> > Oh, while I'm in a post, quick question - the MIX file containing the Sentry Gun, along with various other structures, is very interesting to me. In TibEd (in Art.ini in general, I suppose, as it's no different when I use a standard text editor to view Art.ini), it lists this SHP as NALASR. There's also an Image=NALASR. Now what I'm curious about is, the filename itself in the MIX file is NGLASR. Same for the Allies' structures - GAPILE's filename is GGPILE. Out of curiosity, does anyone know why this is?

> I think I can answer this last one...
> The second letter (a or g) determines which theater it is for.
> The naming goes like this:

> First, either an N for Soviet, or a G for Allies (from Nod & GDI in TS) or C for Civilian
> Then either G for generic or A for Snow
> Then the actual image name eg LASR for a laser
> This is because some buildings have additional snow/icicle effects on them in the snow theater, which would look totally inappropriate in urban or temperate, where there shouldn't be any snow!
> So for example, look at ggcnst.shp in generic.mix
> Then look at gacnst.shp in snow.mix
> They are identical, except that one has snow on the roof!

This isn't quite the full story. The first letter is actually totally irrelevant, WW just put those particular letters there to keep track of what building was for what side and personally I'd recommend sticking to it anyhow but you don't have to. The second letter is the important one. There are several possibilities for it actually (even more with YR) and it can be as follows:

A=Arctic or snow theatre, the cold one
D=Desert theatre (YR only)
G=Generic, any theatre that doesn't have its ow graphics gets this set by default
L=Lunar graphics set (YR only)
N=New urban graphics set (YR only)
U=Urban garphics set

> Whichever you list in the ini files, (nalasr or nglasr) the game will automatically use nalasr in snow and nglasr in any other theater. It's just easier than having to make a seperate entry for different theaters.

They have used the alphabetical order if you think about it, A is first in the alphabet. You can make different looking structures for each theater but only the arctic one is really made use of (the desert one would be a good one to make use of too IMO but WW didn't).

> That could probably have been said in less words, but I have a habit of overstating things (just ask reapr!) :-)