Comments - Lin_Kuei_Ominae

there are no RA2 trees in DTA. All trees are from TD/RA1 only, except a few custom made trees for desert theater.

actually its the tree shaped object :P

he is talking about the map and the airbase shown in the image, which has Migs and Humvees mixed on the same airbase

It's not about replacing/changing anything from the playable factions.

An overlay could be done too. It would even allow multiple damage stages, like a cliff slowly crumbling away.

it's a civil airbase and neither soviet or gdi, thus it can use whatever it wants.

Looks interesting.
Are players supposed to attack the VHM with aircraft to then chinook transport an MCV to the center and build a refinery there? Sounds like a lot of work to achieve that.

Seems DTA could use some destroyable cliffs, but not with a single shot like TS, rather with lots of hitpoints. Like a dummy building with Selectable=false that looks like a stretch of cliffs.

One of the best natural looking maps.
Reminds me a bit on sim city.

DTA was easy to implement (just ini coding), since all the graphics exist already from TD.
For TI it would need a new transformation animation made from scratch and the TS blossom trees need replacement in the first place as well (way too small and simple).
Thus a lot more work is needed to get all the new assets done and a reason why TI doesn't have mutating trees yet.

I think it was planned to recreate the TD campaign a long time ago, but there aren't that many active mappers for DTA that could pull this off and there was lots of other stuff to finish first (e.g. having a campaign but no multiplayer maps would suck).
I guess those mappers that are active, would also rather create new maps with new ideas, than trying to recreate the old maps.
The workload alone can be also pretty overwhelming. It's easier to focus on and finish a single new map, than creating an entire campaign of several dozen maps.

But maybe now with DTA having a solid foundation of maps, there might be someone starting on this. But a big project like that is surely not done in less than a year.

I doubt people laughed at you for such a workaround. I think they just doubted the usefulness where the problems may outweigh the benefits:
-the particle "projectiles" always fly the same distance (it won't stop at a closer target and overshoot them, thus they soon look out of place especially in a big fight)
-the anim is stopped by slopes/cliffs
-the anim causes lag
-it prevents rapid bursts (the unit can't shoot again until the particles vanished)

easier and more accurate would have been a Floater=yes projectile with a 32facing image.
Such a projectile would also fly in straight line (if fired low above the ground, you don't see it bouncing),
it would stop when it hits the first target in its path,
it wouldn't cause lags,
the projectile would be the image itself and not some secondary independant particle anim (thus what you see is the actual projectile).

A unit can get MovementRestrictedTo=Clear to make it move on clear ground only. It would be unable to move on anything else like Rough ground.

Though DTA doesn't differentiate between clear and dirt ground. Both use the same LandType Clear.

It would be no problem to let it **** ore/gems/tib

Main issue with adding Dune is the completely different art style. The camera angle, lighting, design are all different and would stand out way too much among TD/RA1.
As PolishedPole mentioned, there are surely also many special Dune logics that don't exist in TS. For some we could do workarounds, but in the end it would surely feel even more incomplete than DTA's Allies without GAP, Spysat, Thief etc

One day i might make a Dune Sandworm SHP unit and offer it Bittah to be included as a special map gimmick, but so far there are still many other more important things left to do.
Mainly better balancing, changing some stuff to fix bugs and exploitable sideeffects that ruin balancing etc

A few new graphics (remakes) for very ugly original stuff will be added too.

infantry can heal infantry
vehicles can heal/repair vehicles
It's hardcoded that one type can't repair/heal the other. The special cursor for repair/heal wouldn't appear and the only option is force firing.
That in turn is problematic, since the unit would auto-attack enemies and repair/heal them, but it wouldn't auto-attack your own units (why force firing is necessary).

A vehicle using an infantry art is bad, because
-it can't have idle anims
-it occupies an entire cell, unlike normal infantry where 3 of them can stand on the same cell
-it can't be transported in APCs
-it gets the big vehicle selection box, which is pretty unfitting for such a visually tiny unit

It might work however if the field mechanic as vehicle is given like a second infantry walking alongside. This one pulling a big material supply wagon to explain why the "mechanic team" can't enter APCs and to fill the cell a bit more to explain the big selection box.

Vehicles can be made crushable.

This map really sucks. Just look at it. All this natural design, the different ground types, the detailed rivers with fitting choke points.
And then even the included snow terrain. You must be a really horrible mapper to even think about adding such variety into a single map.

The map reveal logic is pretty bugged as well(*), so i wouldn't advice using this.
(*) it removes the shroud shp, but doesn't really set the terrain as "scouted", why explosions and other animations are still invisible until a unit really moved there and scouted the area.

Cool would be if a NavSat changes the black shroud into the fog of war transparent shroud for allies. So they can see the terrain but still have to scout to see the enemy.
This would also come closer to a Navigation Satellite, which is no enemy detector satellite.

Are infantry airtransports fixed already? IIRC there is still the issue left, where passengers can be "unloaded" when docked on a helipad, making the passengers disappear (and with shortgame off, impossible to lose for this player).
I think the current way is really the only one right now which doesn't involves game breaking issues.

1. that's an engine issue. To prevent having 2 helis, one able to carry a vehicle, the other only infantry, the current way is the best possible, with some sideeffects like the ones you've noticed.

2. yes, that's surely fixed a near future version

3. again a TS engine issue. There is only one Cloak sound definable.

4. When each side got a repair ship, the naval yards got their repair removed. The naval yard repair wasn't working that well in the first place, since naval yards didn't automatically stop repairing when a unit was fully repaired.

5. again engine limitation. Starting reinforcements are the same for all sides.

6. yes, an infantry transport ship (using amphibious pathfinding) is possible. We thought it not useful enough and only confusing for RA1 players when such a ship wouldn't be able to transport vehicles as well (engine limitation). Thus naval transports were skipped entirely.
There are also some other issues like bad pathfinding for such amphibious units and that this ship would be able to move on land (only visually plausible for the TD hovercraft, not for the RA1 naval transport)

The TS engine has no player controllable logic for internal vehicle transport, unfortunately. Only the external carryall single vehicle transport.
Map script transports are different, since the vehicles didn't exist before and the transport gets spawned with the passengers already inside (where it doesn't care if the passengers are infantry or vehicle).

So there is nothing we can do about it, unless one of the exe disassembling pros creates a hack for the engine.

Is "Larger Infantry Graphics" enabled in your Client/Settings?

Press ctrl+c while ingame and the game creates a screenshot in your TI\Screenshots folder.
This is a default feature of the TS engine ever since 1999 and has nothing to do with steam. ;-)

When ingame, go into the options and check out the keyboard settings. There are a lot of other shortcuts available and you can also reconfigure them.

Kills count should be visible if you press TAB.
The radar screen then shows the kills for all players.

Allies defenses are cheaper and can be easier mass produced (less power consumption). Placing a few artilleries also helps and is in general a better option than those stationary (imo useless) defenses that can be easy avoided and destroyed in seconds with any artillery unit.

Chitzkoi would be a very redundant unit and not offering anything new to the soviet arsenal. It would only uselessly clutter up the sidemenu. It also was never buildable in RA1 and only available in a few missions (where they probably took the normal dog and set Name=Chitzkoi and higher Strength in the map).
If you really want one, you could create in the same way a special multiplayer map where you give the player such a unit.
Just copy the normal dog's code into the map and raise its hitpoints.
e.g.
add to the map (via text editor)
[DOG]
Name=Chitzkoi
Strength=500 ;normal is 25
Cost=1000
BuildLimit=1

Well, we still have all the 3D-Models. It needs some work, but it's surely not impossible to make them work for RenegadeX :)

The Insurrection and Post War Melancholy are the 2 songs i relate with TI the most. TI without them is impossible for me.

Though my most favorite songs are (in no order)
One Mission (this rocks hard)
Still Alone
Space Echo remix

All other songs are awesome as well, and unlike the soundtracks for the other C&C's (where there is always this one song that i have to skip), there is not one song in TI that i really dislike.

Creating an FMV with a complete Nod base using the new buildings was always a dream of mine.
Long ago i already started to create a very simple draft, when i only had the Temple, Hand of Nod and the warfactory.
Once all buildings are done, i think i'll implement all of them in the started draft and try to create a video.

Though it will surely still take quite some time till anything publish worthy is done. I wouldn't expect anything before 2018.

Which improvements does the RA2 waypoint system has in comparison to TS?
In TS you can perfectly fine place different waypoint routes (4th button to the far right in the sidemenu or simply press w).
Set them to loops/circles (press Shift when clicking on the first waypoint again to close the circle), give units the order to move along them (simple move command on one waypoint) or to patrol/guard along them (CTRL+ALT move command on waypoint route).

And in addition you have the nice q-move, temporary waypoint system.

A dozen Hornets on a patrol around your base is awesome. They never have to land/reload and can constantly engange enemy targets.
I also sometimes use a simple 2-point looping path, to make Hornets ping pong move between the 2 points and keep them in midair. When given a patrol command, i can also simply move one of the 2 waypoints to an enemy force and thus indirectly send all my Hornets on an auto-attack there.

Concerning the engines.
Cnc.wikia.com
That is a version from the Firestorm FMVs, which i think was rendered by a different person/team. Because when i was analyzing every footage i could get to make my model, i noticed several bugs in the Firestorm version (there is for example a scene showing the Kodiak in midair from the side, where the outer tilting engines are moved far to the rear of the main ship, thus completely misplaced).
Youtu.be
check out min 2:27 and notice how you can see the secondary inner engine, while the outer tilting engine should actually be far enough to the front to completely hide the inner engine.

That's why i took mostly TS footage and created the engines like in the original TS FMV.
Cnc.wikia.com

I like constructive criticism, so don't worry and keep on commenting :)

Fire effects: they weren't actually made for such a wallpaper issue. I was just lazy to not create some real looking stuff, which would have taken quite a while for me to find the right settings in 3ds max. (and tbh, there are other more important things left to do than a little teaser image ;) )

Background: i'm serious, if you find some good images, please link them here. I found it hard to find good looking images. 2 hour search, only 5 acceptable images found with this being closest to TS scenery and having an acceptable layout for rendering the model into it.

As a scenery i would like:
-rocky hills/mountains in the background
-desert/barren ground with a few rocks and plants as scale references
-a flat area in the foreground (over which the 3d model is placed)
-a little hill or rock (no plant with many fine leaves, borders, holes) with a sharp border right in front of the camera that covers a part of the flat area. This can then partially cover the rendered model behind it, thus sorting the model visually better into the image and giving it more depth

@Damfoos: i'm not experienced with Photoshop, so i like to do everything in 3ds max and only tiny edits with GIMP afterwards.

I didn't feel like creating the entire landscape as a 3d model as well and that was the closest landscape image on google i could find, that closely resembles the landscapes we saw in the TS FMVs (basically Nevada desert near Las Vegas were Westwood shot the outdoor scenes).

If you have better landscape images, feel free to post links to them here.