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Read the reasons why we can't put the cruiser in a little harder.

Traffic! Ranger rush! Arty rush

Just a note for the future of this thread: Starting here, would you guys mind putting your images inside spoiler tags? The thread is getting to that point where its starting to lag just a bit and if we start "spoilering" all of the images now, it prevents great horrible lag in the future In case you don't know how, it works like this: [spoiler] yourImageAttachmentGoesHere.jpg [/spoiler] And if you can't figure it out, I'll help you out. No worries Thanks guys! Also, I love all the shots!

Why? Just because RA did it? I'd rather go with the option that won't leave 95% of the player base asking "why am I not able to hurt this helicopter that I am clearly able to hit?" and continuing to ineffectually shoot helicopters expecting it to work like it logically should ESPECIALLY with non-bullet weapons. Making defenses only target them when they're on the ground is not possible. They can either be able to aim at VTOLs all the time or they can't. And even if it was, adding it would have practically no effect on the gameplay because in what situations are people actually going to bring an air unit that low to shoot at a defense, except against Tesla Coils, which need to be unable to shoot Longbows for them to be balanced? How is it "needed"? Just because rifle soldiers are able to do more than 0 damage to air units does not mean they are a good counter to them. First of all, "RA balanced". Pfft. The most you ever had to do was build a power plant, refinery, war factory, and then build refineries and war factories ad nauseum. The situations that actually encouraged you to build any further than that (getting barracks, helipads, radar domes, tech centres, or superweapons) were far too scarce to be considered "balanced". Second, the Gamma version of this game (2011-2015) had a tiering system where the tech levels gradually unlocked over time (i.e. in the first 3 minutes you could only build infantry, then for 4 minutes afterwards the only vehicles were rangers and light/heavy tanks, etc) which was somewhat close to that. It was such a horribly unfun design choice that it drove almost all the players away. I will not bring back a feature that nobody (who knows what they're talking about) wants and has been proven to be a bad feature.

Also to even build an MCV you would need to start with a war factory, and to acquire the money to build one you would need to start with a refinery (or a silo but that takes longer and is less engaging because it involves protecting something that's inside your base rather than outside). So the end result of this is that you have to spend time and resources on unlocking infantry, air and naval, but not tanks or resource gathering. Infantry, air and naval would have to be pretty damn overpowered to encourage people to actually unlock them instead of just massing the war factory units that they can build right at the start, at the time when they would in fact be most useful because there would be no defenses to slow them down and no engineers to quick-repair buildings.

Alternatively we could not make such a major alteration to the core gameplay because it works fine the way it is and the effort required for that massively outweighs whatever potential reward could come of it. Did nobody get the memo about how major development is over so anything that requires spending ages completely redefining the core gameplay will not happen?

+1 for ranger rush. I heard MPRA2 was complaining about OP arties during a stormy valley match... looks like this was it. OP arties on a map where hinds exist. What a laugh. Little hint, if one team is using teamwork and the other team is being discouraged by defeatists, the teamwork team probably doesn't even need good units to trash the other one.

Back in BHP there were these ideas floating around, to have multiple people controlling the different turrets (same for MK2 in Reborn). Personally I'm not really in such a favor but let's say the cruiser would be only a map prop (not a unit) as a special feature on a map, then fine. Anyways everything still falls down to "we don't have the model" and "it can't be a normal unit anyway for every occasion due to reasons".

Wasn't there a crazy map of some sort back then where units didn't do what they were supposed to do? I believe you're referring to the .9935 test maps Yes they exist

Sounds like a job for Eggman891

Ahhh, another variation of the age-old question with accompanying discussion has emerged once again! Reading this did give me an idea though. Why not (for a joke or even a LOLtest) redo all the balance of everything in APB to match RA 1-for-1? Mine layers automagically "do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself a-north", and make the tanya able to do walk-by's on buildings (with the one-second grace period of course), remove captains, kapitans, sergeants, starshinas, soviet RPG trooper, anything else we've added, make all rifle soldiers shoot in very slow 5 round (pop-op-op-op-op) firing patterns without them ever having to reload....Oh and be sure to bring back the olympic grenadiers that can kill anything from anywhere! EDIT: forgot to remove snipers

I'm sure I lost my copy of Generals/ZH, pesky physical game files! Nice to see a release of this nonetheless. I remember trying this mod ages ago when Generals was still fresh. I think I've out-grown the RTS gameplay however (fancy talk for saying I'm sure I suck at it).

Sorry, i'll keep it in mind

Player-controlled base building is fun in theory until you learn one fundamental lesson from it: Players are terrible architects and each map would look like a 6 year old was playing with LEGO blocks in it. You'd have defenses pile up everywhere, cause performance issues, and grind gameplay into a stalemate on every map that had the functionality enabled. It'd also be a massive departure from APB core gameplay, to the point where not even I would consider adding it to any map.

On Tech Centers: The original design intent prior and during my time on the team for this, was that it would work similar to the Missile Silo and provide two different support flares for each team. As far as I can remember, it'd be AI paratroopers and parabombs for the Soviets at different recharge timers and costs, and two other things for the Allies that I cannot remember at all anymore (Edit: I think off-shore Cruiser bombardement was the parabomb counter). This never came to be, like many things. I'm not sure if any of the once-planned content has ever been properly documented... A lack of documentation always bugged me during my time on the BHP team. Edit: Basically they would have been mini super-weapons primarily for maps with no Missile Silo, and nothing that would one-shot any primary buildings. I think such use of Tech Centers would actually work in Delta, especially when setting up parabombs/cruiser shell impacts to deal heavy damage to map objectives/key locations like bridges. They'd also be a decent "credits sink" on high-economy maps.

Just a note that APB's previous version, Gamma already tried a gradually unlocking technology system, which in time would act similar to the "let's build structures before we can build better units" and it basicly killed the playerbase.

We go by the assumption that in the high tech maps, the player bought the tech center and then sold them. Because that was possible in RA, and yes, it kept all the tech from that building. Only RA2 implemented the concept of "requiring the building to stay alive"

"RA-lism" balance was tried for a while in older versions. Long story short, it didn't work and wasn't very fun. Look at APB as a game that is based on Red Alert, not as a complete copy. Besides, when I play APB, I find it difficult to not see it as a Red Alert inspired game, simply from the units alone. It just uses it's own set of balance changes and game additions that make sense to have in a shooter game setting. Even Westwood couldn't copy paste Tiberian Dawn for Renegade (although likely for different reasons than why APB didn't copy paste RA balance). Edit: The bottom line: Fun over RA-lism.

Okay I'm just going to stop you right there and list some of the problems with balancing everything the way it works in the original game: Soviet Tanyas that the Allies have little defense against due to not having AP mines. Even the Soviets have little defense against Tanyas anyway, because APCs can trigger AP mines harmlessly by either firing one bullet at their vehicle-sized hitbox or even driving over them. Tanyas that, in addition to massacring all infantry in one shot, outrange all other infantry. Tanyas/Engineers that just have to tag the wall of a building from the outside once to instantly damage/capture/fully repair it (engineer) or give it a godly one second grace period before it dies (tanya). Volkov with several thousand HP and concrete armour. Fair! Technicians that might as well not even be armed because it took what, 50 hits against a non-prone soldier to kill them? Aircraft being invulnerable to all but a very small number of units, despite the fact that all infantry and most vehicles are very capable of looking up and firing up (which we can't prevent on infantry) That "small number of units" doesn't even include other aircraft. Dogfighting certainly works out nicely in this game, why remove it just because it wasn't in RA? Ore Silos that don't actually do anything because a credit limit is not a thing that exists here. V2s killing buildings in 2-3 hits. Way too fast to actually deal with them. MAD Tanks that take about 10 seconds to detonate. Again, way too fast to actually deal with them. Missile Subs that can kill some buildings in one salvo. DEFINITELY way too fast to deal with them even if you could see them coming. Artillery that barely even has enough range to safely hit flame towers. Tesla Tanks that outrange Artillery AND kill them in one shot. Because RA Artillery apparently weren't useless enough just lacking the ability to outrange Tesla Coils. APCs that move faster than Rangers. What's even the point of Rangers then? Especially since being ~true to C&C~ also means giving every vehicle the same sized hitbox rather than hitboxes that make sense? Phase Tanks either not existing, or having passenger slots. Destroyers that do everything that Gunboats do but better. What's even the point of Gunboats then? Mine Layers that are OCD and must face exactly north and be temporarily locked in place every time they place a mine. No sergeants/captains = little variety in infantry. And no snipers = no way to fight them at range... not that that would matter with RA balance because... Infantry that exist only to die, because they're all useless except engies/tanyas/volkov, and even then they need a transport to not suck because they're all too slow to avoid being crushed by anything. Except Volkov who is practically unkillable by design. No barracks = no infantry units at all. Which would probably mean having to make it so you don't even respawn when you die. Fun! Vehicles can't be driven by anyone other than rifle soldiers. Which, to be fair, is probably one of the less unreasonable changes that could be made... except it'd be a big step backwards with regards to making infantry useful, and would be a MASSIVE nerf to the Allies due to mechanics. A nerf which they really don't need considering it is very possible for Soviets to win games in the face of LOLOPMECHS. In the end there's only a very small number of ground units per team that matter: medium tanks and Tanya APCs for Allies, and heavy tanks and V2s for Soviets. Or just Volkovs and nothing but if we're going with the "Volkov is mary sue" interpretation. Everything else is fluff. Red Alert is not a balanced game. Trying to mimic its balance will make APB unfun. There's a reason OpenRA changed things. And there are ways of maintaining the feel that don't involve breaking the balance.

Don't mind me, I'm just Easter egg harvesting. (i know it's a poorly done avatar)

Sorry for offtopic but this sounds damn funny. Delta's gamma being too high.