Dawn of the Tiberium Age (DTA) is a stand-alone mod that combines Tiberian Dawn (C&C 95) and Red Alert using the Tiberian Sun engine. The project's aim is to allow people to both play and mod TD and RA, while having all of the benefits of the TS engine.
All 4 factions (GDI, Nod, Allies, and Soviet) of the original games are included and can simultaneously battle one another on over 100 original multiplayer maps. This can be done either in classic mode (which matches the balance of TD and RA1 as closely as possible) or enhanced mode (which adds many new features and competitive balance improvements).
DTA also features dozens of challenging, unique singleplayer missions as well as co-op missions that can be easily played over the community-driven CnCNet online service.
Since this is a stand-alone mod, you don't require anything but the mod itself to be able to play: the original game is not required.
This mod is still actively being worked on, so you can expect frequent updates and if you find any bugs, please report them so that we can fix them as soon as possible.
Faction info:
GDI - Nod - Allies - Soviet
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Articles
We've been somewhat quiet this year. A peek at our change log page however reveals that despite our laziness with writing news posts, we haven't been just idling; we've released 11 updates this year. These updates have focused more on improving and optimizing the game engine, balance, and our existing content rather than pumping out new maps and missions. We are, however, also working on new playable content that we hope to release with an update closer to Christmas. But let's first go over the most important changes in our smaller updates this year. We'll only cover the most significant changes. For smaller changes you can check out the full change log.
Balance
The Sea Shadow and Soviet Ekranoplan weapons were reworked. The Sea Shadow now has a cluster missile that splits early, while the Soviet Ekranoplan is no longer an aicraft carrier but only fires missiles instead. The Behemoth was found somewhat too game-deciding, so its rate of fire was lowered while the spread of its flames was increased. This makes it more of an option to dodge its projectiles and avoid the damage with fast units, while it still deals a lot of damage when it hits, with the flames further increasing the damage through their damage-over-time effect. We also made its elite weapon more interesting with chemical flames.
Technical
In the original game's multiplayer, the map was always revealed when you died. This was bad for co-op missions as the reveal could spoil missions, and it also made it possible to spoil team-based PvP matches like 2v2s and 3v3s, as one dead player could tell their teammate about the other team's forces. Now the map is only revealed in FFA games and regular (non-mission) co-op games.
dkeeton and FunkyFr3sh of CnCNet have worked hard on improving the TS-DDRAW renderer, which now finally solves all performance and menu visibility issues for most people. Performance of online games has also been improved significantly through enhancements to the game engine's networking code. Speaking of online games, we've also had a decent number of people online lately.
We also found a critical bug in the game engine that made it reset the difficulty level of a mission to Normal whenever you re-started a non-campaign mission. In other words, if you've played DTA's singleplayer missions, they've possibly been either significantly harder or easier than intended, depending on which difficulty level you selected. This is fixed now. Talking of singleplayer missions, we've also added 3 new missions since DTA 1.16's release last year: Drive's remakes of Sarin Gas 1 and 2 were added in last December, while Morpher's East Asian Front was added in last weekend's update.
There's also the usual bunch of smaller client and game engine updates.
Mapping
Mappers have got new terrain to play with; the temperate platform tile set now has ramps and smaller variants of Nooze's big crater have been added. The interior theater has been expanded with an interior platform tile set, and creating interior areas has been made easier with visible shadows for interior wall pieces in the map editor. We've also made road endings that lead into a cave.
Future updates
We reached the 8th place in MOTY voting last year. We never really got around to thanking you for it, so here it goes: thank you! It was a really great and unexpected surprise, and we got there thanks to your votes.
Despite our silence and these updates we've also been working on more things behind the scenes. I've personally spent more time studying the TS game engine with other CnCNet team members, which makes fixing bugs and implementing new functionality easier in the future. We've also been working on new maps, missions and co-op missions, which we hope we can deliver to you with a larger update near Christmas.
Stay tuned for more updates during the coming weeks! Or if you'd rather prefer an alternative news source and discussion forum, you can also reach out to us in our new official Discord channel on CnCNet's server: Discord.gg
DTA 1.16 Release Time
News 6 commentsIt's December 1st, which of course means that DTA version 1.16 will be released today like we announced in our previous news posts.
DTA 1.16 Game Engine and Client Improvements
News 7 commentsAlongside new content and gameplay changes, DTA 1.16 also includes several improvements to the game engine and client.
DTA 1.16 Gameplay Changes
News 14 commentsDTA version 1.16's release on December 1st will come with a large number of gameplay changes, of which I'll cover the most notable ones here.
DTA 1.16 Release Date
News 7 commentsDTA 1.16 will be released on December 1st. Expect to see a lot more updates within the next 3 weeks!
Files
Dawn of the Tiberium Age Installer
Full Version 4 commentsThis installer will automatically download and install the latest version of Dawn of the Tiberium Age for you (the original games are not required).
Dawn of the Tiberium Age v1.178
Full Version 1 commentThis is the full version of Dawn of the Tiberium Age v1.178: all files necessary to play are included, so you also don't need to have the original game...
Dawn of the Tiberium Age v1.176
Full Version 6 commentsThis is the full version of Dawn of the Tiberium Age v1.176: all files necessary to play are included, so you also don't need to have the original game...
Dawn of the Tiberium Age v1.175
Full Version 3 commentsThis is the full version of Dawn of the Tiberium Age v1.175: all files necessary to play are included, so you also don't need to have the original game...
Dawn of the Tiberium Age v1.174
Full VersionThis is the full version of Dawn of the Tiberium Age v1.174: all files necessary to play are included, so you also don't need to have the original game...
Dawn of the Tiberium Age v1.173
Full Version 7 commentsThis is the full version of Dawn of the Tiberium Age v1.173: all files necessary to play are included, so you also don't need to have the original game...
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Highest Rated (13 agree) 9/10
The Dawn of the Tiberium Age: ****: Look For the Dawn Dawn of the Tiberium Ages (DTA) is a Tiberian sun mod that looks to recreate the game that started it all, Tiberian Dawn. In that regard, DTA is a massive success, with the mod capturing the look, spirit and feel of the original game. It does not stop there however, as DTA takes Tiberian Dawn to the next level, including skirmish modes and online support for fans. Graphically, DTA mimics it's ancestral father perfectly, the charmingly simple…
May 20 2012 by TheReviewer
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Some things that came up during gameplay:
1. If you try to repair a Chinook carrying infantry, the Chinook lands on the Repair Pad but doesn't repair, and prevents any other vehicle from repairing unless you drop off the infantry and manually give the infantry unit it was carrying a new command. In addition the infantry sprite can be seen sticking out from behind the helicopter.
1a. While the Chinook's icon says "Transport" the tooltip for it is "Chinook", I'm not sure if this matches the original games or if it was named the generic "Transport Helicopter".
2. Is it possible for Soviet infantry units to have the Red Alert 1 Soviet voices?
3. When Submarines are detected by enemy defenses, the sound that plays is the stealth uncloak sound rather than the surfacing sound from RA1, is it possible for them to have the unique sound?
4. What was the reason for naval production buildings repair ability from the past being removed?
5. The Soviets can get Medium and Light Tanks and a Flak Hovercraft when using Starting Reinforcements.
6. Is it possible for an infantry transport ship to function if foot units and said ship shared the ability to traverse shore tiles?
1. that's an engine issue. To prevent having 2 helis, one able to carry a vehicle, the other only infantry, the current way is the best possible, with some sideeffects like the ones you've noticed.
2. yes, that's surely fixed a near future version
3. again a TS engine issue. There is only one Cloak sound definable.
4. When each side got a repair ship, the naval yards got their repair removed. The naval yard repair wasn't working that well in the first place, since naval yards didn't automatically stop repairing when a unit was fully repaired.
5. again engine limitation. Starting reinforcements are the same for all sides.
6. yes, an infantry transport ship (using amphibious pathfinding) is possible. We thought it not useful enough and only confusing for RA1 players when such a ship wouldn't be able to transport vehicles as well (engine limitation). Thus naval transports were skipped entirely.
There are also some other issues like bad pathfinding for such amphibious units and that this ship would be able to move on land (only visually plausible for the TD hovercraft, not for the RA1 naval transport)
Thanks for the answers.
Has there been any experiments to recreate the Spy Plane / GPS Satellite abilities from RA? Maybe using a special deployable unit like the Chrono Tank or using the Hunter-Seeker with a large sight radius, or maybe some sort of superweapon logic to reveal a target area?
Is there a way to disable Carryall units like the Chinook from automatically dropping off their cargo when they reach their destination? I noticed that when the Chinook is landed, it drops off infantry much faster than the 1 by 1 drop it normally does. It would make landing them a lot less awkward.
Would a Sea Repair Pad for naval units have been functional or was there some engine limitation on it?
The Spy Plane could maybe be remade with Drop Pods, but it might not be beneficial for the balance as it is. It could fit better with a bigger support power addition, and the engine really limits our possibilities for that.
IIRC the TS engine has a leftover of the GPS satellite logic left, it is used for map reveal / reshroud crates. With some effort I could _possibly_ toggle it on when a specific building is built (and off when a specific building is destroyed). But we'd also have to consider the balance with that; it'd basically make scouting less important for the Allies, especially on large maps.
The Chinook dropping off infantry one-by-one is indeed rather annoying, and it could be avoided with a separate infantry transport. I don't think it's fixable.
I'm not entirely certain if a naval repair bay is doable, but I think so. We decided on implementing repair ships instead though.
The map reveal logic is pretty bugged as well(*), so i wouldn't advice using this.
(*) it removes the shroud shp, but doesn't really set the terrain as "scouted", why explosions and other animations are still invisible until a unit really moved there and scouted the area.
Cool would be if a NavSat changes the black shroud into the fog of war transparent shroud for allies. So they can see the terrain but still have to scout to see the enemy.
This would also come closer to a Navigation Satellite, which is no enemy detector satellite.
Are infantry airtransports fixed already? IIRC there is still the issue left, where passengers can be "unloaded" when docked on a helipad, making the passengers disappear (and with shortgame off, impossible to lose for this player).
I think the current way is really the only one right now which doesn't involves game breaking issues.
The CnCNet spawner fixes the infantry airtransports.
A separate infantry transport could be one of the transport planes like the Badger or the C-17 from TD, but when I asked Bittah before (for another reason, paradrops) he said the Badger was too big to fit on any of the buildings (which I found to be true) and I don't think the C-17 has a voxel version. In addition they can't be loaded while landed on a building.
There also seems to be a shadowing glitch when you try to paradrop a vehicle with the dummy weapon trick, where it goes out of position. Though that wouldn't be an issue for an infantry transport, along with the parachute sprite being too small.
Is not enough known about the part of the game logic for Carryall landings? They can sit on the ground while loaded when picking a unit up, but not afterward.
I haven't really looked into the carryall logic, but I'd guess it's fairly complex to the point that it'd take me quite a while to really figure out how it works (which means it's not worth it).
Based on some logging that the game does when performing carryall-related actions, I'd guess it also took Westwood some effort to get it right. And that's with full access to their own, freshly written and commented source code.
Oh and i forgot to ask, will it be also possible one day to allow AIs to assist in coop? So like if I didnt have internet or the like Id be able to still use the COOP maps
You can play coop with AIs if you host your own LAN or CnCNet game. Note that the AI doesn't understand mission objectives, and it also can't handle many of the situations it's thrown into in missions. That means that while the AI will be of help in some missions, in many others it'll just charge brainlessly into the enemy and get itself killed.
You'll really find the experience better with other human players. So if it's possible, I really recommend asking some friends for a game or looking for people on CnCNet. I'm personally playing there once or twice a week and know several other people who do so as well.