The Red Hammer Studio is a product of Red Star Studios and SpetsGruppa Alfa. Both groups quite with some experience of mod works decided to become one joint effort to make OFP a better place for all thoses Soviet patriots around the community. Very soon it was recognised by the community and well know groups such as DKM, BAS, BOH or OFrP (just to mention some). And now just weeks before we see some results of their hard work we begin an interview with one of their founders.
Q: What is the general direction of the group? We can see that you are working on many tanks so is armor units your prime route?
A: No, it is true yes we work now primarily on tanks because we believe that we need to balance them out, so that it will be fun at least to play for East. We are working in almost all fields: air, land and perhaps sea in the near future. With the ammount of "West" stuff that is out there we feel that the game is in a great disbalance and we need to create new stuff in order for it to be fun to play against BAS rangers and against UK Challenger 2 tanks.
Q: Is there, in your opinion, something that makes a big difference between you and other mods, speaking of way of working and goal achievements?
A: Wow, talk about the heavy artillery questions :)
Well it all depends on which other mods. I guess we work a lot like BAS and UKF, team deeply focused on making OFP a better game to play. Most important is team organization and communications, as well as keeping internal members from fighting each other.
Q: Talking of internal members, can you tell us more about Spetsgruppa Alfa Modworks (SGA), what have they accomplished prior to melt with your mod? What does they bring precisely to your actual work?
A: Well, firstly, SGA was one of the best well kept secret groups out there. There were some suspicions that they were working on some things but no one realy knew before the creation of RHS. SGA primarily consisted of 3 people and worked at their pace. I was amazed when I first saw their work and me and ShadowNX decided to create a new team as it would tell people that there are new boys in town :]
SGA, apart from bringing new brains and hands to the job (and I mean people with real talent in all kind of editing) also brought all their projects which almost doubled (!!!) our initial set of projects. An example of their work is the Mi28. Yes, RSS had their own Mi28 project but at the time the SGA was more finished and the model was almost identical in quality so RSS dumped theirs. Other projects I cant tell u about :] yet
Q: Do you cooperate directly with other mods, do you plan to work on shared projects or keeping working only on your own ?
A: ahh well, top secret info ;) we work closely with 2 teams, both well known and MAYBE have some projects even....but thats up to your imagination :)
Q: Are you working on missions/campaign to release them at the same time of the upcoming addons? That would be great! :)
A: Yes there will be missions included with the addons, especially because we are going forward with Addons At Ease project.
Q: Can you give us so far a list of addons and aprox. dates of release?
A: no no release dates but list yeah :)
T55 pack
Mi28/pilot pack
T72/90 pack
T80 pack
VDV pack
Russian Special Forces Packs
Huge Weapon pack
and many more
but you already knew that :p
Q: Question about your tanks pack, Is it possible and did you wanted to introduce new features that are badly missing in ofp; the possibility to destroy tracks to immobilize tanks ?
A: we did think about it but have not tried it yet, but I think it is not possible, however we have something in the works that we are sure OFP lacks. By the time we're done and IF it works we'll be able to have someone man those MGs on top of our tanks ;)
Q: wow really??? you mean the commander will be able to use it...?
A: Gunner or Commander, depending on which hatch the MG is, but that is till to be worked on.
Q: ok :) what is the % of chances you think it'll be fully working and implemented?
A: The concept seems to be logical we just need it to be set right.
Q: it will use a action menu to fire from commander position, right? :)
A: i cant tell you at the moment :)
Q: Knowing OFP2 theatres of operation, do you have started to think about future plans or is it too far yet in your opinion?
A: Yes we thought about OFP2 and having BIS confirmed that OFP addons would be easily portable to OFP2 we are not worrying about it. We will certainly be there for OFP 2 and will be able to realize everything we couldnt in OFP
Q: You're working on a MI-28 like DKM, what do you think of competition and challenge between mods? Do you think 2 differents versions of the same Addon can cohabitate in the community or that 1 will be raised over the other?
A: Ahh yes, this has been quite an issue since we have announced this project. We are not directly competing but in the end its the end-user who chooses which heli to fly. DKM is known for releasing great stuff and we respect them completely. Their especialy excellent Commanche.
Their strongpoint is of course the scripting but trust me we are not planning to realease a bare chopper ourselves :] so in the end I suspect there will be some kind of competition... But hey competition is a good thing right? It motivates groups to work harder to make a better addon thus in the end the consumer is happy :]
Q: What do you think of BAS And Suchey/Earl association concerning their JAM project? Do you plan to make such a uniformisation with Caucasian Crisis Mod for instance ?
A: Well actually JAM is not side related so it will include East weapons as well, we will be of course on this list together with BAS and Earl/Suchey, CodeBlue and many more groups...its up to Caucasus Crisis if they wanna join.
Q: and what's your point of view concerning uniformisation of vehicles/units strenght and caracteristics (like Lawrie universal WW2 armor code) in general ?
A: hehe, I actually helped Lawrie to write a little program on that code that would let you do everything simply. I think things like that are a great idea and will get to a point where there will be no doubt between which addons to use in your missions as all of them would work perfectly together.
Red Hammer Studios are definitaly going to add their brick to ofp wall, with talented and professional staff that plan to do great stuff. Lets wish them to succeed in their career and a long life to their releases!
