Problems trying to load the MOD disk

[Armand451]

Hi there all,

I am finally getting around to loading all the MODs from the MOD disk that came with the game. I am running Windows XP and cannot figure out how to load them. The intruction webpage says that some are self loading, but I cannot find that on any of them. Does anyone know what I should do? Thanks in advance!

JORDAN!!!

[Philippe]

There are two kinds of mods on the mod disk: CMMOS mods and non-CMMOS mods. I wouldn't call any of them self loading, but some of them are easier to use and remove once you make an initial time investment.

Make a big folder in your hard drive somewhere convenient. I call mine "CMBB mods and downloads" so that it shows up right next to the game in my C drive, and I made the folder name intentionally long so that it would be hard to mistake it for anything else.

Inside that folder, make a couple more. One of them should be called CMMOS mods, and one of them should be called Standalone mods. You can name these folders anything you like, though I would avoid calling anything simply CMMOS if you think there's a chance you might use it.

Get the standalone mods from the mod disk and put them in the Standalone mod folder. If you're feeling really compulsive you might consider making a separate sub-folder for each author -- that way when you're reading about his mod in the documentation it will be easier to find what you're supposed to be looking at. There may be an installer for part of this step, if so it is discussed in the readme files which are very helpful. The only problem is that there are three or four of them.

Put the CMMOS mods in the CMMOS mod folder, along with the various files that discuss CMMOS. What the mod disk comes with that does have a self installer is a program called CMMOS 4.03. It gets used for switching in and out of different mods.

Don't try using it without reading the documentation. Unless you happen to be a clone of Gordon Molek, you'll almost certainly get it wrong if you don't do a little reading first. MikeT wrote an excellent tutorial on how to use it, and Gordon wrote and continuously updated a very good illustrated readme file.

I'm told that there is more latitude in CMBB CMMOS than I usually let on. What follows is based on getting myself and others out of trouble with an earlier incarnation of the program.

When the CMMOS self-installer asks you where you want to put the program, do not put it in a folder called games, and whatever you do do not put it in CMBB. Unless something has changed it will set up its own folder along a path that looks something like C/Program Files/GEM Software Productions/CMMOS/etc. Try to keep it in the same directory as CMBB (it may be possible to relax that, but I've never tested it).

After CMMOS installs itself you will need to add some rule sets to it. CMMOS is an exchange program, rule sets tells the program what to exchange. There are several rulesets that come with the mod disk -- I can't remember whether they self install or not, but it's a good idea to try doing it manually (once again, read the readme files). They have been superceded by many rulesets (and many new CMMOS mods) that can be found at Madmatt's semi-unofficial site CMHQ at combatmission.com. Three quarters of what is on that site is on your mod disk, a little bit of it is older and didn't make the cut, but there's quite a lot that is top-flight and that can be downloaded. And if you look closely you'll even notice that some of the mods that are in the Standalone section of the mod disk are in CMMOS form on the site, so you'll eventually want to download these even though you already have them.

Depending on how much space you have, it might also be a good idea to make an extra installation of CMBB, throw out everything except the wav and bmp folders, and store these for reference in your mod folder. That was easier to do CMBO, but the reason for doing it here is that the cd stores the bmp folder in a very compressed form. I don't think it's such a pain to do the extra download, but having the safety back-up for the first few weeks that you're messing with mods (especially if you aren't quite sure what you're doing) can be quite useful. When you're comfortable that you know what is going on you can always delete your extra bmp and wav folders. By the way, it's a bad idea to store your back-up folders in the game folder itself (you might erase the wrong one). One of the reasons for the back-up folder is that CMMOS will eventually make zipped back-ups of whatever is in the bmp file the first time you use a CMMOS mod. The problem is, if you were messing around with stand-alones before you used CMMOS for the first time, the program will think the mod is a BFC original. Easy to fix, but a little disorienting the first time you encounter it.

Hope this helps, and read the readme files -- I think what self-installs and what doesn't is pretty clearly marked. You don't really want mods to self-install anyway, unless they come with an easy way to back out of it.