Patching extra functionality into <gamemd.exe>

[pd]

OK some news here:

1)
The CellSpread limit was pure laziness by WW. Instead of creating an algorithm to calculate the number of cells affected, they just made an array with 12 values, that's why 11 was the limit (only 11 because 0 is also one).

Meh, and now, when I created that algorithm, I know why WW left that, it took me ~4 hours.
But the limit's broken, I tried a nuke with CellSpread=100, worked fine

2)
Yet again laziness by WW, this time with loading sidecXX.mix files.
There were a few simple instructions, they'd look like this if coded e.g. in C:

tempPlayerSide=PlayerSide;
if(PlayerSide==2)
{PlayerSide=1;}
[...]
PlayerSide=tempPlayerSide;

That means (for non-coders): If the player's side is Yuri, set it to Soviet while loading the UI.
I fixed that, you can now set a flag in the [General] section to make the game load sidec03.mix for Yuri.

BTW, this is very interesting: the game loads sidec04.mix, sidec05.mix etc if the player's side is such. That saves a HELL LOT of work when attempting to add new sides to the game!

No new patch yet, I wanted to ask something to Marshall:
What do you think? Should the next patch patch the "NewInfDeath" patch or should it restore the original exe and then patch the whole thing?
I think the second would be better...

Why I'm leaving NewCountries:
1. You can only have 3 new ones. I'm going to change that.
2. Stringtable entries etc called "test" suck, they'll be changed also.
I dunno when I do this, but it'll be important for adding sides.

100-limit-bug still stays a mystery.
I also attempted to modify the MagnaBeamColor etc, w/o success yet.

@DCoder:
Hmm, it should work, everything's fine.
If I were at home I could test it
It's confusing that it doesn't even spawn the infantry, because that would even work without the patch, same for playing the anim.
Do the "standard" InfDeaths work for you?

Hm... just having a look at the ini; noticed the
";gs Can't add animations to the middle of the list" in the Animations section?
475 is in the "middle of the list".
Maybe that's the reason (I never tried that)?

I'll try your stuff with BORIS and PrismWarhead, maybe something's avoiding that.
I don't hope so :unsure:

@ many of you:
You'll be in the affiliate list next update

EDIT:
@Marshall:
I just read your email (I should do that before posting here).
Compability is the main thing I keep in mind.
Even the sidec03.mix stuff will be OPTIONAL. So nothing will be affected by just applying the patch. It just sets new possibilities.
Flexibility is also an aim of mine, but is some cases quite difficult to keep. I'll do what I can.