Einstein

Its a trap!

It turns out that this wasn't fruitless in benefiting other projects as well. I noticed a strange thing happening, which once I reported it, was identified as a bug (albeit microscopic in nature) which affects all 4.x and 5.x games (so everything except ECW). @CMDBob made quick work of the fix, so hats off to him! Also, A misunderstanding on my part previously. The shader was not activating at all, due to lack of configuration on the new engine, and thus merely displaying the underlying texture. This has been mended. Even better, this or another change appears to have passively fixed the tesla coil issues as well! We are closer now than ever before comrades!

Just a quick update on this: We are still making progress, though things have slowed down a little. There are two graphical bugs that I would really like to solve before releasing this, but if we can't do this in a reasonable amount of time then it may have to come in a patch later. For those interested, this is what's left (that we know of): Cloaked units do not get a shader applied, even though it appears that the shader is being loaded in the engine. Until this is fixed, I've exchanged the ugly stock Renegade stealth texture for a nicer looking one. FIXED The Tesla Coil sometimes attacks with no firing animation. It feels quite strange to just suddenly be struck down with no blue lightning bolt to indicate what happened. FIXED Aside from those two issues, certain maps are not working for the following reasons: Some maps have no music. Not sure why, as the music is present. Should be fixable I'm told. Some maps simply can not be loaded with the newer version of the engine because it is really picky about ID collisions. I think we have a workaround for this though (basically disable the check and run it anyway). FIXED Thats it! Hopefully this won't take too long to sort out.

I always click through as well. Its much better now with the scroll wheel working though, it was quite bad without that. Honestly, I never used the numbers...guess I was never in that big of a hurry 😛

Funny you should ask 😉 Beta also introduced the PT sidebar menu (made to look like RA1), instead of the Renegade menu re-textured. It had aircraft buyable at the main PTs instead of their own dedicated "poke terminals" as they were previously. As for the era between 1.2 and Gamma, its basically just a slow process of things changing from what you see in beta, into what you see in gamma. I'll try to find a changelog for that. After 1.2 is done, I think we're going to try to get 9935 worked up too. I've already tried it with the same new scripts we're using on 1.2 and there doesn't seem to be much that needs fixing.

Good question! I'll have to play with it and get back to you on that one.

Ahem. The Mad-scientist role is already taken in this game 😎

Fired.

It doesn't seem to be up to anyone

I don't even know. Since when can we notify whole groups on the forum?? I totally would have been using that for the testers.

Well stated, and I can agree. From what I hear, we have some pretty cool big ideas bouncing around on the PR front

*sighhhh*

V-sniping was a hacked up sniping mechanic used back then. Instead of a traditional zoom, you could hold V and move the reticle around the whole screen freely. We did not intentionally remove it, but rather it just happened as a result of upgrading the engine. Also, the Y and T traditional chat keys work, as well as the F2 and F3 keys, to match whatever preference you may have.

So the map itself is probably fine, the newer engine just really doesn't like ID collisions, which it complains that CamosCrossing has apparently. So it refuses to load it until we sort that out. The 9935 version of the map works, but I'd rather save that for actual 9935 (as it is slightly different).

Ahem! Is this thing on? I need to make an announcement! My time machine has proven its worth once again by delivering us a blast from the past. An ancient technology that some of you may remember. . . A game from a bygone era. . . Our engineers have been hard at work in the lab, inspecting everything to make sure that it has survived intact the journey from past to present, and ensuring that it can survive on computers in this new time line, as much has changed. Things are looking well, and it is almost ready. . . W3D-Hub is proud to (re-)present to you: Red Alert - A Path Beyond [BETA] 1.2.0 Coming soon to a launcher near you! Over 10 years ago, the APB team moved the project into its [BETA] era, which was the height of player counts and online gameplay, clan games, mp-gaming, oxi-stats, demo noobs, and so much more! It was the "golden" era that defined the game in many ways. The game then moved into its "Cold Fusion" (1.3) and "Nuclear Winter" (1.4) updates, then Gamma (2.x), and finally what we all play now - Delta (3.x). And while Delta is undoubtedly the best and most advanced version of the game yet, it is fun to go back and see how things used to be, if for no other reason than to gain a deeper appreciation for what it has become in recent years. But if you're like me....you like to play Beta, because it was lots of fun, and there are lots of good memories associated with that point in time. To give a little more info on what this actually is, it is simply a "system update" of the original game. Starting with Windows 8 and moving forward, it is increasingly annoying to even get the stock game to run, much less "as it should", depending on your computer. This is largely due to the old version of the engine that Beta was built on (3.4.4). So we have ported the game forward to the latest TT4.6 scripts, which is the same version as Interim Apex, and probably most up-to-date stock renegade servers as well. The point is that it is made to work on modern computers. This was the first step. After that was done and the game was running stable, it was time to do some cleanup of old files, and of course fix some new bugs that appeared due to changing scripts versions. It was said by some that it would not even be possible, nor worth the effort to try to fix everything. But we found that surprisingly little was truly broken in the upgrade. The largest issues were related to Purchase Terminals and Aircraft settings, but of course there was a handful of other things. But it has come together quite nicely, and our testing phase is almost complete! What you will notice has changed from the stock Beta experience: It runs faster and more stable. It runs smoother and so much better overall than it ever did back in the day, and crashes less. You can have a near-miss with a tree or building while driving a tank, and you won't lag-warp back to it 3 seconds later. 10+ years of engine updates are to thank for this. It won't make you reboot your PC if it does crash. The old engine was notorious for causing a scene when it would crash. Most common issues from this were a black screen which the user could do nothing about, a "dead" area on the screen, in which nothing could be clicked, computer stuck in low resolution, and other forms of weirdness. Again, thanks to a much newer engine version, all of these are now non-issues. (Also, you can Alt+F4 to exit the game at any time now, which is cool). V-sniping is gone. For those that remember, V-sniping was a "feature" of Beta. It does not exist in the new version of the engine, so you will get a more "normal" sniping experience. There are 60 clicks on the scope zoom, so that should suffice The stealth shader is different. The stock Renegade stealth shader is being used because the one that was used in beta did not carry over. We might be able to implement this (or a better one) in a future update, but not at this time. A misunderstanding on my part previously. The shader was not activating at all, due to lack of configuration on the new engine, and thus merely displaying the underlying texture. This has been mended. Scroll-wheel in the sidebar! A happy accident of the engine upgrade, you can now use the scroll-wheel on your mouse to quickly navigate the sidebar purchase menu. Enjoy! Better and easier-to-find screenshots. Another happy accident, screenshots are now stored in their own folder with the other games' screenshots folders in your Documents folder. Absolutely ridiculous FPS (700+ on my PC!!!). Same old song, the newer engine made it better....maybe a little too good Unless you are still running a computer from when this version of the game was new, I would recommend that you max out all of the settings for this game, and run it in the highest resolution that it supports. Also be sure to tick on V-sync. Else you'll have super high frame rates, to the point that it will actually start to cause physics bugs to happen. Also, in order to play online, it is always best with games on the W3D engine if the client FPS and the server FPS are as close as possible. Our test server has been keeping a near-constant 59 FPS, and with maxed out settings, the clients run at 60 FPS - which is perfect. Bluehell is GONE! Another major benefit of using a newer engine, the bluehell bug (which is where you fall through the map into the blue "hell" below) was eliminated by simply upgrading! New (old) maps! In addition to all of the original maps that shipped with this version of the game (minus CamosCrossing until we fix it), we are also able to include several additional maps, which were made by fans or other staff members during the Beta era. Some you may have seen before, others likely not! Credit where credit is due. I would like to thank @moonsense715, @dblaney1, and @CMDBob for their effort in making this possible - these guys fixed the bugs. @Dghelneshi, @Jerad2142, @triattack, and @Pushwall for giving excellent tips, advice, and assistance in this. @A4R91N for providing me with some maps which I did not have previously (which was so long ago that he may not even remember doing it) @FRAYDO for accidentally giving me the idea to do this in the first place (he asked for old screenshots and I delivered a game ). @NoSoldier and @OrangeP47 for taking some extra time to test this. The Tiberian Technologies Team, as this would have not even gotten started if new engine updates were not available. And I would also like to thank all of the people who put work into making this game and the maps so many years ago. There are too many of you to name, and I don't know all of you anyway. But thank you. We are still enjoying your work. [blurb]Red Alert: A Path Beyond [BETA] 1.2.0 - coming to the launcher soon![/blurb][thumb]thumb_apb.3.png[/thumb] 0.9935 is next

Dang, I was hoping it would be the new super-balanced Enforcer's gun....oh well.

For the Admins: When will I get my testing server access? For Jonwil: What did you do before you began the scripts project? How did you begin, and where did you start breaking into Renegade?

Speak up more often you! I had wondered where you went 😛

@The Great Your video card and current drivers also need to support it, along with your monitor.

Awesome, glad to hear that.

Thats odd, we haven't had any trouble with this in a while...

Looks cool!

*puts moderator hat back on* Lets not continue to hurl insults at each other in public. It will only make things worse and derail this, drag it out longer, you get the idea.... Thanks. *takes moderator hat back off* Since you elected to start this in public, and air out everything where the whole world can see on this forum, do you not think it would also be a great idea to let the whole world see how we solve this? I really think hiding the discussion at this point is a very poor move.