This page was made just to discover and describe some of the [many] bugs and annoyances of Red Alert.

1. Soviet Tech Center

Most people don't seem to know this. The only reason why Soviets build a tech center is for new construction options.You can sell the Soviet Tech Center AND STILL BE ABLE TO MAKE ALL THE UNITS! This means you can get some extra money by sellingthe structure and save some crucial powerplant power. So if your soviet and you just made a tech center, sell it. The Allies can sell their tech center as well but they would have to lose their satellite. In fact Allied players may WANT to do this since losing your tech center while the satellite is up causes your area that you covered to turn back into shroud.

2. Chinooks

This isn't really a bug but more of an annoyance. It sucks to use your money and wait for the chinook to build for it to blow up before it gets to you. That's just simply stupid for the chinook to come out of the side of the screen that also has the enemy base with its billion of antiaircraft weapons.

3. Tanks

I'm no tank rusher whiner but tanks do seem to be a bit too powerful in Red Alert. Tanks are the BEST unit to make and RA games usually comes down to who can make the most tanks the fastest. The tank problem is no big problem but with EVERY RA game turning into tank battles something is obviously amiss.

4. Yaks

In multiplayer games I see absolutly no reason to make these stupid planes. I used to think they could be used to kill those annoying rocketlaucher infantry but no. The rocketlauncher infantry just lie flat as the yaks fire at it. This has made the Yaks absolutly WORTHLESS!

5. Saving and Pausing Multiplayer Games.

My computer crashes a lot due to overheating/bad installation/win95/alien sabatoge and whateever else. It would be great if you could save your multiplayer games in case someone drops out.

I've always wanted to pause a multiplayer game. I hate being in a tense 4 player game when the phone would ring or someone would be at the door. And if you're in a RA game and you have to answer nature's call, you can either leave your comp allowing someone to blow you up or to allow your bladder to explode. How hard could it be to put in a pause option anyway. Warcraft 2 had one and it worked well. I doubt Westwood will ever fix this problem.

6. Map Editor

I HATE the map editor. Its so stupid to 'pick a tile and place it'. So all you're doing in the RA Editor is just making a Jigsaw puzzle. I doubt Westwood would do anything about this annoyance, but it would surely be nice to fix.

7.AI

'Westwood is also proud to report that the AI has improved considerbly.' Ha ha! Yeah right! The AI is so terrible. Playing the 1 player missions are ok especially since we get to see some movies (despite the bad acting). What about Skirmish? I only play Skirmish to test maps, nothing more. The AI is so terrible on the Skirmishes that it'll send one big atack on you, and if you survive that you got it made. Due to the AI's stupidness Skirmish is only a waste of our time!

8.Unit's AI

This isn't the computer's intelliegence but your individual units. Your units do some pretty stupid things. All the ore truck drivers are on crack since they collect ore right inside the enemy's base or into the middle of an enemy army. Your tank drivers must be drunk since you tell them to cross the bridge while half go across the bridge while the other half GOES AROUND the long way. You don't want them to go around the long way since there is an enemy base there so it can take a long time to get units across a small passage such as a bridge.

9.Base Takeover Strategies

I know this is not what Westwood intended RA to be but it has become this. If RA games don't have large tank battles then they have the base takeover strategies which involve building a bunch of 'base defenses' straight to and within the enemy's base. The annoying part is is that there is no practical defense for such a strategy.

10.Westwood Chat

Westwood Chat is terrible compared to Kali. Westwood Chat never connects for me, and it's freeness has made it overcrowded. Worse yet is that you're limited to only 1 on 1 games. If that wasn't enough you're limited to 2 per chatroom! I've seen Kali have up to five hundred people in a chatroom so Westwood Chat is a useless program unless you don't have Kali.

11.Grenaders' wild throw.

With grenaders (and rocketmen) you can tell them to attack something, wait for their wind up to happen, then say attack at any target on the screen and they will hit it. Its pretty silly actually. I like this bug because it adds a new strategy: attacking with infantry a screen away. The problem, obviously, is timing your grenaders to attack at precisly the right time.

12.Super Charged Cruisers

Get some cruisers and any other naval unit, say a transport, and group them together. Now press F (Formation) and tell them to go wherver you want. The cruiser will travel at the same speed the transport is! I don't like this bug at all because Allied Forces have naval superiotity already and this bug will make them even deadlier.

13.Drive-Thru Service Depot

Make a service depot, and place it somewhere. No get a damaged unit, say a heavy tank, and move it right onto the service depot. As soon as it says 'Repairing' move your tank off immediatly. As soon as it gets off put it back on. If you timed it correctly, your heavy tank's damage will be fixed within one second and it'll cost you no money.

14. Helicopter eating helipads

When landing a helicopter on a helipad, you'll get a green mouse curser. When you click on the helipad, the helipad will flash. If you keep on clicking on the helipad, the helipad will be flashing a lot. The result? Your helicopter will land UNDER the helipad. Its pretty strange, but your enemy will think there is no helicopter there. You can easily use the helicopter by clicking on it and have the helipad spit it out. :)

15. Annoying non-intro

Here's one of my biggest annoyances with RA. Even if you set intro=none you STILL get a small intro about a helicopter blowing up a tank. I've seen that intro (like other RA players) 457432057430587 times. I think I've worn out my 'Escape' key pressing it so much just to skip the thing. :)

16. Stupid Missle Movie

At first when I bought RA and when I was setting up my sound card I thought the setup thing was really cool. But when you have problems with your soundcard and must try lots of settings, going through the stupid missle movie is a pain. (besides, we don't get to see the missle blow anything up! :)

17. Talking buildings?

When I select a unit I usually click and drag. Sometimes the building will get selected and it will say, 'Vehicle reporting sir.' The first time this happened, I jumped. A building was TALKING to me! :) Its a non serious bug, and I always think its funny whenever a building 'accidently' talks to me. :)

More Bugs will be probably be added. If I'm missing a bug, email it to me and I'll put it up. Last Updated 6/16/97.

Back to my Red Alert Page.