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Old April 10th, 2020, 10:14 AM
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Default Re: Blitzkrieg Banzai? (SP1 Conversion)

Conversion Guide Part II:
################################################## ###

Copy your converted "spmap999.dat" to your WinSPWW2 or WinSPMBT \Maps folder.

Start your game of choice (MBT or WW2), load the scenario editor:

Hit MAP-CUSTOM button and load the map (999).

(NOTE: Unfortunately, it appears that smoke/damage conditions get wiped clean during conversion)

While you're in there, set up the initial conditions of the scenario:

Player Nations, Date, Visibility, Type of Battle, etc.

This information will be in the _Scenario_Data.csv file for handy reference.

and buy the OOBs for each side.

OOB information for the original scenario will be in the _Units.csv file for handy reference.

WHY NO AUTO CONVERSION OF OOBs?:

One of the big reasons why I didn't design an automatic conversion of the OOB/unit list is this:

SP1 OOBs were very simplistic; while SPWW2 OOBs are much more realistic and have more granular detail with 25~ more years of research in them, plus the larger size of OOBs allowing more detail.

Case in point; for Japan in November 1945 in Steel Panthers I; you have the following infantry formations available in the OOB:

Infantry Plt
SNLF Plt
Cavalry Plt
Engineer Plt
Engineer Sec
Sniper
Spec Atk Force
Machine Gun Sec

Meanwhile, in Steel Panthers: World War II, you have for the same time period in the Japanese OOB:

Para Spd Co[A]
Paratroop Co[A]
Para Platoon[A]
Para Mor Sec[A]
Para HMG Pl [A]
Para Enq Pl [A]
Gldr Spd Co[G)
Glider Co[G]
Glider Pl [G]
Gldr Mor Pl [G]
Gldr HMG Pl [G]
Gldr Enq Pl [G]
Para Pl -[A]
Rifle Platoon A
Mot Recce Co
Mot-Inf Platoon
Rifle Platoon C
Rifle Platoon E
Infantry Co A+
Infantry Co B+
Infantry Co C+
Infantry Co D+
Infantry Co E+
Infantry Co F+
Infantry Co A
Infantry Co B
Infantry Co C
Infantry Co D
Infantry Co E
Infantry Co F
Infantry Co G
Infantry Co H
Rifle Platoon D
Rifle Platoon B
Para Pl -
Paratroop Co
Para Platoon
Para Special Co
Para HMG Pl
Imp Guards Co
Imp Guards Pl
SNLF Company
SNLF Company -
SNLF Platoon
Mountain Pl
Mountain Co
Ski Company
Ski Platoon
Militia Company
Militia Platoon
Patrol
Mot Patrol Sec
Mntd Patrol Sec
Mot Scout Sec
Scouts
Mntd Scout Sec
Mountain Scouts
Imp Gds Scouts
SNLF Scouts
Ski Scouts
Sniper
Sniper Group
SNLF Sniper
Mountain Sniper
Inf-AT Section
Special Atk Det
Engineer Pl
Para Eng Pl
Imp Gds Eng Pl
SNLF Eng Pl
Machinegun Sec
Machinegun Pl
Bn HMG Co
Regt HMG Co
Bn HMG Co -
Regt HMG Co -
Heavy Wpn Pl A
Heavy Wpn Pl B
Heavy Wpn Pl C
Para Mortar Pl
AAMG Section

You can now get a much more closer approximation to reality than with a simple "auto convert" -- more work for you in figuring out what the new scenario OOB should be, but in return getting a much more improved scenario -- a "Gold" scenario, so to speak.

Once you've bought your formations, save the game as slot 999.

Copy that savegame file over into the conversion tool folder.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
The current version of SPCAMO slicer forms a file list of the files in it's directory, and picks the first one with the string "_VLOCs.csv" in it's list -- so if you have two scenario dumps in the tool directory, only the alphabetically first CSV file will be used by SPCAMO slicer for VLOC automatic editing.

Run "SPCAMO Slicer.exe"

It's currently hardcoded to load "spWW2scn0999.dat", in this initial release.

It'll spit out a bunch of debug information:

Quote:
Analyzing spWW2scn0999.dat
Section 0 offset at: 15
Section 1 offset at: 20
Section 2 offset at: 5959
Section 3 offset at: 69968
Section 4 offset at: 70985
Section 5 offset at: 73281
Section 6 offset at: 81107
Section 7 offset at: 82318
Section 8 offset at: 84857
Section 9 offset at: 135069
....
These are the file offsets for each section in the scenario file.

NOTE: Currently, I have no idea how to program it so that it displays section 48's offset correctly, but that's for another day.

It will then display more debug information.

Quote:
Unpacking Critical Scenario Sections....

Block Analyzed. Data is as follows:
---------------------------------------
Block IDNUM: 1
Block Header Offset: 20
Block Type: Compressed
Block Size: 5930 bytes (compressed size).
What's happening is that the program is now identifying and dumping those sections into the following files

S1_COMP_ORIGINAL.BIN
S1_UNCOMPRESSED.BIN
S17_COMP_ORIGINAL
S17_UNCOMPRESSED.BIN
S37_COMP_ORIGINAL.BIN
S37_UNCOMPRESSED.BIN


The original compressed versions are for debug purposes.

It'll then tell you it's found the VLOC.csv file:

Quote:
....loading external data files to edit Scenario....

match: West_Front_Early_Scen_038_VLOCs.csv

Victory Hex CSV file Loaded into memory!
VLOC#0 10,30 Value: 50
TEST DUMP OF FIRST ROW OF CSV FILE ABOVE.

Editing Victory Locations!
VLOC#0 10,30 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#1 30,30 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#2 50,30 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#3 10,50 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#4 30,50 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#5 50,50 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#6 70,50 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#7 10,70 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#8 30,70 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#9 50,70 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#10 70,70 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#11 80,70 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#12 80,60 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#13 70,40 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#14 60,20 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#15 10,22 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#16 74,14 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#17 76,20 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#18 83,20 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#19 84,14 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
VLOC#20 80,16 -- 50 Value -- 1 Control
Victory Locations Edited!
Then it brings up the locations of the units:

Quote:
-----------------------------------------------------
Numbers of Note:
-----------------------------------------------------
255 -- OFF MAP (Artillery, etc)
777 -- enter when done with editing locations
-----------------------------------------------------

Canadian HQ - A0
XLOC: 35
YLOC: 15
Kommandeur - B0
XLOC:
As said before, if you don't feel like editing everything, or you've edited everything and the program starts displaying blank unit location fields; just punch in 777 and it will break that editing loop and continue on.

It will then reassemble everything via inserting the edited sections (sections 17 and 32 currently) into the original scenario file.

Because of the way Python handles file input; I basically have to reassemble the file from scratch from:

File Data Before Segment
Edited Segment
File Data After Segment


And repeat it so on.

The newly edited file will be named "spWW2scn0998.dat"

It will be like 892 kB (versus about 320 kB for the original file).

This is because I inserted uncompressed sections into the file via changing the header flags.

But don't worry!

Simply copy "spWW2scn0998.dat" over to your SPCAMO scenario folder and load it up in WW2/MBT's Scenario editor.

Change a few things, like move a unit 1 hex away; change the facing, etc and then save it as normal in the scenario editor.

When you check the newly saved file, it'll be back to a "normal" file size as the built in game compression re-compresses it for us, with no work needed on our end.
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