Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2011 1:14 pm Post subject:
Modifying Mods (n00b questions)
Hello, this is my first post here.
I've never really been active in the C&C mod community, I've done some small stuff for myself and that's what I like to keep doing, but now I want to take a step beyond. I want to modify, for my self and only for personal use I might add, mods other community members have released, stuff like Cannis Rules and such that are basically small expansions. I simply want to add some more units to some factions, and it'd be much better if I can do that based on their mods since the AI is usually drastically improved from the default and the balance is tighter.
My question is simple, how would I got about it? n00b friendly software like Tibet won't help me I guess since they are made with vanilla YR in mind and don't really detect the mod units and changes, is it possible with XCC utilities? How so?
Sorry if this has been asked before but, well, it's 2011, many community forums from YR are simply gone and PPM is one of the few I still know it's running that is focused on modding only. Oh, and I'd like to say again that I won't release nor distribute anything I ever manage to extract from mods, that is not my intent and I'd just like to modify some things for personal use.
I reccomend using XCC Mixer - found at this site http://xhp.xwis.net/ - and browsing the mod .MIX files to find RULES.INI and RULESMD.INI . They can be extracted and edited using notepad, always placing the modified files into the RA2/YR folder.
Tutorials on how to edit these files are found in the tutorials section of these forums, but if you wanna try without using them, you can as it's not too hard. _________________ Inactive Projects >> Tiberian Sun: Tech Level War http://www.ppmsite.com/forum/index.php?f=843
Download the latest beta: http://www.moddb.com/mods/cc-tiberian-sun-tech-level-war QUICK_EDIT
You sound like you need to learn how to mod, the best tools to learn are easy to get:
1- Notepad or any equivalent text editor.
2- XCC mixer.
3- ModEnc's help
4- Time, lots of it actually.
Before doing anything, keep a backup of the files you want to modify, then read through rulesmd.ini (a couple of times) and you'll eventually come up with some basic knowledge on how to mod.
Here is the thing though, I already know the basics of modding and I did modify TS back in the day for my personal use, my problem is now detecting the changes this particular mod applied and modifying them, and I can't seem to find info about that.
For example, I can find the entry for the Chrono Miner in my rulesmd.ini, as extracted from my expandmd01:
But when I launch the game the price of it was adjusted to 1000, which makes me confused since I don't know which file the game is reading from in order to set the values. The mod I'm using to test this out is Cannis Rules, as I mentioned before, and it uses the XXC Mod Launcher. Now I am aware that after running the mod through this software it will delete all the files and basically reset the game to unmodded settings, so I stopped its process while the game was running to make the changes permanent in my RA2 folder. And while running the game by itself now launches the mod I still can't seem to find the files it uses to set the new rules.
Sorry I wasn't clear about this before. QUICK_EDIT
Sorry to say but Cannis did not embrace idea of his mod being modded intentionally thus you have more problems with that mod than any other. QUICK_EDIT
He mix protected his shit. All you'd need to do is reverse what he did, which can't be all that hard. Someone posted a thread about it... aristurtle I think. _________________ KGR | AT
AZUR
Discord: theastronomer1836
Steam QUICK_EDIT
i took Cannis mod and made it a file that shows all things inside the pack. i don't know how to unprotect the mix file, but if you want the mix files let me know. _________________ I am authorized to send out the TMP Studio, PM ME IF YOU WANT IT And check this out, these were sent to me for help with terrain and zdata help along with TMP Studio/Builder
Thanks for the help, but I'm having trouble with the tutorial. (http://modenc.renegadeprojects.com/Unprotecting_a_protected_MIX)
I tried to decrypt expandmd99.mix and after changing HEX values it was still locked. Here are the steps I made:
Got myself a HEX editor and analyzed the values, the first ten are:
00 00 00 00 D4 00 54 BE 64 00
I swapped byte 4 and 5 as instructed
00 00 00 00 00 D4 54 BE 64 00
They now should represent the number of files, so 00 D4 in decimals is 212
I then multiplied that number by 12, which gave me 2544, adding ten, 2554
The size of the mix file in question is 6604877, so I took that number and detracted 2554, which gave me 6602323. Converting it to HEX resulted in 64BE53. I added zeros like requested, inverted the order and filled bytes 6 through 9, which resulted in this final HEX edit:
00 00 00 00 00 D4 53 BE 64 00
And after all that XCC Mixer was still unable to open the file.
I'd post it here but I don't feel confortable posting Cannis files, this whole thing is for private use after all.
I don't really know what to do now, I thought I followed the steps quite correctly, can someone help please? QUICK_EDIT
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Modifying Mods (n00b questions)
