OWA

Yes to the Ore Purifier and yes to the Industrial Plant! We've toyed with the idea of using bots, but no real ideas have been set in stone yet.

We don't have a Rocketeer model yet, so the proper code hasn't been implemented either.

The mechanic isn't in place yet. There is no script that will currently enable a flying vehicle to deploy correctly.

No shotgunners or minigunners, but the British will get their sniper.

The Allied & Soviet building textures are by no means final. They were just slapped on to stop people from getting lost. Both Barracks and the Allied Power Plant are final, but the rest is subject to heavy change.

Pictures are fixed!

The images aren't showing up because of the way the forum is configured. A lot of the images in the previous blogs are probably also broken. I will get someone to look at it right away and hopefully there should be images soon!

<center>Where have you guys been!?</center> Good question! Let me answer that for you. We've been here the entire time, but development has been at an all time slow due to the age old excuse of "real life"; always getting in the way of making good time on our games development. We're not giving up, so don't worry doubting doubters. You'll get a kick-ass game to play... eventually. I've decided that it's time the blog got a bit of an overhaul, so I've made a shiny new graphic to go with it. Fun stuffs! So, where have we been and what have we been doing? I've been working on my final year at University working towards my Masters degree. Lots of assignments have pushed me away from what I've been doing here, which is bad. But saying that, I've been getting back into the community recently and should be able to start juggling tasks round a bit to get the ball rolling once again. dtrngd has been busy with various exams; but in spite of that, he's taken control of the main Level Edit build of Apocalypse Rising from danpaul88, who has been busy with work. cfehunter has been busy with university, but he has had his hands on some neat new stuff which we won't be announcing for a while. danpaul88 is back and offering coding and scripting help again after being busy with work. BogdanV has rejoined the team and is modelling us a Spy Plane which will feature in the first release. Guywithawrench has been helping out over in the Reborn camp, but should be back in action on AR once we get the game moving once more. Eggman891 has been back recently, so you may see some weapons being rigged up soonish! Again, once the game development cycle gets churning again, the team will probably form back up and we should be in a better position to give more regular updates. <center>Internal Beta Release</center> dtrngd has been working on getting our internal beta release finished up and ready to ship out to the testers. This build contains a lot of improvements compared to the last internal release. These improvements include: Game Changes Added Nighthawk Transport unit Added Flak Cannon base defence for Soviets Added Terror Drone unit Added emitter to Tesla Gauntlet explosion Added Soviet Radar Tower Added Soviet Walls Added allied-only elevator to Allied Power Plant Added Terror Drone remote consoles to Soviet War Factory and Radar Tower Added new Chrono Miner model Added new IFV model Updated engine sounds for the Grizzly and the Rhino tank Updated Soviet War Factory with a huge elevator that pushes your vehicles up from underground Updated soviet repair node with missing animation Updated War Miner rig Updated IFV turret weapons, all turrets are available Added Engineer unit for Allies/Soviets so the Engineer IFV can now be activated All buildings have been temporarily textured on the external parts Added textures to Tech Oil Derrick Added purchase sounds for Nighthawk, IFV and Chrono Miner Added lighting/throwing sound for Crazy Ivan's Small Dynamite Added setting and explosion sounds for Crazy Ivan's Big Dynamite Added setting and explosion sounds for SEAL's C4 Explosive Added temporary death explosion to Crazy Ivan's killed event Added new firing sound for GGI's Spectre SMG Replaced APB sidebars with temporary RA2-sidebars Replaced Renegade targeting reticle with a new one Implemented Fabian's surface effects Implemented some of Fabian's explosion effects Changed camera settings a bit Balance Changes Increased walk/crouch speed of all infantry slightly Added Veteran & Elite weapon upgrades for Nighthawk and Rocketeer Decreased rate of fire slightly for Flak Troopers and Flak Tracks Deployed Guardian GI fires rockets for an increased range, higher velocity and damage plus a slightly shorter reload speed Increased range of Tesla Trooper Gauntlet as it was helpless against most allied vehicles Increased resistance of deployed infantry units from 10% to 25% to all warheads and 50% resistance to tank shells Increased damage and speed of Tech Outpost missiles (Damage(impact/explosion): 6/6 -> 8/8, Velocity: 70 -> 110) Allowed Tech Outpost to engage air units, as in RA2 Increased Standard Rocket warhead type damage vs infantry Decreased Armour Piercing warhead type damage vs buildings and weakpoints Tweaked MBT cannon shells to travel faster, have a small amount of spray and gravity (Velocity: 160 -> 250, Gravity: 1.5, Spray Angle: 1.5) Increased damage and reload time for Grizzly Battle Tank (Damage: 65 -> 70, ReloadTime: 1.2 -> 1.4) Increased damage, reload time and hp/armor for Rhino Heavy Tank (Damage: 90 -> 100, ReloadTime: 1.3 -> 1.7, Hp/Armor: 400 -> 450) Increased range of Tesla Coil to account for bumpy terrain reducing its effective range (Range Normal/Supercharged: 80/120 -> 110/150) Increased range of Prism Tower to account for bumpy terrain reducing its effective range (Range: 80 -> 110) Increased Rocketeer's running and flying speed (6.6 -> 8.6) Increased effectiveness of Anti Building Explosives vs infantry and base defences Reworked Crazy Ivan thrown dynamite weapon to fire a single projectile and bounce for a short time Reworked Pillbox and Sentry Gun weapons to fire a small round of bullets then reload, increased damage of bullets Reworked Harrier weapon to fire 4 rounds with half the damage instead of the original 2 rounds Reworked Rocketeer's weapon to be a Shrapnel-Based Weapon instead of a High Velocity Grenade Launcher Tesla Troopers are now unsquishable Deployed GIs can be run over by any vehicle AI Miners' damage-taking and death are reported by eva/zofia depending on your team Building Major Weakpoints are now shown on the radar as objective stars Tech building capture points are now shown on the radar as objective stars Added global announcement sounds for SEAL's C4/Crazy Ivan's Big Dynamite being placed Locked Radar technology units to Allied Airforce HQ and Soviet Radar Tower (losing these buildings lets you build hightech units no more) Harriers are now built at the ACHQ, separate from the War Factory build queue Base defences warn players when they are under attack Map Changes Added Radar Tower, Pillboxes, Sentry Guns and Flak Cannons to Little Big Lake Added Radar Tower and Flak Cannons to South Pacific Added Radar Tower to Iceland Dune Patrol has been set to be a low-tech map Rocky Pass has been finally closed on the far tech-oil side Map added: Freezing Straits Script Changes Bugfix to Prism Tower script Service Depots now use an improved version of the repair depot scripts Here's a load of sceenshots featuring some of the new changes in Beta 1! <center>New Particle Effects</center> One of the benefits of Bluehell Productions is that we share assets between our projects for various things. The A Path Beyond team were kind enough to allow us to use their new emitters and surface effects. This includes everything from bullet impacts to shell explosions. However, there is one effect that has really found itself at home in Apocalypse Rising. The Flak emitters that mjfabian made work really well in the game, allowing the Flak Tracks and Flak Troopers to have an amazingly disruptive effect on the battlefield. The flak's explosion, on impact with any object, makes a black cloud which can be used to disrupt the enemy's vision on the battlefield. This is useful as a smokescreen to retreat to a safe distance. Here are a few screenshots of the new flak effects in action. <center>Getting Ahead of Ourselves</center> The observant ones amongst you may have picked up on the Giant Squid that was posted up on the Moddb page a while back. Allow me to explain. Basically, I have a friend with a degree in CGI and Animatronics who offered to help us with some more organic models for the game. We decided that the Giant Squid would be a fun project to get ready for the future, so that's pretty much what we gave her to do. The result is pretty awesome and we'll definitely be implementing it in AR when we get to the stage of adding Naval units. Another surprise for you guys is the Siege Chopper. I made this model for a university assignment after I decided that it would be a good idea to cross over AR with my degree in order to cover more ground. The Siege Chopper is my favourite unit from Yuri's Revenge, so I decided to model it. Simple enough; however, now that it's done, that means we can include it in the release version as a special crate unit or have it feature on special mission maps. This is jumping the gun a bit on what we originally planned to release as part of the first public release, but I think bringing you guys some more units to play with isn't really a bad thing at all. <center><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ELiXXYLdnyo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></center> <center>New testers picked!</center> If you haven't already heard from the APB and/or Reborn blogs, we were hiring a new bunch of Bluehell Productions testers. That period is now over and this is the list of people who have been accepted onto the testing team. Some old faces, some new faces: Billy Joe Bob Boris Chewbacca ChronoSeth dearlydie ditto_g DoMiNaNt_HuNtEr Garrus09 Gork HeaVyMenTaL iLikeToSnipe kamuixmod madrox8 Nod00 NodFan Nodlied NSpgexp2012 Pushwall pyryl3 r315r4z0r Raptor29aa Souljack triattack unrealtormentor VERTi60 Voe Xyrom Congratulations guys; however, fear not those of you who applied but didn't get accepted, we have reserve slots in the testing team which we are looking to fill if we think that we may be a bit down on our numbers. <center>Renegade X</center> If you have been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you may have missed out on a pretty significant release in the C&C FPS community. The Renegade X single player release candidate, Black Dawn, has been released and paves the way towards a bright future for our community and the C&C First Person experience that we all know and love. It's totally free, so why not give it a try? Grab it from here: http://renxgame.com/ <center>OWA's Random Corner</center> Here's some random videos that I've been watching recently. This is an awesome news section in my opinion. <center><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/P5aWAW2hea4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> Tankin'</center> <center><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lvrPO6Dwp0E" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> Uber-splodin'!</center> <center><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7-tNUur2YoU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> Epic.</center> <center><iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/cYNdUM2gRsg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> Double Epic.</center> <center>Shout-outs and Goodbyes</center> Thanks for reading this update and acknowledging the fact that we aren't dead! Some special shout-outs go out to my good friends at Staffordshire University; Tommy, Vix, Terry Towers, Chaz, Brad, Rach, Tagg and all you other awesome people that I've missed! Look out for more Apocalypse Rising updates in the future and don't lose hope! We will deliver this game to you!

We haven't claimed that we update weekly for a while. Things are slow at the office at the moment. The game isn't dead though.

The vehicle weapon script that allows you to switch between vehicle weapons using keyboard keys 1 and 2 may be worth looking at for this. Sharing ammo is messy.

I'd like to do this when we are closer to a release. I think the art needs finishing before we do anything like that though.

We're getting round to it, but a few of us have been busy as education begins again.

That's pretty cool. I wonder how it will work.

Projectiles cannot be scripted. :\

You've still got to detect the point where the aircraft hits the ground so that it can explode. This is the bit where our theories fall through a bit.

This may not make it into the game due to engine limitations.

We scrapped the idea because it was pretty stupid and impractical when put to practise. A techy's place is at the weakpoint, not buying an IFV to repair things whilst the rest of the team need to buy that crucial grizzly tank that could help defend the base.

You'd be surprised how good the Flak Cannons actually are at the moment.

Near enough to the original Renegade's requirements.

90% is a little more than most imo, but I digress. It's all a matter of opinion at a second glance. You could go for uber realism with different languages being played in the buildings as background audio. But realistically, RA2 wasn't a realistic game. So putting all of the voices in English with different accents to suggest nationality would be much more fun. Like the taunts in the original games.

Although the beginning of RA2 was fought in the U.S, a large majority of the other missions were fought across other parts of the world. The war was going on in Europe, as there were missions where you needed to attack/defend Einstein's lab in Germany as well as charge the Eiffel Tower to make it into a giant Tesla Coil. One of the mission intros even began with "Thousands of Parisians fleeing their homes". It would make sense if different languages of background dialog were to be played, but only if a particular country is fighting. E.G: if Allies are playing as France, it'd make no sense to hear anything but French and English. tl;dr: RA2 was a World War. The beginning of it simply involved America more. It's kinda like saying that World War Two was fought entirely in Europe, which is wrong.

I have a good friend who comes from Lithuania.

We could use this, but then we would be limited to making just exit signs; whereas we plan to make signs to help players find the weakpoints as well.

We would, but it's more effort than gain. I don't think there are that many non-english speaking players in APB. Rarely do I see someone speaking a different language.