Editing Textra.dll and Encytext.dll

[teukros]

So I installed the MC-40a card and model and so far, so good!

 

(did the Alliance ever use the MC-40, or only the MC-40a?)

 

But the MC-40 card I am using has a very very short Encyclopedia entry with no information on the cost, the starfighter squadrons, the guns, etc. (and no room to enter it all into).

 

I checked out the cardspace updates on The Mask's site and they overwrite all existing cards!!!!! I have already put a lot of work into my cards and would not look forward to the work of backing up the text of every single card and then copying it back again.

 

So I was wondering how to go about editing the textra.dll and encytext.dll files directly.

 

I have a hex editor (and I have resource hacker as well) and I have experience doing similar work with Star Trek: Birth of the Federation. ST:BOTF used hardwired offsets for each entry, so if you made an entry larger than it was "supposed" to be, it would overflow and mung up every entry beneath it. Is Rebellion the same way?

 

What else do I need to know to accomplish this?

 

Thanks!

[Darth-Griffin]

Just open them with Resource Hacker. Find the correct entries and be sure to SAVE afterwards

 

As for the length..... Sorry cant answer that. I have only kept the descriptions fairly short before.

[AdmiralFishface]

As long as you work with Resource Hacker, Size Matters Not. No experience with HexEditors, though.

[Mad78]

Ressource hacker is the answer. Cain made most of the GIGANTIC enteries in his TC by using the Ressouce hacker.

[teukros]

Good to know. I'll give it a try tonight.

[Lord_La_forge]

Yupp, ResHack is probably the best thing happened to us after Rebed of course

You can open almost all dll's with it, and change the content.

[teukros]

sigh No joy, I use ResHack to open up Encytext.dll, I look in the RCData folder... I suspect that the entry for the MC-40a card (which replaced the Bulk Transport card) is in the 56xx-59xx range. The Alliance Fleet Carrier, the Corellian Gunboat, the Corellian Corvette and the Medium Transport all show up fine, the rest of the entries are binary gobbledygook...

 

[teukros]

Well this is quite bizarre....

 

Yesterday I wrote my own Encyclopedia entry for the MC-40a card which I had downloaded from the Cards area. I got the dreaded "string too long: truncated" message a few times, shortened what I had written, and eventually ended up with this:

 

• The 120 meter long MC-40a light cruiser was the first converted Mon Calamari pleasure vessel to serve with the Alliance. Though underpowered, these ships by default are often forced to serve as flagships of small fleets. More suited by nature to the roles of starfighter defense and fleet support, these vessels might also be used for reconaissance and strike missions.

 

But tonight, as reported, ResHack was showing most of the 59xx resources as gobbledygook.

 

So, I found the BOTF folder I haven't peeked into since last August and located the HEXEDIT file I used to edit my BOTF game, back then. I used HEXEDIT to check out Encytext.dll and found my encyclopedia entry. But immediately after my entry was the tail end of the text of the card that I had downloaded!

 

Sooo, I went back into Rebedit, put the cursor at the end of my text and held down the space bar for ten or fifteen seconds. Rebedit told me that it had truncated the string.

 

I switched back over to ResHack and resource 5959 had become legible as my encyclopedia text... but all of the other resources that I had reported were still showing up as gobbledygook in ResHack.

 

 

Edit: I was just back in ResHack and resource 5959 is showing up as gobbledygook again!!! But in RebEdit, everything seems okay...

 

Meesa confused

[Lord_La_forge]

Rebed will cut the lines every time. With Reshack, you'll be able to extend it however.

Mask can help you out with replacing ship models...

[teukros]

Nah I replaced the models two days ago, that was the easy part!

 

(Thanks of course to the Mask's excellent Rebellion Model Importer)

 

My problem was this:

 

The ENCYTEXT.DLL file contains the Encyclopedia texts (card titles are in the textra.dll file). There is only one folder, RCData, and all texts are there. Roughly the texts occur in this order (the numbers refer to the resources in the RCData folder):

 

(I'm sure this was all uncovered A Long Time Ago but I haven't seen posts about it)

 

• 40xx Mines and Refineries
  43xx Facilities
  46xx Planetary Defenses
  4736 The Death Star Shield
  51xx Alliance Troops
  52xx Imperial Troops
  54xx Alliance SpecForce Teams
  55xx Imperial SpecForce Teams (including the Legendary Bounty Hunters!)
  56xx Alliance Starfighters
  57xx Imperial Starfighters
  59xx Alliance Ships
  60xx Imperial Ships
  62xx Alliance AND Imperial Major Characters
  6720-6745 Alliance Minor Characters
  6784-6811 Imperial Minor Characters
  7176 An obsolete mission (?!)
  7184-7297 Mission Types
  7427 Fleets
  7680-8089 Systems (by alphebetized (?) Sector - Abrion first, Xappyh last)

 

My problem last night was that when I was using ResHack, all of the starfighter texts and most of the ship card texts were showing up as hexadecimal gobbledygook. Specifically, those resources with a question mark next to them:

 

(note that I had previously replaced the Bulk Transport card with the MC-40a card, but I can't imagine how that could affect the numbering or the card order (fingers crossed)).

 

• 5507 Noghri Death Commandoes
  5508 Legendary Bounty Hunters (!)
  5696? A-Wing
  5697? B-Wing
  5698? X-Wing
  5699? Y-Wing
  5760? T.I.E. Fighter
  5761? T.I.E. Interceptor
  5762? T.I.E. Bomber
  5763? T.I.E. Defender
  5952? Mon Cal Cruiser
  5953? Bulk Cruiser
  5954? Assault Frigate
  5955? Neb-B Frigate
  5956 Alliance Escort Carrier
  5957 Corellian Corvette
  5958 Medium Transport
  5959 Bulk Transport
  5960 Corellian Gunship
  5961? Alliance Dreadnought
  5962? CC-7700 Frigate
  5963? Bulwark Battlecruiser
  5964? Liberator Cruiser
  5965? CC-9600 Frigate
  5966? Dauntless Cruiser
  6016? Strike Cruiser
  6017 Lancer Frigate
  6018? Interdictor Cruiser
  6019? Carrack Light Cruiser
  6020? Victory Star Destroyer
  6021 Imperial Star Destroyer
  6022? Super Star Destroyer
  6023 Assault Transport
  6024? Death Star
  6025 Galleon
  6026? Victory II Star Destroyer
  6027 Imperial II Star Destroyer
  6028? Star Galleon
  6029 Imperial Escort Carrier
  6030? Imperial Dreadnought
  6208 Mon Mothballs

 

This is apparently RebEd's fault. I suspect that when you are editing a card's encyclopedia text, Rebed may insert a space character (hex 20) at the beginning of the resource where ResHack does not expect to find one (or fails to insert one where ResHack expects to find one), and so ResHack throws up its hands and just gives you the raw binary data to look at.

 

There is however a fix. For any Encyclopedia text which is showing up in binary rather than ASCII, do this:

 

1. Quit ResHack

2. Start RebEd

3. Load the card in question and bring up the Encyclopedia entry

Go to the very end of the Encyclopedia TEXT, so your cursor is e.g. DIRECTLY to the right of the final period.

4. Hold down the space bar for long enough to enter one to three lines of nothing but spaces.

5. Hit the OK button and confirm that RebEd complains with the "String Too Long: Truncated" error message. You WANT to see this error message. If you don't, reload the Encyclopedia text and this time, enter more spaces.

 

Hope this helps some people out!

[Texas_Fett]

There's another fix to this. Having experienced the 'binary crap' in many of my own loads, the way I fixed it was as follows:

1. go to an entry that is uncorrupted.

2. save/export it

3. load the uncorrupted text entry into the slot of the entry you wish to replace. (refer to Mask's tutorial for the syntax)

4. highlight the text, and replace it with your own.

5. compile and save.

 

The error, as near as I could tell, stemmed from changing an entry within RebEd. ResHack just doesn't like it. This method allows for rectified entries, but there may be another snafu that I have to test on my new desktop. For whatever reason, I could get my encyc entries to appear correctly in ResHack and RebEd, but they wouldn't display at all in-game; it would revert to the default encyc entry.

[teukros]

Hi Texas Fett, glad to see you around - it's been a while! How's military life treating you?

 

You had your encyclopedia entries reverting to default in game?!? That's - odd. It must have somehow been using a backed up encytext.dll file. Because if you use a hex editor (I use HEXEDIT, it's a pain in the ass but it's free and it gets the job done) you can read the encyclopedia texts one after the other.

 

* * *

 

I can't believe I waited this long to replace the Imperial Dreadnought with the Golan Arms DP III. I'm loving the Golan III in orbit around Coruscant that the Empire started the game with.

[Darth-Griffin]

Yep gotta love those Golan III's. Especially if you give them a decent fighter capacity too. Makes for a 'kick-arse' defensive station to go around your important planets.

 

teukros are you using the battlestations hack as well. Makes it more realistic as the platform then cant move.

[Texas_Fett]

Hi Texas Fett, glad to see you around - it's been a while! How's military life treating you?

 

You had your encyclopedia entries reverting to default in game?!? That's - odd. It must have somehow been using a backed up encytext.dll file. Because if you use a hex editor (I use HEXEDIT, it's a pain in the ass but it's free and it gets the job done) you can read the encyclopedia texts one after the other.

Yeah, you're tellin' me! I have no freakin' idea how or why it's happening.

 

 

I can't believe I waited this long to replace the Imperial Dreadnought with the Golan Arms DP III. I'm loving the Golan III in orbit around Coruscant that the Empire started the game with.

Golans rock! Unless you're the Rebels and you run into one guarding what you thought was a relatively undefended system. I've started using Mask's XQ2 Platform as well, giving that to the Empire from the start and giving both sides access to the Golan at a later date. But I agree with DG...use of the Battlestations hack is a must. Nothing more disconcerting than seeing a Golan headed at you through hyperspace.

[Darth-Griffin]

Mr Fett sir, would you have the card to go with the XQ2 platform? The model is ace but i cant find a card to go with it

 

Email > webmaster@diplomats-empire.com

[Texas_Fett]

Actually, I think I do, but it's on my laptop at home. I'll check this evening and hopefully get it to you tomorrow.

 

And Teukros: Military life most definitely agrees with me...but I'm stressing of late. Still, working so close to the new F-22's is a trip!

[Darth-Griffin]

Actually, I think I do, but it's on my laptop at home. I'll check this evening and hopefully get it to you tomorrow.

 

Many thanks

Look forward to receiving it.

[teukros]

working so close to the new F-22's is a trip!

 

Ooooh <--- Green with envy

 

DG: I am using the Battlestations patch, its pretty cool. My DP III has the six squadron capacity that it came with, I think I left the Turbolasers and Ion Cannons at 200 and 160 per facing, respectively... but I bumped the Laser Cannon up a bit. Just a tad. To 600 per facing. I also increased Weapons Recharge from 40 to 60...

 

mumble damned Y-Wings mumble mumble mumble

Edited March 1, 2005 by teukros

[Darth-Griffin]

I would go and have a look at mine but if i click on it in RebEd then i have to go and launch the Battlestaions hack again. Rebed resets the speed to one each time But i believe i have my laser cannons set to 400 (ish)

 

Would love to see the look on the rebel admirals face when they jump into coruscant space and come face to face with my Golan 3 defence platform

[teukros]

I wonder how long it would take the DP to cross the Galaxy with a hyperdrive rating of 1? That'd be just my luck to do that the next time I'm playing the Alliance... I'll look up one day and see a fleet of seven Golan III's heading toward me...

[Texas_Fett]

I wonder how long it would take the DP to cross the Galaxy with a hyperdrive rating of 1? That'd be just my luck to do that the next time I'm playing the Alliance... I'll look up one day and see a fleet of seven Golan III's heading toward me...

Been there...done that. Not pretty.

[Darth-Griffin]

As long as you use the Battlestations hack you will be ok. The hack sets the speed of the Golan 3 to 0. Just dont click on the postion you gave it in Rebed as the program resets it to 1 again.

[darthsylver]

Now I hate to sound like a newbie but, can't you just edit the encyclopedia using notepad or wordpad?

[teukros]

Yes but if you are only using RebEd, your new entry can be no longer than whatever it is replacing. So if for example you have some 150 word long description of Wedge Antilles, most of it will get truncated.

 

For example, my Wedge Antilles entry reads as follows:

 

• Wedge Antilles
   
  Wedge Antilles is a veteran of the attack that destroyed the first Death
  Star. Gifted and resourceful, he organized and led the celebrated Rogue
  Squadron, an elite X-Wing starfighter squadron whose pilots are also
  SpecForce agents who are as dependable on the ground as they are in the
  cockpit - regardless of the mission.

 

And that is pretty close to the limit. Another word or two and the last line might look like

 

• in the cockpit - regardless of the mis

 

or even like

 

• ground as they are in the cockpit - r

 

This was before I discovered a tool called Resource Hacker which lets you do pretty much anything you want.

[darthsylver]

Sweet.