Originally posted by nuclear1
There are only a few slight differences between HOTU and retail.
I'd disagree with that actually. There's actually some pretty big differences between the two in terms of how you'd use them with mods.
Retail FS2 is basically the version you buy in the shops. It came on 3 CDs, has all the cutscenes and keep all it's important files in VP files in the main FS2 folder.
HotU FS2 on the other hand has only 3 cutscenes, is missing a lot of files and most importantly of all keeps all it's data in the Freespace2\Data folder.
This change is what will cause you problems when you install mods.
How do I install mods on HotU? Due to the way HotU works installing mods on HotU is troublesome. It is best that you download the missing VP files and make HotU into an almost exact copy of retail before installing mods. (Details on how to do that are given
here)
If for some reason you don't want to do that then you should follow these rules
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- extract the files that make up the mod you want to install. If the files simply consist of files with the extension .fs2 and .fc2 then you can simply copy these to Freespace2\Data\Missions (It is unlike that you will be prompted to overwrite something. If it does then you should not do this and instead should go to the next point).
- If there are no files with the extension .vp then you should copy your entire Freespace 2\Data folder and then install the mod following the instructions that came with the mod. If you are prompted to overwrite a file you may now do so safely.
When you are tired of the mod You can simply rename or delete the Data folder and restore the copy you made.
- If there are any files with the extention .vp you should follow the instructions above but in addition you will need to download VPView and extract the contents of the VP to the corresponding subfolders of Freespace2\Data (I.e anything in the maps folder of the VP must go in the Freespace2\Data\Maps folder). You can find information on how to get and use VPView here.
If you do not follow these guidelines you will probably find that although the mod may possibly work you'll be unable to play the standard FS2 missions without reinstalling HotU.
