"Hardwired" capital ship slots and funky card load

[Texas_Fett]

Had a surprise last night in regards to the Alliance Escort Carrier. Or rather, the slot it occupies in the game. Some of you may have seen one of my other posts where I describe the steps I've taken in RebEd regarding it, but for all of you in the dark, here's the summary: I've made the Imperial Escort Carrier available to both sides, allowing me to insert a new capital ship into the 'slot' used by the Alliance Escort Carrier. In this case, I replaced it with the Quasar Fire Class Escort Carrier card by NemesiS (with a tweak or two on my part), and set it Research Level 10. So good so far, but here's where the surprise comes in.

 

I started a new game as the Rebels. Now, I had also set three of the Rim Sectors to 'High Importance' and 'Colonized', so they behaved like Core Sectors and were doled out in a similar fashion. This netted me some additional worlds and resources, which in turn also gave me a few additional capital ships. So I looked through C-3PO's 'Galaxy Overview' to see what the AI had so graciously blessed me with, when I noticed I had two Quasar Class Escort Carriers in my inventory! Sure enough, there they were, parked in seperate systems, looking menacing (well...for an escort carrier). I checked with a shipyard and I didn't have the ability to manufacture them yet, so it appeared that I only had these two 'prototypes' in my arsenal.

 

So anyway, my theory is that this capital ship 'slot' is 'hardcoded' into one of the .dll's, so that it's part of a select few ships chosen for initial distribution by the AI. That would explain why when you select a different ship, say the Nebulon-B, and set it's research to '0', it is never randomly assigned to you at game start-up (or the Dreadnaught or Bulk Transport, speaking as a Rebel). Anyone have any insights as to why this is and how to change it?

 

My second issue is this: when I load a card in RebEd, be it a downloaded card, a personally created card, or even an exported 'stock' card that is re-imported, it gets 'scrambled' somehow. Everything looks fine in RebEd, but when you look at the encyclopedia entry with ResHack, the description is pushed far to the right in a narrow column, and everything left of it is in code. So first off, why does this happen? Second, will I hose anything if I delete the code & entry and simply type in a fresh entry?

 

Anyway, I'd appreciate it if anyone could lend a hand with these two issues. Thanks in advance!

[Guest Scathane]

I wouldn't know how or where to change the hard code for the capital ships one starts the game with... But what you're saying is that if I import new models for the ship types you normally start the game with, you could modify, albeit with a randomiser, your starting fleet, right?

[the_mask]

I think that's really a hard coded starting shipclass, like the ISD1, the Corvette and the Medium TRN. Very interesting, we should make a list and add that to something like a knowledge base.

 

 

I'm sorry, but I can't think of anything at the moment to help you with your second issue. It's just ... weird and I'm glad that it hasn't happened to me so far. So I'm stuck with guess-work and the usual suspects, errm ... questions:

 

-what version of RebED are you using ? 0.24,0.25,0.26 (full/update from 0.24)

-did you change anything, or try out something new prior to the first occurance of that problem ?

-did you have the dlls open in ResHacker, while working with RebED ? If it messes up tactical.dll, while importing models, there's a high likelyhood, that the other dlls might also suffer a simmilar fate.

[Texas_Fett]

Hey, Scathane! In a way, yes. I haven't changed the tactical models (yet), but I DID change the encyclopedia/fleet/build/tactical pictures and the encyclopedia description, as well as the stats for the Alliance Escort Carrier. It's replacement (the Quasar Class Escort Carrier) is set for research level 10, yet I started with two of them (as described above). I haven't tested the theory, but I'd assume that if you replaced the starting Rebel Ships (the Bulk Cruiser, Medium Transport, Escort Carrier or Corellian Corvette) or the starting Imperial ships (Impstar, Vicstar, Galleon, and Carrack; am I missing one? Escort Carriers and Dreadnaughts? You'll have to excuse me; I usually play the Rebels.) with another ship, you'd also be assigned a random number of them at game start up based on their cost/maintenence. You wouldn't be able to build them, however, unless the research level of the replacement ship was set to '0'. What's important to note is that this only works for the ships that are normally 'assigned' by the AI in the regular, uneditied game. In other words, while the Alliance begins with the capability to build Dreadnaughts and Bulk Transports, they aren't among the capital ships assigned by the AI at the start of the game.

 

What I assume that this also tells us is that if you assign a 'new' ship to another slot besides the ones used by the AI to initially allocate ships, you will NOT have it randomly assigned to your initial fleets, even if you set the research level to '0'. To begin the game with your new ship, it HAS to be assigned to one of the 'hard-coded' slots.

 

Mask, I'll attempt to answer your questions as best I can. I'm at work, so I don't have everything right in front of me.

 

-I'm running .26, I believe. I downloaded it from this site only three or four months ago after a major wipe-and-reload on my home PC.

 

-try something new? Um...not that I know of. Up to that point I'd just been using RebEd and I got frustrated with the text length on the Encyclopedia entries and the character/ship/troop names. I applied "the patch" from this site that extended the names and descriptions of the characters, but for some reason it didn't apply to the ships, etc. So that's when I gave ResHack a try. That's when I noticed that each and every time I loaded a card in RebEd, it screwed up it's encyclopedia entry in ResHack. Everything still appeared correctly in-game and in RebEd, but in ResHack it was changed as described above.

 

-hmm...I suppose that could have happened, but I've had that problem happen up here at work with other software, so I'm usually pretty cautious about that. Windows really doesn't like it when you have two different applications 'touching' the same file. Still, it IS a possibility. Could've been me trying to reference numbers on a capital ship in RebEd for inclusion in the extended encyclopedia entry in Reshack. So that would mean that the .dll would then be corrupted for every subsequent card load, then? Eww. That means that the only real fix is to reload the uncorrupted .dll's, which means a fresh load of Rebellion. And since my cards are then corrupted, I'll have to recreate all of them, right?

[DIREWOLF75]

You always get ships from the same slots.

 

To avoid what you caused, you should simply have replaced the Imperial escort carrier with your own instead, and moved it to the rebel escort carrier slot, problem solved.

 

Currently, my own rebedited version replaces:

Rebel Dreadnaught-> Mon Cal. Light Cruiser, for rebs only

Bulk Transport-> Carrack Cruiser, basically a big version of the Carrack light, for both rebs and Imps

Assault transport->Modified Corvette, both rebs and Imps

Star Galleon-> Modified Frigate, both rebs and Imps

 

both can build

Carrack CL

Nebulon-B Frigate

Corellian Corvette

Imperial Dreadnaught(always felt it extremely silly to have two identical ships)

 

Still, not my first mod, and certainly not my last.(not quite happy with the Mod Corvette)

[R2-Opus2]

I don't have any problems to the extent of what's being discussed, but I thought this relates so here goes.

 

In RebEd where you can check or uncheck who uses what, I also had it so that Imps and Rebs used the same Escort Carrier, and took away (I unchecked the Rebel's escort carrier) the rebs. Now I don't know if I need to now replace that slot with something, but the AI for the rebs still is building their escort carrier along with the Imp one.

 

So what I want to know is am I misinterpreting what that function in the editor is for? I thought unchecking who builds what effectively removed it from the game and that it would not require me replacing the design with something else.

[vakundok]

but the AI for the rebs still is building their escort carrier along with the Imp one.

Was it building or did it simply have one or more of it?

[R2-Opus2]

They were able to build it. I know I was playing with high importance/visibility, so that might have explained why I saw them (they may have been given some by default). I can't be totally sure though as I stopped that session at around turn 650 to reedit and try something else, and I didn't get into that many battles by that point.

[vakundok]

Well, theoretically it couldn't do that. Interesting. However if you want them not to build it, lower its construction and maintenance costs to zero.

[Tsunami]

This has nothing to do with the RebEd issues; it's jsut about the ships.

 

I believe that the Alliance Escort Carrier is indeed the Quasar-Fire Class Bulk Cruiser. If you read the description of the ship in Solo Command, it is described as great triangle, with a teardrop shaped command pod at the front and a boxy fighter hangar at the back. I think it is also very likely that Thrawn meant this class of ships when he talked about the rebels using 'modified bulk cruisers' as fighter carriers.

 

Just for your interest.

[R2-Opus2]

Either that or the Bulk Cruiser could have been modified. I think it could have passed for one if all its guts were torn out

[Texas_Fett]

Interesting update:

 

I finally got Rebellion to where I (currently) want it to be, at least as far as the ships, characters, models, etc. What was left was the descriptions for each in the encyclopedia. Now, as I described above, many of these were oddly mangled. In addition, ResHack refused to let me tamper with the 'corrupted' entries, in that I couldn't alter the text. Since most of the entries were hosed, I decided to play it safe. I saved all the images, text, and source information I needed, uninstalled Rebellion, Rebed, and ResHack, and reinstalled 'em all. Then I manually made all of my changes to bring it back to the way I like it.

 

The funny thing is, though, that if I make a change to the encyclopedia text in Rebed, it appears to be corrupted in ResHack as detailed above. I'm able to easily replace it by simply replacing the entry with an original one from an uncorruped copy of the .dll and then make the appropriate changes, but it's still an interesting problem.

[Spike2000]

Going back a little, yep the slots appear "stuck" for replacing ships.

 

My friend and I made a few alterations (mostly tweaking cap ships) but the biggest alteration was changing the Imperial side's fighters from Fighters, Interceptors, Bombers and Defenders to Interceptors, Bombers, Gunboats and Advanced.

 

Initially, we swapped out the TIE Fighter for the Gunboat. Imagine my dismay (and oppoenent's delight) when the Empire side started with 20+ 'prototype' Assault Gunboat Sqaudrons.

 

Anyway, we fixed the problem by swapping the Gunboat and Interceptor over in RebEd... and the Empire started with a pile of Interceptors (which is what we wanted). Altering the Research order had no effect.

 

Basically, any of the stuff that, in the un-modified version of the game is in your 'starting lineup' ... should not be swapped out for 'advanced' stuff... 'cos you might end up with your opponent starting with it!

[the_mask]

Awww now I get it

 

TF, RebEd writes the entries in HexCode, while Resource Hacker adds them as text. Therefore, if you change an entry with RebEd, it'll look weird in ResHack, but that shouldn't do a thing to the way it's displayed in the game.

 

It looks something like this, right ?

 

68 65 6C 6C 6F 2C 20 64 69 7A 20 69 7A 20 61 20 hello, diz iz a

74 65 73 74 20 2E 2E 2E 20 test ...

 

that's just hexcode on the left side, describing the text on the right.

If you want the long story on how to tell, what the numbers mean, mail me

[vakundok]

Not that easy. A dll allways stores text in unicode format, so 6800 6500 6C00 ... (Or 0068 0065 006C, I do not know whether the codetable identifier byte is stored first.)

[the_mask]

welcome back, where have you been ?

I was writing from memory, since I'm working right now and don't have a dll or Rebellion with me.

How's your work going on ?

[vakundok]

Badly. I am jobless. Again. I really cannot understand whether why my girlfriend stays with me.

[Texas_Fett]

Awww now I get it

 

TF, RebEd writes the entries in HexCode, while Resource Hacker adds them as text. Therefore, if you change an entry with RebEd, it'll look weird in ResHack, but that shouldn't do a thing to the way it's displayed in the game.

 

It looks something like this, right ?

 

68 65 6C 6C 6F 2C 20 64 69 7A 20 69 7A 20 61 20 hello, diz iz a

74 65 73 74 20 2E 2E 2E 20 test ...

 

that's just hexcode on the left side, describing the text on the right.

If you want the long story on how to tell, what the numbers mean, mail me

Yeah, that's it alright. And you're right; it all appears just fine in RebEd and in-game. However, trying to change the text can be problematic, as ResHack won't let you edit anything, nor compile the script. The only solution I've found is to replace the entry in ResHack with a new/blank one.

 

I've noticed that this happens every time I A) Make a change to the encyclopedia text in RebEd or B) load a new card. Which means that unless you're content with the card description (and all it's associated spelling errors and bad grammar), you are forced to edit everything in ResHack by loading a new entry.

 

Now I just have to get Rebellion to look at the Dll's on my HD for the Encyclopedia info in-game rather than defaulting to the CD-Rom.

 

As for what the numbers mean, I'm going to have to e-mail you, I guess. It's all Greek to me...

[the_mask]

Badly. I am jobless. Again. I really cannot understand whether why my girlfriend stays with me.

Maybe it's because she likes you, or because of that bright mind 'o yours, chicks love that

 

TF, that's the only solution I came up with either.

Well, except ... typing your entries in a text file and importing that into the dll via ResHacks script commands

[Texas_Fett]

TF, that's the only solution I came up with either.

Well, except ... typing your entries in a text file and importing that into the dll via ResHacks script commands

Yeah, that works too. Although it's almost more work to keep track of which entry it replaces than to just do it manually. Or am I missing something and just making things more complicated than they need to be?

[the_mask]

Well, Trej was glad to hear that he could also to do it this way, when he had to replace the 200'odd entries for the planets

[Texas_Fett]

Yeah, you'd mentioned that. Don't get me wrong; it's great news, especially when you have large batches of 'em to replace. I'm just saying that for individual replacements it's almost easier to do it manually, since you have to search through the .dll in ResHack to find the entry anyway.

 

Hmm...maybe I should just take the time to come up with a list of the entry number in the Ency and Textextra .dll's for each system, sector, ship, troop, fighter, spec force, and defense in the game. Then, at least, it'd be easier for everyone to reference it later. Not only that, it'd make posting a 'loader' script for people to use that much easier.

[Trejiuvanat]

Well, Trej was glad to hear that he could also to do it this way, when he had to replace the 200'odd entries for the planets

Indeed, it's the easiest way to do it, when replacing the ency-entries ResHack would crash after two or three replacements, then mask guided me through the scripting process and in matter of minutes I replaced the whole bunch.