[TD] Replacing the dinos with tanks...

[Messiah]

...by adding the new graphics in a new mix file (update03.mix) works fine for STEG and TRIC, but the new sprites of TREX and RAPT are not shown in game. Whatever I'm trying, I see the dino images. 

The .shps are not corrupted or whatsoever, I checked this.

So what is not working here?

[Messiah]

Nyerguds, in which order does C&C read the .mix files, or, how should I name my mix file so the modified images are shown in game?

[Nyerguds]

First of all, don't use "updat*.mix" files, they are reserved for patches. The "sc*.mix" mod addons have priority over "updat*.mix" ones, something I did specifically so patch assets would not prevent modding, like the idiocy of RA's expand* mixfiles. So yeah, you're trying to be too clever here; you're sabotaging yourself by trying to cheat a system that's made to work for you.

That said, it seems like sc-000.mix contains the dinosaur graphics you're having trouble with. Not sure why you didn't check that right away; that is the Funpark mix file, after all.

I guess that's a bit of an oversight on my part; the patch should've sorted out all non-mission files in there, putting those shp files in conquer.mix and the .aud files in sounds.mix. Ah well. Guess if I went there I could've just removed the four existing sc*.mix files altogether, either making them into updat*.mix files (since they're part of the base game), or just integrating all of the funpark, covert ops and special ops maps into general.mix ?

Two ways of getting around that are using the mod addon system, which has priority over pretty much everything(*), or making an sc*.mix file with a name that is read before sc-000.mix (which can be done by making it an sc--*.mix file)

(*) : Actually, cclocal.mix has absolute priority, but the mod/language loading system's ini controls provide a way to change the filenames used for pretty much all resources normally loaded from cclocal.mix, allowing them to be overridden anyway. It's just more tightly controlled.

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This is the startup file loading order of C&C95 v1.06c. The ini file reads are shown as italics, the mix file reads are shown as bold.

Basic rule for mix files is that files found in earlier loaded mixfiles have priority over files with the same names found in later loaded mixfiles. So the further down this list, the lower the mix file's priority.

• cclocal.mix
• conquer.ini: basic game resolution, and base language / language / mod name settings are read
• For a hypothetical mod "modname" (from either conquer.ini or command line parameter) it tries to read modname.mix, and then modname.ini
• In modname.ini, there can be a section [MixFiles], and all entries under that are read as mix archives. There are no filename requirements for those; they don't even have to end on ".mix".
• For the configured language, assuming it's set to ENG, it tries to read lang_ENG.mix.
• sc*.mix
• ss*.mix (the contents of which are loaded in an incomplete way, causing all filenames that exist inside these mixfiles to be considered nonexistent by the game even if they exist in later-loaded mix files, effectively 'deleting' those files)
• updat*.mix
• updtr*.mix (same effect as "ss*.mix")
• Base language / language / mod settings are read from their respective ini files, each overriding the previously read one's setting (if filled in).
• themes.ini
• rules.ini
• Font files (of which the filenames are overridable through the mod system)
• mouse.shp (of which the filename is overridable through the mod system)
• strings file (conquer.ENG)
• CD drive is checked (if not in NoCD mode)
• general.mix
• conquer.mix is opened
• transit.mix
• general.mix (I think this reread is to check if it's on CD)
• movies.mix
• scores.mix (technically useless if it's in the game folder since it'll already be read as sc*.mix file)
• speech.mix
• talkENG.mix
• sounds.mix is opened
• game intro is played
• conquer.mix is loaded
• sounds.mix is loaded
• zounds.mix
• conquer.ini: actual game settings are read

[Blade]

Just to clarify what ss*.mix files actually do in the original game, they load as uncached, which means the game can load files from them from disk, but not get pointers directly to file contents. Most files are accessed via the cached pointer method, hence most appear "deleted". WSA files and VQA files are I believe exceptions to this and should still work in an ss*.mix file.

[Nyerguds]

Ah. I generally use it to remove stuff for modding purposes. Specifically, removing a building's build-up animation makes the building unsellable; something I used in my patch to 'remove' the build-up of the hospital so I could make it unsellable (as it should be) without removing the official buildup graphics from the game files.

Apparently DOS C&C had some kind of exception code for that, but that's missing from C&C95, and 'sellable' is not among the structure type variables that can be modded.