Although I haven't started this yet, I do have some ideas in mind and I'd like to hear (CONSTRUCTIVE) opinions about this anyway.
OpenRA Classic is meant to make TD and RA feel more like their original counterparts, removing some of the features in OpenRA and modifying the stats of various units and, if possible, even add some new units that are meant to balance the game even further.
However, the original TD and RA themselves do have balance problems, so I'll try to fix those as well.
Here are some of the ideas I have right now. Not sure if all of them can be applied, but I'll be glad if I could eventually receive help on this.
Red Alert
* Ore trucks will be slighty faster in normal terrain and will dump 700 pieces of gold (1400 when gems are collected) instead of 500/1000.
* Tank husks will be removed, as I see them as a cheap way to stop rushing in certain maps.
* Infantry will be crushable again, BUT I'd like infantry to automatically try to avoid getting squashed (the AI infantry in red alert does it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu344Y-ZQEc as shown in this video). This is to prevent heavy tanks from instantly getting rid of missile infantry, and also to prevent riflemen to be used as a tank-shield. Shock troopers will, however, be uncrushable.
* The soviets are getting the hind and chinook back, and the allies will have both the longbow and the chinook. If possible, I will add a new plane for the allies, armed with explosive rockets that are effective against infantry and buildings, but not quite effective against tanks.
* Yak damage against vehicles and buildings will be reduced.
* Cruisers will now have greater firepower. To be fair, right now they're next to useless. Their range however will be kept the same, to prevent a player from winning by spamming cruisers.
* All Aftermath units will be added in the game and, when needed, balanced.
* Mammoth tanks will no longer fire with both rockets and cannons against a target. Cannons will be used against vehicles and tanks, and rockets against aircraft and infantry. Just like in the original.
* The A-Bomb will now do extra damage on vehicles and units. Medium tanks near the impact of the bomb will get vaporized :)
* Helicopters and Aircraft will now reload faster.
Possible other new units:
* Mobile AA gun: Allied unit that requires a radar dome. It is slightly more effective than the Flak truck, but is slower and more expensive. The graphics look like a mobile gap generator with an AA gun on top of it instead of the gap gen.
* Raptor: The afromentioned allied plane. Armed with explosive rockets, it is effective against infantry and a little against buildings too, but not so effective against tanks. You ain't gonna stop a tank rush with these, in other words. But that's what longbows are for, after all.
* Supply truck: Small and unarmored trucks that are used to transport infantry across the battlefield. They're slower and have less armor than an APC and also can't fire. Although they're weak to the point even pillboxes can destroy them, they can be useful to get infantry from one place to another.
Tiberian Dawn:
Some of the RA rules will apply here as well (crushable infantry, no husks). However there are some specific rules for TD:
* Guard towers will be stronger. To be fair, right now they seem next to useless to me. Even then, they were weak in the original as well.
* The Artillery is going back into Nod's field. It will be more accurate than the RA one, though.
* Mammoth tanks will have less armor. Right now a rush of mammoths is virtually unstoppable.
* Light tanks will fire much faster. Medium tanks will also fire slightly faster.
* Chem warriors damage against building will be increased. They will also be uncrushable.
* The Nod nuclear missile will no longer be able to destroy everything. It will do, more or less, the same damage as the TD one. The Ion cannon on the other hand will reload slightly faster.
* Humvees and buggies will also have a faster fire rate. About as fast as the ranger, I'd say.
* The helipad system will be similar to that of RA. More balanced imho.
* As in RA, Helicopters will reload faster
The mod will also affect Dune 2000 when/if it gets done (please finish it please please :))))) ).
That is all I have in mind for now. Again, (CONSTRUCTIVE) criticism and opinions are welcome. I was also thinking about an on/off superweapon button, like the RA2 one.
OpenRA Classic
Alright... Here is the earliest beta of the mod.
http://www.mediafire.com/?q95xzll5jdwq6i7
Version 0.1. All it does is basically remove wrecks from game and changing the value of ore and gems to that of the original RA (you'll get 700 instead of 500 on each bump). For the rest, it is exactly like the original, but I think these changes make most of the low-on-resources maps playable (currently they aren't).
Infantry is still uncrushable. I'm not going to make it crushable until I find a way to make them automatically avoid getting crushed.
Tell me what you think, etc
http://www.mediafire.com/?q95xzll5jdwq6i7
Version 0.1. All it does is basically remove wrecks from game and changing the value of ore and gems to that of the original RA (you'll get 700 instead of 500 on each bump). For the rest, it is exactly like the original, but I think these changes make most of the low-on-resources maps playable (currently they aren't).
Infantry is still uncrushable. I'm not going to make it crushable until I find a way to make them automatically avoid getting crushed.
Tell me what you think, etc
hi, is there any progress on this mod? i like the new take on the game but many people like the old style of play so would really live a classic mod for this, tank rush, all units back to nromal ect ect - playing red alter with all the classic functions on these bigger maps is what i really want, surely i am not alone on this :-)
