CDI Campaign: Commando Unit damages himself when I use c4

[Darth Porgus]

I am playing the CDI campaign and in the mission where you get the commando / sniper and 1 helicopter. I saw some buildings with probably anti air turrets in them and I destroyed them with c4 by rightclicking but everytime I did that the c4 instantly exploded and damaged my commando. Idk how you can add a delay to the detonation.

[Nyerguds]

I'm assuming you mean GDI?

The Commando does, in fact, not damage himself with the C4. The troops coming out of the building damage him, because they can get a shot off right after they spawn.

There are some tricks you can use to minimise that damage, though.

First, a note on game mechanics. The game has a mechanic/bug called the "south advantage" that means that things attacking from the south always get a slight range advantage. To put it simply, think of the Obelisk of Light, and how the cell it fires from is one cell north of the cell that can be attacked. Attack it from the north, and you need to get well into its range before you can attack that cell. Attack from the south, and you will reach that targetable cell far sooner, compared to the point at which the Obelisk can fire at you.

This mechanic actually applies to all units as well; they all fire from a point that's slightly more north than their hitbox reaches.

With that in mind...

After the Commando places the bomb (which is when the building flashes), he will run away in a random direction. If this is not towards the north at all (east, west, or more south), immediately give an order to make him move further in the same direction he is already going. This wil ensure you will get the maximum distance away before the building's survivors are spawned. Do not spam-click the move command; that'll make him pause for a split second before reacting to each click.

If he is moving towards a northern direction, immediately give a command to make him move south instead, to keep your south advantage.

To increase your chances of success, make sure to approach the building from the south if you can; then he'll generally be slightly more to the south already when placing the bomb.

When the building explodes, make sure to immediately target the closest survivor, and you should be able to survive this with little to no damage.


Additional note: turn down the game speed. The Remaster's default speed is one tick higher than the original game's default, and in details like this, this difference is very noticeable. Turning down the game speed will allow you much quicker reaction speeds when moving away your Commando and killing the survivors.

[Attorney-at-Meme]

Wow, didn't know about this. I would typically just take the damage and keep going.

[zerobyte666]

Or use mod where buildings destroyed with C4 don't spawn infantry - like they did in RA1 later, removing this RNG element.

[Attorney-at-Meme]

I have that mod, but I turned it off, because it's not part of the original design... it's kind of cheap, but keeps you on your toes - thus making the gameplay more varied and engaging. Can see why you'd want to turn it off though.

[zerobyte666]

Yeah, exactly - whatever floats your boat, as they say.

[Nyerguds]

Originally posted by zerobyte666:

Or use mod where buildings destroyed with C4 don't spawn infantry - like they did in RA1 later, removing this RNG element.

Meh. The only real bug involved is that the survivors get one free shot before they start moving away from the wreckage. Fix that alone, and that's plenty to fix the random damage. And after that it's still up to the player's skill to take out the survivors before they can damage the Commando.

[Cat]

Or quicksave before bombing a SAM Site. But I would just bomb it while still trying to avoid damage, if I had the worst luck of infantry spawning and damage my commando a lot, I just continue and improvise. It's part of the game to have your commando fighting the survivors.

[zerobyte666]

I'd say it's not a sign of good design if you need save-scumming. But it's just my opinion.

Originally posted by Nyerguds:

The only real bug involved is that the survivors get one free shot before they start moving away from the wreckage.

Yeah, making it so spawned enemies don't shoot for a couple of seconds would even better than no enemies at all - but it's much harder to fix, I'd guess.

[Cat]

Originally posted by zerobyte666:

I'd say it's not a sign of good design if you need save-scumming.

Save scum is not needed to beat the missions. The game already gave you this feature so I might as well made mention of it.

The only mission where I actually think save scumming is needed is the Counterstrike mission Personal War, and that is one of my favorite Red Alert missions.

[zerobyte666]

Originally posted by Cat:

Save scum is not needed to beat the missions.

So you can consistently beat GDI-6 (Havoc) without saves?
I know I cannot (without aforementioned mod). Maybe you're just a much better player than I am.

[Darth Porgus]

Originally posted by Nyerguds:

I'm assuming you mean GDI?

The Commando does, in fact, not damage himself with the C4. The troops coming out of the building damage him, because they can get a shot off right after they spawn.

There are some tricks you can use to minimise that damage, though.

First, a note on game mechanics. The game has a mechanic/bug called the "south advantage" that means that things attacking from the south always get a slight range advantage. To put it simply, think of the Obelisk of Light, and how the cell it fires from is one cell north of the cell that can be attacked. Attack it from the north, and you need to get well into its range before you can attack that cell. Attack from the south, and you will reach that targetable cell far sooner, compared to the point at which the Obelisk can fire at you.

This mechanic actually applies to all units as well; they all fire from a point that's slightly more north than their hitbox reaches.

With that in mind...

After the Commando places the bomb (which is when the building flashes), he will run away in a random direction. If this is not towards the north at all (east, west, or more south), immediately give an order to make him move further in the same direction he is already going. This wil ensure you will get the maximum distance away before the building's survivors are spawned. Do not spam-click the move command; that'll make him pause for a split second before reacting to each click.


If he is moving towards a northern direction, immediately give a command to make him move south instead, to keep your south advantage.

To increase your chances of success, make sure to approach the building from the south if you can; then he'll generally be slightly more to the south already when placing the bomb.

When the building explodes, make sure to immediately target the closest survivor, and you should be able to survive this with little to no damage.


Additional note: turn down the game speed. The Remaster's default speed is one tick higher than the original game's default, and in details like this, this difference is very noticeable. Turning down the game speed will allow you much quicker reaction speeds when moving away your Commando and killing the survivors.

Thanks for the answer! I already lowered the game speed and I played the mission again and often the commando did not take damage at all and there was no one coming out of the building that got destroyed by c4. Either he killed the enemie unit automaticly after it spawned or it did not spawn anything?
I couldn't afford taking much damage, because at that time I didn't know how to outmanover the vehicle but I know how now and I finished the mission.

Now that I know that south mechanic, does a base spawned in the south side of the map get a small advantage over the one in the north.

[Cat]

Originally posted by Darth Porgus:

Now that I know that south mechanic, does a base spawned in the south side of the map get a small advantage over the one in the north.

Yes. Your units and defenses have an earlier time to shoot if the enemies are coming from the north. Attacking guard towers from the south is safer and can shoot it from outside its range.

I also played multiplayer many times with my base at the south, I was able to shoot my opponent's obelisks with my obelisk while their obelisks can't shoot mine.

Bases at the north will also have less time to react or shoot down an incoming airstrike, and their defenses are more likely placed to the south as A-10s in multiplayer always come from the north. You also have less time to react from nukes, especially crate nukes where the missile instantly spawns from the north instead of being launched from a temple.

[Darth Porgus]

Originally posted by Cat:

Originally posted by Darth Porgus:

Now that I know that south mechanic, does a base spawned in the south side of the map get a small advantage over the one in the north.

Yes. Your units and defenses have an earlier time to shoot if the enemies are coming from the north. Attacking guard towers from the south is safer and can shoot it from outside its range.

I also played multiplayer many times with my base at the south, I was able to shoot my opponent's obelisks with my obelisk while their obelisks can't shoot mine.

Bases at the north will also have less time to react or shoot down an incoming airstrike, and their defenses are more likely placed to the south as A-10s in multiplayer always come from the north. You also have less time to react from nukes, especially crate nukes where the missile instantly spawns from the north instead of being launched from a temple.

What is a obelisks?

[Meat Miracle]

Originally posted by zerobyte666:

I'd say it's not a sign of good design if you need save-scumming. But it's just my opinion.

So if a game throws you back to a checkpoint, you automatically restart the level instead? Because that's the same thing, just automated.

[zerobyte666]

I'm not saying I don't use saves - I do and sometimes I do save often.

What I am saying is that RNG mechanics like this one with C4 where you can do exactly same steps 10 times and end up with different results, so you have to save-scum to get more favorable RNG result - this is a questionable design.
This makes you save not for the scenario when you did a mistake and could do better, but for scenario with bad RNG that could be better.

If there was a _sure_ way to use C4 and not take any damage - even if this would require really good micro - this would be different and a good (to me) game mechanic.
"if you have skill to do X, you'll be fine" is a good design (to me).
"even if you have skill to do X, you still need to hope for good RNG" is not (to me).

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course there's RNG element in many things in CnC franchise in general, especially in TD/RA1. E.g. your grenadier can kill multiple guys with one grenade - or he can miss completely. Other units also can hit or miss.

But you can plan for this because you have many units, you can prepare for the fight, get a better position or just build a bigger army than your opponent's - so your units' misses are less/not critical.
You can't do anything on a mission with 1 commando if this guy takes a lot of damage from first couple of SAM sites. Next one can kill you or not kill you, you don't know how RNG will decide.

I watched 4 different RTS-streamers play through entire TD, they didn't have many issues completing most other missions (even hard ones) with a few saves (if any). So they're pretty good in the game in general.
All of them had to use lots of save/loads/restarts on GDI-6. And I had exactly the same experience.