Posted: Sun May 23, 2010 12:06 pm Post subject:
[Ares] New Countries tutorial
Alright, since this seems to be something that blows other people's minds, I'm going to be writing simple yet effective tutorials for adding new countries using the new Ares DLL injector. (No, it's not a patch.)
There are a few things worth noting from the beginning. All of this should be in the documentation.
- You can have up to 32 new countries, 16 of which can have taunts. I don't see this being an issue.
- You can reorder the country list. The old 9 countries have special Ares handling that tells the game to still use their old loading screen, flag, and strings.
- You can have 16 new sides, don't ask me why you need 16 though.
- You can add your new countries and sides either before or after the GDI,Nod,Special,Neutral sides. It has no special effect contrary to what I thought.
Countries
In order to add a new country, the VERY FIRST step will be adding it to the [Countries] list. I assume you don't need me to tell you how to make a number, equals sign, and the name of your country. For the tutorial, we're going to add New Zealand to the Allies, with an ID of [Zealand]
Your country entry will need to look something very similar to what's posted below. I'll be commenting each tag from Ares so you can draw what the new brings together with the old.
[Zealand] ;this is our new country
UIName=Name:Zealand ;the name string
Name=New Zealand ;this is used in FinalAlert 2 and WW editors
Suffix=Allied ;this is present on all Allied sides
Prefix=G ;as this is too.
Color=Gold ;this could be changed if you haet this color, but is for singleplayer purposes
Multiplay=yes ;need this in order to get the country to appear in the dropdown box.
Side=GDI ;this is the side that the countries belongs to. GDI=Allies
SmartAI=yes ;this is for the AI to use SmartAI. I've never experimented with the tag but ModEnc would probably tell you all you need to know.
;new Ares stuff
File.Flag=zealflag.pcx ;this is your flag. 8-bit PCX still.
File.LoadScreen=ls%szeal.shp ;this is your loading screen, it needs the %s to tell it size. This will be changed in future versions.
File.LoadScreenPAL=lszeal.pal ;this is your loading screen palette.
File.Taunt=tauam%02i.wav ;the taunts. the %02i tells it to read the 8 taunt files.
LoadScreenText.Name=Name:Zealand ;this is the name of the country that appears on the right hand side.
LoadScreenText.SpecialName=Name:BFRT ;this is the nation special, like the Tesla Tank or Black Eagle. It's in the upper left hand side.
LoadScreenText.Brief=Brief:NationBattlefort ;this is the description of the country, below the name.
MenuText.Status=STT:NationBattlefort ;this is the description of the country in the bottom of the skirmish screen, that generally provides something like "New Zealand can build Battlefortresses"
RandomSelectionWeight=1 ;this is the weight the country has in order to be picked at random. Yes, you can make other countries pop up more or less based on these numbers.
Now you just add the country to your sides list.
[Sides]
GDI=British,French,Germans,Americans,Alliance,Zealand ;new country is in
Now you should have a fully functional new country that can be selected. Based on where you inserted the country determines where the country appears in order on the skirmish drop-down menu.
I'll be writing a new side tutorial soon, don't worry.
Another thing which needs to be mentioned,which might help out people:"NOSTR" prefix can help out,since it makes it no longer necessary to write the text in the CSF file. QUICK_EDIT
Another thing which needs to be mentioned,which might help out people:"NOSTR" prefix can help out,since it makes it no longer necessary to write the text in the CSF file.
Depends. The length of possible NOSTR values is very limited, because the UIName was mentioned to hold a CSF label name only, not a whole text.
You can have some 32 characters there, not sure, but IIRC that's not documented. QUICK_EDIT
You can have some 32 characters there, not sure, but IIRC that's not documented.
It is in the Ares manual, it's a 32 character limit, INCLUDING the NOSTR: prefix, so it can take up to 26 characters, including spaces. _________________ MIdAS - Turning wages into beer since 2002 QUICK_EDIT
I seem to have a problem with this. I know it must be something I have done because I am a n00b in modding RA2. Anyway, I have made China, but when I play the mod and I go at the skirmish the name of the country is something like Missing'Name:China' and it's the same for the Load Screen Text : Name, Brief and the Menu Text Status. Can you please tell me what im doing wrong? Thanks in advance.
[China]
UIName=Name:China
Name=China
Suffix=Soviet
Prefix=B
Color=DarkRed
Multiplay=yes
Side=Nod
SmartAI=yes .
File.Flag=chinaflag.pcx
File.LoadScreen=ob%sssovi.shp
File.LoadScreenPAL=mpyscrn.pal
File.Taunt=tauam%02i.wav
LoadScreenText.Name=China
LoadScreenText.SpecialName=Hyungo-cha Trooper
LoadScreenText.Brief=China is located in Asia(or whatever)
MenuText.Status=The Chinese can train the Hyungo-cha Trooper
RandomSelectionWeight=1 QUICK_EDIT
Instead of using RA2StrEdit use the built in XCC String Editor under Launch which is part of XCC Mixer.
Just to make sure you are using Ares right? i.e. http://rp2.strategy-x.com/ otherwise following this tutorial is pointless. _________________ Last edited by Allied General on Fri Jun 04, 2010 5:47 pm; edited 1 time in total QUICK_EDIT
Thanks a lot. That helped. But there is still a little problem I have with my new country. When I try to play skirmish with it and when the map opens I just hear the voice say "unit lost" and then the defeat screen appears. I have assigned the conscript and the construction yard to the country but still it does the same thing. Maybe the vehicle version of the construction yard is in a different place but I can't find it, idk. Any help would be welcome. QUICK_EDIT
You shouldnt have to assign a new mcv to a new country. If your new country has Side=NOD and you added it to
[Sides]
NOD=blah,blah,blah,MyNewCountry
Then it should automatically asign it the Soviet MCV. QUICK_EDIT
What I ment was assigning a new mcv by way of AI Triggers isnt necessary. But I did forget to mention If new country is listed in the NOD=MyNewCountry then you have to add MyNewCountry to Owner= on all the Soviet units and buildings to work correctly. QUICK_EDIT
If I'm assuming China is meant to be a new soviet country then you need to add China to every Owner tag for every buildable soviet unit and every structure to prevent the NCO bug explained here -
OK, my country works great. But the EVA is that Yuri guy even tho it's in the soviet side. And also every time I train or build anything it says new construction options. - Well now I found out that it says new construction options on all of my countries so I'll look help for that elsewhere. But I still need help with the Yuri EVA instead of the Soviet one. QUICK_EDIT
To the power plants, all Allied buildings, units and so on. But when I start a map the map start and I get a vicotury screen. the AI blow up, WHY? Even the AI is Soviet they blow up. _________________ Can you hide from me ? QUICK_EDIT
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