Aftermath add-on - Red Alert Archive

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Aftermath add-on

Red Alert's second and final companion disk. Find out all the information about it here including all it's secrets!

For full information see below, but the Aftermath secrets are:

FIVE new hidden units! Including the Phase Tank and the HeliCarrier!
THREE structures added by Aftermath!
New team orders for use in mission creation!
Extra MapPack/Overlay graphics for use in maps!
EVEN MORE maps on the CD! (Yet to be confirmed).

As Westwood puts it:
"Prepare for the showdown that will test your mettle.
Prepare for guerrilla tactics, insidious strategies and forbidden weapons.
Prepare for The Aftermath, the second explosive companion disc for Command & Conquer Red Alert.
Of course, you can't have the battle without the war. You must own Command & Conquer Red Alert to play this missions disc."

New Units added by Aftermath:

RA Picture	Icon	Information	Description
		Name:CTNK Owner:Allies	Chronotank: The latest advancement to the Allies time and space experiments. When charged up this tanks can chronoshift itself anywhere on the map with the bonus of NOT returning to it's original position after 3 minutes. Quite expensive, but a squad of these could cause havoc to the enemy. Chronotanks are very slow though and are vulnerable to rifle infantry.
		Name:DTRK Owner:Both	Demolition Truck: A drone truck carrying a nuclear payload. This truck can be targeted at buildings or detonated in specific areas. When destroyed, it's payload detonates like an atomic bomb destroying anything nearby. Be careful not to leave one of these around your own base if the enemy destroys it... The Iron Curtain is virtually ineffective on Demo-trucks due to the nuclear payload, and if you try chronoshifting one it will detonate immediately (not usually a good idea).
		Name:CARR Owner:	HeliCarrier: THE HIDDEN AFTERMATH UNIT! This unit doesn't appear in any official mission. It can carry up to 5 helicopters to provide a landing base for them which could be closer to the enemy base to allow for faster attacks. To use, simply direct a helicopter to land on the carrier. Up to 5 can be carried this way. When the carrier is selected you can choose to fire on enemy units and all the helicopters will take off and attack. To use this unit download the file below.
		Name:QTNK Owner:Soviet	M.A.D Tank: The Mutually Assured Destruction tank is owned by both sides. When activated the driver leaps out and leaves the tank to explode. There is a short warning siren followed by a powerful harmonic shockwave hitting all buildings and vehicles in a very large area. Infantry are unaffected by the shockwave (so the driver is safe :-). Once activated the only way to stop it is to destroy it! Each shockwave destroys around 35%-40% of structures/mechanical units so 3 M.A.D tanks can destroy an entire base in seconds.
		Name:MECH Owner:Allies	Mechanic: Similar to the Allied field medic, this guy can repair vehicles for free in the field rather than having them return to base and using the service depot. Quite slow and vulnerable, although a couple of them in a group of attacking tanks can be worth their cost. The repairs are free and a generally quicker than the service depot. It's useful to have a mechanic next to ore refineries to repair Ore trucks each time they unload.
		Name:MSUB Owner:Soviet	Missile Submarine: A thousand times better than the original Soviet sub, this can fire on land with a huge range and missiles almost as powerful as the allied cruiser. The only problem is it has no naval defence in the same way the Allied Cruiser doesn't. However, unlike the cruiser it's weapon is very accurate so force firing nearby enemy naval units won't cause an accidental hit.
		Name:STNK Owner:Both*	Phase Tank: Another unit added by Aftermath, this is only available in missions. It can bend light around it's hull making it invisible to anything that isn't very nearby. The Phase tank can carry up to 5 infantry units and also has a very powerful weapon, although it can be seen whenever it fires. The missions show this was meant to have been stolen by the Soviets from the Allies. To use this unit in multiplayer games download the file below.
		Name:SHOK Owner:Soviet	Shock Trooper: These guys carry a portable tesla pack on their backs. Although it is short-range and they move quite slowy they can be very useful since they cannot be run over by enemy vehicles. A few of these can cause havoc to a group of enemy tanks.
		Name:TTNK Owner:Soviet	Tesla Tank: A new version of the mobile tesla coil tank from Counterstrike. Not very well armoured but a few of these amongst a pack of tanks will add a little extra to the attack force. At least this time it looks better :-)
		Name:ANT1 Owner:N/A	Scout Ant:	These appear to be the ants originally available in CounterStrike. There seem to be three seperate Units and three separate Images although they are all the same graphic. Their only use in Aftermath is in one MegaMap (Island Wars Extreme) used in multiplayer. In this map there are also some Giant AntHills where the ants come from. These ants can also be found in Aftermath Giant Ant Missions.
		Name:ANT2 Owner:N/A	Fire Ant:
		Name:ANT3 Owner:N/A	Warrior Ant:

New Structures Added by Aftermath:

RA picture	Icon	Information	Description
		Name:QUEE Owner:N/A	The Giant Queen ant. First seen in Counterstrike this structure is also in Aftermath. However, like all the 'new' structures it does not seem to be used anywhere in Aftermath.
		Name:LAR1 Owner:N/A	Larva 1. A simple structure depicting a young ant. First seen in Counterstrike in the final indoor hidden Giant Ant missions.
		Name:LAR2 Owner:N/A	Larva 2. A simple structure depicting two young ants. First seen in CounterStrike's Giant Ant missions.

Other Aftermath features:

New Multiplayer/Skirmish maps	At least 100 new multiplayer maps, generally designed better than those that originally came with the game and better number of players suggestions. In fact there may actually be even more maps on the CD although they are not normally accessible. I have not yet tried any of these out, but they appear to be maps which were not quite finished in time for the release.
18 all new missions	9 new missions for each of the Allies and Soviets which can be played in any order. None are particularly spectacular but have a few nice touches, such as the chronotank reinforcements and para-tanks. They also introduce the new units, including the Phase Tank.
Megamaps!	Aftermath allows you to play Megamaps which are the maximum size of map Red Alert can handle. These make for much more fun and allow for better tactics and freedom of movement for sneak attacks. Megamaps also allow some space if you are playing with several players.
New Soundtracks	8 totally new soundtracks - and very good they are too.
New Sound effects	Some units such as the Shock Troopers have new voices for easy identification.
Build Slowdown	When playing an Aftermath game you'll find that building three or more production facilities (such as the war factory) will not speed up production of units - it just provides another place for units to come out of. This helps reduce tank rushing and similar strategies by making it more important to utilise all available production structures such as for air and sea.
Newer Version of WChat	Well, it's quite old now, but it is easily upgraded to the latest version and allows you to play head-to-head on the internet for free!
Latest Upgrade for RA	Apparently Aftermath also fixes a few minor bugs and improves speed of some animations. Mostly useful for those with slow graphics cards. Most useful though, you can now save the game when playing multiplayer and skirmish games! (Not over the internet though.) To do this you need to press ESCape during the game and choose the Save option from within the Menu system. I have found that sometimes this isn't available for some reason though.
'New' Team Orders for missions	Computer controlled chronoshifting (not using the AI though unfortunately) through the use of the old 'Spy @ waypoint' trigger (number 15).
Paratank reinforcements	There are a few extra things that can be done in Aftermath which cannot be done in Red Alert. These include dropping tanks and other units from Badger Bombers as reinforcements instead of only being able to paradrop infantry.
Extra terrain graphics	Aftermath also adds the Giant Anthill graphics to Red Alert if you don't already have Counterstrike installed. This doesn't seem to be available in most Red Alert editors (such as Red Alert Scenario Editor v1.24) and will crash the Terrain Editor if it is in the map.

Aftermath Requirements:

Red Alert	Naturally you'll need a copy of Red Alert already installed to play Aftermath. Note that it doesn't matter whether you have the first mission disk - Counterstrike. To play a multiplayer game of Aftermath, all players must have an Aftermath CD, which is very unfortunate. However, with Red Alert and Aftermath you now have a total of 3 CDs, so 3 players can play regular RA without any more purchases! To do this a player with only regular Red Alert installed must host the game if playing over a network.
System requirements	Windows 95, Pentium Processor 8 megs of RAM (16 MBs strongly recommended - believe me you'll need it!), dual-speed CD-ROM, 30 MBs hard drive space. I'm pretty certain Aftermath will work in a DOS version of Red Alert, but you may need Windows 95 to install it in the first place! I seriously reccommend using the Win95 SVGA version for playing Megamaps.
Multiplay requirments	28.8 kbps modem or direct internet connection, Winsock 1.1 compliant TCP/IP stack, or networked computers.
Video/Audio	1Mb Microsoft DirectDraw^TM compatible, Soundblaster Compatible.

Well, should you ~~buy~~ download it?

Why you should ~~buy~~ download Aftermath:

Why you shouldn't ~~buy~~ download Aftermath:

9 new units including the Chronotank and MAD tank!
Megamaps - the BEST way to play multiplayer
18 all new missions.
100 new multiplayer maps.
New soundtracks.
Build Slowdown.
Many third party add-ons now require Aftermath and it's new units.
For those who write RA missions, Aftermath offers even more possibilities.

Only 7 new units normally available.
Most of the new units are normally available in Rules.ini patches (eg Demo-truck and Teslatanks).
Larger maps can be played in Red Alert anyway (although not as well as in Aftermath).
There are lots of missions available to download for free from the internet.
There are thousands of new multiplayer maps around.
Some soundtracks are similar to the normal RA ones.
Lots of people like the tank-rush! ;-)
For multiplayer games everyone needs to have bought Aftermath.

Well, in my opinion you should ~~buy~~ download Aftermath, especially if you have an internet connection and access to Westwood Chat. Despite it's many faults it improves Red Alert gameplay enough to make it worthwhile.

Using the hidden Aftermath units

There is a hidden Aftermath unit which is not normally available at all in Aftermath - the Helicarrier. There is also the Phase Tank which is used in some Aftermath missions but not available in multiplayer games. I have not made the ants available for use because they are not very useful as units in multiplayer games. If you want to use the two hidden units in multiplayer games simply download the file below. Unzip it into your Red Alert directory and then start Red Alert.
To use the 2 hidden units you need to have the prerequisites necessary for building them. Play with a TechLevel of at least 10. For the Phase transport you need a weapons factory and a tech centre, for the HeliCarrier you need a Helipad, Tech Centre and Naval yard/Subpen.
Note, ALL players must have a copy of this aftrmath.ini in their directory to get the units in multiplayer games. Note the spelling of the filename!

[ Download the file by clicking here! (10Kb) ]

Thanks to Geerling for sending this version of the aftrmath.ini file. This is larger than the original but doesn't appear to have the chronotank problem experienced by lots of people.

Author: Brian Bird
Source: IncREDible Alert

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