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　This guide will show you how to install and download Mental Omega, along with additional information on running Mental Omega on Steam. It will also track your playtime for Command & Conquer: Red Alert™ 2 and Yuri’s Revenge™, as well as provide tweaks for AI and more.

Disclaimer: I am not associated with Mental Omega; I simply want to share how to do so. Please backup your files before following this guide to avoid any future unwanted errors.

　Mental Omega is a free, the best fan-made expansion mod for Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 - Yuri’s Revenge, althou that just my personal oppinion. The game is filled with new factions, missions, units, and a completely original storyline. The mod features four sides: Allies, Soviets, Epsilon (Yuri’s), and Foehn Revolt (a new high-tech faction, which I can see was inspired by Dune’s buildings), along with over 100 campaign missions and enhanced graphics and gameplay.

　󠁧󠁳󠁧󠁳Introduction of the new side in Mental Omega. It features four distinct sides, each with 3 subfactions of their own. Each of these subfactions has its own unique units, support powers, buildings, and heroes. All of the information on the factions' features is included in this section, based on their official website btw.

　󠁧󠁳󠁧󠁳󠁧󠁳The high-tech and tactical, the Allies focus on precision, air superiority, and advanced support powers. They excel at long-range attacks, stealth, and battlefield control using it most advanced chrono technology and air units.

Strengths:

• Strong air force
  
• Chrono technology (teleportation, time-related powers)
  
• Advanced support powers (e.g., radar jamming, healing)

　󠁧󠁳󠁧󠁳󠁧󠁳Brute force and overwhelming firepower define the Soviets. They rely on heavy armor, destructive vehicles, and strong area-denial weapons. Their playstyle is aggressive and direct.

Strengths:

• Heavy tanks and artillery
  
• Superior brute strength
  
• Powerful base defenses

　󠁧󠁳󠁧󠁳󠁧󠁳Masters of mind control, mutation, and psionics. Epsilon uses unconventional warfare, including mind-controlling enemy units, cloaking, and bio-weapons.

Strengths:

• Mind control & psychic units
  
• Stealth and subversion tactics
  
• Biological warfare (mutants, virus weapons)

　󠁧󠁳󠁧󠁳󠁧󠁳A new, rogue high-tech faction introduced in Mental Omega. They feature advanced robotics, nanotechnology, and energy-based weapons. Their units are fast, versatile, and often expensive.

Strengths:

• High-tech mobility and efficiency
  
• Adaptive units (can upgrade or change roles)
  
• Strong late-game potential

　You can download Command & Conquer Mental Omega mods from their official website and also from the most trusted site, ModDB.

　Since Steam or Valve has changed a lot of their policies about random links... even safe ones like social media. it does affect guide makers like me when sharing links. Sometimes these links get marked as phishing, so I removed the official links, including Discord, from this guide to make sure it stays up on the forum. So yeah, ofc you guys can just search on Google or YouTube to find the official website. I'm pretty sure if you're into modding, it's easy to find. C'mon man, it's already 2025...

　After downloading all the files, please extract them into your Command & Conquer Red Alert™ 2 and Yuri’s Revenge™ game folder, whether it's located in the Steam folder or any other location you have set.

　The image you saw above this line shows all the files you should’ve downloaded. Also, Syringe.exe is a fix file you can get from their official Discord, since it’s not included on their official website or ModDB. That file is actually used to fix the black screen issue on Windows 10 and 11.


　1.　First, open your library and locate your Red Alert 2 Yuri's Revenge game.

　2.　Right-click on it and select "Manage" > "Browse Local Files." Your file explorer will immediately open to the game folder. In case you use a different operating system, please switch to Windows.

　3.　Extract all the files inside the folder, remember to backup first before proceeding. Also extract the first files, then replace it with the patch files.

Note: If you notice that your game cover is different, I'll explain it in a later section. Of course, yours will have the default Command & Conquer Red Alert™ 2 and Yuri’s Revenge™ cover art.

󠁧󠁳　Assuming you have followed the Mental Omega install instructions correctly, the current solution to the launch failure issue (as of March 17th) is to replace Syringe.exe. In my case, I only needed to replace gamemd.exe.

　To obtain these files, I can't provide you with a link since it was officially handled by the mods through their official Discord. If you are experiencing issues, please join their Discord server.

　If you are able to run the Mental Omega launcher and you encounter a black screen when starting a game, please change your render setting to CnC-DDraw and restart the launcher. if not try other setting.

Take a look of my screenshot for Mental Omega mod:

　Is it over? No, comrade general, it has only just begun. If you notice one of my screenshots that has custom artwork, I will explain how to do it here, along with other things you may be interested in.

　First, if you want to change your game cover and background artwork on Steam, you need these three following files. You may only need a PNG format file, especially for logo files, or JPEG for non-transparent images.

• Artwork
  

  

  Right-click on "Command & Conquer Red Alert™ 2 and Yuri’s Revenge™" in your Steam library. Select "Manage" > "Set Custom Artwork."
  
  
• Logo & Background
  

  

  Click the game in your library, then right-click on the background. Choose "Set Custom Background" or "Set Custom Logo."

Simply choose the files with the images I provided, or you can use any image you have.

• Artwork
  

  

• Logo and background
  

  

　For an unknown reason, the Steam overlay doesn't work with the vanilla Command & Conquer Red Alert™ 2 and Yuri’s Revenge™ game, but it works perfectly with Mental Omega mods, including their main menu and in-game. If you want to play Mental Omega and still have your playtime recorded, here's how to do it:

　-　Right-click on "Command & Conquer Red Alert™ 2 and Yuri’s Revenge™" in your Steam library, then click on "Properties."

　-　Under the "General" tab, click on "Set Launch Options."

　
　-　In the launch options, add the following command:


Or any location of your mental omega executable files.


Edit :
　If the overlay isn't counting your playtime or still isn't working, as reported by DragonZ, you can try his suggestion by changing the path to one of the clients inside Resources folder as:


-　Posted by Dai

　It is recommended by the Mental Omega support on their discord to add Mental Omega as a non-Steam game then point to then point it to the "<MO folder>\Resources\clientdx.exe".It is now mandatory to use the updated Syringe.exe file from the Mental Omega discord. You just need to replace the old file with the new one and you're all set!

Alternatively you can add the game to Lutris if you are on Linux. I will link to the thread where I post the setup guide: https://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/app/2229850/discussions/0/4427688515461593232/#c560232479281188311

-　Posted by カミル

　Would recommend just make copy of the red alert 2 yuri revenge, renamed it to mental omega and just paste everything (the mod and the patch )you download to the mental omega folder. This is better for those that play red alert 2 yuri revenge using cncnet, as they will auto update, so separate both the yuri revenge and mental omega folder. This works best for me , as im playing both game.

　Close the window and launch the game. It doesn't matter which game you play, as long as this launch option is there, it will open Mental Omega instead of Red Alert 2 or Yuri's Revenge.

　Now, whenever you play Mental Omega, your Steam will show you as playing Command & Conquer Red Alert™ 2 and Yuri’s Revenge™, and the playtime will be automatically updated on your Steam profile.

This will allowe you to screenshot the game, here take a look of my Mental omega screenshot.

　If you're wondering whether the AI in Mental Omega is cheating or not, the answer is yes. The game has a feature where after a bot is able to build one building, they immediately receive a bonus or a money multiplier. The AI may seem dumb, but if you're a casual player like me and don't enjoy wasting time or spending hours on games, here's a guide to make the AI lose its cheating ability. I do some research that the AI does has same starting money as the player but theres a catch.

　This method only works when you use Mental AI settings in skirmish. Since I can't find the default values in the files, I edited the MentalAI.ini file to revert them as close to default as possible. So, after you tweak these files, please check the Mental AI option.

　Due to my curious ash who wanted to know how the AI work, the game is playable with 50k starting gold. It's completely impossible to play skirmish with 5k starting goods since the AI will spam multiple enemy and air units before you even have the chance to build specific buildings. Here's a way to fix your frustration:

　-　First, you need to find a file named "MentalAI.ini" in your Command & Conquer Red Alert™ 2 and Yuri’s Revenge™ folder. Please create a backup if you want to revert this to default.

　-　Open the "MentalAI.ini" file and search for "General." It will show this:

　Now, I don't want to give misinformation, but I'll share what I know about these lines of code. For this line, you have "AIVirtualPurifiers," which is actually used by the AI to multiply their money by 12x for easy and 50x for hard difficulties. Then, for the "MultiplayerAICM," it is used by the AI to determine the amount of money they will earn after building. The values suggest that from right to left, they represent hard, medium, and easy difficulties. So, if you set it to easy, the bot will gain an extra 1200 funds out of the blue, imagine get multiplier after that, whew. .

　-　To change their behavior to be more like Yuri's Revenge and if you hate the AI technically cheating, delete all the values or code under "General" and replace them with this:

　All the custom values I've put are actually the same as Yuri's Revenge, so the AI will work like Yuri's Revenge AI instead of the cheating Mental Omega AI. They will behave like normal when you do this, and they will start to sell buildings if they can't build miners or other important buildings.

　I'm not particularly savvy with programming, but it appears that the AI has the capability to produce units and buildings simultaneously across all of their production structures. This enables them to bypass the build limit for heroes and epic units. However, there are ways to prevent this.

For other tweaks, you will also find these lines of code:

Change it like this:
Change all of them to 0.

Or if you wonder how i set my MentalAI.ini file, here (You can copy the whole code and replaced it on you .ini files :


　This trick only works for skirmish. I haven't tried it in the campaign because I'm not into cheating there. And hey, if you're planning to play online against others, make sure to switch back to the default settings. If you run into issues on CnC Net, just swap out your files with the Mental Omega installer again.

Well, that's how you fix the AI if you are more casual. Have fun!

　These are the two hardware setups I used to test the mods. Both systems worked fine for me after 　extracting the files. As long as your OS is up to date, it should be fine, unless your system lacks some files such as DLLs or any important files for running an application. I used both with Windows 10. one is a PC, and the other is a laptop. If you're wondering about my specs, here's the list:

Operating System

Spec

Operating System

Spec

Well, that's all for now, I guess. If you like this guide, give it a thumbs up, give some awards and favorite it. If you don't, just downvote it and let me know what you dislike about it. I take any suggestion. anyway, english is not my primary language so... now you know...