News W3D Weekly #13 - 15/09/2021

[OWA]

Welcome to the 13th edition of W3D Weekly! This week it's an APB special with some AR thrown in for good measure!

Community News

Keep your diaries clear for Friday the 1st of October, as we will be hosting a game night for Red Alert: A Path Beyond! Find out more details from  @ Coolrock  and the gang below!

 

Elsewhere in the wider community, the Generals community is celebrating 18 years of C&C Generals with some events happening across none days starting on the 18th of September. This showcase will feature mods that our very own @ GeneralCamo  is involved with, so be sure to check it out! 

The image for the event is below and you can find the full schedule here.

Red Alert: A Path Beyond

Rain or shine, APB 3.6 is coming in just a few short weeks!

That out of the way, I (@ ChopBam ) would be remiss if we didn't share another bullet point from the 3.6 changelog this week.

Introducing the Soviet BTR!

Role: Medium skirmisher and scout for the Soviet arsenal.

Its speed and mobility are unmatched among Soviet ground skirmish units, making it great for scouting, early rushes, and intercepting Allied Longbows and infantry.

Its characteristics put it in a role somewhere between the Allied Ranger and APC, with mobility and speed almost on par with the former, combined with the heavier firepower of the latter, all packaged into a unique unit that no longer feels like a copy-paste of the Soviet Ranger while also fitting the Soviet playstyle better than it did.

Price: $750 (tentative). As with all things in a testing phase, it might be adjusted before release.

• Strong vs: infantry, aircraft, mines
• Weak vs: heavy vehicles, seacraft, buildings

Notes:

• Although this unit generally replaces the Soviet Ranger on lower tech maps, it may appear in other places where the Soviet Ranger didn't, like Pipeline.
• The vehicle's textures (particularly the forest and desert versions) aren't final and are still subject to change. While we plan to do that eventually, we decided in the meantime that it's not something that's worth delaying the release.
• Thanks to @ Killing_You  for concepting the unit, and @ Ice  for providing this unit's model and texture. The rig was originally created by @ GeneralCamo  and then worked on and tested by @ ChopBam  with help and input from the testing team, especially @ ryknow69.

Short clip of what it looks like ingame.

Apocalypse Rising

Over in AR land this week, we realised that shooting and repairing buildings from the inside was giving way too many points and credits. @ moonsense715  tracked down the issue with some help from the testers and we discovered that the points system was looking very wonky. To counter this, @ moonsense715  has made some adjustments to how we set the score of all of our units and buildings in the editor.

Here are the basics:

• Score = A value we configure in the editor.
• Credits = Score
• Repair Score = 50% of Score
• Repair Credits = 50% of Score

Previously the way we setup score required us to do some maths and if the HP of a unit changed (damage points were setup as a direct multiplier to the health of a unit/building), we would have to redo those maths. But now that we can just setup the score of what a unit is worth in points which makes the entire points system a lot easier to balance! Great job comrade @ moonsense715 !

In other news, @ Romanov  has been hard at work putting some finishing touches on Tanya's character model! You can see the model below!

Also on @ Romanov 's list is Einstein's lab, which will play a part in an upcoming map that he's making.

That's it for this week!Come back next time for some more excellent W3D content!

Spoiler

Hype!

 

[blurb]The 13th edition of W3D Weekly is now out! This week it's an APB special with some AR thrown in for good measure![/blurb]

[1000MammothTanks]

Cool. Soviets were sorely missing a cheap vehicular anti-infantry unit.

How many infantry can the new unit carry?

[Ice]

2 hours ago, 1000MammothTanks said:

Cool. Soviets were sorely missing a cheap vehicular anti-infantry unit.

How many infantry can the new unit carry?

Currently it doesn't carry passengers, although this wasn't always the case.

Originally it could carry three passengers in accordance with the vision of being a jack-of-all-trades middle ground between its more specialized Allied counterparts (the Ranger & APC), but unfortunately during testing it became apparent that this made the unit too powerful for its tier/price when combined with its other characteristics, so the current iteration of the unit is more akin to a 'heavy Ranger' rather than a 'light APC'.

But fret not, the unit is still a blast to drive!  It zips across the battlefield at a speed that no other Soviet ground unit can match, which makes it their best choice for ground scouting and harassment, and its powerful DShK machine gun gives it a firepower very reminiscent of the APC, making it perfect for punching holes in enemy aircraft or hunting down enemy infantry. While slightly bulkier and a bit slower than the Ranger, it's also a bit more durable which in combination with its firepower makes the unit more fitting of the Soviets' 'big & strong but slow' playstyle compared to the Soviet Ranger, which was merely a direct copy-paste of the Allied one and always seemed kinda at odds with the rest of the Soviet arsenal.

[GibbletsnBits]

Wow, awesome replacement for the Soviet ranger, which sure did feel like a bandage, now it's fluffy and looks to be good fun. My first question is, is it aquatic? looks like it could be

A map focused on Einsteins Lab? Hmm, a reboot of that 4 direction defend map? *crosses fingers*

[Raap]

What, no mortar cycle?

*sad RA3 noises*

 

That vehicle/weapon texture needs a resolution increase, though. You should also consider raising the 'open truck' floor so the surface traction particles do not visibly bleed through the vehicle.  /nitpick!

It was probably a good call to not give it passengers - not without some tech that lets you actually damage those players when shooting their character models.