PortableRA Beta

[r34ch 1]

Ah. Yea, I would love that feature!

 

 

not sure if that is a good idea, cause settings like this can fill the whole map with ore if you try to use it on maps that werent made for it but you can add it to maps like iran said

Is there no possibility of twisting your arm to add it as an option to your online lobby? Just because the option is there, doesn't mean people would necessarily use it on those kinds of maps. Even a checkbox for a 'predefined' growth rate.

 

I just played another mega map 7 AI brawl and again the money has just died before I have teched up...

Edited July 16, 2013 by r34ch

[Nyerguds 100]

Keeping stolen tech seems silly to me. If you capture a building, it's only logical you need to defend it. Letting undeployed construction yards retain their side information when redeploying them would be neat, though.

[Iran 12]

There's no way to code that really..does it work correclty in C&C1? I have no idea how they tackled that. With the source code to the game it would be easy to do. My suggestion is a compromise and yes it does feel silly in the context of C&C games, though RA2 and YR also had stolen tech for a little bit

[PurpleGaga27 39]

Capturing stolen tech to build specific units in RA1 and C&C1 would be an interesting addition to the gameplay, but what units will it be?

 

For example:

If the Soviets capture a building for a stolen tech, I suggest they may get a phase transport.

If the Allies capture a building for a stolen tech, I suggest they may get a helicarrier or some other unit.

[Iran 12]

I was thinking of all the enemy's tech, anything more elaborate I'd need to have the game's source code.

 

I just finished an optional. barely tested fix for "south advantage", waiting for it to be tested. It was one of the things on my to-do list I wanted to tackle as lots of pro players requested I look into it. Hopefully it fixes the bug properly.

[Nyerguds 100]

There's no way to code that really..does it work correclty in C&C1? I have no idea how they tackled that.

Nope. Not at all. Deploying an MCV is the same as just building a building. You're the one who built it, so the tech is set as being your side.

though RA2 and YR also had stolen tech for a little bit

Well yeah, but they got different MCVs and production facilities for all sides.

[Sonarpulse 1]

Maybe make separate copies of each shared building for each side? Then the "original owner" flag, or whatever if was you guys mentioned, can be ignored altogether. Would require redoing lots of assets though.

[EchoLocation 1]

Would require an entire reworking of the game's tech tree logic from what I can understand, which simply isn't feasible given the limitations. In other words, it ain't happening without something like Arda and a lot of effort.

[Nyerguds 100]

I haven't even tried adding buildings. Not to mention it would mess up all existing savegames since the internal IDs would be changed.

 

And then I'm not even talking about the fact it'd have to be pushed in between the current building IDs somewhere, since the Prerequisites system only works up to ID 32 (because, 32-bit application).

[Sonarpulse 1]

It's a bitset? But yeah it would throw compatibility with tones of stuff out the door.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Sonarpulse

[Iran 12]

Same with alliances on a house.

[Nyerguds 100]

It's a bitset? But yeah it would throw compatibility with tones of stuff out the door.

In C&C1, anyway. One bit for each building; makes it easy to compare with a single 'AND' after making one mask of all the buildings the player owns. There's even code in that mask-making that adds extra bits, like, in C&C1, having an advanced power plant also activates the normal power plant bit, and having a Temple of Nod also enables the Advanced Comm Center bit. I actually added one to that in my patch, to make the Advanced Comm Center enable the normal Comm Center bit, too (which allows you to build Nod high tech stuff after capturing an airstrip without needing to rebuild your probably-already-sold Com Center if you got an Advanced one).

[Sonarpulse 1]

Ah ok, I remember that fix. I doubt optimizing to a bitset such an infrequent operation as checking prerequisites is worth it, even in 1995, but I guess we are stuck with it.

[Nyerguds 100]

yeah, it's just "2^(building ID)", and then of course truncated at 4 bytes, because, 32 bit.

 

I should check if they use a straight POW CPU command for that... knowing the X86 design, it'd surprise me if it wouldn't put the overflow of such a command in another register, meaning it could go up to at least 64 bits.

[Iran 12]

Allen262 fixed some desert theater issues.

 

I updated the config tool so the files it requires to function are no longer in the ConfigToolFiles folder in the game directory but embedded in the config tool itself, also added a bit of extra checks for admin rights.

 

I added a new dialog to the launcher for map editors and added a button for the hacked RAED with Desert and Winter support:

 

 

Note that there are still bugs with these options.

 

I figured out some hard-coded settings on vehicle units today: for every vehicle unit how to enable/disable crushing, radar jamming and shroud generating. Looks like I can also find enabling/disabling turret, turret on back of vehicle and big selection bracket too, but I didn't test this.

 

A week ago I added tons of spawner options to my patch and funkyfr3sh enabled those options in his client (the checkboxes in this screenshot):

 

 

I figured out what the issue is with the AI selling the Allied Tech Center almost immediately after buying it. The function to raise power for the AI is borked and will always try to sell the AI tech center pretty much. Gotta test my fix which might take some time.

 

Preventing AI from buying certain useless vehicles is figured out but I haven't added code for it yet and likewise for having the AI buy more infantry units (including dogs!).

Other than that I need add a checkbox tothe config tool for the DOS mod and one for recolouring the cameo icons to the house colour remap.

 

South advantage work in progress fix seems to only require hard-coding modified Tesla Coil and Pillbox range, I'll have to look up how to check whether the building is either one of those units (Camo piillbox too..), but it seems to work so far.

 

I added black and white colour remaps, with some other key I added to the game you can create a map and place buildings on the map for a non-player house, then add a keyword to the house specific section of the map INI file to change the colour remap of the house to another colour like white, emulating "tech buildings" like in later C&C games.

 

I need to update my installer to change a few annoyances and update file locations. I also need to update the savegames for fixed missions as the savegames are for bugged versions of the missions..

 

I've been in contact with AlexB and we had some great chats, when he has some spare time and can find the info he might be able to supply me with his fix for two naval exploits and the Service Depot instant repair exploit.

 

I need to ask Sonarpulse if he wants to create a github data repository for the patch with all the patched Red Alert data files included with PortableRA (except movies and music). I'd also like to use his mix tool which has an issue with creating MIX files that needs to be figured out.

Edited August 29, 2013 by Iran

[Nyerguds 100]

Desert theater support hacked into RAEd? That's awesome

 

Is the Desert tileset actually complete, then?

[Iran 12]

RAED *

 

Yes it's complete but Allen262 used TS trees. FunkyFr3sh noticed that a few tiles which tanks aren't supposed to be able to drive over were set to allow you to drive over them so Allen262 fixed them a few days ago.

 

I added an option to the spawner to disable the delay when the Tesla Zap effect is being rendered, it's needed to make the effect show up properly but when there are lots of Tesla Coils or other Tesla weaponry the game lags because of it.

 

There's also a new option to disable screenshake with spawner.

 

I also made the reconnect time outs when playing a match online shorter, they're 30 seconds now as opposed to 120 seconds at game start and 180 seconds mid game previously.

[Iran 12]

I added support for the short game mode option from latter C&C games, with this setting enabled you will lose when all your buildings and mcvs are dead, instead of losing when all your units are dead.

[Iran 12]

Just finished adding support for spectators, and for giving spectators and dead players radar. Needs to be tested by players though.

Edited August 31, 2013 by Iran

[Sonarpulse 1]

I'll make patched data repo. Ah, I see you made it. OK how about this?

1. You transfer your repo to cnc-patch
2. I push the contents of my existing data repo to it.

Because my repo is technically a fork of ra303p, I cannot transfer it to cnc-patch. And yeah, about the tool. We can take another look but I still dunno what's up with it.

Edited September 1, 2013 by Sonarpulse

[Iran 12]

What you can do with your tool is grab say main.mix, delete it's content with xcc mixer and add the files with your tool and see if that works..

 

How do I transfer the repo?

[Iran 12]

I removed the force Aftermath online and force Aftermath online with fast build speed options from the config, they were modified rules.ini files which had bugs in them and no one seems to be using the options.

 

I also added two new options to the config tool, one to enable/disable the DOS interface mod and a second option to enable/disable remapping the remap color to the players current color. With the DOS interface mod enabled this latter option will make the cameo icons in the sidebar show up in the color you're playing as. If the DOS interface mod option isn't enabled and this option is however the colors in the sidebar cameo icons will look bad, if you're using the default sidebar cameo icons.

 

 

I've also updated the language packs and savegames. And I fixed a bunch of error message boxes at game start so they don't have the message box title "Command & Conquer" anymore, but "Red Alert".

 

I made pressing the "Serial/Modem" button in the Multiplayer game menu not doing anything. As all the menus for the modem/serial stuff weren't adjusted for hires and it would have taken ages to adjust them. And of course no one still uses modems.

 

I added a hidden redalert.ini option EnableWOL= (yes/no), which will launch WOL like in 3.03 when pressing the Internet button. the normal behavior in 3.03p is to launch the CnCNet website. This is a hidden option for people who really need to be able to open WOL with my patch.

 

I fixed the crash dump/exception handler code when the game crashes, it was broke because of some complicated stuff with extending the executable.

 

The game will now track unit statistics in all multiplayer games, not just online ones. This is in preparation for full support for end game statistics with the spawner code (which FunkyFr3sh's cncnet v5 will use when he starts working on ladder related stuff). There's a few things that are broken with the normal Red Alert end game results packet sending code (which I'm using), including sending certain data in the wrong byte order (endianness related) and the house colour statistic not working. Minor things which will need testing but which won't take too long.

 

At this point I can release another beta once I know the patch is still compatibile with 3.03 when playing multiplayer games online, i.e. don't get any desyncs playing on CnCNet v4 playing against 3.03.

 

Edit: I just fixed a bug where having the Ore Truck selected and selecting an Ore patch in the minimap showed the "Can't move there" cursor instead of "Attack" cursor.

Edited September 1, 2013 by Iran

[Iran 12]

I have strong evidence that the Radar Dome crash was caused by playing the radar animation. I have a new fix which restores the radar animation and should still prevent the crash.

 

It works by forcing the game to render SHP files compressed, this is the default behavior when you have less than 16 MB RAM on your PC. Forcing the game to render SHP files compressed avoids the code path where the game crashes in when doing the radar animation. Just to be sure I added code to make the game always crash when this code path gets taken now, to make sure the code path never gets taken.

Edited September 3, 2013 by Iran

[PurpleGaga27 39]

Say, Iran. With all those fixes and enhancements, is there a new release yet for Portable RA?

[Sonarpulse 1]

You can always build the patch from source, zocom7.