Project Phantom - A Yuri's Revenge Total Conversion Mod

It has been a while since I've last posted a formal update for this mod. Regardless, work on this project has continued even during silence and keeps going relatively strong, and I do have few things to share.

Website
Project Phantom website has been updated with a new layout. Many of the pages are still under construction, and I'll be sure to keep everyone updated when they go live.

Discord
For those who may have missed it, Project Phantom does have an official Discord server that can be used for discussing the modification, receiving updates regarding it first in the line and eventually it would hopefully serve as a multiplayer hub as well.

Showcases
A while back I posted an article about various UI / UX improvements in Project Phantom, be sure to check it out if you already have not.
There's also a new showcase video, showing off some units & buildings in Project Phantom. It can also be viewed on ModDB.

As mentioned prior, development has been going on relatively strong, regardless of occassional pauses and challenges. With that in mind, I have the following announcement to make.

Early access version of Project Phantom will be released during Summer 2024
Exact release date will be made known closer to launch

So what will be in this first release?
Good question. Right now, we are looking at the following set of features.

• Three new factions - Western Coalition, Eurasian Dominion and Phantom Imperative, with complete arsenals full of new units, buildings and support powers (albeit many buildings will use graphics that can be deemed as 'placeholders').
• Three 'mercenary factions' - Fist of Titans, Crimson Crown and Excelsus Group, that have capturable buildings that provide various support powers and units to players who capture them, alongside the classic set of neutral tech buildings including capturable base defences.
• A large number of new map props and other miscellaneous buildings.
• Three reworked terrain tile theaters, Temperate, Tundra & Desert, with significantly expanded tilesets from the original game, including fully integrated urban tilesets and a basic interior tileset.
• Around 160 standard skirmish/multiplayer maps, some old and some new.
• Island Combat game mode, which is constrained to maps with water-locked islands.
• Scavengers game mode, where you start with a Mobile War Factory and are required to collect powerup crates for units and funds - your factory can reverse-engineer any vehicles found (including technology trucks for aerial vehicles) to unlock them as buyable units.
• One scenario for Hold the Line game mode, where up to 4 players (human or AI) are pitted against waves of AI-controlled enemies that scale based on number players in game, with objective to protect a critical structure from the said enemies.

A preview of Crimson Crisis scenario, where players are tasked protecting an Energy Research Lab against waves of Crimson Crown units.

• Challenges game mode, where 2 players (human or AI) are pitted against three AI-controlled enemies in specific scenarios that have unique modifiers in play and odds stacked against the players. Initially Challenges mode is going to come with three scenarios, one against each of the factions.

A preview of one of the Challenges, called Thunderhill Challenge where players are challenged by the nigh-impenetrable defenses of a W.A.R.D research base.

• A single Cooperative mission, testing the waters out, where two Coalition commanders are tasked with eliminating a Dominion mining outpost.

Preview of co-op mission Motherlode, where a small squad of Coalition forces is sent on an infiltration and elimination mission to a Dominion mining base.

• Various quality of life, bugfix and other engine improvements, courtesy of Ares Expansion DLL and Phobos Engine Extension.
• Full integration with the CnCNet client, allowing easy access to multiplayer games and easy download of mod updates.
• Bundled installation of two map editors, a version of the legacy FinalAlert 2 map editor as well as Rampastring's modern World Altering Editor.
• Installer software with compatibility with all releases of Yuri's Revenge.

I hope to have some more news to share about Project Phantom's development and the upcoming early access release in near future, but for now, I'm out.

Since the mod has been in (sort of) a testing phase for a while now there hasn't been a lot of significant content updates and that kind of shows in these newsposts. Not a lot of new stuff, more wrapping up things shown over past few months in one nice package.
 
UNIT SHOWCASE VIDEOS
 
For those who have not yet seen them, the conclusion of both the Hero Spotlight and Experimental Weapons Test showcase series are available for viewing at Youtube.

Hero Spotlight #3

 
Experimental Weapons Test #3

 
There's also a picture with all of the Experimental Units shown on it, combined with a chart that displays under what conditions you get each of them. Stolen technology involves infiltrating both a tier 3 laboratory structure and a vehicle factory, as a reminder.

 
 
OTHER PROGRESS
 
A little while ago the fourth terrain theater to be included in Project Phantom besides Temperate, Tundra and Desert was revealed. The so-called Gloomy theater combines certain elements from both Temperate and Tundra, featuring withered landscapes combined with urban environments consisting primarily of darker pavement and unique cliff-face tiles.


When initially announcing the mercenary factions, it was stated that capturing Crimson Crown's Technology Vault grants access to one of three unique units, depending on your chosen faction. However, in testing most of these unique units were deemed redundant, not unique enough or simply not worth it at all. As a result, capturing the Vault will now instead grant players who have any tier 3 laboratory building and vehicle factory an access to Blackout Signal Inhibitor, a mobile unit limited to one per player that generates a jamming signal with significant radius that blocks use of enemy support powers and superweapons, as well as jams radars and captured Satellite Centers. In addition to this, Blackout can also detect cloaked units at ranges higher than any other unit capable of doing so and use an electromagnetic interference weapon to stop a single, EM-susceptible unit from working at all.
 
Technology Vault also grants Prototype Disruptor Towers, that use a similar but slightly different type of jamming signal to generate blank spots in enemy radar views to shroud the area in their vicinity. They are deployed via a support power, and will eventually, due to being unstable prototypes, explode upon itself regardless of if they are being fired upon (this is displayed via a timer bar under the structure itself to all players).
 

 
Lastly, to round out the capturable base defenses roster, there is an addition of a heavy-duty anti-air defense in form of Missile Bunkers, which work more effectively against slower-moving, heavily armored aircraft than fast ones such as fighter jets.
 

 
 
That's all of it for this time. I have something bit bigger planned for the next news post, so keep your eyes out for that.


FOLLOW PROJECT PHANTOM

So what's up with Project Phantom currently? The news-silence has been mostly due to the mod currently being in a beta testing phase, with most focus going on to polishing gameplay and finishing some graphical assets rather than showcasing. Thought I'd rectify that a bit, however.

UNIT SHOWCASE VIDEOS

The second part of Experimental Weapons Test is now available. This one features a bonus clip showing an unit from the previous installment that has been through quite significant changes based on feedback.

Experimental Weapons Test #2


There is also the second part of Hero Spotlight which was uploaded earlier on.

Hero Spotlight #2


This leaves only one part left of both Hero Spotlight and Experimental Weapons Test - which should hopefully appear during coming weeks.


WEBSITE STATUS

I was initially planning on bringing the website up-to-date gradually as time goes by, but as the mod is currently going through a playtesting phase I figured trying to keep the website up-to-date at this point would be colossal waste of time, and therefore it will be brought fully up-to-date at once much closer to the release of first public beta version some time in (hopefully near) future.


PPROGRESS

One of the big recent additons/changes to Project Phantom is adoption of the new game client created by Rampastring of Dawn of the Tiberium Age. This allows Project Phantom to be played over CnCNet and provides several other neat features especially for game setup. Below is a small teaser of how the client currently looks.



Those with keen eyes might have spotted an unit in the bonus clip segment of the new Experimental Weapons Test video that has not appeared anywhere before. This unit is Liberator AMOS, an artillery unit used by the Western Coalition. Armed with dual mortar guns that can unleash a rapid barrage of moderately inaccurate shells on enemy units from a range. In addition, it sports a third gun that occassionally fires an EMP ordnance as well which will incapacitate enemy vehicles and defences without adequate countermeasures installed.



Few structures have also had their placeholder artwork replaced with brand new ones.

Dominion Training Camp


Dominion Battle Lab


Phantom Shadow Conduit

Phantom Shadow Conduit is an important but expensive Phantom structure that cloaks nearby units and grants specific units ability to cloak regardless of their position on the map. However, if you lose all Shadow Conduits or go on low power, those units will lose their cloaked status until another one is constructed or base power is restored. In team games, you can benefit from your allies' Shadow Conduits.

And for those who might have missed it on ModDB, Facebook or Twitter earlier this autumn, there is the following.

Phantom Singularity Catalyst

Phantom Singularity Catalyst is Phantom's superweapon structure that provides access to Singularity Collapse superweapon.
 

Until next time.

FOLLOW PROJECT PHANTOM

Time for the second Project Phantom semi-regular newspost.
 
UNIT SHOWCASE VIDEOS - HERO INFANTRY & EXPERIMENTAL UNITS
 
Those that follow Project Phantom in Facebook, Twitter or ModDB might be aware of the recent unit showcase videos, with first parts of the Hero Spotlight and Experimental Weapons Test series both available for view at both Youtube and ModDB, focusing on three of the total of nine hero infantry and experimental units respectively. While all of the heroes were shown in the previous newspost, this time you get to see them in action and as a bit of a teaser for future parts of Hero Spotlight, some of the heroes have had some changes to them during the couple of months.

Hero Spotlight Part 1

 
Experimental Weapons Test Part 1

 
WEBSITE UPDATES - MERCENARY FACTIONS
 
While the updates on the faction structures/units pages have been delayed a bit in favour of the unit showcase videos, a new page has been added under Miscellanneous section, detailing the so-called Mercenary Factions in the mod. These factions are not playable per-se, mostly serving as a neutral force on the maps with few things for players to capture and make use of. The currently included factions are Fist of Titans, a loosely associated group of mercenaries and guerilla fighters primarily operating in the Eastern Europe and Crimson Crown, a large industrial corporate group with ruthless reputation specializing in mining, technology and vehicle manufacturing as well as security business.
 

 
Of particular note is Crimson Crown's Technology Vault, which besides giving access to Prototype Disruptor Tower support power, also allows construction of one of the three faction specific tier 3 units (or all of them if you happen to have factory and technology lab of each of the three factions).
 

 
Coalition Equalizer Missile System is a premium anti-air unit that can also disable ground vehicles using EMP. Dominion Svarog Ironcaster uses a special chemical compound called Iron Skin to shield your own vehicles from any damage. Phantom Hyperion Plasma Cannon is a powerful siege unit that can teleport across the battlefield and annihilate structures with it's plasma cannon.


FOLLOW PROJECT PHANTOM