Shockwave (Mod)

=ShockWave (Modification)= ShockWave is a modification for the RTS game expansion pack Command & Conquer: Generals – Zero Hour, originating from 2004. There have been six released versions to date, 1.0 being the latest. It is quite critically acclaimed and is played competitively online by fans. In February 2008, it was one of the ten mods to receive the Mod DB Editor's Choice Award. It also has dual platform support for both Windows and Macintosh operating systems.

Overview
ShockWave adds a number of new units and abilities to each of the nine Zero Hour generals and their normal 'vanilla' factions. Many of the additional units are based upon ideas that were clearly intended to be included in Zero Hour's original release.

Numerous unit voices, sounds and art references to these missing units can be found within the game's. BIG files. Barring very few exceptions, nearly all of the missing upgrades, units and buildings have been introduced in some form within the ShockWave modification.

Among these include the Laser Comanche for Townes; the Hypersonic Aurora for Granger; the Advanced Particle Cannon for Alexander; Fusion Reactor and Weapons-Grade Uranium shells for Tao's tanks; the Demo Battle Bus for Juhziz and the Armored Scorpion for Thrax.

In addition to the extra units, Zero Hour originally intended to present the player with three (not merely one) boss generals in the Generals' Challenge, and include missions featuring General Fai and General Juhziz (which were missing from the final release). Playing the Generals' Challenge mode in unmodified versions of the game will eventually see the player stand off against a Chinese General named Leang, who commands the technology of all three factions at the end.

However, the boss Generals Ironside (of the USA) and Mohmar 'Deathstrike' (of the GLA), as well as the missions featuring General Fai (of China) and General Juhziz (of the GLA) were eliminated before the game's release, though their battlemaps, voiceovers and portraits are contained in the game files. All three of these boss-generals have been modified and included in 'ShockWave', utilizing the tactics and abilities for which they were supposedly originally intended to command. The Generals' Challenge mission featuring General Juhziz was also added back into the game (but General Fai's mission was not).

ShockWave is a partial conversion and thus aims to not change the feel and backstory of the original game. It is comparable to most expansion packs for RTS games in its initial setup, but without patches to the hard-coded executable. SWR productions staff have stated that they wish for the ShockWave to be thought of as what Zero Hour may have been, had Electronic Arts not cut short the development time.

Future
ShockWave has one scheduled release remaining, tenatively declared by SWR mod-leader TheHunter to be 'sometime before Christmas 2010.' Although SWR originally halted the 0.96 release to concentrate on quickly releasing a version of their Rise of the Reds mod that included both the GLA and European Union as playable 'vanilla' sides, this goal did not come to pass. Work on Rise of the Reds was ultimately put on hold to see a final update made to Shockwave. Whether SWR plans to continue production on Rise of the Reds has yet to be stated.
 * 0.96 was originally slated to be released shortly after the 0.951 patch; this additional patch would've seen further model and texture updates as well as the inclusion and replacement of units for particular factions - notably, an update to Alexander's Enforcer and the addition of an anti-air upgrade for Tao's Overlord. With more than a year passing between official announcements, 0.96 as an external release was stated to have been trashed in favor of expedience on the final release.
 * 1.1 is the final announced release for the Shockwave mod. Due to stated difficulties in properly testing their addition - together with a lack of available time and manpower - the oft-touted addition of naval warfare has been confirmed to be cancelled. This last update will feature as many new textures, models and programming fixes that can be managed, though whether SWR plans to support Shockwave with further bug removals and error corrections after this release is currently unknown.

New features
An online game manual with of changes to the factions from Zero Hour (as of Shockwave 1.1), including a complete list of each faction's new units, structures, upgrades, etc - can be viewed on the Fallout Studio wiki.

Glitchs
The following are notable glitches still present as of the final announed release (version 1.1). Some of the glitches are specific to Shockwave, while others are left over from the official Zero Hour release:

Generals' Challenge

 * In General Grangers' mission, Granger starts out with low power and will never bring his power back online (unless the player destroys enough of his buildings to reduce his power usage). This means that his particle cannon and Patriot base defenses will never fire.
 * In General Kwai's mission, Kwai runs out of money very early in the mission and will stop attacking and building new units completely after just a few attacks, making the mission incredibly easy. His only source of income after his lone resource pile is used up are 3-4 hackers. This glitch was not present in the original Zero Hour release.
 * In General Kwai's mission, Kwai will build multiple nuclear missile silos on top of each other.
 * In General Leang's mission, Leang never uses any of her taunts throught the whol mission, except for the during the pleyer's victory or defeat (as well as the opening cinematic).
 * In General Leang's mission, Leang will fire her Temple of Gaia only once, and will never fire it again.
 * In Prince Kassad's mission, Kassad's Scud Storm will fire at a location completely off of the game map, and will never hit any units or buildings - if the player watches the top right corner of the map, it is possible to see the Scud Storm firing into the "black" at the edge of the screen.

Miscellaneous

 * USA battle drones (deployed by vehicles) will auto-fire on enemy buildings without the player giving attack orders. This can be inconveniant, because the drones may destroy a building (such as an enemy oil derrick) that the player is trying to capture - another example is during Dr. Thrax's General's challenge - Thrax possesses several toxin bunkers which can be destroyed, and doing so releases toxins which can harm the player's units - if the player stations vehicles with battle drones near the bunkers, the drones may destroy the bunkers, causing the toxins to severely damage or destroy any units the player has nearby.
 * USA pilots may be loaded into a Commanche, however the Commanche does not receive the pilot's veterancy.