More QoL Improvements

This mod is compatible with the September patch for the C&C Remastered Collection. Jimtern of EA has given the following instructions for updating the mod to the latest version:

• Disable the mod in the Mods Menu
• Unsubscribe from the mod in the in-game Workshop Mods menu
• Quit and restart the game
• Re-subscribe to the mod via the Workshop Mods menu
• Activate the mod and restart the game as prompted
• The updated mod should then work as intended

A simple mod that adds more quality-of-life improvements to the game. Does not add extra units or direct gameplay changes, so you get the true original experience, just improved. Currently includes the following enhancements:

Smarter Harvesters
Several enhancements have been added to make harvesters smarter.

In the original game, harvesters preferred harvesting ore patches to the north of their position. This mod makes them harvest the ore patches closest to their last refinery instead, which helps keep your harvesters safe and keeps the money flowing faster as the harvesters have a shorter path to home.

If you have multiple bases or a very large base, harvesters will now stick to using the closest refineries instead of wandering all around the map to reach any free refinery. Harvesters also act smarter when sharing a refinery, allowing the closest harvester to always unload first, without needing to wait for a distant harvester to reach the refinery first (this feature is also known as harvester queue jumping).

Harvesters also don’t start idling anymore if their refinery gets destroyed while they are on their way to unload, but will instead find another refinery to unload to.

And finally, when the map runs out of ore, the harvesters won’t stay idle permanently, but will periodically scan if more ore has spawned on the map (from ore mines). This also affects the Skirmish AI and makes it a bit less braindead in the late-game.

Pathfinding
Improves pathfinding by implementing the A* algorithm. Units will no longer hug cliffs and other obstacles, but move through the most optimal path. Special thanks to cfehunter for implementing this feature to TD, which I could then port to RA.

Rally points
You can select a building and then click on the ground to give produced units a rally point, like in Red Alert 2 and CnCNet Tiberian Sun. This works with barracks, war factories, naval yards / sub pens and also repair bays. You can also hold ALT while giving the rally point to set the rally point to a unit or other object. Thanks to cfehunter for his work on the same feature for TD.

Modern Wall Building
You can now chain-build walls as in Tiberian Sun and Red Alert 2. To offset that this practically makes building walls cheaper, walls have been made 3 times more expensive. Each wall piece also doesn’t refund the full cost of the buildable wall object, but only one-third of it. You can still sell walls in missions for extra cash as in the original and retain the original wall balance, while enjoying faster wall placement. Special thanks to pchote for his Modern Wall Building mod, from which I adopted the code for this feature.

Other enhancements

• Aircraft can be targeted manually with SAM sites and AA guns, making it possible to micro them for focus-fire
• Enables force-fire (CTRL) for buildings
• Enables the Stop (default S) command for buildings, so you can stop them from firing at a previously given target
• Units react faster to enemies that move by their position
• Service Depots now always tell fully repaired units to move out of the depot to keep it free for future use, even if there was no unit queued for entering them
• Enables units to make queued waypoint loops if you make a path with Q-move and finally click on the unit itself (thanks to dkeeton for providing information about this)
• MPLAYER.INI no longer overrides rules from the map file
• The AI no longer completely surrenders after losing its factories as long as it has a significant number of units left, allowing it to do that one last desperate rush

Not a fan of all of the features? Interested in customizing their behaviour? In the mod folder, there’s a sub-folder CCDATA, and there resides MOREQOL.INI. Modifying it allows you to fine-tune the features of the mod to your liking, or even disabling some features entirely. The file is well commented and acts as an extension to Rules.ini, so you can also use it for introducing any kinds of Rules.ini changes.

Where is the mod folder?
Look into the directory where you installed the game through Steam. In the same directory there is a "workshop" folder, and under that there’s a "content" folder from where you can navigate to the remaster’s workshop content. Usually this is a file path like the following:

C:Program Files (x86)Steamsteamappsworkshopcontent12132102124096053MoreQoL

While I’ve greatly enjoyed the Remastered collection, I’ve largely moved on to newer C&C games and so I’m re-focusing my C&C modding efforts on other projects, most notably
Dawn of the Tiberium Age. I don’t rule out working more on this mod in the future, but currently I have no active plans to develop further features for this mod. However, I will keep this mod up-to-date and compatible with the latest version so you can keep enjoying it as it is, even if more patches for the Remastered Collection are released.

Despite my departure, the modding capabilities of the Remasters are definitely intriguing. If I continue modding the Remasters one day, I’ll likely be improving the AI as well as the game balance and will likely use this mod as a base.

Source code: https://github.com/Rampastring/CnC_Remastered_Collection