Gameplay Fixes¶

Always on, no Options.ini key. All are retail bugs upstream still carries. Each entry says whether it changes the simulation (older replays no longer play back identically) or only what is drawn.

Guard mode holds its ground¶

A guarding unit that gets hit finishes its return or its current attack instead of chasing the attacker and stuttering. It picks up the attacker through its normal enemy scan.
Deploy-to-fire units (Nuke Cannon) stay deployed when:
- their target dies and another enemy is inside the guard circle
- they are ordered to guard the spot they already stand on
- a target leaves range while they are still unpacking (the unpack reverses)
Manually deployed units keep their stance.

Changes the simulation. Ported from CookieLandProjects/CLP_AI.

Weapon bonus no longer restarts the reload¶

A bonus changing mid-reload (Propaganda, horde, continuous fire, promotion) used to reset the reload to zero, which could stall a unit or let it skip the reload (Nuke Cannon plus Propaganda toggling). The reload now keeps the fraction already served; only the remaining time scales.

Snipe survives a weapon set change¶

Jarmen Kell's snipe wind-up was lost when his weapon set changed (salvage, promotion, bike). The charge now carries over and finishes on schedule.

Note

dropping out of snipe mode entirely is data - a set change drops the weapon lock unless the set is marked WeaponLockSharedAcrossSets.

Stealth kills no longer reveal the killer¶

The floating bounty text is shown only to players who can see the killer: its owner, allies, and replay observers. Stealthed snipers and stealthed transports no longer give themselves away. A detected stealth unit still shows it.

Presentation only; replays unaffected.

Solo LAN games respond instantly¶

A LAN game hosted with no other human player had a noticeable lag between a click and the unit obeying: a full second at the start, then about a quarter of a second for the rest of the match. The engine schedules every command a number of frames ahead to cover the network round trip, and it seeds that round trip with a 200 ms placeholder until real measurements arrive. A solo host has nobody to measure against, so the placeholder stood for the whole game.

A host who is alone now counts as having zero latency, and starts the match at the minimum run ahead instead of the one second start-up value. The Generals Online build also now uses the same latency formula for LAN as the plain build, so both executables give a LAN game the same delay.

This only changes how far ahead commands are scheduled, which the replay records as it happened, so older replays still play back identically.

LAN over a VPN stalls less¶

Players who meet over Radmin or a similar VPN play a "LAN" game at 100 to 500 ms ping with jitter and the odd lost packet. The engine sizes its command delay (the run ahead) from the measured ping, but it did so in ways tuned for a real LAN: the first estimate came from a fixed 200 ms placeholder mixed into the history, the estimate was refreshed only every five seconds, one very slow player was averaged against the next slowest and so under-provisioned, the delay was lowered as eagerly as it was raised, and a lost packet was resent only after a fixed two seconds, freezing everyone for that long.

Now the history holds measured round trips only and the first run ahead waits for one, the mod's GameData.ini refreshes the estimate every half second (NetworkRunAheadMetricsTime = 500), the slowest player alone sets the budget when they are clearly behind the rest, the run ahead rises at once but drops only after three consecutive lower readings, and a lost packet is resent after one and a half round trips (50 ms to 2 s). A real LAN keeps its minimum delay; the changes only matter once pings are long or uneven.

Two modem-era habits are gone as well. Each player used to hold outgoing packets back for half the command delay to save bandwidth, which spent half the delay budget on waiting; packets now go out at once. And each player now reports its average ping plus twice its jitter (the standard deviation of its round trips), so the delay covers the swings of an uneven link instead of only its average. A steady LAN adds only a few milliseconds. Online Generals Online games keep the official behaviour.

This changes when commands execute, which the replay records, so older replays still play back identically.

Larger game packets¶

Network game packets now carry up to about 1100 bytes instead of the 476 bytes sized for a 512-byte modem packet, so a burst of orders goes out in one packet instead of several. This applies to every multiplayer game. The lobby already refuses a player whose executable differs, so an older build cannot join a game hosted on this one.

Drones stay on their leash¶

The leash (twice the guard range from the master) was never checked while the master had a victim, so drones wandered off indefinitely.
The leash is now checked first. A drone past it drops its attack and returns.
Unchanged: normal fights within the master's range, drones without guard range, Stinger Site stingers.

Changes the simulation.

Note

a drone that auto-acquires targets can still start fights after returning; that is data.

USE_OWNER_OBJECT fires from the owner¶

OCLSpecialPower with CreateLocation = USE_OWNER_OBJECT now has the owner carry out the delivery, as in Generals, instead of spawning a new transport. Only powers using that value are affected.

Changes the simulation for those powers.

More Generals Challenge personas¶

The persona limit is now 24 (GeneralPersona0 to GeneralPersona23). A 13th used to be dropped along with everything after it.
Each persona needs a GeneralPosition<N> button in ChallengeMenu.wnd to show. Slots without a button are skipped instead of crashing.
The retail twelve are untouched.

Dying infantry do not block or catch clicks¶

A dying soldier leaves the pathfind grid immediately instead of blocking non-crushing vehicles until it sinks. Dying vehicles still block until they become hulks.
Dead objects no longer catch mouse clicks, unless ALWAYS_SELECTABLE.

Jammed units deselect properly¶

Jamming deselects the unit, so the control bar no longer appears stuck.
UNSELECTABLE alone blocks new selection clicks but no longer empties the current selection.
The jam state is tracked directly, so a promotion or health upgrade can no longer leave a unit jammed forever.

Changes selection state; affects replays.

Portable addons no longer block building¶

Placing a building over your own PORTABLE_STRUCTURE carrier (Overlord with Gattling Cannon, etc.) now shoves it aside like any unit instead of refusing placement. Stuck or enemy carriers still block.

Changes build legality; affects replays.

Buildings can be placed on rubble¶

A building centred on the rubble of a destroyed structure was refused as unreachable, yet the same building shifted so its centre missed the rubble was allowed and cleared it. Placement on rubble is now allowed wherever the builder can reach the rubble, and construction clears it.

The pathfinder never linked rubble to the ground around it, so infantry and other units that can cross rubble were judged unable to reach it. They now path into rubble normally. Amphibious units no longer treat rubble and broken bridge pieces as reachable.

Changes build legality and pathfinding; affects replays.

Allied scaffolds no longer lure your builders¶

An ally's unfinished building showed the resume-construction cursor, and a dozer or worker sent there drove up and stood idle because only the owner can build. Only the owner's builders are offered it now.

The host can tick Coop Buildings in the Skirmish or LAN lobby to let allies finish each other's buildings. The building stays the owner's. The option is off by default, is not kept in save games, and is not available on Generals Online.

Changes the simulation; affects replays.

Units chasing a moving target now shoot it¶

Fast units ordered onto slow moving targets used to twitch forever without firing.
The approach point and weapon range now measure edge to edge the same way.
An engaged unit tolerates about one pathfinding cell of drift before chasing again. Starting an attack still uses exact range, so nothing gains reach.
A unit that falls behind stops as soon as a shot opens up.
Turretless units benefit most.

Changes when units fire; affects replays.

Force fire respects line of sight¶

A turreted unit with ATTACK_NEEDS_LINE_OF_SIGHT used to force fire at the ground through buildings while its hull drove around them.
The turret now holds fire until the shot is clear, as it already did for object targets.

Changes when units fire; affects replays.

Wheeled units over water draw level¶

Wheeled amphibious units (Centurion) stayed frozen at the shore slope's tilt while floating on deep water. They draw level again, as in retail. This one is an upstream regression from TheSuperHackers' render decoupling, not a retail bug (TheSuperHackers#3395).

Only changes what is drawn.

Slow aircraft no longer jitter over slopes¶

Aircraft with PitchInDirectionOfZVelFactor (A-10 and other slow jets) shook in straight flight over sloped ground. Their height control switches lift fully on and off on alternate frames, and the nose pitch followed every switch; the slower the plane, the bigger the swing. The nose now follows the averaged climb rate.

Only changes what is drawn.

Hover units stop at the units they touch¶

HOVER and SHIP locomotors brake slowly, so a unit kept sliding for about two cells after its move ended. The AI counts it as idle by then and does no blocking, so it slid into nearby units and stayed inside them.
An idle hover or ship unit that is still sliding toward a unit it touches now stops there.
Water units can use Appearance = HOVER again instead of FOUR_WHEELS (#125).

Changes the simulation; affects replays.

Slow units leave tunnels and transports cleanly¶

A tunnel releases everyone at once on one exit point. A transport does too, unless it has several exit paths or an ExitDelay. Each unit ignores collisions for one second while they spread out.
A unit with low acceleration had barely moved by then, so the stacked units blocked each other and crawled or stuck at the exit.
The window now also covers the time the unit's locomotor needs to reach its exit spot, up to five seconds. Fast units keep about one second (#96).

Changes the simulation; affects replays.

Alt-tab no longer leaves waypoint mode on¶

Alt-tabbing out hides the alt release from the game, so you came back in waypoint mode and every click queued another point. Losing or regaining focus now clears every held-key mode (waypoint, force attack, prefer selection, keypad camera).

Only changes input.

Rubble and cliff surfaces are honoured¶

The coarse route planner only ever looked at ground cells, so units with RUBBLE or CLIFF locomotor surfaces were steered around rubble and cliffs whenever a ground detour existed.
Locomotor sets mixing RUBBLE with CLIFF or WATER could not take a destination on rubble at all; both combinations now count rubble as connected terrain.
Climbers paid a heavy toll on nearly every cliff cell. Only cliff cells that are flat (painted impassable in the map editor) still carry it.

Changes the simulation; affects replays. (#120)

Terrain line of sight follows the slope¶

ATTACK_NEEDS_LINE_OF_SIGHT tested each terrain cell by its highest corner, so a smooth slope between shooter and target read as a wall and long-range units refused clear shots. The test now samples the interpolated surface along the line.

Changes when units fire; affects replays. (#120)

Bridges block fire from both sides¶

Units under a bridge could shoot units on the deck while the deck stopped fire the other way. A sight line that crosses a bridge deck is now blocked in both directions, for every unit.

Changes when units fire; affects replays. (#120)

Scaled objects keep their size under fog¶

A scaled object that sat in the fog before it was ever on screen was remembered at its unscaled size, so its fogged ghost looked smaller than the real thing. The ghost now matches the object.

Presentation only; replays unaffected. (#121)

AI special powers no longer see through fog¶

Skirmish and multiplayer AI fired special powers at targets it had never seen. These script actions now pick only targets a human in the AI's seat could pick:

SKIRMISH_FIRE_SPECIAL_POWER_AT_MOST_COST and its CLP ..._TYPE variant
SKIRMISH_PERFORM_COMMANDBUTTON_ON_MOST_VALUABLE_OBJECT
TEAM_ALL_USE_COMMANDBUTTON_ON_NEAREST_*

A valid target is in view, or a structure the AI has scouted (its fogged ghost). Undetected stealth units and buildings never count. With nothing valid, the superweapon holds its fire. The campaign and challenge missions keep the old behavior.

Changes the simulation. (#115)

Hijackers cannot take stealthed vehicles¶

A Hijacker no longer picks or seizes a stealthed vehicle that has not been detected, like capture and hacking already worked. A disguised vehicle can still be hijacked. This covers hijack-guard, hunt, scripts and an order given before the target went stealth.

Changes the simulation. (#115)

Jammed AI units wait out the jam¶

A human cannot order a jammed unit, because jamming makes it unselectable. Skirmish and multiplayer AI now plays by the same rule. A jammed unit ignores script orders, command-button abilities included, and keeps doing what it was doing. The newest order it missed runs when the jam ends. The campaign and challenge missions keep the old behavior.

Changes the simulation. (#115)