Countries Bonuses

[Dasha]

Hi,

 

I'm new to CnCNet but I play Red Alert since it came out on PS1.

 

Now I just discovered CnCNet and I'm enthusiast being able to play the original game on newer hardware.

 

Thanks for this.

 

I will post this question here since I dis not find a clear answer.

 

Since v3.03 in the original game, a bug turned France and England bonuses into handicaps.

 

What about CnCNet ? Is this fixed ? Or bonuses are even différent ?

 

Also, do Greece, Spain and Turkey have bonuses ?

 

I really searched but not found a clear answer about what is implemented in CnCNet...

 

Thanks. Dasha.

Edited May 21, 2019 by Dasha

[Dasha]

Hi,

 

I had a look at the initial rules.ini file of the offline game and here're my findings :

England is fixed but France not.

 

; Airspeed = multiplier to speed for all air units [larger means faster] (def=1.0)

; Armor = multiplier to armor strength for all units and buildings [larger means stronger] (def=1.0)

; Cost = multiplier to cost for all units and buildings [larger means costlier] (def=1.0)

; Firepower = multiplier to firepower for all weapons [larger means more damage] (def=1.0)

; Groundspeed = multiplier to speed for all ground units [larger means faster] (def=1.0)

; ROF = multiplier to Rate Of Fire for all weapons [larger means slower ROF] (def=1.0)

; BuildTime = multiplier to general object build time [larger means longer to build] (def=1.0)

 

[France]

Firepower=1.0

Groundspeed=1.0

Airspeed=1.0

Armor=1.0

ROF=1.1

Cost=1.0

BuildTime=1.0

 

[England]

Firepower=1.0

Groundspeed=1.0

Airspeed=1.0

Armor=1.1

ROF=1.0

Cost=1.0

BuildTime=1.0

Turkey, Spain and Greece don't have specific bonus.

 

The same is applicable in rules.ini embedded in redalert.mix of RedAlert_Online game.

 

If I adjust it myself, would it be taken into account for games I'm hosting ?

 

Edited May 21, 2019 by Dasha

[Jacko]

When you play on cncnet all Allied nations are "fixed" to be the same as Germany, which is a small damage up.

 

This also includes Spain, Greece and Turkey (all allies)

[Dasha]

OK, many thanks for this answer.

In the meantime, I discovered that description for the armor in Rules.ini is not even correct. So England has not the bug fixed.

 

And what about the Soviets ? Do they have a bonus Online on CnCNet ?

[Nyerguds]

cncnet doesn't use rules.ini. Its rules are read from a file called spawn.xdp or something like that.

[FunkyFr3sh]

The bug was already there in the first version of red alert (was it 1.04?), I tested it some time ago. Some people claimed it was not a bug and they did that on purpose, later we found evidence in one of the inlays included with the original game. To ensure the bugged countries don't become better than germany we had to make them all equal to prevent bigger gameplay changes since all people always used germany only in online games

[Eisengeist]

It's always been messed up in rules.ini which has never been alterated in any newer official version of RA.  1.1 is slower ROF and weaker armor, while 0.9 is better.  However, last I saw CnCnet's spawn.xdp overrides it and gives 1.1 Firepower instead to all six allied nations, unless you specify your own bonuses in map, then those will take priority.

[Dasha]

Thanks for all this information.

 

So I guess CnCNet only aligned allied countries and probably left Soviet units as-is...

 

I'd have found it cool to have each allied with their own bonus as Westwood intended to. But anyway, fine like this ! At least other allied countries have no disadvantages.

[Dasha]

Hi,

I'm currently setting up RA to play it on Raspberry Pi 3 using Dosbox.

So as part as my install I'd like to fix the countries.

Can you guys confirm that only ROF and Armor should be understood the other way around ?

Armor shall be understood as "take damage". So 0.9 is better than 1.0.

ROF shall be understood as frequency between 2 shots. So 0.9 is better than 1.0.

Are the descriptions of the other characteristics ok ?

Attached, the original rules.ini files with bonuses fixed for England & France as intended by Westwood. I also updated the comment about armor to avoid any confusion.

Other question: is the section about difficulty settings also broken for armor ? Shall it be fixed the same way as the country bonuses ?

; ******* Difficulty Settings *******
; Game difficulty is controlled by these factors. Some of these factors will
; only affect a computer player. The computer and the player are handicapped by
; individual settings. Thus the computer may be playing at 'difficult' level while the
; player may be playing at 'easy' level.

; Airspeed = multiplier to speed for all air units (def=1.0)
; Armor = multiplier to armor strength for all units and buildings (def=1.0)
; Cost = multiplier to cost for all units and buildings (def=1.0)
; Firepower = multiplier to firepower for all weapons (def=1.0)
; Groundspeed = multiplier to speed for all ground units (def=1.0)
; ROF = multiplier to Rate Of Fire for all weapons [larger means slower ROF] (def=1.0)
; BuildSlowdown = Should the computer build slower than the player (def=no)?
;  <<< affects the computer player, not the human player >>>
;    ContentScan = Should the contents of a transport be considered when picking best target (def=no)?
;    RepairDelay = average delay (minutes) between initiating building repair
;    BuildDelay = average delay (minutes) between initiating construction
;    DestroyWalls = Allow scanning for nearby enemy walls and destroy them (def=yes)?

[Easy]
Firepower=1.2
Groundspeed=1.2
Airspeed=1.2
BuildTime=.8
Armor=1.2
ROF=.8
Cost=.8
RepairDelay=.001
BuildDelay=.001
DestroyWalls=yes
ContentScan=yes

[Normal]
Firepower=1.0
Groundspeed=1.0
Airspeed=1.0
BuildTime=1
Armor=1.0
ROF=1.0
Cost=1.0
RepairDelay=.02
BuildDelay=.03
BuildSlowdown=yes
DestroyWalls=yes
ContentScan=yes

[Difficult]
Firepower=.8
Groundspeed=.8
Airspeed=.8
BuildTime=1.0
Armor=.8
ROF=1.2
Cost=1.0
RepairDelay=.05
BuildDelay=.1
BuildSlowdown=yes
DestroyWalls=no

 

rules_country_bonus_fix.ini

Edited May 21, 2019 by Dasha

[Dasha]

Hi,

I did some experiment and indeed, the difficulty settings are bugged the same way as the countries.

So I fixed my rules.ini by doing this for difficulty :

; ******* Difficulty Settings *******
; Game difficulty is controlled by these factors. Some of these factors will
; only affect a computer player. The computer and the player are handicapped by
; individual settings. Thus the computer may be playing at 'difficult' level while the
; player may be playing at 'easy' level.

; Airspeed = multiplier to speed for all air units (def=1.0)
; Armor = multiplier to armor weakness for all units and buildings (def=1.0)
; Cost = multiplier to cost for all units and buildings (def=1.0)
; Firepower = multiplier to firepower for all weapons (def=1.0)
; Groundspeed = multiplier to speed for all ground units (def=1.0)
; ROF = multiplier to Rate Of Fire for all weapons [larger means slower ROF] (def=1.0)
; BuildSlowdown = Should the computer build slower than the player (def=no)?
;  <<< affects the computer player, not the human player >>>
;    ContentScan = Should the contents of a transport be considered when picking best target (def=no)?
;    RepairDelay = average delay (minutes) between initiating building repair
;    BuildDelay = average delay (minutes) between initiating construction
;    DestroyWalls = Allow scanning for nearby enemy walls and destroy them (def=yes)?

[Easy]
Firepower=1.2
Groundspeed=1.2
Airspeed=1.2
BuildTime=.8
Armor=.8
ROF=.8
Cost=.8
RepairDelay=.001
BuildDelay=.001
DestroyWalls=yes
ContentScan=yes

[Normal]
Firepower=1.0
Groundspeed=1.0
Airspeed=1.0
BuildTime=1
Armor=1.0
ROF=1.0
Cost=1.0
RepairDelay=.02
BuildDelay=.03
BuildSlowdown=yes
DestroyWalls=yes
ContentScan=yes

[Difficult]
Firepower=.8
Groundspeed=.8
Airspeed=.8
BuildTime=1.0
Armor=1.2
ROF=1.2
Cost=1.0
RepairDelay=.05
BuildDelay=.1
BuildSlowdown=yes
DestroyWalls=no

 

And this for the countries:

; ******* Country Statistics *******
; Certain countries have special adjustments to their unit and building
; values. These are global values that affect ALL units and buildings owned
; by that country. This applies only to multiplayer games and skirmish mode. In
; normal game play, all values are "1.0".

; Airspeed = multiplier to speed for all air units [larger means faster] (def=1.0)
; Armor = multiplier to armor weakness for all units and buildings [larger means weaker] (def=1.0)
; Cost = multiplier to cost for all units and buildings [larger means costlier] (def=1.0)
; Firepower = multiplier to firepower for all weapons [larger means more damage] (def=1.0)
; Groundspeed = multiplier to speed for all ground units [larger means faster] (def=1.0)
; ROF = multiplier to Rate Of Fire for all weapons [larger means slower ROF] (def=1.0)
; BuildTime = multiplier to general object build time [larger means longer to build] (def=1.0)

[England]
Firepower=1.0
Groundspeed=1.0
Airspeed=1.0
Armor=0.9
ROF=1.0
Cost=1.0
BuildTime=1.0

[Germany]
Firepower=1.1
Groundspeed=1.0
Airspeed=1.0
Armor=1.0
ROF=1.0
Cost=1.0
BuildTime=1.0

[France]
Firepower=1.0
Groundspeed=1.0
Airspeed=1.0
Armor=1.0
ROF=0.9
Cost=1.0
BuildTime=1.0

[Ukraine]
Firepower=1.0
Groundspeed=1.1
Airspeed=1.0
Armor=1.0
ROF=1.0
Cost=1.0
BuildTime=1.0

[USSR]
Firepower=1.0
Groundspeed=1.0
Airspeed=1.0
Armor=1.0
ROF=1.0
Cost=0.9
BuildTime=1.0

[Greece]
Firepower=1.0
Groundspeed=1.0
Airspeed=1.0
Armor=1.0
ROF=1.0
Cost=1.0
BuildTime=1.0

[Turkey]
Firepower=1.0
Groundspeed=1.0
Airspeed=1.0
Armor=1.0
ROF=1.0
Cost=1.0
BuildTime=1.0

[Spain]
Firepower=1.0
Groundspeed=1.0
Airspeed=1.0
Armor=1.0
ROF=1.0
Cost=1.0
BuildTime=1.0

 

Here's the updated .ini file : http://dl.free.fr/getfile.pl?file=/EBcpdY4D

 

Dasha.

Edited May 24, 2019 by Dasha