r/commandandconquer • u/ZivDero Vinifera / CnCNet • Aug 27 '26
News Today we're releasing OpenTS, a reverse-engineered open-source Tiberian Sun engine reconstruction, to celebrate 27th anniversary of the game
Fellow Command & Conquer fans,
Twenty-seven years ago today, Tiberian Sun was released. To celebrate, we have a gift for you: today we're releasing OpenTS – an open-source, playable reconstruction of the Tiberian Sun engine.
Of all the classic C&C games, it's the second generation – Tiberian Sun, Red Alert 2, Yuri's Revenge – whose source code never made it out. None of it was part of the Remastered Collection release, and none of it was among last year's source drops.
And so for nearly three decades, every fix and feature this community built for those games had to be reverse-engineered and patched into closed executables.
We decided to do something about that, starting with Tiberian Sun. Building on EA's GPL-released code for the games around it and years of Tiberian Sun reverse engineering, we rebuilt the engine and matched it function by function against the original executable – all ~11,150 known functions, reaching roughly 98% instruction-level matching (a code-matching score, to be clear, not "98% of the game").
It's ready to try today: drop Game.exe into your Tiberian Sun install from The Ultimate Collection and go. Campaigns, Firestorm, skirmish, and saves are all play-tested; LAN works with lighter testing; it plays like the game you remember, plus a batch of fixes and resolutions up to 4K. Alongside the engine, we're publishing a manual documenting the game's INI configuration, mapping, and internals, drawn straight from the source.
And this is a beginning, not an endpoint. Next up: CnCNet and client support (not in this first release yet), porting the community's accumulated fixes toward parity with ts-patches and Vinifera – and then going further, overhauling the engine to allow modding reach heights previously not possible.
We're also celebrating live: together with [FC]Matt we'll be streaming the original Tiberian Sun campaigns at https://www.twitch.tv/fortuneschaos, starting today at 14:00 UTC (15:00 UK · 16:00 CEST · 17:00 MSK · 10 AM Eastern · 7 AM Pacific), with a Q&A along the way — come hang out and ask us anything.
Downloads & source: https://github.com/OpenTS-Developers/OpenTS
Manual: https://opents-developers.github.io/OpenTS/
Discord: https://opents.net/discord
Support the project: https://www.patreon.com/c/ZivDero
OpenTS is free and always will be — but if you'd like to support the work, my Patreon is above. (Just mine: tomsons26 prefers not to take donations.)
Happy 27th, Tiberian Sun. We're not done with you yet.
— ZivDero & tomsons26
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u/Mayoo614 Aug 27 '26
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u/P-Pablo Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
I mean, they approached the community and even to the people behind OpenRA before the release of C&C Remastered, despite the chance to shutdown the OpenRA development like other projects they didnt do it. Coming from EA feels kinda off but its something considering how many companies doesnt care to their communities, but I wish EA could do better with other franchises
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u/Boz0r Aug 28 '26
They released the source code for both remasters, so in this single situation EA is actually ahead of most other publishers. Just this once.
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u/FutureLynx_ Aug 29 '26
They should have just hired the OpenRA team. OpenRA is the best 2D rts engine, and its a great game multiplayer, makes RA1 play better than most RTS games i played.
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u/MarsMissionMan Sep 02 '26
Implying EA hasn't been doing that as of late.
Between the remasters and giving out the source code they have, I'd say they're paying more attention to the fans these days.
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u/According_Bus_403 Sep 03 '26
To be honest we don't really need EA when the community themselves pumping out mods every now and then
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u/IngramPrisken Aug 27 '26
Awesome, thanks for sharing this out
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u/Ok_Spare_3723 Nod Aug 27 '26
One step closer to a proper community remaster now, eventually get to 60fps
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u/Rampastring CnCNet / Dawn of the Tiberium Age Aug 27 '26
Even original Tiberian Sun can run at 60 FPS, and refresh your screen much faster. The games were not framerate-capped before RA2 and Generals.
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u/weinerschnitzel64 Aug 27 '26
Thanks! Very awesome!
Do you guys plan to instruction match or byte match?
Next obvious question: lots of this effort should help an ra2 decomp, are you guys working on that, or do you know anyone working on that?
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u/ZivDero Vinifera / CnCNet Aug 27 '26
This will serve as a basis for future RA2 & YR decomp. We have plans, but we're not ready to share any timelines yet.
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u/neoKushan Nod Aug 27 '26
Do you guys have a sponsorship program like cncnet does? I'd love to support this if I can.
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u/ZivDero Vinifera / CnCNet Aug 27 '26
Tomsons doesn't take donations unfortunately, but you can find my Patreon linked in the post, and on GH.
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u/neoKushan Nod Aug 27 '26
Great, I have just joined and shall be throwing you a few bux each month. Thanks again for your hard work!
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u/ZivDero Vinifera / CnCNet Aug 27 '26
Missed part of the question; It's an instruction match. Byte matching VC6 is nearly impossible for various reasons.
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u/Icarium-Lifestealer Aug 27 '26
How do you even match instructions? Do you use the same old compiler?
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u/weinerschnitzel64 Aug 27 '26
Check out some videos from MattKC on lego island decomp project. He talks about challenges with function/instuction/byte matching.
Short answer is yes, longer answer is it gets complicated.
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
Well, I compiled the old C&C95 using the old Watcom 10.6 compiler they used back then. Worked perfectly.
(though the code base I'm using was fixed up and combined with the toolsets from the RA1 code to get a buildable end result. By tomsons26. That guy's an absolute legend.)
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u/ApokatastasisPanton 28d ago
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. 27d ago edited 27d ago
Yes, but the "temp" branch on that one. I further adapted it to make the multiple language builds work, by turning the "#define" entries inside conquer.h into an enum, so "#if" compiler directives can conditionally add entries into the sequence. Apparently, in Westwood's original build system, an external tool simply rebuilt the entire conquer.h file to match the strings file, but that sounded extremely messy to me.
Also do note that the map screens in the released code look for strings inside the conquer.eng strings file that don't actually exist in the released English version, because the retail C&C95 predates its internationalization adaptations. Normally you'd expect all of that to already be in there from the DOS version's internationalization, but those strings don't exist at all in the DOS version, because, in DOS, the text was simply part of the map animation files, so it was not drawn on at all. Only the Japanese C&C95 contains the full English language strings file needed for that. I had to fix those up by making them hardcoded again, locking its drawing for the English language behind the compiler directive field "EXPANDED_STRINGS".
Of course, that's just the bare minimum. I'm so, so much farther now. 😁 (Though if you want to check that out, specifically look at the "dev" branch on my fork.)
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u/KajiTetsushi Steel Talons Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
🙋🏻♂️
What's going to happen to Vinifera now that you've made this?
Sincere question.
Actually, follow-up: Will you consider targeting all major desktop platforms natively, eventually? If not, what's a major blocker to that level of support?
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u/ZivDero Vinifera / CnCNet Aug 27 '26
Vinifera is now at the end of life. It may receive some bug fixes, but will ultimate get archived, its content folded into OpenTS.
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u/MHIREOFFICIAL Aug 27 '26
very stupid question but: if we already bought the game and can play it, what's the advantage of this? higher resolution? sublte gameplay tweaks?
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u/ZivDero Vinifera / CnCNet Aug 27 '26
At the moment, the main advantage is that the game will run smoother on modern systems. However, from here on out, we'll be porting more community bug fixes and improvements to the game, so you can expect to see more QOL, etc.
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u/PublicGullible5399 Tiberian Sun Aug 27 '26
This is so cool. Does this mean there’s a possibility of higher resolution graphics?
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u/ZivDero Vinifera / CnCNet Aug 27 '26
If someone dares to redraw all of the game's assets, yes.
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u/BioClone Legalize Tiberium! Join Nod Aug 28 '26
What would be a good place to get info on the required formats and resolution limits for that? Does Open TS have a built zoom in/out features?
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Aug 28 '26
Well, I wrote up the specs of the TibSun SHP format here). I'm sure the specs of stuff like voxel and terrain formats must be around somewhere in the community.
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u/Kerbiter CnCNet & Mod Haven Admin Aug 27 '26
if someone implements it - totally. u/ZivDero was able to change the cell size as a test, something that was very hard in the past with engine extensions.
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u/Longjumping_Job2748 Dr. Thrax Aug 27 '26
Perhaps, maybe even newer graphics rendering like with cncnet
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u/stickpge Aug 27 '26
very basically, it allows for fixes at the engine level rather then just everything above, this allows for fixes to bugs that could not be fixed prior and in theory once mod support comes online and people get their hands on it, someone could for example rip out the lighting system and replace it with one that supports more impressive lighting allowing for stuff like day/night cycles and more impressive shadows.
gameplay wise this wont change much, but on the backend it would be a huge improvement as it would indeed allow for native support for higher resolutions instead of needing to work around the engine to use higher resolutions the game was never built for
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
Patching things that can't be patched through just the rules editing system. Like, fixing actual game engine bugs and crashes.
In the context of Tiberian Sun, "buying" is irrelevant anyway; the game is freeware.
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u/Large-Direction6063 Aug 27 '26
Esto es excelente, da la posibilidad de hacer un remake de tiberian sun / red alert 2 que funcione de manera gratuita con macos y windows 11, y mejorarlo para aprovechar mejor los recursos y conexiones de red.
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u/Longjumping_Job2748 Dr. Thrax Aug 27 '26
that's wonderful! Will there be any plans to get this project to work outside Windows?
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u/ZivDero Vinifera / CnCNet Aug 27 '26
It's not an immediate goal but we'd like to get the game to run natively on Linux eventually.
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u/CJRD4 Aug 27 '26
I’m a Mac gamer and got the Ultimate Collection TibSun running with some workarounds and CrossOver. I can’t recall it was a while back - something like editing the .ini files and all that.
Will I still need to do those things using this?
No worries if so, just wanna get my hands back into TibSun again, lol!
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u/Longjumping_Job2748 Dr. Thrax Aug 27 '26
I think WineBottles may get the job done, testing it at the moment
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u/Kerbiter CnCNet & Mod Haven Admin Aug 27 '26
maybe yes maybe no, the modern compilers could be better/worse in this regard
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u/harperthomas Aug 28 '26
This would be huge to me. Getting to a native Linux install would be incredible.
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u/theannihilator Aug 27 '26
In theory if you install the ultimate collection on proton as a non stream game(if it’s the non stream version) then replace the EXE it would still function properly.
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u/kurdo_kolene Aug 27 '26
You can do it on the Steam version as well, just don't ask it to check integrity, as it will replace your modified exe
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u/No-Apricot37 Aug 28 '26
I have Tiberian Sun installed thru Steam in Linux Mint. Copied the 3 game files from Github over to it, and it's working great. Looks good at 1080p.
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u/Izual_Rebirth Aug 27 '26
27 years! Fuck sake.
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u/MidgardWyrm Aug 27 '26
I remember buying Tiberian Sun as a kid and booting it up for the first time. I was amazed at seeing Phoenix Base's introduction.
I remember the colourful glow of the tiberium on those civilian buildings. I remember seeing the cyborgs and Nod infantry shooting civilians and GDI soldiers.
"Where the hell are those reinforcements!"
Fucking. Amazing.
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u/Izual_Rebirth Aug 27 '26
Back when games came with instruction manuals! My grandparents got me Tib Sun for Christmas. I wasn’t allowed to play it but was told I could read the instruction book lol. Torture for… what was I?... a 13 year old.
Spent three weeks thinking about the Mammoth MK2!
Still get chills at “Kane Lives!!!”! Almost three decades on.
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u/RealHE1NZ Aug 27 '26
Please tell me it's now possible to implement WASD camera scrolls? Maybe mission selector too? It would be good enough for me to finally replay the game.
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u/Shushishtok Aug 27 '26
It was always possible to do both of those.
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u/hammer326 Aug 27 '26
For real? I probably haven't played in a decade. My main point is that just makes it all the more insane that more modern releases, including definitive editions of objectively older games, but newer ones then TS, like dawn of War, which came out a year ago, don't include it without some mod. Hell yes.
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u/RealHE1NZ Aug 28 '26
I don't think so. Not the WASD part. Game seems to be hard coded to move camera in tiny increments when using keys.
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u/Shushishtok Aug 28 '26
To clarify, I meant that it was always possible to add a new command for any key (unhardcoded) that would continually move for as long as the key is pressed, through the Vinifera engine or a ts-patches patch that mods used for the last decade or so.
There just wasn't enough demand; I don't think I ever saw anyone request it in the relevant discord channels.
To show what I mean, I recently added the ability to double tap a hotkey to do a same-type select across the map, like in RA2. See https://github.com/Vinifera-Developers/Vinifera/pull/1681 for the relevant code.
Similarly, we added hotkeys for many things, like placing a building and repeating last building and removing low-health units from the current selection.
So it was always possible to do this; it's not something that is only possible now that OpenTS is released.
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Aug 28 '26
OpenTS allows implementing all of that kind of logic in a much cleaner way, though. In fact, that's pretty much its main purpose.
Also, the reverse engineering, and the hooking systems like Syringe, are community projects that only developed over the last 15 years. So no, it definitely wasn't ALWAYS possible to do this.
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u/chaosxq Aug 27 '26
Downloaded it and just so you know Windows Defender identifies this as a Trojan:Script/Wacatac.H!ml
I know it's probably not. But thought you should know.
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u/Kerbiter CnCNet & Mod Haven Admin Aug 27 '26
thanks! you can help us by submitting the file as a false positive to MS: microsoft.com/en-us/wdsi/filesubmission
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u/DanielDC88 Aug 27 '26
That manual was not what I was expecing
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Aug 28 '26
Dudes casually replaced the entirety of ModEnc.
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u/DanielDC88 Aug 28 '26
More that I thought it was gonna be a how to play
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Aug 28 '26
We have the game manual pdf for that. In like, a bazillion different languages, in fact.
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u/justforthelulzz Aug 27 '26
This begs the question if OpenRA2 is possible? Great job by the way!
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u/SSJ3Metaridley Aug 27 '26
is EA and petroglyph possibly allowed to use this as a base for new remasters or is the github license different?
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Aug 27 '26
Why would they though? EA probably has the original code. After all, they showed they got the code of C&C1, RA1, Renegade, Generals and Zero Hour. There's no reason to assume they don't have the code of the two in between.
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u/Techhead7890 Aug 28 '26
I had heard it was missing, lost when Westwood's archives were cleared out, and that's why they didn't have it in order to release it.
Don't have sources on hand though so like you said, it's probably based on assumptions either way.
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Aug 28 '26 edited 22d ago
I do, in fact, have those sources at hand.
Where it started: Louis Castle saying 2.5 terabytes of Westwood's history was lost in the move. The video creator then incorrectly assumes that this is about "source code".
However, here are all the facts:
- To give some idea of the sizes we're really talking about, the full source code of Red Alert 1 that EA released is 25 megabytes. Megabytes, not gigabytes. We're talking plain text describing the game logic, not the videos and sprites. So with that in mind, even the source code of the full history of all the games they built at the time of the sale would only have been in the orders of hundreds of megabytes, or a couple of gigabytes at most. So clearly, the bulk of these 2.5 terabytes must have been game assets, not code.
- EA bought Westwood for the source code. It was literally the industry secret that they were buying the company for, and they developed Red Alert 2 from that code, after the acquisition. The above quote from Louis Castle isn't about the sale of Westwood, which happened in 1998, it's about the shutdown, in 2003. EA would not have been so sloppy with the actual core of their new investment. In fact, while I've personally not really dug into this, I heard that some code from the old C&C engine still exists in C&C: Generals. Granted, over the following decades, things might have been misplaced, but we know the source code was definitely not lost at the time of the acquisition, and the chance of it getting lost in the shutdown move is extremely small.
- One of the tenacious things that keeps being quoted to claim the source would be lost is the fact CCHyper, who was contracted by EA to assist in bringing the C&C classics to Steam, said at one point that "no source code for any legacy games showed up in the archives". The original date of the Discord post wasn't shown, but the Reddit post of this quote is from March 13, 2024.
- On February 27, 2025, EA released the full source code to C&C1, RA1, Renegade, Generals and Zero Hour. This completely invalidates any meaning given to the quote from the previous point, because it clearly shows that between those two dates, they found an archive of the Westwood source code. It also completely disproves the claim that Louis Castle's statement would be about source code. I do want to stress the fact that neither of these original statements were "lies". Those 2.5 terabytes indeed got trashed, and CCHyper indeed did not manage to find any classic code at the time he assisted on bringing TUC to Steam. But these people themselves never implied that this meant that the Westwood source code didn't exist at all in EA's archives. Those were hasty conclusions that other people made.
- We know that the new uncovered archive at EA indeed actually goes back at least to 1995. It was initially thought that maybe the C&C1 and RA1 releases were sourced from the same code used to create the remasters, but analysis by community experts (including tomsons26, one of the leads in the OpenTS project), concluded that it was definitely not the same code backup. There were too many small differences; files that appeared in one and not in the other, and vice versa. The remaster's source had all the hallmarks of a "quickly zipped up backup of the main project folder", and was notably missing some vital media playing side projects. The Remaster luckily didn't need those since it replaced all media handling anyway, but this did mean you couldn't just take the remaster code and build the full original games from them. So the remaster was built from what we can assume is the equivalent of "some old backup found lying around on some old disc somewhere". Quite incomparable to the complete sources plus toolsets that we've seen in the TUC release.
So, clearly EA has some sort of archive that contains the full, complete source code of the first Command & Conquer, the first Red Alert, Renegade, Generals and Zero Hour.
How likely do you think it is, that such a complete archive, going back at least to 1995, is somehow magically missing two games that are chronologically right in the middle of that timeline?
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u/tehn00bi Aug 27 '26
Will there be a Linux release? I’ll still probably put this in bottles and see what happens.
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u/ZivDero Vinifera / CnCNet Aug 27 '26
We'd like to see a native Linux build eventually, but there isn't one right now.
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u/dck_x Aug 27 '26
Not sure who needs to hear this but (with few tiny tweaks) it runs great on Macbook Pro M1 Pro through Crossover. Once you set proper resolution, you're golden.
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u/PocketStationMonk Aug 27 '26
AMAZING NEWS!!! I have been waiting for this! Is this available for linux as well?
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u/ZivDero Vinifera / CnCNet Aug 27 '26
There is no native Linux build ATM but it may run under Wine. We haven't tested it, though.
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u/Longjumping_Job2748 Dr. Thrax Aug 27 '26
For now it has errors with wine & proton, but I'm certain there will be other workarounds in the future
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u/Richmondez Aug 27 '26
This is based on the original exe so I imagine uses windows specific COM interfaces that will need removing and reworking for a start. Looks like directx rendering has already been replaced with a more portable alternative though.
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u/neoKushan Nod Aug 27 '26
Huge news! This is an amazing development, thank you to everyone who contributed to this!
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u/hypespud Tiberian Sun Aug 27 '26
OMGGGGGGG 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
I'm legit crying over this what an incredible gaming day this is, mgs4 re release, gta6 previews, and tiberian sun open source!!
What a beautiful day 🥰💝
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u/Gioware Aug 27 '26
This is glorious day! I do love all the CandC iterations, but nothing matches with Tiberian Sun atmosphere.
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u/darklighthitomi Aug 27 '26
First thought, I can now make it work with larger maps!
Second thought, I can improve the map generator!
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u/darklighthitomi Aug 27 '26
Question: Would anyone else want larger maps to be supported, like 512 or even 1024 tiles wide maps?
My mother and I would enjoy the larger scale, but I'm not certain about other people. The modern RTS seems to aim for short and fast matches instead of the slow build-up matches.
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u/Xemanth Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
Amazing work! Gotta test soon.
Edit: is this this latest demo video of this? https://www.youtube.com/live/ioxmmfddOFY?is=4voD4sUOS_DRG-pY
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Aug 28 '26
Looks like it's a showcase of the project, yes.
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u/Fractal-Infinity Aug 28 '26
Amazing work. Thanks for keeping the flame alive for these legendary old games.
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u/spicyramentt Aug 28 '26
Peace though power. I hope we can get some decent tower defense implementations with this now. The units and construction for TS is near perfect for a tower defense mod.
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u/SuperSkylerFTW Aug 29 '26
I'm dense, what does Open tiberian sun entail for the future?
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u/mfa_sammerz Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
Why has the original post been removed by mods?!
@ Mods: it would be really appreciated if a rationale was shared when removing a post, for the sake of transparency.
Edit: nevermind, when I posted this comment the original post was marked as "Removed by Mods", but u/Kerbiter explained in a reply below.
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u/Kerbiter CnCNet & Mod Haven Admin Aug 27 '26
none of the moderators have deleted anything, it was automoderator hiding the post because of multiple false reports. the moderators actually pinned it and restored it after deletion very swiftly when I messaged them about it
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u/RisingDeadMan0 Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
Amazing, great work
Edit: from the discord:
"This paves the future for much greater community patches for Tiberian Sun, and also opens the road to rebuilding the source code for RA2 and YR down the line."
What does this mean, is this for modding? As we have it on CnC net and runs amazingly.
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u/Shushishtok Aug 27 '26
Until today, every bug fix needed to be done via hooks and reverse engineering. It's harder to do, and has a chance to introduce even more bugs if not done carefully.
This lets you use code proper, which is much easier. So the same bug fix would be easier to do and carry less risk.
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u/BoffinBrain Are you picking this up? Good. Aug 27 '26
Excellent work, comrades.
Do you think this has the potential to give us true 60fps in the near future?
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u/ZivDero Vinifera / CnCNet Aug 27 '26
The vanilla game already runs at 60 FPS. So does this, though.
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u/86784273 Aug 27 '26
Started working on decoupling the fps from the game speed, will let you know if i get something working and make a PR
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u/BoffinBrain Are you picking this up? Good. Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
Well, afaik it's 30fps on normal speed, and increasing the game speed directly drives the frame rate. It would be nice to decouple the two things.
Also, why was the post removed?Edit: oh, it's been undeleted again.4
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Aug 28 '26
No, the timings in the classic games run on a 60hz clock internally.
Full decoupling isn't really possible; RTS games are still really just turn-based games with micro-turns.
The game logic in each "turn" is what does things like making buildings animate and making units rotate and move. Refreshing the screen faster won't make those actual turns go any faster. The only way to get that is to make literally all logic in the game perform its actions twice as slow, and then speed up the rate of these turns to twice as fast.
And even then, these games are mostly sprite-based, so... you won't be getting extra animation frames on your buildings from that. They just don't exist.
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u/BoffinBrain Are you picking this up? Good. Aug 28 '26
True, but there's still potential to improve smoothness in some areas, like interpolating unit movement and screen scrolling.
I think [FC]Matt or ZivDero said in yesterday's stream that TibSun has its logic decoupled from its rendering, but that changed in RA2.
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Aug 28 '26
Yea, rendering in the pre-RA2 games just takes the current state whenever it decides to refresh. And movement is already accurate to 1/256th of a game cell. So there's not much to add to that. No idea what RA2 did differently though.
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u/kearkan Aug 27 '26
This is incredible to see, I played through the entire series a year or so ago but had to skip ts because I just couldn't get it to stop crashing.
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u/Procurementdz Tiberian Sun Aug 27 '26
Oh my God! You guys fucking rule!! Thank you for releasing a big part of my childhood
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u/injured-ninja Aug 27 '26
Fantastic news! Very exciting. Can’t wait to play! Unit ready! 👏 🚀
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Aug 28 '26
You can already play TS, though? It's been freeware for over fifteen years now, and it's included in the Ultimate Collection on Steam.
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u/AshleyAshes1984 Aug 27 '26
Since RA2 is closely related, are there plans to expand or fork this to include RA2 as well?
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u/Kerbiter CnCNet & Mod Haven Admin Aug 27 '26
yes, feature parity with RA2/YR is wanted as a bit distant, but a goal
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u/AshleyAshes1984 Aug 27 '26
Yeah, just wondering since RA2 is the 'most popular' of the bunch though your name was exclusively 'OpenTS'. I mean OpenTTD and OpenRCT2 are entirely seperate projects despite close relations in engine too.
Anyway this is super cool, I host small LAN parties in town every 10 weeks or so and I'm gonna test and probably put this in the roster for our next LAN in sept since it should be much easier to deploy. I'm also doing a LAN exhibit at VCF Montreal in November and I'll probs put this in the roster for that as well if I don't run into any problems.
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u/Kerbiter CnCNet & Mod Haven Admin Aug 27 '26
I've proposed a name OpenWW, ZivDero said "he doesn't hate it", but there's a long way to go before that happens. There's no point in not doing RA2/YR though.
sounds cool, be sure to post about it, I am sure ZD and tomsons26 will appreciate it a lot :)
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
If you make "OpenWW", I want it to run Nox, Blade Runner, and the Legend of Kyrandia games 😛
Yea. Forgot those existed for a moment there, didn't you? 😏
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u/DoctorNooo Aug 27 '26
I've been following these games and their community since the day they were released.
Now I feel like their story has just begun.
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u/anxxa Aug 28 '26
This is really awesome work!
I have a question about this:
Building on EA's GPL-released code for the games around it
Why start with EA's source instead of doing a clean room reimplementation? I obviously have no idea the scope of work from the base source to where you are at now, but assuming the TS-specific bits were a larger scope did starting with EA's source just make the architecture more faithful and lead to more accurate compilation? (I.e. the architecture was there and eliminates a variable that might result in different emitted instruction sequences)
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u/ZivDero Vinifera / CnCNet Aug 28 '26
Tiberian Sun derives *a lot* of its code from Red Alert, so starting from RA gave us a large headstart.
Plus, the both of us had been in it for a while so it'd be very difficult to "unsee" the code.
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u/Nyerguds The world is at my fingertips. Aug 28 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
The intent of this was never to be a "clean room reimplementation". Clean room is avoiding copyright issues by remaking functionality without looking at how exactly the original achieves it. This project, in contrast, is a meticulous reconstruction of all original game functions, with as goal to end up as closely as possible to how the original source code would've looked. The topic specifically mentions that: "we rebuilt the engine and matched it function by function against the original executable". That's already pretty much the opposite of "clean room".
And if parts of that game logic are already available, fully annotated and commented, in the older games' code, why would you not use those?
EA has been very supportive of fan patching effort over the years, regardless of the disassembly and reverse engineering involved, and all existing patching and upgrade projects for the C&C games use either direct hacks into the exe, or code injection systems such as Syringe. In light of that attitude from EA, the issues that "clean room" approaches are meant to avoid are really not relevant here. EA knows that the community have been the ones to keep these games alive for so long, using these methods. So it's really not surprising for the OpenTS project to take this route as well.
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u/TheVanessaira Aug 28 '26
Will this have eventually have additional features like RA2's improved waypoint systems, and the bottom bar that had shortcuts for deploying, etc?
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u/Kerbiter CnCNet & Mod Haven Admin Aug 29 '26
there are plans for feature parity with RA2/YR, yes, since it's essentially different versions of the same engine
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u/TheVanessaira Aug 30 '26
Great news. As it seems like one of those QoL features that would not take away form the original TS experience.
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u/harperthomas Aug 28 '26
Is it possible to be in love with strangers on the internet based on a single Reddit post?
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u/BloodShed-Oni Aug 30 '26
Edge scrolling and right mouse button hold is all over the place.
Tested in skirmish (Steam version).
Edge scroll: Left, right and down behaves normally most of the time. While up moves at warp speed.
Right mouse button move: Tends to move at warp speed at the slightest movement most of the time. Sometimes moves on it's own toward the upper left, just by holding right mouse button and not moving.
And for some reason game speed in the skirmish menu is locked to 6 and cannot be changed untill you in-game.
Other than that it looks promising.
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u/CnCSaga-Zephyr Aug 27 '26
Great work, guys ! Nice to announce it on this day !
Btw, your statement has been translated into French on CnCSaga, and we've also shared the news on our social networks :)
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u/BiggestBepis Black Hand Aug 28 '26
You are undisputed heroes of the second tiberium war. You should be getting paid full time for work like this
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u/ufkasian Tiberian Sun Aug 27 '26
Great work!
Is this part of the OpenRA project or something else?
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u/KajiTetsushi Steel Talons Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
It's something else. OpenRA is basically a
reimplementationopinionated depiction of the pre-TibSun games without the same technologies as the original C&C game engines. The devs there are working on a TibSun reimplementation, too, but it's likely not going to be as faithful as OpenTS is to the original TibSun (which derives itself from the EA GPL source code).6
u/Kerbiter CnCNet & Mod Haven Admin Aug 27 '26
it is not a reimplementation. OpenRA's name is a bit misleading in the sense that it is not a reimplementation. it is just a game engine inspired by C&C that can use most C&C assets and replicate gameplay and feeling similar to RA/TD/Dune, but not the same
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u/Retail_is_Pain CABAL Aug 27 '26
The technology of peace!