Posted: Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:06 pm Post subject:
Darkstorm's Private Modding Thread
Subject description: One thread for whatever I happen to be doing.
I did have my Sovereign Reign thread, but that isn't the only private mod I've worked on, so I decided I'm just going to use this one thread for my private mods. Anyhow, at the moment I'm recreating RA2.
Most notably, I'm switching Missile technology and Flak technology. I never understood why the Allies had flak/AA guns in Red Alert 1 then switched to have missiles and the opposite for the Soviets. I've traded their AA defenses essentially. I'm moving the Tesla Trooper further down the tech tree and implementing a Grenadier. I've also replaced the Guardian GI with an Allied Flak Trooper, and I plan to modify the flak track to make it a non-flak half track and switch out the IFV default weapon.
Anyhow, I got to give thanks to Blade and EpicAnimeFreak for their work in the tutorial for implementing the RA2 campaign in YR. I got a picture of it here with the Flak Cannons instead of Patriots (actually the NASAM object with NAFLAK stats and it works surprisingly well in the mission, still failing to shoot down all the missiles).
It was a sudden change in design choice by EA/WW during development as originally the sides were to have been just mainly updated versions of their old counterparts. It was hand-waved by the developers as the Allies had forcefully disarmed the Soviets Weapons (The Soviets in RA2 essentially use old unused vehicles)
Wheee Pre-Release! - I knew I wasn't the only one who felt the Flak Cannon looked like a smaller version of the Grand Cannon.
So will you also be redoing the Sea Scorpion into the Sea Wolf?
IIRC The Sea Scorpion is essentially just the Hydrofoil with the Missile Rack replaced with a Flak Cannon. _________________ ~ Excelsior ~ QUICK_EDIT
It bugs me every time people claim RA2 must be kept on RA2 without Yuri. To me it feels like their being cheap, and don't wanna buy Yuri's revenge or decade pack. They claim you have to have RA2 mod on RA2, or maybe I'm just being hypocritical of them. RA2 can be ported to Yuri easy enough, so their arguments don't hold a lot of merit to me.
I think using Ares as this Mod "most likely does?" is good too, since it removes some bugs, and adds in some features which might enhance the original RA2 game style.
Having no save sucks, but with Ares mission select, and original RA2 missions being semi easy it's not a problem.
Have any intentions to make the missions harder?
The idea of going back to an older style, per-release state is also liked by the community mostly. It never did make sense that Allies and Soviets traded weapons, mind you switching them back will require some balancing.
Are you planning to keep the Yuri campaigns as well, or just only have the original RA2 campaigns. I assume you intend to just have originals, but it would be rather easy to keep both, and disabling Yuri as a playable country in Ares is easy. So you would not ruin the original RA2 feel.
Anyways I wish you luck, let me know if you have any issues getting your campaigns working. _________________ Grab my Map Logic Expansion Pack 5.2 here!
Adds random weather patterns into maps.
More disabled navalyards.
Preplaced Neutral buildings.
Additional new features.
Trading of AA Weapons was for more of the Rock Paper Scissors back in RA2 (YR just threw some of the logic away though) where for example... the Allied Aircraft tended to fly in clustered groups so a Splash Damage Weapon was more suited to them (Flak Cannon) where as the Kirov Airship & Rockets was a slow moving target so usually an easier target for Missiles.
Hmm well if you see in the Invasion Intro, Half Tracks also had Missile Racks.
Though I'm thinking maybe it would be better to just scrap Flak Cannons for allies and give them something like the Phalanx Turret _________________ ~ Excelsior ~ QUICK_EDIT
I will be redoing the Sea Scorpion and maybe Aegis somehow, I'm not quite sure yet.
I am using Ares. I'll probably keep the Yuri's Revenge campaigns. I'm not sure if I'll make the missions harder but I'll probably change a few things around as I add new units in. (I already have a small change to Big Apple to acquire grenadiers.)
I figured that the reason the Soviets had flak cannons was to counter the faster Allied aircraft. I think the Phalanx is a little advanced for a lower tier defense, but it could be a country-specific building. I could also make it more direct damaging and give the SAM site a different sort of weapon to launch a flurry of missiles like the hellstorm batteries or whatevere upgrade for missile turret in Starcraft 2.
As for scheme, I suppose I could make the non-blackish portion allied scheme, but the flak cannon leaves much to be desired in any color scheme at all. It fits in a Yuri or Allied base about as much as a Soviet base with the exception that the sentry gun and tesla coil are similar in non-scheme design.
I have a SAM site of sorts, but it isn't a particularly good looking one (I essentially recolored Mig Eater's patriot missile). QUICK_EDIT
I am aware, but it seemed more of a SSM launcher not a SAM launcher. I might change it since this one isn't that good, but I'd prefer a missile launcher that points up at aircraft. QUICK_EDIT
That and IMO the SAM Site MadHQ made seems a bit too dark (to the point it sort of looks like wood) So unless you know how to properly make one yourself beggars can't be choosers.
I did a retexture of the Flak Cannon Turret for Colony Wars. Currently its a placeholder (as eventually I do plan to change the Flak Cannon to a SHP Turret as well)
If you want I could send you my copy (I did one in Allied Scheme as well)
Changes wouldn't be that drastic imo...
Guardian GI would just get his missiles replaced into a Flak Cannon & the Flak Trooper could just as well be scrapped and replaced with a RPG Conscript (Laotze made graphics for one)
The IFV I would assume just get the default rockets replaced into an AA/AI Auto-Cannon I'm guessing. Something similar to the Flakpanzer Gepard.
Half Tracks just need to have the Missiles put back to them & the Sea Scorpion renamed to Sea Wolfs _________________ ~ Excelsior ~ QUICK_EDIT
That'd be great if you could send me that Flak Cannon retexture, I'm sure it'll fit better than the default. Which, while not looking too bad, doesn't fit particularly well with much of anything.
As for the Allies, I have Flak Trooper (using the sidewinder graphics) and I'm not sure about the IFV. I was considering flak cannons, but that puts the same flak burst on ground and air. It also would break the Flak vs Armor scheme.
However the auto-cannon idea sounds good. I just need a mini flak-burst graphic which shouldn't be to hard to get or make. The issue would then be sound. Perhaps maybe keep the weapon a cannon style weapon with one shot being one burst but turn up the rate of fire a lot and shrink the burst. Then it would work like Mental Omega's Hydra Cannon, just with flak guns.
The half track is currently using AA-guns so if I switch out the IFVs cannons, I should probably look for something for the half track, besides the PIFFPIFF animation always looked a little strange in the air.
As for the Sea Wolf, It's on the to do list. Which means I might want to get a flak cruiser or something for the Allies. If I can find one with the Phalanx, that might be interesting.
Anyhow, I've done a small modification with the 3rd Soviet mission, beyond giving the player starting half tracks (since they are the only AA unit because the flak trooper is now the grenadier). There is a side objective to contact an outpost to get grenadiers. The trigger that gives a small unit explanation is apparently broken at the moment but it does give the outpost to you. The outpost graphics are a little offset for some reason but it works fine. I'm using it for a prerequisite for grenadiers, meaning you need to defend the outpost to keep access to grenadiers.
By the way, I edited out the Half Tracks in one of the images since the voxel isn't mine and I'd rather not annoy anyone. Suffice it to say, I'd prefer a flak track with missiles but there isn't any existing voxel and my voxeling skills leave much to be desired. I might go in and edit an existing voxel but that probably won't happen soon.
Thanks for the Flak Cannon it looks like it'll fit.
I'm using raminator's Grenadier at the moment, I didn't know MadHQ made a Grenadier. At least it isn't on his site.
I'm going to try making a rapid fire "bursty" flak auto-cannon before I try making a dedicated AA unit. It'll be like a mini flak Gatling cannon. If that fails I might give it an anti-aircraft weapon by default and prevent it from attacking ground targets until modified, and if that turns out bad, which it probably will, then I'll look into a dedicated AA.
For the Half Track, I think I'm going to see about recoloring azri_apoc's Stryker turret, specifically the Gatling version. If it doesn't look out of place I might be able to attach it to the original flak track or a new one. QUICK_EDIT
Original Flak Cannon is already pretty fast, Just make it Burst=2, Half Damage then make the voxel Dual-Barreled.
The Grenadier is in madhq's madness assets. Its jumbled up in the list though so it'll take some time finding the SHP. And as I mentioned it is in TS Size & Shadows (Translucent Shadows) so unless your scaling down infantry it'll not fit in properly. _________________ ~ Excelsior ~ QUICK_EDIT
Well I got 3 potential Sea Wolf voxels but I'm not sure which one fits well. I got a personally modified sea scorpion but I used auto normals and smooth normals and I don't really trust my voxeling abilities.
Then I have one of the hydrofoil voxels on YR Argentina. It looks ok but it was designed with Allied in mind so the colors don't exactly fit with the Soviet navy.
Finally I have Mig Eater's Houbei voxel which isn't bad persay, but it is a little big in comparison to the little sea scorpion.
Joined: 10 Dec 2012 Location: I'm too busy conquering the world!
Posted: Sun Mar 24, 2013 9:09 pm Post subject:
1st image of seawolf looks good. But last 2 voxels looks OK. I'm not sure why you would want soviet to have hydrafoil. _________________ Mod Leader and founder of World Domination
1st image of seawolf looks good. But last 2 voxels looks OK. I'm not sure why you would want soviet to have hydrafoil.
Well it doesn't particularly need to be a hydrofoil, but that's what the Sea Scorpion was before becoming what it is now. Well it was something like the second voxel; both sides had it iirc. More or less, I need a missile-armed Soviet boat. It doesn't necessarily need to be a hydrofoil or sea scorpion modification.
Volgin wrote:
Because the Soviet navy actually dabbled in that? Give them Ekranoplanes for shits and giggles, ztype hydrofoils, actually.
There is an Allied colored Flak Cannon in the mix files, by the way... Might want to find that.
If I find a nice voxel that works for one, I might, this is still Red Alert 2 after all. But for right now, I'm going to stick with a fast missile-armed boat.
Never knew that, but I think the one that Atomic_Noddles generously provided will work fine. It could use a base though. QUICK_EDIT
Mine is pretty much just a heavy retexture. So you'll just need to fix the SHP Buildup with Photoshop or Gimp to the right colors.
@Zero18
Well the beta Soviets had missiles everything. DarkStorm seems to be going with a PreRelease Style as well.
Where allies had a Flak Cannon for Anti-Air
Allies & Soviets both had Nighthawks (Though in this case I'm assuming DarkStorm will make a retextured version for each side)
The Soviets Anti-Air was Missile based. Its why the IFV's Weapons are also referred to as "HoverMissile" and "SeaWolfAttack" they were originally for the Sea Wolf which had Missile Pods and got recycled into the Sea Scorpion.
@Volgin
The Unused Flak Cannon Turret is also smaller and has no remap.
Your sticking to original Scale too right DarkStorm? If so that would help you lessen the workload as you won't need to remake many large voxels as the only specific ones which are is the Kirov Airship _________________ ~ Excelsior ~ QUICK_EDIT
Prerelease style, but not sure how far I'll go. I want to overhaul the factions kind of like Red-Resurrection did. I'm not sure about the Nighthawks and air power.
In Red Alert 1, the Soviets had the only aircraft. I might consider giving the Allies superior helicopters verses Soviet air power but aircraft seems like a distinctly Allied thing verses Soviet.
I don't plan to increase general voxel size since that requires a large overhaul of all units that I don't think is really necessary.
I think I'm probably going with the Houbei for the Sea Wolf. My voxel has poor contrast and the Hydrofoil voxel seems off, I might try to fiddle with it later to see if I can get it to fit better. QUICK_EDIT
You could add in aircraft for all sides... MadHQ has one for the Soviets.
The advantage Allies would have is their Radar *IS* the Airfield so they can easily tech up more quickly where as for a Soviet you'll have to diverge your Build Up.
Something Like this maybe?
Harrier/Black Eagle
Barracuda Stealth Bomber (Battle Lab Tier)
While for Soviets it would be like the old one...
Yak
MiG _________________ ~ Excelsior ~ QUICK_EDIT
I think I'll see if I can edit the Soviet Helipad from YR Argentina to make it Allied, then I'll give Allies a couple of helicopters. If not, I'll do the opposite and make it a factory for Soviet helicopters.
Anyhow, I have a new Allied ship, the Sky Shield. It's a sea scorpion type of AA ship for the Allies to replace the Aegis. I might shave off some of its turret though. I couldn't figure out how to give a unit a fixed turret so I need to make it look a little better.
Joined: 10 Dec 2012 Location: I'm too busy conquering the world!
Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2013 11:12 pm Post subject:
Darkstorm wrote:
I couldn't figure out how to give a unit a fixed turret.
Add the turret into the voxel main body so that it will be fixed and will rotate with the voxel body as well too instead of rotating itself when attacking. _________________ Mod Leader and founder of World Domination
I couldn't figure out how to give a unit a fixed turret.
Add the turret into the voxel main body so that it will be fixed and will rotate with the voxel body as well too instead of rotating itself when attacking.
Good to know, but now I think I'm going to keep it this way. QUICK_EDIT
Just make the Unit Omnifire like the Aegis or give it a higher ROT (Like the Sea Scorpion) Alternatively you could just make it look less conventional. _________________ ~ Excelsior ~ QUICK_EDIT
I've decided on new main tanks. I just thought it went with the RA2 do-over.
The Allied Sabre Medium Tank and the Russian Cossack Heavy Tank.
I've also got a Chinese Tiger Tank which I wanted to be distinct from the Russians or Allied so I thought I'd attach a custom palette to it with a nice set of greens but that didn't seem to work at all.
As far as the Chinese are concerned I'm probably going to implement the Empire of China as a secret country (randomly selected) in my skirmish as I plan to do with Yuri's stuff, just to mix things up, even though they probably won't have a full tech tree.
As per story, I kind of borrowed the interesting idea from the RA3 Paradox mod. Since the Soviets lost the first world war, it caused a reduction in global communist influence that saw the decline of the Communist Chinese faction. However with only the independent US to support the Nationalist faction, they soon lost influence to a growing Royalist faction. Of course with Paradox, the small royalist group seized power using Nuclear Arms. In this case, it was simply a lack of available support for the Nationalist and the decline in communism that saw the rise of a monarchical faction.
Sorry for the double post (it's just to show an update in the thread).
Anyhow since I want to redo the cameos to be pcx cameos. I was wanting thoughts on this template. It will contain an image in the center, a designation on top and the unit name on the bottom. I got my first design at the bottom. The top designation will be one of these:
Infantry - Reserved for well... infantry.
Specialist - For Hero Infantry
Mechanized - Light/Medium Nonarmored combat vehicles
Armored - Armored Vehicles
Logistical - MCVs, Miners, Amphib Transports
Artillery - Siege Units and Long Range Units
Advanced - High Tech Units
Experimental - Experimental Units
Energy - Power Plants
Production - Barracks, War Factories, and other production structures
Economy - Refineries and economic structures
Tech - Tech Structures like Battle Labs
Defense - Walls, Tier 1 Defenses
Superweapon - Superweapon Structures
Power - Superweapons and Support Powers
Or Maybe by armor type like so:
Light - None, Light, Wood, Terror Drone
Medium - Flak, Medium, Steel
Heavy - Plate, Heavy, Concrete
Hmm, at first this mod started doing things like pre-release and now its shifting towards some new things seemingly, I guess developmental evolution
Anyhow I would add less strong greens in palette and adjust VPL if wanna use greens so widely in voxels.
Template, I would really re-consider how to do the text, it is eye sore with the lighter grey background and would rather use darker background to make text stand out better.
If insist black text, white encircling or light blue would look nicer surely than strong blue. QUICK_EDIT
Well I want to do a better technology evolution from RA1 than Westwood ended up with. The Flak Cannon was more derivative from the AA Gun than the SAM Site. The Soviets had fixed wing aircraft whereas the Allies had the Longbow. Now that it is getting sorted out to be sort of that way, I want to do something along the lines of Red-Revolution with a remodel of the Factions.
As I said before, the only reason it is using the default green which is terrible is because of the bug with "pallete=" otherwise it would have a better set of greens. Anyhow, I don't intent to keep it at all as is. It will either be switched to a better scheme like Brown 1 or 2, or switched back to Brick. Implementing the Chinese Empire faction is a while away anyways.
As for the template I remade one with bolder blue text. I chose a bolder and more defined font as well.
I've been fiddling with the aircraft question and stumbled into using the Paradox Device's graphics. After adding damage frames and snow versions.
So I have a Helipad to replace the Airforce command and give the Allies a helicopter force and I've implemented the Kennel for nostalgia's sake. Allied Barracks have built in Kennels that allow them to train their own attack dogs. This is accomplished using Ares ExplicitOnly tag for Factories. The whole war factory issue isn't much of an issue if only helicopters are coming from the structure.
Now I just need a building to replace the radar function of the Airforce Command HQ. I tried tacking on the helipad where the former pads were but it took up too much space and when building helicopters it would have them pop out of the radar tower then they would pop out of the helipads two spaces on the bottom row so it would look wierd. The building replacing it will probably be the Robot Control Center with a new name or another building entirely.
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Sat Mar 30, 2013 11:55 am Post subject:
Best building to use as Allied Radar is the Robot Control Center indeed. There is a prerelease SpySat on YRArg which would also fit but that's a bit oversmoothed.
And yes, go with using unused gradient slots. _________________ "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
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Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
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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
Well I've renamed the Robot Control Center to Operations Center. I would like an original name but I can't think of one at the moment. I might switch it to Communications Center though.
I've done a couple more icons but I need to get my tech tree straightened out before I can continue.
For infantry units I've settled with:
Infantry - Any combatant infantry
Veteran - Veteran Combatants
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Tue Apr 02, 2013 2:10 pm Post subject:
BTW Darkstorm, returning for the green tanks of yours a bit.
I am using an unused gradient for green tanks with custom VPL setup, you can borrow that if needed. The color gradients themselves are just plain HSL gradients, starting from 95% Luminosity to 5% with 6% steppings. _________________ "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
Well I jumped back into modding YR recently. I decided to redo the Sea Wolf by using ConMan's great Ekranoplane voxel, sans custom missile since it seemed a bit large. I also gave the Cossack Tank a new voxel since it seemed like a lighter tank than the Sabre.
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Darkstorm's Private Modding Thread
