Post news Report RSS Playtest 20150329

Sandworm insurance, new missions, smarter harvesters, improved performance: ready for play-testing!

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The next release is drawing closer as we enter the feature freeze phase of the development cycle with this new playtest.

You can help our efforts to create a stable and balanced release by testing and reporting bugs or giving feedback on our various social media sites and forums, or simply in the comments section below.

Since the last playtest, we have continued our focus on the Dune 2000 mod, which has received a brand new sidebar. The sandworms feature has been polished, and harvester insurance has been added, so if you lose your only harvester to a sandworm, it will be replaced automatically, for free!

Those players that mourned the loss of the left-click orders option will be glad to hear that is has returned, better than ever. A new contributor took it upon himself to re-implement it in a way that avoided the numerous problems the earlier implementation had.

Other highlights include:

  • In sell mode, a structure’s tooltip will show the expected refund value.
  • Spy planes in Red Alert will no longer lure your anti-air capable units across the map.
  • Airplanes will now fly higher and not push helicopters out of their way anymore.
  • Harvester logic has been improved to make use of all available refineries and to avoid blockages.
  • New missions: Allies03b and Allies05a for Red Alert, and GDI05a, Nod02a and Nod02b for Tiberian Dawn.
  • More memory usage and performance improvements.
  • On Linux, the .orarep file extension will be associated with OpenRA so that replays can be started from a file manager with a simple double-click.

The changelog has the full list of fixes, changes and new features.

Head over to our download section to find the playtest installers.

A note on map compatibility: already with the last playtest a new map format was introduced which is not backward-compatible with last October’s release-20141029. This means that if you have downloaded custom maps from the Resource Center or elsewhere, these maps will have been automatically updated to the new map format once you have run this or the previous playtest. If you later go back to the release version, it will not be able to parse the new map format and crash. You can avoid the problem by either deleting the contents of your map folder, or by making backups of the map folder and restoring that when you switch back to release-20141029. We should have mentioned that in the news post for the last playtest already, and apologize for any inconvenience that omission caused.

Random Countries
It is now possible to select a random country from among each side in Red Alert, Allies or Soviets.

Refund value in tooltipTooltips now show the refund value when sell mode is activated.

Dune 2000 sidebarThe new Dune 2000 sidebar.

Tiberian Sun Snow PreviewBehind the scenes, the work on the Tiberian Sun mod reached another milestone

Post comment Comments
alexeistukov87
alexeistukov87 - - 247 comments

Oh, Tiberian Sun makes me shed tears of awe... New engine and awesome modding capabilities.
I wonder if you condsider Mutators as a feature for TS. Small plugins that can be written by anyone to be put over main game or mod that modify rules for one match.

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Milanium Author
Milanium - - 453 comments

We call them traits and you can use them to create your own custom maps or mods. It is a modular system comparable with the Generals engine design. See Wiki.openra.net

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pchote
pchote - - 35 comments

This has been planned for a while, but is not a priority (so don't expect to see it anytime soon). The idea is that they are equivalent to what a map-mod can do, but can be applied to any vanilla (no modified rules) map. They could be automatically downloaded from the resource site in the same way that custom maps are now. The main goal is to cut down on the number of maps that just take an existing map and then overlay custom rules, which really annoys some of our hard-working map authors.

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Nuttah
Nuttah - - 1,201 comments

Left clicking? Again? Awww yesss! It's pretty much the reason I can't properly get into playing this, I think. RMB just feels wrong.

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Nikolyn
Nikolyn - - 99 comments

You and me both.

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Nerus87
Nerus87 - - 36 comments

What would be next Renegade or Generals on new engine ? :)

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Olku_
Olku_ - - 2,074 comments

Renegade x

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Milanium Author
Milanium - - 453 comments

Rogue Republic may be an upcoming Generals inspired game. According to Indiedb.com they have switched from the Open Source Pyrogenisis engine to proprietary Unity though.

We are also highlighing the excellent Renegade-x.com a lot on our social media channels.

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ApornasPlanet
ApornasPlanet - - 4,117 comments

It would be super fun if you had a game mode without level cap for units. So that a unit can level up indefinitely instead of just three levels as in vanila.

Also another fun thing would be to allow turrets and even buildings to gain levels as time goes by. Optional of course.

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hellodean
hellodean - - 1,451 comments

i look forward to seeing the improvements that can be done in tib sun, could garrisoning be introduce?
putting rifle and rocket troops in a building could be pretty useful

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Nuttah
Nuttah - - 1,201 comments

Also, since we're already going there; Garrisonable buildables, pliiis?

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hellodean
hellodean - - 1,451 comments

actually yeah that would be good, would love to be able to build bunkers,
or a variant of the component tower that uses an advanced version of whatever infantry steps inside like the ifv

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Nuttah
Nuttah - - 1,201 comments

Sqveeee, Bonkers! ^^ Or at least a couple ol' fashioned TS-ified Watchtowers, mayhaps? Hey, we're already brainstorming Forgotten ideas here! :D

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Milanium Author
Milanium - - 453 comments

We have an attack trait in place that does that and is currently used for the allied pill box, but it won't work for buildings not owned by the player yet. See Github.com for details.

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Nuttah
Nuttah - - 1,201 comments

I...I forgot about those. >_> Yes, I don't play enough.
Could you already make a pillbox fit more units? Mechanically, I mean.

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Templarfreak
Templarfreak - - 6,721 comments

Ermahgawd that TS progress. <3

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Mernom
Mernom - - 718 comments

For the dune 2000 mod, is there a cash reward for killing sandworms? It's possible to make them really hard to kill with a large reward, or even give you a penalty for killing them... Just sayin'
Also, like the new interface

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Milanium Author
Milanium - - 453 comments

No, there is no cash bounty for sandworms. They spawn again after you "killed" or let's say "drove them away".

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