Archived News from November 2002

November 24, 2002

-CannisRabidus

As promised, this the second in a 2-day rambling spree. Yesterday I put everyone to sleep with the topic of Secret Labs, and today I will do the same on the topic of Battle Lab stolen tech. In Red Alert2, the 2 sides multiplied by the 2 Battle Labs resulted in 4 possible "secret" stolen tech units: Chrono Commando, Chrono Ivan, Psi Commando, and Yuri Prime. When the pre-release hype news surrounding the Yuri's Revenge expansion described the addition of a 3rd side, I (and several other fans) looked forward to what should have been 9 stolen tech guys (3 sides multiplied by 3 Battle Labs). I was very disappointed to discover that not only were no new "secret" units added, but that we effectively "lost" one since Yuri Prime became the 3rd side's hero unit. This lack is something that I will be working to address in future public releases of CannisRules. My plans for the 9 stolen tech guys are as follows: Allied Barracks + Stolen Allied Tech = Chrono Commando Allied Barracks + Stolen Soviet Tech = Tesla Commando Allied Barracks + Stolen Yuri Tech = Psi Commando Soviet Barracks + Stolen Allied Tech = Chrono Ivan Soviet Barracks + Stolen Soviet Tech = Tesla Ivan Soviet Barracks + Stolen Yuri Tech = Psi Ivan Yuri Barracks + Stolen Allied Tech = Chrono Yuri Yuri Barracks + Stolen Soviet Tech = Tesla Yuri Yuri Barracks + Stolen Yuri Tech = Telekinetic Yuri I think this is consistent and logical, in that spying Allied tech gets you chrono upgrades, spying Soviet tech gets you Tesla upgrades, and spying Yuri tech gets you mind-control upgrades... and Allies can get upgraded C-4 commandos, Soviets can get upgraded Ivan bombers, and Yuri can get upgraded Yuris. Given that CannisRules also add stolen tech MCVs as spied Battle Lab units, the determined player will find it possible to build and own all 3 barracks, and be able to train all 9 of these units in the same game. As you can see, this adds 6 new infantry to the game, which requires 6 new animations. I figure that I will be using the old RA2 Yuri Prime animation for the TK Yuri (although I will probably have to edit a few frames). This still leaves 5 new infantry animations to be made, which will take some time. Until all are done, none of these Battle lab changes should be implemented; this is certainly not something that can be done piecemeal. However, as new units are done, they can and will be temporarily added to the game as possible Tech Secret Lab units. This gets the work into the game where there's a possibility that it can be enjoyed. Then when all 6 of these new guys are finally all done, I'll take them off the SL and implement the Battle Lab changes. So far I am about half finished with the animation for the Chrono Yuri, which I am fairly confident will be included as a Secret Lab unit in the next public release of CannisRules. He warps around the map like any other chrono unit, and uses a mind-control weapon just like a Psi Corps Trooper (Yuri Clone). He has no mind-blast secondary weapon since his ability to simply warp away from danger makes him quite powerful enough. Here's an early in-game pic of this guy:

November 23, 2002

-CannisRabidus

I'd like to lay out some of my plans for adding new units into CannisRules. I know I've always stated that the point of this mod is not to add a bunch of new units, but where I will be adding them won't impact the normal gameplay or balance, and will actually serve to improve functions that are in the game now but don't necessarily work very well. First is in the area of Secret Labs. The way Secret Labs are supposed to work, is that when you capture one, you can build a random country-specific unit (Snipers, Tesla Tanks, etc). The unmodded game didn't offer representative units for the USA (since the USA didn't have one) and for Korea (since without an Air Force Command you wouldn't be able to build Black Eagles anyway). Since the first release of CannisRules, these 2 country omissions were addressed: The USA's Special Forces Commando was added to the possible Secret Lab units, and the Black Eagle pad was added as well, as a way to be able to build Black Eagles no matter what side you played as. I believe this has been a definite improvement, but it does not address a basic flaw in Secret Lab coding... in that it is possible for you to capture a SL and find you can build what you could have built anyway (for example, an Iraqi player would be given the option to build Desolators). This flaw leads many players to believe that Secret Labs don't always work. What I would like to do about this, is to introduce 10 new Secret Lab units that would never be buildable any other way. This way you can be assured of getting new construction options whenever you capture a SL. Each unit would be a "theoretical" country-specific unit, and at the same time be something very different than the normally-buildable country-specific unit. Furthermore, the new possible units should be good enough to make it worth the player's while to take the trouble to capture a Secret Lab. I already have the first such unit: The M1A1 Abrams Tank (see news post of Nov. 17), which will be a theoretical USA unit. I also have a working idea for a theoretical Iraqi unit: Rad Artillery (use your imagination). Other possible units for the remaining 8 countries are being discussed in our forums; as always you are welcome to join. I would like to reiterate that these new units will not be normally buildable. They are intended just as Secret Lab boons, and also as crategoodies so it will be possible to get the odd single unit here and there. The next time I update this page, I will detail the second part of my plans, which concern future StolenTech units from spying Battle Labs. So yes that means there will be 2 news posts in a row containing excessive rambling ;)

November 17, 2002

-CannisRabidus

Here's some tidbits of what's coming. First, spider-man has improved the normals of the YAK-24K Transport that he created for CannisRules: Second, here's one of spidey's latest efforts. It's an early version of the Abrams Tank, which will be used as a possible Secret Lab and crategoodie unit (IOW, this is not a normally buildable unit): Third, go check out the Under Development page, since there's some new stuff there.

November 3, 2002

-CannisRabidus

It's been just about a week since CR v1.5 was released, and already the number of downloads exceeds what it took several months to attain with the first version of the mod. I want to thank those webmasters who helped get the word out this time around (in particular Lion and Mooman65). And I especially want to thank the fans downloading the mod and supporting CannisRules. A couple of bugs have come to my attention: 1) In an Assault game mode, warping an Assault Flag out of time with a Chrono Legionnaire will cause the game to crash with an internal error; and 2) It is impossible to complete the first mission in the Allied campaign. For the first bug, I have devised a fix which will be included in the next official release, it will make it impossible for Assault Flags to be warped out of time at all. I managed to alert Mooman of this before he released Mooman's Rules v3.0, so his mod does not exhibit this bug. As for the second bug, I am working on it and am reasonably confident that I'll come up with a solution that lets you play the campaigns with CR - stay tuned. You may well ask when the next official release of CR will be. The answer is, I intend to make a new release when we have a 2nd Assault Mappack available here at C-GEN. Again, stay tuned. The next release of CR will include more than just bugfixes and support for another mappack. CannisRules is a work-in-progress, and as such I keep looking for things to enhance and/or improve. If you were a regular visitor of the old site, you know I periodically posted updates on so-called "development versions" of the mod - these dev versions are not available to the public but are my personal versions which lead up to the next official release. I used to post the details of these internal updates on the news page, but this always led to confusion, where visitors ended up looking to download what couldn't be downloaded. So, when I have news on a new dev version, all I'm going to do here is say " go look at the Under Development page". Like I'm doing now. So if you're interested in what's been done with CR since its last official release, go check out the Under Development page, since I've just updated it.

October 27, 2002

-CannisRabidus

Welcome to the new site! Glad you found your way here. Without further ado, the new CannisRules v1.5 is available, so go on and get it! Note that you will have to download 2 files this time; the mod and a mappack. The mappack is for the new Assault and CTF game modes, and you can find it here. The reason the Assault Mappack is a separate download is because it is designed for cross-compatibility with other mods. So you need only download this mappack once. In the very near future, you'll be able to use this mappack with the upcoming versions of the DeeZire and Mooman's Rules mods. Other modmakers will hopefully join us in the support of this mappack, making it even more useful for the user. More info about this mappack can be found at the mappack site itself. About this new site: As you can see, it's certainly spiffier than the last one. Once again, I have Sypher_5 to thank for the artwork. As far as content goes, you'll find things are pretty much the same as at the old site, except all descriptions now reflect v1.5 of CannisRules. There are a couple of new pages I'd like to call to your attention: The Version History page (so you can see the list of what's new in v1.5), and the FAQ page (the purpose of this one is self-explanatory). Well enough babbling from me, go get the mod and the Assault Mappack and go play!