Balancing

Described as the spearhead of the mod project, balancing delivers the impact of the game to its players. Good balancing is absolutely vital for the game's prosperity and with RA Unplugged being a standalone mod the balancing cannot be anything less than exemplary. Beyond scripted missions for the single player, being able to demonstrate its strength through skirmish/online gameplay is one more efficient way of promoting itself as a game worth investing one's own time.

Difference between OpenRA's RA mod and uRA

Branching off the Red Alert mod for OpenRA, RA: Unplugged differs with its parent project, at least for starters, on the level of game rules. OpenRA introducing smart targeting vs buildings (units ignore enemy structures) altered the balance of strength between units and structures, allowing units to move through an enemy base with much reduced effort. At least for RA, scaling the game towards zone-of-control unit blobs had the unfortunate effect of emphasizing macro to the point of absorbing the character and use of the individual unit or unit groups.

Beyond reverting smart targeting, RA Unplugged has been intently playtested with additional changes with aim of further contrasting unit strengths towards their designated uses. The opportunity to publicly expose the rule changes on modded playtest maps early 2018 had the fortunate effect of being able to prove its case past the heated public discussions and theory-crafting (leaving the prospects of RA: Unplugged depend on its features).

Balance Strategy

In essence, the responsibility of game balance ultimately resides with the project owner, however, can be delegated out to a person (with or without a team) which has complete authority over the task and implementation of a proposed change of rules changes. This relationship ought be established beforehand in order to prevent waste of time or uncertainty as to who is to make the final decisions and on what to expect in terms of style or strategy of the particular playtesting. Additionally it'll make it easier for interested parties to find and participate in the process.

Drawing from a proven and successful methodology, there are a few guidelines recommended for anyone wanting to take up the task of playtesting new changes. First and foremost there is a demand on long-term and persistent playtest cycle with a particular set of rules to make sure the author covers the most ground in terms of consequences and predictability of the outcome. The true ramifications cannot possibly be covered in a few days of testing, and worse still is constantly moving the values around within a playtest cycle. This is a pretty obvious point but nevertheless emphasized to discourage low quality whims and to make it easier for observers to follow the development.

The more drastic a change the more evident the demonstrated benefit need be in order to justify its inclusion. By logic that would means altering tier 1 (affecting the entire game) demands more thorough testing versus altering tier 3.

Another important rule of thumb is for the author to seek solutions within existing properties before altering tech tree, adding or removing units, etc. This is not a requirement but in many cases can save the author a lot of time. Easy does it.

By principle a change ought to be obvious as to its intent and effect, having it be demonstrable within a playtest session. Beyond that there's no real limit as to what the head of balance decides to focus on and put to practice.

General notes - Points of interest

Potential game changers

• Veterancy to deliver different bonuses per faction and/or per unit. #25
• Use Service Depot to purchase rank upgrades using its repair sequence. #26

Quality of life

• Crushing Sandbags slowing down vehicles. #11
• Engineers to slowly repair structures. #13
• Disallow prone infantry from shooting over sandbags. #15
• Allow spies to reveal fake structures without being consumed. #29
• Iron Curtain to trigger weapon MADTankDetonate. #39

The Speculative Zone

• Allow medics/mechanics to keep a distance to enemy with attack orders. #19
• Hijacker to capture vehicles in place of being crushed. #28
• OR Flick off the Hijacker, add Thief to the Allies/French.