Newbie question on meta data.

[Apothem]

Considering I'm still somewhat unfamiliar with H2 modding, I have a question about a rather specific thing. What exactly is meta data? I've gone through quite a few tut's all saying "Inject blah meta data and then..." So my question is, what does meta data do exactly? I know it's data you can extract on specific objects inside H2, but how do you actually use it in general?

[xXxCocoFangxXx]

Meta Data is code for what it is, someone else explain it better, lol

[Boney526]

Basically it is the tag that you exctracted from the map, but without the rest of the tags linked to it. If you recursively extract meta data, it will also extract all meta data linked to it. Basically if you extract the meta data of a map recursively, you will essentially have everything you can possibly see or use in the map.

[a mammoth]

a Mammoth explanation: Its hex code that tells all the attributes of the tag, like what it fires, how fast it fires, etc.

[Apothem]

Okay, so it is what I originally thought it was. Meta data (and all it's connected tags) is the collective information upon an object in the game. Now, my question is, say I wanted to make a duplicate projectile of something, say the plasma grenade. How would I go about doing that? Would I extract just the plasma grenade meta data and reinject it under a different name? I've tried messing with meta data before, and all it did was fubar the map I was working on, so then I suppose my other question would be what exactly is injecting meta data, and what should I know about it when doing it?