Aloha! One of the news we missed by the end of last month was the 1.0.0.8 Shader Patch for Battle for Dune: War of Assassins. It was released about ten days ago. For those unaware of what is being written here, Battle for Dune: War of Assassins is a first-person shooter game created with the W3D Engine, based on the universe of Dune books from Frank Hebert. Here is the official announcement from Battle for Dune: War of Assassins's staff about Battle for Dune: War of Assassins 1.0.0.8:

Quote:
Hey everyone, welcome to another Battle for Dune: War of Assassins Infantry Release September Update! "Two updates in one month, what??", "We barely get three a year!" I know, what's happened to us?!

What's New In this patch?

This is a fairly small patch compared to previous ones, but it sure does pack a punch! In this bad boy, we've got a tweaked Grenade Launcher, Fixed Building HUD icons, and brand-new Shaders! Here's the change List for all this tasty stuff:

- Sniper Rifles now lerp into their scopes
- Fixed missing Master Volume string
- Increased Grenade Launcher Explosion Damage Radius from 4.5 > 6
- Increased Grenade Launcher Explosion Inner Damage Radius from 1.5 > 3.5
- Fixed Building Icons not appearing on the HUD
- Added the new Bloom shaders
- Added a new Outline System to infantry that appears at a distance of 25 meters (2nd Radar ring)



New Outline System and Bloom Shader

As mentioned above, we've got two cool new features that improve the graphical and gameplay quality of Battle for Dune: the Bloom Shader (already seen in Tiberian Sun: Reborn) and the brand-new Outline System!

The Bloom Shader adds a new depth to the look and feel of the lands of Arrakis, making the lighting stand out more and objects pop to a greater effect!

The Outline system is something new straight off the Romanov press! To break it down for you, it's a process to make readability better for seeing infantry that are close to you. People have been having a lot of trouble visualizing the House Harkonnen Infantry on night maps and the House Atreides Infantry on lighter maps against lighter colors, such as cliffs and sand. This new System will draw an outline around any Soldier 25 meters away from you.
The color represents the Soldier's team being Yellow for House Atreides and Red for House Harkonnen. The Outline will fade in within the set range and fade away when exiting the set range from the enemy Soldier. (As displayed in the image below)



This was a heavily requested feature in the past, but a major thanks to Rapp for really pushing the feature request recently and helping make it happen!


You can learn more about Battle for Dune: War of Assassins by visiting the Official Website. Download Battle for Dune: War of Assassins and its latest patch by using the W3D Hub Game Launcher. And that's all for now! Have fun and enjoy Battle for Dune: War of Assassins!

paint.net 5.0.10 is now available!
October 02, 2023 - 10:46
Welcome back, visitors! Reinforcements have arrived from paint.net as paint.net 5.0.10 has been recently published by their staff. For those unaware, paint.net is a free and open-source image and photo editing software for Windows with a quite rich set of features. Here is the official changelog about paint.net 5.0.10 (and 5.0.9):

Quote:
This update has a handful of small improvements and bug fixes and many improvements and fixes for GPU effect plugin development.

Change Log



Changes from v5.1.0:

  • New: Edit -> Paste now supports base64-encoded images, which enables copying images from Microsoft Teams (thanks @null54 for the implementation!)
  • Fixed a rare bug that would cause selection tools to not work until the image was closed and reopened
  • Fixed: All mouse cursors will now honor the Windows setting for adjusting the mouse pointer size
  • Fixed a rare crash when rapidly undoing multiple actions
  • New: Plugins can now access the built-in JPEG and PNG FileTypes through two new methods on IFileTypesService
  • New: The Paint.NET Plugin API Documentation website is now live at https://paintdotnet.github.io/apidocs/
  • Fixed: All of the custom Direct2D effects now have runtime metadata (DisplayName, Author, Category, Description), which is useful for a UI that lets the user browse them (e.g., node editor)
  • New: Added convenience constructors to many Direct2D effects so that they can be used without declaring a new local variable
  • New: Added GaussianBlurMapEffect and BokehBlurMapEffect for use by GpuEffect plugins. They enable the blur radius to be controlled per pixel through the use of a second input image (the “map”)
  • New: Added a RandomNoiseEffect that GpuEffect plugins can make use of
  • Fixed various bugs with HlslBinaryFunctionEffect, HlslBinaryOperatorEffect, and HlslTernaryFunctionEffect (which can be used by GpuEffect plugins)
  • Added Distance and Dot to the list of HlslBinaryFunctions
  • Added Length and Mad (multiply-add) to the list of HlslTernaryFunctions
  • Fixed the Environment property’s runtime type when accessed from an EffectConfigForm (for BitmapEffects and GpuEffects with custom UIs)
  • Fixed UIScaleFactor’s methods for converting between DIPs and pixels
  • Fixed ability to work with EffectConfigForms in the Visual Studio WinForms designer
  • Updated the bundled AvifFileType to version 1.1.26 (thanks @null54!)
  • Updated the bundled DdsFileTypePlus to version 1.12.6 (thanks @null54!)
  • Updated the bundled WebPFileType to version 1.3.20. It now uses libwebp v1.3.2 which contains the fix for CVE-2023-4863/CVE-2023-5129 (thanks @null54!)



Changes from v5.0.9:

  • Fixed: When using Alt+Tab, the internal state of the Alt key could get ‘stuck’ when the Shapes or Line/Curve tool was active, causing the next shape or line/curve to be drawn from the center
  • Fixed: Sliders were not responding to the mouse wheel (regression in 5.0.Cool
  • Fixed the DeviceEffect.Properties.Min/MaxInputCount properties, which were throwing an ArgumentException (for plugin authors)
  • Fixed a rare crash at app exit due to a race condition in the auto-updater
  • Fixed a rare crash when the system resumes from sleep mode due to a race condition in DWM reporting whether composition is enabled
  • Fixed a rare crash when using copy+paste due to .NET Runtime issue #84994 https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/issues/84994
  • Updated the bundled DDSFileTypePlus plugin to v1.12.2.0, which fixes the inability to save on ARM64 systems (thanks @null54!)
  • Updated the bundled WebPFileType plugin to v1.3.19.0, which fixes the inability to save on ARM64 systems (thanks @null54!)


You can find more information about paint.net by visiting the Official Website. Download paint.net 5.0.10. That's all, folks! Stay tuned at PPM for more news coverage on paint.net!

Tech-Shuffle 2.7 has been released
October 02, 2023 - 02:23
Greetings, commander! Ballistic_Gel has released a new version of Tech-Shuffle called Tech-Shuffle 2.7. For those unfamiliar with it, Tech-Shuffle is a modification for Red Alert 3 that shapes the game according to the vision of the author. Expect new units, balance changes, new graphics, and much more. Here are the official words about Tech-Shuffle 2.7:

Quote:
A large number of bugs have been fixed, and adjustments to the miner's data have been made based on the suggestions of some experienced players.



2.7 Update Contents:

1. Fixed a bug where the WaveForce Tower debris in the water was appearing as Defender-VX debris.
2. Fixed a bug where the Steel-Halberd Tank's tracks or chassis would become invisible when using specialpower.
3. Fixed a bug where the Japan water-based structures had an incorrect animation for the deployment of their platform when unpacking.
4. Fixed an animation error during the deployment of the Defender-VX.
5. Added the Hive Sphere weapon to the Cumulonimbus firepower platform.
6. Adjusted the Cumulonimbus firepower platform's health during unpacking to 4000.
7. Fixed a bug where the internal infantry units of the BattleFortress would get stuck when the fortress was frozen, lifted by Yuriko, or under similar paralyzing conditions at the time of death.
8. Soviet AI will now build more airfields.
9. Allied AI's expansion capabilities have been enhanced (With some cheating).
10. Reduced the construction time of miners for all three factions from 20s to 15s, with a cost adjustment to 1000 for each.
11. Reduced the unpacking time of Allied miners by 10s.
12. Increased the armor attribution from the Soviet miners' specialpower from 25% to 50%(The armor becomes weaker) and the speed bonus from 50% to 75%.
13. Adjusted the Japan miners' machine gun damage to 5 damage every 0.2 seconds.
14. Fixed a bug where sometimes AI's Prism Towers would complete construction, but the smoke effect wouldn't disappear.
15. Changed the Japan sub-factions's small aircraft to have two rounds of ammunition, each dealing 60 damage, and their scattering follows the same damage reduction principles for vehicles.


If you are curious about Tech-Shuffle, visit the Steam Page to obtain further information about it. You can grab the latest version of Tech-Shuffle by clicking Here. And this is all for today! Enjoy Tech-Shuffle and provide your feedback about it so it can get better.

Happy birthday to PPM! 23 years old!
October 01, 2023 - 02:54
Hello everyone! Today is still September 30th here, and it is PPM's anniversary! PPM, as a certain Messiah, lives in Death, regardless of its activity in the forums. And truth to be said, you can't kill the Messiah, isn't it? PPM is an old community that has exists for 23 years. It started with a Tiberian Sun mod called PPM: Final Dawn, and now we have almost everything except the bloody PPM: Final Dawn. Rumors say that this mod will be released one day.

In PPM's last year of existence, we had a huge influx of news posts. I mean, I had a hard time finding the news about its last birthday. It was on page 9 already, where each page has 50 news posts. In the previous years, I'd find it on page 3 and sometimes even on page 2. And this is a result of how our news system evolved. Today we cover a lot of news every month and a lot of new subjects. We cover mods hidden in the depths of Discord, YouTube, ModDB, GitHub, and some other places. Sometimes we even announce the release of a project before the project itself announces it. This is a result of a very hard work that made news posts be created in terms of a few minutes, while it used to take some hours to write a single news post a while ago. The very hard work goes from our internal system that hunts these news posts and BBCodes them (and sometimes we had to write special scripts for special cases, such as Dawn of the Tiberium Age releases or Chrono Divide updates). We also have a system that speeds up news posting and helps me with the keywords, but I do have to edit them by the end of the day. I also use third-party solutions for grammar checking.

The huge flux of news posts changed the behavior of our visitors. Today, most of the news posts do not receive comments, which is a bad thing. I mean, it is more fun when people interact with us, isn`t it? And there are more people browsing the forums as a guest instead of registered. A small reminder is that registered users see less propaganda than guests (or no advertisements at all in the forums).

Our news posting system is just a start. We can do much more than simply create news with it. In the future, we may create or organize content with it, such as tutorials, graphic/map resources, and coverage for new games. To be honest, we are using it to track news from games that are not officially covered on our main site and subsites, such as Tempest Rising and Storm Gate, although I am not posting everything I see about these games yet.

Regarding the birthday itself, I do not have a present this time because it is hard to handle several things that are happening in my real life right now, but hopefully, most of these problems will end in six months or less.

The best I can offer is our lovely traditional cake:



The credits for this birthday cake goes to this Reddit topic

Red Alert Bartender is ready to rock!
September 30, 2023 - 22:08
Greetings, Comrade General! Our friend kenosis has released a new mod for Yuri's Revenge called Red Alert Bartender. Red Alert Bartender is not merely a mod. It completely turns Yuri's Revenge into a card war game. It uses Ares, YR Dynamic Patcher, and Kratos. You can upgrade tires, pick cards, stack them, and stick upgrades to your cards. The changes from Red Alert Bartender were announced with the following words:

Quote:
Tired of playing traditional RTS? This mod turns your YR into a card war game. You can upgrade tires, pick cards, stack them, and stick upgrades to your cards. Launch CNCNET and start a card game with your friend, or play a campaign to beat up the AIs.



Comes with an English patch. It should be extracted after the CNCNET pack is installed.

It should be used with the CNCNET client file.
Use YRLauncher in the Client to start the game.

You can use Campaign to play solo games, learn the basic mechanisms, and play PVP with your friend.

SHOULD BE INSTALLED WITH CNCNET PACK.

USE YRLAUNCHER.EXE TO RUN.


Here's a video showcasing the gameplay:




And, if you don't understand Mandarin (Chinese), it shouldn't be a problem. As kenosis mentioned on ModDB, there is an English patch for it.


You can learn more about Red Alert Bartender by visiting the Steam Page. Download the latest version of Red Alert Bartender Here. That's all, folks! Stay tuned at PPM for more news coverage on Red Alert Bartender!

Update on Tiberian War: IonShock
September 30, 2023 - 21:49
Comrade General! We have news for you. A video showing the current state of Tiberian War: IonShock was shared by Mircea some days ago, and it is quite interesting. For those who are not acquainted with it, Tiberian War: IonShock is a modification for Yuri's Revenge, part of the Tiberian War Collection. It brings an alternative strategy game that expands on the beloved Tiberium universe. It includes new factions, new effects, and new mechanics, among other things.  Here is what was posted about it:

Quote:




The state of the game Smile


For further information about Tiberian War: IonShock, visit its Steam Page, and Discord Channel. And that's all regarding Tiberian War: IonShock for now. Stay tuned at PPM for more news about Tiberian War: IonShock!

The End Of Days 0.98 - Javelin Voiceover
September 30, 2023 - 13:52
Hello again! The End of Days has teased its fans with the voice over from the Javelin. For those who are not acquainted with it, The End of Days is a mod for Command & Conquer: Generals Zero Hour. It adds Russia as a new playable faction and improves the original three with new units, structures, and special powers! It strives to bring an authentic real-war feeling, with a few fictional additions for more fun and diverse gameplay & tactics! It also replaces Heroes with elite infantry, and Superweapons are mostly presented as mobile ICBM Launchers like Russia's Topol-M or China's DF-41. It also innovates with purchasable subfactions at your tech center instead of the original choice of "Generals" before battle, which allows you to change your strategy mid-game to counter your opponents! Each of the 4 factions has 3 completely different subfactions to choose from. Here is the official announcement from The End of Days:

Quote:




Official voice for USA Javelin Anti-Tank Missile Launcher Operator.
Voice actor: Nick Gikas


If you are curious about The End of Days, visit the ModDB Profile, Discord Channel, and YouTube Video Channel to obtain further information about it. And that's all regarding The End of Days for now. Stay tuned at PPM for more news about The End of Days!

Combined Arms 0.93 has been released!
September 30, 2023 - 13:20
Aloha! Reinforcements have arrived at Combined Arms. Inqubi has recently made Combined Arms 0.93 available for download. For your information, Combined Arms is a mod for OpenRA that emulates the old Command & Conquer games gameplay and brings five factions to the battlefield: Allies, Soviets, GDI, Nod, and Scrin. It features new units and support powers for these factions. It also features new graphics and sound effects. Here are the official words about Combined Arms 0.93:

Quote:
0.93 is the latest instalment of Combined Arms! It features the highly requested save/load function for skirmish options!
The update also features improvements to the existing single-player campaign missions as well as four brand-new prologue missions!



# Features
- Four prologue missions.
- Lobby options can now be saved/loaded.
- Added option to disable fog of war and/or build radius in campaign missions. Mission options will persist until changed.
- Improved targeting for Chronosphere, Iron Curtain, Nanite Repair & Atomic Shells.
- Update checker and download button on menu screen.
- Numerous campaign mission tweaks.
- Soviet EVA variant.
- Numerous voice line improvements & additions.
- Units gain XP from dealing damage, rather than kills (Yuri/Mastermind gain XP from each unique unit they mind control).
- Increased armor and damage bonuses for heroic units.
- Unique veterancy icons for Nod and Scrin.
- When spectating or viewing replays, the value of selected units will be shown.

# Balance

## General
- Increased Mechanic salvage reward to $200.
- Reduce driverless vehicle decay rate.
- Reduced cost of Optimised Production upgrades from $500 to $350 (Multi-Queue Scaled only).
- Any naval units with depth charges will use only these against submarines. Reduced submarine HP to compensate.

## Allies
- Chronoshift no longer kills passengers, but they can't unload while chronoshifted. Enemy units teleported for 66% normal duration. Reduced maximum targets from 13 to 9. Capped health at 47k while chronoshifted.
- Reduced Raider APC speed and damage vs buildings/defenses a little.
- MRJ rework; creates jamming fields which reduce enemy RoF and firepower.
- Gap Generator no longer creates mini veils, but the beam itself debuffs in a small area (mainly to make it more distinct from MRJ).
- Increased Battle Fortress HP and damage.
- Temporal Flux grants Chrono Prison +1.5 range.
- Chrono Tank can now attack aircraft (relatively low damage). Added a 3 second cooldown between jumps with Temporal Flux. Can no longer crush infantry instantly by teleporting onto them.
- Increased Ranger/APC/Raider APC damage vs light armor.
- Reduced Temporal Incursion cooldown from 6:30 to 5:00 and increase duration from 30s to 40s. Removed target circle.
- Strafing Run: Increased P51 damage, HP and speed. Target is now the center of the run rather than the start.
- Reduced Artillery damage vs defenses.
- Increased Gunboat projectile speed.

## Soviets
- Reduced inaccuracy of BTR, reduced damage (roughly same DPS, just more consistent). Increased damage vs light armor.
- Increased Brute vision by 1.
- Increase Lasher Tank speed a little.
- Increased Sukhoi splash damage and missile speed slightly.
- In Multi-Queue, Kennel has its own tab for dogs only, rather than requiring a Barracks.
- Increased Sea Scorpion projectile speed and damage vs vehicles/ships.
- Increased Missile Sub damage vs buildings.

## GDI
- Increased Nanite Repair tick rate slightly.
- Increased Disruptor damage vs buildings and light armor slightly.
- Increased Hum-Vee/Guardian Drone/Mini Drone/APC damage vs light armor.
- Increased Aurora splash damage against vehicles.
- Increased Frigate railgun damage. Added depth charges.
- Reduced Drone Carrier Hornet reload time so they fire on each pass. Increased their ammo from 6 to 8. Increased damage vs buildings/defenses.
- Reduced Patrol Boat damage vs light armor.

## Nod
- Increased Buggy damage vs light armor.
- Heavy Flame Tank burst shortened (same DPS).
- Reduced Shadow Glider grenade rate of fire.
- Reduced Microwave Tank speed. Will now kill passengers with Intensified Microwaves upgrade.
- Increased Apache cost from 1350 to 1400.
- Reduced Artillery damage vs defenses.
- Reduced ICBM Sub damage vs ground vehicles. Added charge up time before firing (reduced reload to compensate).

## Scrin
- Feeder renamed to Burster, now buildable and available to all Scrin. No longer charges on Tiberium.
- Collector-73 Feeder Mutation replaced with Greater Coalescence. Spawns a larger and movable version of Leecher coalescence, which feeds of nearby enemies to sustain itself while healing allies.
- Atomized debuff now pulses AoE damage and slows movement, instead of being a DoT/firepower debuff only on the target, and no longer spreads if the target dies.
- Reduced Intruder damage vs infantry.
- Increased Gun Walker HP from 30k to 33k. Increased damge vs light armor.
- Shard Walker no longer has heavy armor. HP increased to 40k.
- Increased PAC speed from 49 to 60. Increased damage vs aircraft and infantry. Increased splash radius vs vehicles, reduced splash radius vs infantry.
- Increased Seeker HP from 22k to 23k.
- Increased Lacerator vision by 1.
- Increased Leecher HP from 28k to 30k. Increased damage vs light armor.
- Increased Leecher orb HP from 30k to 35k.
- Reduced Tripod & Reaper Tripod range very slightly. Reduced damage vs buildings and infantry.
- Increased Mothership wormhole range from 20 to 28, increased cooldown to 45s. Increased anti-unit weapon rate of fire slightly.
- Increased Stormrider shields from 6.5k to 8k.
- Move Scrin submarine detection from Stormrider to Seeker/Lacerator.
- Increase Devourer/Darkener damage vs ships.

# Misc/Fixes
- Added support powers to Composition Tester
- Slowed the decay rate of driverless vehicles.
- Fixed mission 2 crash.
- Fixed Ion Conduits activating when Storm Column is not powered.
- Separate queue for kennel in multi-queue.
- Lowered Hacker selection priority.
- Fixed Hopsital exits on the map Roadkings CA.
- Reduced opacity of sub detection circles, as it was messy with many of them.
- Added texture to menu UI panels.
- Added player colored selection box to submerged submarines.


You can check more information about Combined Arms by visiting the ModDB Profile, and Discord Channel. Download Combined Arms 0.93. That's all, folks! Stay tuned at PPM for more news coverage on Combined Arms!