Lightning Hunter

So it looks like I just have to run it through your mission converter and it is all set, minus the sounds, right? I will take a look at those sounds and see what they replace, and if they are really necessary.

Interesting... Were these stories incorporated in to set 1 released with the latest patch? I can take a look at set 2 and try to include it in the mega compilation depending on how many custom sounds there are. If there is an overwhelming amount of work, I will put it off until later (but I will keep the extracted version on my HD for sure).

Time to tag in CCHyper then. But yeah, I know you haven't worked with RA95 - but I also know that both engines are somewhat similar. Anyway, It is just a huge annoyance when Big Foot plays every time a saved game is loaded. I pretty much hate Big Foot now as a result. I figured you were lurking around; I just hadn't seen you in a few days. Good to see you are still alive and well.

Thanks. Does anyone have the files already extracted? I don't want to run an .exe file...

I wonder if Nyerguds knows what to change? I can't imagine it would be very difficult to at least tell the game to shuffle the music upon loading a saved game. Maybe I will PM him in case he is not reading this.

By the way, where did you find Flame Dancers set 2? I can't seem to find a download link anywhere!

Does that mean you converted Flame Dancers set 2? If so, would you like me to include it with the Mega Compilation, or will it be included with a future release of the unofficial patch? I have already finished converting all of the missions at ra.afraid.org that looked good enough to play (about 90 of them) and am about to move on to the campaigns. It is perfect timing that you updated this utility, because many of the campaigns have custom shp files. The only problem now is with any campaign that has custom sounds, since those cannot be included as far as I know (or am I wrong?).

That fixed it, thanks! I will test your mission loader with more mods that contain shp files and let you know how it goes. Unrelated topic here, but now that I know you can modify Ra95.exe I have to ask about another "bug"... It is a massive annoyance to me that the music does not shuffle when you load a saved game. Can this be easily fixed by modifying Ra95.exe? I hate always hearing Big Foot and having to manually change the track by opening the music browser when I load a saved game. In a perfect world, it would be nice if the music did not change at all when loading a saved game, but at the very least it could be shuffled... Nyergud's patch 1.06 for C&C does not have this problem, so I know it can't be that difficult to fix this issue in Red Alert.

Does it work in your game folder? The quickest way to tell is to load the mission, build a tech center, and see if the new "Control Tower" unit displays correctly in the build menu. For me, it does not.

Yes, you understood what I was saying FunkyFr3sh. It was hard to explain all that, so sorry for any confusion! Indeed, the game seems to blatantly ignore the [Recharge] times in rules.ini, at least when it is set to "0". I have not tested any other values. It is possible there is an engine bug with properly reading values of "0" in rules.ini, but for whatever reason, it DOES read the value of "0" for the [Recharge] time in the mission file. Hopefully this problem is isolated to just this one mission.

Thanks for the help! I finally feel like I'm not doing this lone-wolf. I did indeed put it in a mix file, but I had the files incorrectly named as you pointed out. However, even after using your new mission converter, nothing seems to work in-game. The Air Traffic control building has no icon (and is messed up), and the Yak is still just a normal Yak. I attached my converted mission to this post so you can take a look at it. If it works in your game, then something is up with my install... I simply extracted the mission to the same folder as your converter, ran the program, and the attached file is the result (after adding to a mix file).

It doesn't seem to work. I renamed the file 0A03FEF5 to "migg" as a test, and in-game the icon is still the normal yak. Here is what the mission file looks like for the yak: [YAK] Name=Super Mig Image=355-migg Prerequisite=afld,fcom Primary=ChainGun Secondary=ChainGun Strength=60 Armor=heavy TechLevel=5 Sight=0 Speed=21 Owner=soviet Cost=1700 Points=25 ROT=5 Ammo=10 Crewed=yes GuardRange=30 The mission converter renamed "migg.shp" to "355-migg.shp". The "Image=" line is the icon of the unit, right? Or is it something else? Either way, nothing is showing up in-game the way it should... Where am I going wrong?

If I revert the [Recharge] time in the mission file (NOT rules.ini), the problem is fixed. However, what concerns me more is not this one issue, but how other maps might be affected. I am trying to understand why [Recharge] is ignored by Red Alert in rules.ini in the Red Alert folder, yet it works in the mission file itself. I guess the best I can do right now is just fix the one mission, and hope for the best with the other missions... Maybe it is just a strange anomaly/quirk with Red Alert. If I had to guess, I would say that Red Alert ignores values of "0" when it comes to Recharge time, unless the value is in the mission file rather than rules.ini. But we may never know unless someone else investigates who has a better understanding of the game engine.

Maybe I'm not understanding your explanation. Why is it that the [recharge] line is ignored when rules.ini is in the main Red Alert folder, but when I add the line to "cmu366ea.ini" (as an example) the game then reads it? In other words: rules.ini [Recharge] in \RedAlert folder: Game IGNORES the command cmu366ea.ini [Recharge] \RedAlert Folder: Game READS the command Shouldn't it be the other way around? Very confusing... Obviously, the creator of this particular mission did not expect the game to actually read these line, since the game messes up big time (by dropping unlimited paratroopers/parabombs) when it is now being read. Previously, the game ignored the authors modifications to rules.ini.

I'm not sure if anyone is seeing my posts lately... I've been using this program to convert missions, but I've come across an issue. I am not sure if this problem is isolated or not, but there is a problem with at least one mission. If you download this mission and run it through this program to convert, you will see that there are endless paratroopers and parabombs dropped at the very start of the mission in-game (which is obviously a bug). I tried running the mission the default way, and this bug is not present. Something happens in the conversion process that messes it up. Maybe it has to do with rules.ini? The problem here is that if this bug isn't tracked down, it is very possible other maps have the same problem - but I wouldn't realize it since I can't test every single mission. If we can track down this bug, I can immediately go back and figure out which other missions might have the same issue. Otherwise, people will play very bugged missions in my compilation, and that is not good. Edit: It definitely has to do with rules.ini, because if I remove it altogether the bug goes away. Somehow, this program is messing up the rules when copying it over to the mission file. I am not sure how. Edit #2: Well, I narrowed it down to this: [Recharge] ParaBomb=0 ; parachute bombs Paratrooper=0 ; paratroopers I don't know why, but when these two lines are in a rules.ini in the main Red Alert folder, they appear to have no effect. However, when I use the mission converted and add these lines in to the mission file itself, the jets suddenly drop infinity bombs and troops... I wonder why it behaves differently?

So yes, I know it has been a long time since I started this thread - but I am finally working on a Mega compilation. I have added about 55 missions so far and counting. However, there is one thing that bothers me... There are quite a few levels out there that have new units with SHP files that aren't recognized by XCC Mixer (they have random 8-digit IDs rather than proper names). Because of this, these missions cannot be converted, which means that ANY mission or pack that contains custom units cannot currently be included in the compilation. This is a big stumbling block, because some of the great campaigns have custom units. As a very simple test, I have been trying to convert this single mission here that only contains a few new units: http://ra.afraid.org/download.php/missions/latomega.zip The problem is that I don't have a system in place to identify the new unit files. It seems impossible to figure out what is what. Can someone help me out here?

Looks pretty nice, actually! Where are the other missions you have created? I am actually making a mega compilation of SP maps, and I would be happy to include yours if you link me to them. At the very least, I can include this one if you consider it the final version!

Hi zocom, I am currently compiling a Mega compilation for all the best known SP maps/campaigns out there, and was wondering if I could include this. There aren't too many modern releases, but this is certainly one I would like to have in the compilation. All the original readme files are being included with the release, as well as the author info where available (if you have even more details on authors, I can update the compilation if necessary). My name is only listed as the author of the compilation itself (which is actually hard find, hehe). In-game, the author who made the map is listed right in the selection list for each level. Do I have permission to include this?

Great job! So are you going through this forum and adding missions in chronological order, or are you picking them at random?

Looking forward to it, Chimas! I think your time spent on including all the missions released in the last 5 years or so is a good idea. As much as we all like all the documentation you do, I feel like a lot of the missions released in recent days are being forgotten, and I'm sure download links are starting to die. Before that happens, they need to be added to the collection! Even if you don't have time to write in-depth documentation on them, it would at least be good to get them archived before they are lost forever.

Long time no update. How are things going Chimas? I'm curious if you have been downloading and keeping all the maps on this forum before the links go dead, so they can be added to the pack.

Yes, I've had this issue for years. Still don't know what causes it. What are your system specs?

I feel bad these missions aren't getting any comments. It looks really nice! I just don't have the time right now to play anything. Once work slows down, I will try to play this and comment on it. Hopefully other people play it and comment in the meantime!

Nice. Can't wait until there is a new catalog release.

Hi Chimas, any luck in adding these new missions released in the forums? I think there have been quite a few new missions over the last few years that aren't in the Catalog yet. Looking forward to the next release, whenever that is.