Well, it's been over two years since I last made a post in my mod's news forum. Two years is far too long.

In two years, the community has undergone many changes - old mods have withered away, new mods have appeared; old network sites have fallen off the radar, new upstarts have rose to take their place; C&C itself has seen the Tiberium saga concluded, and the Red Alert series take a (debatable) new turn.

Personally, I've gone from being CNC3.net's division leader to running the whole Guild; my real-life workload has increased exponentially, and this mod was left to drift into quiet obscurity.

In the modding arena, RockPatch was superseded (not without protest) by NPatch as the tool to use for extending modding possibilities. However, now Ares is in the process of getting that title back from NPatch. With the new options opened up by Ares, how could I not have a go at the mod again?

As you can see, I've completely remade the website. Gone are the years-old pages detailing silly additions that had no real basis in a YR extension mod. Instead, I've redesigned the mod itself. Some things have remained from the previous versions, but there are some new additions entirely.

TVTropes has a definition entitled "Darker and Edgier", and that's what I've been aiming towards here. There's less campy sci-fi stuff thrown in for no reason, with things taking a more realistic turn, and I've made an effort to have a story explanation for every addition. You can see the progress made in each section of mod additions at the top of the respective page. Yes, there's little to look at for now, mostly because I am not an artist, and doing anything in that field beyond cameos is incredibly difficult for me, but things should begin to happen.

Anyway, that's enough rambling. Keep your eyes open here every now and then, I should have some things to post up from time to time. If you're interested in getting involved, I wouldn't mind assistance from anyone with SHP and/or voxelling capabilities, and I'm always open to hiring beta testers.

Time to get to work.

~Nighthawk.

As the title said, I've not abandoned the mod. Yes, I did take a bit of an extended break over Christmas, but I've already started private beta testing with the next version cycle. And to prove I've done some work on the mod over the Christmas and New Year period, here's some screenshots of the changes to the mod:

The Soviet Battle Jeep. This replaces the Scout Tank for the Soviet countries.


A squad of Mextli Gunners. These minigun-armed units replace the Elite Corps for the Antarctic Legion.


Shift Tanks. These Neutron Cannon-armed units replace the Italian Rocket Tank.


The new background on the Battlefield Select screen. It's a bit of an edit on a file photo of Abrams Tanks in Iraq.

The mod's not dead yet.

Nighthawk.

I know I said I would release it on Sunday, but due to the recent forum inactivity, and the fact that I'm away a lot, I'm releasing it now. This is a very small update, only fixing one issue. So, to counteract the minuteness of this update, I've also included the game font I was originally going to distribute with Beta 2.1 (but forgot ). It's the YR logo font converted to a size suitable for the game. Please note, there are no Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew or any other foreign characters in the font, so it may not work with some games.
I wasn't able to get the weapons fixed on the F.F. Pillbox - the solution I was using made the weapon go completely haywire. I tried several other things, but no joy. So, the only unit fixed is the Soldier, which now fires in a straight line.
Again, it comes in Cumulative and Incremental versions. Download the Cumulative if you've only got one of the earlier versions. Download the Incremental if you've got Beta 2.1.
Now, as I said, this is the last bugfix version. I'll now start work on Beta 3.0, which means no more public beta testing. I will also be looking for some help graphic-wise with this version, as it'll need a bit more work, so keep an eye on the news.

Cumulative Version (download if you use Beta 2.0c or earlier): Download Link.
Incremental Version (download if you use Beta 2.1): Download Link.
RockPatch 1.10 is required. It is included in the zip files, but if for some reason it doesn't work, try getting it from here or here. The included version is 1.10 #0036, the last one released.
You may also need the Terrain Expansion. (Actually, you won't yet, but I'd advise you to download it anyway).

And, don't use the NPatch with this mod. You will get errors, and it won't work properly. Using it with a mod that clearly states it doesn't work with the NPatch is sheer idiocy. If you tell me the mod won't work and you're using NPatch version x or y, your post gets deleted. Nuff said.
Lastly, don't distribute my game font.

Nighthawk.

I've just uploaded the next update onto the server. This is the 1.10 conversion that was previously polled in the forums. Sorry about the delay for such a relatively simple update, but I've been away a lot recently.

Anyway, as before, the update comes in two flavours: cumulative and incremental. Both updates contain RockPatch 1.10 #0036, and both contain the fixes to make the mod work with 1.10.
Download the cumulative update only if you have the original Beta 2 files, and no updates.
If you've been using Beta 2.0c, download the incremental update. If you're using Beta 2.0b, I'd advise downloading the 2.0c incremental version, then the 2.1 incremental version.

Not much has been done with this update, considering most bugs so far have been to do with users not having some of the mod files. It's mostly a graphical update, containing the score screen for the Future Forces.

To install, make sure you know which version you need (cumulative or incremental), download, and unzip the files to your RA2 directory. Make sure you run the RockPatch installation file before playing the mod, especially if you're still using RPCE. If you're using the NPatch, uninstall it before installing the RockPatch.

You can grab the updates here, or head to the website and get them from the downloads page.
Cumulative Update (contains all fixes from Beta 2.0b, 2.0c and 2.1): Download
Incremental Update (only contains the Beta 2.1 fixes): Download.

Have fun.
Nighthawk.

This version fixes several bugs and balance issues in The Third War. It does not include the entire mod, so please download the original files from the other post before downloading this. Just overwrite the files in the YR directory with these files. You should probably also run the exe file contained within this archive.
A list of what this version fixes is included in the archive, but I may as well post it here too:

Gameplay Changes:

• Future Forces Laser Cannon sight increased by 1 (from 8 to 9)
• Names of structures altered ('Future' prefix changed to 'F.F.')
• Future Forces Stealth Miner maximum ore load decreased (from 20 to 15)
• Future Forces Stealth Miner speed increased (from 4 to 6)
• Future Forces Stealth Miner cost decreased (from 1600 to 1550)
• Future Forces SuperComet Laser Upgrade damage decreased (from 150 to 100)

Graphical Changes:

• Future Forces War Factory animations fixed
• Future Forces now have a more YR-standard loadscreen
• Future Forces have their own interface graphics now.

Just to let you all know, before I start getting people saying to me "D1s M0D w0nt w0rk!!!111", the current beta up on the site is NOT COMPATIBLE WITH ROCKPATCH 1.10. Do not try to run the mod with RP 1.10, do not even think of doing it. And before you start saying "Make it wrk wit 1.10!!1", I won't. Yes, you did just read that. I will not be making this mod 1.10 compatible. This is because I see no reason to do so, it works perfectly with CE #0052, and upgrading to 1.10 will just mean pointless overhauls of existing code.
Besides, in the help files, VK stated that the fourth side logic may change again in the next version, which would mean another overhaul whenever he releases the next version.
Say what you will, but this decision stands. The Third War will not be 1.10 compatible. This is due to both what I stated above and reasons of my own.
If you want to play the mod, use CE #0050, #0051 or #0052.

Nighthawk.

As the title says, apologies for the recent lack of updates, but my week has become busy again, with GCSEs closing. Beta testing is still continuing behind the scenes, and most of the bugs have now been worked out. I'm not going to give a possible release date as my free time is rather erratic at the minute. This should reduce in 3 weeks when I'll be off for my holidays

And just to prove I have been working away, here's a little something:

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Click to see it at its normal size.

Commander. A recent storm of a Yuri staging area in the East Pacific has yielded a wealth of data on his new Legions. You can view the data on this page.
We will update our database with the unit information shortly.

Edit: Unit Lists updated

Urgent Battlefield Report - Eyes Only
From: 'Nighthawk', Agent, Allied Intelligence
To: , Commander, Allied Defense Forces
Commander, while we've been pre-occupied trying to get as much information on the Future Forces as possible, we seem to have neglected the other threat to our peace, Yuri. We originally thought he did not pose as much of a threat as he seems to have been holed up in Antarctica all this time doing God knows what, but he appears to have re-organised his forces entirely. Today at approximately 0200 hours, Yuri troops under the name of the 'Atlantic Legion' have seized the Russian city of Novgorod. The Soviets, who only had a small garrison in the city, were forced to retreat. The city is now in Yuri's hands. One of the Soviet soldiers stationed in the garrison, a Mladshiy Leytenant Rovodinsky, managed to snap a sizable view of one of the Yuri occupation zones as he retreated from the city in a MiG bomber using the bomber's black box. Here is that picture, unfortunately with most of Novgorod's power grid in chaos there are very few light posts running in that area of the city, and Yuri's "mood lighting" doesn't help much either, so we have lightened some of the areas so you can get a clear view of the area.
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It seems that this 'Atlantic Legion' uses different vehicular units to those normally used by Yuri, we can see several heavy-tank like vehicles driving down the main road, and one rather large double barreled unit in the centre, which was unfortunately the poorest lit of all. The Soviets believe it to be an improvisation on their Apocalypse tank, but we are unsure of its armament. We have a glimpse of one of Yuri's new Sniper Turrets. These are basically the British Sniper in turret form, though we've seen them use various types of ammo before. We can also see several civilians being kept in the base, most likely for use in Yuri's Bio Reactors, and we can also see that they are being closely guarded by one of Yuri's rumoured Special Operations infantry, a Savant. Be careful of those Commander, they are armed with high-energy railgun weapons, though until now they have been largely unseen.

More information will be brought in on this incident as we can get it Commander, but for now, Novgorod is a no-go area without clearance from Command, but the Soviets seem keen to send in a strike force to retake the city, Command's not going to risk arguing with them, but you are not to intervene until ordered.

Agent Nighthawk, Allied Intelligence
==Report Ends==

Out-of-character note: I thought I'd go back to the 'in-character' news posts again, they seemed to get the story across better than normal posts .

I feel I've been neglecting the mod recently, so I've tried to make up for it by adding a new enhancement to it. Almost all infantry in the game that use a different image on snow maps will now have their own 'snow' icon for those maps. Here's a preview of most of the Allied ones (ignore the Spy and Tanya, they won't have alternate icons)


Also, on a different note, the near-holographic looking interface I promised for the Future Forces has unfortunately been cancelled due to positioning problems with the UI itself. I have however created a different sidebar which is a direct recolour of the Soviet one, there are some problems with it however, so it may not make it into the beta. Lastly, about half of the Stolen Tech units are finished. After Stolen Tech is completely finished, and I've finished all I wanted to do up to that point, I will begin looking for beta testers to test Beta 2.