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Another patch has been released! Get more information and the changelist in the full update! Red Alert: A Path Beyond Update There were some problems with the initial patch delivery; if you attempted to install before this post and failed, try again. Hey everyone! Another patch has just been pushed to the launcher and server based on your feedback! Changelist GENERAL Thieves, Flamethrowers and Minelayers have been moved down from Tech Level 3 to 2. Tech Level 1 now has the same units available that Tech Level 2 previously did. This is to provide more flexibility for future maps; previously TL1 was basically wasted space as it only had the units that are available without a barracks. INFANTRY Added Clearing Charges for Engineers. These are small timed explosives used for destroying mines; they do nothing to hard targets and don't do much to infantry, but they are actually better at mine clearing than regular C4 due to their 25% higher damage radius and 3-second timer. They also deal moderate damage to hedgehogs and bridge segments (10 destroy a bridge segment, 2 destroy a hedgehog). Engineers carry 3 of these at a time and can restock with a supply truck just like with C4. Raised throwing velocity of C4 from 10m/s to 15m/s. Grenadier and Frag Grenade have been overhauled: ROF decreased from 1 / 1.67 secs to 1 / 2 secs. Gravity effect down from 1.5 to 1. Targeting range up from 100 to 125; this is very accurate to the distance it can cover before it explodes. Splash radius up from 8 to 10. Splash damage is now unaffected by distance just like Shock Rifle splash (i.e. as long as something is within the splash radius, it will always take maximum damage, there is no falloff). Uses Timed C4 logic (3 second timer), so it is not prone to the problems that normally affect sticky projectiles and can stick on vehicles and infantry too. (C4 logic prevents the weapon from having a secondary fire, so don't expect to see one. This is also why it's not going on Volknades.) Can be disarmed by repair tools. (Protip: throw them into unreachable positions. This is much easier to do when outdoors.) Damage type is now separate from the Destroyer/Missile Sub type (required since C4 weapons cannot have direct damage). The main changes are that the grenade's damage to buildings is up somewhat (DPS is now comparable to Volktillery) and damage to naval units is way up (DPS is now comparable to Redeye/Strela except it also hurts submerged). Long story short, the grenade is now more reliable at splashing infantry in the field, and is essentially a weaker on-foot Artillery against buildings, but in close quarters you run a greater risk of hurting yourself, and give enemies a chance to get out of the way due to the timer. Grenadier health down from 60 to 50. Grenadier price up from 160 to 500. Grenadier credit yield up from 32 to 100. Grenadier kill points up from 37.5 to 50. Grenadier no longer explodes on death. Grenadier now has a limited-ammo Makarov for close-range backup. VEHICLES Gunboat cannon damage down from 50 to 45. Gunboat cannon velocity down from 300m/s to 150m/s. Depth Charge damage down from 120 to 90. Depth Charge actually hurts ground vehicles now (assuming they're daft enough to take a dive). Destroyer/Missile Sub damage to heavy vehicle armour up by 33% (0.75 -> 1). Destroyer/Missile Sub damage to super-heavy vehicle armour up by 100% (0.5 -> 1). Destroyer/Missile Sub splash radius up from 12.5 to 15. Gunboats and Destroyers now behave like wheeled vehicles with rear-wheel steering. This allows them to turn much faster and their top speed is higher, but they cannot turn without accelerating anymore. Mammoth Tank regen up from 3 to 5. Mammoth Tank missile velocity up from 100m/s to 200m/s. Mammoth Tank missile splash radius up from 10 to 12. Mammoth Tank missiles arc up 60 degrees like the Missile Sub ones, making them easier to use against infantry on hills and nearby aircraft. Longbow missile velocity up from 100m/s to 200m/s. Longbow damage to Heavy vehicles up by 12.5% (0.8 -> 0.9, same as Mammoth vehicles) Hind damage to main structures down by 20% (0.125 -> 0.1) Adjusted light/med/heavy/mammoth vertical turret traverse restrictions to affect their ability to target aircraft (Light is better, others worse) BUILDINGS Missile Silo's damage warnings are correct now. Missile Silo no longer provides (unusable) flares after its destruction. Removed Tesla Coil's anti-infantry splash damage of 6.25 (effectively 37.5 in a full burst) so it is able to hurt and kill less infantry in one burst. (Taking a full blast is still almost certain death even for Tanya.) AESTHETICS MCT glass now properly gives off glass effects at <25% health. Mended a bunch of infantrys' broken forearms (Soviet Rifle, Grenadier, both Snipers). RPG Trooper is now based on Grenadier's model. All infantry have had their first-person hand/sleeve textures updated to reflect their actual models (except Allied rifles, Soviet engineers and Volkov who were already accurate) MAP CHANGES RA_AS_Seamist: Removed pillbox directly in front of the Radar Dome. RA_CamosCanyon: Fixed floaty trees. RA_CoastalInfluence: Moved Allied refinery back 5m to render it a little less vulnerable to V2s. RA_CoastalInfluence: Propped bridge-side defenses up on platforms/rocks to make them more capable of hitting units on the bridge. RA_CoastalInfluence: Arty/V2 Spam Peninsula has now been turned into an island; both teams have to cross a bridge to get on it. RA_CoastalInfluence: Tesla Coil downgraded to 2 Flame Towers. RA_CoastalInfluence: Added destructible hedgehogs to the Arty Spam Island, which will have to be destroyed for vehicles to advance. RA_CoastalInfluence: Added a cliff line on the south side of the lagoon to make it harder to spot enemies approaching on the long land route. RA_CoastalInfluence: Fog thickened from 300/450 to 200/300. RA_Complex: Removed concrete walls shielding ore fields. RA_Complex: Shrunk ore fields so trucks have to travel a little further. RA_Fissure: Tech Level down from 5 to 2. RA_GuardDuty: Tech Level down from 2 to 1 (no change since TL1 is now the same as what 2 was before). RA_PacificThreat: Removed one ore silo per team, and upgraded the existing one to a double-income one. So the economy is more vulnerable to destruction but less vulnerable to thieves. RA_StormyValley: Fixed vehicles being able to climb the central hills. RA_Wasteland: Fixed Barracks targeting. RA_Wasteland: Fixed a bunch of multimaterials, should improve performance Get to the launcher and grab the patch! Be on the lookout for more updates, and we hope to see you on the battlefield!

The power plants in APB don't need to correspond exactly to the way they were in RA1. I mean, in regular Renegade you had a power plant supporting a Refinery, Hand of Nod, Airfield, and an Obelisk. Could it do that in TD? No. But for the sake of gameplay and simplicity, just assume it can. Otherwise you'd have to have two advanced power plants to support your two Tesla Coils on KotG, or a whole lot more regular ones...either of which would clutter up the map and be impossible to defend.

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Vehicle Destruction - You know how when boats and subs get destroyed, you get ejected out and the vehicle lingers for a minute before exploding? And how helis don't explode right away either? I really like this mechanic. Is there an easy way to implement this for land vehicles too? Mine Limit - Was Soviets on pipeline today when some n00b decided to AP mine the heck out of EVERYTHING in base. Unfortunately the mine limit was hit and we could not longer mine oil rigs offensively. In renegade old mines disappear when new mines above the mine limit are laid. Can there be a similar mechanic to address the problem above? Thanks PushWall for reading this, I know you have limited time/resource.

... There's also a nice mechanic in AR, where you can para-drop yourself as well. "It doesn't have to be a snowman AI"

If it's decided that the regular power plant is too easy to destroy, then the most obvious solution is just to buff its hitpoints. You don't necessarily need to have a bigger power plant in order to improve its in-game stats. Now if for some reason it's decided that we want to have a bigger power plant (earlier versions of APB only used the advanced power plant), then sure whatever...but the point is that in-game stats aren't necessarily dependent on cosmetics (which you should know if you ever edited the rules.ini for any C&C game). Regarding the radar dome and the "penalty" for losing it...I do find myself sometimes wishing it just wasn't present on the map. Losing your radar seems pretty crippling, and especially so since you need it to help spot mines as well as determine who owns the neutral tech structures on Pipeline and Hostile Waters.

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault is free on the house at Origin. https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/free-games/on-the-house

By default, the engine does not support this at all, as it was built when single core processors still reigned supreme. I believe, ECW is the only project here that makes use of more than one thread, but ECW is really a thing unto itself anyway. Its not fully multi-thread aware, but rather just a few operations have been assigned to an additional thread. Jerad2142 is the one to ask for more info on this. Also jonwil and Saberhawk could shed more light on the internal workings surrounding this. Most games even today have difficulty dealing with multiple cores/threads. Arma 3 came out in September of 2013 and has a big CPU bottleneck which will kill your framerate (this is mostly due to AI). Using multiple cores/threads in consumer-grade products is mostly a pipe-dream atm, with what limited multiple core support available being limited to uneven distribution of loads on the separate cores (typically with one core taking the brunt of the work). Multi core rendering is definitely more viable these days (and pretty much required) but a lot of that is done driver/api side, not program side. But you also have to look at consumer-grade CPU's. The best one available right now (for the price) on Intel's side is the Pentium G3470 dual-core at 3.6 Ghz. For the average consumer, it's a great processor. It's fast and reliable, but for advanced consumers it lacks a ton of features that many of us talk about on here: Overclocking, hyperthreading, etc. Until those become more mainstream and normal, we're probably not going to see games that use much more than that without becoming inaccessible to those who can't make the paywall. We have to remember that PC enthusiasts are not the "norm" for pc gaming. We're a minority. Vocal, sure, but we're still a minority. I just happen to be a pc enthusiast who has gotten very lucky (literally had a six-core rig gifted to me). Most people don't have the money or time to invest in picking out PC parts for what their particular situation is. That's why I'm trying to make a side-business doing just that. I like pc parts and I like putting pc's together. If you pay for the parts and the time I take to put them together, I will be more than happy to put it all together for you. Back on topic, Single and dual-core processors are still relevant, even if they no longer hold the title of top-dog. Some people just can't afford any better than that but still want some entertainment. They want to be able to download a game and play without all of the hassle of picking out parts or what-not. That's why consoles are still relevant.

lol yes, thank you. Tanks aren't really my area of expertise. I guess I can't read either.

Actually.... The Red army had loads of T-60s in WWII. (You probably mean the T-80. /NitpickBecauseIt'sFun)

Radar range adjustments midgame are not doable I'm pretty sure. Unless you're just asking for no radar or team-only radar which is horrible. As for the latter, you are asking for artillery units to be excluded from half the maps or for all those maps to be redesigned to include a dome - in many instances either having to displace another building or completely redesign the terrain to make room. Having no artillery/V2 on Guard Duty, Camos Canyon, Zama, and no V2s on Seamist doesn't sound very fun. Especially since Soviets are already disadvantaged on Seamist and seemingly almost all of their victories come from V2s. Because the maps with power plants also happen to have some of the strongest economies (ask anyone about complex/KOTG) and don't need any help and making a significant reduction in those economies requires - you guessed it - major terraforming? If a map doesn't have a visible radar dome or power plant, then it's there but outside the map boundaries where nobody can destroy it. Ever notice the power lines on Guard Duty, Pipeline and Ridge War? And on Seamist, no matter what perks the radar dome itself has that could possibly set it apart from maps that don't have a dome, it will always have the "weakpoint" issue of it causing a GAME OVER when destroyed because that's the objective. But apparently that's not a problem, so just view all the power plant/dome maps as maps with an objective where you have to protect the power plant/dome or you lose power/radar for not doing so.

That's true. But the discussion is about how RA1 weaponry would perform versus TD weaponry in a real-world setting, not in-game. And a Soviet Mammoth Tank probably wouldn't last long against a modernized GDI one, since GDI's would have better armor, more powerful shells, and probably move faster too. So the Soviet tank would be destroyed. And what do you mean by WWII units? I already explained that WWII never happened. Did the Allies have M16s, LAW rockets, M113 APCs, M60 machine guns, or M1 Abrams tanks in WWII? No. Did the Red Army have (I'm assuming) T60 tanks, AK47s, or MiG fighter jets? No. So WWII is obsolete.

Nope. Doesn't refill a-bomb flares either.

A ridiculously roundabout way of making engineers less OP that would be better solved by just reducing the golden wrench's repair speed, the amount of health that each purchase can repair, or a flat increase of the engineer's price (the last of which would also discourage use of his offensive role which is also a bad idea).

Shoot me a PM ahead of time when you plan to stream along with your link and I can share it across our media. Even better if I'm in-game with you!

I would like stream more often but, I only get one or two viewers anyways.

Objectives may be neat, but don't expect those to be added to the current maps. Seamist of course being the exception that it itself has the one objective of defending/destroying the Allied Radar Dome. When it comes time to the release of the APB Source Development Kit, or SDK, you and everyone else will be free to experiment and conjure up new maps and even create mission maps. To the subject of the cruiser; the official stance is the cruiser is not happening. And that is all that needs to be said on that. More CPU is doable, but you have to consider the increased costs that puts on the infrastructure. The servers are maintained at a reasonable cost, and it's best to keep it at that. You may have to wait for an informed answer on the multi-threading/one core question. Divide the maps in what way? Infantry, All Out War, Objective; it all goes into the map rotation. I do see your idea of hovering over the current map in say, the server browser and it showing you if it's infantry-only, AOW, or otherwise. I'll ask if this is possible within the launcher. It shouldn't be difficult to get people to try this out, you are correct. It's the matter of getting the word out, as such is PR. I like to believe we are doing fairly well in that department, and with each day we endeavor to welcome more people into our community. The ideas that have come from this thread and from others in other sections of the forum will prove helpful.

Attempt 2 at isometric, I got the tiling to work and I think the character looks better too. Still not perfect, and this is just a test picture but it's coming along!

It would be better to have the Advanced Power Plant on larger maps (such as ToTheCore) where bases are designed to accommodate larger structures. It's not needed on any of the maps we have now, but I'd like to see it return with the maps it was originally placed with... although Hourglass could be downgraded to a simple Power Plant.

Or maybe allow the repair tool to remove friendly mines? I suppose there might be teamhampering potential for that, but I rarely see any teamhampering anyway, so maybe it's worth it? Or, going back to the time limit idea, what if the time limit was implemented, and to counteract the "spend all game mining" we double the mine capacity to ten mines to reduce trips back to the service depot?

Agree with delta, we don't need an advanced version of something when it has the same function as the generic version. It's redundant. Just assume the game's power plant can support the entire base - problem solved. If we were to implement everything from RA then we may as well be playing RA.

Judging from the game logs (again I haven't had much time to play lately) games of ~20 players is not uncommon. There were a few times around the initial release of Delta where it hovered around 30-40 (at that time the server was set to a max of 40 instead of 50) and I'd say it played pretty well at those numbers. And there was a time around February 2 years ago I think, where Reborn peaked at 50 during an event (back when the game was much more appealing). The absolute maximum we can set the player limit is 127 (that is, 63 on one team and 64 on another) but I think the gameplay might start to fall apart with those numbers - partly because so many vehicles and so many people would bog the performance down a bunch, partly because I don't think the netcode would handle it too well either, and partly because there would be so many people paying attention to every possible flank that nobody can make any progress... and the instant people start slacking, a building dies before you even know it's under attack because 6 V2s shot it all at the same time or a horde of hinds/longbows converged on it heedless of their lives.

Except that this is almost completely and totally false. We really have to be careful with how we advertise things. APB is pushing 14 years old!!! Most people in most far corners of most C&C based communities or otherwise just generic gaming communities have at least heard a rumor of a RA1 FPS project. Even if they've never played it or even bothered to look it up, they've at least heard about it. In other words, we're popular in a sense (which seems kinda backwards I know). We would be hard-pressed to get any streamer to even look at it if we said it was new, because they would most likely know. Worse yet, if we advertise a game that is over 13 years in the making as new, we'll be committing PR suicide and likely be labeled as liars. Streamers are a great idea but lying to them to get them to play our game is not. W3D Hub did not acquire the A Path Beyond project. Nor have we changed it. Pushwall made the decision to move the project that was, and is still under his control, to a new home. Any changes brought about since the move were either done by Pushwall himself or by one other person who was authorized by him to make changes. We do not acquire games and projects. We welcome them into the fold. There is a difference. Lastly, THE GAME IS IN MAJOR (and final) VERSION 3.0.X.X. THIS HAS BEEN DISCUSSED ALREADY, PLEASE READ.

If you glance over at the server listings in the launcher, you'll see the APB server is set to hold a maximum of 50 and the Reborn server can hold a maximum of 40. With the right PR, hitting those numbers is quite possible. The team has done well with using feedback; any and all feedback and criticism is welcome. Each patch that has been released for APB has been based on yours and players' comments, so raising concerns and asking questions here in the forums has been helpful. For the specifics on the hard limit, that's a question for a more knowledgeable person. I believe Pushwall can answer that. If not him, either jonwil or saberhawk. Pushwall, of course is the lead developer of APB, and jonwil and saberhawk are the guys who know all the ins-and-outs of the W3D engine. It's important to note that if either of them say something is impossible to do in this engine, listen to them. Campaign maps are not entirely unreasonable. A past map had everyone on the Allies team protecting the irreplaceable Allied MCV while Soviet AI launched constant attacks. The mission was complete when the MCV successfully deployed. Mission failure was losing the MCV. Don't expect a fully-fledged campaign. Please understand that the effort and time it would require is far too much for the team to undertake reasonably. To say that RA:APB is new would be false advertising? Delta version is new, but the mod itself dates back to 10~ years. If anything, it may be a delight to some to be able to play something that is both nostalgic and fresh; the nostalgia of playing Red Alert and crushing the Allied resistance and then being put in a soldier's boots in this FPS setting, and the fresh approach it brings to the table while still maintaining the original Red Alert goodness.

This was really easy to do for boats, subs and helis because it didn't actually require any changes to the model, just use of the existing logic for "spawn an object that has projectile physics". The game's physics take care of all the effects needed. Doing this for ground vehicles would be quite a bit more time intensive because there's really nothing for the physics to do there (they're already on solid ground, where are they going to fall?) so it would mean having to make a ton of alternate models with visible damage beyond the normal fire/smoke plumes you get at low health... unless you just want the normal vehicle model to sit there with its damage flames/smoke for a while and still look like it's perfectly feasible to get back in and drive, which will surely prompt people to actually try to get back in. So this is unlikely. The idea of just having new mines replace old ones is just as vulnerable to n00b behaviour; someone might de-mine an important building without realising it and then everyone's wondering "how did that tanya get in there without killing any mines?" And given that you usually want to mine the most important buildings first (especially if the enemy is pushing for early Tanyas), that means those will be the first to be made vulnerable. If any better ideas come along I'll talk to the script guys about it and we'll see what's plausible then. No problem.

I see. Guess i should check all my flak bots again - and probably rebuild my aeroblaze from flak/rails to flak/seeker Double posting, hopefully its allowed since i cant edit my previous post for some reason. I have incorporated that "1flak 2 seeker" build into your Flak Trak. Looks something like this: Now it kinda feels like Mental Omega Tigr Truck (due to both flak and rapid fire gun weapons onboard) Flak is for sure now fixed, i once again was able to shoot down enemy drones. Seekers are decent when dealing with lightly armored bots and (probably hated by everyone) tessaracts.

<18:15:27> "VERTi60": "[Game Over] ALLIES HAVE WON! Game Winners: Chaos_Knight, the Soviet Starshina, has been murdered by the Allies! FRAYDO, the Allied Spy, is victorious!" <18:15:34> "FRAYDO":

Another patch has been released, which includes a new map! Get more information and the changelist in the full update! Red Alert: A Path Beyond Update Hey everyone! Another patch has just been pushed to the launcher and server! This one is smaller, but contains the first new map since Delta: RA_Zama. I'm sure the oldies here will remember it. Here is the (not very) long changelist: Changelist GENERAL Armour-piercing bullets (M60, PKM, Ranger, APC, Remington slug) damage to heavy vehicles increased by 6.66% (0.375 to 0.4) Armour-piercing bullets (M60, PKM, Ranger, APC, Remington slug) damage to super-heavy vehicles and boats increased by 10% (0.25 to 0.275) Gunboat/Volkov cannon/Volktillery damage to naval units increased by 20% (0.75 to 0.9 for surfaced ones, 0.25 to 0.3 for submerged). Removed some old scripts from naval units which may have been interfering in spy/thief use. INFANTRY Fixed Allied Sniper bot points for real this time. Engineer C4 damage to naval units evened out; instead of doing 25 when armour exists and 1000 when armour is stripped or the unit is submerged, it deals 500 in both cases, one-shotting everything except destroyers. VEHICLES Ranger/APC magazine size reduced to 50 again. Hind damage to heavy vehicles increased by ~14% (0.175 to 0.2) Hind damage to super-heavy vehicles increased by 25% (0.1 to 0.125) Attack Sub max speed down from 13m/s to 11.8m/s (a ~9% decrease). Attack Sub range up from 110 to 115. AESTHETICS Helicopters in "crash and burn" mode will now explode when submerged in deep water, just like living helicopters. Fixed "In Trouble" music track having vocals that it shouldn't Fixed inconsistent capitalization of "Ore truck lost" Fixed kill strings for Allied Power Plant and FoI secret unit. Fixed barrel recoil on the Artillery which was applied to a part that it shouldn't have been. Sound distance rolloff should be behaving properly now. If your camera somehow manages to find its way out of a VIS sector, all objects/meshes will now be displayed instead of being culled based on the last sector you were in (which created a lot of obvious terrain holes) MAP CHANGES RA_PacificThreat: Reduced size of thief zones by half, and added chainlink fences at certain points around the zones to limit the potential "angles of attack". RA_Zama is back in the game! Here's how it's changed since Gamma: Removed Helipads and added Power Plants, Ore Silos and extra Service Depots. Base locations have been swapped; Soviets are now on the hill like they were in Classic Zama, and Allies are in the opposite corner at the end of the river. Added light posts to bases/landmarks. Allied gem field is downgraded to a mixed ore+gems field. All resource fields except the Soviet gem field have been moved under the mountains. Many of the old "lumpy" hills have been reshaped into cliffs that cannot be climbed. Added a couple of tunnels in the field to assist infantry sneaks. Respawning Supply Trucks have been added to 2 locations far from the bases. Mudslide leading to the top of the Allied cliff (which was previously a pile of hay... sure) is easier to climb now. No-beacon zones added to tunnels/resource mines, out-of-bounds areas, and the Missile Silo basement. Added visibility culling system. And of course, a massive visual overhaul. No secret pictures this time, but I can assure you that this is not the only map that will be released in the future! Until then, you can download the new patch on the launcher and join our server! See you on the battlefield!