Jump to content
Godwin Cooke

Can't capture advanced communications center in Nod Mission 12

Recommended Posts

I can't seem to capture the GDI advanced communications center in NOD Mission 12. I know that it's supposed to be uncapturable except for that mission but is seems to be uncapturable there too.

 

Thing is that the mission cannot be completed without taking over the advanced communications center. So what is up?

Also when I used engineers to steal/sell the GDI builders yard it left behind an objective crate. Which is funny. Don't know what it signifies. But basically until I can get this sorted out I'm totally stuck.

Share this post


Link to post

Did you load the mission from an old savegame? Custom capturability is a mission option now, which means it gets loaded from the mission file, and saved in the savegame. If you loaded the mission from an old savegame, then that custom capturability data will not be in there.

To fix the problem, you simply have to restart (and thus, replay) the mission.
(mind you, if you upload your savegame here I may be able to edit it in ;))

The custom capturability system was implemented mainly because the advanced communications center was actually never truly uncapturable. The mouse cursor just prevented you from giving a capture command for it to an engineer. This had the huge disadvantage that when playing with GDI, the AI enemy's engineers were still perfectly able to capture your advanced communications center, and then you wouldn't even be able to capture it back. With this system, the building's capturability is not only really changed, but mission makers can also use the same logic for any building they want.

The steel crates in the Nod campaign are a leftover of an old bonus objective in the game that was patched out by Westwood a long time ago. Basically, you would not get a nuke in the final Nod mission unless you found them all throughout the campaign. They apparently removed the system when implementing the expansion pack, because it prevented the nuke from working in Covert Operations missions.

Share this post


Link to post

Did you load the mission from an old savegame? Custom capturability is a mission option now, which means it gets loaded from the mission file, and saved in the savegame. If you loaded the mission from an old savegame, then that custom capturability data will not be in there.

 

To fix the problem, you simply have to restart (and thus, replay) the mission.

(mind you, if you upload your savegame here I may be able to edit it in ;))

 

The custom capturability system was implemented mainly because the advanced communications center was actually never truly uncapturable. The mouse cursor just prevented you from giving a capture command for it to an engineer. This had the huge disadvantage that when playing with GDI, the AI enemy's engineers were still perfectly able to capture your advanced communications center, and then you wouldn't even be able to capture it back. With this system, the building's capturability is not only really changed, but mission makers can also use the same logic for any building they want.

 

The steel crates in the Nod campaign are a leftover of an old bonus objective in the game that was patched out by Westwood a long time ago. Basically, you would not get a nuke in the final Nod mission unless you found them all throughout the campaign. They apparently removed the system when implementing the expansion pack, because it prevented the nuke from working in Covert Operations missions.

 

The problem is likely that I have been playing with no-cd mode turned on, no it's not an old pre-patch savegame. If it's been loading from the CD then it's probably what's happened is that it's loading the original mission from the disk, before your patch was installed. However because the mechanics of the game load from the hard disk, we end up with an incompatability between the two.

 

Interesting about the crates, it's a pretty silly ideas to have Nod use nukes in the final South African mission, because the political fallout would be immense and essentially they have everything to lose if the war goes nuclear. Given they control the whole of rest of Africa at that point they could simply conscript millions of Africans and overrun South Africa by sheer weight of numbers.

 

I do not wish to replay that mission just yet because I'm already sick of it having spent countless hours on it, those late Nod missions go on forever because the only way to win them is to fight GDI to a stalemate and then slowly, painfully build up a decent base and a second harvester to push the balance in your favour.

 

What's i'll do is restart the mission in No-CD mode and rush build a stealth tank and engineer, forgetting everything else, should work as it's power plants 900, barracks 300, Airstrip 2000, Comms Center 1000, Stealth Tank 900 and Engineer 500 with 5000 starting funds and the ability to sell the builders yard for anothe 2000. I'll sneak the stealth tank into the base and locate the comms center. Then I'll see whether the engineer can be ordered to convert it.

 

Afterwards I will tell you what happened and give you both savegames (the normal one and the stealth tank one for comparison) and see if you can edit the former so that it works properly like you said.

Edited by Godwin Cooke

Share this post


Link to post

Project Stealth Tank didn't work out as well as I thought. Buildings really are expensive in C&C.

 

Anyway I've got two save files here. Test 2 or File 27 is the original game save which has the problem, it was created under CD mode conditions. Test of File 28 is a new game save created under NoCD conditions.

 

Hope you can help.

Save Files.zip

Share this post


Link to post

The problem is likely that I have been playing with no-cd mode turned on, no it's not an old pre-patch savegame. If it's been loading from the CD then it's probably what's happened is that it's loading the original mission from the disk, before your patch was installed. However because the mechanics of the game load from the hard disk, we end up with an incompatability between the two.

NoCD mode doesn't make a single difference to the game. The missions aren't loaded from the CD from the moment they are found in the game folder, no matter whether you play with or without CD, and my patch puts them in the game folder. The only thing v1.06 still loads from CD are the videos.

I do not wish to replay that mission just yet because I'm already sick of it having spent countless hours on it, those late Nod missions go on forever because the only way to win them is to fight GDI to a stalemate and then slowly, painfully build up a decent base and a second harvester to push the balance in your favour.

Actually, one of the things I've learned from playing multiplayer C&C is that it's generally a good idea to start with building that second refinery as soon as possible.

 

Anyway, there are some beta options I've added as cheat codes you can type ingame. One of these stops drawing the shroud, meaning you can immediately test whether the Advanced Comm Center is capturable, from the very start of the mission.

 

I used the option ('tactical') after a mission restart, and put down my MCV, a power plant and hand of Nod, and then build an Engineer, and the capture cursor DOES appear on the Advanced Comm Center. Are you sure you're running 1.06c revision 3?

Share this post


Link to post

NoCD mode doesn't make a single difference to the game. The missions aren't loaded from the CD from the moment they are found in the game folder, no matter whether you play with or without CD, and my patch puts them in the game folder. The only thing v1.06 still loads from CD are the videos.

Actually, one of the things I've learned from playing multiplayer C&C is that it's generally a good idea to start with building that second refinery as soon as possible.

 

Anyway, there are some beta options I've added as cheat codes you can type ingame. One of these stops drawing the shroud, meaning you can immediately test whether the Advanced Comm Center is capturable, from the very start of the mission.

 

I used the option ('tactical') after a mission restart, and put down my MCV, a power plant and hand of Nod, and then build an Engineer, and the capture cursor DOES appear on the Advanced Comm Center. Are you sure you're running 1.06c revision 3?

 

Funnily enough my repair facility also stopped working as I told yo. I wasn't able to repair my damaged flame tank. It could well be that this is a one-off bug related to interacting with buildings in gen.eral.

 

Funny thing is that the game makers have precluded the second refinery strategy because there is no tiberium in the starting area and it's difficult to find the space for 2 large buildings in the canyons you start off in (the tiberium in my game blocks the canyon). The next area with tiberium requires you to destroy 2 mammoth tanks and you only start with 5000.

 

The game screen says I'm playing 1.06c r3. To load the cheat codes I have to do what? Just type in tactical?

 

Does my game save (the one with an advanced game state) allow you to capture Advanced Communications? Because if it does maybe if you were to resave that game on your computer and then hand it back to me then it would work.

Share this post


Link to post

The plot thickens. I can't seem to actually sell the Repair Pad. I wonder if it's a bug caused by the proximity of SAM sites that has somehow spilled over to the Advanced Communications Center.

Share this post


Link to post

No, the save game is indeed missing the capturability information. Do you have any loose mission files (sc[g/b]##e[a/b/c].ini) in your game folder that could interfere with the patched files in general.mix? I just restarted the mission and the capturability worked fine.

 

As for the starting area, um, you're supposed to go to the large open area at the west and build your base there. You can keep the two mammoth tanks busy almost indefinitely by making them chase your bikes around in the south-eastern part, while you build up some forces to finally get rid of them.

 

As for the codes, yes, you just type it in.

 

On the repair bay thing: I've heard of that bug, but for now, I don't have a clue what causes it. It's much older than my patch, anyway.

 

 

Anyway, I've edited your savegame now, to enable the ACC's capturability:

savegame27-fixed.zip

Share this post


Link to post

No, the save game is indeed missing the capturability information. Do you have any loose mission files (sc[g/b]##e[a/b/c].ini) in your game folder that could interfere with the patched files in general.mix? I just restarted the mission and the capturability worked fine.

 

As for the starting area, um, you're supposed to go to the large open area at the west and build your base there. You can keep the two mammoth tanks busy almost indefinitely by making them chase your bikes around in the south-eastern part, while you build up some forces to finally get rid of them.

 

As for the codes, yes, you just type it in.

 

On the repair bay thing: I've heard of that bug, but for now, I don't have a clue what causes it. It's much older than my patch, anyway.

 

 

Anyway, I've edited your savegame now, to enable the ACC's capturability:

 

I do indeed have loose mission files, I take it I am to delete them? What are the codes exactly and where to I type them in, that was my question.

 

Anyhow, my new save game worked fine allowing me to capture the advanced comms center quite fine, though not without cost. :( :(.

 

The repair bay bug, is it not caused by building other buildings too close? My SAM sites are pretty much on top of thing. It used to work and then for some reason it stopped working. Alternatively it could be caused by running out of resources.

 

I don't understand, it's there some kind of console or am I to type the code in blind?

Share this post


Link to post

The basic mission filename layout is sc[g/b/m]##[e/w][a/b/c/d/e].[ini+bin]. [g/b/m] is Goodguy/Badguy/Multi, "##" is the mission number (from 01 to 999), the 2 suffix letters are used for the different choices on the map (usually ea/eb/ec), and each mission is both a .ini (mission scripting and population in text format) and .bin (actual indestructible terrain in binary format) file.

 

The campaign missions are those with numbers lower than 20. For example, the mission you've been playing is Nod (Badguy) mission 12, and there's only one choice on the map (ea), making it the file pair SCB12EA.INI + SCB12EA.BIN. This mission 'code', minus the extension, also appears in the lower right corner of the ingame options menu.

 

The full list can be found in my mappics folder, under "campaign-gdi" and "campaign-nod"

Share this post


Link to post

The basic mission filename layout is sc[g/b/m]##[e/w][a/b/c/d/e].[ini+bin]. [g/b/m] is Goodguy/Badguy/Multi, "##" is the mission number (from 01 to 999), the 2 suffix letters are used for the different choices on the map (usually ea/eb/ec), and each mission is both a .ini (mission scripting and population in text format) and .bin (actual indestructible terrain in binary format) file.

 

The campaign missions are those with numbers lower than 20. For example, the mission you've been playing is Nod (Badguy) mission 12, and there's only one choice on the map (ea), making it the file pair SCB12EA.INI + SCB12EA.BIN. This mission 'code', minus the extension, also appears in the lower right corner of the ingame options menu.

 

The full list can be found in my mappics folder, under "campaign-gdi" and "campaign-nod"

 

These are inside mix files correct?

Share this post


Link to post

The campaign missions are inside general.mix, yes. However, if you have extracted versions in your game folder, those will override the ones inside the mix files. So if you have an old version of scb12ea.ini in your game folder (without the custom capturability code) the updated version inside general.mix will be ignored.

Share this post


Link to post

What are the codes exactly and where to I type them in, that was my question.

Well, only two have been implemented so far. You simply type them in during the game. The one to reveal the map (or, more specifically, to stop drawing the shroud; helis still can't fly into unrevealed terrain, so it's not really revealed) is "tactical".

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.

×