InfiniteMonkey
Posts: 355
Joined: 9/16/2016 Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget @Admiral DadMan: I'm not a native speaker and not familiar with that expression - what does it mean? @John: The witploadae tool allows to dump the scenario files into a collection of .csv files which can be opened with Excel for example, and to compile the .csv files back into scenario file format. There is a .csv file for locations, one for ship classes etc. - like the panels in the editor. You can copy&paste huge amount of data between two scenario "dumps" easily. However, since data is "interconnected" there are some traps. For example, if you copy ship files from scen A to scen B, each ship with an assigned captain will have a slot number pointing to the assigned captain in the leader file - so you must copy&paste that leader slot in the leader files from scen A to scen B as well, otherwise the leader will not exist and the assigned captain of the ship will not show up in the game. Similar, a ship in scen A might be assigned to a TF, so you will have to copy the slot of that TF from the TF file of scen A to the TF file of scen B as well. Things get nasty when slots in the destination file are already being used by your own mod work - then the juggling of slots and assignments begins... The tool is also useful to change values for multiple units easily. For example, setting the small amounts of sys and engine damage the ships start with in my mod - since it is really unrealistic that all ships started the war in pristine condition - with the editor would have required to access each single ship individually to enter the values. With witploadae, I just selected the columns representing sys and engine damage in the ship file of the .csv dump and used the random number generator of Excel. Three seconds in the .csv dump what would have taken bloody ages with the editor. Finally, the .csv files give access to certain attributes NOT available in the editor. For example the movement stance of LCUs. You can give move orders and destinations to ground units in the editor, but they will move in combat mode by default. In the location file of the .csv dump there is a column which will allow to change the movement stance to strategic, reserve etc. Other "hidden" values concern AA and DP guns and are being used in DBB to enhance the flak. I PM'd John 3rd about this, but would there be interest in a newer UI for scenario editing? One that added all those columns that are not in the current editor and do things like - open two scenarios and transfer an aircraft from one to the other by click and drag, or - that allowed duplication of aircraft, ships, etc. with Ctrl-C (Cut) and Ctrl-V (Paste) type functionality - automatically checked for missing bitmaps, repeated names, device mismatches between units and TOE's, unused or orphaned devices/aircraft, etc. - that allowed you to drill down by class, ship, hex, etc. - that allowed cooperative editing (two players modding same scenario from different continents) - that acted as a repository of mods/versions
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