22 replies to this topic

[Mig Eater]

Today is June 6th and on this day 68 years ago the largest amphibious invasion in history took place on the beaches of Normandy. Today is also the 10th anniversary of the D-day mod, I usually celebrate with a large selection of screenshots showcasing some of progress I have made over the previous months. Unfortunately I don’t have anything to show this year, mainly because I’ve been so busy putting the finishing touches on the v3.6 Beta which is now ready for release!

This beta includes six different sides (America, Britain, France, Soviet Union, Germany & Italy), with roughly 580 units and 180 buildings between them. There are also 240 civilian vehicles & buildings too occupy or destroy. This is a beta tho and as such some features are missing and/or incomplete. Most notable is the lack of any naval buildings and units. Several sides currently have incomplete naval forces, the few maps available in this beta also do not have any large bodies of water making naval warfare limited, and so because of this naval units have been disabled. Also in an incomplete sate are the superweapons, some sides currently have a full selection of them while others none at all, so to keep things balanced they have all been disabled. Japan is still a work in progress and is missing some of even the most basic units (such as supply collectors) making them nearly unplayable, so they have been disabled for this beta. Not all of the building graphics are complete and so they are represented with placeholder images, this mostly affects the French side.

Please be aware that D-day requires the Ares expansion Dll to work, please see the readme included in the download for more information.

You can find it on the download page here

[Apollo]

Congrats for release Mig

I had fun to advance test it http://rstorm.cncgui...mp/ddtheend.png

[LEGO]

A historical event, Miggy!
Have been tracking on D-Day for 6-7 years. Thou we understand this may not be the end, not even the begining of the end, D-Day may need tons of tests and upgrades. But it is, perhaps, the end of the begining.
Thank you for all your effort that make D-Day possible!

[Rygar]

Congratulations Mig.

You should post an update on Moddb.

Edited by Rygar, 06 June 2012 - 05:03 PM.

[Mig Eater]

I've posted news & the beta on ModDB but it's still awaiting authorization, which could take a few days >.>

I'd love to hear what you think of the Italian side BTW Rygar, I hope the unit voices are correct etc, I had some trouble translating them XP

[Rygar]

If you want to translate something to Italian, just ask me.

(BTW, you were a bit harsh to me and Gilbear in the "history" section of your site u.u)

Edited by Rygar, 06 June 2012 - 05:47 PM.

[Mig Eater]

All I said was there where some disagreements & it resulted in you two leaving the team. If you feel that its to "harsh" I can change it to something else more appropriate?

[Rygar]

I'm just a reserved person, that's all.

Speaking about the mod, I must admit that the structure's design for each playable side is very good and appropriate. Realistic and pleasant at the same time.

Speaking about the Italian side, at the moment is the faction that I like the most in terms of pure "aestethic". These structures remember me a barrack in which I've spent 3 days for military services. I don't want to be a zealot, but a possible reason of the D-Day success may be Italy, especially if is balanced and easy to play/manage, because people will not believe that they are able to win with this side. (OMG! I've beaten the Red army with the puny Italian army! O.O)

What I would like to see (in general) is: WWII tractors (tracked or wheeled like SPA TM 40) to tow base defences (field guns, etc...), perhaps some "what if" units like ACC Aquila, etc... Always about Italy, they have their version of Marinefährprahm, it was called "Motozattera MZ (701 to 765)", similar to Marinefährprahm (http://en.wikipedia....arinefährprahm).

I think the most appropriate name of Maiale is: SLC Maiale (Siluro a lenta corsa, slow path torpedo), because MAS was the acronym of Motoscafo Armato Silurante (Armed to torpedo motorborat, those torpedo motorboats in early D-Day analysis). About Italian voices, don't tell me that you made them! Who are the actors?

I'm also curious about special infantry for each side (ex, if there are commando units, heroes, saboteurs, snipers, AA, medics, etc...) and base defences (trenches, bunkers, fixed turrets, field guns, etc...) just to make each side more unique.

But most important (for me) is a sort of "side scheme" in which there are strong end weak points for each side and some possible strategies (Ex: Strong but expensive units, slow or fast tech up, good or bad economy etc...) and a readme file in which each unit/structure has a small description (ex: Semovente da 90/53: Price: XX, Buildtime: YY, Purpose: tank destroyer, strong vs vehicles, weak against each AT weapon, Primary weapon: 90mm AT cannon, Secondary weapon: N/A, etc...). Just to make a fair comparison to each side and choose the most appropriate game style.

IMHO a bad point (which I've reported in Blitzkrieg too) is an overabundance of units. I mean: it's of if a side has a good transport, a middle game tank, a late game heavy unit etc... but having something like 3 ground transports, 4 tanks etc... sounds a bit reduntant to me. I mean: if the purpose is the same, then the tech development (correct me if I'm wrong) should replace the eldest unit with the newest (ex: middle war, late war, post war etc...). I think about new players and they may be confused by over 500 units , what can be a possible solution?

Some other things that pop me in mind: you could use some trucks as base outpost, they can be deplyed (once) and the player can build within their radius.

I really hope you will be able to make a standalone mod without YR, because I'm more confident to "right click" to give order to units, and I hope that multiple turrets and non VTOL aircrafts are possible. My personal wish is to see a D-Day mod for C&C3 Tiberium wars (I admit, I hate YR for all these limitations), at the moment the best C&C game in terms of gameplay, engine, etc... it would be a dream to see animated wheels, tracks, multiple weapons for each unit, special upgrades, etc...

Edited by Rygar, 07 June 2012 - 06:48 AM.

[LEGO]

It's mostly a great gameplay for me so far.
There are some issues annoying:
the repair vehicles tends to wander around,
the fighters do work, but to make them really efficient, your suggestion of using way points is not enough, extensive micro-control is required to keep them face enemy air with front, or avoid enemy fighter's front.
and there seems no way to repair fighters.

Perhaps a detailed instruction document would be needed for most new players.

[Mig Eater]

@Rygar:

The Italians are also my favourite side aesthetically too, I went on holiday to northern Italy 2 years ago & seeing all the different styles of architecture really inspired me with designing their buildings, they turned out to be some of my best work IMO.

Italy has mobile truck mounted defences, which is unique to them. Other then their outward appearance they do exactly the same job as a towed gun would do. Don't worry The Aquila is on my todo list, they also already have the Marinefährprahm tho.

Thanks for the correction, I'll fix the name of the Maiale.

Unfortunately I don't know the source of the Italian unit voices, I got them from a Sfx pack I randomly found from a Google search. I've seen the same set of voices pop up in WW2 mods for other games too, they are the only Italian RTS unit voices I could find & would love to know where they came from!

See the unit list to see what I have planed, there are still a few infantry missing from it tho.

Making a manual for all the units in D-day would be quite a large undertaking, but I do plan to do it at some point possibly via a wiki.

You only have accesses to 500+ units in total war, In the rest of the game modes you only get one of each class of unit making redundancies limited.

D-day will be standalone in the future, probably once all the sides have been completed. As for D-day on C&C3, I don't really want to spend another 10 years modding...


@LEGO:

Repair vehicles will automatically repair units for you, if thats what you mean by wandering around.

Fighters are bit of a bodged workaround, they are the best I could get them withing the confines of the RA2 engine tho. BTW the planes dont need to be facing the enemy to fire at them.

[LEGO]

Thank you Miggy.
I like the Repair Vehicles to automatically chase damaged vehicles, but some time they just try to repair someone from 1 screen away, then get themself caught in cross fire, that is what I mean by "wandering around".
-----a minor suggestion to fix is, to give some Repair Vehicles "Issimpledeploy", then you can choose if you want them to act more automatically, or more safely.

And fighters, yes I've been tracking on your work for years so I understand there is not much else to choose. But I think there are at least something we can do about:
1, give the fighters more speed. now they are most efficient when chasing targets, but many bombers can simplly out run many fighters, thus leave them only a very small window to shoot.
2, call for the Ares team to fix the Jumpjet facing bug. and keep looking for alternative solutions.

And also, the fighters roters don't run when they don't run. why not make them "SCHP" alike, so their roters would alway run when in air, and you can deploy to land and repair them.

[Mig Eater]

Fighter are already coded to be 1.5 times faster then bombers :/

Unfortunately the propeller/landing problem is unavoidable, if I code them to work like the siege chopper then AI wont be able to use them because of a pathfinding bug.

[LEGO]

Really? My P-51s are out run by German bombers, and my MiG-15 are out run by USAF bombers :/

And for "siege chopper" AI problem, I once had it as well, but it appared to be fixed after I gave the jumpjets fighters following changes:
Primary=AG-Weapon(AG=yes AA=yes both required, small range and minor damage)
Secondary=AA-Weapon(used for air combat)
IsSimpleDeployer=yes
DeployFire=yes
DeployToLand=yes(so they can land)
DeployFireWeapon=0(so that when they land, they won't shoot into air with AA-Weapon and gain air superiority unfairly)

The above appares work for me, as I often lose air superiority to AI since after.....

[Rygar]

Thanks you for your reply, Mig. A note: I cannot play the mod because some problems in my pc during YR reinstallation, so I’m talking about what I see in the screenshots. How does exactly work the “middle/late/post war” logic? Does it add or replace units? How can be got it?

I've checked the unit list, in particular the infantry list. I guess something more "individual" can be done.

For example: Panzerschreck wasn't used by Italy (http://en.wikipedia....i/Panzerschreck), they used a man carried "Cannone da 47/32" ( A small field gun which used EPS "Effetto pronto speciale" AT grenades), here some pics: (http://upload.wikime...fb_borden_1.jpg, http://4.bp.blogspot...tazioni1939.jpg http://upload.wikime...s_di_Trento.jpg) . This forum (http://www.historum....apons-wwii.html) may help a bit (I’ve never heard about an AA mortar, that’s interesting).

Italy has mobile truck mounted defenses, which is unique to them. Other then their outward appearance they do exactly the same job as a towed gun would do. Don't worry The Aquila is on my todo list, they also already have the Marinefährprahm tho.

No problem, I trust you. I was only saying it’s better to have a 100% “pure side” (with less foreign stuff as possible), for this reason I was mentioned the Motozattera.

I’ve talked about tow tractors because I like them in general. I remember you made good tractors for US howitzers.
A curious “proto radar” is the aerophone (a sort of amplifier to detect enemy aircraft), can be added in the field HQ? (http://img521.images...183/aer2ze6.jpg)

Unfortunately the propeller/landing problem is unavoidable, if I code them to work like the siege chopper then AI wont be able to use them because of a pathfinding bug.

Why don’t you disable fighters for AI if they don’t work properly? AI should build more ground AA to counter this. Is it possible?

If you want a readme document I can help you, but you must tell me exactly how do you want it. Ex: side game play/style, general strong and weak points, and the most used units.

If I remember, there was Canada as playable side, was it removed?

There’s a solution if you want to make D-day for C&C3. I can contact some C&C3 modders and model makers and ask if they are interested to make models etc… if they accept, the time should be drastically reduced.

Edited by Rygar, 08 June 2012 - 04:26 PM.

[Mig Eater]

You pick a time frame before you start the game & then the units list is fixed to that period, there isn't any progression to the next ect.

AFAIK the Panzerschreck was issued to RSI forces, most European Axis forces used it near the end of the war. The Cannone da 47/32 isn't really "man carried" it required a squad of men to operate & a vehicle to tow it like any other light AT gun, so it's not really suitable as a Panzerschreck replacement.

The US doesn't use mobile defences any more, Italy is the only side to have that ability.

Fighters work fine IMO, just not in a way some might expect.

I think a wiki would be the best way to manage the documentation of over 600 units & buildings. If/when I get round to it you are more then welcome to help in run it.

Canada is part of the British side, just like Australia & New Zealand are too.

Thx but I'm not really interested in making a C&C3 version of D-day.

[LEGO]

I just checked your ini, I'm suprised that you didn't aware some following facts:
Jumpjet's speed is defined by JumpjetSpeed not Speed,
JumpjetSpeed is roughly as 40% effective as Speed, which means if you want to make a jumpjet to fly as fast as an aircraft with Speed of 2, the jumpjet needs to be defined as JumpjetSpeed=5.

BTW, Just found something dont understand:
Saber and HO229 can Omnifire, less advanced gun fighters can't.
But in INI I found those fighter guns are also Omnifire=yes weapon
And I compared the codes, it's all the same.
So how did you make that?

Edited by LEGO, 09 June 2012 - 11:29 AM.

[Mig Eater]

The "gun fighters" work fine for me :/ are you getting confused because advanced fighters use missiles which you can see but the guns use bullets which you cant?

[LEGO]

Err it's my fault. In the first a few games I somehow got a wrong impression that the gun fighters are Omnifire=no.
Now I tested and watched it more carefully and see what's real there. OK I'm fine with this basicly.

But still, I think their need a speed boost(please test to see how much faster a Speed=20 plane is compare to a Jumpjetspeed=20 JJ). And their fire firepower is need some boost as well.

And also, fighters can attack enemy plane that are landed on airstrip. This need to be fixed IMO?

Edited by LEGO, 09 June 2012 - 02:04 PM.

[Mig Eater]

Yer done some testing & fighters do need a speed boost. Their firepower is fine tho, any more & there wouldn't be any need for ground based AA.

All fighter weapons have AG=no but they are still able to attack planes that have landed. TBH it's not that huge a problem so I haven't put that much effort into fixing it, I'll look into it some more tho.

[mevitar]

LandTargeting=1?
This should fix the issue.
May also require NavalTargeting=6, so they won't try to attack water units in the future (not sure if it's really necessary, though).