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]", Item Statistics, Weapon Statistics, Projectiles Statistics, Warhead Statistics 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.
[Art List] 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.
[Item Statistics] - This large area of code is the most used, it contains the code for all Infantry, Units and Aircraft in the game.
[Weapon Statistics] - Contains the code for all the weapons in the game.
[Projectiles Statistics] - The code for a weapons projectiles.
[Warhead Statistics] - Contains 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.<b> 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