gulyas

So SE development is back on, not in the directions I intended, but time and involvement varies a lot lately.

Anyway, with all the new voxels added, it was time for new maps, and to that end, I've been converting or reimagining some existing maps from the gazillion download bundles. Honestly I have a poor opinion of most older maps, so finding a few good ideas to remake is a challenge in itself. Below are some previews of the recent remakes, and a new 2v2 urban map taking advantage of SE's expanded urban assets/terrain.

Ideally I'd like gameplay feedback if anyone here is willing to try out the mod, or re-visit if it has been some time, but even just visual assessments are welcome!

If you care to watch the AI sometimes kick my ass...  https://www.twitch.tv/athse/

Truthfully the playtests are more to get a sense of balance changes, or to see animation frequency, or even just to see how the AI builds/attacks on a new map.

I'm not playing aggressively to win, in many cases I'm allowing the AI to get a head start to see how badly/lazily I can play and still recover, which isn't always succcessful! haha

...

My usual testing time is like 11pm EST, but I'll be on and off randomly. Maybe some of you will give the mod a go and have some useful feedback, anything thoughts on the AI or maps is welcome.

Also do let me know if the streaming quality is ok, I've heard mixed opinions and not sure if I need to fiddle with anything.

These aren't the only ones, another dozen or so coming in the skyscraper category, and additional small shops and strip malls coming too...

Ignore the tumor on the shadow bottom right, that's been fixed

Permalink: https://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai

So over the past 2 months, SE has been minimally altered, except as a response to updating the Allied missions. The Allied missions got major overhauls, in several cases the path to victory has been changed or expanded, in almost all cases the maps have been significantly enlarged, and more importantly, the mission times have generally increased. This batch of mission updates shouldn't be seen as permanent, more as the first pass of updates. The goal is to get all the missions above 25min par times, ideally with more detours or "side missions" that might help you win.

Of course part of the remastering has to do with enhancing all the maps with SE specific terrain, buildings, decorations and such, which will be felt as much as seen during gameplay. The urban maps have received the largest transformations due to the SE urban terrain being the most extensive, but in the case of winter maps, just the addition of dozens of new snowy trees has made a huge difference as well. Some of the mission maps have received what might be seen as irrelevant changes, but again it's just a rough draft, playing with ideas.

Currently only 1 through 11 work, with 12 remaining broken pending a solution to crashing. Soviet missions are broken due to a crash just after loading mission 1, and somethng that will be dealt with after the Allied missions are completed.

A playthrough recording of mission 1 can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ-P0KWJetk

Any and all feedback, opinions, criticism, swearing etc is welcome! ModDB doesn't seem to inspire people to comment.

There's been so many little updates it would be impossible to list, but it's rock solid, has a bunch of interesting maps, several game modes, and a seriously brutal AI system. The tech trees are entirely different to RA2, there's new buildings inserted, and the YR capurable neutral techs have been repurposed to unlock even more units (rather than their unavailable functions) to give you a wealth of options.

For bare knuckles deathmatch with another human, the War of Attrition game mode disallows engineers and spies... there's also Ground War (aka Meatgrinder) that disallows navy and airforce, but hovering units like Kirovs and Rocketeers are still allowed.

Maps have all received attention regarding ambience, all new sounds and animals to add that extra immersiveness, in the brief moments you get to scout around between apocalyptic battles.

Although the mod requires RA2 and not YR, renaming most YR winter and temperate maps to .mpr will work flawlessly, as all the YR sounds and updates to the arctic terrain (such as ice cliffs) have been included. Only in the case of some advanced map scripting or use of non-existant buildings could cause it to choke, most likely. The urban terrain has been extensively revised and updated, one of the core features of the mod, so existing RA2 and YR urban maps will be hit or miss depending how they were drawn, many of the rubble tiles were repurposed for better things for example, and buildings with zero strength should be used instead.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/scorched-earth-ra2-mod-with-smart-ai/downloads