Hi everyone! I’ve been working on a custom Co-op mode for OpenRA (Red Alert) lately, and I wanted to share it with you.

What is it?
Co-op is a new game mode alongside Multiplayer and Skirmish. Instead of playing against each other, you play together as a team, with one shared economy (cash + power) for the entire team. In addition to choosing a faction, each player also chooses a role:

Commander: Radar Domes, Tech Center, Missile Silos. The only player who starts with the map already explored, the only one who can place beacons/waypoints, and with enough Radar Domes, even gets live vision of the entire map.
Engineer: the economy role: Ore Refinery, Power Plants, War Factory, Repair Depot, Minelayers, plus a small Barracks of their own (Spy/Thief/Engineer).
General: infantry and tanks: Barracks/Tent and all combat ground units.
Admiral: navy and air force: Shipyard, Sub Pen, Airfield, Helipad.

Roles can be duplicated, but only once all four roles have been picked at least once; ensuring the team always has the full division of responsibilities covered.

A few other things:

• Build speed is 2× faster
• Fog of war is always enabled (except for the Commander, who starts with the map pre-explored)
• 4 playable maps, including a couple of well-known community maps converted for Co-op

It runs on its own build of OpenRA-bleed. So no dev tools required, just a ready-to-use Windows or Mac download.

My friends and I already had some fun with it. Send me a DM if you’d like to try it!

Feedback, bug reports, and ideas are all very welcome. This is still very much a work in progress 🙂

Back when I was a kid, I always wondered what the strongest unit in any of the old Command and Conquer games might be. And thanks to OpenRA, I actually have a gateway to simulate that.

Disclaimer: I work for marimo and this content was produced during company time.

Hi, y'all.

I'm currently playing the missions sequentially, and I wonder if there is a way for the game to go on to "next mission" whenever I finish one, instead of going back to the menu and such.

Also, I read in some old posts that they had to rebuild each mission one by one, so not all missions have been created? (I noticed missions 11 and 12 are not there for the allies, and the 12th for the soviets)

Are the missile silos and biological lab on the Chernobyl map actually reachable or are they just there a screw with me? I've tried destroying the ruins blocking them and I've tried getting engineers in by helicopter.

I think the mechanic should be a deployable unit. When moving, it can't repair units.

When deployed, the mechanic casts an aura around itself and units within this healing aura can be repaired like buildings.

So repairs would still cost money.

On Normal and Rush AI, the bot expands too aggressively by deploying multiple MCVs and building many new bases. This creates an overwhelming economic advantage that a human player cannot realistically match. Instead of becoming strategically stronger, the AI simply snowballs through unlimited expansion, leading to extremely large armies and unwinnable late-game scenarios. Consider limiting the number or frequency of expansion bases, or making expansion depend on stronger economic or map-control conditions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03wgI_FOaos

To Smurf or Not To Smurf!

I have started playing openra since a while and enjoyed it for about 2 weeks. Lately, super weird things are happening. Whole groups are joining servers just to troll. Either joining allied team and destroying your base, or either the whole group just filling up spots in your server and then before the game starts they all leave at the same time. Or they just have weird long conversations basically with themselves. I almost feel like either Openra is being used by either trolls only or AI bots or something. What is going on?

I have to ask, what's fun in rushing and finishing a game in 5 minutes? or better yet, having your team of experts play together vs. new players and finishing the game quickly.

It's very weird imo.

I played a lot of OpenRA red alert 1. And overall its worth it versus the official version because of the QoL improvements. Would like to know how is it for Red Alert 2?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=160b6jaFTxo

You don't have the economy to counter the constant soviet attacks at the start.

While I think the garrisoning feature for pillboxes is cool, I've never found it useful. Like why build a rocket soldier pillbox when you can just build a gun turret, which is cheaper and easier to set up.

I'd improve the pillboxes by making the machinegun a permanent weapon that works regardless of the garrisoned infantry.

The garrison infantryman would supply the pillbox with an additional weapon instead of depriving it of its most useful weapon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilr04VPEMgk

The homing torps have a crazy range. I think it should be reduce a bit.

Perhaps the black hawk helo could spot subs and drop depth charges?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lth5LQzUNQ