Matrix Games Forums

Hello

As you know each OOB file has a specific character line length. This Line length is unique to each game. We will use East Front for the example. I have used excel to generate an ascii text file that can be used for the OBX file. It is a clear text file and can be edited with notebook and inserted in really any spreadsheet program that can utilize formulas to extract the data you need.

1. Open your spreadsheet program.
2. Drag and drop the OOB file that is to be edited in a blank spreadsheet
(Platoon10.OOB is being used)

In column A2 will be the entire line 1 of the OOB, A3 will be line 2 , etc

I created a header to help me in identifying the various columns.


3. In Colum B is the formula to insert a number of character spaces based on a given constant (199, note 198 will be used to compensate for the end of line marker that is the comma).

4. In column C is the end of line marker (,). This will identify the exact end of the line in the ASCII file.

5. In column D is the formula to get the total of characters to be inserted in the Line

6. In Column E is the sum of the Column D that is used in the formula for column B.

7. Once everything is completed save as a tab delimited text file.
8. Open Notepad find and replace tabs with no spaces. Delete all “ as well as everything after the comma.

Note this whole process takes about 5 minutes to do on this OOB.

Below is listed the formula and or text header

A B C D E
Platoon file line =rept(“ “,-(e2)) , =len(a2)-198 =sum(d2)

Note this format can be used for the weapons.pdt file as well. This will work in 1.04 +

Have Fun!

May the Mods and Tweeks be with you

Marc

East Front is 199 CL
WF Not sure 177 CL
RS Not sure 195 CL

A - Platton Information
B- =rept(" ",-(e2))
C- ,
D- =len(a2)-198
E- =sum(d2)
 
 
Remember you can copy and paste these formulas in cells em mass

By the way you can email me at marc.barker@gulfstream.com and I can send you a copy of the spreadsheet so you can see how it is used

If anyone knows the character length for WF and Rising sun please post

Hi Marc,

Thanks for the info, I just might give this a try. [:)]

As for the character lengths, I come up with a different number for EF than you, so you must be figuring it differently. I suggest you look at the entries P01950 (in platoon01.obx, WF) and P08017 (in platoon08.obx, RS). These 2 entries are in "English", just open the files and do a word search for the respective units. Both entries are rather short so you might have to add 95 to the character length for units that need more. Don't forget that most unit entries have a space after the last comma that figures into the character length as well.

Merry Christmas to you and your family

~Wade

The 95 reminds of the war office stuff
 
[font=verdana]Plain Text OBX & PDX files [/font]
[font=verdana]A platoon.obx file is an encoded platoon.oob file, i.e. the contents are the same. To create a new .obx, or adjust an existing file, one must first eliminate the need to decode/encode. This is actually very simple. [/font]
[font=verdana]The encoding is based on the 95-character ASCII set. To avoid the need for code, you need each line of the platoon.obx file to be of a length that is a multiple of 95. Because some lines are much longer than others are, we use lines of 380 characters in length (that is 4 x 95). [/font]
[font=verdana]To make each line 380 characters long, we add = signs to the platoon.obx lines. Look inside our files and you will see this. [/font]
[font=verdana]Therefore all one has to do is take the .oob file, add the = signs to each line, and save the file as .obx. That's all there is to it. [/font]
[font=verdana]The same system is true for the weapon.pdx file. However, this file contains the units of every platoon.oob - which is very many. We have found that the best way to treat the weapon.pdx file is to delete all its contents and start from scratch. [/font]
[font=verdana]We created a new, empty WordPad document and saved it as weapon.pdx. As we needed a new unit, so we created it in the platoon.obx file and then entered it into the weapon.pdx file. We don't place them in any order - the Find facility is the only convenience needed. [/font]
[font=verdana]If you look inside our weapon.pdx file, you will notice that it is in Clear (i.e. not encoded). The only units within it are those used in WW3. [/font]
[font=verdana]That dispenses with the TS encoding system.   [/font]

I am curious if anyone used the formulas listed above?

Sorry, I haven't got around to it yet; too busy messin' around with other games. [:D] Have a Happy New Year.

~Wade