Stygs

Well, judging by the report I would guess because the Ion Cannon was not intended to be the detonater - but as the bomb was build, it became clear that there was no other way to trigger it. The ingame events take place over weeks if not month, so Kane had time to come up with a new plan. Or maybe that advisor guy was just looking for a plan B. No. Just no. The TS ship is called a scrin ship, but it was most likely build by Nod during TD (mentioned by Kane during the TS mission briefing) based on the Tacitus. The Tacitus on the other hand has been on earth for centuries - thats why you have to get one part out of an old temple in Firestorm. The Tacitus was also NOT made by the Scrin. Just like the Scrin knew about Kane, the Tacitus knew about the Tiberium and its connection to the Scrin, but it was not created by the Scrin. From the TW IDB, "Alien Origins, Connections to the Tacitus" In the game. Please stop constantly questioning things that are outright stated ingame: Ten times greater than a 200 MT nuke - so its 2000 MT. The Tsar bomb is about 50-60 MT. So yeah, 40 times the most powerfull weapon ever. Games and manuals, for starters. I would even say that manuals take precedence as some details ingame might be changed for balance/gameplay (for example, blue Tib in TW doenst explode because the maps were made with it in mind - if you could simply blow it up, it would screw over the map balance) Well, ever part was written by somebody else, but the idea that Kane wants to use Tiberium to call the Scrin and leave Earth is still visible throughout the games. And I have to admit, the TW story is better than I remembered it (but the TT one is even worse).

Why bother? The Scrin seem to have hundreds of harvest operations and probably have a steady supply of Tiberium. Why build a missile if you can just fling a bit of Tiberium in the generel direction of any potential planet/civiliation that might become a problem in the future and then come back 50 years later to harvest it. Also, noone really knows what Kanes missile in TS really did. Did it turn the whole word into Tiberium? Did it mimic a LT explosion? Did it just spread Tiberium into the atmoshpere so the whole word becomes infected? Do you have any ingame proof for that (or anything you claimed so far)? Because the wiki has a lot of fan storys and I certainly dont remeber reading anything like that. Whatever you guessed, the cinematic clearly says that Nod has no way to trigger a explosion big enough. So the massive missile was apparently not enough or they would have used that. After all, using their own nuke would have been the most obvious choice. The cinematic with the advisor would have been totally pointless if Nod could use just another detonator and be done with it. The entire first half of the TW campaign is based on the idea that Kane realizes he needs the Ion Cannon against to trigger the bomb. Thats why the whole "it need the right catalyst" thing is even brought up during a GDI mission briefing. Thats why Kane interupts Boyles press conference before the mission and taunts about how "Nod reaps what it has sawn" and how people should "look to the sky" - he is taunting Boyle to use the Ion Cannon and Boyle fell for it. Thats why people are packing stuff up during one of Kanes mission briefings in TW - he evacuating the temple. Kane has found a way to trigger the explosion, blame GDI for it and then reappar as the messiah. Again. EDIT: In fact, Kane outright says that in KW "Only the Ion Cannon could generate enough energy": What exactly was the point of this whole discussion again? Kinda losing the focus here... Edit2: Maybe because Aliens are kinda a given, considering that both Tiberium and the Tacitus are from space. TW also mentions that the Tacitus contained a warning about the Aliens.

Yes it does. The TW Scrin database clearly states that the Scrin harvesting forces were lured there by a Liquid Tiberium explosion - otherwise the Scrin never knew when a planet is ready. The Scrin campagin basicly starts with the Scrin waking up after the explosion: They did not exspect to find any remaining civilisation. That kinda implies the Tiberium explosion should occur naturally. In fact, one they figure out that the explosion was intentionally created, they ignore the harvesting aspect and want to find out more about the reasons. It seems that a civilisation creating a LT detonation is a reallly unusual event. Why? Changing the world would kill probably kill both GDI and Nod forces, making them to weak to fight the Scrin. With the Liquid Tib Detonation, only a small part of his forces were wasted. I am afraid you missed some key points during the campaign: Kane hat the bomb, but he couldnt detonate it. He NEEDED the Ion Cannon as it was the only way to generate enough energy to initiate a large enough LT reaction. Thats why he intentionally weakens his forces - the Prime Temple was a bait for the cannon. Because you are right - if the TCN was part of his plans from the beginning, then his plans make no sense. But if we assume that Kane needed to adapt his plans and create the TCN to activate the Tower, it fits right in. Keep in mind that the TT Scrin Tower was captured by Nod in TW, so it makes sense that Nod tried to find a way to activate it. And no, the TCN has nothing to to with stargates. As far as I know, the TCN is used to power the Scin Tower and thats pretty much it. The Scrin were tiberium based lifeforms, so Kane needed the TCN to mimick the way the Scrin powered the Tower. AFAIK, there nothing that hints that the TCN directly interacts with the portals. Its the players eye implant that finally activates the portal in TT.

A sect like Nod maybe? I think I fail to see your point here. Tiberium leads to some kind of explosion if there is enough on a planet - thats how the Scrin detect if a planet is ready for harvesting. And its not a minor event - one mission in KW results in a explosion that turns much of Australia into a Tiberium wasteland, but that wasnt enough. In TS, his plan was to use the rocket to turn the planet into Tiberium, how else would have he triggered the scrin? There was no other way to get an eplosion large enough/spread the tiberium fast enough and as long as the Philadelphia existed, he had no chance to launch the rocket. Later, with the discovery of liquid Tiberium, he decided to use a planet based bomb (maybe because turning the planet into tiberium might kill most of his own troops). However, the only was to trigger the bomb is a blast from the ion cannon, hence the whole temple prime charade to get Boyle to use the Ion Cannon. Again, there are 15 years between the Scrin Towers appearing and Kane using the TCN to acess them. Its entire possible that Kane had planned to capture one of the towers while its active, but GDIs attack on the Relay Node made Nod unable to use them. Nod recaptured the Taciutus by 2049 and it takes years before Kane comes up with the TCN. For me, it seems the TCN is a workaround to get acess to the towers and not part of Kanes initial plan. Maybe Nod needed a decade to reverse engineer the towers and understand how to acess them.

IDB entry from KW: "Excerpt from private audiologs of the prophet Kane [...]My brothers, the departed, are surely looking down on me in contempt. After millenia, their ultimate vision of my fate has been realised. [...] ...and then, truly, shall this pitiful world - and my dear departed brothers - know my wrath." From the sound of it, I would guess Eden was another planet and Kane was cast out of there, forced to wander the planet Earth forever. He might even be the last survivor of a groupr of aliens left on earth. After all, during TS, TW and TT his plan is basicly: Get enough Tiberium to call the Scrin, capture their tower, leave earth. Keep in mind that neither Kane, Tratos or CABAL had both parts of the Tacitus. Maybe they where unable to read some parts. Also: What makes you think CABAL didnt knew about the Scrin? After all, here was absolutly no reason why he should have informed anyone about them. And Kane knew as he wanted to call them. Are you talking about the large alien towers in TW/TT? Those were build by the scrin to act as portals but where never activated (or deactivated when the Scrin lost). It took Kane about 15 years (until TT) till he found a way to activate the portals again. How they could survive this long? Maybe like any other religion survives for centurys? Maybe it was a doomsday cult about a green stone from the sky that would kill all non believers, or maybe Kane never mentioned Tiberium untill it appeared. Keep in mind that Kane is an immortal that never ages. Thats bound to get him some followers. It also seems that before TD, Nod seems to be a rather small organisation connected with many underground groups.

Kinda doubt they would have added lifeforms even with more time - since EA retconned Tiberium to turn basicly everything into crystals (unlike TD/TS Tiberium), they found a way to avoid having any kind of Tiberium lifeform. Guess if fits better with the "Aliens want to harvest the earth" backstory... I would have wished either for more tiberium lifeforms or a better campaign (or rather cinematics). Would have loved a branching storyline that allowed the player to help Killian against the aliens. :/

Maybe you should have shown or mention them here? I followed the link, saw the GDC stuff and closed the windows again. You should really try to split the news next time as the news was way to long and I rally dont care what strangers do in their free time. Your Tiberium Secrets Narrative Trailer consits of TW, TT and Tiberium cinematics spliced together. Please dont complain about other people lack of imagination. You recent ModDB news has 5 comments, 2 of which are yours. All postings in your ModDB forum are at least a year old. I think this backalley has more interest in your mod than most ModDB users. (and yes, it might get more comments now that people have more time on the weekend) Still, its obvious a lot of time and effort went into the mod, so I wish you the best of luck for the future.

Try avoiding the Nod AI as enemy - as far as I know, the game crashes when the AI tries to build a tunnel network.

Titans, Hover MLRSs, Disruptors, underground vehicles, cyborgs (again, talking about TW and not KW), deployable tanks and arty, laser fences and the firestorm defense come to mind. Might be just my personal taste, but I found the factions in TS a lot more interesting,

I mean that most of the units in TW arent that advanced if you think about it - if you ignore the obvious alien faction and the huge mechs, you could add TWs GDI and Nod into CnC Generals and most of the units would not feel out of place as they are basicly modern/near future designs (talking about TW here, not KW). Sure, a Predator tank looks kinda futuristic but gameplaywise its not different from a Crusader Tank. Heck, even a Paladin Tank with its laser defense feels more high tech than the Predator. Compare that to Starcraft or TT were you had space fighter, flying aircraft carrier, space battleships, mobile bases and other sci fi units. Since TW GDI allways seemed a bit like a mix between Gen USA and China, I was wondering if that was somewhat intended to draw in more Generals fans. Edit: Yeah, something like Nanocore-type construction might have worked well to make the aliens more unique.

Well, considering that I still mod this game to this day, I guess its safe to say I liked it Thinking about it, I only got 2 main problems that come to mind: 1. The story didnt really pick up any of the threads left over from TS. Tacitus, Forgotten and CABAL (and a couple of other things) were just ignored - the addon certainly improved that regard, but it allways felt more like a followup to TD than TS. I wonder if they made the world and faction designs semi-futuristic because the wanted to appeal to Generals fans or if they were afraid that to futuristic units might draw comparrision with Starcraft - or if they really had no idea how to continue from TS (god, how I missed the Banshees). The name "Tiberium Wars" was also incredible generic, a shame they didnt use something more in line with the earlier games :/ 2. No idea if it was because of their plans for esports or because of a lack of time, but the factions seemed very similiar. Sure, different models and names, but a couple of units felt like they were simply added to balance the unit rooster - the prime example would be the Avatar which allways seemed to exist simply because Nod needed a counterpart to the Mammoth & Tripod. Come to think off, I really wish they would have used a different build mechanic for the Scrin instead of using the MCV logic... Personally, I consider TW the last good CnC - the series really went downhill from there

Is there a reason why I cant seem to reply to topics in the Command & Conquer News forum anymore? Theres a "start new thread" button, but there seems no way to add a reply to an existing thread :S

I still wonder if anyone has an early alpha/beta version - I would love to see how much unused stuff was in the files that got cut during development. To be faor, I think SC2 was one of the main reasons RA3 and TT were so rushed - they needed to release their games before SC2 as they couldnt compete with it. And yeah, the wife plot was incredible generic. I just knew she was going to die the moment they showed us one of her szenes during CommandCom. And dont forget the weird montion comic tie in.. But I still wonder how much of the game/story was cut during development...

Well, overwrites are mission specific - they only contain things that were changed in that mission compared to the orignal game. So one mission might just edit a commandset to remove some construction options, another mission might edit the health of some units to make them easier to use while other missions might edit tons of stuff to remove an upgrade from the game.... it really depends on the mission.

Yes, Zockar has the spawnnugget working in his One Vision mod and I got the burning stuff working for TWA.

There seems to be another scrapped game - the portfolio of the artist contains 2 screenshots from an "mobile RTS game" clearly based on the Red Alert franchise. http://www.karstenmehnert.com/mobile-strategy-game/

If you look at the uncompiled KW xmls, you can find a comment by EA about it - they changed the weapon because they didnt like the way visceroids spawn. So WrathEd is correct in that case.

What exactlly are you trying to archive with the flame death? If you wwant the burning infantry to run around, remove the FlammableUpdate (its not needed for that) and add a locomotorset that has Condition="BURNINGDEATH" and add something like BurniningDeathRadius="100" into the locomotor (well, you also need a BurningDeathFX to complete the look).

It certainly works in KW - the wrathed defines are just wrong, hence it never get compiled in a way that the game can read it. I know Bibber fixed it for Zocker4evers One Vision mod, but I have no idea how it needs to be to work. And the mod with burning inf running around was allmost certainly TWA.

I think your refering to the uncompiled mac shader that jonwill had on his site: http://www.cncmods.net/ I attach them to this post and the download above doenst work for me. The only shader that I can remeber from Thundermods was a shader that allowed normal maps on treads, not sure if there were any other ones. shaders.zip

Hi there, I was trying to recreate the CnC Generals drone upgrades, but it seems ObjectCreationUpgrade doenst seem to work anymore - any suggestions what else I could use?

I am using an simple object upgrade and the Spawnbehavior, pretty much like in Generals, exept with Spawnbehavior instead of ObjectCreationUpgrade. Theres even a comment in the Generals ini files refering to that: From AmericaVehicleBattleDrone: Behavior = UpgradeDie ModuleTag_12 ;This frees the object based upgrade for the producer object. DeathTypes = ALL UpgradeToRemove = Upgrade_AmericaBattleDrone ModuleTag_13 End So yeah, UpgradeDie seems to be a special case and affect the unit and its producer.

Yes, it gets slaved automaticly - I am basicly using the GDI repair drone, exepct it is spawned by an unit and not a building. Works pretty much the way I wanted it right know. For the unit: <SpawnBehavior id="ModuleTag_SpawnRepairDrones" SpawnNumberData="1" InitialBurst="1" SpawnedRequireSpawner="true" KillSpawnsOnCaptured="true" KillSpawnsOnDisabled="false"> <Die DeathTypes="ALL" /> <SpawnTemplate>ForgottenSapperRepairDrone</SpawnTemplate> <TriggeredBy>Upgrade_ForgottenHoundAmbulance</TriggeredBy> </SpawnBehavior> For the drone (removes the upgrade on death): <UpgradeDie id="ModuleTag_DroneUpgrade" UpgradeId="Upgrade_ForgottenHoundAmbulance"> <DieMuxData DeathTypes="ALL" /> </UpgradeDie>

Supprisingly, that seems to work fine for me - the drone dies and I can buy a new one easily, just like in Generals. But I kinda noticed that units in the game wont attack the drone on its own, so I guess I still have some work to do.

Yeah, its just object upgrades - but ObjectCreationUpgrade was used to spawn them once the upgrade was purchased and I couldnt think of another simple way to trigger an OCL with an upgrade.