C&C95 Multiplayer Wish List

[AchromicWhite]

I thought I'd start this topic, to try and gather up ideas that we, as a community, would like to see for C&C95, for two reasons;

- To have an actual check list of things for anyone willing to hack the game to look at first.

- To hopefully grow a bit of attention from someone who may like to DO such a job.

 

I'll start a list here, of things that I'd like to see done. Feel free to post more ideas below, and I'll fit them into the list where I see fit (most important at the top, less so at the bottom).

 

I thought I'd start this topic, to try and gather up ideas that we, as a community, would like to see for C&C95, for two reasons;

- To have an actual check list of things for anyone willing to hack the game to look at first.

- To hopefully grow a bit of attention from someone who may like to DO such a job.

 

I'll start a list here, of things that I'd like to see done. Feel free to post more ideas below, and I'll fit them into the list where I see fit (most important at the top, less so at the bottom).

 

1. Random starts vs "smart" starting positions (in a check box would be nice).

2. Selectable start positions.

3. 6 players

4. Spectator mode

5. Pre-selectable teams.

6. "rules.ini" style simple editing for modding.

7. Lager map sizes.

 

Thanks Matt, I've added yours into the list where it seemed right.

 

No, sorry Goatmessiah, there's never been a base building operation for TD AI... nor does it really know how to do anything but attack north most units. Given that this has been asked for for years, and that the reply has always been "it's pretty much impossible"... or would require a tone of research and hacking and programming, I'm going to leave it off of the list.

These sort of things are more like quick fixes etc, that can really improve the multiplayer experience. Maybe it'd be nice if we could find a way for the singleplayer style AI could be made  for multiplayer also, so that we could have co-op missions, but that still seems like a long shot (from what I understand about this issue).

[MattAttack]

random starts and 6 PLAYERS AGAIN!!!!!

[Messiah]

RA-style skirmish AI.

 

I remember somebody here tried to implement this without success some time ago.

Although there is a comment in the RA rules.ini that the deleveloppers tested the AI originally in TD, and it was hard to beat at that time.

[MattAttack]

Oh yeah, being able to change the color scheme of Neutral/Special in MP.  Minor, I know, but on maps with capturable structures, it sucks if a human player is that GDI gold.

[AchromicWhite]

I think you'd need to run a separate exe to do that. Anything you change in multiplayer, like that, would also change single player, no?

IDK, I guess it could go on the list, but it seems pretty minor.

[MattAttack]

changing of the color scheme is available in singleplayer, just not in MP.  I wouldn't want to mess with the colors of players, as that probably would be messing with intricate stuff, but since nobody is playing as neutral/special/badguy/goodguy I would hope it would be simple.

[Nyerguds]

6. "rules.ini" style simple editing for modding.

Don't think this'll happen. The game doesn't have rules.ini modding in general; implementing it in missions would be extra work on top of that. I did add custom capturability for missions, but that system is disabled in MP, since it doesn't seem too useful for maps.

 

RA-style skirmish AI.

Haha NO

 

Oh yeah, being able to change the color scheme of Neutral/Special in MP.  Minor, I know, but on maps with capturable structures, it sucks if a human player is that GDI gold.

Shouldn't be too hard to implement... though if the ini reading is done after the MP colour set code, filtering out the MP houses in the ini read would be kind of a pain I guess.

[Messiah]

It is possible to replace the "attack-most-northern-unit" thing with a better attack scheme? e.g. by copying the code for "attack" or "hunt" from the RA executable to the TD exe?

[AchromicWhite]

I was thinking, even if you change the Neutral/Special to another colour, it's (more or less) just as likely for a player to pick whatever colour Neutral/Special house scheme is anyway...

 

 

And yeah, there's a reason I put the "rules.ini" modding right down the list. It's there, because I'm sure a lot of modders would use it, and it'd be helpful for any more intensely balanced mods (for testing, etc). But I'm aware that it's a big task.

[fir3w0rx]

Just about all of these suggestions, plus much more, are already in the Dawn of the Tiberium Age mod... just tell all your friends to play that!!! Furthermore, anything that hasn't already been implemented can be accomplished much easier in DotTA than the original.

[Nyerguds]

I was thinking, even if you change the Neutral/Special to another colour, it's (more or less) just as likely for a player to pick whatever colour Neutral/Special house scheme is anyway...

Except that with my patch there are extra colour schemes in the game that currently aren't usable as multiplayer colours

 

Mind you, the actual civilian buildings were never meant to be shown in a different colour than yellow, and some of the SHP files look really bad in other colours.

 

Just about all of these suggestions, plus much more, are already in the Dawn of the Tiberium Age mod... just tell all your friends to play that!!! Furthermore, anything that hasn't already been implemented can be accomplished much easier in DotTA than the original.

That doesn't magically make a TS mod into C&C1 though. You might as well mention OpenRA :roll:

 

Also, it's abbreviated as DTA

[Nyerguds]

It is possible to replace the "attack-most-northern-unit" thing with a better attack scheme? e.g. by copying the code for "attack" or "hunt" from the RA executable to the TD exe?

The problem is always finding the right code, and adapting it correctly. Copying from a different game, even on a similar engine, isn't that straightforward; these logics all call on other functions that are in different locations in these games, and the function parameters or object types involved in these calls might differ between the games.

[MattAttack]

Except that with my patch there are extra colour schemes in the game that currently aren't usable as multiplayer colours

DARK GREY!!! WOO!

Just about all of these suggestions, plus much more, are already in the Dawn of the Tiberium Age mod... just tell all your friends to play that!!! Furthermore, anything that hasn't already been implemented can be accomplished much easier in DotTA than the original.

Yeah.... it's just that 3/4 of the people posting here are the die-hard loyalist purist ORIGINAL C&C fanatics.  I did try DTA a couple of years ago and it just didn't feel the same to me.  Maybe it's changed, but I'm pretty sure I'll be playing TD till I die--- or until computers wont run it.

[fir3w0rx]

Just about all of these suggestions, plus much more, are already in the Dawn of the Tiberium Age mod... just tell all your friends to play that!!! Furthermore, anything that hasn't already been implemented can be accomplished much easier in DotTA than the original.

That doesn't magically make a TS mod into C&C1 though. You might as well mention OpenRA :roll:

Well if you call it 'magic', then Bittah Commander has abracadabra-ed the hell out of TS! Imo, if it looks like a Mammoth, moves like a Mammoth, sounds like a Mammoth, blows up stuff like a Mammoth... IT'S C&C1!!!

 

I agree that the added features (being able to queue up units, holding down SHIFT and making another box to add more units to a group, pressing a hotkey to auto-select similar units, and so on) make DTA feel a little different to the original. But I'm sure Bittah can easily add an option to disable those features if there was enough demand for it.

 

I would have mentioned OpenRA but I've never gotten it to work.

 

*EDIT: Production Queuing can already be disabled. Besides the added features, what else makes DTA feel different to C&C1?

[AchromicWhite]

For me, most of the important stuff in making a TD mod is getting the balance right, and considering there's about 10 people in the fricken world who seem to understand it, I doubt there's a great mod coming out any time soon xD

 

I don't know if there'd even be a way to make the Adv Guard style rockets to fall in the way that they do. I couldn't even get them to do it in RA1 mods (although, you probably could, if you got the projectile numbers just right)

[MattAttack]

Besides the added features, what else makes DTA feel different to C&C1?

Oh when I say it "feels" different, shit, I can't even really explain it.  Even RA1 felt different in something as subtle as selecting units and sending them somewhere on the map.  Maybe I'm just fuckin nuts, but I swear I could feel it in my clicking finger... lol

[Jacko]

Oh when I say it "feels" different, shit, I can't even really explain it.  Even RA1 felt different in something as subtle as selecting units and sending them somewhere on the map.  Maybe I'm just fuckin nuts, but I swear I could feel it in my clicking finger... lol

 

I got that exact feel when playing Red Dawn, the subtle differences actually can mean quite a lot. Shame the rocket damage properties in RA suck compared to C&C1

[fir3w0rx]

Oh ok, understood. Kind of like when I sat on Santa's lap a couple of weeks ago for a photo - it didn't quite feel right. But anyway, all I'm saying is that these ideas are very possible in DTA, but not so much in the original, maybe even impossible without doing a crazy tonne of hardcore binary level hacking.

[AchromicWhite]

The top half of the list is totally doable, and that's more what this is about.

I don't think that anything on the list is impossible, and most of it's already been done for RA1.

 

The list isn't here to whine about thing, but to compile what we're actually wanting, so that when/if we get someone who wants to do some hacking, they have some things to look at.

 

Every not and again, someone will hack something random, it'd be nice if they'd been working on stuff that we were actually after xD

 

Because I don't strait up expect it to be done, but instead am just hoping, it's a "Wish List".

[Nyerguds]

Well if you call it 'magic', then Bittah Commander has abracadabra-ed the hell out of TS! Imo, if it looks like a Mammoth, moves like a Mammoth, sounds like a Mammoth, blows up stuff like a Mammoth... IT'S C&C1!!!

But does it really? TS has a problem that by default, all its tank projectiles are insta-hit, which changes a whole lot in the balance. I haven't checked out DTA lately, but as far as I remember, the only way around this was to make them ballistic, which makes them fly over walls.

 

It always boils down to small differences in balance that just make the units act different than they would in the original game.

[weaveR]

What about quick game mode? That would stop people from buying a stealth tank when they know they're going to lose and hiding it or maybe even some kind of stealth tank alternative to the red alert pulsing sonar pulse when a player only has submarines?

 

Doesn't happen so much now with unranked games but back in the 90s in the ranked westwood chat game days someone I beat did it to me and told me he was going to leave the game running and watch tv while I had to tirelessly search for his god damned stealth tank that was stopping me from collecting my win.

[AchromicWhite]

Someone actually just did that to me, lol.

IDK if it'd be an easy thing to make, considering you don't actually start with a building, and there's also a "no bases" mode.

[weaveR]

Well maybe just revealing all of a players stealth units when that's all the player has then? Should be possible being it's been done on red alert already with submarines.

 

Heli rushing is risky it's actually quite hard to pull off these days being it only really ever works in 1v1s and most people play ffas and custom maps with one base entrance and lots of tiberium that stops early infantry scouting.

[AchromicWhite]

Technically you can get stealth engis if they get the stealth crate....

[weaveR]

Don't need stealth engis to engi white lol it's the only way I can beat him these days he's too good.

 

Well done with the Apache cheese

Lol @ chem complaining about apachie rushing when he does it himself personally I wouldn't feel too bad if I lost against ehy have you seen him play red alert? He's like a robot.