Blitzkrieg Banzai? (SP1 Conversion)

[MarkSheppard]

Here's a quick precis I just wrote:'

Each SP1 Campaign is made up of multiple files:

The DAT files are essentially scenario files; but with the player's side OOB blank; making it impossible to convert directly as-is.

The campaign files are laid out as follows:

CAMP_X_Y.dat

where

X is the campaign letter. Theoretically, you could have up to 26 campaigns in SP1; but neither SSI nor Novastar ever went that high.

and

Y is the scenario letter. This means that apparently the maximum number of scenarios in a campaign in SP1 is 26.

Thus;

CAMPGA.DAT and it's associated text files (see below) are related to the seventh (G) campaign, first battle (A).

A campaign has several text files attached to it; with the following syntax:

IN : Intro text.
MV: Marginal Victory Text
ML: Marginal Loss Text
LO : Losing text

To convert; you have to rename the CAMP_X_Y.dat files to more conventional SCENxxx.dat files; so that they can be opened in the SP1 in-game editor.

E.g; you rename them as:

CAMPGA.DAT = SCEN190.DAT
CAMPGB.DAT = SCEN191.DAT
CAMPGC.DAT = SCEN192.DAT

In order to successfully dump/convert these files with SP1toWW2.EXE; you need to open them up in SP1's in-game editor, hit the BUY button for PLAYER 1; add a few random units; then SAVE the scenario again.

The re-saved SCEN file will now successfully show up and be convertable/dumpable in SP1TOWW2.EXE.

[MarkSheppard]

UPDATE:

I have successfully managed to rebuild, using:

• Borland Builder 5.00
• Fred Chlanda's Source Code

Some of Fred Chlanda's old programs, in particular his rather finnicky SP1toWW2.exe

I've managed to at least streamline it to make converting maps from SP1 format to SP2 format (aka SPWW2 Version 2.2) easier, from whence on you can convert to present SPCAMO Map Format with WW2Map.exe

I've also begun work on a Python program to strip data from SP1 scenarios; it's...very much a WIP.

Some examples of the output so far are:

Scenario Month,5
Scenario Year,40
Scenario Length,15
ScenarioType,Player 1 Assaults
Player1,Germany
Player2,Netherlands
Map Size,Large-(99x80)
Map Weather,Summer
Map Visibility,15

VLOC_ID, XLocation, YLocation, Value, Control 
0,75,41,40,1
1,76,42,80,1
2,76,40,80,1
3,76,41,30,1
4,75,50,40,1
5,76,50,40,1
6,75,51,40,1

UnitSide, UnitNumber, Unit Name, XLOC, YLOC, Experience, Morale, Formation Number, Size, Country ID 
Player1,0,GE SMG Sqd,90,38,82,87,1,1,0
Player1,1,GE Rifle Sqd,88,43,90,84,2,1,0
Player1,2,GE Rifle Sqd,86,40,98,76,2,1,0
Player1,3,GE Rifle Sqd,87,43,92,80,2,1,0
Player1,4,GE Rifle Sqd,88,45,85,86,2,1,0

What I did with SP1toWW2 was I didn't know how to remove things without breaking the program (at least not yet); So I simply moved the non relevant functions under a new drawn panel and covered them up.