor, who destroyed their precious crops, their one and only reason for functioning.
Tropes
- Action Bomb: All factions have a suicide bomber infantry. Constructibles can also be augmented with the Self-destruct ability.
- After the End: The world is still a dark and dangerous place after the nuclear war of 2079. In fact, now it's an even more dangerous with the continued fighting, death and the arrival of Series 9 robots!
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The Series 9 robots, whose programming were damaged by the nuclear radiation. They went on to massacre the Series 5 - 8 robots for absolutely no reason and has since learned the concept of revenge; they want to kill all humans in retaliation of them destroying their crops.
- Artificial Brilliance: If you're not careful and force-attack an allied building DIRECTLY, your ally becomes an enemy.
- Artificial Stupidity: There are some missions that can be won just by closing up your base with walls and turrets and killing off every group of attackers until the enemy runs out of oil.
- If you force-attack the ground near an allied building with a weapon that causes splash damage, it will damage the allied building which provokes the ally into attacking the enemy.
- Awesome, but Impractical: For reasons unknown, Flamethrower Infantry can't get veterancy. And because their short range attack means that they'll die quickly in field battles before being able to cause any damage means that they're almost useless. The only good value they have is base defense: Position them on top of a cliff and have them force-fire in a single direction to quickly get rid of enemy infantry that are dumb enough to walk into their jets of fire.
- Beast of Battle: As in the previous game Evolved's equivalent of vehicles are massive gun-toting animals. Namely Dire Wolf, War Mastodon, Death Hippo and Pteranodon. The large base for custom vehicles is an Ankylosaur.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: A number of giant mutant bugs are tamed and used by the Evolved. These include things like Pit Scorpions, Bull Ant Tankers, Wasp Bombers and Mega Beetles.
- Body Horror: Pretty much every Evolved tribesman have mutated grotesquely. Some mutations are pure horror.
- Boring, but Practical: The Survivor Grenadier/Evolved Rioter/Series 9 Pod Launcher are effective against both infantry and vehicles.
- Canis Major: The Dire Wolf, the Evolved's scout unit. Mutant wolves which are ridden horseback by a guy with a rifle.
- Color-Coded Armies: Blue for the Survivors, red for the Evolved, yellow for the Series 9.
- Command & Conquer Economy: Oil is this. You can harvest oil by deploying a derrick over the oil patch and get a tanker to collect the oil and deliver it to a power station for processing. Each faction also has two types of generators that are infinite in case the oil runs out but aren't as valuable (limited to 4 of each).
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard
- The All-Seeing A.I.: The Computer always knows where your base is.
- Cosmetically Different Sides:
- Each faction may have completely different units and weapons but they are all equivalent to each other. There are small details that differ them a bit. See Faction Calculus below.
- One notable exception is the Scourge Demon, which has no direct counterpart in the other two armies.
- Everything's Messier with Pigs: The Evolved use methane generated by pigs (
guess how) as a secondary resource. - Faction Calculus: Thought its a bit hard to spot the differences, each faction differs from each other: The Survivors are Subversive, having particularly weak early units and access to Constructible turrets that grant special abilities like stealth and localized temporal anomaly. The Evolved are Balanced, generally not being flashy and having the ability to create a special kind of unit that is effective against everything. The Series 9 is the Powerhouse, their units being considerably tougher than their counterparts.
- The Faction Calculus is blatantly simple in the fact that there is a Good Unit, a Middle Unit, and a Bad Unit.
- In regards to Tier 0 Infantry, the Evolved Berzerkers are the best with high accuracy and high damage. Second place goes to the Survivor Machine Gunners with their fast firing and average damage. And the worst are the Series 9 Seeders who are handicapped by low DPS potential.
- For Tier 1 Scout Vehicles, the Evolved Dire Wolf is the best because the Rider's Shotgun is very damaging. The Survivor Dirtbike takes second place while the Series 9 Patrolbot is the worst.
- For Tier 5 Vehicles, the Series 9 Grim Reaper is the best as it has good Accuracy for its deadly firepower. Second place goes to the Survivor Juggernaught because it has bad accuracy. And the Worst is the Evolved Mega Beetle as it has bad accuracy and NO turret (cannot attack while moving).
- For Fighter Aircraft, the Evolved Pteranodon is the best because it has a turret which allows it to shoot in any direction. Second place goes to the Survivor Orville Fighter while the worst is the Series 9 AG-Responsebot Fighter.
- Faction-Specific Endings: Like the last game, depending which side player fights. Each one ends in total annihilation of the other side(s).
- From Nobody to Nightmare: The Series 9 went from being docile farming equipment to The Terminator. All because of destroyed crops and sterilised soil...
- Giant Enemy Crab: The Evolved's Missile Crab, a giant missile-armed land crab. Whether it's enemy depends on which side do you choose.
- Mêlée à Trois: Survivors vs. Evolved vs. Series 9. Some missions involve your faction attacking (and being attacked by) both enemy factions at the same time.
- Molotov Cocktail: The Evolved Rioter uses these.
- Mutant: The Evolved is an entire tribe of mutants. Many have been badly disfigured due to the nuclear radiation, some becoming living embodiments of Body Horror. Strangely enough, some animals have mutated into becoming their ancestors. This includes Mastodons (ancient elephants), Pteranodons (pterodactyls) and Ankylsaurs (yes, that dinosaur).
- Multiple Endings: See Faction Specific Endings.
- Organization with Unlimited Funding: When all of the oil is completely gone, the Survivors rely on Solar Power, the Evolved rely on Methane Gas, and the Series 9 rely on Wind Power.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Evolved view themselves as these.
- Scenery Porn: Like the last game as the player fights through the map they will come across various destroyed buildings, vehicles and other structures sadly left behind because of the war.
- Schizo Tech: Although the Evolved has since degraded into a traditional tribal society and make heavy use of tamed beasts, they still have a nice collection of modern weapons. This includes explosive-tipped arrows, gatling guns mounted on the back of hippos, bomb-dropping giant wasps, mutants armed with bazookas, anti-air rocket towers and even missile armed giant land crabs.
- The various 'ancient' Lost Technology vaults can contain anything from an Independence Day-styled UFO to one of those battery operated tin robots... with Eye Beams!
- Shout-Out:
- One of the exclusive units, you can obtain from vaults, is a silly looking Tin-Can Robot dubbed Gort.
- The fact that Evolved use Methane Gas as an emergency source of fuel may be a reference to Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, which featured a community of Bartertown also using methane as fuel in place of no-longer-available oil.
- Sinister Scythe: The Serie 9's Grim Reaper robot has 3 of these as its front limbs.
- Spider Tank: The Series 9's two top-tier ground vehicles: the Cauteriser, which actually has eight legs and is armed with a lightning gun, and the Grim Reaper, a seven-legged monstrosity armed with dual heavy machineguns and three of its legs being scythes.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Machine Guns are weak against vehicles while Tank Guns are weak against Infantry.
- Tank Goodness: The Survivors has the menacing looking Juggernaut tank, a massive killing machine armed with a HUGE gatling cannon and twin missile launhers.
- Too Awesome to Use: All of the Bunker Units save for maybe the transporter. They are hilariously powerful and can often massacre enemies within seconds. However they can only be repaired by mobile repair units instead of repair bays (except the UFO as it cannot land), you usually get one (maybe two) per game and they die just like everything else. Because of this they're often assigned to guard duty.
- Veteran Unit: Units will gain XP by attacking units, which will change the border of their Life Meter from gray to blue to red. Veteran Units will shoot faster and with better accuracy, and an exclusive bonus for Veteran Infantry is Regenerating Health.
- War Elephants: The Evolved tribe makes use of War Mastodons.
- You Require More Vespene Gas: No Oil = No RUs (Resource Units) = No Building/Production = Death.
- Zerg Rush: The computer's only method of winning. Just like the last game it happens periodically and will overwhelm the player if they aren't prepared!
