Well I hope you've got your awesome caps on today cause I'm going into a nice little detailed tutorial about Mercenaries and mods you can do for it! (To the extent that I've cared to test of course.) All mods I cover in here will be spotty, in the sense that, I'll cover things that even have an effect, or things I've at least tested to some extent. There will be MORE in the files than what I cover, but mod those at your own risk.

The layout of the tutorial will be as such. I'll be demonstrating and explaining to the best of my knowledge all you can do to files in the ISO, starting with files that aren't in folders, and working our way through folders afterwards. Before we continue, make sure you've EXTRACTED YOUR ISO.

The first tiles you see are going to be as follows, I'll list what I will, and will not be covering.
We WILL cover:
DATAxbox (folder)
rs (configuration file)

We will NOT cover:
Credits
msh2temp
rsm.cfg
rsm_xbox
shellscr
shaders
vehicles
and the xersb files


First up is the RS configuration file:
Open the file in your word editor of choice.
Most of the contents of this file are self explanatory and the dev's even left in comments that REALLY help in this step.

godmode off
infiniteammo off

Change to on, the cheats will stay on permanently.

artistgauges off
rumble on
terrainlod off

The artist gauges can be seen at the intro of the game, while you're on the airplane for the "tutorial" section of the game. If you switch to the artist gauges, it just measures things in game like polys and such (don't quote me on that I hadn't used them in a while). If you leave the plane with the artists gauges on you will be stuck with them I believe. Rumble should be left on if you like rumble, and the terrainlod should be left alone as well.

Scrolling down further we'll see things like
VehicleNoDeathSecondsAfterPlayerGetOut 0.05
and
VehicleDeathPlayerDamage 250

The comments above each parameter are pretty self explanatory, anything "time" based is measured in seconds, I'm not going to go into these though as you can figure this out by yourself. For example, if you don't want to take damage if your vehicle is blown up while your in it. Change

VehicleDeathPlayerDamage 250
to
VehicleDeathPlayerDamage 0

etc, etc.

The same goes for all the player fall damage, staggering, and jumping, that's all very self explanatory, and the comments provided are VERY easy to follow.

for the slope variables

SlideStartSlope 46
UnclimbableSlope 50

don't try to set higher than 90 degrees, it doesn't work, I've tested before.Your safest bet is to set SlideStartSlope to 89, and unclimableslope to 90. You'll walk up virtually anything except 90 degree angles.

For the section
[Use]
DefaultUseRadius 1
VehicleGetinRadius 1.5
VehicleActionHijackRadius 2
VehicleActionHijackHeliRadius 4
VehicleActionHijackFailRadius 0
Do not set the variables to ridiculously high levels, or you will get several vehicles 'enter' zones clouding your screen when you try to enter them.

Here's a fun part though.
[FactionRelation]

Any variable under here can be set to any number. I recommend not setting variables beyond 100.0.
If you're going to set a ridiculously high friendly relation for your factions, remember to set their Hostility Relax times to 100.0 as well, located just under that faction chart.

Damage here is very self explanatory. Look at the damage for things like rockets. It's 1.0, so that means if you mod bullets to 1.0, the bullets will have the same damaging effects to buildings, cars, and people as a rocket. Bear in mind enemies bullets will do the SAME THING. So mod this area wisely. There's a lot of damage data here but it's worth it in the end, nothing's more satisfying then blowing up buildings with a super sniper.

That covers the RS file!!!


From this point, go ahead and open the DATAxbox folder.
In the DATAxbox folder we will be looking at just about every file EXCEPT:
Movies
Sound
all .tga and.dsk files.
options
screens
levels
and CharStat


First things first in this folder, lets open up the mission configuration settings file.

Within here you'll see every mission in the game listed as such. (scroll down a bit to see what I'm talking about)

[SW_Allies1]
MissionTitleDbKey MissionInfo.MissionTitle.SWAllies1
ClientNameDbKey mail.senders.alliesboss
TimeLimitInMinutes 0
ContractFee 20000
BonusFee 0
ShortDescriptionDbKey MissionInfo.Description.SWAllies1
ImageKey screenshot_swallies1
Chapter MissionInfo.Chapter.Chapter1
Faction MissionInfo.Faction.Allies
Map SW
Number 1

Mostly you shouldn't mess around with anything other than the Contract Fee and Bonus Fee variables.
It just clearly states which mission in which area, for example this is the first Allied mission in the South West map. DO NOT SET THE MONEY TO A RIDICULOUS AMOUNT. 1000000 to 100000000 per mission is fine. I'd say go with the smaller but that's just me. this part is tedious but it helps if you hate having to play through the game a few times, or use a cheat to get money.

That covers the mission file.


Open the HUD folder now.
We will be modding Hud configuration file, not the radiomsg (do not touch this file).

Inside Hud it's very self explanatory as well.