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Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: China
Posts: 180
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Here's DeeZire's tutorial:
Through some very crafty editing, you can actually clone an existing paradrop Super Weapon in Red Alert 2 and make it look to the players that there is an extra one. You can then edit this new paradrop Super Weapon, and the possibilities for using it are varied - in Red Alert 2 DeeZire this method is used to create the Parabombs Super Weapon but you could, for example, use it to provide players with reinforcements comprising of an infantry unit they would otherwise not be able to acquire (such as Navy SEALs in Red Alert 2).
This is a complicated tutorial, and to understand how it works it's useful to consider how the game works under normal (un-modified) circumstances;-
(i) if you play as Americans, you get a paradrop Super Weapon with your Airforce Command Center which comprises of 8 GI's. If you also capture a Tech Airfield, you also get another paradrop Super Weapon which comprises of 6 GI's.
(ii) if you play as Soviets (or Yuri's Army in Yuri's Revenge) and capture a Tech Airfield, you get a paradrop Super Weapon which comprises of 9 Conscripts (or 6 Initiates). If you manage to capture an American Airforce Command Center, you also get another paradrop Super Weapon which comprises of 6 GI's.
(iii) whoever you play as, if you manage to obtain ownership of an American Airforce Command Center and a Tech Airfield, you will get two paradrop Super Weapons - one comprising of 8 GI's and one comprising of infantry units for your side (6 GI's for Allies, 9 Conscripts for Soviets and 6 Initiates for Yuri's Army).
Thus, under normal circumstances, you can only ever have a maximum of two paradrop Super Weapons.
What we will do then is give the player all of that (no difference), PLUS a new one - so that at any time, a player can have the normal 2 paradrops AND our new one - thats three, and this method works in Yuri's Revenge as well as Red Alert 2. The only difference that the players will see is the addition of a new type of paradrop Super Weapon. Along the way, we will also look at ways of enhancing the paradrops too.
Looking back at what we already know then, take a look at the RULES file and you will see that there are two paradrop Super Weapons - AmericanParaDropSpecial and ParaDropSpecial. These deal with the American and Tech Airfield paradrops respectively.
Look for the sections that define those paradrop Super Weapons (near the end of the RULES file) and add this new one;-
[NewParaDropSpecial]
UIName=Name:Para
Name=Paratrooper Drop
IsPowered=false
RechargeTime=4
Type=ParaDrop
Action=ParaDrop
SidebarImage=PARAICON
ShowTimer=no
DisableableFromShell=no
As you can see, this is an exact copy of the normal ParaDropSpecial, the one which gives you infantry units for your side. Now jump to the [SuperWeaponTypes] section and add our new one to the end of the list;-
nn=NewParaDropSpecial
Substitute 'nn' so it's the last number in the list.
Next, hop to the [CAAIRP] entry (the Tech Airfield) and edit the following tag so it looks like this;-
SuperWeapon=NewParaDropSpecial
What this does is make the Tech Airfield give the player our new paradrop Super Weapon instead of the normal one - but because our new one is exactly the same as the normal one, theres no difference to the players. While you are in the [CAAIRP] entry, you can also use the Ammo= tag on the structure to control how many times the player can call upon this Super Weapon.
Next step is to edit the American one. Find the normal paradrop Super Weapon entry, and edit it so that it looks like this;-
[ParaDropSpecial]
UIName=Name:APara
Name=American Paratrooper Drop
IsPowered=false
RechargeTime=4
Type=ParaDrop
Action=AmerParaDrop
SidebarImage=APARICON
ShowTimer=no
DisableableFromShell=no
Note that we have swapped the Action= and Type= tags around - the reasons for this will become apparent. Next, hop to the [AMRADR] entry and edit the following tag so that it looks like this;-
SuperWeapon=ParaDropSpecial
What this does is change the normal paradrop Super Weapon so that it actually becomes the American paradrop Super Weapon instead.
These two Super Weapons will reinforce the players with the infantry defined by the following statements in the [General] section, depending on the side you are using;-
AllyParaDropInf=E1
AllyParaDropNum=6
SovParaDropInf=E2
SovParaDropNum=9
In Yuri's revenge, you also get this;-
YuriParaDropInf=INIT
YuriParaDropNum=6
At this point, you can customize any of the Paradrops. The above statements can actually be lists (you may notice this from the tags that are commented out). So for example, if you used this...
SovParaDropInf=E2,E2
SovParaDropNum=5,5
...then you would get two paradrop planes, each carrying 5 Conscripts. Make a note of this feature, as we need it later.
To recap on what we have done so far;-
(i) we have 'cloned' the normal ParaDropSpecial, called it NewParaDropSpecial, and given the 'clone' to the Tech Airfield - this means that any player will get infantry units for their side when they capture the Tech Airfield - so no change for the players there;
(ii) we have 'swapped' the AmerParaDropSpecial and the original ParaDropSpecial and given the edited ParaDropSpecial to the American Airforce Command Center, so that the Americans get GI's. The only difference here is that they will now get 6 GI's instead of 8, as their Super Weapon now uses the AllyParaDropInf= and AllyParaDropNum= tags instead of AmerParaDropInf= and AmerParaDropNum=. We will address this next;
(iii) we now have the AmerParaDropSpecial remaining, and it's now unused - this is the one we will make use of for our new (extra) paradrop.
The game tells you that 'the Americans have the best paratroopers in the world', however the reality is that under normal (un-modified) circumstanes, the only difference is that they get 2 more troops than anyone else with their paradrop. We can address this by adding this tag to the [Americans] house entry in the RULES file;-
VeteranInfantry=E1
This allows all GI's produced by the Americans side to be made straight at veteran level - this also affects the paradrops, so now they get veteran GI's on their paradrops, thus they now have an advantage over other armies (other Allied sides will only get standard GI's). The downside to this is, of course, that the Americans also get Veteran level GIs when they train them from the Barracks whilst other armies get no such bonus. You could get around this by making a 'clone' of the GI, giving ownership of the cloned unit to Americans only and giving it TechLevel=-1 - this means it cannot normally be trained in the game, but you could allocate it to the (newly edited) American Paradrop by using the AllyParaDropInf= statement (see above). This means that any army gets Veteran GI's if they get ownership of that Super Weapon.
So, we can now make our new paradrop. Jump to the AmericanParaDrop entry and edit it so that it looks like this;-
[AmericanParaDropSpecial]
UIName=Name:PARA
Name=New Paradrop
IsPowered=false
RechargeTime=5
Type=AmerParaDrop
Action=AttackMoveTar
SidebarImage=xxxxICON
ShowTimer=no
DisableableFromShell=no
Use any icon in place of xxxxICON for the image on the sidebar, and you can change the RechargeTime= to suit your mod.
Note that we are using an unused Action= here - this is because you can't duplicate an Action= (what the Super Weapon actually does) but you can have multiple instances of the same Type= (how it actually does it, in other words how it performs the Action=) - we have already duplicated Type=ParaDrop and used Action=ParaDrop and Action=AmerParaDrop, so we need a new Action= for this one. AttackMoveTar is unused in the game - the engine only uses AttackMoveNav (the 'q-move' function for units). This gives you a nice 'spinning' attack cursor.
If you are not making use of Carryall or Medic units, you may wish to create a whole new one-frame (non-animated) cursor. If thats the case, change the Action= to Action=TibSunBug and follow these steps;-
(i) extract MOUSE.SHP from the game (MOUSE.SHA in Yuri's Revenge)
(ii) convert it to PCX format using the MOUSEPAL.PAL palette
(iii) change frame #384 to whatever you want your new cursor to be, although you cannot have an animated one (it must be one frame or image)
(iv) convert the PCX image sequence back into a SHP (or SHA) but make sure that you do not use SHP compression. The mouse cursor is drawn in the uppermost 'layer' on screen since it must always be available - if you compress images in this layer, you will get bad corruption of the cursor.
To make use of your new paradrop, give any structure this tag;-
SuperWeapon=AmerParaDropSpecial
You can now customize how your new paradrop will behave just like you can with the others (see above) - the difference is that your new paradrop uses these statements from the [General] section of the RULES file;-
AmerParaDropInf=
AmerParaDropNum=
Since our 'new' paradrop uses those tags, it doesnt matter which side gets this Super Weapon - they will all get the same infantry dropped.
For further customization, it's worth noting that all of the paradrop Super Weapons are hardcoded to call the AircraftType defined by the [PDPLANE] entry in the RULES file. If you add an Image= tag to that entry, you can therefore change the appearance of the plane itself. Two good ones are Image=CPLANE, which allows you to make use of an unused Cargo Plane image, and Image=FORTRESS - the Flying Fortress plane. If you do this, you need to add these to the ART file;-
[CPLANE]
Voxel=yes
Remapable=yes
[FORTRESS]
Voxel=yes
Remapable=yes
Note that you do not have to add the [FORTRESS] entry in Yuri's Revenge - for some reason, this is already included but remains unused.
You can even customize the EVA voice that tells you your paradrop Super Weapons are ready. The game is hardcoded to call the EVA_ReinforcementsReady voice from the EVA file. If you open up that file, you can change which voices are used for each side. Look for this entry;-
[EVA_ReinforcementsReady]
Text=ReinforcementsReady
Russian=csof121
Allied=ceva121
Yuri=cyur121
Type=QUEUE
Priority=NORMAL
The Yuri=cyur121 line will only be in the EVAMD.INI file, for Yuri's Revenge. If you are using Yuri's Revenge, it's worth setting them to '150' instead of '121' - that voice says 'Paratroopers Ready' which is more appropriate and is otherwise unused.
Finally, we will recap on what we now have compared to what we normally have in the game;-
(i) if you play as Americans, you get a paradrop Super Weapon with your Airforce Command Center which comprises of 6 veteran GI's. If you also capture a Tech Airfield, you also get another paradrop Super Weapon which comprises of 6 veteran GI's. You can now also get a third paradrop, by gaining ownership of the structure that has SuperWeapon=AmerParaDropSpecial set.
(ii) if you play as Soviets (or Yuri's Army in Yuri's Revenge) and capture a Tech Airfield, you get a paradrop Super Weapon which comprises of 9 Conscripts (or 6 Initiates). If you manage to capture an American Airforce Command Center, you also get an another paradrop Super Weapon which comprises of 6 GI's. You can now also get a third paradrop, by gaining ownership of the structure that has SuperWeapon=AmerParaDropSpecial set.
(iii) whoever you play as, if you manage to obtain ownership of an American Airforce Command Center, a Tech Airfield and the structure that has SuperWeapon=AmerParaDropSpecial set, you will get THREE paradrop Super Weapons - one comprising of 6 GI's (veterans if you are Americans), one comprising of infantry units for your side (6 GI's for Allies, 9 Conscripts for Soviets and 6 Initiates for Yuri's Army), and another one which you can customize;
(iv) in Yuri's Revenge, you will get the 'Paratroopers Ready' voice instead of 'Reinforcements Ready' when your paradrops are ready.
There you have it - 3 unique paradrop Super Weapons with no difference to the players other than an enhanced American Paradrop and an extra one.
just follow it,and make the american paradrop drop the parabombs
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