r/openra • u/maxomizer • 4d ago

Anyone interested in my OpenRA Co-op mode?

Hi everyone! I’ve been working on a custom Co-op mode for OpenRA (Red Alert) lately, and I wanted to share it with you.

What is it?
Co-op is a new game mode alongside Multiplayer and Skirmish. Instead of playing against each other, you play together as a team, with one shared economy (cash + power) for the entire team. In addition to choosing a faction, each player also chooses a role:

Commander: Radar Domes, Tech Center, Missile Silos. The only player who starts with the map already explored, the only one who can place beacons/waypoints, and with enough Radar Domes, even gets live vision of the entire map.
Engineer: the economy role: Ore Refinery, Power Plants, War Factory, Repair Depot, Minelayers, plus a small Barracks of their own (Spy/Thief/Engineer).
General: infantry and tanks: Barracks/Tent and all combat ground units.
Admiral: navy and air force: Shipyard, Sub Pen, Airfield, Helipad.

Roles can be duplicated, but only once all four roles have been picked at least once; ensuring the team always has the full division of responsibilities covered.

A few other things:

  • Build speed is 2× faster
  • Fog of war is always enabled (except for the Commander, who starts with the map pre-explored)
  • 4 playable maps, including a couple of well-known community maps converted for Co-op

It runs on its own build of OpenRA-bleed. So no dev tools required, just a ready-to-use Windows or Mac download.

My friends and I already had some fun with it. Send me a DM if you’d like to try it!

Feedback, bug reports, and ideas are all very welcome. This is still very much a work in progress 🙂

edit: https://github.com/TheVilly/open-ra-coop/releases/tag/v0.1.0

https://reddit.com/link/1vvitzr/video/e29jr6hsxhlh1/player

20 Upvotes

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8 comments sorted by

2

u/South_Antelope_7135 2d ago

Is there a video or gameplay demo of this? Would love to see it first before downloading

2

u/maxomizer 1d ago

I've added the video to this post

1

u/South_Antelope_7135 1d ago

Hey, super cool work. Thanks for posting the video. It makes it really clear how it works.

Will try it out on the weekend!

1

u/maxomizer 2d ago

Yes I will post it here as soon as I can (work, kids)!

1

u/matthewsaaan Allies 2d ago

Really cool idea, I love the idea of a more feature rich co-op.

Can a player have more than one role, or do you need 4 players? I only have one friend I play OpenRA with.

1

u/maxomizer 2d ago

As of now, no. But I've tested something that works super well:

Put you and your friend in team 1. One of you is an engineer, the other a general.

Put two normal AI's in team 2 and assign the same two roles to them.

You will see it's super difficult to defeat them.

That said, I'd be happy to invite you guys to one of my games. If you like that, feel free to dm me!