Army Men RTS: Advanced Mod

[j3rry]

Army Men RTS: Advanced Mod it is a series of multiplayer maps that looks to rebalance and enhance the gameplay experience while remaining as true to the vanilla experience as it can within reason.

History of the mod begins from Unit Expansion mod. The idea was to make multiplayer mod that provides new units, but does not require file replacements. However after that me and TommyCD1 have found some interesting things in coding that could dramatically improve the AI. That was the starting point for the creation of a global multiplayer mod.

Concept of the mod was like this:

• Optimal installation
  Players will be able to switch witch between modded and vanilla gameplay without re-installing the game.

• Advanced AI
  More powerful and human-like AI, whose tactics will depend on map and ruleset.

• Expansion of rulesets
  Many new rulesets will be included, such as Capture the Flag, Attack and Defence, Ants Survival.

• Exclusive maps
  New maps designed specifically for the mod.

• Atmospheric
  Mod will keep the vanilla atmosphere of the game as much as possible, so no DR2 maps or objects from other games.

Two years of development were not in vain. A truly powerful AI has been created that can withstand an experienced player. Quite a lot of new units and even have been introduced. However there is still a lot to work on. The mod continues to be developed to this day.

Initially, this thread was created to show the progress of the development of the mod, but it was decided to keep it a secret. But since we appreciate players ideas and opinions, you are welcome to write here what you think.

Some screenshots of the pre-release version:

[dmarijan]

Thanks for the effort
Can this mod be used for SP or just for MP missions ?

[j3rry]

Have not planned for singleplayer yet, so first versions of the mod would be used as multiplayer map pack.

It is not excluded, that there would be more extended version, which mods singleplayer also, but main priority is multiplayer.

[Secg]

Kudos to your team, j3rry! Keep up the good work!

The Flame Tank is conceptually sound: an AFV strong against Bazookas yet outclassed by its own class. What's the Flame Tank's tech level: Garage or Super Garage? Will the Flame Tank displace the Halftrack?
Will the vanilla Tank's anti-infantry strengths (decent 50% effectiveness & splash dmg) be nerfed to compensate so that the Tank's role shall be limited to anti-Defense, anti-Armor, anti-Building only?

Currently I'm conceptualizing another air unit: the Cobra, which is fragile (HP 450 to 500) yet armed with powerful missiles good against armor & air units yet weak against Infantry (only 25% effectiveness), thus making Bazooka Men the Cobras' best counter-unit (does not mean a Bazooka Man can win against a Cobra 1-on-1; just that a group of Bazooka men can defeat a lone Cobra which costs about the same amount of resources)

[j3rry]

Hello. Thank you.

About Flame-Tank.
Firstly there was a concept for amphibious assault vehicle, which could pass via land and water. Unforunately we have not found a way how to wisely support both terrain types. Current flamethrower vehicle would be used only on certain custom maps. It is possible that it would replace some of the vanilla vehicles. Flame-Tank is good against infantry because of it possibility to attack multiple squads and due to it large health ammount (800), but they are still weak against Tank. If we talk about the level, Flame-Tanks could be built from Garage level.

As about vanilla Tanks, I am not sure that their role must be changed. In our opinion players should not get used to heavily changed gameplay, so we will try to keep default game concept. We have only slightly limited their amount in the army by higher command cost. Also some of the units have been slightly expanded in their abilities (target styles for heavy infantry, also Mortar-Man possibility for attacking vehicles) and AI became much toughter, so that would be more problematic to make squad of tanks and rush it first.

Your Cobra concept is good, because air-missile unit will make the game process more interesting. However it would be used only on certain missions, like Flame-Tank, potentially it could be connected with some kind of ruleset.

[j3rry]

Landing Craft unit, water alternative for Chinook.

Spoiler

Model and textures by Traffic_Accident, screenshots by TommyCD1.

[E]x[F-Sniper]

That looks impressive. I actually have some models I have created that I'm thinking of releasing. Mostly plastic and elec models.

[j3rry]

Thank you.

It would be interesting to look on your models.

[j3rry]

Some screenshots from new AI test. Showing bombing run usage and teaming also.

Spoiler

[Secg]

Showing bombing run usage and teaming also.

This rocks! Can't wait to play-test the open beta.

Can I incorporate your Air Strike codes into my mod also?