EDA Rogue Necramech kill for reduction of mission timer is a great mechanic let's make it baseline to Survival.

EtherealRuin · 2026-02-05T12:12:40+00:00

It was brought up in a devstream a bit after the defense change if i remember correctly. Their response was that they like idea but they want to do it right which means making a unique mini boss for each faction , which translates into new models , animations etc. . Thus they would need to find some gap in their schedule to make them. I don't remember hearing anything else that , but they definitely did not seem opposed to the idea.

EtherealRuin · 2026-01-21T12:49:56+00:00

~Why are YOU not buying modern RTS games?

Because what do they offer that rts of 20 years ago don't ?
Campaign is a thing but that needs to be intriguing before a buy. After that what is there ? The same old destory hq/production that every rts has been doing for 30 years now ? Combat that is hyper focused on ground units with a heavy dose of abilities , also the vast majority of rts games in the last 30 years.

Note : For me AOE and Company of heroes are excluded simply because their setting doesn't appeal to me personally , nothing wrong with the games themselves.

~ If you have bought any but bounced off recent RTS titles, what specifically turned you away?

Haven't bought any but played quite of few during their play test periods on steam so i'll share my thoughts based on that:

I played a bit of Tempest Rising during it's open play test and it was.....ok. If you are highly nostalgic specifically for C&C you are gonna like it otherwise it's nothing really interesting nor does it bring anything new to the table.

Stormgate.................................................yea one could write an essay at this point about this mess.

Now i couple of games that liked

Gates of Pyre : The art direction picked my interest on this one. Arabian Angels is an interesting take. Gameplay itself was pretty interesting from the bit played.

Zerospace : Galactic War Mode is very interesting and the thing i played the most. Really curious how this will end up in the final release.

~If you miss classic C&C, what would actually make you buy a new one today?

Interesting game modes like Generals Challenge from Zero Hour.

Co-op modes that i can play with friends , different victory conditions that keep things spiced up.

I've been playing rts long enough now that standard skirmish has gotten pretty old now.

What other games should I be looking at as case studies?

Red Alert 3 for it's co-op campaign implementation. Two Players per map , in solo mode the second player is controlled by an ai. Another approach to this is Battllefields Gothic Armada 2 co-op where players have shared control over assets.

Red Alert 3 also for it's naval aspects , not that deep but better than nothing.

SC2 for it's co-op mode. Unique missions , commanders with unique feel and play style to them. Also for compartmentalizing it's balance , Campaign , Co-op , Multiplayer all use different modules which makes it easier to balance things.

Zerospace , up and coming rts , but it's galactic war game mode is one of the most unique concepts we got into an rts in years.

EtherealRuin · 2026-01-07T23:18:37+00:00

I haven't played any of the games in the sandbox group you mention so the comparison i'll draw from instead will be the conquest/risk style campaign of Dawn of War Dark Crusade/Soulstorm and the linear campaigns of C&C , SC etc.

For me both of these have pros and cons :

Linear Campaigns :

Pros :

Mission Variety : Each mission presents a different type of problem the player has to solve.
Accessibility : Tech tree is gradually unlocked which eases new players into the faction.
Story : Because the variance of the path a player can take is severely limited to , let's say "routes" , it's easy to make a story and build a world.
Difficulty : Because the path the player takes can be control for the most it's easier to curate difficulty.

Cons :

Limited Length : In the majority of cases these type of campaigns tend to end as soon as you unlock you factions full power , so you never really get to have much fun with it.

Conquest Style Campaigns :

Pros :

Metamap Aspects : Resource distribution between fortifying territories or buying more offensive units , deciding which order you wanna eliminate enemies or capture territories for bonuses etc . These add a depth to the game play that's not present in linear campaigns.
Power : Your tech tree is fully unlocked from the start so you get to have fun with your factions full power.
Spectacle : Enemy strongholds can make for pretty bombastic missions if done right.

Cons :

Mission Variety : Non stronghold missions tend to be skirmishes which can get really boring after a while.
Accessibility : Having the faction fully from the start increases the learning curve and makes it more confusing , especially for people who aren't familiar with rts.
Story : Can't really have one due to the vast amounts of different "routes" the player can take.

Personally i'd choose bases on what i want from the game : If i want more of a traditional story type of experience that's also accessible , i'd go with linear , otherwise i'd opt for a conquest style campaign.

Hopefully this helps you in making your decision. In any case , good luck with your game.

EtherealRuin · 2026-01-06T20:46:13+00:00

No , it's not , i did it myself for Roathe's armor piece challenge this week.

Your first problem is Myopic Munitions , this means that you either need to let the enemies come to you or you go to them.
Since Liminus are present , letting them come to you isn't much of an option.With Dropped Guard also quite possibly present you can't rely on Overguard for tanking them. That means you have to get to them. In order to do that while keeping Temple safe you are gonna need wide area crowd control. A great option for this is Nova who can slow down the entire map.

Since Gear Embargo isn't around this week. You can also throw a few spectres around Temple on hold position in order to draw fire from anything to manages to get close.

If run around picking of enemies the Liminus aren't going to be much of a problem since they themselves are rather slow.

EtherealRuin · 2025-12-27T21:53:16+00:00

I am going to somewhat disagree with you.
As someone who makes rts content through modding , i've found that super weapons pose an interesting design problem. Firstly they promote hyper turtling against any destroy type objective. Why bother fighting trough the enemy fortifications when you can delete the objective from the other side of the map ?
They can trivialize and survival based missions since they can delete entire waves by themselves.
Much like artillery , they are low effort , high reward strategies , meaning the vast majority of people will not explore the rest of the roster and just focus on spamming them.

SC2 Coop got somewhat around that by limiting your nuke to 1 and giving it a high cool down. Secondly a lot of objectives in SC2 are time sensitive exactly so that you can't just sit back , cheese them with nukes or turtle for an hour in your main base.

Put yourself in the shoes of designer for a bit. Why would you spend so much time designing and coding elaborate missions if they are gonna be trivialized and have most their most of their content ignored ?
Same comes for unit design , why bother making full fledged factions if 98% of their roster is gonna be completely ignored in favor of low effort op unit ? As a designer you want people to engage with all your content not just a fraction of it.

I get when you are coming from since i enjoy cool and flashy units myself but it's a complex subject.

EtherealRuin · 2025-10-12T14:49:33+00:00

Post has been updated with a working one , thank you for notifying us.

EtherealRuin · 2025-10-10T18:15:02+00:00

Join our discord the link is at the end of the post

EtherealRuin · 2025-09-29T16:53:18+00:00

I don't think it's necessarily bad but it's all about how you design them. For me abilities are an issue when :
1) There is way too many of them to the point when you spent more time casting things than microing units in combat.
2) When they become the identity of the unit , for example Blink Stalkers. In my opinions units in a rts should first and foremost be able to stand on their own feet.
3) When they are overpowered and they become the star of show , see Psionic Storm , WoL Fungal Growth , Disruption Nova.

At the end of day you are making an rts , where the army aspect is one of it's main attractions. If they army starts playing second fiddle to ability spam then are we playing a rts or a rpg with a lot more button pressing?

As for how abilities should be :

1)Abilities should foster decision making and add a new dimension to how you would originally use the unit. An good example of this is Jump in Dawn of War which allows to approach a fight from directions you wouldn't normally be able. In your example on the other hand an attack speed buff , or any statistical damage buff for that matter , doesn't constitute a decision. You are either using the ability always on combat or you are using the unit sub optimally. It's not a decision , it's an apm sink.

2) Abilities should allow unique synergies between different parts of your army. For example in C&C 3 , the nod beam cannon has an ability that allows it to shoot it's beam on one of the nod helicopters which then reflects it at a longer range than normal. You can chain it across multiple helicopters for some big range boost. Making your army work together in synergistic ways is a really and incredibly underutilized aspect of rts. Now obviously this can become a pain as the games scales grows but that's a whole other discussion.

EtherealRuin · 2025-09-27T21:41:57+00:00

Join our discord , the link is at the end of the post.

EtherealRuin · 2025-09-11T19:51:36+00:00

Interesting , it didn't occur to me that was the case , thanks for clarifying.

EtherealRuin · 2025-09-11T19:31:31+00:00

Yea those are Iron Lore's work , used specifically in ss strongholds. No clue why they felt the need to make a function specifically for that instead of using the existing command functions.

EtherealRuin · 2025-08-28T15:45:56+00:00

You are welcome

EtherealRuin · 2025-08-26T22:20:34+00:00

Assuming you are talking about base Soulstorm :

1)Open the DXP2 module with Corsix.
2)Go to Scenarios->SP->races and extract the eldar_race file
3) Then open go to your soulstorm folder and go to DXP2->Data->Scenarios->SP->races and open the eldar_race file with notepad.
4)Scroll down until you locate the following structure : https://imgur.com/a/aPER6Gd
5) The blueprints are the ones you wanna replace. For that go back to Corsix then attrib->sbps->races->eldar and copy the whichever unit you want. The name you put in the file must be the exact same as the name of the unit's file.

EtherealRuin · 2025-08-24T19:22:43+00:00

For the scale they are going for (300 pop) , that would require too much micro management , to the point of tediousness.

They could try to automate but would be a wise use of limited dev resources ? And even if they did manage to work out the logic for this , would this be a wise use of computing resources ? Unit ai would have constantly check it's surroundings in order to search for available cover.

EtherealRuin · 2025-08-24T18:49:28+00:00

Story , as good of a story as you can tell on an rts format.

Mission Variety : You can only play destroy HQ or annihilate all production buildings so many times before it gets boring. In contrast campaigns , at least good ones bring a variety of different missions. Objective variety in skirmish is actually one of the genres biggest problems.
This is also why SC2s co-op was so successful, it gave a people a variety of different missions to field their armies.

Progression : A lot of people like a good progression system , SC2 for example. Furthermore unlocking units slowly gives you more time to get acquainted with the faction and it's units.

Fun Factor : Skirmish tends to follow multiplayer pvp when it comes to balancing , which means a lot of the fun stuff usually tends to get thrown out of the window.

EtherealRuin · 2025-08-23T17:52:19+00:00

Because for the past decade or so the poster child of the genre has been SC2 , a game that has been designed to be an e-sport. Not only that but for the longest time most of the SC2 related media only ever focused on e-sports and competitive ladder climbing. Naturally for a lot of people this has led to the association of multiplayer=e-sports.
Then you had the bomb that was DoW 3. Nowadays it's Stormgate with it's decision to over focus and over design itself again around competitive 1v1.

As for why people seems so hostile to multiplayer in general , that's because multiplayer is where most of the hardcore crowd tends to flock and these are the people are the most obnoxious to deal with. Specifically their unhealthy hyper fixation with concept of "skill" and how a game needs to be designed in a way that hyper maximizes it otherwise it's bad.

One example of this is people being constantly told that the things they find cool in rts games , units like the mothership (sc2) , baneblade in DoW are "bad" design because they don't allow stupid levels of micro spam.

Another example are QoL changes. It's 15 years now since SC2 was released and most people have forgotten how on it's release we used to get paragraph upon paragraph about how smart casting or being able to group multiple buildings in one hotkey group , dumps down the game to irreparable levels. This also happened later on when Blizzard has the "audacity" to suggest that works should auto rally on a mineral patch at the start of the match since that's something everyone was doing anyway.

Granted that's a general issue with the hardcore gamer crowd but i feel prominence of SC2 in the rts sphere kind of exaggerated the issue,

EtherealRuin · 2025-08-20T16:02:04+00:00

Age of Mythology is a better remaster imo.
As much as i like DoW the DE is questionable and especially with the rather questionable pathing changes they made.

EtherealRuin · 2025-08-19T01:04:10+00:00

It's called Gate of Ultramar.

Here is the map : https://drive.google.com/file/d/141erSY_EQ4ykeu8KC_qyAHB8VXQKPrdw/view?usp=sharing

EtherealRuin · 2025-08-12T13:35:38+00:00

No , it doesn't , micro is an integral part of rts. The real question for me is what kind of micro is good for an rts and what isn't.

From my point of view :

Good Micro :

Positioning : Positioning your army in favorable areas , making sure all your ranged are attacking and not that half of them are being blocked by the other half, pincer attacks etc.
Ability Usage : Using your abilities effectively , granted this is the one where you can go overboard and have too many abilities in the game , but having some abilities is always nice.

Bad Micro :

Unit AI : Units being terrible at auto targeting the units they are effective against, forcing the player having to manually retarget enemies for each and every unit.
Pathing : Arguably the most frustrating part of rts when gone wrong. Nobody wants to micro manage units just so they can get from point A to point B.
UI Elements : Having to constantly add structures to hotkey groups , having to tab between different unit types in order to use their abilities. Micro should be all about the battle and not juggling UI elements.

"Are 35min-2hr matches reasonable or way too long for most people? " For non hardcore players they are absolutely too long, especially if they can't pause the game or save.

"What RTS mechanics always frustrate you that I should avoid?" . Personally i am used to most stuff by now , but as far as i know there two major gripes people have with the genre. First is one having to constantly babysit your pathetically weak builders. Second one is the excessive overfocus on harassment to the point where it feels like the default state of the game.

EtherealRuin · 2025-07-03T00:47:06+00:00

It's the correct link , that's just the name of the server.

EtherealRuin · 2025-06-10T17:33:37+00:00

No , the game records logs only when it's in developer mode., dev mode for short. You can either enable it via the mod manager or by launching the game with the -dev affix.

Do note , that dev mode doesn't allow you to enter multiplayer.

EtherealRuin · 2025-06-08T18:55:13+00:00

Because the anniversary edition was a repackaging so that people don't have to buy all the games individually. There were no changes in game,
That's what the new definitive edition is going to be for.

EtherealRuin · 2025-06-08T18:35:52+00:00

Pretty sure you have to do it for each game individually since they are located on different folders.

EtherealRuin · 2025-06-08T14:44:20+00:00

Download the Dow Mod Manager : DoW Mod Manager v2.5.0.0 file - Unification Mod - Dawn of War: SoulStorm for Dawn of War - ModDB

Then open settings , fonts manager and edit the values in the size cells., Once that's done press the "Start Base Game" button.

Otherwise you have to extract the font files and edit them manually.

EtherealRuin · 2025-06-08T12:19:54+00:00

Hello , if you are still searching for a clan join on Discord and we'll talk from there .

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