Here is a tutor started by DanO. I can't seem to find him around anymore. I thought it might be fun to add something new to this same mod every week. So, your task is to do this mission mod and save it. Save two or three copies onto floppies just in case. Next week we'll add something new. I hope you enjoy.

COMMANDOS

Mission Editing Tutorial #1

Written by DanO

Introduction:

Editing missions isn't as hard as you might think it is. It's all a matter of finding the object that you want to edit, then going ahead and changing its properties. In this tutorial, you will learn the very basics of editing missions.

You will learn how to:

	Edit the Properties of Existing Objects;

	Edit the properties of Patrols and;

	Place new objects.

Tools Required:

Before starting you will need a few tools. The first tool you will need is a Wargame.dir extraction utility. I recommend DIRExtractor by Erick Post (erik.post@student.utwente.nl). Currently it's still a very basic extractor and has few features but it does the job quickly and simply. You can download the utility at http://home.student.utwente.nl/erik.post/dirextractor.html.

You will also need a good text editor. If you don't know if you have a text editor or not then ask yourself "How are you viewing this document". Notepad or Wordpad is all that you really need.

Important Notes:

All the examples in this tutorial refer to Mission 1 and its "Mapa0000.MIS" file. Please extract this file before continuing.

Be sure to extract the file to the "Commanodos\Datos\Misiones\" directory. You will have to create the "Misiones" directory your self as it is not already there. Commandos will read the file from that directory. When you have finished extracting the file, continue on with the tutorial.

Lession 1: Editing the Properties of Existing Objects

Go ahead and open your "Mapa0000.MIS" file in your text editor. If you haven't already extracted it please do so now. And remember to extract it to your Commandos\Datos\Misiones\ directory. You will have to create the "Misiones" directory as it is not already there. Now you should be ready to edit.

When you open the file, the first thing you will see is a lot of confusing code. Most of it is not important to this lesson so we'll just skip all that for now. Now let's see what we shall edit. How's about we edit the inflatable raft sitting in the middle of the map. That's easy enough, now scan through code until you find this:

[

.CLASS MACRO

.TOKEN BALSA

.MACRO ZODIAC

.XYZ [ 968 1339 0 ]

.Angulo 135

.VolumenAgua BASE

.ColorBurbujas [ 0 63 63 ]

.Bando NEUTRAL

]

This here is the entire code for the raft. You can tell it's the code for the raft because of it's name BALSA

You can find the code for other objects by just finding their name in the game then searching for it in the code. I'll explain more on that later. But for now I'm just going to briefly explain how the structure of this code works then we're going to go straight to the editing.

First off, the words with the "." in front of them are the properties of the object, in this case the raft.

.CLASS seems to be the property for the category of objects that the raft is assigned to (read that again if you have to). So for the raft, that category is MACRO (I don't know why it is so don't ask). So the line reads: .CLASS MACRO

If this is all confusing to you then read through it again until you understand it.

.TOKEN seems to be the property for the name of the object. So if .TOKEN is the property, then BALSA must be the name of the object! The rafts name is BALSA. This line can be used to identify other objects in the game. Just find the objects name then look at this line to see if the code is for that object.

.MACRO is the property for the type of the object. In this case the object is a raft. But you might notice that the word "RAFT" doesn't come after .MACRO , ZODIAC does. ZODIAC is the term used to define the raft. So the line reads: .MACRO ZODIAC

I really hope that you aren't confused because I'm not going to explain it again.

This next line of code is very important. It starts out with .XYZ

Now if you're an experienced programmer then you might know that that stands for the coordinates of the object. But if you don't it's ok, I won't tell anyone. Let's see here, [ 968 1339 0 ], those must be the coordinates of the object!

So, let's go ahead and change them. Go ahead and save the file, make sure that it's in the Misiones dir. Run Commandos and load Mission 1. Everything looks the same right, well yea you haven't done anything yet. Go ahead and type in "Gonzo1982" or "1982Gonzo" or even "1982Gonzo1982" (only one of these will work for your computer). Doing this will activate the cheat mode which will allow you to view hidden messages that are very helpful when editing missions. Now click F9. WOH! A whole bunch of messages should appear on your screen. If they don't, try another one of the Gonzo codes then try F9 again. Now that you have all this information on your screen, you can change the coordinates of the raft. Let's scroll on over to the raft. It looks normal, nothings different. Put your mouse over it. What's the text that appears next to "BICHO TIP" and "BICHO CURSOR" in the middle of your screen? It's the name of the raft, BALSA. You can easily identify objects and search for them in the code by looking at their name. Now let's move the raft right next to the diver so that he doesn't have to go so far to get it. Scroll over to the diver and position your mouse over the river bank right next to him. What does it say right after "MUNDO NIVEL ACTUAL"? Can those be the coordinates of your mouse? Can you use those coordinates to position the raft? Damn straight you can. Take those numbers and put them in place of the old coordinates of the .XYZ line, replace the first two numbers with them, never replace the 0. Now your line should look something like .XYZ [ 1260 2090 0 ]

Save the file then restart Mission 1 in Commandos. Where's the raft? It's not where it usually is! It's next to the diver right where you put it! Congratulations, you just moved the raft!

Let's go ahead and edit the raft some more. Now the next line of code reads: .Angulo 135

What does that mean? Well Angulo means angle, so could that be specifying the angle of the boat? Let's test it and see what it does. Go ahead and delete 135. Now you can enter whatever angle you want. It doesn't matter. I changed mine to 0, so the raft should be horizontal to the map. Let's run Commandos and see what happens. Save the file then load up Mission 1. Now the raft should be pointed in whatever angle you specified. Cool huh! Let's edit one more property then move on to the next lesson.

Let's edit the line .ColorBurbujas [ 0 63 63 ]

If you spoke spanish then you would know that ColorBurbujas means Color Bubbles. This is the property for the color of the bubbles of the raft. We can make those colors whatever we want to! Now see those numbers right next to the property contained within those brackets. [ 0 63 63 ] That is the RGB value for the color. RGB value is the amount of red, green, and blue in a color. Now there are 255 different versions of red, green, and blue so those three numbers must all be between 0 and 255. Let's go ahead and make the color bubbles red, that's easy enough. So red would be the first number out of the three because the order is red, green, blue. Change 0 to 255 and the other numbers both to 0. Your line should now read [ 255 0 0 ]

Save the file and load Mission 1. Take your diver and pick up the raft. Drop it off closer to the river then hop in. Now let's see here, row around a bit and notice the bubbles that appear below the raft. They're red! Now you can specify the color to be whatever you want, all you have to do is change the RGB value.

Congratulations because you have just completed lesson 1!

Lesson 2: Editing the Properties of Patrols

Patrols are just as easy to edit as the raft in the previous lesson. It's the exact same process just with different properties.

Let's go ahead and edit the two-man patrol guarding the truck. To edit the patrol, we're going to have to need to know the name of the patrol so we know what code to edit. So let's load up Commandos and find out what the name is. Load up mission 1 then go ahead and enable the cheats. If you don't know how to enable the cheats then go back and read lesson 1. Hit F9 to show the hidden messages. Scroll on over to the truck and find the patrol. Now put your mouse over one of the guards patrolling. A message in the middle of your screen should appear. It will say either BICHO TIP pat_cond0_0001 or BICHO TIP pat_cond0_0002. Now that there is the name of our patrol, pat_cond0. We exclude the _0001 and _0002 because those are just the numbers assigned to the guards and aren't important for what we're doing. The important part, the name, comes before those numbers. Now that we have the name of the patrol, we can edit it's properties. Now open up your "Mapa0000.MIS" file in your text editor and find the code that reads:

[

.TOKEN pat_cond0

.NSOLDIERS 1

.RUTADEF [

[

.NOMBRE RUTA1

.TIPORUTA PINGPONG

.RUTA [

[ .XYZ [ 862 2938 0 ] ]

[ .XYZ [ 1171 3173 0 ] .ESPERA 125 .ANGULO 30 ]

]

.VEL [ ]

]

]

.REGENERATEPATROL 0

.SIGUEHUELLAS 1

.REGENERATE 0

.LOOKBACK 1

.NONSTOP 1

.STARTATHOME 0

.ANIMPAL -1

.VIGILARDEF [ .ANGBARRIDO 50 .DEMORA 50 ]

.ANIMCABO ALEGABAR

.ANIMSOLDADO ALEGABAR

.DISPARARCABO METRALLETA

.DISPARARSOLDADO METRALLETA

.XYZ [ 862 2938 0 ]

]

]

This here is the entire code for that patrol. Notice how the name of the patrol comes after .TOKEN

You can edit other patrols by finding there names and looking for their code by checking here. Now let's go ahead and edit this patrol. What should we do first? Let's change the amount of people in the patrol. That's easy enough.

Now go on to the second line .NSOLDIERS 1

This line specifies the amount of soldiers in the patrol. .NSOLDIERS is the name of the property for the amount of soldiers. So the number right after this property must be the amount of soldiers in the patrol. But the current number is 1 and there are two guards patrolling. What's going on? Well what's going on is that the number for the amount of soldiers starts its count at zero. This means that there will always be one more soldier for the actual number specified. For example, if the number was 4, there would be 5 soldiers patrolling. If the number was 0, there would be 1 soldier patrolling. So just subtract one from the actual amount of soldiers you want to have in your patrol, and you will have your number. Now let's go ahead and get rid of one of those guards. So find the line, and change the number 1 to 0

Save your file then load up mission 1 in Commandos. Oh looky here, now there's only one guard patrolling. Isn't that just great. Let's go ahead and edit some more. Why don't we edit the route of the patrol.

Go ahead and find the lines that read:

[ .XYZ [ 862 2938 0 ] ]

[ .XYZ [ 1171 3173 0 ] .ESPERA 125 .ANGULO 30 ]

This here is the code for the route of the patrol. Hey look, it's that .XYZ thing again. That means that there are coordinates to edit. The first line specifies the first coordinate of the route. Now we can change that coordinate to whatever we want. Go ahead and go into Commandos, you should still have your cheats enabled and hidden messages on but if you don't just re-enable them. Now let's see here, where should we move the first coordinate? Let's move it just to the left of the house by the dock. So go ahead and position your mouse over there, the coordinates for that spot should be something along the lines of 515 2640 0

So let's change that first coordinate to the new coordinate. Go ahead and input the new coordinates into the code. Your line should now look something like [ .XYZ [ 515 2640 0 ] ]

Now let's change the second coordinate and make the patrol go up onto the dock. So let's get back into Commandos and find the coordinates of the position right on top of the dock. Those coordinates should be somewhere near

710 2240 0

So go ahead and edit the second line so that it reads something like

[ .XYZ [ 710 2240 0 ] .ESPERA 125 .ANGULO 30 ]

If you want, you can also change the angle that the patrol faces once they reach that second coordinate. To do this, just change the angle that comes after .ANGULO to whatever angle you want the patrol to be facing.

Now that you've edited the route of the patrol, you also have to edit the starting position of it. This is very simple. Just scroll down through your code to the very next .XYZ

This one should read .XYZ [ 862 2938 0 ]

Change the coordinates of this line to the coordinates you specified for the first point of your route. So the line should now read .XYZ [ 515 2640 0 ]

Now save the file then reload mission 1 in Commandos. What happened to the guard patrolling by the truck? Ohhh, he's patrolling by the docks instead. And if you wait long enough, he'll spot your diver across the river and start shooting at him. Isn't that just great!

Well, you now have the knowledge to change the amount of people in a patrol and how to change it's route and starting position. Just think of all the possibilities of things that you can do. Now go ahead on move on to lesson 3.

Lession 1: Placing New Objects

The way I create new objects is pretty simple and easy. All I do is find the existing code for the object I want to place then I copy and paste it. Is that cheating?

Well, this lesson is going to be pretty short and to the point.

So let's say we want to create a new barrel...oh say...next to the Green Beret and his starting position. That's easy enough. So we have to go into Commandos and find out the name of the existing barrels. Enable the cheats then hit F9. Now the hidden messages are displayed. Now scroll over to a barrel and put the mouse over it. Iin the middle of the screen the name of the object appears. In this case the name is Barril

All barrels are named this (at least to my knowledge) and they usually have a number appendixed to the end of them to identify which barrel they are.

That's pretty simple. Now open up the go into your Mapa0000.mis file and scan through the document until you find the word Barril

There will probably be a few instances of it. Find the code that contais it that looks like this:

[

.CLASS MACRO

.TOKEN BARRIL5

.MACRO BARRIL

.XYZ [ 517 255 0 ]

]

There will be five instances of code that looks like this in Mission 1. You can use any of them.

Now there are five barrels in the mission and you want to add another one. So copy this code and paste it on the next line. Change .TOKEN BARRIL5 to .TOKEN BARRIL6

Because you're adding a additional barrel you have to name this new one BARRIL6

Whenever you add an additional object you're going to have rename it to the next barrel. BARRIL(1,2,3,4,5,6...)

Go to the .XYZ line then change the coordinates to your desired one. The coordinates next to the Green Beret are

1270 3540 0 so change them to that.

The code for your new barrel should look like this:

[

.CLASS MACRO

.TOKEN BARRIL6

.MACRO BARRIL

.XYZ [ 1270 3540 0 ]

]

Now save the file then reload mission 1 in Commandos. Scroll over to your Green Beret and there you will find a brand new barrel sitting right next to him. Go ahead, blow it up, pick it up, it's real.

Congratulations because you are done with this tutorial.

Now you have the basic knowledge to go on and edit other missions. Good luck.

Part 2 - by Troll-Chi

Coming soon!!!

Next we will learn the different commandos and how to insert them. Lets add a another commando to this mod. Next week right here at

CMC

Troll-Chi