Joined: 26 Apr 2003 Location: Somewhere in Germany
Posted: Sun Aug 25, 2019 6:53 pm Post subject:
OpenRA Playtest 20190825
We are thrilled and relieved to finally announce the first public playtest for OpenRA’s second 2019 release. This playtest brings significant technical changes, so we felt it important to delay the “summer” release until we could be confident that the worst bugs and gameplay regressions had been fixed. With some help from our Forum and Discord community, we are now ready to release playtest-20190825 for wider testing and feedback.
The Summer Release Preview article outlined several of the new UI features, including savegame support, a new spectator UI, and a long planned Tiberian Dawn interface overhaul. This playtest adds a much improved hotkey configuration UI and many smaller UI fixes and polish improvements.
The Tiberian Dawn in-game interface has received a long-awaited redesign.
Missions and skirmish games can be saved and restarted later.
On the gameplay front, the main focus for this release was to rewrite the logic that controls how units behave and respond to orders. This was a major task that spanned several months, more than 90 Pull Requests, and more than one debate about bug vs “accidental feature”.
Many of the changes will not be immediately obvious, but on closer inspection you should find that many long-standing quirks and annoyances in unit behaviour no longer occur.
The ability to queue commands using the Shift key has always been an important part of OpenRA’s gameplay, and this has received a major overhaul with this release. Part of the overhaul has moved the familiar targeting lines that display when you command units into the “Waypoint Mode” (Shift) overlay by default. The previous behaviour can be restored through the Settings menu (Target Lines: Automatic) if you prefer.
The improved waypoint mode allows you to plan your attack strategies.
Other noteable changes to watch out for include:
- Force Move (Alt) can be used to undeploy Construction Yards and land helicopters
- Aircraft respond to Scatter orders from the Command Bar (Ctrl + X)
- Significantly improved behaviour for harvesters, aircraft, attack-move, and unit repair
- Aircraft-based support powers can be given an attack direction
- The controversial Allied Hind helicopter in RA has been replaced with the Black Hawk
- Two new-to-OpenRA missions from the RA Counterstrike expansion
- The D2k Death Hand missile now works like the original game
- A collection of Red Alert and Tiberian Dawn balance changes
As always, the full changelog is available with more information on the changes and fixes.
Aircraft-based support powers can be given a direction by dragging the mouse while targeting.
As a .NET application, OpenRA relies on the Mono runtime for our Linux and macOS players. Unfortunately, the Mono packages provided by some major LTS distros are several years out of date and incompatible with the modern .NET standard. Worse, the new Debian Buster and Ubuntu 19.04 releases shipped with a serious Mono bug that causes unavoidable crashes OpenRA and other .NET applications.
Our solution for these issues is to package the parts of Mono that OpenRA requires inside the AppImage and macOS app releases. This means that you can finally play OpenRA without having to install any system-level dependencies. For players or packagers who prefer to compile OpenRA from source, Mono 5.4 or later and msbuild are now required.
Updating our base requirements has allowed several further improvements:
- Windows releases are now 64 bit by default (32 bit releases remain available)
- A fix for the macOS black-screen startup freeze after Mono or macOS upgrades
- Future support for the .NET Core runtime (this work is still in progress)
- Improved development tooling and IDE support for OpenRA and the Mod SDK
Playtest releases do not overwrite the OpenRA release version, and you can automatically switch between the two versions when joining a multiplayer server. Head over to our download page and give it a try! This is your time to get involved, play games, and let us know what you think! If you discover a bug or have any other feedback, please let us know in the comments below, on our forum, Discord, or GitHub.
hopefully EA's remake has some players to play against lol. I'd rather play starcraft 2 or C&C rivals. Should market it to single player people make new missions or something. QUICK_EDIT
Ontopic
@Reaperrr: sad to hear about the Mono issues. But packing the needed parts into OpenRA is actually an improvement imo. It reduces the chance for incompatibilities on different systems and makes it easier to install/use OpenRA.
The engine improvements are excellent. I like the SW direction cursor. A neat little logic with an easy to use interface solution.
Now an artillery suppressive fire option would be nice, where you force fire click on a cell, hold the mouse and drag create a circle into which your selected artillery units will scatter fire. Would be a nice feature to block/control narrow passages and discourage the opponent to move through there. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Ontopic
@Reaperrr: sad to hear about the Mono issues. But packing the needed parts into OpenRA is actually an improvement imo. It reduces the chance for incompatibilities on different systems and makes it easier to install/use OpenRA.
The engine improvements are excellent. I like the SW direction cursor. A neat little logic with an easy to use interface solution.
Now an artillery suppressive fire option would be nice, where you force fire click on a cell, hold the mouse and drag create a circle into which your selected artillery units will scatter fire. Would be a nice feature to block/control narrow passages and discourage the opponent to move through there.
the player population would still be at 0
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Last edited by Mechacaseal on Tue Aug 27, 2019 5:29 am; edited 2 times in total QUICK_EDIT
Reduced production speed bonus from high-tech units (Mammoth Tank, Tesla Tank, Mobile Gap Generator, Mobile Radar Jammer, MiG, Longbow, Missile Submarine, Cruiser)
Seems like a Soviet nerf. Why are Tesla tanks "high tech" and not Chrono tanks? Or stealth transports?
Speaking of which...
Quote:
Phase Transport cost from 1350 to 1000, health from 30000 to 35000
Light Tank weapon range increased from 4 to 4.75 cells
Spy regained the ability to steal money from refineries
Mobile Gap Generator cost from 1200 to 1000
APC health from 30000 to 35000
All Allied buffs
Quote:
Mobile Flak Speed from 128 to 118, removed ability to shoot over walls at ground-based targets
Tesla Tank health from 45000 to 40000
Mammoth Tank missile range reduced from 8 to 6.5 cells, vision reduced from 7 to 6 cells
Parabomb fall speed halved to compensate for the directional targeting
What does a "bias" even mean in this context? Presumably the changes are made in response to players feedback, considering changes are implented by community members. QUICK_EDIT
Yes OmegaBolt it seems like NimoStar over there is one of those fanboys that likes something and when said thing gets nerfed or the other side gets buffed (even when it is for valid reasons) he gets triggered/annoyed/mad.
NimoStar wrote:
Quote:
Reduced production speed bonus from high-tech units (Mammoth Tank, Tesla Tank, Mobile Gap Generator, Mobile Radar Jammer, MiG, Longbow, Missile Submarine, Cruiser)
Seems like a Soviet nerf. Why are Tesla tanks "high tech" and not Chrono tanks? Or stealth transports?
It is not really that obvious because the thing you are reacting to is not really tied to what you think it is. The actual change is from Balance changes for July 2019 "Changes in Response to Opportunity Fire" at https://github.com/OpenRA/OpenRA/pull/16803
Tesla Tank and Mammoth Tank was changed because of this and it does not apply to Chrono Tank because they have no turret and does not apply to Phase Transport (OpenRA France special) because it does not automatically fire on enemies nearby unless ordered.
Mobile Flak is in that changelog too and is clearly stated why it got slightly nerfed speed wise and the weapon change.
And it is pretty clear why Parabombs got nerfed (consider reading the whole balance changelog and not staring yourself blind on "parabombs falling slower to the ground" and acting like OHH MY GOD WHAAAAA SOVIETS GOT NERFED(even tho this is an ukraine special))
If you want to decide balance changes and complain about stuff like this you should get in on the discussion over there on OpenRA github on balance changes etc instead of doing here in comment section of a news item on PPM. QUICK_EDIT
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