Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2015 11:40 am Post subject:
Scorched Earth MOD by G-E
Subject description: Ok it's being re-finished as a lot of work was lost...
So I'm not going to get too heavy on the intro here, the mod is a pretty classic RA2 universe mod, no SCRIN or HMEC in this one...
I expect to get a preliminary version 1.0 out in a month, depending how I go at it, or what distracts me. Most of the work is already done, including a badass AI that often kicks my ass too.... nothing let's you know you've got a good AI like screaming at the monitor "mot%@$%#ker!"
Each house is still the original house, but some special units were moved around to give each house more topical consistency. For example, the Desolator moved to Lybia to be with the Demo Truck, while Iraq god a chemical Scud launcher and Mutator a chemical tank.
A few of the models were originally borrowed from Slepnir and updated, other models I've borrowed from various mods/authors, but even then, most units are less than 20% of the original voxel. In 1-2 cases I just used a turret. Again, too many people get into spacey and futuristic units, where I wanted to focus on modern design ethic, with current ideals for armor/shielding.
There's a fine line between having things stupidly hard to kill, like tanks that can be hit 30 times before dying, and having overpowered weapons, where things die too easily in battle. I think this is one of the areas I've "nailed it" over years of fine tuning.
I made some clever uses of in-game models too, like the Destroyer has an alternate xxxxWO voxel, which is now an Escort ship, retains the same gun, but has depthcharges lobbed out the back... a very effective ship, which allowed me to give the Destroyer to the British. Which makes the Escort the basic anti-sub vessel for the allies. Vlad's Command ship was also copied to be a Heavy Dreadnaught, requiring stolen tech of course.
Stolen tech actually matters, but don't miss an opportunity to destroy stuff just for that. The stolen tech units are quite good, but everything has a vulnerability, that ensures every player (including AI) needs to build a balanced army, elitist toys or not.
The stolen tech units are all evolutions or mixes of other tech in the game, just think Chrono-Ivan to get the idea. Most of the tech will be in the form of the chassis, or some weapon combo, this does not extend to what I would define as "specialist" technology, namely prism/tesla stuff, I rather think it makes more sense to keep those with their respective sides, even when combined with the other.
And of course I've made about 20 really fun multiplayer maps, very clever tactically, with each spot having strengths and vulnerabilities, forcing a player to maintain an "active guard", no turtling...
I'll start revealing the really unique stuff soon.
The Russians don't get many unique units, the Tesla ship and Typhoon (Missile Sub) are a pretty big deal though. The voxel can be shrunken, but I kinda like the largess, matches well with the other large vessels to show it's important.
Conversely, the Americans get the most unique units, the Nimitz Carrier and Stealth Bomber are a pretty big deal there. The Nimitz is by far my biggest voxel...
The only weird/unavoidable behaviour is when the Typhoon launches a land strike, it's ROF applies to the torpedos immediately after, so it's useless for a couple minutes. After that period it can launch torpedos at the normal rate. So like all "great" units, they need support. _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
The Black Eagle was a large rendering I found somewhere and shrank it... I have others like it that I'm not using, I'll release all my unused assets.
So a ME vs 3 AI game on my Wellspring water map again... showing off ze Germans and some stolen techies
So to give a little explanation, the tech tree for stolen tech isn't homogenous, most sides do get their own units under the right combinations, and there's a few units that get unlocked having stolen both.
This makes the game play change over time, and makes discovery an interesting process again. It also means you have to stretch, take risks, focus on a clever assault while part of your base is being destroyed elsewhere. Solid defenses are only solid until someone gains zone superiority...
The paratroopers, Carrier/Dreadnaught launches, aircraft strikes, all keep you busy on all sides, while various ships and subs make it tough to advance...
When the tide starts turning, and you manage to cobble together a large navy, you can push back, create openings, strike deep with your own jets and paratroopers, maybe even parabombs if you're good enough to defend the Tech Airport...
armadillos.jpg
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Armadillos, requires stolen tech from both sides...
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gettinghammered.jpg
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They won't leave me alone... every corner of the map I spread to I get hammered :P
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newhornets.jpg
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A shot of the new Hornets as launched from Carrier/Nimitz
A lot of the lost work relates to AI matters, and redoing/updating voxels and things as I go... gives me a reason to play test.
Another thing missing from the good ol' RA1 days were Camo Pillboxes... but back in them days, we didn't have many kinds of terrain, much less many kinds on the same map.
camopills.jpg
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Let's play spot the pillbox... did you see all of them?
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 11:50 am Post subject:
There's a bunch of variations of the Camo Pillbox, with the SHP having the terrain cell pasted on itself, dumdum. I don't find that effective since that means you have to scatter like 3-4 variations of the CP to make it work.
Others are just new voxels. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
I only added a "grass" pillbox and "terrain" pillbox, terrain being sand/snow/pave, and I think it was the 4th thing I added to the mod a decade ago...
Seemed such a simple thing, I even made a buildup for it, wondered why no one else did at the time. The "original" pillbox is retained as an "armored" pillbox
@deathreaperz: the IFV has a new body and many turret changes, the MLRS is entirely new since the tibsun unit is junk, the beags are original but cleaned/shrunk, the falcons are actually falcons...
Camo Pillboxes in my Mod are just slightly shorter versions of the Pillbox with Cloak Logic. There's something oddly satisfying looking at fresh newcomer mods for me...
Nice work on the mod though. _________________ ~ Excelsior ~ QUICK_EDIT
I don't like the cloaking idea, it's meant to be a casual disguise, with clever placement. Obviously the way it looks doesn't affect the AI, and given we have spy sat imaging, I prefer the idea that you overlook it... it is pretty subtle.
It has the pillbox gun with a shorter range, and it's not hard to destroy. It's a lot cheaper than the armored one, which gives you tiered options, something I like. _________________ http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai QUICK_EDIT
I know that. And well the big problems is there's just too much variation on terrain tiles to make it work and as you had pointed out you had to make duplicates for each plain version of terrain.
I went with cloak logic since its much easier to set up and the AI can utilize it as well as the player would. _________________ ~ Excelsior ~ QUICK_EDIT
That was the other thing, the AI has to pick from a list of defensive structures to build, and having too many entries for any one thing like pillboxes does tend to skew things...
Even so, I find that the anti-personnel nature of the pillboxes is well balanced with the fact that my paratroopers are a powerful weapon in and of themselves. It's rather important to make the inner parts of the base hazardous heheh
Another thing I changed is the wall strengths, I used the TS black wall as a stolen tech for allies with a really high strength, and the YR Citadel wall for the stolen soviets, which isn't quite as strong. Which means walls really can make or break a base...
So far I've done everything in a way that the AI can take advantage of it, without screwing itself by doing so... I've tried to play with the base spacing and so on to help, although there are some maps that cause silly wall choke points, where the tanks have to blast themselves out.
The problem I see then is the lat edges... you'd be seeing really weird patterns through it, and it wouldn't look right to the eye. I expect someone else has tried it too.
I haven't checked any recent mods, I have been out of the scene for years afterall, so I couldn't tell you how anyone else implemented it, but at the time I didn't see any...
mlrsbombard.jpg
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With a range of 16, the MLRS rockets are weak but plentiful :)
Spent most of today chasing down the weirdest bugs...
My Falcon would crash the game when it's bombs dropped, then I did stuff and I couldn't build the thing at all! Even as America with the other airbase...
At first I thought it was AI related since that's what I was mostly working on, but after every test I could think of, including removing my AI, it still happened... this spurred me to update my AICHECK just a weee bit more, something I'll have to roll into the YR version too at some point.
Anyway, I still don't know for sure what it was, but one of my unrelated projectiles had non-existant art, and I did have a house unit conflict in the AI I fixed... my last test game had no issues that I saw, hopefully that's that hehe
I do vaguely remember before I lost my stuff, that RA2 prior to YR only supported 103 vehicletypes, or at least I had a weird bug when I tried going over, the AI would keep building #103 non-stop... wondering now if that was also some other similar resource bug? If I recall >15 aircraft also did bad things (not that I need)... Can anyone confirm the limit?
missilewarships.jpg
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still need to work on my naval voxels, due to size I'm holding them off until I've refined everything else
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unitses.jpg
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various allied units, looking pretty decent and consistent
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2015 10:44 am Post subject:
You mean this? http://modenc.renegadeprojects.com/100_Units_Bug Ares fixed it, ofc. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
Here's the current set of working icons to look at... I'm still missing a couple, and I didn't include others I've borrowed from elsewhere since you've all no doubt seen the psychic beacon etc...
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 1:21 pm Post subject:
So WW. Good job. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
Wanted to keep the same RA2 feel, including the mapping style, just improve the tactical angle...
As you see each starting position has some benefits and drawbacks, all of them force you to actively defend past your base, usually with no easy way to expand yourself there with adjacency.
I especially like leaving one hard to defend avenue open to ever base, forces players to bottleneck down a predictable path, or risk taking a longer/indirect/exposed route. QUICK_EDIT
I have experimented with styles, ore placement, tree placement etc...
Obstruction and Power Structure were two of my first "serious" maps, when I decided to get more creative tactically than WW did. Meandering and River Valley were my first "new" maps when I got back into the mod around '07, and I may have updated them a bit in '09 when I started to have some renewed interest (after the crash)...
Iceflow and River Valley were ideas that struck me, a departure from ordinary map rules, and I wanted to see how they'd turn out... I rather like them, although they are hard to play, they're kinda like "fast" maps
My very first maps were all tournament style, like Straights Across, but after I got into AI programming, I really needed to explore irregular terrains/positions. I learned a lot about AI base building limitations/requirements, and the need for more open space, even if it's a little disjointed like New World.
Decided to update my map Power Structure (you can see it in a post above), bumped the size by about +10 x +25 but I don't recall exactly... gave more space to base building, while retaining the same vulnerability to attack from higher ground -- which was the point of the map
I made it prettier with more trees, redid the roads, added more caoilds and a second caairp (one center top, one center bottom) to balance the benefits.
Rendered some others while I was at it, using the thumbnail injection because the FA 1.0+ leave those margins of wrong tiles.
I also found out FA refuses to save maps .mpr if I add new types of trees, it demands they be .yrm :\
On that note, has anyone figured out why sometimes trees leave the light blue smudge/shadows on explosions? Is it just an unflushed sprite cache or something to do with certain trees -- ie. is there a fix?
thumb_Humble River.jpg
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One of my newest maps, again doing the irregular starting position and terrain meme
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thumb_Confront-X.jpg
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Also based on an earlier map (hence the X) that I made, I decided to play with alternatives to typical urban style at the time
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thumb_Snow Drift.jpg
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A fun/fast map
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thumb_Muskoka Large.jpg
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Another large version of an earlier map, originally based on a RA1 map I made eons ago called Muskoka Backwater Syndrome
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thumb_Power Structure X.jpg
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*NEW*
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Last edited by G-E on Sun May 24, 2015 10:50 pm; edited 1 time in total QUICK_EDIT
The AI does a pretty decent job of rebuilding after losing a conyard and other important stuff...
Was playing free-for-all and the AI's were killing each other quite nicely, the bottom right corner was wiped out early, combination of V3 and Apoc strikes.
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2015 9:24 am Post subject:
G-E wrote:
On that note, has anyone figured out why sometimes trees leave the light blue smudge/shadows on explosions? Is it just an unflushed sprite cache or something to do with certain trees -- ie. is there a fix?
And I love the maps. _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
=======================
Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
=======================
WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
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Scorched Earth MOD by G-E
<<-- this is what real RA2 was missing !!!
