APB Dev. Blog :: January 19th, 2010 Options

Last chances to vote!

The ModDB Mod of the Year 2009 final voting ends on January 20th, one day from when this post goes live. It's getting to be your last chance to vote in the ModDB Mod of the Year 2009 competition. We need every vote we can get so please don't miss your final opportunity. Winners will be announced in early February.

We ask that you please vote for RA:APB and RA2:AR. We are listed as Indie Games, under the categories for Released and Unreleased. Thanks for your support! Take note that a lot of other well-deserving C&C projects are on the list of nominees, including Tiberium Insurrection and Renegade-X.

• First, login at ModDB and view the Top 100 Released & Top 100 Unreleased
  
  
• 1. Click on a game header to expand it, displaying projects in that category. A Path Beyond is released Indie, Apocalypse Rising is unreleased Indie.
  APB is listed third in its category; Apocalypse Rising is further down the page.
  
• 2. Click to vote for the project you've selected and let it save your vote (this could take a second or two). "Vote!" will become "Voted!" and you've done your part.
  
  

Gamma Map Changes

We've been making some adjustments to all the maps for Gamma, changing the mood a little, some terrain adjustments and fixes, in addition to adding in the tech levels. For example, take Bunkers. It was already expanded, but there have been a few more changes which make it look and play better most importantly. Vehicles cannot go up the sides until Engineers have cleared the hedgehogs, and there is an infantry-safe zone on one part where soldiers can stay to avoid being run over but have a good view of incoming units. You can also see the new M16 in these shots.

About new CF maps, we have a couple we hope to get out with 1.4.0 but I am not sure if Raapnaap will be available to do anything he was personally working on because he recently suffered a massive injury and might have permanent damage. This is a pretty bad thing and he's going out of commission for a few weeks just for everyday things. We might get Camos Canyon, and possibly Equal Opportunity, fixed up and out however.

Ripping out older trees and replacing old settings is actually a pretty large task for us, as we need to re-apply glass settings and plant new setpieces after removing the old ones. Complex has something like 180 trees on it now, which give great cover and make a fun place for infantry to fight while having reasonable cover.

Tech Level News

About the Tech Levels, they are adjustable per-map but if you want to go with default settings, they're super easy to set up. The three key things to include when making a map are the RA Game Manager object, the Kill Message Handler object, and the Tech Level object of your choice.

There is one for Tech Level 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, and they'll magically work for every map factory combination. If you want to adjust the map's tech level via your own methods, there is a single message to send to unlock each tech level, to be sent to everything on the map. That way anything that cares can update itself. This could be used to easily cause a Tech Up when a particular objective is completed, or have reinforcements arrive after Tech Level 3 is hit.

The default timing is as follows:
Tech Level 1: Immediate (0:00)
Tech Level 2: +3 Minutes (3:00)
Tech Level 3: +3.5 Minutes (6:30)
Tech Level 4: +4 Minutes (10:30)
Tech Level 5: +4.5 Minutes (15:00)

Whenever you tech up, you hear it and get a text notice.

New Effects

We've added new smudge marks for when you hit the terrain with explosive weaponry, including a bunch of new burned grass and kicked up dirt effects. They let you feel like you're doing something and make the landscape more interesting after a battle. Grass burns for a while after you shoot it, and you can kick up volumes of dirt. Grenades also have a new explosion, as does the flak burst.

The light and medium sized tank cannons also have new audio, as does the flak and grenade explosions. I have picked up some new audio editing software, which means we're good to go again as far as new and improved EVA clips and everything else. I went through several dozen today, over 115 in fact, but there's still many more to go to ensure you can hear BattleLaf's lovely voice telling you just how well (or poorly) the battle is going.

It's hard to get screenshots of the new effects, but here are a couple. You'll see them better when we put out some more videos, but you can see the newer rocket explosions in our newest trailer.

You might notice in these shots that the view looks a little different; we're changed around the cameras a bit and feel it's a good improvement over what we used to have.

Flame Tower

TheBeerinator has finished texturing Kane000's Flame Tower, to replace the ancient one we have right now. In addition to looking nicer overall, like all of our newer defenses it features a deeper base that will allow us to place it a lot easier on uneven terrain which gives us more options when we do our maps, and will be rather important when we implement mid-game player-constructable defenses. We think we have an elegant idea of how to do that now, and you'll hear about it later, but for now just go take a look at the Flame Tower!

Click to go visit the Game Update

You might have noticed that the Soviet defenses have gotten some nice attention lately, and the Allied defenses are just finding new ways to blow up, but hopefully soon we'll be showing off the Pillbox and Camo Pillbox.

The map changes sound very good indeed, a needed. Those new effects look awesome and so does the Flame Tower!

Hmm.. tech levels. Delicious.

*Drops get-well-soon package at Rappnaaps house* (Hey, I could actually really do that, should only be a four hour drive :p)

Tech levels and objectives should surely mix up gameplay a lot, it will be interesting to see what kind of new maps will be created using this.

Yes, Yes, YES! Awesome news guys.

Awe-some.

Delicious !

Very nice FT and good news for the tech levels. Gamma will be uber-epic.

Excellent stuff, barring the news about Raapnaap. I can only hope he recovers to the greatest extent possible.

Flame Tower looks particularly awesome, I look forward to blowing some of those up.

BTW, those new arms work miracles for the looks of the weapons in FPS view.

The Tech Level stuff sounds fantastic.

However, having listened to the EVA clips on modDB, I can only say that they sound a little computerised, and dare I say it, American, from the RA originals.

Everything else looks great though.

Do we have any local Russians on this forum for the Soviet EVA? I know it's not RAlistic, but it would fit the game theme better.

Epic blog!
The new flame tower is awsome, much better than the current one!

Do we have any local Russians on this forum for the Soviet EVA? I know it's not RAlistic, but it would fit the game theme better.

It's also not possible.

It's also not possible.

I recall Nod and GDI having different sounding EVAs in Renegade if I'm not mistaken. (Obviously this doesn't apply to Radio commands)

I recall Nod and GDI having different sounding EVAs in Renegade if I'm not mistaken. (Obviously this doesn't apply to Radio commands)

Yeah, GDI and Nod definitely had different EVAs in Renegade.

The Flametower design just screams the savage brutailty of Stalin's Russia.
Good Job, Gents!!

I recall Nod and GDI having different sounding EVAs in Renegade if I'm not mistaken. (Obviously this doesn't apply to Radio commands)

That second part is the rub.