Features & systems

Runtime behavior and the settings, formats, and commands that control it.

Combat & weapons

Targeting, damage, projectiles, and the superweapons and global effects that deliver them.

Threat selection, damage, veterancy, and targeting decisions.

Cloaking and detectionHides objects from the houses that do not own them, and lets detectors and sensor coverage bring them back into view.
Engineers, capture and sabotageHands a structure or a vehicle to another house, restores it, spies on it, or arms it with a demolition charge, according to the soldier that walks in.
Target selection and threat ratingScores the candidates an object could shoot at from per-type coefficients weighing armor, health, distance and the house's declared enemy.
Veterancy and promotionPromotes an object through veteran and elite rank as it destroys value, unlocking per-type abilities and an elite weapon.

Firing, trajectories, damage delivery, and effects.

Destruction and debrisWorks a destroying hit through one shared step and then the object's own, and settles what is left standing on the cell.
EMP pulseImmobilizes objects inside a warhead-sized radius for a weapon-defined number of frames.
Firing geometry and beam weaponsSettles where an object's shots and firing effects appear, in what order one shot produces them, and which of them hold the weapon shut until they burn out.
Particle systemsGives each particle system one turn a frame, in which its behavior alone settles which of the settings written on its type are read and which are passed over.
Projectile flight and impactSteps every projectile along one of two flight models each frame and settles where, and how many times, it detonates.
Warheads and damageGathers the objects one blast reaches and turns the warhead's figures into the strength each of them loses.

Drop pods, ion storms, meteors, and special-case rules.

Drop podsDelivers infantry through the GDI Drop Pods superweapon or an infantry-only TeamType.
Ion stormsScripted global condition that grounds aircraft and hovercraft, calls lightning down on the map, and swaps the scenario to its ion lighting values.
SuperweaponsCharges one timer per house for every superweapon a rules section declares, and delivers that section's hard-coded effect where the shot is aimed.

How units move and what a base is built from, powered by, and paid for.

Locomotion, aircraft, infantry, vehicles, and pathfinding.

Aircraft operationsCoordinates aircraft destinations, landing zones and the conflicts that can prevent a landing.
Movement and terrainSettles which cells an object may step into and what fraction of its top speed it crosses each one at.
Route searchPlans a route in blocks of cells, walks it cell by cell, and prices each step by what stands in the way rather than by the ground it crosses.

Placement, construction, power, production, and resources.

Base placement and adjacencyDetermines whether a pending building placement is adjacent to an eligible owned building.
Building animationsSteps a structure's own artwork through five frame sequences and runs up to thirteen separate animations pinned to it, one per slot.
Laser fences and the firestorm wallLaser fence posts energize the segment runs between them, and one charge-draining superweapon raises every firestorm wall section a house owns.
Power output and drainTallies each house's power output against its drain and degrades its base while the balance falls short.
Production and factoriesBuilds one object of each kind per house at a time, charging for it step by step, and hands the finished object to a factory building to leave from.
Repair and healingRestores structures for credits, services vehicles at a depot, heals infantry at a hospital, and mends objects that repair themselves.
TiberiumGrows, spreads, and harvests the registered Tiberium types across map cells.
Veins and veinhole monstersVeinhole monsters grow fields of vein overlay that hurt what stands in them and fill a house's weed pool.
Walls, gates and wall towersA wall BuildingType turns into a cell overlay when it reaches the map, and gates and wall towers stitch into the run that overlay forms.

Scenario state, triggers, campaigns, and the computer houses that play against you.

AI decisions, teams, scripts, and production triggers.

AI base planning and buildingLays a computer house's base out as an ordered node list, then resolves what to build next and where to put it.
AI triggers and team productionDraws one weighted AI trigger per house on a timer and turns the TeamTypes it names into recruitment and production demand.
Base defense responseAnswers damage to a base by raising the owner's anger toward the attacker and calling a computer house's armed infantry and vehicles back to fight it.
Difficulty settings and handicapsTurns the chosen difficulty into one slot per house and scales that house's damage, speed, armor, rate of fire, prices and build times by the figures the slot holds.
Team executionGives every team one logic turn a frame, in which it retests its strength, starts or regroups, gathers its members, and works down its Script.

Scenario state, triggers, campaigns, and map formats.

Campaign progression and carry-overRuns the sequence from a campaign mission being won to the next one starting, and carries the global flags, spare money, mission timer, difficulty and stage across the boundary.
CratesScatters pickup crates over the map and gives a single result from the crate table to the infantryman or vehicle that walks, drives or hovers onto one.
Random map generationBuilds a playable map out of a map seed's twenty settings through a fixed sequence of passes.
Shroud, fog and the radar mapKeeps one shroud layer and one fog layer for the local player, and draws the radar map through the shroud.
Trigger springingFires a trigger when every event on it is satisfied in one pass, runs its actions, and then keeps or destroys the tag that carried it.

Player controls, presentation, and developer-facing runtime facilities.

Sidebar behavior, menus, input, cursors, and player controls.

Sidebar and build queueDraws a house's build options as two cameo strips, marks each order's progress on its own cameo, and turns a click into a production order.

Developer controls, diagnostics, logging, and runtime inspection.

Developer mode and diagnosticsCompiles the engine's cheat keys, diagnostic displays and logging into the Debug configuration alone, and raises the flags that arm them as soon as the command line carries any argument.