What’s New

This section contains non-exhaustive lists of features and bugfixes that were added to a particular version of Ares. Internal changes, optimizations and updates are mentioned here only if they are notable.

Ares 3.0

• Super Weapons can be limited to human or AI players, only provide a limited number of shots, or be granted without any building, charged initially or charge in the background without any building to provide them, can be fired according to AI targeting rules, but at the player’s command, with fully customizable constraints. A new Battery super weapon type has been added, as well as some new AI targeting modes.
• Trigger Actions provide auxiliary power, kill drivers, change the EVA voice or the group units belong to dynamically
• Trigger Events raised for EMP, spotlights, killing drivers, tanking vehicles, abduction, reverse engineering, super weapon use, houses owning a certain object type, a certain house destroying an object, no more objects of a certain type existing, and a house having no more objects keeping the player alive
• Team Scripts have been added to provide auxiliary power, kill drivers, capture vehicles, convert the type, cause sonar detection, and disable weapons
• Short Games end only if the player has no more units or structures that keep them alive
• Harvesters allow to customize the global scan and distance settings
• Refineries allow to slightly customize dock unloading cells and facings
• Warheads support culling enemies like the Squid parasite attack does
• Railguns can be detached and fire before the last one has disappeared
• Selling Units can be customized per type, and buildings can be set to allow selling units
• Bugfixes have been added to solve burst abuse, IFVs chasing aircraft, an infantry deploy jam

Ares 2.0

• Type Conversions can switch a unit type when deploying, promoting or moving into or out of water
• Animations can deal damage using a weapon, optionally with a delay
• Waves optimized and expanded to support to recreate original colors
• Warheads can fire Ion Cannons, can distinguish between firer and allies,
• AI can use custom Iron Curtains, and even use any super weapon with Iron Curtain Targeting to support teams
• Build Time can be customized for each type
• Spy Effects to build buildings, naval units or aircraft as veteran

Ares 1.0

• Save Games are supported again

Ares 0.E

• Tunnel Networks allow to move units between entrance buildings
• IFV units support more than 18 weapons, turrets, and modes
• Warheads can apply new effects like sonar, weapon disabling, flashing, and Nuke flash, and deal relative damage like the MAD Tank
• Veterancy Abilities support immunity to radiation, poison, psionics, temporals, abductors, psychedelics, and psychic weapons
• Chronoshifting can be disallowed to destroy units at the destination
• Movies List can be defined with new unlockable movies

Ares 0.D

• Mouse Cursors have been reworked completely and now can be customized for units and structures as well as for weapons
• Warheads have been expanded to support mechanics and ambulances, and Temporal weapons can consider health and work together with Abductor logic
• Ivan Bombs added support for the death bombs cut from the original game
• Buildings can have custom buildup and separate sell times and AI players can build more than one of each type
• Units can have custom fall rates and dig animations and sounds
• Countries can have custom starting units and start with a deployed Construction Yard

Ares 0.C

• Bounty is money awarded for killing enemies
• Particles spark and railgun have been optimized heavily; gas can damage more than one cell; gas, smoke, and fire support custom palettes and animations can spawn particles farther away
• Particle Systems can now be attached to projectiles
• Factory Plant cost bonus effect can be modified for each unit or structure
• Promotion sounds, EVA messages, and flashing can be customized
• Weapon switching when a unit is out of ammo

Ares 0.B

• Generic Prerequisites now also accept vehicles as prerequisites
• Warheads can now optionally always or never damage air units
• Ammo changes allow for weapons that use custom amounts of ammunition (or no ammo at all), units reloading more than one round of ammunition, and aircraft with individual reload rate.
• Self Heal made customizable
• Spies can steal plans for one-time or permanent super weapons, and they can be deceived by deploying fake buildings
• Disallow players from getting the enter or no-enter cursor on transports or the area guard cursor on medics

Ares 0.A

• Audio improvements like support for multiple bag files and support for loose wave files of arbitrary type
• Solid Buildings have been reworked to support invisible projectiles and solidity levels
• Firestorm has gotten customizable animations and many more improvements
• Transports can come from the factory with prebuilt passengers, can only accept specific passengers, or be disallowed to eject their passengers manually
• Custom Missiles can use weapons instead of damage and warhead
• Saboteurs are sneaky one-time building demolition troopers
• Units can be made to hold fire if not in area-guard mode or to not try to crush enemies

Ares 0.9

• Better AI support for super weapons and the new Ares features
• Super Weapons support Inhibitors, multiple AuxBuildings, negative AuxBuildings and owner countries, full-map PsychicReveal, and multiple Hunter Seeker launches
• Buildings and upgrades allow more than two super weapons and Oil Derrick logic
• Graphical stuff like more than 8 facings for SHP based units and weapon muzzle flashes, as well as animated rotating projectiles
• EVA alerts and text messages when capturing or losing tech structures and if silos needed
• KillDriver owner house can be set

Ares 0.8

• Toggle Power keyboard command, customizable cursors and optional support for AI players
• EM Pulse Super Weapon, with lots of enhancements
• Super Weapon ranges can be restricted around the firing structures and/or around designator units
• Tech Academies are structures that allow training units with initial veterancy
• Forest Fires restored, optional per tree type
• Advanced Rubble expanded with customizable owner and initial health
• Animation tags Scorch and Flamer have been restored
• Repair wrenches can be hidden from enemies, and no longer reveal cloaked buildings
• Unit Delivery placement changed, units guard or hunt, and support for giving units to neutral countries

Ares 0.7

• Memory Management issues were resolved, which results in fewer crashes and better support for Windows 8.
• Hunter Seeker Super Weapon, Unit Settings and Side defaults
• Drop Pod Super Weapon and customizable Settings
• Several weapon additions like Splits and Airburst enhancements, Ranged and ProjectileRange, and BallisticScatter
• Warheads that prevent units to scatter when hit
• Civilian enemies attacked in multiplayer and smarter defense against civilian threats
• Loading themes for campaigns and multiplayer
• Score screen Graphics and Themes for campaign and multiplayer
• Aircraft customization with Smoke animations and Airstrike-related voices
• MakeInfantryOwner expanded to work with generic infantry death animations
• Teams can retaliate in case a member is attacked
• Passable structures units can drive on without side effects like the workarounds have
• Dimming deactivated units by reason for deactivation
• Damage sparks made customizable and enhanced to work with all types

Ares 0.6

• CellSpread not limited to 11 anymore, and buildings can define a maximum hit count
• Sight values above 10 are supported
• Tech structures can be returned to the neutral house when a player is defeated instead of being destroyed
• Prerequisites that require a factory build by a certain country
• Veterancy from spawns can be awarded to the spawner unit
• Aircraft that does not spin when crashing
• Spawners now have basic support for flying Aircraft Carriers and are allowed to cloak
• KillDriver only applied below a certain percentage of health
• Helicopter units animate in air regardless of whether they are hovering or moving
• Drain weapons power drain amount made customizable
• Force Shield customizable per BuildingType

Ares 0.5

• Tiberium features restored like heal, damage, and explosive harvesters, as well as spilling on destruction and Tiberium chain reactions, with lots of new settings.
• Storage logic has been restored
• Cloak enhancements allow units to cloak only if idle, deployed, powered, or not at all, hover units to cloak, customizable cloak sounds, parasites to attack cloaked units and more.
• Sensor Arrays work again, with additions
• Type selection can now consider several unit types as one
• AttachEffect expanded with settings for decloaking and entering transports
• Veterancy insignia can be hidden for enemy players
• Engineers and Technicians can be defined for each side, and they can spawn as survivors
• C4 veteran ability has been restored back into working state
• EVA message in case a unit is destroyed

Ares 0.4

• AttachEffect feature allows to change unit and building stats on the battlefield for a variety of new features and play styles
• Super weapon additions with cameos being grayed out, and a new EVA event for selecting targets
• Aircraft now supports Crashable
• Pips support more than only the hardcoded values
• Spy Effects now support PCX cameos and persistent radar reveal, and spies can no longer infiltrate allied buildings
• Gate sounds are now customizable
• Veteran Buildings added to the country options
• Text color for tool tips and message texts customizable
• Chaos Gas prevents the stop command from working now
• Release Note text can be shown on the ingame screen
• Output all missing CSF labels using a new command line parameter

Ares 0.3

• Custom Missiles like the V3 can be added
• Whiteboy bug has been fixed and now more than 74 cameos are supported
• Cyclic Gattling support to go back to first stage added
• Unit Delivery now supports Deferment
• Observer flags customizable for each country
• FPS counter can be displayed on the ingame screen