Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

Prototype Info

Unused & Cut units#

Soviets#

Mammoth Tank#

Watch on YouTubeThe mammoth tank was initially included on the game's website as an April Fools joke by EALA in 2009¹. It was later added in an update, but remained unused, so that modders could access its resources.

Old Bullfrog#

An older variation of Bullfrog can be found in files. Only model's textures & icon with portrait can be found, without the model itself seemingly. According to Bullfrog's unit profile this older variation was the vehicle that Soviets used prior to the invention of KDB-2 Bullfrog model. The vehicle itself lacks man cannon and amphibious capabilities. Since the amphibious Bullfrog already was used in early screenshots and gameplay demonstrations, it's unknown whenever the vehicle was cut early or was supposed to appear in campaign at one point.

Another interesting note to point out - the internal names. This old Bullfrog variation is named SUAntiAirVehicleTech1, while the newer Bullfrog is named SUAntiAirShip, indicating that the older model was indeed used solely on the ground.

Russian Train#

Appears to be a Rail platform for some kind of Train, interesting to note as Red Alert 3 does not feature any Trains on any map (there are Train Stations though). This unit has no portrait, no icon, no name and no description, has no weapons, leaves Guardian Tank's debris on death, uses voice lines from Red Alert 2 as template. Its hitbox is also broken and cannot be selected by left mouse click, but it can be picked by auto-targeting.

Since it's located among other campaign units of the Soviet faction, it's assumed that it was supposed to be used for an in-game cutscene. On which mission, however, it's unknown, but most likely on To Conquer Shattered Spirits or The Last Red Blossom Trembled, since those include train stations as civilian buildings.

Allies#

Infantry Fighting Aircraft (IFA)#

Found among various icons, portraits and cameos, some leftover files exist of a cut aircraft that was meant for the Allies. Only the icon & portrait cameos exist of it, along with the icon of its supposed skill. No other textures or voice lines could be found. It might've served the same purpose as Multigunner units in RA3 based on the name, it also resembles a combination of GDI's Orca and Hammerhead units from Tiberium Wars/Kane's Wrath. No idea why it was cut, however, but perhaps the Allies had more than enough air units at their disposal for it to not make it into the game.

The skill itself, based on its name "Supersonic", was supposed to increase speed of the aircraft, at the possible cost of its weapon usage.

Escape boat#

A weird unit that looks exactly like one of civilian map props. Judging by "A04" in its internal name this boat was supposed to appear in the 4th Allied mission, Enemy of Our Enemy, it could've been for an unknown purpose in an earlier version of this mission.

As it's common for most cut units, this boat has no voice lines, no team-colored plates, no weapons, no name and no icon with portrait. Due to it using a prop boat that hasn't been properly rotated, this thing swims sideways. It does have a singular slot for passengers, but similarly to the old version of Sudden Transport, it lacks the ability to evacuate its passengers, trapping them inside forever. It leaves Riptide's debris upon death, which means that Riptide was used as a base for this unit. What's most interesting about this ship is that it has zero vision range, meaning that it cannot reveal fog of war nearby and if it goes into the fog - it'll "disappear", but still be under player's command.

AlliesSUV1#

A black colored SUV that is located among other Allies' campaign exclusive units & buildings. It reuses icon and portrait from Athena Cannon but uses Red Alert 2 voicelines as a template. It has no weapons and even though it reuses Athena Cannon's ability, it cannot activate it at all. Based on its placement and looks, it might've been used for an escort of President Ackerman's Limousine in the 6th Allied Mission, "A Monument to Madness".

Interestingly enough, its model is not shared among any other vehicle props.

A08_Dog#

Yes, all these 5 dogs are individual units, named "A08_Dog1", "A08_Dog2", "A08_Dog3", "A08_Dog4" and "A08_Dog5" respectfully. All of them have assigned individual names & descriptions in their files, with A08_Dog5 mistakenly using A08_Dog4's description. All of that doesn't matter however, because there are no texts associated with them in language files. Internal names imply they were supposed to appear in 8th Allied mission, The Great Bear Trap, however nothing seems to remain that would be related to these dogs. Since each of them have unique names and description, they probably were supposed to appear either as playable units, or as units that are controlled only by AI. The separate armor template for them supports this theory as well.

Comparing the "BaseScoutInfantryArmor" with "A08_AlliedScoutInfantryArmor", that is used for the dogs, the latter has 1% vulnerability to gun damage type, 100% vulnerability to sniper and radiation damage types, and everything else being 50% vulnerability. The absurdly huge resistance against gun damage type implies that there would be a big army of conscripts to fight against those dogs.

S09_Car#

A small yellow car that seems to be the similar case as the Escape boat. Since it uses a map prop as a model, it drives sideways. It seems to be based on Guardian tank since his debris appear on death, yet it has Athena Cannon's portrait. It uses template voice lines from Red Alert 2, possesses no weapons and has incredibly low health. What's unique about this car is that it's normally unselectable with left mouse clicks in comparison to other units that have props as their models. Using the "Q" Hotkey (Selecting all units) or selecting several units in area if the player has one in possession lets you select it though. If it's not under your command, then it's impossible to select it at all, only through automatic targeting.

Judging by the "S09" mark in its name it seems that it was supposed to appear in the last Soviet mission, Blight on the Big Apple, most likely seen during the first stages of the mission.

Empire#

Old Sudden Transport#

Internally named as "JapanTransportVehicle2" and located among other Empire units in the WorldBuilder, this unit looks like a Sudden Transport whose model closely resembles the one that is used in the cinematic trailer. In comparison to the normal Sudden Transport, this one is bigger and has different team coloring plates. The Sudden Transport itself being named "JapanLightTransportVehicle" indicates that the old variation could be used for carrying larger amounts of infantry, or vehicles.

Gameplay wise this unit is very unfinished: It lacks an icon, portrait, name and description. It cannot enter the water despite having the amphibious mark on self, lacks the vehicle exiting ability and cannot disguise as other vehicles, unlike its smaller counterpart. It has the same stats as the normal Sudden Transport and lacks Very Damaged texture along with debris upon death.

The lack of icon, portrait and gameplay purposes indicate that this unit was supposed to be used in in-game cutscenes instead.

Neutral & Civilian#

Civilians#

Yep, this game has actual Civilians. They are not on any official maps, but can be placed in WorldBuilder. These are leftovers from Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, as Red Alert 3 was based on that game (and uses the same engine). Two civilian units exist in the game: CivilianFemale1 and CivilianMale1. Their models aren't randomized since in Tiberium Wars there were 4 more additional variations for both female and male civilians with different outfits, and other than walking around they don't appear to be doing anything. Their hitboxes seem to be either broken or non existent at all, since they cannot be selected & attacked by the player. Not even AI's auto-targeting, superweapons and support powers can do anything to them. They're hardcoded to always be on the Neutral/Civilian Team. Due to the disproportioned sizes of TibWars and RA3's human units, they're comically small. Smaller than Dogs and Terrordrones, even.

The passive walking around behavior was reused for fake Emperor Yoshiro in Soviet's 7th mission, To Tame a Living God. Theoretically, civilians have also appeared in Soviet's 2nd mission from the Uprising expansion, Schemes of the Intruders, however Conscripts with grey outfits were used instead as "civilians".

Unused Power Up Crates#

Along with three bonus crates that appear on Skirmishes with a special option turned ON, and on some campaign missions, there are 6 more power up crates. Along with Health, Veterancy and Credits crates that can be placed by the player in WorldBuilder (and that also have variations for Multiplayer), there are Attribute, Bomb, Salvage, Shroud, Unit & Random crates. Most of them seem to have unfinished coding, however.

Attribute crate, as the description says, improves attributes of the unit that opens the crate. What kind of attributes though no one really knows, because through testing it doesn't seem that it affects unit's general stats, nor any of its skills like Allied High Technology protocol does.

Bomb crate works in a very simple way: it simply creates an invisible explosion once opened. The explosion's damage isn't really lethal for most units, even Riptides are left with at least 5-10% health. It is enough to kill any infantry however. It could be an idea that was meant to be carried over from the first Red Alert game, a similarly cut crate was also present in the code of Red Alert 2.

Salvage crate seems to be a duplicate of the Credits crate. It could be related in some way to GLA's Salvage Crate mechanics from Generals. Regardless, this crate lacks name & description and it doesn't properly disappear when opened, even though it summons crate debris upon collecting.

Shroud crate, named "Surveillance crate" in game, seems to be almost finished. It has a proper name, description, it even has its own portrait, icon & symbol! Unfortunately, it doesn't actually reveal anything when opened. Although in the same folder along with other crates there is an Internal trigger named ShroudCrateRevealer, which would've been used for this crate, but at its current state is completely useless.

Unit crate, when opened, creates a copy of the unit that has opened the crate. It doesn't copy unit's veterancy, HP, passengers that are inside of it if it's a transport and any other addons like a second cannon of Hammer Tank. It does work on commandos like Tanya, Natasha & Yuriko Omega, creating a copy of them despite the fact that they cannot be trained more than once until their death.

Mystery crate, internally named as "Random crate", was supposed to activate a random crate effect when picked up. It could heal the unit, give the unit more veterancy, improve unit's attributes, give credits, make a copy of the unit or cause an explosion. Due to the error in the coding, however, it always rolls the effects of Unit crate.

Unused Buildings#

Neutrals & Civilian#

Promotional shops#

Four promotional shops exist in files and can be placed via WorldBuilder. They appeared only on special promotional maps that came as a bonus from pre-ordering the game on different online shops. Since those maps were never added into the original game at any point except for one that later has appeared in Uprising in an edited form and then in later Red Alert 3 updates, they're considered to be semi-unused. Logically it's unknown how are they providing the player with the money during the war time, but perhaps it's done through selling the games in online shops.

Mechanically they work the same as Oil Derricks, however they give only 10 credits at the rate of 2/3 of a second instead of 15 credits every second, meaning that they provide almost the same outcome. Strangely enough, even though they're fully used on promotional maps, they lack icons and portraits, yet they have names and descriptions, except for EB Games that lacks both the name and description.

The following four promotional shops can be placed via World Builder and appeared on following maps: GameStop on map Dreadnought Alley, GAME on map Pier Pressure, EB Games on map Dreadnought Lane and BestBuy on map Wrong Steppe.

Firebase#

Firebase is an unfinished neutral tech building that has similar functionality to Defensive Towers from Tiberium Wars. It lacks an icon and portrait, but has a description and name. Once captured it'll automatically target any enemy units & buildings nearby, depending on which mode the player puts it. Its turret doesn't rotate, the four rocket pods aren't functional, and projectiles come from the ground center of the building, not from the turret itself. It shoots one Shogun Battleship's projectile at the rate of one shot per two seconds, which is actually pretty powerful due to the huge damage and big radius.

They don't appear on any official maps, but they can be placed on the map in WorldBuilder. AI commanders are not programmed to capture those, and every EVA has voicelines related to capturing the Firebase.

Unused Audio#

Unit Quotes#

To do: If there are more, find them.

Some units have unused voicelines which can't be triggered in game normally. Some are unused due to their intended use case being impossible to achieve during normal gameplay. Despite being unused, they still were translated and revoiced in other languages.

Nanocore#

Nanocores have 3 soundbanks, unlike any other unit in the game. Each of these soundbanks has quotes for all existing Imperial buildings. About 2/3 of these quotes go unused - with only a selection of the "creating" and "select" lines from each soundbank played in-game.

Set I

Set II

Set III

Here's the information about which Nanocores use which set:

Dojo core - Set I

Generator core - Set III

Mecha bay core - Set II

Docks core - Set III

Refinery core - Set II

Defender core - Set I

Tower core - Set II

Nanoswarm core - Set III

Decimator core - Set I

Mainframe core - Set I

Unedited Yari Mini-Sub's Quotes#

In Russian Localisation these 2 unedited voicelines were found. They're still used in game, but because no one hasn't publish unedited voice quotes anywhere (not counting these 2) - these files were uploaded here.

Semi-Unused Unit Quotes#

While not unused, these voicelines are more difficult to trigger than most. They can only be triggered by attempting to move the unit while it is immobilized by its own ability - only possible by selecting a group of units which contains other, non-immobile units, and has an immobile Tesla Trooper/Athena Cannon as the primary unit.

Tesla Trooper#

Athena Cannon#

Tankbuster#

During the game's beta, Tankbusters could attack enemies while burrowed. This ability was removed in balance patch 1.3. These voicelines were intended to play when a burrowed tankbuster attacked, but can still be heard by ordering a group of non-Tankbuster units to attack while a Tankbuster is the primary unit.

EVA unused announcements#

EVAs (Electronic Video Agents) are the assistants of each Command & Conquer game, meant to guide the Player Commander on the situation of the battlefield. It isn't uncommon in the series for some EVA announcements to be voiced and then cut in development. Some of them were made for cases that were discarded, while others were made for cases that seemingly were supposed to happen but they're not triggered somehow.

All 3 ingame factions have their own EVAs, and while most of unused quotes are shared by all 3, some of them have unique quotes that were recorded only for their faction and got cut.

This page does not cover quotes that are related to time left and credits granted, since those quotes were most likely created for map making & scripting.

Allies EVA#

Soviet EVA#

General announcements#

Unused Graphics#

"Red Alert" button#

A cut mechanic was meant as a part of the Threat Meter during the game's development.

The eponymous "Red Alert" button was supposed to appear when the threat meter reached the high numbers. What it was supposed to do is to disable building production and caused all player's buildings to constantly take damage, in return for drastically decreased cost & time production for units, serving as some kind of desperate last resort. It's unknown whenever this element would be used everywhere or only in skirmish/campaign. Its graphics are finished for all 3 factions, but it didn't seem to appear in any of public beta versions.

It returned in Uprising however, but it's exclusive for Commander's Challenges gamemode with a different purpose: instead of doing all stated above it gives 50k in-game credits to the player commander, promotes all units to heroic veterancy rank, resets the threat meter to zero and sets the timer to be 99:59, making it instantly impossible to finish the mission under the par time. It also costs 10k stashed credits that the player earns after each mission, and pressing the button when the player doesn't have enough stashed credits results into nothing happening.

References#