Is there no fog of war in RA2 ?

[Nutti]

Hey guys,

 

simple question but i could not find the answer, not even with google or the forum search  XD  :

How can i turn on "fog of war" in RA2/Yuris Revenge? (Mulitplayer) Or is there none?

 

Thanks

greetings

 

[Grant]

Hey guys,

 

simple question but i could not find the answer, not even with google or the forum search  XD  :

How can i turn on "fog of war" in RA2/Yuris Revenge? (Mulitplayer) Or is there none?

 

Thanks

greetings

Hello, there is no such option in the intended vanilla/official releases no

 

 

[Nutti]

eh,but...WHY?

"ah you you bulit choppers or kirovs, let me bulit the towers when you arrive"

I mean how is this even suppose to make fun? 

 

is there any other way to get fog of war in mp?

[SiRaLeX]

There's no way to get fog in mp.

 

RA2 is very fast paced game, it was designed to be played with shroud. FoW was completely removed as of Tiberian Sun.

 

The only way to get fog is with a cheat, but it's not the fog you're thinking about, it just replaces the black shroud with see through fog.

 

 

 

[Plokite_Wolf]

FoW was completely removed as of Tiberian Sun.

It was an option in Tiberian Sun  :roll:

[Rampastring]

FoW was completely removed as of Tiberian Sun.

Tiberian Sun has Fog of War (even as a standard game option), but it's broken and will randomly crash the game in some blitting code.

[SiRaLeX]

Yeah, Tiberian Sun has Fog of War.

 

I know that the Host can enable Fog in TS. What I meant was that Fog of War was removed in games after TS. Just worded it wrong. 

 

[fir3w0rx]

eh,but...WHY?

"ah you you bulit choppers or kirovs, let me bulit the towers when you arrive"

I mean how is this even suppose to make fun? 

Those^ units are too noisy to hide under fog anyway. I mean, as soon as a kirov is built it'll let everyone know that it's "REPORTING!", then make a constant deep hollow drum sound wherever it goes. Siege choppers' propellers are louder than rocketeers' jet packs. Tanya will tell your enemy that she's ready to "ROCK 'N' ROLL!"(YR) or just literally LOL (RA2). Oh and superweapon structures can't be hidden from your enemy by default.

 

But yeah for the most part, fog of war would be useful. But I think it'll force people to change their strategies a lot (which isn't necessarily a bad thing). Like for example, planes will be built more often because hit n runs will be a lot easier to execute (the same goes for those fast ifvs), stopping your war miners from getting droned will almost be impossible, you'll have to repeatedly scout/anti-scout, more base defences will be built (including scattered dogs to defend against spies), the Libyan demolition truck will become useful... and so on.

 

It's probably possible to mod the game to have a re-shroud option (but only with the black shroud, not fog) by constantly triggering whatever is triggered when your Spy Satellite Uplink is destroyed.

[Rampastring]

It's probably possible to mod the game to have a re-shroud option (but only with the black shroud, not fog) by constantly triggering whatever is triggered when your Spy Satellite Uplink is destroyed.

At least TS still has RA1's "Shroud Regrows" option that's easily enabled with a Rules.ini change, it might still work in RA2/YR.

[fir3w0rx]

At least TS still has RA1's "Shroud Regrows" option that's easily enabled with a Rules.ini change, it might still work in RA2/YR.

There are lines in there related to shroud and fog, but they don't seem to work. One of the lines say

 

ShadowGrow = deos the shroud regrow? (def=no)  DESUPPORTED.

 

Why is it still in RA2's rules.ini if it's no longer supported? There are also lines related to tiberium and visceroids and other things which aren't even in RA2. Why are they there? Did the WW devs get lazy and just use a rules.ini template for all the old C&C's or something?

[Ra2Nub]

At least TS still has RA1's "Shroud Regrows" option that's easily enabled with a Rules.ini change, it might still work in RA2/YR.

There are lines in there related to shroud and fog, but they don't seem to work. One of the lines say

 

ShadowGrow = deos the shroud regrow? (def=no)  DESUPPORTED.

 

Why is it still in RA2's rules.ini if it's no longer supported? There are also lines related to tiberium and visceroids and other things which aren't even in RA2. Why are they there? Did the WW devs get lazy and just use a rules.ini template for all the old C&C's or something?

 

TS was already rushed (released before Weswood studios was happy with it) and Ra2 was under the same engine, and most likely also rushed, so they left things in there that are no longer in the code itself (but still left in the rules because same rules was used in TS).

 

There's also many crate power up left overs that still work in RA2/YR which can be enabled which are following

 

-Shroud regrow crate - everything will be black again like if you lost spy sat

-Ore - there will be a bit of ore where you picked up the crate

-Stealth - Like promotion some units around the crate will be permanently stealth (like subs)

-Explosives - Your tanks take a lot of damage

-Nuke - you will get a nuke you can instant use

 

All of those are from TS but the code is still in RA2/YR even though it was never used. However, there's also a lot of leftovers in the rules but the code is also removed from the client, meaning you can no longer enable it.

 

I wouldn't call WWS lazy. EA rushed them to the ass and TS was heavy rushed, and WWS couldn't complete everything they had in planning (look it up).

 

[GilbertGuld]

I don't think Red Alert 2 would benefit from Fog of War because of much of its fast paced nature. It would change the game balance and style rather dramatically. In Tiberian Sun, on the other hand, I discovered it was marvellous once I dared to try it again after having learned how to play properly, which was years later I believe. It gave the game a whole new dimension. It was an excellent FoW mechanic that really complimented the game's structure and pace that enhanced the whole experience, very different from the Age of Empires mechanic that I was used to and didn't like. I think FoW in TS should be the default. Too bad it doesn't work in CnCnet's version (I heard why).

On 7/20/2016 at 8:54 PM, Ra2Nub said:

On 7/20/2016 at 4:07 PM, fir3w0rx said:

On 7/20/2016 at 2:22 PM, Rampastring said:

On 7/20/2016 at 5:47 AM, fir3w0rx said:

…

It's probably possible to mod the game to have a re-shroud option (but only with the black shroud, not fog) by constantly triggering whatever is triggered when your Spy Satellite Uplink is destroyed.

At least TS still has RA1's "Shroud Regrows" option that's easily enabled with a Rules.ini change, it might still work in RA2/YR.

There are lines in there related to shroud and fog, but they don't seem to work. One of the lines say

 

ShadowGrow = deos the shroud regrow? (def=no)  DESUPPORTED.

 

Why is it still in RA2's rules.ini if it's no longer supported? There are also lines related to tiberium and visceroids and other things which aren't even in RA2. Why are they there? Did the WW devs get lazy and just use a rules.ini template for all the old C&C's or something?

 

TS was already rushed (released before Weswood studios was happy with it) and Ra2 was under the same engine, and most likely also rushed, so they left things in there that are no longer in the code itself (but still left in the rules because same rules was used in TS).

 

There's also many crate power up left overs that still work in RA2/YR which can be enabled which are following

 

-Shroud regrow crate - everything will be black again like if you lost spy sat

-Ore - there will be a bit of ore where you picked up the crate

-Stealth - Like promotion some units around the crate will be permanently stealth (like subs)

-Explosives - Your tanks take a lot of damage

-Nuke - you will get a nuke you can instant use

 

All of those are from TS but the code is still in RA2/YR even though it was never used. However, there's also a lot of leftovers in the rules but the code is also removed from the client, meaning you can no longer enable it.

 

I wouldn't call WWS lazy. EA rushed them to the ass and TS was heavy rushed, and WWS couldn't complete everything they had in planning (look it up).

 

Wow, I didn't know that. I learn something new everytime I visit the C&C community But I shouldn't be surprised, I have noticed a few times that RA2 share a lot of code with TS. It's the same engine basically, so again, I shouldn't be surprised. Still pretty amazing that those things are fully functional. They must have worked on it to get them functional and at some point decided to not use them for gameplay reasons.

I'm so glad the explosions were removed, those were a major pain in Tiberian Sun. Felt like every other crate was a stupid explosion, and some even blew a hole in the terrain! What the actual duck. The power-ups were very lame in TS, extremely so in comparison with RA2, and became useless if you didn't want to risk loose an expensive and/or more than one unit. They could have left the ore stuff in RA2, but I can totally see why the others were removed. This is power-ups done right.

I've read on more than one wiki that Red Alert 2 was developed by Burst Studios, known then as Westwood Pacific after EA:s takeover, but I haven't seen a confirmation from a reliable source, or any at all really. But it would make sense, as the first beta of RA2 came like just a month or two after the Firestorm expansion pack for TS was released. And I believe those TS guys then went to work on Emperor: Battle for Dune. Might be possible to track in the credits or manual.

Even RA2 had some last minute cuts, most notably the light tank, which is still present in the installation slideshow.

Back to the crates. To refresh my memory I did a quick search and found this neat instruction video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF0FA15n0kc Was unsure if there was a shroud reveal power-up in RA2.
And btw, I could never imagine that RA2 pretty much 20 years later, in a tutorial video even, would attract over 40 000 viewers and over 250 comments in just under a month.

Edited February 25, 2020 by GilbertGuld
formatting, additions and clarifications