Matrix Games Forums

I hope that you have taken the opportunity to look over the impressive additions to the Italian unit encyclopedia, which were done by "Ruxius" and edited by yours truly.

I'd like to see some additions made for other nations, which we would collect and submit to Dave Heath as a True Update for 8.2. This would NOT involve making any data changes to the existing OOBs. All I want is text-file additions to the unit encyclopedias.

Anyone willing to do this can either respond here or contact me via PM or e-mail.

I have some WWII aircraft references, I wouldn't mind filling any holes in the encyclopedia as far as aircraft go. I wish I had more info to do other categories, but that's really all I have immediate access too. Let me know what you need and I'll see if I can whip some up.

I would love to help. Just tell me what you need me to do!

Rich

Tell me what U want. I'd love to help in some way, for this game and community did a lot for my amusement, and I want to pay them (you) back
What are the texts supposed to tell about: technical specifications, story of the item commented, general overview about its capabilities...?

I am happy to coordinate this. If you like to contribute, please send your efforts to me.
majordestruction999@hotmail.com <this one should work[:)]
I will reply to you. [:)]

Use the existing texts as a template and type in your own style.

You know what you like to read in those texts and you know what doesn't impress you.
give it your best shot. I'll help. [:)]

When I have a batch, I'll publish them for players to add to their enc folder

Well I can't contribute but PLEASE. A printable copy of Thew encyclopedia is something I have prayed for for years. Oh PLEASE

I'll volunteer, although it will be a little tricky for the next 2 months as I'm going to be in and out, but I guess every little helps. [8D]

I have quite a few files - aircraft files are the most extensive, with 3 seperate sources immediately available, but also covering most other equipment from the "big 4" - Germany, Russia, England and America. Unfortunately I don't have much information on other countries.

One last Q - would you prefer 1 file per unit or 1 file full stop?

Just two questions:

1) Where to send the texts?
2) Which format for the texts? (i.e: .txt, .doc; .wrd...)

Major Destruction, nice offer but remember that new oob's must be also distributed. Just text files without linking them into the oob's won't benefit anyone. Lets do the distribution via true update and not via some semi-obscure way? [;)]
And as I already told Bryan, I could probably find some time to write something into the Finnish section.

Voriax

A brief tutorial to explain me what an oob file is, and how to link text to an oob file, and does the oob files include pictures, or must the text be linked to pre-existing images on encyclopaedia, please?

Ok..oob file. Go to the spwaw start menu. *not* 'spwaw general edition game menu' but through windows start-> programs -> etc.
Locate 'editor' and run it. You will start an oob editor. Oob files contain all unit/formation/weapon data. When you have this editor running select file -> edit oob -> select a nation to examine that nations units etc...you may want to make a backup copy of your *original* oob's before you experiment further. [:'(]

When you look at the unit stats you will find boxes marked with 'icon', 'lbm' and 'text'. First value determines the on-map picture or icon of given unit. THe lbm decides which picture to show in encyclopedia and the 'text' decides what encyclopedia text to show.
So when we write new encyclopedia texts the correct file number *must* be added to the oob files otherwise encyclopedia will still show blanks no matter how many text files we've added.

Also some coordination might be needed so we do not use same numbers but that can be avoided if we keep first 2 numbers same as the oob file number..so all German encyc texts would be 'enc70xy.txt' format and the xy could as well be the unit number in the oob file...btw, these text files can have max of 4 digits or..?

Voriax

The ENC files are .txt files, and have a four-digit number corresponding to that found in the Editor. Many don't realize that simply right-clicking on an encyclopedia entry reveals the detailed view of the unit, along with the text.

As an example, here is the new one I wrote for ENC8310:

"The Marine Raider units were formed in 1941 as a covert assault unit inspired by the British commandos. The first two Raider battalions had very different organizations, bearing the personal imprint of their commanders. The 1st Bn are the units of Meritt "Red Mike" Edson, who led the first American amphibious assault in the Pacific at Tulagi in Aug 1942. They were the Marine equivalent of the US Army Rangers. The 2nd Bn has put together by Evans Carlson. Its motto was "Gung Ho", a Chinese phrase meaning "working together". This unit was the first USMC to get the prized Garand M1 Rifles, and accented guerilla-type operations. Both battalions were highly trained in demolitions. Two other battalions were formed, the 3rd led by Harry Liversedge and the 4th commanded by James Roosevelt, FDR's son. During 1943 the battalions were organized into regiments and adopted standardized TOEs. The last battle fought by Raiders was at Bougainville in 1943. In 1944 they were disbanded and their members folded into the newly established 4th Marines. "

Now, you must be careful not to use too many lines of text, or you'll lose some of it.

So, should we do the whole process? Build the txt file, give it an enc name and then add it to the oob? Or should we just make one file with seperated txt sections and then submit them to a central organizer who can copy and paste them into individual enc files and then link them to the oobs, thereby eliminating any conflicts?

Another alternative is to make seperate txt files with the name of the unit and it's county of origin (i.e.: Hurricane_UK) and submit them zipped into one file to a designated oob editor person who can then can rename them to enc numbers and make the necessary oob changes, also eliminating conflicts.

Oh, I just checked the oob editor. I see that, at least in the UK, all units are already assigned an enc number, it's just that the file doesn't necessarily exist in the SPWaW directory. In the encyclopedia, the txt file will show up as 000, which threw me. So there shouldn't be confusion on numbers per se. So, should we just make up a bunch of enc's and send them to you KG? Or should we modify the oob and send it too you also?

Chin, you should look at Major Destruction's post above. He will be coordinating this, so contact him. Thanks for volunteering. [;)]

I prefer 1 file per unit. If you look at the unit in the oob editor you will see the text number xxx

Save your text as encxxx.txt for each unit, or better, save it as encxxxunit name.txt so I can correlate the text number with the unit that it refers to.
I you send then to me one at a time I can help.

ORIGINAL: Maciste

A brief tutorial to explain me what an oob file is, and how to link text to an oob file, and does the oob files include pictures, or must the text be linked to pre-existing images on encyclopaedia, please?

Here goes..........

Open the game and open the encyclopedia.
Select any unit. Take for example the SdKfz 221.
Now, in the screen you see before you, you will notice a line that shows: Text 137

This is the key.

If you open the OOB editor, and find the unit SdKfz 221 you will notice a field named txt which contains the data 137. This is the same information.

Type your text describing the SdKfz221 in a text editor (such as notepad) and save it as enc0137.txt

Now you have created a enc file for the SdKfz221.

For my convenience, would you kindly save the file as enc0221_sdKfz221.txt?
It will make it slightly easier for me to assimilate the texts.

ORIGINAL: Voriax
Also some coordination might be needed so we do not use same numbers but that can be avoided if we keep first 2 numbers same as the oob file number..so all German encyc texts would be 'enc70xy.txt' format and the xy could as well be the unit number in the oob file...btw, these text files can have max of 4 digits or..?

Voriax

I have been accused of over complicating things but this supercedes me! congratulations!

Certainly some units use the same text file. Therefore a writer might want to ensure that any text he writes will apply to any unit that uses the txt file. In many cases this has been done already, especially with units that were commonly used by other nations.

This isn't very difficult. Just ype out some facts about a unit that you have information about. If it turns out later that the Finnish weapon you described was captured by some obscure French unit and used in the defence of Paris we can add that obscure info later. But this is far in excess of the task at hand. Simple data on the unit or weapon should be sufficient. See some of the text files for the France OOB for an example.

So, should we do the whole process? Build the txt file, give it an enc name and then add it to the oob?

Build the text file. - type it out and save it as a *.txt file

Or should we just make one file with seperated txt sections and then submit them to a central organizer who can copy and paste them into individual enc files and then link them to the oobs, thereby eliminating any conflicts?

No, that makes it very difficult

Another alternative is to make seperate txt files with the name of the unit and it's county of origin (i.e.: Hurricane_UK) and submit them zipped into one file to a designated oob editor person who can then can rename them to enc numbers and make the necessary oob changes, also eliminating conflicts.

This would work, I suppose.

Oh, I just checked the oob editor. I see that, at least in the UK, all units are already assigned an enc number, it's just that the file doesn't necessarily exist in the SPWaW directory. In the encyclopedia, the txt file will show up as 000, which threw me.

Most units have a text number assigned in the UK OOB.

In fact the UK OOB has a very good encyclopedia presence. Of course you may wish to improve on it.............

Open UK encyclopedia and look for example at the Daimler AC. You will notice the enc txt number 661. Now, if you open the enc directory in the SPWAW folder you will find enc0661.txt. You can edit this file to include additional information or to correct my bad grammar. Bloody colonials never could speak the Queen's English anyhow, could they? [:D]

Rather you send the files to me, old chap. KG has enough on his plate.

ORIGINAL: parusski

Well I can't contribute but PLEASE. A printable copy of Thew encyclopedia is something I have prayed for for years. Oh PLEASE

KEEP PRAYING[:D]

OK, I got the basic plan, I'll start cranking them out.

While we're making wishes, I would just like an external Encyclopedia outside the game. Sort of like this:
http://worldatwar.clone.cz/encyclopedia/
Unfortunately, that site only covers H2H and 7.1. Maybe it plans on updating?