[LadyGamers]: First off, lets get to know Aircraftkiller, the man who can't get enough of Renegade. Is there a hidden meaning behind your nickname we should know about? Were you ever a simulation fanatic?  

[Aircraftkiller]:  I love simulations, especially tank and aircraft ones. But that isn't really the reason why I chose this nickname. Though highly illegal, yet funny as hell, I used to be friends with a guy who would launch bottle rockets at low flying aircraft with me. I figured the name would fit good in the C&C community, so I used it. It's stuck with me ever since.

[LadyGamers]: In 2002, the mod was in development, who were the founders? What brought the idea of creating this type of mod? Are they still working on the mod to this day? Please name the main people actually help with the mod at this time.

[Aircraftkiller]:  The founders were L3f7H4nd3d and Agent Gibson, both talented individuals who wanted to reincarnate the expansive universe of C&C: Red Alert into a soldier's perspective. They were Red Alert addicts, and felt that Renegade's engine would be perfect for a conversion based on the game. Unfortunately, due to time and reality problems, they had to quit. We had another guy come in and take over, but he also quit. I assumed the role of lead producer in the beginning of this year and have been directing the modification since then.  

The main guys behind it would be:

• Sir Phoenixx: He's an awesome 3D artist. He creates almost all of our
  vehicles and weapons. With a few years of 3DS Max experience, he's second to none in what we're doing.
• Darkblade: He's a great limey character from England, whose funny nature does little to hide the skill he holds in Photoshop. Most of the weapon and vehicle textures were done by him, over the course of about six months.
• Myself: I lead everyone, do all of the levels and structures, and I also
  spend some time doing various tasks in Photoshop.
• NeoSaber: He's a really great guy and does a lot of work in the form of both C++ script coding and gameplay balance implementation. He also spends a lot of his time preparing the releases for the patching process.
• Silent Kane: He's our resident German who does the main enhancements to the game engine, and adds many new features to it that were previously thought impossible with the W3D engine.

[LadyGamers]: There are so many things that have been added to RenAlert. In your opinion, please name the top 10 enhancements that make this mod possibly better than even the retail version of the game.

[Aircraftkiller]:  Sure!

1. Increasing the view distance from 300 meters to 600 meters to allow for
much more strategy in the game. When you have expansive levels, you need
to be able to see far. This allows you to spot enemy tank convoys headed
for your base, or a small fleet of Allied Destroyers coming to siege your
naval capabilities.

2. Naval warfare. You're not just limited to running around on the
surface, or flying around in helicopters. You can pilot a Submarine, a
Gunboat, Destroyer, Missile Sub, or the versatile Transport that carries
soldiers across bodies of water. It opens up new worlds of strategy that
make what we're doing even more true to the original Red Alert.

3. Gameplay adjustments. Instead of getting points for shooting at enemy
vehicles and soldiers, you only receive points for successfully destroying
them. This shifts the focus of the game from hiding in your base, shooting
tanks for loads of points; to working together as a team to assault the
enemy base. Renegade had a major problem where defenders would often win
more than the offensive team did, simply because they exploited the game
point system to get absurd amounts of points from doing relatively no
damage to a unit.

4. Redesigned helicopter units. While each side has their own specific
units, they are no longer purchased from the War Factory in the way that
the GDI Orca and Nod Apache were purchased from the Weapons Factory and
the Airstrip, respectively. You have to keep your Helipad operational in
order to purchase an Allied Longbow; or a Soviet Hind\Chinook.

5. Aftermath and Counterstrike units. We've added units from both
expansion packs for Red Alert, allowing for a more varied play style in
Renegade Alert. The Soviets aren't just limited to brute force, they can
also speed around in Tesla Tanks with incredibly light armor. Or, you can
be a suicide bomber and use a Demolition Truck to blow yourself to holy
hell with a tactical nuclear weapon.

7. The environments you play in - I personally hated Renegade's level
design. Similar to Halo PC, you were always in a canyon with no logical
entrance or exit point. No reason to be there, no reason why a military
power would establish a field base in that terrain. It was simply "This is
multiplay, just play and forget about your surroundings." In that case,
just put us into a world of boxes... A huge part of Red Alert was that the
"Great World War II" occurred mainly in Europe, so to recreate this, I
spend time looking at European terrain and modeling my work after it.
Instead of being in ugly canyons with no believable features, you're in
lush forests with a gloomy feeling of war all around you. You can see
roads leading off into the distance, knowing your MCV came there to deploy
your base that you're fighting from.

8. All the levels use background music to convey the general feeling I
wanted. For example, in Canyon River, you're in a canyon where a
thunderstorm is building up. The song Hell March plays in the background
while this is happening. After about 10 minutes, the rain pours down and
you hear thunder and lightning everywhere. Another good example is the
Metro level, you're in a downtown war ravaged city that's been long since
abandoned before you arrived. You hear the song Floating playing in the
background, which has a good urban feel to it and helps to immerse you
into the game's world just a bit more.

9. Weapon and unit balance - I firmly believe that we hit it right in the
nose with the balance. No unit is overpowered. You have to work as a team
to be truly effective.

10. The buildings. We feature almost every Red Alert structure that
appeared in the game, from Construction Yards to civilian houses. Most
structures have multiple floors with elevators leading up through them.
You can see furnaces smelting Ore in the Ore Refinery, you can watch
vehicles being created inside the War Factory, and you can check out the
dull assortment of boxes and infantry beds inside each Barracks.

[LadyGamers]: Please talk about the latest development for the mod. Is there a new version coming out soon? What will be included in the this next version?

[Aircraftkiller]:  It should be out very soon. We've been working on the 0.993b version of Renegade Alert for close to six months, and it includes everything except the major superweapons - we left out the Chronosphere and Iron Curtain for later additions. The public test will include air combat with helicopters, naval combat, standard land combat, CTF, and around 16-17 multiplayer levels with very different ways of playing.

[LadyGamers]: What was your first Westwood Studios game?  Please describe a brief story of special C&C memories.

[Aircraftkiller]:  My first Westwood Studios game was Dune II, released way back in 1992. I played that for a long time, until a friend of mine introduced me to Red Alert: Retaliation for the Playstation console. I eventually got the C&C: Worldwide Warfare box set with Command & Conquer, its expansion The Covert Operations... Along with Red Alert and its expansions The Aftermath and Counterstrike.

One of my best C&C memories was using a link cable to connect my
Playstation with someone I used to know, a guy by the name of Steve. We
used the Retaliation game and went head to head. He thought he was winning the game until I used Transports to ferry 25 Mammoth Tanks into the rear of his base, totally decimating it. Needless to say, there was much
swearing after that. :-)

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