Demigan

Renegade DOES need camping, it's part of the game. The point is, that in some maps it's too easy for one team to start camping, without a good possibility of the campers or the defenders ever being defeated. camping only becomes exiting when one team manages to (nearly) defeat the other team, otherwise it's just pounding a building for hours at a time, and after somebody manages to finally break the balance and a building is destroyed, the campers, who have done nothing really skillful all the time, take the credit because they 'have most points' or 'have managed to destroy a building'. Thanks to the skillful players that is! We need a solution that does not stop campers completely, but with the right strategy, you can break the campers, this could be an item, or something else that allows one man or preferably a team to be able to break the campers or force them back. If we manage something like that, then there's a clock on camping. You need to build up enough of a force to rush, the longer it takes for you to form it, the more likely the defenders manage to break through some time. So, anything that needs coöperation from the team to break the campers would/should be available. There should not be a 'kill off campers' or worse, a 'kill the enemy advance' button anywhere. -The weapon gives ample warning to allow the campers to move out of the way. -the weapon is hard to use, you need a team to accomplish it. Lone wolfing does not work unless the campers are plain stupid. -the weapon isn't capable of unbalancing the game due to easy building kill or killing several tanks on the move. -the weapon isn't spammable. Allowing a team to keep using it near their base defences to destroy an incomming mass would unbalance the game. -the weapon is expencive, so it will not be used lightly. It should be a tie breaker when campers and defenders are both unable to defeat eachother. And never for anything else. So, for instance an airstrike or artillery strike is called in, with a 3 minute interval before you can use it again. This way it can't be spammed. There could be a limited range to fireing it, like C4 throwing range or grenade launcher range or something in between, and a short time for arming it. For instance, you buy a special launcher unit, then arm an electronic beacon with a large light on top, and shoot it a short distance, you need to stand still for 4 seconds to fire it this way. Then an airstrike/artillerystrike will follow in the next 20 seconds with a AOE distance as large as a superweapon. It deals 80 damage vs tanks and 200 vs infantry. This means campers have ample time to kill you if you have no backup, they have ample time to get out of the way, with the AOE of a nuke, it doesn't mean the team has to run a mile. It just allows the defending team a tiny bit of space to try and push them back. Same counts for the campers, if they manage to pull it off, they might be able to have just enough room to come out in front of the base defences and kill something. Aditionally, you could allow disarming it. This should take some time for a lone engineer, so most of the repair crew needs to disarm it if they want to stand their ground. This still gives the defending team a tiny hole to attack, as the repair crew is busy for the time they are disarming it. Yours sincerely, Demigan.

Maybe there's a reason for that (a) Renegade should be about strategy, the right position with the right equipment can dominate the game. Having a 'pain' generator would be out of place in the C&C universe. You have a big ass obelisk or AGT defending you, that's your pain generator right there. Also, should this generator be destroyed, then the problem arises again. More problems are the amount of damage it should deal, 1 damage is too little, but it soon becomes too much. I think the solution should be brought in a stragetic package. making it hard to place the anti-camp measures, but not impossible. Also you don't want it to be a 'kill the enemy advance' button, so plenty of warning should be given and it should be tough to aim at a moving enemy. Think of the systems already in place in Renegade. Every infantry begins with a timed C4, which makes them potentially dangerous vs any building and any tank. It's just terribly hard to place it and it gives ample time for the enemy to counter it even if you do place it. Maybe the best solution would be to alter those maps entirely, and add a few other entrances and exits for infantry to fight back, even ample cover they can hide behind might be a simpler solution. Take Under, put additional low infantry walls you have at the airstrip also somewhat further up the entrance of both GDI and Nod, it might just give enough cover from tank shells without being unbalancing to the game or even the mechanics already in place. Yours sincerely, Demigan.

You are right, you are completely right for those maps. Walls and city are one of the few maps where no-one ever camps. The reason for this is that there are enough ways to get out and attack them from behind or sneak to their base. Camping is a problem in maps like Under, Field and Canyon. When one party manages to get in front of the enemy base, they are capable of keeping control of the entire field because infantry can only come from one tunnel or pop up right in front of them. Take field, where only one arty has to fire at the waterfall to keep back any infantry, even if GDI has the tunnels completely in their controll. Same goes for Under, or canyon, where you have 2 openings close to eachother where snipers are still a good target for vehicles. The problem with these maps is that you don't even need infantry superiority, the other team can kick your team's infantry ass for all they care, but a well placed tank can keep them all back unless they pull off mass ravenshaws/pics or similiar, and then they still have a high chance of failing. You do need only 4 or 5 shots with a ramjet to kill an arty, but most ramjets are too busy keeping the enemy kwarter of ramjets and random infantry off their back to simultaneously fight all enemy artillery, no matter if it's MRLS or arty. Besides that, there are few people who are capable of enough teamwork to simultaneously shoot one artillery. Apology accepted by the way, if I too seem agressive or something, that's not intended. I try to rationalise and explain what I think is right. As an edit. Nod isn't the only camper with their artillery. GDI manages to camp a great deal, probably more then Nod because of the Medium tank. high armour, great damage, relatively quick and big enough to hide a crew behind while small enough to allow several to stand in a row to pound the enemy. Only anti tank weapons help then, which take a lot more shots and a lot more balls to defeat then arty's, on top of that they need less attention to keep in good repairs. Only drawback in comparison to arty's: they don't have the same splash and damage ratio. Yours sincerely, Demigan.

The point is that Renegade features rather straightforward maps. 90% of the time you will be facing your opponent directly, and it's almost impossible to face your enemy from the side or behind when they are camping. So all the repair crew has to do is hide behind the arty and even the best two teamplay snipers won't be able to do much about it. That's why there IS camping. In almost any game, a kwarter of the team is sniping, if all that can't stop the repair crew of campers, how the hell is coördinating with another sniper going to work? Unlike you seem to think, I'm part of the most undertaking people in Renegade. Chem rushes, masses, loops, diversions, sacrifice teams, circling around the enemy, actively pursueing one goal, coördinating others to help to get one step closer to victory. I've done it all, and organised it all at least once successfully. Killing repair crews by a joint sniper tactic has never been one of them. If you can manage to get a clear shot, you don't need a second one for it. You need a big beefy tank to soak up damage and get the arty manouvering, THEN you get a clear shot if the repair crew isn't following properly, THEN you might need a second sniper so you have more chance to get them. I tried to give an idea that couldn't be abused (you have a limited range and are vurnerable when deploying it), but was still usefull for breaking hours and hours of mindnumbing campers. If you have a better idea, please tell, and we'll all look into it. That was the point of this topic. Yours sincerely, Demigan/

The point is that you first have to get a line of sight with the artillery. Nod artillery is a bitch, when they see you, they can deal a shitload of damage against you and if they are a tech they can repair faster then 2 ramjets. If they get backup, which is usually the case, you don't stand a chance with 2 ramjets coöperating during the normal renegade mayhem. GDI artillery is just as powerfull as Nod artillery, just much more unwieldly and due to it's mechanics much more usefull for standing somewhere protected and shooting volleys of missles untill someone else decides to coördinate a rush. Which makes the GDI artillery almost exclusively usefull for B2B. Which should be dissallowed as people who suck at the game can suddenly boast about the amount of points they've gathered. There is nothing fun about a stalemate where one team is just pounding buildings without any effect. The game needs to be fluid and moving, giving the defending team a window to strike back might just be the right thing for the game. Yours sincerely, Demigan.

Because Renegade-x is going to be have a better internet build. I was wondering if Elevators would feature more in the maps. They won't be as laggy now. Yours sincerely, Demigan.

While some details are different, the interior of the buildings will be the exact same as in the renegade Multiplayer. In the multiplayer there are no elevators inside and the Hon is a lot smaller. Yours sincerely, Demigan.

looks nice! interesting, looks like an alpine level. The only thing that I saw (perhaps it's just the angle), is that GDI's forrest seems much more organised. More designspecific questions: is it possible to reach those powerlines (for sniping). How good will the tree's protect you from view from the base defences? (won't GDI have a big advantage with the GDI turrets capable of firing way before the obi can even see something?) Where are Nods walls? It looks like GDI is easier to reach from the treeline with APC rushes in mind, except that there are only so many entrances. Nod seems harder to reach that way with long distances to the building entrances. The longer I look at the map, the more interesting it seems... Vehicles can easily approach the base defences, but infantry can use the trees for cover and to kill the tanks. Snipers are good but not terribly so as enemies can be anywhere. Vehicles that manage to survive the forest can, if they drive well, get almost on top of the buildings before the base defences can fire. Maybe add one or two GDI turrets at the left gate for GDI, the AGT might only be able to fire at targets that approach from the forest for 2 seconds before they are sheltered by the construction yard and the wall. On the other hand, they only have that small entrance to get to. So put just one near the powerplant with a vision of the refinery, and any SBH that are dropped behind the wall can be stopped. Then both teams have ample angles to attack, sometimes needing to destroy a small turret or similiar first. Yours sincerely, Demigan.

Black dawn will be a stepping stone to the core multiplayer game. Everything they create in Black Dawn, will be used in the multiplayer. Black dawn itself is going to be solely a singleplayer game both to test and to show off what they created in the UDK. Yours sincerely, Demigan.

Could you also plan one that's not in the weekend? I'm usually occupied in the weekends, but have some time to spare during the week

Right on! I'll download it, I'm having a dinner first tomorrow, but as soon as I can, I'll be there gun's ablazing on Tatwayplz.

So this is the original Renegade, with updates? Could you perhaps add a few links with where you can download the latest version of the game and/or the required maps? I have lots of maps but not all. Yours sincerely, Demigan.

The problem seems to be such inactivety from you, the developers. So the only solution I see is to update every now and then, but only keep it vague. 'we just scripted the new plottwist during the campaign, we got a few new rocks in the game which we already have some uses for in both the campaign and the multiplayer as soon as we start on that.

my point was that there seemed to be more people joining in on complaining about a lack of updates then joining in on the update itself. Checking back, that's not exactly the case, so I was wrong.

finally putting my brain into gear, ACK apply's for environment artist and build dozens of maps, so his artstyle objections should be around that If you don't agree with the way maps are build or something, then by all means, build some of your own! I always found the renegade maps to confine people, mostly small roads with small stretches and bases nearly on top of eachother. More open-build maps strewn with obstacles instead of big walls would be nice, or anything else you can think off. There are no maps that allow infantry to go toe-to-toe with vehicles due to ample cover. The only 'stealth' in the game (without SBH) consists out of shooting your way through some people and then having russian roulette to take a route where no enemy is at that time. There is only one map I know where infantry can go from cover to cover to stay invisible from the enemy team, and that's Glacier. Too bad it lagged so much in Renegade, I would love to see a renegade-x version of it ACK!

ooooooh, now I'm interested, what exactly do you not agree on, and why? What would you change, and how would you have done it if you had started from scratch? One thing I would have done differently (if I ever could program), would be to halve the amount of awesomeness put into graphix, and put it somewhere else. Renegade was never appealing with graphix, improving gameplay with more physics, easy load-times, needing only low-end computers to play and still having the capability of smoothly running 50vs50 matches filled with vehicles would have been my aim, but I wish it were as simple as 'take 50 points from graphix and put them into these features'. I think they are doing a good job, including the improvements I've seen so far (MRLS with rotating turret and the like). Yours sincerely, Demigan.

Wow, bunch of hypocrytes is begging for an update one week and doesn't even check in when it does arrive... I hope the long waits won't kill the game prematurely...

The picture with the beautifull fire... is that a giant dead orca underneath? Anyways, I hope it works out well. Maybe start a thread where anyone who finished the short campaign can post something. That way you get both a count of how many players have played it, and how well it's received + feedback on what was liked/hated. Hope you could add a quick 'dead man walking' feature to test out weapons and vehicles a bit (unlimited enemies and no health-pickups, loaded on small portions of the island, perhaps a few vehicles to be obtainable) Edit: omg, is the size of the vehicles in the campaign based on REAL proportions? cos it looks to me like the tanks are way bigger then normal while infantry has remained the same. Yours sincerely, Demigan.

To me, the name 'aircraftkiller' always stood for quality and was sure not to be junk or a virus. Whatever happened so long ago, even if it was your own fault, I'm sure you would make it happen never again

I was wondering what kind of game-modes are liked out there. Seeing as shooters generaly become simpler in terms of gameplay and focus on graphix, I want to know what the favorite game-mode is. Just name your top 3 game-modes, even if the game-mode does not exist! 1. C&C mode ofcourse! -Most tactical game-mode I've ever played in any game. A few of the more innovative games have cheap half-baked copy's of this mode, but nothing that makes even a tiny bit of teamplay so much more powerfull then lone-wolf. Even better: it's the only FPS game out there where someone can actually win a game without being top-notch in shooting others. 2. assault -First saw assault in the Unreal Tournament GOTY edition, also the game that introduced me to FPS games. While most maps were unbalanced as hell, it got me lusting for more. It's a shame that this game-mode never really caught on and is rarely featured in a game. 3. CTF -While a lot more about who's the best at killing others, there's a thrill in running around with a flag, hoping you won't be found out or running that last stretch to safety with bullets flying all around. I prefer the CTF modes where there's more then 2 ways to run away, and where you can still SHOOT while carrying a flag.

Nod has an easier time attacking if they get some strong support going. However, in the beginning of the game usually the support is lacking somewhat. Giving GDI the edge with the best armour/damage/cost ratio's, causing GDI to start camping, and you are right that my camp-counter has a rather high chance of failing. The problem is, camping is caused by teamplay, a repairteam repairs the tanks and hopes like hell that at some time, there's enough to try a rush. The tank players are too chicken to go first, usually I have to go up front, sacrefice myself and even then there's rarely anyone who wants to come second. Now this is a problem, because anything that can kill vehicles that camp quickly, is probably also good as something to fire just before a rush, or to destroy buildings, which would change the game too much. Anything that targets the repair-team would destroy teamplay forgood. The repair-team already has a dogs job, getting not many points and being at far more risk then the tanks who gain more points. So anything that kills then would be rather unfair. The best solution would be something that kills off the ENTIRE repair-team, but gives them ample and VERY clear warning that they have to move away. That way, the tanks would be forced to move back along with the repair-team. So, perhaps Nod has a napalm artillery strike, which would deal around 30-80 damage to tanks and about 70% of a hotwire's health or even more. And GDI has an aircraft that drops spike-bombs which deal about the same. Both have ample reason to be good vs infantry and bad vs tanks and buildings. Both teams might get a big flare, which takes 5 seconds to be thrown with a grenade-launchers range while standing still (makes you a target and dissallows abuse). Once the flare is in place, it's clear to anyone that they should get out of the way, and quickly. The flare can be disarmed, but takes twice as much time as disarming a timed C4. In that time the tanks aren't being repaired and the opposing team can launch it's counter-offencive. Yours sincerely, Demigan.

I think that tiberium would be like C&C4, the idea was incredibly good, innovative and something they should have done a long time ago. However, in the execution they just kept doing the wrong thing. It looked like Tiberium would sport several types of enemies, and a really, REALLY cramped amount of units ready for you: an infantry squad, a rocket squad (and no more infantry!), several types of titans (anti-tank, anti-infantry, perhaps an AA but I don't know), and one orca type. Along with that, you were allowed to buy new units along the way, bolstering your forces. But if you weren't outfitted for the task at hand (lots of infantry units and you geared VS tanks) you would simply had to sacrefice your anti-tank units, buy anti-infantry units and come back. Making your descisions as a 'field commander' rather callous and destroying the GDI morals.

I wouldn't vote for a max repair rate. GDI has the best camp vehicles, and usually ends up camping first on most maps. With a max repair rate it would end up that the team that camps first only has to camp untill enough vehicles are attacking to overcome the max repair rate, then they destroy one building after the other. Which takes almost the ENTIRE game away! Switching from big rushes, infiltration and tactical diversions to destroy buildings from inside/with beacons/with pure force is what Renegade is all about. With a max repair rate, it would be dumbed down to who camps best. We could also brainstorm about other possibilities then an airstrike to stop camping, from artillerystrikes, to tiberium vapour bombs (minced tiberium to intoxicate the repair crew), to grenadiers with low damage but large area spike grenades etc. It should be most usable to a group of people who remain in one area, but not bases. But in fact there is a completely viable way to end campers, but rarely ever used: get some tanks together, fill one APC with anti-infantry guys, then you have a simultanious rush with one group attacking the repair-crew and the other destroying the tanks. The repaircrew is, in the end, the whole reason they CAN camp! Yours sincerely, Demigan.

What if, instead of a beacon or a flare, you paint your target. For 20 seconds, your aim needs to be within a certain area (say the size of one mammoth chassis), it takes those 20 seconds for the aircraft to approach and bomb the area. If you paint a tank for 20 seconds, the airstrike will hit the tank even if he kept moving all the time, allowing for painting enemies that are moving fast or if you can't see the floor (in Under for instance) This makes abuse harder, and you won't need any cooldown for it. The big targeting laser makes you rather visible and you a target. perhaps have an airstrike for 500-750 credits where A-10's pepper the area with chaingun fire and a round of gunner missles (6-12 missles total?) That would mean it deals good damage vs vehicles (but not instantly destroying them), deals with the main reason people CAN camp (hotwires/techs) and wouldn't deal too much damage vs buildings in one go. If you have an airstrike that would be any type of powerfull vs buildings it would ruin the balance of the game. There are lots of places where you can paint a building for 20 seconds and get away safely (only every B2B level like islands). most maps have hard to reach spots such as the bridge in city that with little coverage can easily have 2 APC loads of infantry paint a building safely to destroy it, by the time that ENOUGH of the enemy even realises it is being painted it would be too late. Or you add a tiny backstory for the aircraft, that they hold anti-tank missles with bad penetration vs building armour, meaning extremely low damage vs buildings. As for the points for repairing. Repairwhoreing would be a problem if you made repairing give more points than damaging. What would be a better solution would be to add something to reduce the points you get over time. Say if you keep hitting a building, but the amount of health stays above 70% after 6 shots? then you are not succeeding in destroying it and your points will reduce for each shot, untill you earn 3-5 points more then the repair team for each shot. That would give people who actively seek ways to destroy a building more points over time then the whore's. Yours sincerely, Demigan.

Ahwww, so the world didn't end? how sad. So, anyone in for a celebratory game of Renegade to celebrate the continuation of the world?