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In the modding arena, RockPatch was superseded (not without protest) by NPatch as the tool to use for extending modding possibilities.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

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.

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.

Beta 2 is finally up on the server for download. It's been almost a year late, but now you can play it. However, the key thing is that it is a beta version, so there will most likely be bugs that myself and the testers haven't yet ironed out. If you do come across any bugs, please contact me in some form or another, preferably not email, as I have a habit of deleting emails from people I don't know.

The mod is in three parts like the last one, so it's not all in a massive file. You can download the mod from the new Downloads page, or from the following links:
Zip 1: Core Files (Mixes)
Zip 2: Audio Files (bag/idx)
Zip 3: Music Files (optional)

To play it, just unzip the files from these mixes into the RA2 directory. I have not yet tested the mod in a LAN or online situation yet, so you may expect Reconnection Errors. You will also notice that some of the Skirmish Modes are not yet finished, that is intentional, as I wasn't planning to put them in this beta. Naval War Extreme is functional, but suffers from the NCO Bug. Space War has the terrain, but still all the ground units and structures. The Future Forces AI is rather small at the minute, partly because I have to edit the triggers by hand to make the game think they're the Fourth Side, otherwise AI Editor reverts them to Allies.

To play this you'll need RPCE Revision #0050 or later, and v2.0a of the Terrain Expansion.
The music zip is still uploading at the time of writing, so you may get a 404 if you try to download it immediately.

Thanks for your time.
Nighthawk.