Nyerguds

...I strongly advice not using visceroids (or any kind of neutral enemies) on multiplayer maps, since they'll always attack the same (most northern) player.

Didn't N3t make that? He hasn't been on for bloody ages.

Happy Newy Ear!

Actually, it's just the "sc", no "-" needed. So in your case, you changed the string sc*.mix in the exe to cc*.mix. You can see there's no "-" in there. The * just means "any amount of characters". Note that the game also has an ss*.mix reading system; any filenames found in these mixfiles are actually REMOVED from the game. A practical use is removing buildup animations to make buildings unsellable. (note that since the file isn't actually read, it doesn't have to be the real file; just an empty textfile with the name is sufficient)

no, your mixfiles. The exe is not a problem, it's the files that the game READS.

Hmm... you need to learn to keep your filenames within 8.3 (xxxxxxxx.xxx) range. It's just a healthy habit when working with C&C1 and RA1 -_-

My admin powers are telling me he's probably from the UK (judging from the .co.uk extension of his email). It all depends on whom you play against though. Far-away opponents = more lag.

TS supports 640x400, but the default is 800x600 I think.

Heh, less than 200 mb from megaupload? will only take 5 minutes.

Sure, no problem.

I'd say, megaupload?

I've uploaded v1.2. In this version, the ingame top bar font is more readable by replacing it by the non-fading variant. It's still green though, but that can't be helped. Not until I figure out how all of that font stuff works and maybe make some UI colour controls in rules.ini, anyway The download location is still the same.

Hehe, so you're using my palettes. Best idea I ever had (besides maybe patch 1.06)

Ahh, actually I got sidetracked with remapping research (fun fact, you can change the colour RA1 USES AS remap), and never really continued it. I was planning on taking some existing RA1 to C&C1 mods and fixing their graphics, since pretty much all such conversions have awful black-to-transparency errors, bad remap conversions, and sometimes missing shadows. Reliably converting any graphics only takes me 5 minutes with the toolset I made.

In v3.03, CS and AM are no more than a registry entry. Enable it and the game thinks you got the expansion installed. All files for both expansions (besides the missions) are included in patch 3.03. So even if you don't consider it free, there's no reason not to use the CS/AM mission menus for your own missions. 3.03 has it anyway, and you still need the original CDs to play the original missions. For that reason, my installer has the options for enabling the expansions. As for them not being freeware, well, seeing as TS and its expansion ARE both freeware, and EA supports my C&C95 patch which contains the C&C1 expansion, I think that can be ignored; EA not releasing the C&C1 and RA1 expansions was pure laziness. They're up for download on cncworld. As for the installer, well, you see, I got 2 files in my files list (well, for each language) with as check "isTFDInstall". That's a function I wrote myself which you can see in the [Code] section at the end. Basically it just checks if the folder you chose to install in is the same as the TFD RA folder saved in the registry. Those are the registry entries used for the TFD launcher program, btw. If TFD RA is installed, that registry entry has the path. function IsTFDInstall(): Boolean; begin Result := (ExpandConstant('{reg:HKLM\{cm:TFDReg},ra_folder|{cm:TFDDir}}') = WizardDirValue()); end; Note that {reg:} is an inline registry request in inno setup, {cm:} values are my own strings specified in [CustomMessages]; {cm:TFDReg} contains the registry path of the TFD values (from which the "ra_folder" one is requested by this statement) while the {cm:TFDDir} contains the default TFD RA path to return as default if the registry query didn't give any result. Maybe I should just make that blank... meh. ExpandConstant is the function to parse the inno setup {...} codes into a string that can be used in the script. So I just compare the TFD RA path value from the registry with WizardDirValue(), the value of the selected folder in the installer, and if they're the same, I know the user is installing on TFD. Inno has a huge help library containing all of these codes and standard functions and stuff. Anyway, then in my files, it's just using the Check option, which can be used to call one or more boolean (True/False) functions from the code section, with AND/OR/NOT modifiers. Source: ra303eng\ra95.dat; DestDir: {app}; Languages: eng; Check: not IsTFDInstall Source: ra303eng\cracked\ra95.dat; DestDir: {app}; Languages: eng; Check: IsTFDInstall meaning, the normal ra95.dat is only installed if it's not a TFD install, and the cracked\ra95.dat is only installed if it is a TFD install We really can't answer that without any clue what this project is actually about

Well if you want your mod not to interfere with anything, you might want to add them in an extra mixfile instead of back in local... The problem is they made the game itself contain patch functionality, which is seriously not a good thing. I removed it and made the patcher do the patching functions. Yeah, besides a new autorun EA slapped onto it. And the lack of CD3 and CD4. It's really nothing more than using the cracked exe, yes. If I were you, I'd just rename the normal edited ra95.dat to yourmodname.exe and the cracked one to yourmodname_tfd.exe, if you catch my drift. Bonus points for using a resource editor to give it a (custom) exe icon. Older versions of the game could still use the -cd workaround (WW's inbuilt nocd system), but they somehow messed that up in v3.03. If you work with an installer, it's pretty easy to check if the folder where the user installs the mod is the same as the folder marked as TFD RA install folder in the registry, and in that case you just give the TFD exe instead of the normal one. Though in that case I would make sure they got the same name. In fact that's exactly what I do in the patch 3.03 installer

Looks like they're all in local.mix. Did you try loading a snow theater map without the sno!.pal? As for TFD, it doesn't really have an RA95.dat, since it doesn't have the 3.03 patch on it by default. I do hope you started from my 3.03 installer, since the exe of that has some extra fixes (like the fact it no longer tries to delete conquer.eng on startup). This is the source package from which I made the 3.03 installer; it contains the normal and TFD (read: no-cd cracked) versions of these exes: http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/cncstuff/source/ra303installer.rar

^ I just edited my reply... the error was indeed the palette loading.

Well, theaters are quite sensitive stuff... it uses the filename for other files than just the .mix. You probably at least have to rename the palette inside the mixfile for it to work. btw, you got that error message wrong. "v" is not a valid hexadecimal character. If you get me a correct one I could check it out. [edit] If it was 005bcde0, it's indeed the palette loading code.

If it's the same as in C&C1, they're stored in theater objects, which contain the filename of the mix archive without the .mix part. You should look for "temperat" without the .mix part. Also note that you'll probably find "Temperate" there too. Make sure you remember the order they are in, otherwise you might change the wrong one when editing "Snow", since for Snow, the theater name is the same as the mixfile name. [edit] It's exactly the same as in C&C1. You'll find the start of the theaters data at 0x1FE0F0 in ra95.dat. The first one is the theater name, then the mixfile, then the extension of the files inside the mix. So only edit the second string. Since the data's in a fixed object format, there's 8 characters available for each filename, so you can make your snow mixfile name longer if you want.

Aro's UMP was actually meant as a platform for modders to start from, as far as I remember.

Olaf is aware of these issues and working on an update... I guess I'll have to contact him and ask him to finish it sometime soon. As for the upper case stuff, he originally made it all lowercase and noticed C&C couldn't read it. And indeed, C&C is apparently unable to read ini keys specified in the exe (like the specific named keys of [basic] and [Map]) if the version in the exe starts with a capital letter and the one in the ini doesn't. This is because the game scans for the first letter first, this first check is case sensitive because that's easiest, and because all the ini keys inside the exe start with a capital letter. So this was mostly due to a misunderstanding; he thought all things had to be uppercase. But in fact, it's only for the first letter, and only for exe-specific ini keys. So for triggers and teamtypes, where the user chooses the key names, and for units, structures and the rest, where the key is normally just a number, it doesn't matter either.

Cheese... not helpful, really -_-

Ehh... you CAN'T get the same errors if you renamed the lcf files correctly. Simply delete the current RA95.lcf, and rename the included _RA95.lcf to RA95.lcf. That's all. If you open the file in notepad you should see it's an ini file which has a setting which tells it that RA95.dat is the program it needs to execute.

Ehh, you shouldn't install that patch on FullRA+. It only gives its nocd exe when you install it on a correctly installed TFD. FullRA+ already contains the 3.03 patch anyway, as far as I know.