New Horizons Version 12A Full Release news

Greetings fellow Command & Conquer fans; I release now the latest version of the New Horizons mod for Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge, that being Version 12A (which supersedes Version 12). Unlike Version 12, which was a major update, this is a fairly minor one, though still important. As always, I highly recommend reading the articles on the previous releases to learn more about what’s new, should you be interested.

What’s New

Previously, with the release of Version 12, I introduced the 3^rd new playable country, this time added to the Allied/NATO faction. That country of course was Turkey, which has the 2^nd largest army of the NATO members, and is also a host country for U.S. nuclear weapons; making it an obvious choice that logically should be included. With the addition of Turkey, it was the first playable country to get it’s own unique development choices, which again, if you haven’t read the previous article, meant choosing between constructing two different foreign embassies, each offering their own perks (but cancelling each other out; so you could only choose one or the other!).

I decided to give all the existing playable countries more of their own unique technological development options, starting (in no particular order) with Britain. Now if you choose to play as Britain, you will eventually have the option to build a Biological Weapons Research Facility, which will of course allow you to engage in biochemical warfare. The new structure has been loosely modelled on the actual biological weapons lab based on the now-infamous Porton Down in Salisbury, England. A few years ago, in March 2018, an ex-Russian spy and his daughter were allegedly poisoned with ‘novichok’, which up until that point was supposedly one of the most deadly substances ever made, except in this case neither of the afflicted died (and interestingly, the same accusation of poisoning with novichok against Russian opposition politician Navalny was made, despite him of course Not dying, and moreover being fit enough and cleared for voluntarily leaving Russia by plane to the EU to be seen by a doctor there). The British government (and it’s allies) immediately accused the Russian government (an accusation that has been denied), despite providing no viable evidence (that said, the whole saga and accusation was very dubious to begin with, including a lack of motive by the Russian government to carry out an elaborate poisoning of an ex-spy that had settled for years in Britain). Meanwhile, quite conveniently, the Porton Down bio-weapons lab was sitting just a couple of miles away down the road, which may or may not have been a coincidence.

Here is the new structure in game;

The cameo (icon for building it) was modelled on the real building too.

Biowarfare Agent

Once you have built a Biological Weapons Research Facility, you will be able to train a new infantry; the biowarfare agent. This unit is very unique, and the only one of it’s kind so far. Similarly to a spy, if you target an enemy infantry, he will disguise as an enemy unit. Once disguised, it is possible to infiltrate into enemy bases. Instead of spying on buildings however, this agent can break canisters of highly-potent biochemical materials on solid objects; that is, various buildings and vehicles, which will then unleash the rapidly-spreading deadly gases over the immediate area. Don’t worry, the biowarfare agent has special protective clothing and breathing apparatus and therefore is immune; so there won’t be any suicide-by-deployment. Beware however, that the use of such weaponry does not discriminate in whom it affects; any unit that isn’t immune to such weaponry, especially most infantry types (regardless of which house owns them) will succumb quite quickly. Additionally, once an infantry type has been killed by this substance, it will have fully reacted, morphing into the more familiar poisonous cloud of gas that you may see as a result of the Yuri faction’s Virus sniper. Also bear in mind that as with any spy in a disguise, some units aren’t easily fooled by the disguise (such as dogs). If an enemy infantry spots your unit, and it’s around the corner of a building, you may have the chance to deploy the weapon as part of covering a retreat; possibly killing the pursuer, and buying time for another disguise.

Here is a screenshot of the agent in use;

BMC 350 Kirpi Updated

In the previous version, the BMC 350 Kirpi, a Turkish M.R.A.P. (which I talked about in the previous release) was made available, with just a standard base paint. I’ve decided to implement a real-life camouflage that the Turkish army uses on it, as seen in occupied northern Syria, where the Turkish army are embedded with the likes of Hayat-Tahrir-al-Sham/Al-Nusra/Nour-al-Din-al-Zenky etc. (various terrorist groups that currently control Idlib region).

Here is the new paint job in-game;

Here is the real camouflage it’s based on;

I hope any Turkish players appreciate my efforts replicating it.

Fixes

I’m pleased to have fixed 2 issues that I had not known about before:

The first being with the Allied/NATO M1126 Stryker ICV. The problem was, that you could Unload infantry from these vehicles, but couldn’t Load them in! Mindblowing, I know, almost like the old question of what came first, the chicken or the egg; how would I know if, I couldn’t get them in the vehicle to begin with, right? Well for those whom are new to the mod, I use one of the new features provided by Ares, which gives the option to build vehicles pre-loaded with infantry. Anyway, the issue is now fixed; infantry no longer have an issue leaving or entering these vehicles.

The second issue was a result of the previous update, allowing Turkey to produce exported Russian Mig-29’s (complete with their own unique Turkish makeover). The problem was, this version was supposed to be exclusive to Turkey, but ended up being available as a duplicate for the Soviet/CSTO faction countries. This issue has now been sorted.

Miscellaneous:

Last but not least, the mysterious Miscellaneous changes; various light debugging, and neatening of code/files has been done, as per usual, and of course I had to teach the AI how to use the new assets.

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
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