INI-Editing

The process of editing the Engine's INI-Files. This is technically equal to "modding", as in the moment you edited the INIs, you modified the game.

In the case of CnC games, this can either be done with a normal text editor like wordpad (as most people do), or with a special tool like TibEd.

RA2:YR Guide - Rules code (by Detail)

Intro - How to navigate the "Rulesmd.ini". You don't have to remember (or read) this to make a mod, but is useful.

Open - Open "Rulesmd.ini" in "WordPad.exe".

Layout - The Rule of RA2:YR are split into main sections "[General]", "[InfantryTypes]", "[VehicleTypes]", "[AircraftTypes]", "[BuildingTypes]", Art List, "[Warheads]", "[MultiplayerDialogSettings]", "[AI]", "[Sides]", "[Countries]", "[SuperWeaponTypes]", TechType Statistics, Weapon Statistics, Projectiles Statistics, Warhead Characteristics and Special Weapon types. Theres is a lot there !

Parts - This list shows what each section of the rules is used for.

Name. - Does?

[General] - Contains a variety of code that does not directly relate to any of the below.
[InfantryTypes] - Contains a list of all the infantry used in the game.
[VehicleTypes] - Contains a list of all the vehicles used in the game, whether terrestrial or naval.
[AircraftTypes] - Contains a list of all the "Aircraft," being both buildable and spawned types, including missiles used in the game.
[BuildingTypes]- Contains a list of all the Buildings used in the game, including Civilian and "tech" structures.
[Animations] This is a long list of all the Art and Animations used by the game.
[Warheads]- Contains a list of all the weapon bullet types used by the game.
[MultiplayerDialogSettings] - A small section of code that can be edited to change multiplayer settings, starting income, number of units, etc.
[AI] - An area of code that controls basic A.I.
[SuperWeaponTypes] - Contains a list of all the Super Weapons in the game.
[Sides] - Contains a list of the playable and non-playable sides in the game, and what countries are in those sides.
[Countries] - Contains a list of all the playable and non-playable countries in the game.
TechType Statistics - This large section of the file is the most modified, it contains the code for all Infantry, Units and Aircraft in the game.
Weapon Statistics - Section of the file containing the code for all the weapons in the game.
Projectiles Statistics - Section of the file containing the code for a weapons projectiles.
Warhead Characteristics - Section of the file containing the code for all the weapons' warheads.
Special Weapon types - Small section of code used to customise the superweapons.

Conclusion - With this general knowledge of the rules it should make following parts of the Guide easier to understand. All of the various tags used in the games various .ini's are explained in DeeZire's Ini guides.

Common INI Coding Mistakes (by Kravvitz)

• Spelling and capitalization errors.
• Missing list entry.
• Missing art(md).ini entry.
• Bad techlevel, prerequistites, and/or owners.

Things you have to know (by DCoder)

Before you start reading the tutorials, reade this article to make sure you know what is necessary.

• INI files are case-sensitive. This isn't stressed enough. The files are case-sensitive, so if you reference a weapon called BIGGUN, you have to have [BIGGUN], not [BigGUn], not [BiGGUN], not [biggun], not [BIGGUn] or any other way. It's spelling must be consistent.
• You can use spaces between [ brackets ], but it's best not to.
• Some of the INI files need some dummy lines in the end, else they won't work. This is because of a parsing bug in the RA2 code, which prevents the last section from being read correctly.
• Read the DeeZire's INI Editing Guide. It is an invaluable source of information.
• Read the Glossary of Common Editing Terms

• See also: NCO-Bug