Raap

If you want an idea for an Iron Curtain test; Hook up a Soviet vehicle to the machine, one that has new mesh wrapper around it created via up-scaling per element, flip the faces, and apply a red emissive effect to it, and the result will be a red outline on the edges of the vehicle from any angle a player views it from. That's the same method I once experimented with to create an actual iron curtain effect (this was for an old version of Siege), the gameplay was dropped but the effect worked.

Yup (judging by the image), it wasn't a one man team though AFAIK. To my knowledge however it was one of the few major modifications (especially in that traditional sense) to ever actually make a release. It has some unique gameplay elements - enough that I remember it due to them.

Since I have to keep up with these forums, I've taken a picture of the only true end boss W3D knows.

Every year you guys make this thread. Every year you forget to add an actual end boss level to APB. This displeases me. Edit: Anyone remember that Sole Survivor mod for Renegade from a decade ago, the one with the players-versus-bots map where you had this large room with doors and progressively harder bot waves came out of them with some randomness to them? Top it off with some crazy 'boss' unit, and that could be quite hilarious in APB. It's the same mod that had "defend the AI MCV convoy" as a game mode, it was pretty unique, but never gained the momentum that APB or Reborn did during those days.

A silly mistake to make considering that modding pretty much created the concept of a broader "C&C community" starting mostly with the original Red Alert (Tiberian Dawn/C&C95 was too restrictive in accessibility and has too many hard coded things).

I think the problem with the thief is that all he has to do is survive for three seconds near the terminal. Ideally he'd need to use a flare-like ability/item near said terminals, which would force him into place and make him vulnerable, while also providing a clear visual indication of a theft being in progress.

If your friend is struggling with downloading something, then he won't be enjoying his online performance much due to latency and other factors. I'd state the obvious, and recommend your friend to get a decent Internet connection. A legitimate Windows 10 installation would also make life easier for gaming. But then again, by the sound of it, a whole new computer might be helpful as well.

Get enough experience working on this, and you might be able to jump to the current W3DHub launcher for development there.

When your units have beter texture resolutions and model detail than the terrain, you need to redo the terrain.

Smaller steps is often the right way to go. Let's see how it goes with your changes and go from there. Comment on SAM Site range: AFAIK when I originally placed them their range was only very slightly longer than AA Guns. It's been a while though, I might remember incorrectly.

Heya! Hostile Waters is axed for now. I was working on a revamp until one of the development tools decided to break the project along with all recent backups, reason yet to be determined, pending crash dump review (I've not been given an ETA, so this project is now dead in the... water).

Ever gave it consideration to work on one of the W3DHub projects when you're done with your RTS tasks? I heard APB likes airplanes too!

Don't 100% copy reference assets from 1977. If they had the capacity to be more detailed back then, they would have. For example, that little triangle on the middle of the roof, likely intended to be there for a service elevator, does not need those sharp corners; A little rounding would make it look a lot better. But good progress! When you finished it, all you need to do is create 600% the added space nearby the building and you got yourself an APB level! Edit: If you actually want to eventually make a level, I can explain you in detail how to make your tech center capturable while still being terrain-baked.

That was something I recommended bases off in-game feedback. The thread itself did not highlight any dislike towards the layout and gameplay style and pace. The Cannons are likely over-nerfed as I mentioned somewhere else. But balancing is an iterative process is it not? Edit: As I said, do as you please. I'm not touching it myself, especially not with HW having ended up into a state of dysfunction due to as of yet to be discovered reasons, which could risk the same occurring to Siege.

If the general consensus is the map plays poorly, then I've not received that indication when I recently made a thread on the subject. If people came out and said they now changed their mind, fine, change whatever you feel like changing. The way I look at it, I signed off on it when I handed it over to you - it is yours to do with as you see fit, but note that my intention was not to create a level that plays like more of the same. Unique gameplay was my focus, creating another standard map would not be very exciting.

You could have had two people assigned to breaking and entering via Engineer + Tanya Chinook combo on the opposing side. Someone could have been using the cannon during the attacks, the added pressure would have caused substantial damage. You could have set up a blockade near the broken wall with artillery and people defending them while drawing the Soviets out from their cover. Etc. I do not know the win ratios of the map since I do not have access to this data, if the Soviets do in fact win 15%+ more often, a sensible balancing change could be the removal of the Tesla Coil and replacing it with a Flametower, and removing the Gap Generator to keep the overal balance.

If two equally coordinated teams fight each other and one is defending under the cover of the base defenses, it makes perfect sense the defending team wins because that would be the same outcome on any other map as well. It's not fair for you to look at this as a Siege design issue, it is a game design - and not an issue. If you repeatedly hit the same target with the same force and fail every single time, why repeat it? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different outcome. In this particular video, the attackers could have employed different tactics, such as splitting up to divert attention to two fronts. In normal matches you don't typically need this level of coordination, but this recorded match evidently had teams on communication services, which is not the standard thing in APB. As for the ore field/economy backup plan, naturally enough place exists. This level went through a ton of re-iteration over the years, leaving plenty of now-unused space to work with.

The map was designed to be a vehicle meatgrinder. Not a lot of meat to grind on when teams got no credits to keep throwing shit at the enemy with, which is why the double silo exists. A way around it however is to remove one Ore Silo and convert the ore mines into ore/gem mixed mines. This should create greater importance for Ore Truck defense, without affecting the flow of the map much. The risk however - and the reason why I did not go this route - is that when a team is locked into their base, their income drops to nearly nothing, resulting in very limited means of retaliation and opening the door to farming. What could be done as an added safety measure is having a player-ore field somewhere near the bases (not on the castle side), this would be a less effective route than the ore mine (especially if it got mixed with gems), but a backup in case of a lockdown on the water crossing.

It's all about intent. If you want to add more defense to bases then man-able defenses is not a proven way of going about doing that. Tried and true remain geometry design and good old AI controlled defenses. But if the intent is otherwise, such as a map objective, the sky is the limit - or at least, tuning is! The Cannons on Siege for example were intended to be a point of focus for offense, but they have gone from overpowered, to now barely worth using. The devil is as always, in the little details.

Ah yes, that thing. I believe @Synaesthesia made it a decade ago for Renegade in one of his levels. As for your screenshots, I can tell you that you have more breathing room than you may believe you have. You can - and should, given a building like this is a center of attention - absolutely add more props and technical elements to it. Providing you don't go overboard on unique meshes of course, but that you already know! You can also improve the texture scaling a lot more, a number of your textures are very stretched (see the ceiling trim and walkways). You might want to avoid using Renegade textures as well due to their low resolutions and general easy of recognition. Additionally, don't be scared about adding additional detail work with the textures. I personally enjoy doing that and always get a little carried away with it, often also creating new textures for specific parts. As for the exterior, you ran into the same problem I had with Siege's castle wall; Making large man-made objects not appear extremely tiled, and the only solution is increased texture variation and UVW usage (and some other means to break the line of sight, I personally used scaffolding supports and trees for this on Siege). The domes could also be replaced from a low poly sphere with a texture, to an actual 3D frame with glass in between. Given that this is a prominent part of your building, it helps to put that extra work into it, it'll look a lot better for it (plus you only have to do the model once and then copy it two additional times, how's that for cost efficient development!). Finally, the use of lighting is not proper. You need to draw the wireframe in order to draw the shadows, and you're probably using a too large light preset and will need a custom sized one for that room (you're probably using the light post one). I cannot tell you any more without seeing the actual wireframe, but the floor has too few polygons at least, plus the sole verticy is obstructed from being solved in a desirable way. I've had a lot of experience working on man-made objects in my APB contributions, trust me when I say, to get everything right on W3D you need quite a bit of patience (the Advanced Naval Yard and Siege castle walls took a fair while for example).

Discussing things helps, no reason to delete anything.

Often the only way to flush out a tower-hugger is by splash damage. Making people less vulnerable to it while up there, combined with the ease of camping ladders, and you risk added "safe zones". That's assuming this is even possible to pull off with the existing game logic. As for adding defenses... If it is man-able, it needs to be destructible. Then we have lots of work and questions to answers... Like do they respawn? Repairable? Capturable? What purpose do they serve and how efficient should they be at it? You'll need to create the actual weapon artwork including damage and destruction states, animation, rigging, firing animations, projectiles, audio, emitters, preset data, strings, etc. A lot of things to consider and work on for what may not even be a good addition for gameplay. Additionally, W3D has a limitation right now where you cannot harm a visible-driver, which created those awkward situations where you put bullets into someone who is invulnerable, see Siege cannons or Rangers. Lastly however, what's wrong with terrain just being... Terrain? It inherently already has the benefit of simply existing as cover from direct damage, and due to the height, the guard tower in particular is interesting for Snipers. Not every re-usable assets needs special logic assigned to it. If we did that, then after a few updates we'd no longer have a consistently balanced fighting environment, but rather a set of small balance ecosystems where players will start to get confused about all these small rules.

You should up-scale the toothless-man-holding-cup so it's comparable to the box while filling up the empty space. Makes the teeth more visible also.