Expanding the Naval Dimension

[Steel Mirage]

Obviously new here, but here goes:
It occurs to me, not knowing whether this subject has been beaten to death or not, that the naval dimension of RA2:YR is woefully underaddressed. I suggest, respectfully and fully knowing that a massive food chain towers above me, addition of something like a naval MCV unit for each faction, and three, five, whatever, offshore buildings that would expand and augment the naval construction capability of each faction, IE:
Level One:
-Naval MCV- starting point for all subsequent naval construction; allows for construction of basic naval defenses and low level units.
Level Two: (perhaps make these mutually exclusive? Dunno if thats possible from a coding standpoint, but price could make it economically untenable to create more than one at a time)
-Submarine Pen- allows construction of submersible units
-Airborne CIC- allows for construction of aircraft bearing units, IE destroyers and aircraft carriers
-Naval Foundry- allows for construction of naval artillery units
Level Three:
-Naval Laboratory- allows construction prism/tesla/mind control/??? naval units
-Shipyard- allows construction of large "Dreadnought" type ships
-Missile Range- allows construction of missile based weapons system units
-- increases speed of all naval units, auto-repair, increased veterancy point production, etc.
-Civilian Yard- allows construction of ship based resource gathering (if resources can be made to exist in the water), mobile repair (IE engineer + IFV)
-Amphibious Yard- allows construction of amphibious vehicles, etc.
-Naval Power Station- obvious
-Naval Radar Post- "

So yeah, lotsa ideas, but it could open up a new dimension of strategy, freeing factions and strategists from land dependence, especially on larger maps. This could even open the possibility of landless factions and landless battles. I dunno, something to chew on.
Thanks for reading.

[YR M0ddEr (yr-m0dder)]

no offence, but I think this feature request is very bad.
But you are not out of luck.
Once there is a replacment for "kennel hack", almost everything you wished for here will be possible.
You wont be able to make a naval mcv, becuse naval units cannot deploy on water.

[GMBigB (gmbigb)]

Most of the things you mentioned are already possible. You can easily create a "naval laboratory" or "airborne cic", which must be placed onto water, although I don't see any sense in that, because it is highly unrealistic. Why do you have to build a "naval laboratory" on water? Why not build it on normal ground? Even naval units are normally build off the water and don't get in touch with water before they are finished.

My suggestion: close this request and create a new one for deploying units on water. That's the only new point in your description and something, that will probably find some supporters (me including).

[Graion Dilach (graiondilach)]

IMO this is a mod request and not an Ares feature request.

Ares is NOT NPatch to modify default game, not even main menu.

I advise to do some INI researching, then post up requests which are needed code-wise to create a such mod.

[Steel Mirage (steel-mirage)]

Oh I'm way too far down the food chain to make any code suggestions. I'm just starting to teach myself about modding in general.

@GMBigB: Good questions, and considering your points, I can simplify my request thus:
(A) More connection between main buildings and defensive building/offensive unit capability. It seems oversimplistic to just have a "Battle Lab" giving you instant access to all your higher tech. Perhaps create more buildings to give more construction options.
(B) Give the ability to build certain structures on land or at sea.
(C) Increased naval capacity and flexibility is a must. Thats actually the issue that's attracted me to the modding side of gaming.

@ Graion Dilach: I honestly wouldn't know. I would like to make more technical contributions, but at my current level, I'm all theory and no application. I was under the impression that Ares was an effort to re-create the game in totality, making a Red Alert 3 as it should have been (forgive the awkward claim). I am here to learn after all.

[Steel Mirage (steel-mirage)]

Not to double dip, but:
Just extracted the ra2md.ini file for the first time. Takes a while to read, and I'd say I understood about 50-70 percent of it. It sucks that theres not a better way to organize the information there, and it really sucks that there's no decent lexicon or uber-template thingy.
Conclusion:
(1) I have a great deal more respect for anyone attempting to mod.
(2) I hope this was an appropriate place to make the above observations.

Chizz.

[Graion Dilach (graiondilach)]

Mirage, you're really a newbie. (Not a noob.)

http://modenc.renegadeprojects.com/Main_Page - ModEnc, the RA2 Modding Encyclopedia.

http://forums.revora.net/forum/1883-ini-tutorials/ - INI Tutorials (Note a copy DeeZire's guides are pinned, while they are inaccurate sometimes they are still better than nothing. And the inaccuracy is fixed on ModEnc.)

[Steel Mirage (steel-mirage)]

Ahh... I'd been looking for that download for a while. I'd seen ModEnc, thats how I came here, but seeing as ModEnc built on DeeZire (my perception anyways) even ModEnc is a little daunting... The download is harder to find than I think it used to be, because there are a lot of broken links out there.
Side note A: Is there a difference between n00b and newbie?
Side note B: Should I repost 0009409 as its own topic for discussion?

[Graion Dilach (graiondilach)]

A, http://forums.renegadeprojects.com/showthread.php?tid=1404

B, You had three points in 9409. "A" means you don't know about Prerequsites, because that's what it can do. "B" is possible as well, with WaterBound, if it's yes, the building can only be placed on water, if no, then only on land. Thereby "C" can be done as well, although a problem exist. The AI considers factories and naval yards as same structure (read: it can't build a ship and a tank at the same time) (issue 1320).

Open a topic in "Red Alert 2 & Yuri's Revenge Editing", we can continue there.

[Steel Mirage (steel-mirage)]

Hilarious.
You are correct. Reading DeeZire's schtuff now.
Its not letting me register there for some reason. More on this later.
GD, your help has been much appreciated, thank you.

EDIT: Musta been a connection error or something, so I'll be following your advice... now. Thanks again.

[DCoder DCoder (dcoder1337)]

Most of the stuff suggested herein does not require any work from Ares, just modding of the existing stuff. The kennel hack mentioned in the comments is bug:634. Therefore, closing as duplicate.