Looking for Testers

[Sonarpulse 1]

maybe you could make aftermath and counterstrike enabled/disabled via *.ini? Last I heard it's the only thing keeping red alert from being portable (in the no registry or installer needed sense).

 

And not to be intrusive, but any chance you might open the source like with the areas project?

[Chad1233 0]

Yeah Hyper planed to get rid of all of the registry stuff. Be nice for all of it to vanish!

[Sonarpulse 1]

Like I said, patches that force it one way or the other already exist, and hifi probably has the code on his github so it should be behind easy to move it over. Here's to hoping it can be done soon.

Edited February 12, 2012 by Sonarpulse

[AlexB 8]

maybe you could make aftermath and counterstrike enabled/disabled via *.ini? Last I heard it's the only thing keeping red alert from being portable (in the no registry or installer needed sense).

Yes, that would be possible. I'll have to think about a way to do this... The change to something hardcoded is quite simple, but this won't work here.

 

Maybe I'll add a setting in Arda.ini like "Portable=", and a section like [Registry] from which all settings are read if Portable= is "yes".

 

And not to be intrusive, but any chance you might open the source like with the areas project?

The longer I think about opening the source code, the more I doubt it makes sense, at least in these early stages. It would create a versioning nightmare, which is hard to impossible to control, because the game does not verify several critical functions -- it would even allow for easy cheating without risking a desync in multiplayer games. Sooner or later this would stand in my way.

[Storm 0]

I have tested to force cs and am expansion with the patch by hifi -> works perfectly.

 

Regarding need "English 3.03 Version" -> You need only the english ra95.dat/exe. Works perfectly with the german 3.03 version.

[AlexB 8]

Hi Storm,

not everything is working, though. There is no english language pack and censoring can't be disabled. I cannot guarantee it will work correctly. But for testing, only the ra95.dat is needed.

[Iran 12]

Excellent project.

[r34ch 1]

Firstly; thanks AlexB for continuing to revive my most favorite game to date for use on a modern system. Much <3 (as well as Hyper, HiFi, Vistha and all others over the ages)

 

Secondly; I don't have the time to help test for you, but here are a few bugs that may or may not still exist in the game.

-To add to this (I don't know if this still occurs) the power bar logic always seemed weird to me. If you built lots of Tesla Coils and Adv Power plants eventually the power bar would seemingly 'max out' at the top making it hard to see just how much power is needed and being used.

-Using an iron curtain on a helicopter on a landing pad will make the landing pad invulnerable (again unsure)

 

Finally; I realise a feature request at this stage is pretty cheeky, but perhaps adding a 'help' sub-menu in the in-game options menu listing the green points as text?

 

 

Keep up the good work, looking forward to future releases.

Edited February 12, 2012 by r34ch

[Sonarpulse 1]

Yes, that would be possible. I'll have to think about a way to do this... The change to something hardcoded is quite simple, but this won't work here.

Maybe I'll add a setting in Arda.ini like "Portable=", and a section like [Registry] from which all settings are read if Portable= is "yes".

I think that would be best. BTW, do you use the game's existing *.ini handling or write your own?

 

The longer I think about opening the source code, the more I doubt it makes sense, at least in these early stages. It would create a versioning nightmare, which is hard to impossible to control, because the game does not verify several critical functions -- it would even allow for easy cheating without risking a desync in multiplayer games. Sooner or later this would stand in my way.

Fair enough, cheating is always a major potential issue with open source games.

[AlexB 8]

Hi all,

new release uploaded. If you have installed any of the packages already, just install the new mini version over the old installation.

 

Edit: Should have mentioned what is changed... There are a bunch of new tags to control Nuke properties like the range and damage for singleplayer and multiplayer. Infantry VoiceAttack= uses the correct sound list (not the VoiceMove= one). This version has been made incompatible to 3.03 in multiplayer games. Arda users cannot join 3.03 games and vice versa. Themes loading order has been fixed and additional themes should work now. The CnCNet package with expansions will be accepted now. The SelectionBracket= tag now supports every TechnoType and you can use "width,heigth" to define a non-square rectangle. The nuke sound has been moved forward to occur before the screen shakes from crumbling buildings.

 

---

Thanks, Iran and r34ch!

 

r34ch: Some of the bugs are fixed already, some are not. And there are more things to be fixed... I'll try to remove all known cheats and game-breaking glitches. The power bar does not use a linear function and it will indeed use the maximum value if you have many power plants. I'll see how this can be changed without giving weird values for normal power output. I can't create dialogs right now, and I don't think the hotkey list feature would benefit a lot of people.

 

sonarpulse: Depends, I use the game's function to read rules, sounds and all ingame-stuff, but for Arda.ini I wrote my own (because the game function aren't loaded when I first need them and because I wanted to support Unicode for the Title= option).

Edited February 13, 2012 by AlexB

[KevinLancaster 1]

Where exactly is the new release?

[AlexB 8]

Arda dummy page - Online-Manual

Arda 0.1 mini (3.3 MB) – no music, no videos

Arda 0.1 standard (29.7 MB) – language support and music

Arda 0.1 full (84.7 MB) – standard with movie support

[Chad1233 0]

AlexB I installed the 0.1 full and ticked the box that says additional music and still got no retaliation tracks or anything.

[AlexB 8]

Hi Chad1233,

did you test with the original single player campaigns, the expansion missions or skirmish?

 

Arda disables the expansion music for the original campaigns by default. Multiplayer modes should have the full list, except for the side-exclusive tracks Radio 2, Workmen Remix, Crush Remix and Reload Fire. If you do not like my choice there, have a look at [Hacks]►Themes.LockAddons= in arda.ini and the [ThemeID]►Owner= tag in themes.ini.

 

If this is not the problem, I don't know. For me the themes are available when installing the new release over the old one.

 

---

Hi all,

I want to point your attention to hifi's Red Alert 3.03 "p" series thread, a leightweight patch for playing on (but not limited to) CnCNet. The patch is not compatible to Arda, but if it suits your needs, it is an alternative. Happy testing!

Edited February 13, 2012 by AlexB

[zizo 0]

Hey did we ever mention the England, France bug?

[Chad1233 0]

Edit: Now that I mention it the track list in the rules.ini is outdated and needs to have all the tracks in it. You can add them yourself but I lost the guide online that showed you how to get all tracks for both sides.

 

Edit: I fixed my problem all I did was installing it on a non RA1 folder then overwrote everything in the RA1 folder. Not sure how this fixed it but I think the installer was not overwriting something...

 

I also have a minor bug concerning the chain link fence. Parts of it seems to be using the water pallete making it ''sparkle'' and seems odd and the black part of it is also a lot more solid then C&C95's which makes me think the chain link fence got a lazy port or something.

 

Anyone would like to port the chain link fence icon to RA1 from C&C95 and for the others?

Edited February 13, 2012 by Chad1233

[Bullet 0]

Chad1233: You can find the ported C&C95 Icons in my Perfect RA Mod, just download Version 0.9 (the first released Version) and extract the Icons from hires1.mix with XCC Mixer. I will soon upload a new Version, but since AlexB give me so much more options, it will take a while :-D

You can find my Mod if you click on Perfect RA under my posts ;-)

Ah and yeah my Mod also fixes the England and France Bug via the rules.ini :-)

 

Have fun!

Edited February 13, 2012 by Bullet

[Chad1233 0]

One small question though, in the default rules.ini I already noticed England has 1.1 armor and this makes me think the country bonuses are handled differently online.

[KevinLancaster 1]

Err Chad, that's always been the case. That's the bug. If you actually test it out in-game you'll see that England takes one less shot to destroy compared to the other Allied nations, meaning they take 1.1 damage rather than have 1.1 armour.

[Chad1233 0]

So it is fixed if I set the armor to 0.9? X.x

[Bullet 0]

Yes Chad1233 and thats also the case for France with ROF. Armor and ROF are antiproportional instead of proportional as they should be

Just change Armor for England and ROF for France to 0.9

I hope AlexB will make both tags proportional

[AlexB 8]

Because there are people who fixed the England and France bug in the rules already, I can't just change the way the tags are read. It would introduce the same bug for them again. Actually, I could, but would this be a good way?

 

This means, the to-be-included rules.ini will overwrite all rules.inis in other mixes, which might not desirable for modders. Because a real modding system is not implemented yet, it will introduce conflicts. That's why I didn't favour this approach.

 

Any more aspects to consider? If not, I'll change the way the tags are read.

[loveu8 0]

Hi, I am a taiwan gamer. AlexB, your Arda is so pretty good. It make RA1 more complete. I will continue follow your Arda ,and share your Arda in Taiwan's Ra1 forum.

[Chad1233 0]

Please just do whatever to fix the darn game!

Edited February 15, 2012 by Chad1233

[Sonarpulse 1]

seen that "armor" in no way means "damage", I think you should make a fix so the game reads the number correctly/intuitively.

 

To maintain compatability with old mods, I would implement this by making two rules.ini specifications: "legacy mode", and "ideal mode". Make it so you need a boolean in the ini to enable ideal mode. This may seem like overkill now, but as you implant a proper modding system, etc, I am sure it will become worthwhile.