#RenProj chat moved - Ares-specific room added

Hello everyone, Renegade here.

This isn't primarily Ares news, but #RenProj has always been the "original" place for live chat regarding Ares and the breeding ground of much of it development back in the day.
As a result, we still get visitors with questions every once in a while.

Be advised that we have _moved_ the channel to a Matrix-based one at #renproj:renegadeprojects.com
As before, you can join directly through webchat (https://chat.renegadeprojects.com/#/room/#renproj:renegadeprojects.com) or with your own client (https://matrix.to/#/#renproj:renegadeprojects.com).

Since we have full control over the platform this time around, we also set up #ares:renegadeprojects.com as a channel dedicated to Ares, in case the remaining Ares modders want to congregate there to support each other and talk about Ares and RA2/YR modding in general. (https://chat.renegadeprojects.com/#/room/#ares:renegadeprojects.com)

As for the background of this migration, Wikipedia has a short summary of the recent happenings at Freenode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freenode#Ownership_change_and_conflict

Please do report instances in Ares' documentation or supporting documents were the old Freenode chat link is still displayed. We'll try to correct them as soon as possible.

In unrelated news, as many of you have noticed, Alex is absent at the moment.
We have no information when he will return - but the most direct way to find out is to be in chat and hear about it live. ;)

Ares 3.0 finally available

After a too long and memorable time, Ares 3.0 has been released to the public.

Super weapons have been expanded greatly, with many new options to limit them to human or AI players, to limit the number of shots, to fire them according to AI targeting rules but on the owning player's command and many more.

Also, mission making has received some attention, and sets of new Trigger Actions and Events as well as Team Scripts have been added that relate to new Ares features. It is now possible to trigger actions when drivers are killed or a certain house still has or doesn't have a certain number of specific units or structures. Teams can now be set to have their drivers killed and become capturable, to go on a recovery mission for such units, and some more.

Specific units can be set to keep players alive during short game matches, and some structures can be made not to count when determining whether a player has been defeated - allowing for shorter short games by excluding support buildings or to accept heros to prolong the match. This condition can also be queried via Trigger Events.

Harverster and Refinery settings that are now customizable per type as well as some weapon and warhead additions like culling settings round off this release, together with a bunch of bugfixes for both Ares and original game bugs.

Have fun with Ares 3.0! But more importantly, stay safe and healthy!

Download: https://launchpad.net/ares/+download
Documentation: http://ares-developers.github.io/Ares-docs/

Ares 2.0p1 Service Release available

This maintenance patch for Ares 2.0 fixes a few issues with Type Conversions, like when combined with the Operator feature. The parsing errors with PrismForwarding=forward and EMP.Threshold are fixed as well.

It also patches an original game bug in savegame handling with interactions of Palette and Image settings, makes selling units on UnitRepair structures consistent, and improves the Ivan detonation cursors.

Ares 2.0p1 is a drop-in replacement for Ares 2.0, and all existing savegames created with the major version are still compatible.

Download: https://launchpad.net/ares/+download
Documentation: http://ares-developers.github.io/Ares-docs/

Ares 2.0 has been released

Converting unit types is now supported when deploying a vehicle, when units or infantry are promoted, or when they move from land to water or vice versa. That means helicopters deploying into movable tanks is now possible, as well as changing image, turret and weapons by deploying. This also means more than two veterancy levels can be imitated.

A lot of minor details have been added to earlier features, like more spy effects, warhead effect settings, and many more. The AISafeDistance has been split into two to customize the case to gather at the friendly base; likewise AffectsAllies has been split to customize when hitting the firing player. Insignia frames can now be customized by veterancy level, FactoryOwners.HaveAllPlans has been expanded to work with building upgrades. Also waves can finally look like in the original game agin, with an optional intensity setting to customize them further.

But there are also several new settings to fully customize build times per type, and animations can deliver damage by using weapons instead of warheads. There's many many more small features to try out.

Have fun with Ares 2.0!

Download: https://launchpad.net/ares/+download
Documentation: http://ares-developers.github.io/Ares-docs/

Mission Accomplished: Ares 1.0 officially out

Today Ares reached a huge milestone: Ares 1.0, which finally restores support for savegames, has been officially released to the public.

Savegame related buttons in the menus have been enabled again, and using them to load a saved game will no longer crash. This was the last big missing piece to make Ares a superset of the original game, that is using Ares no longer takes away a fundamental feature the original Yuri's Revenge had.

Ares thus now officially leaves the implicit preview stage denoted by a zero in front of the version number, about 10 years after development of a replacement for RockPatch started in 2008. This is only a symbolic act though, as even in the preview stage the expansion dll was quite stable for all it added to and changed in Yuri's Revenge. Sometimes adding or adjusting minor things, sometimes turning large chunks of the game upside down.

No new features to announce here today. Maybe MissileSpawn now working on buildings. Again, there were some fixes for bugs, several stability improvements, optimizations and minor changes. This version should be more stable than the last, and it should in any case be a good base for future releases.

Thanks to all testers over all those years, who dedicated their free time to try out new logics and report numerous bugs and other issues. Thanks for confirming bugs as well as bugfixes, for proposing new features and voicing your opinions to improve them.

Finally, have fun with Ares 1.0 and savegames working again!

Download: https://launchpad.net/ares/+download
Documentation: http://ares-developers.github.io/Ares-docs/