Command & Conquer: Red Alert
| Levels? |  Editable |
|---|---|
| Tiles? | Editable |
| Sprites? | Editable |
| Fullscreen? | Editable |
| Sound? | Editable |
| Music? | Editable |
| Text? | Editable |
| Story/cutscenes? | Editable |
| UI/menus? |  Not editable |
| Demos? | Unknown |
Command & Conquer: Red Alert, also known simply as Red Alert is the third real-time strategy game released by Westwood Studios.
It keeps Command & Conquer's game mechanic of a harvestable resource found on the battlefield, but also introduces a second resource; ore is regenerating but less valuable, while crystals are more valuable but do not regenerate.
The basic premise of the game is the same as in the first Command & Conquer; the player has to build a base, harvest the available ore and crystals on the playing field as in-game currency, use that currency to expand the base and build armies to defend against enemies, and finally destroy the enemy base.
Red Alert's scripting engine is a lot more advanced than that of the first game, giving the campaign missions a much larger variety of objectives and sub-objectives to accomplish to complete the missions, so many missions do not focus on the classic base versus base mechanic. There is even an entire Interior environment in the game, specifically designed for tactical missions without base building.
File formats
The following file formats are used by this game.
| Filename | Format | Details |
|---|---|---|
| *.mix | MIX Format (Westwood) | File archives. |
| *.pal | 6-bit RGB 256-colour palette | Palettes. |
| *.cps | Westwood CPS Format | Full-screen images. Often used for internal processing to identify region clicks. |
| *.wsa | Westwood WSA Format | Animations. |
| *.vqa | Westwood VQA Format | Full-motion video cutscenes. |
| *.shp *.tem *.sno *.int |
Westwood SHP Format (TD) | Sprites. Files specific to one theater (terrain set) are given the extension of that specific theater. |
| *.shp | Westwood SHP Format (Dune II) | Used for only one file; the mouse cursor sprite. |
| *.tem *.sno *.int |
Command & Conquer: Red Alert Tileset Format | Terrain used in the game's maps. |
| *.fnt | Westwood Font Format v3 | Fonts. |
| *.aud | Westwood AUD Format | Sound effects and voices. |
| *.eng | Westwood Strings File | Ingame text. Strangely, the French and German versions of the game also use .eng, and not .fre and .ger like Dune II did. |
| *.ini | Command & Conquer: Red Alert Mission Format | Missions. Stored as an ini file, describing missions and containing embeded binary data describing the maps. |
| *_vtx.pal | Westwood Fading Table | Palette remapping tables used as colour filters for special effects in the game. This system is used extensively internally in the game engine, but only the Chrono Vortex tables are ever handled as files. |
| *.lut | Command & Conquer: Red Alert Vortex Lookup Table | Chrono vortex distortion table. Defines for each pixel in a 64x64 frame which origin pixel it is taken from, and how much it is darkened. |
Tools
The following tools are able to work with this game.
| Name | Platform | Archives | Levels | Graphics | Music | Sounds | Text | Saves | .exe patch | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XCC Mixer suite | Windows | Edit | Edit | Edit | Edit | Edit | Read | No | No | Editing suite that can open and edit the game's MIX archives, and most of the formats inside it. Contains a map editor as external tool in the same pack. |
| Mix Manager / AUD Utilities | DOS | Edit | No | Edit | Edit | Edit | Edit | No | No | DOS Editing suite that can open and edit the game's MIX archives, and has tools for converting most of the formats inside it. |
| RAMIX | DOS | Edit | No | Edit | View | View | No | No | No | DOS Editing suite that can open and edit the game's MIX archives, and has tools for converting most of the formats inside it. |
| Engie File Converter | Windows | No | View | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | Can view and convert the game's CPS, SHP, WSA, font and colour palette formats, and can visualise the game's fading tables and missions. |
| Mobius Map Editor | Windows | View | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | No | Fork of the official C&C: Remastered map editor. Can open the .mix archives and open / extract files from them. |
| Westwood Font Editor | Windows | No | No | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | Can edit the game's font files. |
| Filter Creator | Windows | No | No | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | A specialised tool to view and recreate the game's colour filters. |
| Westwood Strings Editor | Windows | No | No | No | No | No | Edit | No | No | |
| d2shpset | Windows (command line) | No | No | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | A small Dune II SHP writing utility written by OmniBlade of the Chronoshift team for Dune II SHP files. This format is used in C&C for the game's mouse cursor. |
| Red Horizon Utilities | Java (command line) | No | No | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | Original site is defunct. Backups of the tools can be found here. |
| VQA Encoder | Windows | No | No | Edit | No | No | No | No | No | Can convert video material into the game's proprietary VQA cutscene format. |