Command & Conquer [cheats&hints] 1. Hack: ======= In C&C, you can stop your money from decreasing by changing some bytes in the GAME.DAT file. Just search for: 29 B3 D6 00 00 00 EB 0A 89 C2 29 F2 and change it to: EB 04 D6 00 00 00 EB 0A 89 C2 90 90 (only the first two bytes and the last two bytes are different) For C&C v1.07, this string starts at offset 93CBF For C&C v1.20, this string starts at offset 739F0 For all other versions: FIND IT YOURSELF!!! I DON'T HAVE THEM! 2. "Sandbag war": ================ The enemy AI doesn't destroy barriers. Using this to your advantage, you can build a line of sandbags around your base to keep them away, and you can also actually surround the enemy base with sandbag walls, cutting off their resources and fencing in their armies. Better don't use concrete: If one of your units passes an enemy tank, that tank will destroy the wall by shooting at your unit. This can result in a destructing wave of attacking enemies. You better lose one unit than risking that. 3. Secret missions: ================== -This only works if you have the Covert Operations installed. (C&C v.1.20) At the Dos prompt type in : "C&C funpark". Then in the game, just press "START NEW GAME" for a very interesting time with dinosaurs. 4. Cheat: Place buildings anywhere on the map: ============================================= WARNING: This trick only works if you DON'T have the Covert Ops. installed. (any C&C version lower than 1.19) This is a trick to place buildings anywhere on the map. You need a radar to do this. 1. Build a building. 2. When the building is ready, click on one of your units, then click on the building icon. Now you need a building at the right side of your screen. Move your mouse to the right side of your screen so that you can place the building on its current position OR the building is partly over one of your buildings. 3. Move your mouse a bit to the right, so that it is on the sidebar. 4. Click on the radar mini map on the place where you want to build. 5. The building will appear on the place where you clicked on the radar. Warning: Don't build buildings in unrevealed terrain: you won't be able to use the building until you discovered it. 5. Cheat: Money from "almost dead" guys: ======================================= Don't you HATE sending nearly dead people to combat? With this trick you can sell them. You can get money from "almost dead" guys! Infantry + Vehicles: 1. Build a wall of any kind (sandbag, chainlink, concrete). 2. Move the guy you want to sell beside, above or underneath the wall. 3. For infantry, make sure he is on one of the 3 "sub-places" close to the wall. (there are 5 infantry sub-places on each square) 4. Select the 'Sell' option. 5. Move the dollar sign above the wall, then move it towards the unit so that it is still revolving, but you see the name of the unit. 6. Now click and you will sell the unit, getting one half of its price. Notes: * You can ONLY sell your own units, not enemies (or allies) * You can still sell burning/dying infantry that's next to a sandbag. * -=NEVER=- SELL A LOADED APC OR CHINOOK: you will only receive money for the APC or the Chinook, but the infantry will be gone too!!! * Also, never sell units you're suppposed to rescue, like Moebius or Delphi: you won't get any money for them, and you'll lose your ability to win. You won't lose, however. * -=ALWAYS=- SELL MOBILE HQ'S. People who put them in their missions as "objects to keep alive" are stupid. Note: You can also sell vehicles on a repair bay. (No cheat, the normal way) 1. Build a Repair Bay. 2. Move the vehicle onto the Repair Bay. 3. Select the 'Sell' option. 4. Move the dollar sign onto the vehicle until it becomes small and green, click on the vehicle and you get one half of the units cost. 6. Cheat: Free minigunners: ========================== 1) Do this if you want a big minigunner army! 1. Build a defensive building (turret, SAM-site, guard tower, etc.) 2. Press SELL, press with your left mouse button on the building and then quickly press the right button and then the left button again (click on the building) and press "S". The building will stop selling, but you will keep the minigunners that come out. 3. Repeat this and you will have VERY MUCH minigunners! 2) There is another thing you can do to get free minigunners: When you play with Nod, and you have a Temple with a Nuke ready to launch, sell the Temple, and while the selling animation is still running, launch the Nuke. The Temple will stop selling to launch the Nuke, and you will get the infantry that comes out. There will be 5 infantry units. Some of them could be technicians. I know, in a single player game it works only once, but it works. In multiplayer this means you get some free infantry with every missle you launch. (if you're dirty enough to cheat in multiplayer games) 7. Cheat: Money cheat: ===================== By combining the two tricks from above, we have this one: 1. Build this: ### ### #0# 0 : Obelisk / Adv. Grd Tower # : Wall of any kind (sandbag, chainlink, concrete) 2. Press SELL, press with your left mouse button on the guard tower, then quickly press the right button and then the left button again and press "S". The building will stop selling, and the minigunners that come out will stay on the sandbag before the guard tower. 3. Then press SELL and sell the minigunners just by clicking on them. You will get a "SELL" cursor because they are standing on the wall. 4. Repeat this and you will have VERY MUCH MONEY!!! ($250 every time you do this trick) Note: Only the wall directly above the guard tower really has to be your wall. (it has to be a wall you can sell) The others can be buildings, rock, tanks, etc. Anything you can't walk on is OK. 8. Cheat: Move infantry units over walls: ======================================== A trick to move infantry units over walls: (this trick also works with rocks) When you have a corner in a wall, you can move infantry over it. This cheat works with corners in all directions, but you have to be outside of the corner. 1. If you have a wall like this, move your men to one side of the corner: ######### # --> i # # # # : wall of any kind (sandbag, chainlink, concrete, wood...) i : Infantry unit(s) 2. Move the infantry unit(s) to the other side of the corner as shown. _/--> X /######### | # i # # # 3. When one of the units walks over the corner of the wall only a little bit, move your men inside the base. One of them will walk over the wall. _/--> /######### i #`\ # `\-> X # # You will have to repeat this trick several times before it works. I found the trick, and it's still difficult for me. 9. Hints: How to avoid Nukes, Airstrikes, etc. : =============================================== 1) Nukes: When you know the A.I. has a Temple of Nod with Nuke, place an Adv. Guard Tower to the north of your base, with sandbags around it. (See 7: Money cheat) Make sure it is far enough away from your base. -When you know the A.I. will launch the Nuke when you attack the Temple, attack the Temple, and when you see smoke above the Temple's missle silo, sell the Adv. Guard Tower, then sell the infantry that comes out with the sandbags. (See 7: Money cheat) The Nuke will only hit the sandbags, and the sandbags won't be destroyed. The Nuke will cost you exactly... $250. Not even the price of a Bazooka soldier. Note that (in normal missions) the Nuke will be fired only once in the game when the A.I. only launches a nuke when you attack the Temple. -When the Nuke Launch is connected to a timer, you 're not so lucky: you won't be able to predict them, and they will launch more than one time. But the biggest problem will be that you have less time to sell everything. Just do the same as above from the moment you hear the computer voice announce a Nuke. => WARNING!!! This doesn't work when you have an Adv. Comm. Center: The Adv. Comm. Center will become the Nuke target! Good to know: you can still sell burning infantry that's next to a sandbag. (If you didn't have time to sell them before the Nuke) Note that no more nukes will be fired when the Temple is destroyed once, even when the A.I. rebuilds it. 2) Airstrikes: Make sure the building the most to the north is a SAM-site. Make sure your units don't come higher than that SAM: they will become the target. Your SAM won't destroy all A-10's, and he 'll be damaged a lot, but he will make sure you don't lose any buildings. 3) Ion Cannons: Don't build Obelisks. Build 4 turrets instead. Now make sure the building the most to the north of your base is a SAM-site: the Ion Cannon can't destroy a closed SAM-site with one shot. Note that no more Ion Cannons will be fired when the Adv. Comm. Center is destroyed once, even when the A.I. rebuilds it. 10. CHEAT: HOW TO STOP NUKES: ============================ This is a cheat for single player games only. When a nuke is launched at your base, DO NOT PANIC. Just wait until it falls on your base. From the moment you see the nuclear explosion, SAVE your game (BEFORE the Big Flash), abort your mission, exit C&C, and then start C&C again and load your mission. You will see the "Nuke" animation disappear, and it will be as if the nuke had never been launched. Remember: if you play with Nod and you've launched a nuke at the enemy's base, DON'T SAVE YOUR GAME DURING THE NUKE EXPLOSION!!! (this is the way I discovered the trick. Funny, but I lost my Nuke...) 11. Playing without CD: ====================== First, install the game as usual. Then copy all .MIX files files from the root directory of the CD-ROM to that C&C directory. You can skip four files: SCORES.MIX, MOVIES.MIX, ZOUNDS.MIX and SETUP.MIX This way you won't hear the music and you won't see the great videos but it saves some 500 MB harddisk space! (ZOUNDS.MIX and SETUP.MIX are not used by C&C, so you better skip them too) Having done that, you start the game like this: C&C -cdX were X is the path to your C&C directory. For example: C&C -cdc:\games\c&c *!* If C&C crashes every time you try to start/load a mission in C&C, use the *!* Mix Manager to extract one of the following files in your C&C directory: *!* *!* 1st file, transit.mix Great Shot! (Music played on highscores screen) *!* 2nd file, transit.mix Music played on the main menu *!* \-> "INDEX" order in the Mix Manager *!* *!* Extract the file as AOI.AUD. The computer recognises this file as the *!* "Act On Instinct" theme. As long as C&C finds this theme, you won't have *!* this problem anymore. *!* If you want one of the real themes, check out the SCORES.MIX file. 12. Hints for Nod mission 13 C: ============================== When you choose mission C as last mission when you play with Nod, you start on an island at the top left corner of the map. When you captured the helicopter on the island and you killed every GDI on it, let your commando blow up the church, pick up the money and fly to the island. Now we are ready to go. 1. DON'T deploy your MCV on top of the map: he will become an airstrike target. Move him south before deploying. 2. Build some engineers and bazooka's, then drop off your commando on the land you see at the east and recon everything you can without damaging your commando. Your heli will be hurt a bit, but he won't be destroyed. 3. Now land the Bazooka's and shoot the Mammoth Tank. Then destroy some of the walls so your troops can pass. 4. Land a lot of minigunners, at least 20. Then land some engineers. 5. Attack all units in the base with your bazooka's, minigunners, and your Commando and start capturing the base. To destroy the Adv. Guard tower in the base, attack him with minigunners, and while he is shooting at your minigunners, blow him up with your commando. Also, capture one of the nearby buildings. * Remember to put a unit/sandbag on the place of the destroyed Guard Towers to prevent the computer from rebuilding them. 6. Build some tanks to destroy the remaining guard towers. * Don't try to capture the Const. Yard before everything is secured: There are some hidden Adv. Guard towers. After a while, you will get an MCV at the south of the island where you start. Just build a sandbag next to it and sell it. You already have a good base, so why start a new one? You could also clear the path to your (new) base and move the MCV there. After all, it's always handy to have an extra MCV. Note: Tiberium could become a problem when you capture the GDI base. Try not to harvest everything from your starting island. 13. Detecting Stealth Tanks: =========================== There are three simple ways to detect Stealth Tanks. A. Radar trick: -------------- This trick has no limitations, but it's inaccurate: it's difficult to pinpoint the Stealth's exact location. 1. Select any vehicle/aircraft that can shoot. (NO guard towers) 2. Move your cursor around in the radar map. 3. Now, you will see an "attack" cursor on every place where there is an enemy unit (duh!). The trick is that you will also get an "attack" cursor on an enemy Stealth Tank. So basically, all you have to do is move your mouse around on the radar map until you find one. 4. When you have an army of Orca's or Apache's, attack the Stealth Tank on the radar. The Stealth will uncloak to attack your units, and your helicopters will see it and destroy it. To pinpoint the Stealth more accurately, zoom in on your radar map. You can do this by clicking on the [MAP] button or right-clicking on the radar screen. B. Helicopter trick: ------------------- This trick works only when the Stealth is on certain places on the map, but it's very accurate: you can see the Stealth on your battlefield. This allows you to use Ion Cannons against them. OK, here it goes: When you have selected one of your units, you will get a "move" cursor instead of an "attack" cursor when you hold your mouse cursor above a cloaked Stealth Tank of a different team. This can work in your advantage: Helicopters can't land on the concrete slabs that are attached to most buildings. When you select a helicopter, you will see a "don't move" cursor appear when you hold your mouse cursor above such a slab. However, when you DO get a "move" cursor, this means there is a cloaked Stealth Tank on it. Basically, helicopters can only land on places where you can build. This means this trick works on all places where you can move vehicles, but where you can't build. These places are: -concrete slabs -tiberium (incredibly handy to secure large tiberium fields) -some beaches in the Temperate/Winter theaters The four easiest ways to destroy detected Stealth Tanks are: 1. Ion cannon. Really funny if the last enemy unit is a Stealth Tank hiding on a beach or on Tiberium :) 2. Send an army of minigunners to the tank. They will attack it, even if the tank doesn't uncloak. 3. Airstrike (not really accurate: the Stealth will try to escape the fire) 4. Attack the Stealth with helicopters using the Radar trick. If he doesn't uncloak when you arrive, use the [CTRL]-key (force attack). Note: [CTRL] doesn't work on tiberium: you can't attack tiberium. C. Placement trick: ------------------ This is a cheat for multiplayer, to find Stealth spies in your base. I suppose it's quite obvious, but I'll put it here anyway. 1. Build a large building (Refinery is the largest, and quite fast to build) 2. When it's ready, click on the icon, and move the placement grid around your base. On clear terrain, any red spots in the grid are stealths. 14. Hints: How to use a commando: ================================ A commando doesn't lose any health from blowing up a building. He loses health because the minigunners that survive the blast start shooting at him. To blow up a building with a commando without being hurt a lot, move your commando under the building (South) and blow it up. From the moment the commando placed the bomb, move him South again. The minigunners who will come out will go up first (North). This will give you time to run away from them (to the South) and kill them. Another way is to make your commando place the bomb, and then see in which direction he runs away. Then, immediately move him in the same direction as he is already running, so that he keeps running away. When the building blows up, he will be too far away to be attacked by the minigunners. The first method is not 100% reliable. I would give you a 60% chance that your commando won't be hurt. The second method is a bit more tricky, but I would give you a 80% chance. 15. Cheat: Speed up harvesting production: ========================================= This trick can help you to speed up your harvesting production, but it is not very useful as you have to look after your harvester all the time. Anyway, here it goes: When your harvester starts entering a square of tiberium, press "S". The tiberium will disappear immediately, and will be stored in your harvester. Like this, the harvester doesn't waste any time at the actual harvesting. You will just need the time the harvester needs to go to the next square of tiberium. 16. Make them panic: =================== Take your HEX editor and make a new file named "MOUSE.SHP". Put a few 00's in it, and copy it to someone's C&C directory to give him the shock of his life: the mouse cursor in C&C won't change into a move/attack/select/sell/repair cursor anymore. ;) (00=HEX! - Two 00's will do the job) When the file is completely empty, the mouse will be invisible. Don't do this: the person who plays will find out before he enters the battlefield. :( 17. Tiberium harvesting without silos ===================================== When your refinery storage is getting full, start constructing another building. The construction will use up the tiberium in your storage. When the construction is finished, cancel the building. You will get your money back, but the tiberium will not return. 18. Special GDI ending ====================== In the last GDI mission, destroy all buildings except of the Temple of Nod, then wait until your Ion Cannon is ready. When your Ion Cannon is ready, attack the Temple with your units, but stop once its health bar turns red. Then, immediately finish it off with your ion cannon. You will get a special ending movie in which you will see Kane vaporize in the Ion beam. Now we're sure he's really dead :) 19. Play the C&C Main Menu music in the game ============================================ This is the way to play the Main Menu music when playing C&C: 1. In the C&C main menu, press "Load Game" 2. Select the game you want to load, eject your CD and press "Load". 3. C&C will ask you to insert the CD needed for thar savegame. Close your CD drive again and wait until the computer initialised it. 4. Press "OK". Now, the game will load, but instead of "Act On Istinct", the Main Menu music will be playing. It will repeat until you select another theme in the Sound Options menu. 20. Creator's notes: =================== Some of these cheats are copied from different sources, but I found a lot of these cheats myself, and you probably won't find them anywhere else. These cheats are: 1. Hacking the GAME.DAT I found this in Cheat Machine, a program that contains a huge list of cheats for different games. The hack was done by Cheat machine itself, without any explanation but "this stops your money from decreasing". As it simply changed some fixed locations in the GAME.DAT, it only worked on C&C v1.07. I used some tools to find out which bytes Cheat Machine had changed, and then "patched" my C&C v1.20 GAME.DAT using that information. It worked fine. 7. The money cheat: I didn't find the sell-stop and sandbag-sell tricks myself. The combination trick itself is quite obvious, but this way of using it makes it all very easy: you really have a "money factory", without having any problems like accidently selling the sandbags. Just sell, stop, select "sell" again and click on the sandbag with minigunners five times. 8. The cheat to move infantry units over walls: I found this one while playing the Nod Covert Operations mission "Deceit". After I found out how the trick worked, I used it (in other missions) to sneek commando's into enemy bases, bomb something, and get them out again using the same trick. Of course, this only works if the enemy base has corners that allow you to get out again. 10. The cheat to stop Nukes This one is my masterpiece. I haven't found it anywhere on the Internet, so I think I'm actually the only one who discovered this. Unfortunately, I found the trick when playing with Nod. Funny, but I lost my Nuke... 13. Detecting Stealth Tanks B. Helicopter trick: Well... I was looking for targets in the enemy base that had no air protection when I saw that there was one cell on a concrete slab where my helicopter got a "move" cursor. I knew helicopters can't move there, so my conclusion was that there was be a Stealth tank on the slab. Later on, I tested it on Tiberium and beaches, and it worked there too. C. Placement trick: I learned this trick from bitter experience, when the Stealth Tank I was using to spy in my brothers base (2 player LAN-game) was suddenly shot in pieces. When I asked him how he found my Stealth, he told me the tank was on the place where he wanted to put his Weapons Factory. 14. The hints on how to use a commando Not much to say about this one. It annoyed me that my commando got hurt every time he blew up a building, so I looked for ways to let him take less damage. 16. Make them panic This (stupid) joke is the result of trying to put the Dune II mouse cursor in C&C. But due to a bug in my HEX editor, all bytes in the file were changed into '00' bytes. At first, I actually thought this was because of the Dune II mouse cursor, but it must be some kind of "backup cursor" C&C uses when it detects the file doesn't have the right file format. Later, I tried it again, this time using the real Dune II MOUSE.SHP file. The only result was that Command & Conquer crashed enthousiastly. The file format was probably -almost- the same. 19. Play the C&C Main Menu music in the game I noticed that C&C kept playing the Main Menu music in the game when I didn't have the right CD in my CDROM drive when I loaded a game. Later on, I experimented on how I could do the same thing without having to change the CD's every time. Created by Maarten Meuris (maarten-meuris@tiscalinet.be)