Beng's Laser General Mod Rating Options

[Beng]

Beng's Laser-Demo-Nuke Mod Version 1.01

The latest version is here. It fixes as many bugs as i could find including the China mission 11 no ending bug and USA mission 5 crash bug.

See readme file for full details.

Attached File(s)

 BengsLaserDemoNukeMod_101.zip ( 2MB ) Number of downloads: 209

 

[Troy]

This is one of the most fun mods to play. But I think there are a few changes that still need to be made for more balanced play and "realism".

All non-Overlord TANKS that have fighting bunkers should allow fewer infantry. Maximum of 2, and possibly even only 1. After all there wouldn't be that much space in a Real Tank. Overlords get five because they are just so big they can build on a big bunker.

Laser Paladins should fire laser weapons only. Or maybe particle beams? Maybe with upgrades have several seconds of radiation splash? (The green circle stuff)

Hijackers are NOT Hackers. It might be better to say when they are garrisoned inside a Black Market they operate a Truck Theft ring? (Supposedly they go out and steal vans full of goods) They should earn about 1/2 the amount that hackers do in a given time, but in bigger chunks at a time. If the engine is up to it have a truck(semi or panel) materialize a short distance away and drive into the Black Market to show them earning their money.

Super Lotus shouldn't have a laser designator, she should just fire her "digital" attack at the area in question. Explain it as she'd transmitted the proper coordinates to strike command or hacked the building to proide a beacon.

Burton's laser designator really shouldn't produce smoke when calling in an airstrike, maybe just have the building turn white till the strike hits or the bomber dies? (Like Boris from RA2)

A nice effect would have Demo Jarmen's smoke be the player's color. Or if Burton still produces smoke have Jarmen's smoke be a different color.

[Beng]

All non-Overlord TANKS that have fighting bunkers should allow fewer infantry. Maximum of 2, and possibly even only 1. After all there wouldn't be that much space in a Real Tank. Overlords get five because they are just so big they can build on a big bunker.

Well a humvee or technical can contain 5 and it is smaller than a tank.

Laser Paladins should fire laser weapons only. Or maybe particle beams? Maybe with upgrades have several seconds of radiation splash? (The green circle stuff)

Good idea. The splash is not possible with beam weapons, only with projectile ones, since a projectile object is needed to create the radiation field object.

In a future version i might delet the Paladin's projectile cannon and replace it with an anti-garrison laser, as the projectile cannon is it's garrison killer weapon currently.

Hijackers are NOT Hackers. It might be better to say when they are garrisoned inside a Black Market they operate a Truck Theft ring? (Supposedly they go out and steal vans full of goods) They should earn about 1/2 the amount that hackers do in a given time, but in bigger chunks at a time. If the engine is up to it have a truck(semi or panel) materialize a short distance away and drive into the Black Market to show them earning their money.

Well you can call what they do inside the black market whatever you like. Yes you can change the cash amount by editing their AI module.

I am just trying to think how to make a truck come when they are inside the market. Maybe if like the troop crawler, the black market has transport contain instead of a garrison module, and has ArmedRidersUpgradeMyWeaponSet, which upgrades it to a set that has a special weapon which fires an invisible projectile that OCLs a delivery payload brought by a truck transport which brings a cash crate. This would necessitate the player clicking a button on the black market to fire the weapon when the hijacker is inside. Also, this method would not have the hijacker hacking cash so he won't get promoted. Promoting hijackers and then using them to promote your vehicles like pilots is one use of having them in the market, besides getting cash.

Super Lotus shouldn't have a laser designator, she should just fire her "digital" attack at the area in question. Explain it as she'd transmitted the proper coordinates to strike command or hacked the building to proide a beacon.

I thought of doing that but the way the air strike abilities work is that they fire a weapon which fires invisible projectiles which have a historic bonus (like the inferno cannon shells which make a firestorm when you fire enough shots in a given time at one place). The historic bonus is a weapon that OCLs a temporary object that uses OCLUpdate to OCL the air strike (like supply dropzone).

Because it is a projectile weapon, you cannot have lasers, so it is not possible to have the digital effect because that is a laser. The "laser" that you see when Lotus does her thing is actually part of the fireFX, and similar to the tracers you see when machine gun weapons fire. It is just a very long red stationary tracer and not a proper laser object.

The only time you can have lasers with a projectile weapon is when you use the laserGuidedMissile special ability (see missile defenders). However, this is hard coded to let you target only vehicles, so it would not be practical for an air strike ability that is meant to target base defence buildings.

In the case of Jarmen i made the projectile visible, like a smoke marker grenade he throws. In the case of Lotus i could not find throwing animations that she could do so i made her use a "laser" as it is the only thing i could think of that could work.

Burton's laser designator really shouldn't produce smoke when calling in an airstrike, maybe just have the building turn white till the strike hits or the bomber dies? (Like Boris from RA2)

True, and ideally he should continue lasing until the bomb hits, but beacuse of the way the air strike thing works (invisible projectile weapon with historic bonus) he has to stop firing at some point so the clip reload time can kick in and prevent him from being able to call two air strikes in a very short time. Also, it is possible that the invisible projectiles may hit somewhere before the intended targeted place, like if they hit a bump in the ground or a hillside or something in between. Because of this i made the air strike caller object produce smoke so you can see confirmation of where the air strike is going to hit.

A nice effect would have Demo Jarmen's smoke be the player's color. Or if Burton still produces smoke have Jarmen's smoke be a different color.

It is possible to make different colour smokes but not smoke of the player's colour. Maybe in a future version i will give Jarmen green smoke and Burton blue smoke or no smoke.

[Troy]

Well a humvee or technical can contain 5 and it is smaller than a tank.

Humvees and Technicals are very light vehicles designed to carry infantry passengers with very little armor. Real tanks have massive amounts of armor, a frikken huge gun, and an big engines to power the thing. They're pretty cramped inside, no real room for passengers.

Tanks have much more of their "mass budget" devoted to tank things.

Realistically, infantry would be riding on the OUTSIDE of a tank, or in APCs. I wouldn't go that far for the game, as it is fun to be able to give Paladins a little anti-air, or anti-infantry help. But 5 infantry takes away from the Overlord's special role as the BIGGEST tank.

[granger]

just remembered: the laser drone in your america mission 8
are you going to add that in?

Edit: and the cannon which shoots terrost too

This post has been edited by granger: Apr 8 2008, 07:40 PM

[Beng]

About the tanks passengers, i think i'll keep it as it is, the Nuke Overlord has some special features that still make it formidable, like being able to crush tanks and firing vehicle stun shells, though it will be hard for it to hit a laser protected vehicle like a Laser General Paladin. Maybe in future i will make it's shells more resistant to lasers.

However feel free to edit the mod to your liking. You can google XCCmixer and use it to extract the relevant ini files (LaserGeneral.ini, DemoGeneral.ini, NukeGeneral.ini, plus commandset.ini) to the game directory and edit them. Just change the TransportContain in the tanks you want to modify to give them less passenger slots, and modify their command sets accordingly.

just remembered: the laser drone in your america mission 8
are you going to add that in?

I thought of doing that but didn't get round to it in the end. Maybe i will add it in in a future version, but it does give a very big advantage to laser general if he can move his base defences forward or deploy them so fast. The laser turret is the best anti-Aurora weapon in the game (though Demo general's balloons are pretty good too).

In the mod you will notice all the base defences are more expensive. Laser and Nuke general have very good defences. Demo general's ones are a bit less destructive but have more health. With fortified structures upgrade, a Demo tunnel network can survive an AI particle cannon attack (as it does not dwell on one spot). Use this tip in the General's challenge vs Townes, where one of his cannons targets the nearest base defence.

This post has been edited by Beng: Apr 5 2008, 06:15 AM

[granger]

then:
1:make the laser drone untransportable
2:make it slower(i think it have rocket buggy speed)
3:make the deploy time slower

This post has been edited by granger: Apr 16 2008, 01:53 AM

[Beng]

I have uploaded version 2 of the Laser Demo Nuke mod to the downloads section. It includes movable base defence buildings for the 3 sides, new special powers for all of them, more changed units, tomahawk storm and cluster bombs, new 3D models for some objects, the shrubbery mod, the faster menus mod, a new shell map (for those who don't use -quickstart to watch), and lots of tweaks and some bug fixes.

This post has been edited by Beng: Aug 8 2008, 02:05 AM

[Beng]

New version uploaded:
http://www.cncmaps.com/index.php?automodul...mp;showfile=544

Version 2 beta 2 adds the GLA airfield to Demo general - he can build 4 types of air units from it: Zlin-143, Su-25, Okha cruise missile, and barrage balloons. This version also makes Laser General's leaflets incite riots by angry mobs.



The Nuke General's challenge map has been made more challenging.

Some other tweaks, like better infantry missile launch effects.

This post has been edited by Beng: Aug 21 2008, 08:30 AM

[Beng]

A new version has been uploaded. 2 beta 4.1. I can't update the description text on the downloads page so it still says beta 3, but the file is the new version.

This version adds animal units to the 3 sides:

Demolition Donkey - demo general

Attack Dogs - laser general

Hornet Swarm - Nuke General

Also, infantry swimming animations improved and Deezire's GLA mission 3 added to the GLA campaign.

[Beng]

Lotus kicking ass:

[Beng]

Lotus is pretty lethal with her Lotus style kung fu. Before Burton can get his knife out, she has already given him a fatal kick:



And she can kick away an attack dog in mid air: