Red Alert Overhaul (third Soviet faction, Uzbekistan)

A complete overhaul of the game

Discussion about the game and its default mods.
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Fortnight
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Post by Fortnight »

Music expansion

I've prepared music.yaml to accept tracks from both Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert and all of their expansions. This doesn't do anything on its own but it means you just need to replace scores.mix with a different scores.mix to get more music if you want to. Here's a quote from http://www.sleipnirstuff.com/forum/view ... 82&t=19933 with what you need:
Fortnight wrote: Here you go:

https://mega.nz/#!6xQ1VKSC!l4tiE8fYcA9z ... ngFm8-rRiU
https://www.mediafire.com/?tbl92zvo4qaqqa8
http://www.4shared.com/zip/2uWbYlabce/scorescombo.html
https://www.sendspace.com/file/gjag15
http://www.file-upload.net/download-122 ... o.zip.html

[tab]scorescombo.zip = 160994553 bytes (~153.537 MiB)

[tab]SHA1: E54B903BB61F5C4786C0F4D5467F7B7704446B13
[tab]MD5: B5A30095577BE456C09B8774DA6D2BDC

All links lead to the same file, pick one that works for you. I just made sure to have a few mirrors so this stays online for at least a few years. If anybody wants to add more mirrors to this thread I'd appreciate it (Google Drive or Dropbox mirrors would be nice).

[tab]Anyway the ZIP archive contains two files: music.yaml and scores.mix

Put "music.yaml" inside "<Path to OpenRA>/mods/ra/audio/music.yaml" (replace existing file)
Full path example (Windows 7): "C:/Program Files (x86)/OpenRA/mods/ra/audio/music.yaml"

Put "scores.mix" inside "<Path to User Documents>/OpenRA/Content/ra/v2/scores.mix" (replace existing file)
Full path example (Windows 7): "C:/Users/YourAccountName/Documents/OpenRA/Content/ra/v2/scores.mix"

[tab]You now have all the classic C&C music in Red Alert when playing OpenRA! 8)

The mix file contains *everything from:
+ Tiberian Dawn
+ The Covert Operations
+ Red Alert
+ Counterstrike
+ The Aftermath

* = I've not included any duplicate tracks, for example "aoi2" which is exactly the same as "aoi" (Act On Instinct) just with lower quality and some speech samples here and there. I also skipped "valkyrie" because it's just the classic "Ride Of The Valkyries" and doesn't really have anything to do with Command & Conquer.

[tab]You can of course also have all of this music in Tiberian Dawn when playing OpenRA.
[tab]It's the same paths as above but replace "/ra/" and "/ra/v2/" with just "/cnc/".

Use wordpad to edit "music.yaml" if you want to exclude certain tracks (line feeds are missing so notepad won't show the file correctly). I'll point out that I've set "iam" and "rout" to be hidden because they contained lyrics/speech but you can remove the "Hidden: true" row below them if you want to (the rest of the hidden stuff was already hidden by default in OpenRA, for example the end-of-game music).

Enjoy! :) If anyone has the time to do it please share a mirror or two for scorescombo.zip with us.
This isn't really a balance suggestion or anything like that as you can see but since I did include the edited yaml file in overhaul I will mention it nontheless. Helps to keep those links alive.
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Fortnight
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Post by Fortnight »

The special neutral buildings

1) "Oil Derrick" has been renamed to:
[tab]Oil Derrick - Capture to get 100 credits and then 100 credits every 15 sec

2) "Hospital" has been renamed to:
[tab]Hospital - Capture to make your infantry quickly generate back their health out of combat (also a minor base)

3) "Biological Lab" has been renamed to:
[tab]Biological Lab - Capture to be able to train giant ants and zombies in your barracks (also a minor base)

4) "Forward Command" has been renamed to:
[tab]Forward Command - Capture to be able to build a sizeable base here

5) "Technology Center" has been renamed to:
[tab]Technology Center - Capture for huge vision over the surrounding area

6) Both Forward Command and Technology Center is now capturable by an Engineer (takes 15 sec, same as the other neutral buildings).

7) The BaseProvider trait was added to both Hospital and Biological Lab with a range of 1c768.

8) The BaseProvider trait was added to Forward Command with a range of 8c0.

9) Technology Center has received a line-of-sight with a range of (hold on to your hats) 24c512.

10) All these five neutral buildings are now eternal, destroying them will immediately respawn a new one on the same spot (which will be neutral).

11) Destroying any of these neutral buildings gives 0 experience and 0 bounty credits.

12) They all now have 2150 HP and Light armor. In vanilla all had Wood armor and the following HP: Hosp=1000, Oil=1000, Bio/Forward/Tech=400.

13) You are now also able to repair them like any other structure in your possession.

14) Forward Command no longer drains 200 power.

15) The global heal from the Hospital has been increased by a lot (from 5 per 100 delay to 1 per 3 delay).

16) Zombie and Giant Ant (granted by Bio Lab) has been rebalanced.

Motivations:

1-5) This is to make the game more beginner-friendly. There's no way for new players to know what the neutral structures do unless they get that information from outside the game or for some reason decide to try capturing a structure that might just be part of decoration. There's probably a ton of players today that has no idea what the Bio Lab does or whether or not Forward Comm./Tech. Center does anything.

6) In vanilla capturing these structures is not possible because they don't do anything but they do in overhaul so they can now be captured. :P

7) What can you do with 1.75 cells of buildable range from the center of a 2x2 structure? You can build defense structures and a Kennel, nothing else. This makes Hospital and Bio Lab not only grant you their abilities, they also grant you an outpost and offers you a way to more easily defend them. Hospitals and Bio Labs are pretty much ignored in today's gameplay but now you get another carrot for capturing them, opening up strategic possibilities (for example you can get a Hospital just to be able to pop an AA gun there later when enemy aircraft flies near).

8) What ability to grant the "Forward Command" structure? To me that name is basically screaming "I'm the center of a base close to the enemy!" and that seems like a good way to create a contested hotspot on the map - get a free base. You can do a lot with 8 cells of buildable range (Ore Refinery, unit production closer to the enemy, airfields for nearby reloading) so this should make for a popular building. Map makers can place a Forward Command next to a gem mine and thereby instantly create a highly contested hotspot on the map, one that needs to be held uncontested for 15 sec without the Engineer dying. Should make for some fun gameplay. I don't think such an ability is too broken either, you can still win while ignoring the structure completely and giving it to your opponent. Note: Forward Command (or any Hospital/Bio Lab) doesn't do the work of a Conn Yard, you can place buildings there but they don't actually construct the buildings so if you lose all your Conn Yards you won't have access to the buildings/defense queues.

9) What ability to grant the "Technology Center" structure? By apperances it looks like it has three Radar Domes on the roof, so why not grant the owner great vision? I picked 24 cells (24.5 because that gives a much better looking vision edge) because that is twice the vision of a Longbow or Mig. Your first reaction might be that 24 is way too big but it has to be big to make the structure worth all that effort to capture it. I see this problem with Hospital today, sure it will heal your troops but the heal is so minor that no player ever goes out of his way to build an Engineer just to capture a Hospital.

Same thing would happen if Technology Center doesn't offer truly great vision, you'd just send your Engineer to it after capturing Oil Derricks and have nothing else to do with it. 10 cells of vision? Won't build an Engineer for that. 15 cells of vision? I can just move around my Longbow a bit. However if it'll light up a third of the entire map for me, then I might build an Engineer specifically dedicated to capture that structure. It'll also work towards making the spot contestable once captured by one party. Say that the Technology Center has 10 or 15 vision and you notice your enemy has captured it. Well that sucks but you can play around it. However if you know you can't really do that then it becomes a problem that you might need to deal with, that's when we get a contested hotspot on the map. Note: I didn't make this neutral building a "minor base" because of the shape of the structure and because the vision is so good that you don't need another carrot towards capturing it.

Another suggestion I have for the Technology Center is for it to count as a Tech Center and give something like 15 vision. The vision wouldn't make the building worth devoting resources specifically to capture it but combined with the fact that you don't need to build your own Tech Center and you can get it earlier than usual, that would make it worth the extra effort to capture it. A third suggestion is to give access to all units (not buildings) on all factions when you capture the Technology Center and let the building have normal vision. You'd then still need to build your own Tech Center before making for example Tanya or Mammoth Tanks.

10) This way Oil Derricks aren't throwaway; if you don't have them, your enemy has them. Right now players never bother to defend Oil Derricks under attack, however if not doing so makes them fall into the hands of the enemy it could prompt people to react. It also brings more purpose of Engineers into the late game as well.

11) This is because they keep respawning now, there won't be any abusive exploits this way.

12) The wood to light armor change makes more units do more damage per second overall to the Oil Derricks (particularly Rifle Infantry). As for why 2150 HP is picked for all structures is because it then takes 5 Rocket Soldiers ~60 seconds to destroy one of these buildings. This is a buff to using Engineers to take over player-owned Oil Derricks/Hospitals/etc directly instead of using force to destroy them. It takes just 10 sec for an Engineer to caputure a player-owned structure so you can take this risky strategy for a quick 10 sec capture or use the safer destroy-and-then-capture strategy but it'll take X sec + 15 sec (X depends on how much force you use to destroy it).

It's also a buff to planned large attacks against neutral buildings, in vanilla five Rocket Soldier will destroy a Oil Derrick in 10 seconds so you can just destroy them whenever you pass by and the enemy won't have time to react. In overhaul you need to send a a bigger force though, else the enemy player has enough time to react to what you're doing and issue a response (can choose to defend the Oil Derricks, use the time it takes to destroy it to rearrange base defenses or perhaps even sneak attack your base instead since he now knows where at least part of your army is).

13) This is also part of my move towards making neutral buildings more contestable hotspots. Repairing an Oil Derrick buys you extra time to get troops over there to defend it (adds 15 sec extra for five Rocket Soldiers, might effectively neutralize all taken damage if the enemy force is small enough). It's also yet another buff for the strategy of having Engineers take over player-owned neutral structures instead of just having them destroyed (it'll take just 10 seconds to capture it no matter how much the enemy repairs the building).

14) Skipping power requirement to make it like the rest of the neutral buildings. -200 power must have meant that civilians are always in low power mode when there is a Forward Command on the map. :O Must have been a nightmare for the baby production queue! No wonder there's only adult civilians in the game.

15) With this heal buff your infantry will almost immediately get full health when they've been out of combat for a little while. I believe this is a necessary buff because the concept of slowly healing infantry takes away the benefit of having the Hospital, in vanilla your troops are likely to engage in another battle before they have replenished much health. Also lets be honest, it's not like there's a huge difference between a red HP Rocket Soldier and a full HP Rocket Soldier. They still die very quickly. So healing infantry globally out-of-combat won't ever be a super desirable ability. The least this global heal ability can do in order to be useful is to guarantee your troops has full health when they start the next fight.

16) The changes should make them both more balanced for the enemy to fight and better serve a point in having (in vanilla it's no doubt that it's better to train 1 Giant Ant instead of 3 Zombies). I'll talk about the actual changes made in a later post.

Doing all of this I've taken into account that neutral buildings should be optional and not critical towards winning. You can ignore them completely while your enemy does not and still win, I don't think the benefits they provide are so powerful that it's impossible to win without them. Acquiring these structures also requires effort and credits (Engineers and their escorts aren't free), something you can spend on other areas if you decide to leave neutral buildings alone. As intended they do provide you with an edge for sure, in the end it's the map maker's job to use neutral structures correctly (like it has always been).

I haven't changed the name of Technology Center in overhaul but I think it might be a good idea to rename it to something else since players can build Tech Centers. So there are two completely different buildings that are named pretty much exactly the same. Observation Center? Information Center?
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SMIFFGIG
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Post by SMIFFGIG »

Rather than removing bad crates, how about different colour crates.

For example

Blue = no/low risk or moderate reward (unit speed increase, squad crate, armour increase etc)

Green = Reveal map, 2k credits, shroud map, explosion etc.

Just an idea.
or
A lobby option to disable 'Baddy crates'
The un-offical addon for Tiberian Sun
Image

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Fortnight
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Post by Fortnight »

SMIFFGIG wrote: Rather than removing bad crates, how about different colour crates.

For example

Blue = no/low risk or moderate reward (unit speed increase, squad crate, armour increase etc)

Green = Reveal map, 2k credits, shroud map, explosion etc.

Just an idea.
or
A lobby option to disable 'Baddy crates'
That could work but personally I'd rather see traps removed so that all units (even for example Tanya) can be used to pick up all crates. And I still think there's little point in having crate rewards that people don't appreciate (reveal map, invulnerability). Having different colors for different content would mean the current Christmas easter egg needs to be changed since during December the crates are dropped as packages in random colors.
Last edited by Fortnight on Sun Feb 12, 2017 3:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Fortnight
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Post by Fortnight »

Zombie and Giant Ant

These are two special units that you can build in your Barracks if you've captured a Biological Lab.

1) Zombie health down to 100 (from 250). Armor from "None" to "Light".
2) Giant Ant health down to 335 (from 750). Armor from "None" to "Light".
3) Zombie cost down to 40 (from 100), Giant Ant cost up to 400 (from 300).
4) Zombies no longer auto-dodge vehicles. Running them over damages the vehicle.
5) Zombies can't attack non-defense buildings (wood armor).

Motivations:

1) This rebalances zombies from being weak against everything anti-infantry (Rifle Infantry/APC/Ranger) to being strong against anti-infantry units. Since zombies are braindead it makes sense that they are hit easily by Rocket Soldiers or Tanks and it makes sense that explosions and large caliber damage them more than bullets.

2) This change was needed to bring Giant Ant into the realm of reasonable, in vanilla a single Giant Ant for 300 credits can destroy 3 Medium Tanks on its own (worth 2550 credits) and survive to brag about it. Ants are still good vs tanks though, in overhaul a single ant can take out a Light Tank by itself and it can reduce a Medium Tank's HP by half before dying. They have the HP of ~1.5 Light Tanks and cost a lot less.

In vanilla there's really no reason to build Zombie at all when you get so much more value from Giant Ant. Three slow-moving zombies (100 credits per zombie in vanilla) doesn't come near the value of one fast-moving and fast-attacking giant ant (300 credits in vanilla).

3) This makes it so that you can buy 10 zombies for the same price as 1 ant. It'll also make Zombies the truly spammy unit it should be, taking just 1.6 sec to produce (BuildDurationModifier is 100 instead of the default 60). 2000 credits = 50 zombies or 5 Giant Ants, I think that's a good measure in worth.

4) This gives zombies a new purpose, you can basically use them as mines in Ore Fields if you want to. It'll also remove the easy way of getting rid of zombies in vanilla (just run them over) because doing so too much vill eventually destroy your vehicle.

5) Not only does it make sense to not have Zombies claw at a Power Plant but it'll make it focus its effort during attack-move where it can actually do some damage instead. It'll also make it impossible to win with just Zombies; you may be able to overrun the enemies with them but you need to have something else to finish them off.

I think these changes make sure Zombie and Giant Ant are balanced against the normal units in Red Alert and they also make it worth training both of them instead of just Giant Ants.

Also: Zombies has a whole new audio profile, check out the "New Sounds"-post on page three for more on that.
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MustaphaTR
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Post by MustaphaTR »

I will take those Zombie and Ant changes for my modmaps if it is not a problem. I have bio labs on my maps and they are really a big balance issue.

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Fortnight
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Post by Fortnight »

MustaphaTR wrote: I will take those Zombie and Ant changes for my modmaps if it is not a problem. I have bio labs on my maps and they are really a big balance issue.
Go ahead, I'm happy to have helped. :D

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Fortnight
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Post by Fortnight »

V2 Rocket and Artillery

1) Both will now always explode with the same appearance regardless whether they are loaded or not.
2) Artillery can now run over infantry as well as walls.

Motivations:

1) If you destroy V2 Rocket when it has a rocket visible on it the explosion will be a big flame, otherwise it will be a regular vehicle explosion. Likewise if you destroy an Artillery after it has fired the explosion will be that of a regular vehicle explosion, if it has a shell ready to be fired however (no visual difference on the unit) it will get the typical larger Artillery "foff" explosion. In overhaul we always get the bigger explosion because bigger is better, right?

Okay, this is just down to what I think looks better. I always get a bit bummed out when I get the whimpy small explosion instead of the spectacular huge explosion that is much more satisfying. Especially when an Artillery doesn't get the large explosion since it kind of catches me off-guard due to there not being any visual difference on the Artillery itself before it is destroyed.

2) In the original Red Alert game Artilleries could crush infantry and I think that's a minor upper hand in balance that it should have compared to its Soviet counterpart. Everybody always talks about the Artillery's range but the V2 is pin-point accurate (more reliable), can take more damage before being destroyed and has much faster turn rate to help it escape. Both can't fire at close targets. When the Artillery is cornered all it can usually do is die. However if it's able to run through infantry blobs there's at least a chance to be able to escape as long as the enemy units are soft and squishy and the Artillery is pointing the right way.

Note: Sandbag, Barbed Wire and Concrete Wall can't be crushed in overhaul (see page 1 for more on that) so like any other unit in the game the Artillery still can't run over those, however neutral Chain-Link Barriers, Barbed-Wire Fences and Wooden Fences used for map decoration are still crushable as usual.
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Fortnight
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Post by Fortnight »

Medic and Mechanic (...and Engineer on point 5 and 6)

1) Medic cost increased by 50 to 250 and train time increased by 5.2 sec to 10 sec.
2) Medic and Mechanic can now use their abilities from inside a Pillbox.
3) Reduced both of their HP so it takes 5 Rifle Infantry attacks to kill each of them (they can tank 11 such attacks in vanilla).
4) Increased vision to the same as most other Infantry.
5) Changed initial stance from Defend to AttackAnything and increased scan radius to 20.
6) Movement speed reduced by 3 to 53 for both.

Motivations:

1) This is because Medic is a really good unit, especially early game. Costing just twice of a Rifle Infantry is too cheap. Training two or three of them early on makes your infantry almost invulnerable early on, now doing so would at least cost a bit more money and mainly require more time. Learning how to properly treat all sorts of combat trauma can't be that easy.

2) I've mentioned this earlier in "The Pillboxes" on page 3, this makes Pillboxes useful in other ways than dealing damage. When Medic/Mechanic "shoot" from inside a pillbox a blue flame appears.

3) For a unit having no offensive capabilities it's a little strange that they had so much health. For comparison it takes three rifle bursts to kill an Engineer, five to kill a Rocket Soldier and six to kill a Rifle Infantry.

4) They are human after all. I get the reduced vision in civilians because you could argue they are bad at reporting what they see but there's no reason why Medic and Mechanic should be halfway to blindness. Now they have the same line-of-sight as for example Rifle Infantry. Note: Engineers have always had the same vision as Rifle Infantry, even in vanilla.

5) This makes it so that the Medic and Mechanic will seek out targets to patch even if they can not currently reach them with their "attack". It increases the illusion that the units aren't dumb; they will care about people screaming for help a few steps away. The reduced micro-management required from the player now allows him to focus more on strategy instead of minor repositioning tasks.

6) 3 is around 5.4% of the standard infantry movement speed (56) so you will barely notice the reduction in shorter distances. However over longer distances the Medics and Mechanics in your infantry blob will lag behind just a little bit, which is the intended effect. They will still reach the infantry at the front with their "attack" however. This, together with the increased scan radius, should help reduce the problem with having your Medics running in front of your own soldiers and into the enemy when attack-moving big infantry blobs. Even if they do run ahead the increased scan radius will cause them to run back if needed to heal someone at the back of your army. Lore-wise it also clicks that infantry trained for combat should be in better shape and run a little faster.

Note: Engineers has had the same movement speed reduction and initial stance + scan radius changes as Medic and Mechanic. Engineer got his own post on page 1.
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Fortnight
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Post by Fortnight »

Gap Generator and Mobile Gap Generator

1) Gap Gen. requires 50 power instead of 60.
2) Gap Gen. now has sounds for when it is toggled on/off by the power tool.
3) Gap Gen. now creates 8 cells of shroud instead of 6.
4) Mobile Gap Gen. cost down from 1200 to 1000 credits.
5) Mobile Gap Gen. movement up from 85 to 155.
6) Mobile Gap Gen. now creates 8 cells of shroud instead of 6.
7) Mobile Gap Gen. vision down from 6 to 4 cells.
8 ) Mobile Gap Gen. armor from Heavy to Light, HP down from 220 to 195.
9) Mobile Gap Gen. no longer leaves a husk upon death.
10) Mobile Gap Gen. can now Guard (D) other vehicles to follow them around.

Motivations:

1) I thought those extra 10 power was a bit too much, now you can at least have 2 Gap Gen. with 1 regular Power Plant.

2) The CanPowerDown trait was missing the needed sound references, this it might tell us something about how often Gap Gen. is used since it hasn't been fixed yet. :P

3) Six cells was a bit small, now a single Gap Gen. can cover a good chunk of your base if not all of it. The vision is still 6 cells, which actually makes the structure decent for lookout purposes as well since normal building vision has been reduced in overhaul.

4) This not only reduces the price but also the time it blocks the production queue. I think Mobile Gap Gen. deserves a big buff (see additional changes) since it's France's special unit, they only have this and Fake Structures and almost nobody builds Mobile Gap Gen. An even 1000 credits makes it more worth building. Maybe someone will actually have France as their favorite faction after this?

5) The unit was a snail, this makes it actually able to keep up with where the army moves. It also allows for retreat when danger approaches.

6) The shroud should be equivalent to the stationary version, even though it doesn't need power. As I said before, this is all France got besides Fake Structures so Mobile Gap Gen has to be good enough to carry the faction's name.

7) The unit is not a scout, it now has low vision (same as most infantry) to make it more vulnerable on its own.

8 ) Looking at the Mobile Gap Gen. few people would guess it has the same armor and HP as a Light Tank in vanilla, since it is a truck and not a tank I changed the armor to Light (makes even more sense now with the increase move speed). The HP makes it take 8 Rocket Soldier attacks to destroy (for comparison Light Tank takes 6 since Rocket Soldiers are better vs heavy armor).

9) Since Mobile Radar Jammer does not leave a husk I don't see a reason why Mobile Gap Gen. should leave a husk. It's a bit unfair towards France. For example Ranger or (in overhaul) Light Tank doesn't leave a husk either so it's not rare for vehicles to not leave a husk.

10) I think the unit was able to Guard in a previous version in OpenRA (like the Chinook) but it was removed in an update. It's back in overhaul and is especially useful now with the increase movement speed.

Sidenote: In the next version of OpenRA the shroud produced by the Gap Generators will reduce the vision of enemy units looking into the produced shroud. It will no doubt make the Gap Gen a lot more useful.

What I actually wanted to do in overhaul was to make it so that the Gap Gen. shroud does not reduce the vision by ground units at all but instead reduce the vision of all enemy flying units 100%. So Gap Gen could be used to make guaranteed air raids protection for structures, unless the enemy has ground units attacking as well - providing vision into the Gap Gen's shroud. I think that would make for a nice game mechanic rather than simply reducing all units' visions. I haven't tried it out yet since it isn't released but it sounds kind of annoying and almost broken to have to fight into enemies with reduced ground vision, however the idea of reduced aerial vision I can really dig since those units give the best scout vision anyway.

Lore-wise the way Gap Gen works is that it makes a thick electric fog-cloud in the sky so from that point of view it should only affect air units and not ground units (you can see this in the structure's thumbnail). Anyway, in overhaul the description of Gap Gen. and Mobile Gap Gen. mentions that they reduce the enemy vision range in the next version of OpenRA, naturally such text wouldn't be left in there should this have been adopted into the real game mod.
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Fortnight
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Post by Fortnight »

Mobile Radar Jammer

1) Speed up from 85 to 155.
2) Radar-jamming range up from 15 cells to 18 cells.
3) Vision down from 6 to 4 cells.
4) Armor changed from Heavy to Light, HP down from 220 to 195.
5) Missile-jamming range up from 4 to 6.
6) Can now Guard (D) other vehicles to follow them around.
7) Cost up from 800 to 1000.

Motivations:

1) Changed the speed so that it can keep up with a moving army and able to move in and out as needed. Can now also respond more quickly to for example Harvesters being attacked elsewhere and make it there in time to make a difference.

2) I don't think anybody buy the unit for its actual radar jamming capabilities so I've increased the range a bit to increase the chance that it comes into play during an attack.

3) It has been given the same line-of-sight as most infantry to make it more vulnerable on its own.

4) It doesn't look like a heavy armor unit to me and with the buff in movement speed it's only proper that it shouldn't be able to tank so much.

5) This is to make the primary function of the vehicle (despite its name) more useful. You don't want to keep the jammer at the front of a battle, especially with the reduced HP and armor change, so the old 4 cells wouldn't really cover much from the back. In overhaul the Rocket Soldiers have been nerfed, in turn buffing all other units, so ballistics will play a bigger part in army composition now. It means that missile-jamming doesn't have as big impact as before so 6 cells isn't overpowered. Now the jamming also syncs it up with the unit's cloak-detection, which is also 6 cells. In overhaul I've made sure all cloak-detection circles are rendered so having two at the same distance (cloak and missile jamming) helps reduce the clutter otherwise caused by the unit's three circles.

6) I think a guarding Radar Jammer was possible before in OpenRA but went away with an update. It's useful so here it is again.

7) The increased speed and jamming distances makes the unit a lot more worth producing now so it becomes more expensive. I picked 1000 credits because then it's the same as Mobile Gap Generator and Destroyer.

Something I forgot to change was the name of the unit, it should be just "Radar Jammer" and not "Mobile Radar Jammer" since there's no non-mobile Radar Jammer available. It would then also have the same name as the text in the icon.

Now that I think about it the HP for both Radar Jammer and Mobile Gap Gen should have been lowered a bit more since they do have fast movement speed and might be difficult to catch for the enemy. It might also make sense to add a build limit of 1 for the unit (only Radar Jammer, no limit for Mobile Gap Gen), so that you only can have missile deflection on a single place on the map and so that if the enemy destroys it during an attack you can't immediately replace it with another one that is waiting a bit further back.
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Fortnight
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Post by Fortnight »

Light Tank, Medium Tank and Heavy Tank

1) Light Tank now has twice as long reload and twice as much damage.
2) Light Tank no longer spawns a husk upon death.
3) Medium Tank has slightly reduced movement speed, from 85 to 83.
4) Heavy Tank has increased HP, from 550 to 600.
5) Heavy Tank damage (per single shot) increased from 40 to 45.
6) Damage vs "none" armor (infantry): Light Tank reduced from 30% to 20%. Medium Tank reduced from 20% to 18%.

Motivations:

1) Since the rapid shooting has reportedly caused some people a headache they now fire once per second instead of twice per second, keeping the same DPS. The lower fire rate is a small nerf since there will now be more overkill (damage wasted) when a target dies, especially if more than one Light Tank shot at the target at the same time and it only needed one hit to die. Since Light Tanks are so fast-moving and have a quick turning turret I think the nerf is neglectable.

2) It's been mentioned before ("Husks" on page 3), they don't drop husks now because it gives Allies an unfair advantage when blocking for example Ore Refinery early game and I don't think I've ever seen a Mechanic rush out to capture a Light Tank husk.

3) This is to make it a bit more possible for empty Harvesters to escape from Medium Tanks (they have 85 movement speed). It's a buff towards the eco-harass role of Light Tanks.

4) This is a nerf against mass building Medium Tanks, now Heavy Tanks have a chance to fire one last time before dying so it's more likely a group of Heavy Tanks can hold their own against a group of Medium Tanks of roughly the same credits value. It of course also increases their survivability against everything else as well, which I think is warranted.

When playing vanilla I get the feeling that Heavy Tanks just dies a bit too easily and math seems to agree. Medium Tank HP per credit: 450/850=0.529. Vanilla Heavy Tank HP per credit: 550/1150=0.478. Overhaul Heavy Tank HP per credit: 600/1150=0.522. It's true that some of that extra money goes towards installing another barrel (and using larger caliber) however the Heavy Tanks also take longer to build, is just one unit (two units with X capability is always better than one single unit with the same capability because of things like overkill, being able to spread them out, sacrifice one to save the other etc), take longer to reload and above all move slower than Medium Tank. Move speed is a huge factor in RTS, I think these things together with the larger price balance against Medium Tank well enough on their own, Heavy Tank can at least scale it's HP better per credit.

5) In vanilla Medium Tank use 90mm caliber dealing 40 damage, Heavy Tank use 105mm but still deal 40 damage per shot. It would seem reasonable that getting hit by a larger object would deal more damage, if I scale 90mm's 40 damage up 105mm it would land at 46.67 damage. Damage rarely scales perfectly though so I started testing with 105mm dealing 45 damage and it works great (remember that Heavy Tank take 40% longer to reload than Medium Tank). The results is that Heavy Tanks feel more balanced in overhaul against Medium Tanks, Mammoth Tanks and buildings when all things are considered (key balancing factors being price and movement speed).

Check out "Rocket Soldier vs Wood Armor" on page 4 for a .gif image where you can see both Medium Tanks and Heavy Tanks firing at a War Factory. In vanilla (orange) the 3 Medium Tank barrels for 2550 credits take down the structure faster than the 4 Heavy Tank barrels for 2300 credits while in overhaul they finish simultaneously (the heavys start firing a little bit before the mediums). It's easy to argue that since the three mediums cost more they should finish first but it's not just about the credits, things like movement speed and unit count has to be kept in mind.

6) A Light Tank is faster than a Medium Tank so it's better at running over infantry but it also does more DPS against them with its cannon. I decided to reduce the ballisic damage vs inantry a bit so that successfully crushing infantry is more rewardning compared to just shooting them. In vanilla it takes 25 sec for a Light Tank to shoot Tanya to death, in overhaul it takes 33 sec (note that the "30% to 20%" reduction is a change of 33.333%). In vanilla a Light Tank will kill infantry roughly twice as fast as a Medium Tank, in overhaul I kept that ratio.

In vanilla Heavy Tank is pretty much in the middle of a Light Tank and Medium Tank when it comes to infantry DPS, this was however changed in overhaul so a Heavy Tank kills infantry with the same DPS as a Light Tank (lore-wise it's not as easy to avoid two ballistics at the same time, especially when they are larger and cause more damage to the surroundings). Balance-wise it also makes sense, Heavy Tanks can't run over infantry as easy as Medium Tank so they need that extra DPS to have some kind of chance when running into a infantry blob. Keep in mind though that overall tank ballistic damage vs infantry has still been nerfed in overhaul in favor of successfully running over units, or better yet, using appropriate anti-infantry units in the mix (APC/Ranger usually falls off a bit late game). I'll also remind about the Rocket Soldier nerf, which makes trying to run over units more feasible.
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Fortnight
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Post by Fortnight »

Mammoth Tank

1) Movement Speed up from 50 to 55.
2) Turn Speed down from 5 to 4.
3) Turret Rotation Speed up from 2 to 3.
4) Missiles *reworked, will now use them against everything.
5) Now uses primary turret fire against infantry as well.
6) Build duration down to 30 sec (cost is the same, 2000 credits).
7) Primary turret range increased from 4.75 to 5.75.
8 ) Can no longer crush Concrete Walls.

* = The new MammothTusk weapon:
A) Attack launch range down from 8 to 6.75 cells (same follow distance, 9.6 cells).
B) Better accuracy (projectile inaccuracy value down from 128 to 48 ).
C) Larger initial outwards launch angle compared to the front direction of the tank's turret. Has slightly better HorizontalRateOfTurn (from 15 to 16).
D) Changed missile from "direct launch type" to those kinds that get thrown out of their tubes and then ignites on their own, whatever those types of missiles are called.
E) Mammoth can now lock on to targets with its missiles twice as fast as the primary cannon (missiles are launched by an invisible independent turret able to rotate twice as fast as the cannons).
F) Missile reload time increased by circa 333%, from 60 to 400. Vanilla: 24 missile bursts (48 missiles) in 1 minute. Overhaul: 8 missile bursts (16 missiles) in 1 minute.
G) Damage per missile and damage spread (AOE) has been reworked.

Motivations:

I'd like to begin by saying that Mammoth Tank has been buffed vs vehicles and buildings, nerfed vs infantry and air. I know Mammoths have been built a little bit more lately but I still don't think their worth are proportional to the high Tech Level you need in order to build them (they need a lot more investment than just the final 2k credits per unit).

1) This is because movement speed matters so much in RTS games (I've mentioned it a lot in my later posts but it needs to be said). Slow moving things are always such a downer simply because it takes forever to transport them to the battle, you could have the most powerful unit ever but if it takes too long to deploy it most players will rather build weaker things with more mobility. Five extra movement speed is not too much but it's still a 10% change so it definitely has a positive effect on the manoeuvrability of the Mammoth Tank. It still is slower than infantry default speed (56), which I think is the most important thing. Now it won't lag behind your infantry blob (maybe just a little).

2) Ever noticed that despite its slow movement speed the Mammoth Tank can do a 180 pretty quickly? In overhaul the turn speed has been lowered to better reflect its slow move speed.

3) To be blunt the turret is too slow in vanilla, the Mammoth doesn't shoot so hard that it warrants taking an extremely long time to change target (basically making it impossible to fire at a fast enemy passing by behind the Mammoth). There available directions in the .shp animation makes it look pretty stiff when turning as well. The tank still ignores the laws of physics in overhaul though; the turret still rotates slower than the body that its attached to so that when doing a 180 the turret will still lag behind the body. Idea: A "EnableRealism: True/False"-property could be added to the Turreted trait, which would apply the body's rotation to all attached turrets whenever the body turns. It would make the turrets feel less floaty/detached if desired.

4) The missiles are right there and they aren't strictly surface-to-air missiles, so might as well use them to make the Mammoth Tank more balanced. If they can attack a Rocket Soldier on the other side of a Concrete Wall why shouldn't they be able to do the same against a Tesla Coil that is walled in?

5) The Mammoth's cannons still do damage vs infantry, why wouldn't it use them in addition to the missiles? If nothing else they make sure the infantry is pinned (prones) and can't run away until the missiles do fire so they serve an important purpose just by that (especially in overhaul when the missiles take much longer to reload).

6) This is part of the overhaul's general push towards making all high tech units more worth while to build, having both a high price and a long build queue blocking is too steep in my opinion when you've already invested so much time and credits in reaching high tech level. See "Training/production time limit" on page 3 for more on this.

7) This makes it so that Light Tank has 4.0 reach, Medium Tank/Heavy Tank has 4.75 reach and Mammoth Tank has 5.75 reach with its cannon and 6.75 reach with its reworked missiles. Due to the slight delay and travel time of the missiles they will hit the target roughly at the same time as its ballistics.

8 ) This is due to the overall wall rework and reworked purpose of Engineer (can crumble walls), see "Sandbags, Barbed Wire and Concrete Wall" and "Engineer" for more info (both on page 1).

A) The range of the missiles have been nerfed, meaning that you dare to fly closer to the Mammoth Tank and you can get closer to it with Rocket Soldiers before it starts attacking them.

B) This helped me to balance the impact power of the missiles vs infantry (in vanilla the damage output is all over the place). Helps ensuring that the damage vs aircrafts are more consistent as well. Prevents missiles from going into the water sometimes when launched at moving/turning Destroyers or Gunboats (deals 0 damage from near-misses into the water).

C) What can I say other than I think it just looks cooler. :P The +1 in HorizontalRateOfTurn compensates for the larger outwards launch angle, it ensures that the missiles will hit their target even if it's just 1 cell away (right in front of the tank), otherwise they might end up spinning around the infantry without ever hitting it. Sometimes it could still happen so I might increase the HorizontalRateOfTurn by one more if I make a new version of overhaul.

D) This is mainly to make the Mammoth Tank missiles more unique, both by sound and appearance. First you'll get two smoke puffs as the missiles are thrown out of their tubes and then after a small delay both ignite at the same time and rush towards the target. Not only is it satisfying as hell when both hit at the same time :drunk: but it also reworks them in a way that nerfs and buffs at the same time. On the buff side any fast targets won't have the chance to move further away before the second missile is launched, potentially outrunning the later missile, so you'll always hit with both or none. On the nerf side your mammoth can't split them on several close Rocket Soldiers. The buff is bigger than the nerf though since usually in vanilla the first missile won't have reached its target before the second is launched.

E) The primary turrets' rotation speed was buffed but it still takes 1.5-2.0 sec before the ballistics will land on their target if the turret has to do a 180 to fire. In vanilla this makes it practically impossible to attack fast targets that are running by the Mammoth Tank (APC/Ranger/Yak); the missiles won't launch until the tank points towards them and its Turret Rotation Speed of 2 simply can't make it before they are long gone. Overhaul's 3 still won't make it but the missiles now have their own (hidden) turret with a rotation speed of 6 so the missiles have the time to launch most of the time. This increases the overall threat of the Mammoth since it now can reach even fast units, you have to respect its presence. This is why the missile range got reduced, it is shorter but will almost always be able to launch now. The slight delay before missile ignition means you might still be able to outrun the missiles though if you react quickly.

C, D, and (mainly) E is inspired by how the tusk missiles work in the original Tiberian Dawn game. When you attack an enemy behind you the Mammoth Tank would launch its missiles when the turret had reached half way towards the target. You can't mimick this exact behaviour in OpenRA's engine (the turret has to point towards its target) but I did manage to mimick it close-enough. The missiles will indeed be fired when the primary turret is half-way towards its target.

F) Here's a big change, instead of the Mammoth being able to spam missiles against infantry and aircraft it can now use it against everything but only in moderation. It creates a rather big opening after they have been fired, which opens up strategic gameplay possibilities for skilled players (send in a Rifle Infantry to trigger the missiles and then move in with Rocket Soldiers or aircraft). In vanilla it's impossible for two Longbows to win against a Mammoth Tank but in overhaul they will not only win - both helicopters will survive. And why shouldn't they, 4000 credits is twice as much as a Mammoth Tank and they are on the same Tech Level.

A single Mammoth shouldn't be a mobile SAM site, Soviet has Mobile Flak for that. Likewise a single Mammoth shouldn't be able to win against a big infantry blob, there are other units for that purpose. Instead a Mammoth Tank should be a great unit against everything, not superior in any one field. They are still very strong in a group but not so string that Rocket Soldiers or aircraft of equal value wouldn't be able to take them on. Or other types of tanks for that matter.

G) Overall the missiles are nerfed against big infantry blobs. The Rocket Soldiers will have enough time to take down the Mammoths before thay can fire their missiles again. Against smaller infantry numbers however they are buffed or nerfed depending on formation, meaning there's now strategy involved in formation when attacking a Mammoth. When missiles are fired the Mammoth Will always take out the Rocket Soldier it is aiming at, however it has greater splash now so if the infantry are close together more than one are likely to be taken out from two tusk missiles. I've adjusted the splash and damage so that it usually take out 2 or 3 Rocket Soldiers that stand next to each other. Sometimes still only one gets killed, though the added 25% chance for Rocket Soldiers to explode helps to get my intended average of 2. Micro-managing players can increase the odds by manually trying to attack the middle Rocket Soldier in a stack of 5.

1 missile burst (2 missiles) will destroy a Light Hind/Hind/Heavy Hind as well as both a Mig and a Yak. It takes 2 missile bursts to destroy a Chinook or Longbow. Keep in mind that Mig has longer attack range with their Maverick missiles so with a little bit of micro-management you can easily take out a Mammoth Tank with a Mig without it being able to fire back at you (and if it do manage to fire at you chances are you'll be able to fly away from the tusk missiles before they can catch up with the Mig).

Against buildings (wood armor) a missile burst (2 missiles) will do the same amount of damage as 1 of the Mammoth's ballistic attacks. So every 8 seconds it'll be as if the Mammoth fires three ballistics on the structure instead of two. This brings it into the same ballpark as the rest of the tanks, 5 Medium Tanks (4250 credits) will still destroy a War Factory faster 2 Mammoth Tanks (4000 credits).

Same goes for tanks or defense structures (heavy armor), a missile burst does the same amount of damage as 1 ballistic attack. 5 Medium Tanks will still win against 2 Mammoth Tanks (with 2 survivors). 3 Heavy Tanks (3450 credits) will win against 2 Mammoth Tanks (4000 credits), though it was close.

It's against Light Armor such as V2 Rocket or Ranger that the new Mammoth Tank really shines. Being able to lock seeking missiles on them means not even the fastest vehicles can stroll by unscathed. The burst doesn't mean instant death though, 2 missiles will bring a Ranger down to 25% HP and a V2 Rocket to 50% HP. Artillery will of course die from it, as it dies from pretty much anything. So Light Armored vehicles should definitely use their movement speed to stay clear of Mammoth Tanks.

In regards to Tanya I've made sure a single Mammoth Tank needs two missile bursts in order to kill her, as long as she is moving. This gives her eight seconds to crawl to that building with C4 even when pinned by a Mammoth Tank.

Btw, if you're worried about Mammoth Tanks as an allied player remember that the Radar Jammer neutralizes the tusk missiles and will severly gimp the Mammoth Tank back into vanilla territory. ;) Keeping the jammer out of range of the Mammoth's cannons is easier now since it has greatly increase movement speed.


I don't think these changes makes the unit unbalanced, it makes it stronger in some areas where it was weak before while making it more vulnerable in other areas where it was stronger before. The Mammoth Tanks isn't the solution to everything but is nice to have in your army mixture, I'd say it's now worth to tech up just to gain access to the them. The 10% increased movement speed makes it able to keep up with your infantry army and the quicker missile response makes it able to do something even vs fast enemies zooming by. Using the primary turret vs infantry makes it able to pin the units and maybe even kill one of them inbetween missile bursts. Using missiles vs everything brings the damage output into the same range as the other tanks and makes it possible to fire over the now uncrushable walls.
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Fortnight
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Post by Fortnight »

Tanya

1) Hard to be crushed.
2) Reacts faster.
3) Can use C4 on walls.
4) Reworked her armament(s), she no longer has two Colt45 but a single DualColt45.
5) Can now force-fire the ground.

Motivations:

1) She now has 100% chance to get warned about incoming vehicles and will try to get out of their way automatically. She's still not impossible to run over but considering how many credits she cost it should at least be as hard as possible.

2) In OpenRA the AutoTarget trait has a time interval for scanning, by default this is a bit random, 3-8. In overhaul Tanya will have quicker and more consistent reaction to threats, 2-2.

3) It seemed illogical that someone with C4 could be stopped by a wall. She only blow up one piece at a time so it's no where near as effective as the Engineer's ground blast though.

4) This is because I noticed when a unit is put into a pillbox they only get to use one single armament, meaning Tanya's damage output is halved. This is pretty hard to notice in-game since she does so much damage anyway and she used to fire both her Colt45 at the same time, which is probably why it never got discovered before.

I have taken the liberty to nerf her weapon slightly; she will still tear through infantry like butter however it now takes two shots to kill 1 Rifle Infantry. Since she fires in bursts of two it still takes just 1 game tick to take out a Rifle Infantry but due to this change it is now possible to overwhelm her and it gives a chance to actually kill her if your infantry reaches close enough to her position to start firing. Rocket Soldiers and most other infantry still goes down with just one bullet.

5) This gives advanced players the ability to make Tanya survive against a vehicle with red HP - as long as it is standing still you can force fire on the ground beneath it to slowly trickle down its HP, hopefully before Tanya dies. She still won't be able to auto-target vehicles and buildings can't take damage from her bullets, just now this elite unit aren't completely helpless against vehicles. Just extremely weak against them.

Edit: Forgot to mention that Tanya now also can shoot mines in the ground by force-fire (she of course still can't see the mines by herself).
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Fortnight
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Post by Fortnight »

Grenadier

1) HP down from 50 to 27 and always explodes on death (instead of 50% chance).
2) Throw delay reduced from 15 to 12.
3) Always explodes and damages vehicles that run them over.
4) No throw delay at all when garrisoned inside pillbox.
5) Changed grenade damage and spread.

Motivations:

1) This is so that they will die in three Rifle Infantry attacks or three infantry explosions. I've fixed the bug with the death explosion so they now deal reasonable AOE damage when they die. Since the damage is okay now I changed it to be consistent instead (they always explodes) for more reliable gameplay and less random chance for the defender against early rushes. Please see "Exploding infantry" on page 3 for more on this.

2) This 20% change makes it slightly easier to at least throw a grenade before dying, making them less useless when up against anything except a building, but more importantly it's more in sync with the throwing animation unless my eyes are off.

3) During an early game rush you could try to run them over instead of attacking the grenadiers, which makes them at least stop firing at the building if they manage to auto-crawl out of the way. However now you'll get some damage delivered to your vehicle if you do, 50 damage per Grenadier crushed to both Light/Heavy armor (for reference a Light Tank has 220 HP) so it's not insignificant. It can be a calculated risk though since you know the explosion will always occur.

4) It's rare to see the Grenadier in a Pillbox but when he is he is clever enough to lay his grenades out on a table so that he is prepared and can throw them very quickly. This mostly affects just the initial throw and is a very minor edit. See "The Pillboxes" on page 3 for a bit more on the subject.

5) The AOE has changed so that the splash is larger but the highest amount of damage is more focused where the actual grenade is when it goes off. It's stronger against Light and Heavy armor and does more in a group of infantry than vanilla grenades.

I can't really describe the damage changes much better than this since they relates to changes made to the Rocket Soldier and Flamethrower units. First Rocket Soldier was balanced to not be as super effective against buildings as it is in vanilla (when compared to tanks of equal value in credits). Then from that new damage output the Flamethrower was rebalanced to be super effective compared to the same amount of Rocket Soldiers (credit-wise). Finally Grenadiers were also rebalanced to be better than Rocket Soldiers but worse than Flamethrowers (taking into account their early accessibility, faster movement speed, cheap cost and basic uselessness against non-buildings).
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