New Horizons Version 13-A Full Release news

What’s New:

Special Effects!

This version should mostly be considered as supplementary to the last. Although this version does not contain new units/buildings/maps/missions/modes etc. (with 1 exception!), it Does include a generous amount of subtle changes that improve upon the previous release. As such, for the purposes of this article, I shall keep the previous article's pictures for reference, given that the last release was a fairly 'big' one, what with the release of a game mode I had been planning for a long time (some years!), which I have finally gotten around to doing; namely, Horror Mode.

In order to fully understand and appreciate what is special about this new version, is to go back to one of the main points of this mod (bear with me): In the Original game, one distinct feature was the linearity of the gameplay, specifically the combat. An encounter between Unit A vs Unit B was always generally predetermined, whereby one unit would always best the other, due in part to their respective base properties, and in part to their weapons having a guaranteed hit rate. This of course, I found not only annoying, but quite unrealistic. And so, making full use of the Ares extention for this mod, I have tuned the combat system so that encounters are Not predetermined, and that there is a decent degree of randomness to success in encounters, including by the fact that units do Not have a 100% hit chance. In other words, units can engage in firefights, including scoring direct hits, partial hits, and misses. To acieve this, after combining various features, most units ended up with what I referred to as 'Specific Accuracy' (for simplicity's sake). Fun fact; some trolls have even tried to slander me in the past, claiming I made this up, despite the fact that I have always said that S.A. is based upon combining new features thanks to the Ares extention, and all they had to do was actually bother to look at the credits, or even open the compiled credits folder! ;)

Version 13-A first and foremost includes the implementation of further combat dynamics. This time, including further new features made possible by the Phobos extention. As such, the randomness of encounters is improved even more, as many units now have a chance of not just scoring direct hits, partial hits, and misses, but also Critical Hits, which of course implies bonus damage. But that's not all. Not only have I implemented the chance of critical hits, but I've added a variety of special effects, including new animations to go with them. One feature request I recieved recently, was to add infantry 'gore', that is, to have the bodies laying on the ground, more blood etc.. I had refrained from doing so primarily out of concern for game stability (as it is already pushed quite high to the limit, at least on my system). So I have sort of made a compromise, whereby it is now possible for example, if an infantry unit gets shot by a bullet, it may score a critical hit, and inflict a 'Bleeding' effect for some time, including the further loss of health for the duration of this effect. This can be lessened by either having a medical unit nearby, an evacuation vehicle (for the affected evacuee), or some form of shelter to recover in nearby (such as a safe building, or even a hospital building, such as a medical tent). The effect does include visible bleeding from the unit, though I will stress that the effect is subtle; I haven't added a cartoonishly high amount of blood! Of course, this is not the only new special effect, for example it is now possible to set fire to vehicles; a critical hit can reduce their mobility, and of course if they are on fire, additional damage will be inflicted on them. Units can now be suppressed by being shot at (reducing their rate of return fire), and in some cases even suffer from shock (reducing their ability to move), in certain circumstances this is also accompanied by a certain animation to show they are in a state of shock, but this animation is not always applicable.

Another type of new effect is essentially the introduction of electronic warfare, in the literal sense; thanks to an Ares extention feature I've long considered using, some units can now be affected by short-circuiting. That is, an E.M.P. effect. For example, if an electical weapon hits a vehicle, there is a possibility of it short-circuiting, whereby it will be briefly incapacitated, unable to move, or return fire. This is accompanied by a special animation. In general, the more powerful the weapon, the higher the effect. Likewise, certain targets are less susceptible than others; I decided to make it so that more obsolete/older vehicles are more prone to electronics frying than certain modern vehicles, which have better protected circuits (example; an old T-64 will be more affected than the T-90M in game).

Besides that, I have increased the amount of varying animations in general, so that things will be prettier (some are more subtle than others, but I hope they are all appreciated!), and overall should make the game more fun to play.

MT-LB!

Now about that 1 exception I hinted at above; I have replaced the Soviet/CSTO faction Repair/Recovery vehicle with a model I made of the ubiquitous MT-LB. In real life, this is classed as a 'military tractor' chassis, and is built in various modifications, but most importantly and relevantly here, it is also made as a vehicle recovery/repair variant. Here is my version in game;

I chose to replace the previous model, due to it being shared with the Yuri faction equivalent vehicle. But it's not just a model update, as it's properties have been tweaked also; it is slightly slower to accellerate (as it is bigger), and accordingly, is slightly more armoured. But also, in real life, the MT-LB is capable of carrying infantry. In it's pure infantry-transport variant, it is capable of carrying 11 people. But since I have implemented a recovery/repair variant, I have compromised to enable it to carry 4 people. The Uran-14 Maintenance Drone is still buildable as an option alongside this, and although the Uran-14 cannot transport people, and is less armoured, it is a drone, and is therefore immune to psychic weapons, as well as radiation.

If players wish to transport infantry in larger numbers, you still have the option to use other various transports, from Kamaz trucks, all the way up to various aircraft and hovercraft (including filling trucks and A.P.C.'s/I.F.V.'s with infantry, then driving Those into transport hovercraft or aircraft).

Mission Balances

Besides all the efforts with revamping the effects, I have made extra efforts to improve someof the missions. Bear in mind, I went out of my way to implement All the original RA2 campaign missions to function in YR, alongside all the new NH stuff (and even added NH campaign missions on top of that!), there were some missions from the original game that had now become somewhat near-impossible to complete (in some cases, if they were okay to complete, achieving the par-time was nearly impossible). Thanks to some changes, as well as testing them myself (I have achieved the par times, in one case by a factor of 1-second!), it is now possible to achieve the par times on all the original missions, regardless of difficulty.

In one mission in particular (Original Allied/NATO Mission 11), you will immediately notice that you now start with 5 parked AH-64 Apache attack helicopters at your disposal (and yes, you Will Need them!). If I remember correctly, I managed to achieve the par time and only get nuked once (and bear in mind, this isn't just the original game nume, this is the updated devastating nuke, which the game can barely handle!).

Recap:

The following is a recap of the previous Version 13 release, which again I emphasise that this new release (V-13-A) is mostly aimed as a supplement to V-13:

Horror Mode

While developing this, I originally intended to make it so that when a player selected 'Horror Mode', then the Yuri faction/playable country would be swapped for essentially a 'Horror country'.. This ended up for technical reasons not quite working out. So I ended up making a whole new country, ominously named the 'Forces of Darkness' (FoD). Obviously, when this faction is selected as a player for a game, this is the one that is horror-themed (and Yes, it can be played as both an A.I. And Human player!). Use of this faction is primarily intended for the two Horror sub-modes, although it *Can be selected for any of the other modes; however the A.I., as well as balancing functionality goes out the window (as such, an A.I.-controlled FoD will just camp and do nothing much else but seek out resources).

But anyway, the two Horror sub-modes are as follows:

1- 'Horror Mode'; this is essentially based on my previously created 'Infantry Divisions Mode', whereby gameplay is focused primarily around infantry. This makes fighting the zombie hordes all the more challenging, and akin to most horror movies whereby the use of heavy military equipment is absent.

2- 'Horror Mode Advanced'; this imaginatively-named variation of Horror Mode is based on my previously created 'Mechanised Divisions Mode', whereby Some more serious military tech is available, but still focusing on ground-based combat (after all, fighting the hordes of monsters would be far less of a challenge if the players can just deploy squadrons of fighters and bombers to level them, right?). This mode can be interesting in terms of widening the scope of certain games, such as when standard faction countries are fighting, with a FoD team thrown in the mix.

FoD 'base';

During the development and testing stages, I Literally ended up breaking the game, so a lot of effort went into rebuilding things so that things ran with stability. Fortunately, the efforts have paid off, and everything seems to work, leaving no known errors (all modes checked, including the new campaign missions). A word of advice; if you choose to play either of the horror modes, please bear in mind your specific operating system's capabilities; even selecting just One FoD team can be quite a load on the system. After all, even just one FoD is capable of literally flooding a map with hoards of monsters, of all varieties. You have been warned!

With that said, I hope everyone enjoys surviving the onslaught of monsters (including some interesting surprises); these modes will be expanded in the future.

Reminder on online functionality, as per the previous version release;

"One small limitation (as per the CNCNet documentation) is that custom game modes are not selectable on custom maps, for now anyway, but the custom modes can still be played on many available maps (alternatively, you can still launch via the standard/offline launcher, and play the custom modes on Any map, including randomly-generated ones)."

The Horror Mode(s) is one of 2 modes I have long been intending to release; the other remains a secret/surprise, and indeed has a completely different theme (which I doubt anyone would guess, but don't even try guessing as it is a secret, so you may only speculate! Muahaha).

Another Massive New Map

That's right, I made another massive new map from scratch. Not quite to the crazy detail of my 3rd NH campaign mission map (and it's associated skirmish derivative), but still quite epic. The map has been some time in the making, and I've finally got round to finishing it (unlike my 3rd NH mission map, this map is Not based on a real location). I called the map 3 Cities; in reality it's more like 'One City Plus Two Large-to-Medium-Sized Towns', but I thought that was a bit too long.. So obviously, there is one large city zone in the map's centre, plus two towns connected via a main highway. There are a variety of other habitats throughout the map, including rural farmlands, swamps, forests, industrial and mining zones. It's a good map to play on Any mode.

Here is a render of the new map (bear in mind that the render does not necessarily include All of the map's details);

And here are some in-game screenshots on this new map, featuring the new Horror Mode:

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User Interface Enhancements

This is something I've been meaning to implement for a while now, and have finally got round to doing. Thanks to features enabled via the Ares extension (as always, all hail the Ares extension!), I have paid much attention to, wait for it... Creating group selection types!! I know, I know, mind-blowingly exciting stuff, but bear with me as I explain, as it will be worth it. Essentially, I have made the game far easier to Control (that is, I have made Playing easier, Not the game itself easier!). This is to do with the amount of micromanagement required. An example; if you are trying to assemble/control an army or group you have created, you would often want to select all units of a certain type, by selecting one such unit (say, a mobile recovery vehicle), then hit the 'Select All' button at the bottom of the screen, in order to move them all specifically. You could do this for Every Single type of unit in the game, be it an infantry, vehicle, or aircraft etc.. But now, in order to make things Far less complicated, I have created several category types, which should Greatly reduce the amount of individual mouse-clicks a player has to do (and thus greatly reduce the amount of hand/wrist stress and effort!), in order to complete whatever task they set. So, let's say you've got a relatively large land attack group, and you are assaulting an enemy base; you have tanks, I.F.V.'s, infantry loaded in trucks, and possibly (hopefully) even air defence units.. All in all, it can be quite a task to control; you used to have to for example click on each transport type (at the least) and order them individually to deploy, and if everything was bunched together, then all your tanks (also, of varying types) would be clumsily huddled together with them. If you wanted to say, separate the tanks, you would have to waste some time doing so. But now, it is possible to select say, a BMP-2M loaded with infantry, then hit the usual 'Select All' button, and instead of just selecting all the BMP-2M's, you are now able to select ALL the BMP's, be they BMP-2's, BMP-2M's, or BMP-3's, and then hit 'deploy', to unload them all at once. Likewise, you can select a tank, hit that good old 'Select All' button, and now instead of Just selecting all the T-72B3's, you will now be able to select all the T-72B3's, T-80BVM's, T-90M's, (or even M1A2 Abrams tanks if you have them)... You get the picture, you can then move all your tanks forward separately.

To give you an idea, here is a general guide to the selection groups I have made (this may be subject to change/expansion in future of course):

-Light infantry; generally most rifle-based infantry, such as G.I.'s, conscripts, V.D.V. paratroopers, Contract Soldiers...

-Canine; literally, if you happen to own dogs from multiple factions..

-Engineers; select all engineers regardless of type.

-Specialised infantry; this applies to the heavier classes of infantry, such as missile troopers, flamethrowers etc..

-Jetpacks; all jetpack-based troops.

-Transport Trucks; literally, the troop transport trucks.

-Mine trucks; all mine-layers.

-'Technicals'; the colloquial term used for the lighter vehicles, in this case I have made it quite broad, to include pickup trucks, buggies, trikes, Humvee's, GAZ Tigr-M's, and even the M-113 and M-1126 Stryker A.P.C.'s.

-S.P.G.'s; the Self-Propelled Guns, such as the PLZ-05's.

-M.B.T.'s; all Main Battle Tanks, though I have broadened this to include the tank-based support vehicles, such as the BMPT 'Terminator', and T-15 H.I.F.V..

-Tank Support; again quite broad, but this group includes many infantry fighting vehicles, such as Bradleys, BTR's or BMP's, as well as some other stuff, such as Pantsir-S1's, and (ZSU-23-4) Shilka's..

-Transport Helicopters; such as Chinook's, Mi-24's, or even Yuri's V.T.O.L. landers..

-Fighters; All fighter aircraft capable of engaging both ground and air targets.

-Bombers; All ground-attack aircraft (such as A-10's, Su-25's), as well as all bomber aircraft.

-Light landing crafts; selects the main hovercraft transports in your possession, regardless of faction origin.

And lastly (for now),

-Heavy landing craft; namely, the 'Zubr' giant hovercrafts.

Model & Visual Overhauls

I have made some overhauls of certain models. This includes in some cases entire model replacement, to some minor modification/touch-ups, some of which probably won't even be noticed or appreciated. The noticeable stuff, is mostly to do with real-life technological advancements, which have rendered some older models obsolete. Primarily, this concerns the rate at which Russia has updated it's tank fleet, in line with the ongoing S.M.O., which of course means that visually, the models in-game needed updating. The changes are mostly just visual to the models, however these changes in real life have also resulted in increased characteristics. For the purpose of game balancing, I have tried not to change the unit properties too much (they have been tested for balancing), but the updated units have recieved a small increase in strength, and therefore associated cost.

Here is a screenshot showing a glimpse of the updated T-series tanks;

One unit that has gone the biggest overhaul, is the TOS-1A 'Solnstyepok'; the entire model has been changed, and in addition, the visual effects of the strikes of the thermobaric warheads have been updated. The warhead visuals are not the only update, as the properties have been enhanced/rebalanced, and include an additional burning effect; this can result in cases where say, a large building may have just managed to survive the initial barrage, but shortly after due to the incendiary effect, the building is destroyed.

Here are some in-game screenshots of the overhauled TOS-1A barrage strikes;

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As well as the new actual models, including while firing;

Firing;

AI Enhancements

As usual, the AI underwent enhancements, including taking into account the new modes. I reiterate, that during the development and testing phase, which I cannot stress enough was a Huge pain in the ass, whereby I broke the game's AI randomly and had to redo it. But it seems to have paid off.

Miscellaneous:

As always, there are many more miscellaneous tweaks, not all of which I can remember. One key thing I did was further rebalance the shock troopers (nerfed a little) as they were over-performing (especially when garrisoned, and especially the Heavy Shock Trooper). Since overhauling the TOS-1A, I have also removed the option to build the second one which came with the extended-range guided munitions; this was partially for balancing purposes, as well as for simplification, especially given the all-round improvement taken into account in this version release. New to Version 13-A; varous rebalancing has been done, taking into account the new features.

I sincerely hope wherever you are playing from, that you enjoy the new additions, as well as all the stuff from previous versions. As always, have fun!

Command & Conquer Westwood Fans
Red Alert 2 YR: New Horizons
C&C: Yuri's Revenge
C&C: Red Alert 2