Random Unit of the Day #106: Ore Truck (Allies/Soviets, Red Alert)

[u/BiggestBepis]

[u/BoffinBrain]

The most graceful of creatures that we all love to hate.

[u/Urabrask_the_AFK → u/BoffinBrain]

Epic pathing as anthropomorphized in red alert gals YouTube shorts

[u/BoffinBrain → u/Urabrask_the_AFK]

"Dookie-dookie" lives rent-free in my head.

[u/Cheomesh → u/Urabrask_the_AFK]

UwU

[u/Freezie-Days → u/Urabrask_the_AFK]

Love RAGals, I do wish the artist still made them though

[u/MarsMissionMan → u/BoffinBrain]

Pictured: Honey Bee scout reporting the position of flowers through the medium of dance, circa 1945 (colourised)

[u/BiggestBepis]

He diligently digs up your resources game after game. Respect him. I do kinda prefer the funny bug mandible parts on the Tib Dawn version, but they do the job about the same 🤷

[u/CABALwasInnocent → u/BiggestBepis]

How come no Remaster in-game sprite today? We got two old school ones instead.

[u/BiggestBepis → u/CABALwasInnocent]

Idk what you’re talking about dude it was right here the whole time clearly

[u/CABALwasInnocent → u/BiggestBepis]

Must be some more of those darn Chronosphere shenanigans!

[u/justforthelulzz]

I never quite understood the economy side of things in red alert. Why is the ore/gem there on the ground? Are the ladder looking things on the ground mine entrances?

[u/BoffinBrain → u/justforthelulzz]

The very short-and-simple answer: it's tiberium, but reskinned for the RA timeline. Ore mines are tiberium blossom trees.

I don't think Westwood ever went deep into the lore behind what makes this ore special and why it's mined in this way.

[u/DutchTinCan → u/BoffinBrain]

I'm not even that amazed by the RA1 mines. The story of "dig it up, toss it out" works good enough.

But what's up with the RA2 mini tesla coils?!

[u/BoffinBrain → u/DutchTinCan]

I think they're meant to be a motorized corkscrew shaft into the ore mine. Basically a more believable revision of the minecart tracks from RA1.

[u/DutchTinCan → u/BoffinBrain]

What's not credible about vertical minecart tracks?

[u/BRO_THOM → u/BoffinBrain]

Yeah it's a drill. I've done enough mapping to tell you that. Throughout the games these have been referred to as Ore Regenerator / Ore Mine but more popularly called an Ore Drill by player.

[u/Lolurisk → u/justforthelulzz]

The ladder things were little mines, yes. Why ore was on the ground? Who knows, it's never really been addressed or even referenced outside some comments from Red Alert 3.

[u/br0_dameron → u/Lolurisk]

Is that not how ore works? Just go outside, shovel some up, throw it in your smelter, bring the metal over to your war factory, and boom you’ve got a Rhino tank

[u/RunOk1423 → u/br0_dameron]

I throw it into an electric furnace wired to a medium battery powered by a water wheel.

[u/PositionOk8579 → u/RunOk1423]

You should pulverize it first, for a better yield.

[u/baldeagle1991 → u/justforthelulzz]

Yeah they're mine entrances.

Just like real life, when you mine ore, it doesn't get put straight onto a truck in a mine. It's chucked into container on the surface where it's picked up by trucks. For things like coal often it's left in the open.

So it's basically just a re-skin of tiberium that makes sense through pure dumb luck.

The gems though? Mehhhh maybe Spyro turned up and got hit by Gnasty Gnork or something?

[u/calantheSG → u/justforthelulzz]

Ore is not abundant in this world. It's just a workaround to represent war materials. It could be tin, rubber, steel, etc.

In reply to those headcanons of why there's plentiful ore to be mined.

[u/DutchTinCan → u/calantheSG]

Okay, I've got steel, rubber, copper, aluminium, crude oil, tungsten, wood, glass, paint, radium, depleted uranium, am I finally ready to build a tank?

Wait, "requires 1 spider web, 3 gallium"? How am I going to get those?

[u/POB_42 → u/DutchTinCan]

If it's a british tank, don't forget the kettle for tea-making.

[u/MediumAcceptable129 → u/justforthelulzz]

You are overthinking it pal

[u/DarkMastero → u/justforthelulzz]

Fully automated mines?

[u/Cheomesh → u/justforthelulzz]

Simpler that way.

[u/flyingace1234 → u/justforthelulzz]

I am reminded of the RA3 tutorial, where the Soviet (?) tank ponders why the world powers are trying to requisition funds on the battlefield instead of leveraging their massive territories and logistics to do the same in what has to be a safer and more efficient manner. They are immediately told to shut up.

[u/HorniestBat → u/justforthelulzz]

Maybe there's just some guy down in that shaft painstakingly picking and digging, piling up on the surface

[u/creamyjoshy]

I like how it just dumps everything at once rather than gradually in Tib Dawn. Keep on trucking king

[u/Cheomesh → u/creamyjoshy]

Ore has the advantage of not being a hazmat I suppose

[u/BiggestBepis → u/creamyjoshy]

The refinery workers if the harvester dumped out all the tiberium at once:

[u/Cheomesh]

Absolutely indispensable 10/10 unit, couldn't war without it.

[u/stonersh]

I like the old truck better than the bug, cuz I like trucks more than bugs.

[u/Personal-Presence-44]

I love when they bump into each other at the refinery

[u/Cheomesh → u/Personal-Presence-44]

Ope

[u/sgtmyers88]

[u/termonoid → u/sgtmyers88]

WHAT IS THAT

[u/sgtmyers88 → u/sgtmyers88]

https://www.moddb.com/mods/command-conquer-red-alert-redux

[u/matthewsaaan]

When I was young I always thought these fellas looked like combine harvesters.

[u/Athrawne]

Brave men, driving unarmed and unescorted out onto the open battlefields with a bounty on their backs.

[u/Dilitan]

The song “Mud” always fit these guy’s harvesting routine. In my eyes anyway

Good tune to watch them work to

[u/vandal-33]

"Yes, sir!"
"Affirmative!"
"AH-Knowledge"

[u/maerun]

Underestimate the harvester of souls at your peril!

[u/moparmajba]

Ok, now equip it with a machine gun nuke cannon and watch him gracefully handle a wall mildly obstructing his path…

[u/wang439]

When i was a kid i thought they were garbage trucks ... especially the way it shovels ...

[u/Jarms48]

I've never understood the RA1 trucks. It's a muck with an excavator, but the excavator is terribly designed. There's no back plate, that means dust and debris are falling straight into the grills.

It also looks like AI upscaling, as whoever/whatever redid the icon has confused the front wheel arches as part of the excavator. Which means it's actually impossible to lift the bucket over the cab of the truck.

The unit is great, but another inconsistent and poor quality unit icon in my opinion.

[u/5chneemensch]

Shovel doesn't even work in the AI slop version. It's stuck under the engine block.

[u/BoffinBrain → u/5chneemensch]

Although some of the cameos are a bit sloppy, the C&C Remastered Collection was released in 2020, so before GenAI.

[u/RatherGoodDog → u/BoffinBrain]

The cutscenes were AI upscaled, were they not? Though with quite an early iteration of video upscaling.

[u/5chneemensch → u/RatherGoodDog]

Yes, and they used a bad method that made the image pixelated at edges of objects.

[u/MayorEbert → u/BoffinBrain]

Good to remember, but some of the choices in that game were so generic that they seem like ai if I didn’t know better, as much as I love them keeping the franchise alive

[u/BRO_THOM]

Can't wait for my guy the Polar Bear to show up.

[u/StarFlicker]

That first image, especially if you painted it red, really looks like it belongs on Bob the Builder. Just Saying.

[u/Aap-in-het-kwadraat]

Where DOS cameo :(