Because the Tiberian Sun engine this mod is based on has no such logic to make these two work like in Red Alert 1. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
Then break it _________________ One and only developer of the Command & Conquer Dune "C&C D" mod.
m7 wrote:
I tend to release things I create so that assets are never lost to hard drive problems, accidental deletion, or me having to pretend to care about rippers taking things from my project when it is done.
Funny thing about those two buildings. They're in the game files but like LKO said, the logic to make them work isn't. Maybe one of these days they will hack-up some logic for them to work. QUICK_EDIT
From my perspective I don't think DTA requires the Iron Curtain nor the Chronosphere. I say this because GDI and NOD lack a reasonable support alternative. Also because there is not realistic counter for either support ability as they can cause a considerable amount of damage if used properly compared to the Ion Cannon and available Nuclear warheads.
If these systems were implemented I would have to push for GDI to have and EMP pulse system, and Nod to receive a comparable support as well. Otherwise the game balance would shift greatly towards the Allies and Soviet factions.
Please bear in mind that the factions were originally designed to be balanced with their game's opposing faction. So GDI vs. Nod, Allies vs. Soviet so their units, and support functions were created to balance each other out respectively. The problem with incorporating additional "vanilla" support abilities is that they may not "balance" well with the other factions as they may expose massive exploits to their factions structure or abilities. QUICK_EDIT
The Iron Curtain and Chronosphere are so iconic that we'd definitely add them if we could. GDI and Nod would then of course receive additional support powers, though.
Well, in that case; I've got a few questions lined up regarding missing units.
1. Why are the Mine-Layer tanks missing?
2. Why is the Thief missing?
3. Why are fake buildings missing?
I can probably understand fake buildings missing since that might confuse the AI into only building fakes, or something like that. But Thieves and Mine-Layers? QUICK_EDIT
From my perspective the amount of time the mine layer tanks required to be effective really outweighed their use. However some factions do have the option to directly build mines.
I cannot say I ever found the thief unit to be remotely viable. If used against a fairly decent player it's retrieved worth wouldn't obtain much. Thus making them useless, while neat to use against a AI since then they can actually obtain a reasonable amount of funding. Against a reasonable player they are useless.
I also wondered about the fake buildings, but even then the function they served was only to misdirect. It's like building a bunch of plywood buildings hoping the enemy will attack a poorly defended location obviously not producing units vs. the main base.
The fake buildings in RA were so easy to "see through" that they were a waste to even invest in. Mostly because a decent player would actually observe an enemy base rather than just send units. Thus making them useless. QUICK_EDIT
Another issue with thieves aside from the fact the engine doesn't support them is that that the storage of funds works different from how it works in RA1: in RA1 all harvested resources are evenly spread out over all structures that can store them (refineries and silos), while in DTA all storage buildings are filled up one after another and that means that the refinery you happen to infiltrate with your thief might be completely empty and you won't be able to tell up front unless you infiltrated it with a spy first (sure, this won't be an issue for Silos, but the AI doesn't build those and nor do most human players).
I don't think fake structures are really useless, considering that you can just place a bunch of those in the middle of your base in order to trick your opponent into attack the wrong structures with aircraft and super weapons. With the way the factions are currently balanced though, fake structures really aren't something the Allies need (if anything, it'd give them an unnecessary advantage) and another problem is that there's no way to display the "FAKE" label over the fake structure when you select it. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2019 2:53 pm Post subject:
Missing Allied structures
I understand the explanation for the chronoshere and iron curtain logic not being there, so then these items are not usable in this awesome mod. But one thing that I was looking for was the fake buildings, the gap generators, and the spy satellite uplink for the allied side. Will they be incorporated soon or where they removed due to balance issues? QUICK_EDIT
Posted: Sun May 26, 2019 3:08 pm Post subject:
Re: Missing Allied structures
M5000 wrote:
I understand the explanation for the chronoshere and iron curtain logic not being there, so then these items are not usable in this awesome mod. But one thing that I was looking for was the fake buildings, the gap generators, and the spy satellite uplink for the allied side. Will they be incorporated soon or where they removed due to balance issues?
Actually I can remember a mod for Tiberian Sun, which tried to emulate gap tech by using the logic of tiberian sun lamp outpost only with black color/black lightbulbs. QUICK_EDIT
gap generator and spy satellite are special RA1 logics that don't exist in the TS engine, thus DTA can't add them.
For Fake buildings see Bittah's answer in the post above yours.
Hmm. Sorry for this long post but I wanted to talk about a couple of things.
I noticed that one of the options for multiplayer was to be able to see the full map (revealed map). But there is no way to reveal the entire map of the game via constructing a building? Could you tap into how the crates work because don't they sometimes provide the whole map if you get the right crate? That could be an option. Maybe an option as well for the gap generator because another crate (the ones that aren't fun to get) shrouds the entire map except for where your units and buildings are. I just wonder if the logic from these could be utilized and expanded for the spy satellite and gap generator. Just a thought.
On another note - we play about once a month and this is a really fun mod. I just have a couple of comments that maybe you could address:
1.) Engineers cannot take over nod's airstrip or any of the other faction's war factories. I thought you could do that in Tiberian sun so why can't they take over them here?
2.) Say I'm GDI and I take over a nod construction yard. Then I eventually build the nod airstrip and build more nod construction yards. If I lose the first nod construction yard that I took over with an engineer, it's as if I had no nod construction yards. Even thought I built more, they do not allow me to continue to build nod buildings if I lose the initial one I stole. I even built one so that my son could take it over but he had to have the original one I stole and not one that I built to build nod buildings. Any reason for this issue?
3.) Could you make a black color to choose from when playing multiplayer?
Again thanks, This is a great mod and one of my favorites! I really like how some of the crates allow you to pick up Tiberian Sun-ish vehicles to use! QUICK_EDIT
I noticed that one of the options for multiplayer was to be able to see the full map (revealed map). But there is no way to reveal the entire map of the game via constructing a building? Could you tap into how the crates work because don't they sometimes provide the whole map if you get the right crate? That could be an option. Maybe an option as well for the gap generator because another crate (the ones that aren't fun to get) shrouds the entire map except for where your units and buildings are. I just wonder if the logic from these could be utilized and expanded for the spy satellite and gap generator. Just a thought.
I've actually looked into the crate logic a bit and I think it'd be doable to reveal the map when a specific building has been built. So, we'd be able to add a map-revealing satellite like in RA2. However, gap generators wouldn't be as easy, because the re-shroud crate logic reshrouds the entire map and not only a specific location. We'd have to write a lot of custom code for re-shrouding only a specific location.
We're also not sure if adding the GPS satellite without gap generators would be beneficial for balance. It'd be easier to balance if we managed to implement both; our current Allied faction has been designed to be played without them so if we added them, we would likely have to tweak other things related to the Allies so they wouldn't become overpowered.
Since the TS engine doesn't actually support naval unit, I had to implement several work-arounds to get them to work correctly and this also involved having to give the AI different war factories from human players. As a result of this, capturing an AI player's war factory wouldn't give you access to the AI's units and in order to prevent players from discovering this the hard way (and thus wasting an engineer in the process), the AI's war factories were made uncapturable.
The TS engine doesn't actually support having 4 different factions and while the work-arounds I implemented to get around this were replaced by patches from AlexB over time to get the 4 different factions to work even better, some issues still remain (and not being able to build another faction's structures after deploying their MCV is one of them).
We've tried the black color out before, but it made the chat messages of the player using that color ingame unreadable.
and not being able to build another faction's structures after deploying their MCV is one of them.
I tested it briefly yesterday and it seems to work if it is coded like RA2, i.e. conyard based prereqs and building Owner has all playable houses. Only trouble maker is AI's BuildPower which disregards prereqs, so it needs cloned powerplants with single owner. If both human and AI powerplants needs to be used as shared prereqs, then prereqs category could be sacrificed to achieve it.
You mentioned this as one of the problems, can you list others? QUICK_EDIT
From the top of my head the other issues I can think of right now are that you can't specify different power plants for the AI to build for more than 2 factions (for all factions but GDI the AI will only build the power plants specified for NodRegularPower and NodAdvancedPower once it runs out of power), the limited number of prerequisite categories (especially since the AI won't build any structures that have GDIFACTORY or NODFACTORY as a prerequisite), and there's a side-effect of one of the patches that causes all crates picked up while you don't own structures (but do own an MCV) to give you another MCV because the MCVs you can own aren't the actual BaseUnit.
Also, while specifying all factions as the owner of all ConYards and then specifying specific ConYards as prerequisites for all structures of one faction does work for human players, the AI can only use structures it actually builds as a prerequisite and as such doesn't "know" that it owns the ConYard because it's deployed rather than built.
Before AlexB's patch made BuildConst= accept multiple ConYards, DTA's prerequisites actually were coded like this and I had to make use of the prerequisite groups in order to get around the issue of the AI not being able to use the ConYard as a prerequisite. As you mentioned, it was necessary to give the AI cloned power plants with no prerequisite, so I made 4 different prerequisite groups that all included one of the cloned power plants as well as a ConYard.
This certainly got the job done, but since it made use of 4 different prerequisite groups already, it left very few of them to be used for shared units or structures and I'd rather not be restricted like that again. It works in RA2 because even equivalent units and structures have unique graphics for the different factions there and even if we could do the same for DTA's enhanced mode, there's still classic mode to consider. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Right now I am playing around with bringing units and structures from Red Alert 1 to vanilla Tiberian Sun, and have come across an idea regarding Iron Curtain.
How to make it work for structures:
If it is possible to make a structure upgrade appliable for all structures, make a custom Firestorm generator superweapon, and make its firestorm walls such an upgrade, plus limit it to only one at a time. If it is also possible to make a structure or a structure upgrade have a limited lifetime, and make iits strength overshadow the base structure's strength, then you will have a working for structures Iron Curtain.
How to make it work for structures and units (immobile):
Make the firestorm wall of the custom firestorm generator an invisible or iron-curtain effect-shp structure, which can be placed anywhere on the map. If it is not possible to place it on top of units, give it a working range exceeding its 1x1 placement.
And the third try approach combines the first two - you make it an upgrade for the custom firestorm defense itself, with a working radius, hence units which will come in range of working Iron Curtain, will become invincible, same goes for structures placed in near proximity.
By the way, lorewise, the Tiberian Sun GDI Firesotrm generator is most probably based on the Soviet Iron curtain anyways. QUICK_EDIT
If it is possible to make a structure upgrade appliable for all structures
not possible.
the upgrade key PowersUpBuilding= accepts only a single building.
sukhoi37th wrote:
make a custom Firestorm generator superweapon, and make its firestorm walls such an upgrade, plus limit it to only one at a time.
not possible.
special FirestormWall logic prevents normal building behaviour. No damage state, no buildup anim, not selectable, build in rows like walls etc
Also no way to limit it to only one. It's either all buildings that have FirestormWall or none of the house that uses the SW.
sukhoi37th wrote:
If it is also possible to make a structure or a structure upgrade have a limited lifetime,
only possible for buildings (via damaging ActiveAnim), not for upgrades. Upgrades once placed, are no independent building/object anymore. They become just a special ActiveAnim of the building.
sukhoi37th wrote:
How to make it work for structures and units (immobile):
Make the firestorm wall of the custom firestorm generator an invisible or iron-curtain effect-shp structure, which can be placed anywhere on the map. If it is not possible to place it on top of units, give it a working range exceeding its 1x1 placement.
not possible
FirestormWall=yes buildings provide the firestorm effect only on the single cell of the building. Not beyond its foundation.
Even if you got it placed on top of your unit (which you can't), it would kill your unit. Firestorm effect kills everything, friend and foe (only objects with IgnoresFirestorm=yes can survive that).
sukhoi37th wrote:
And the third try approach combines the first two - you make it an upgrade for the custom firestorm defense itself, with a working radius, hence units which will come in range of working Iron Curtain, will become invincible, same goes for structures placed in near proximity.
not possible at all, anything of it.
sukhoi37th wrote:
By the way, lorewise, the Tiberian Sun GDI Firesotrm generator is most probably based on the Soviet Iron curtain anyways.
hmm, doubt it actually. Firestorm behaves a lot different as it destroys/dematerializes anything that touches that energy wall.
Iron Curtain makes solid surfaces impenetrable, but it doesn't simply remove/dematerializes the object that bumps into an iron curtained surface. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
gap generator and spy satellite are special RA1 logics that don't exist in the TS engine, thus DTA can't add them.
For Fake buildings see Bittah's answer in the post above yours.
Is it possible to give the Allies a support power then that reveals the fog of war like a basic satellite scan for a reasonable cell radius? QUICK_EDIT
no
the max sight radius for any object (unit/building) is 10, so no way to use this for any bigger area reveal
there is no way to reveal shroud for a certain player only, other than using a unit/building.
Right now the Superweapons are also even among the 4 houses. If Allies would get another one, the other sides would need one for balance as well. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
not possible.
the upgrade key PowersUpBuilding= accepts only a single building.
not possible.
special FirestormWall logic prevents normal building behaviour. No damage state, no buildup anim, not selectable, build in rows like walls etc
Also no way to limit it to only one. It's either all buildings that have FirestormWall or none of the house that uses the SW.
only possible for buildings (via damaging ActiveAnim), not for upgrades. Upgrades once placed, are no independent building/object anymore. They become just a special ActiveAnim of the building.
not possible
FirestormWall=yes buildings provide the firestorm effect only on the single cell of the building. Not beyond its foundation.
Even if you got it placed on top of your unit (which you can't), it would kill your unit. Firestorm effect kills everything, friend and foe (only objects with IgnoresFirestorm=yes can survive that).
not possible at all, anything of it.
You convinced me that the approach is not fruitable. I was able to give the GDI Vulcan tower "isfirestormwall" attribute though, and field-test it with a working Firestorm generator. It didn't make any difference and the base(GDI Component tower) could still be damaged.
But here is a different idea, utilising logic of launched superweapons: you dont have a fire animation, you just have a projectile animation, which could be a small red cloud or something like that.
And the warhead itself is something like tiberium gas of the Nod Chemmissile, only instead of causing damage, it constantly heals. For a while. That is until the "gas" dissolves.
Of course this isn't Iron Curtain, but it is still better than nothing. And if you could give it insane heal-up speed, it would make the affected objects invulnerable de facto (also you could make it instantly kill infantry, just like the real Iron curtain).
Also, since the Firestorm Mission CD expansion adds limpetdrone mine logic, you could try and make this warhead "glue" to a specific object/unit, instead of just spreading on terrain. QUICK_EDIT
We thought about a healing weapon using EMP, since that sparks anim sticks to vehicles and follows them, but declined that way anyway.
It's still to different to an iron curtain, because of the healing.
You could apply it to any damaged unit and have it instantly repaired.
In addition could (in theory) a strong enough hit still kill the unit.
e.g. 20 artilleries firing on a single iron curtained buggy would still kill the buggy, regardless how fast it gets repaired.
There is also the fact, that DTA uses most SWs already. There are only
FirestormSpecial
DropPodSpecial
HunterSeekerSpecial
left unused. From these only DropPods is adjustable enough to be changed into an offensive SW, which still has other issues like not working on water, the AI not using it correct etc.
Giving only one house an additional SW would also unbalance the houses.
Limpet logic is special. Its whole effect is: remove firing building, add limpet factor (slower speed, giving sight) to the targeted unit.
It doesn't even use the warhead or does any damage.
Thus there is nothing to work with here. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
We thought about a healing weapon using EMP, since that sparks anim sticks to vehicles and follows them, but declined that way anyway.
It's still to different to an iron curtain, because of the healing.
You could apply it to any damaged unit and have it instantly repaired.
In addition could (in theory) a strong enough hit still kill the unit.
e.g. 20 artilleries firing on a single iron curtained buggy would still kill the buggy, regardless how fast it gets repaired.
There is also the fact, that DTA uses most SWs already. There are only
FirestormSpecial
DropPodSpecial
HunterSeekerSpecial
left unused. From these only DropPods is adjustable enough to be changed into an offensive SW, which still has other issues like not working on water, the AI not using it correct etc.
Giving only one house an additional SW would also unbalance the houses.
Limpet logic is special. Its whole effect is: remove firing building, add limpet factor (slower speed, giving sight) to the targeted unit.
It doesn't even use the warhead or does any damage.
Thus there is nothing to work with here.
Yes, the EMP-logic, I completely forgot about that one. The path you specified is still much better than nothing. The allies could get a working spy satellite, where as GDI something like working airstrike. The only one left without a second superweapon would be Nod, but this could be altered too. You could give them a working paradrop as in this TD fmv:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvPEpIN0ab8
(if this is possible in TS engine)
or, a proto-emp weapon, as in this TD Nod ending at 5:59
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUqA2SZeALQ
Also, already mentioned here, this is what can be found in the powerup crate section of rules.ini (currently I am working with the vanilla 1.08 version of the game without the firestorm expansion)
Quote:
; ******* Random Crate Powerups *******
; This specifies the chance for the specified crate powerup to appear
; in a 'random' crate. The chance is expressed in the form of 'shares'
; out of the total shares specified. The second parameter is the animation
; to use when this crate is picked up. The third parameter, if present, specifies
; the data value needed for that crate powerup. They mean different things
; for the different powerups.
[Powerups]
...
Darkness=5,SHROUDX ; cloak entire radar map
...
Reveal=8,REVEAL ; reveal entire radar map
...
Invulnerability=10,ARMOR,1.0 ; invulnerability (duration in minutes)
Basically it means that the Iron curtain logic is partly already implemented in the vanilla game, only as a crate powerup.
Now if there was a way to trigger powerups aside from finding the corresponding crate boxes...
Also, having tested the negative lightposts, this is the result:
None of the 3 left unused SWs is suitable for the EMP Iron Curtain.
All other SWs are already used and can't be used twice in a different way.
A spy satellite is not possible in the TS engine.
sukhoi37th wrote:
Also, already mentioned here, this is what can be found in the powerup crate section of rules.ini
[..]
Invulnerability=10,ARMOR,1.0 ; invulnerability (duration in minutes)
Basically it means that the Iron curtain logic is partly already implemented in the vanilla game, only as a crate powerup.
wrong, that is a not working, redundant key left over from RA1
The Invulnerability crate does nothing at all. It doesn't even play the specified animation and thus is completely useless.
sukhoi37th wrote:
Also, having tested the negative lightposts, this is the result:
yeah, i know the effect, and that would suck as a GAP replacement
-it would annoy the Allies player more than the enemy. You can't find your own stuff in this.
-it doesn't prevent targeting. Units still auto-attack anything in that black area. Even if you can't see units/buildings, you can still move your mouse over it and attack when the cursor changes into the target cursor.
As an attacking player, simply use the guard move to let your units auto-attack anything in the black mess.
-visually it looks really bad
-the AI ignores it entirely, as the AI doesn't sees with eyes like a human _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
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Where is the chronosphere and iron curtain?
