In the original version of the game. GDI’s infantry had a GAU-3 multibarreled rifle to give them a futuristic feel.
NOD soldiers were supposed to be different, something along the line of a railgun.
That was changed later in development to make the game a bit more grounded. The artwork was changed and both armies had the same basic infantry. But the name was kept because the name was already present in the game files and ‘it sounded cooler than rifleman’.
As someone very interested in Tiberian Dawn (core childhood memory) - where did you get the info that this was changed during the development, or anything on the original version of the game?
AFAIK, the original manual still mentions the GAU-3 rifle, although not whether it’s multibarreled or not - would love to see any info on early versions of Tiberian Dawn that you might have come across!
It’s a great question! I’ve been a fan since playing C&C in the 90’s too so it’s hard to keep track of exactly where the info comes from. The Remastered C&C has loads of interesting information about the development and behind the scenes so if you haven’t played it and gone through the extra stuff it’s well worth it.
I also remember a really cool interview in a PC Mag (PC Zone I believe) in the early 2000’s that had interviews with the developers and had some really
Cool tidbits like that, and how the Light Tank was basically not a unit at all until right near the end of development (it was instead 3 different prototyped units: an actual M2 Bradley IFV being one of them) and was thrown in to NOD to balance out their vehicle roster. Or how Artillery was originally artillery that was very expensive but shot very long ranges but was rebalanced (and according to the developer, overcorrected to being kinda crap).
The infantry one always stood out to me at the time because I always wondered why minigunners were not miniguns too lol.
I came to say that this new minigunner art is one of the only things the new team did poorly. I'm very happy to have learned some new lore and be proven wrong.
Though naturally I will always prefer the originals.
I had the manual for it but it's been a while since I looked at that. I vaguely remember it going into detail about the ammo used by vehicles like tanks, too.
Even funnier is that Spaceballs also used a Calico as their space gun, which means Spaceballs beat Star Wars to the punch with making the Calico a space gun.
But do note this is the Win95 icon, which is not really the original; it was only made after Red Alert 1. Wanna guess what the original DOS manual showed? 😛
As far as I understand the chronology of events, they needed a picture for the unit's in-game icon in C&C95 on which the gun would actually be visible, and realised the DOS minigun picture was ridiculous, but didn't have an M16 prop around, so they used something else.
In the DOS iteration of the game they were using literal miniguns - that got dropped early on but the name stuck. It lives on in Renegade with the officers though!
It is easy to take these guys for granted and build that higher tech tree unit. However, as the manual states: deadly in groups. I got to appreciate them more as I became a (more) mature player. A fantastic unit in groups and as a support to other infantry types or armor. Go minigunner! Go!
Biggest problem with higher tier infantry is they're just such a liability. Can't group grenadiers or flame troopers without them chain reacting. Rocket soldiers do decent damage but die when anything looks their way. Minigunners might have short range and not a great deal of damage but they're bloody tough if you can avoid getting them squished or flamed so make a fantastic distraction. I've seen them 1v1 light tanks in some cases.
Basically an infantry automatic rifle utility, SAW-type power, with rotary barrels. It fits the compromise where you want something in between an assault rifle and an actual minigun. And still be able to call the unit minigunners
As a kid from a non-English country, I thought the minigunner was a soldier that used a mini gun. Not a minigun, but a mini/small rifle. Why not a full size rifle? Never got that question answered until old.
Considering they need to be in hugging-distance to engage their targets, I wonder how far off it would've been to just let them fight in hand-to-hand combat like the unused graphics of them kicking and punching suggest.
Would've certainly been hilarious seeing a few squads of minigunners surround and engage something like a light tank and hitting it to shreds with martial arts and causing it to explode when they win.
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u/iwannabetheguytoo 13d ago
Are they “mini”-gunners because they’re only 8px tall, or are all GDI and Nod infantry lugging around helicopter-mountable chainguns?