CNC Zero Hour

Welcome to the newest Tip of the Week for Zero Hour written by Opsnyder. This week will be about modding the game. Don’t worry, in this TotW I will not explain how to make entire mods. I will explain how to edit the units that are already in Zero Hour. As you will discover, this editing is actually quite easy to do and even though it’s not that hard, you will be able to create lots of cool stuff. Although I got no experience with editing CCG I think it works the same.

A few steps before we can start

Before you can start editing your Zero Hour there are a few things you have to do.

1. Copy your ‘Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour directory, which is located at: C/program files/EA games. Then paste this with a completely different name in the same directory. From now on this new directory will be for your edited stuff so your game remains compatible for online gaming and watching replays. Do not edit anything in your ‘Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour’ directory else you have to reinstall your game to play online.
   
2. Download Finalbig. This program will make the .ini files visible in which we’re going to do all the editing work.
3. Use Finalbig to open INIZH.big in your edited Zero Hour directory and extract the files in that same directory. You now have a INI directory in your Data directory. In this folder you will find a lot of .txt documents and more folders which have more .txt document inside them. Take a look at them, this is how your game has been build up by EA. In most files you can still see some notes and sometimes even some names of the people that made this game. And there are also some other weapons and abilities in the files which were edited out before the games release. Like a Red Guard bayonet ability or neutron Tank Hunters. Don’t edit any files if you don’t know what it does. If you do something the game doesn’t understand, it will error at the loading screen. If you can’t remember what you’ve changed or what it was supposed to be you can start all over again at step 1.

In this TotW we’re only going to use the weapon.ini file and some files in the Object map. Here is a short explanation of what these files do within the game: In the weapon.ini you see a huge list of weapon types. Every form of attacking or abilities units, buildings and general abilities have is created here. In the object map there are different files for all the armies you have in this game. All the units and buildings a army possesses are put together here giving them their stats and references to other files to create the unit. Here is also pointed out which attack types in the weapon.ini a unit should use and what the requirements are to use that attack.

Let the editing begin

Now it is time to actually start editing some files and make some fun units. Let’s start with a flamethrower red guard. All you have to do for this is scrolling trough the weapons in weapon.ini until you reach the flamethrower weapon of the dragon tank. It will take you a lot of searching, so here is the weapon I was aiming for: DragonTankFlameWeapon. Now you got to open the ChinaInfantry.ini file so you can edit the infantry of Chinav. Immediately on top you will find the Red Guard with some code that looks like this:

; ***DESIGN parameters ***
DisplayName = OBJECT:Redguard This tells what skins should be used for this unit. These skins are made in another INI file much like the weapon.ini file.
Side = China This tells which side is able to use this unit
EditorSorting = INFANTRY This tells what type of unit it is. It doesn’t always makes sense though. A black lotus is a vehicle for example so it can’t be crushed.
TransportSlotCount = 1 This tells how much space this unit will take in a transport. 0 means the unit isn’t transportable.
WeaponSet
Conditions = None This tells what the requirements are before a unit can use this weapon. A sentry drone has to buy a upgrade to get it’s machine gun for example.
Weapon = PRIMARY RedguardMachineGun This is the weapon the unit will have which refers to code in the weapon.ini file.
End

By replacing RedguardMachineGun for DragonTankFlameWeapon you will now have a flamethrower as standard Chinese infantry unit. From now one your enemy will fear your troopcrawlers.

The true battlemaster

Because the battlemaster isn’t really master in anything besides giving the enemy experience, I’ve decided to buff it a bit.... By shooting tomahawks from a distance of 600 (a normal tomahawk in Generals has a maximum range of 350).

This basically works the same as before. In the weapon.ini file you will find that the tomahawk weapon is called: TomahawkMissileWeapon. Only this time we’re not satisfied with the stats the tomahawk has. So in the weapon.ini you got to copy the follow code and paste it somewhere else in the file. Adding a 2 behind TomahawkMissileWeapon is enough to not effect the tomahawk itself.

Weapon TomahawkMissileWeapon2
PrimaryDamage = 150.0 300.0
PrimaryDamageRadius = 10.0 50.0
SecondaryDamage = 50.0
SecondaryDamageRadius = 25.0
ScatterRadiusVsInfantry = 20.0
AttackRange = 350.0 600
PreAttackDelay = 250
PreAttackType = PER_SHOT
MinimumAttackRange = 100.0
DamageType = EXPLOSION
DeathType = EXPLODED
FireFX = FX_TomahawkIgnition
ProjectileObject = TomahawkMissile
ProjectileExhaust = TomahawkMissileExhaust
VeterancyProjectileExhaust = HEROIC HeroicTomahawkMissileExhaust
; ProjectileDetonationFX = WeaponFX_TomahawkMissileDetonation
ProjectileDetonationFX = WeaponFX_BombTruckDefaultBombDetonation
RadiusDamageAffects = SELF ALLIES ENEMIES NEUTRALS NOT_SIMILAR
FireSound = TomahawkWeapon
DelayBetweenShots = 1
ClipSize = 1 3
ClipReloadTime = 7000 3000

First we change the damage it does to 300 and the blast radius to 50 so our battlemaster gets some big muscles. The attack range is of course not sufficient and will be improved to 600. I'm also not happy with the rate of fire. So the clipsize will be changed to 3 so my beautiful tank has 3 tomahawks to shoot before reloading. And off course the reloading gets reduced to 3000.



Now you open the ChinaVehicle file and edit BattleMasterTankGun for TomahawkMissileWeapon2 and your battlemaster is now truly a master of battle. Because it might be slightly overpowered now, i’m going to do some balancing EA style.

In the same file you will find this for the battlemaster:
BuildCost = 800
BuildTime = 10.0

If you change this to:
BuildCost = 900
BuildTime = 15.0
Then we got a perfectly balanced unit.


With the files in the object map and the weapon.ini you can make loads of fantastic units. If you want even more advanced changes to your own personal generals game, just look at the other files and experiment a bit. I’ve also did it this way and learned how most files work myself. For questions you can always PM me. I’m not a expert though and have no idea how to actually make models for new units.

Join the discussion about this tip!