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In the modding arena, RockPatch was superseded (not without protest) by NPatch as the tool to use for extending modding possibilities.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.

It's been quite some time since I've had a news post here. Work has been slowly continuing behind the scenes on the campaign missions. However, I've decided to put the mod on temporary hiatus. This is because, although the mod currently runs under RockPatch 1.10, I plan on moving it over to RockPatch 2 once it is released.

Now, RP2 may or may not have all the features of 1.10, so I've halted development so that the mod can be planned and redesigned in light of the new feature set. I mean, what's the point in developing more stuff that may not be doable with RP2.

This is not the end of the mod. Depending on what RP2 offers, you could see vast improvements. But either way, it's paused until RP2's eventual release.

~Nighthawk.

With the start of the new version cycle, I'm hiring private beta testers again. If you're interested in beta testing for this mod, then take a look at this topic. If you feel you can meet those requirements, send me a PM.

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.

If no bug reports are submitted by next Sunday, public beta testing will end and I will start work on Beta 3.0. I will also need some people to help me on this one, as there's going to be a bit more work to it than the last two. More news will be revealed on that whenever work starts on Beta 3.0.

But before that happens, keep trying to find any bugs I haven't fixed in Beta 2.1, and report them so they can be fixed. I will release the last bugfix version next Sunday, as I've finally found a way to fix a long-known bug with the Future Forces weapons. Any bugs in reports submitted before Sunday will also be looked at and may be fixed in the last patch.

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.

As you can see, if you're reading this on the site, I've changed the design, again.
This time, it's using an actual design template, rather than something I cooked up in FrontPage with some tables and layers.
As well as the new site, I've uploaded the next bugfix patch to the server. There are two different versions you can download, an incremental one, and a cumulative one. If you installed the last update, then go for the incremental one, but if you haven't installed the update, go for the cumulative one - it contains 2.0b as well.
Remember, post any bugs in the topic entitled 'The Bug Thread' in the forums.
Please download and enjoy.

Nighthawk.

Later Update: There is a missing file from both the incremental and cumulative updates. Please download the file 'expandmd40.zip' from post #7 of this thread for the mod to work correctly.

From: Agent 'Nighthawk', Allied Intelligence
To: Allied Commander, Eastern Seaboard
Commander, the Future Forces seem to almost have their Ion Cannon fully ready. Its weapon seems to have been improved beyond what we originally saw. If you see any Uplinks on the field, Commander, take them out, or better yet, capture them, and we can turn their satellite against them.
Captured video of their upgraded cannon in action.
Or go here if your browser won't work with the first link.

--REPORT ENDS--

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.

Due to time problems with the testing team, I'm looking for one or two more testers to help finish up the current beta version. If you're interested, read this now ancient topic, make sure you 'qualify', then throw me a PM.
I plan on getting this version out soon, once the bugs have been worked out. Especially as I go on study leave shortly and will be unable to do anything really on this.

Nighthawk.