Can you mod the units themselves?

[Xenomorph]

I've seen where much is moddable in Red Storm but I haven't been able to tell to what extent the units themselves are moddable. By this I mean can you mod a unit's distance it can target, it's # of vehicles or troops per unit, armor rating, morale etc. And if so is it a straightforward process or do you have to essentially have programming knowledge? I've so been looking for an easily moddable game so any input would be MUCH appreciated! Thanks in advance!

[22sec]

You own Excel? If so mod away....

[CapnDarwin]

Xenomorph, yes the data in the USER data files can be edited and used to make custom scenarios. You can mod weapons, the platforms, the formation structures and the National data for each country. A few folks on here are doing just that. Check some of the posts by Tazak and MikeAP. I know they are doing data mods right now.

The fourth Mod Guide that is in development (read I'm busy with Guide 2 and the Hotfix right now) will cover the Data modding side of things. There is still a lot of good info here on the forums detailing some of the data editing.

[Xenomorph]

Thx so much! Any idea on when you might finish that guide? From 21sec's post above I'm assuming that somewhere there's a guide that tells me how to use excel or are you saying I can learn about it in Tazak and MikeAP's posts?

PS: what took you so long to respond?? That was, like, 8 minutes!! [:D]

[CapnDarwin]

Do to the amount of info I need to dig up, also working on 2.04 update, and another task for us, it will be a few weeks. There is some info on data modding and what certain values mean. You can also post questions. The crew here is pretty sharp.

[Tazak]

Xenomorph, here's a quick and dirty guide to get you started

The excel files you want to look at are normally located in the folders: Matrix Games\Flashpoint Campaigns Red Storm\Modules\FPRS\Data

Here you will find various folders, Common - contains art files, and 4 national folders that hold unit badges and the excel sheets where you can open to edit ORBAT/TOE and other data.

Of the 2 execl documents in each national folder you can only edit the one that ends in '-USER' (the other is the games master data with hidden pages)

Within the User data you'll see the following tabs:
Nation - this page allows you to edit the high level aspects of the national forces
Formations - ORBAT page, you can add/delete/amend the ORBAT to your liking
Units - details what each sub-unit/individual vehicle/plane has in terms of weapon loads and other aspects
Weapons - details around each weapon system in game for the national forces
Credits - self explanatory
Notice - self explanatory

I'd suggest starting with the formations tab as this is the easier data set to play around with, here's a few tips:
MAKE A COPY OF THE USER DATA FILE BEFORE YOU START EDITING!!!!
1. the data within is in CSV format so double click on the data to start editing
2. ensure that there is a comma and a space after each unit e.g. 'USA4, USA5*3' not 'USA4,USA5*3'
3. ensure there are no comma's at the end e.g. 'USA4, USA5*3,' this can produce some weird result
4. edit something then launch the game editor and go to create a scenario selecting the formation you have just edited - it helps a lot to constantly check your work after every few edits.

that should point you in the right direction, there are various posts around that explain most of the data sets or your welcome to PM me

[CapnDarwin]

SAVE your new data files with a new name like USA-???. We do update the in-game user files along with the closed OTS files to keep all of the data sync'd. As long as you give the data file a new name and also change the name in the National tab down near the bottom of the listing, the game will see any number of custom files.