Redundant Images / Pages

Here be a list of images and / or pages that I think can be deleted safely (because they've been replaced with other files or links, or created by accident).

You Have New Messages

Now that I've started using this talk page again, I get the message "You have new messages" attached to the top of every page (other then this one) that I visit. Most annoying. Anyone know how to get rid of it? - BB

Do you still get those messages BB? --Zombie 00:04, 11 September 2006 (PDT)

I just figured out the answer a couple of days ago. Up the top of the page is an watch/unwatch link that toggles. Whenever a new post is made on the messages page, the page becomes "watched", and you have to click it before the notifications stop. - Bomb Bloke 03:16, 11 September 2006 (PDT)

Firing Accuracy

Section moved here so that this user page doesn't take so long to load on my poor slow internet connection.

Can't get Hybrid to work

Hey BB, I've downloaded your Hybrid program but I can't seem to be able to run. I got latest Java, I unzipped Hybrid to the UFO folder and I have changed the Hybrid.bat file to: set CLASSPATH=D:\Terror\ Every time i ran it though I get an exception- Can you please tell me what i've been doing wrong? Hobbes 10:34, 22 March 2008 (PDT)

Edit edit edit, I forgot how this thing worked...

Ok, extract the archive into your game folder, open up a prompt window. If UFO is in D:\UFO, the program should end up in D:\UFO\Hybrid. Change to that folder and run it with the other game's path as a parameter. eg:

Hybrid D:\Terror

If that gives an exception, lemme know what it is.

The classpath line should be left as it was. It's just required on some systems for java to work correctly.

- Bomb Bloke 16:17, 22 March 2008 (PDT)

Inventory screens

Hi Bomb Bloke

I really love your Map editor, which in fairness is a full Battlescape editor. It crashes for me a lot but probably that's because I have other mods messing with the files.

My question is - do your cool Inventory screens work with the actual game? I would love to see my weight and TUs while loading up my guys. Otherwise you need paper and pencil and printouts.

thanks! Spike 11:28, 25 March 2008 (PDT)

The alien portraits do, the editor tweaks the save files so the actual game will use them. I'll be making that optional though (because if the saves are then transferred to a system that doesn't have the extra graphics the game could crash).

I'm afraid I can't add the weight display stats to the original game. Seb76 or one of the other machine coders out there might be able to pull it off, but it's a big ask (right up there with adding stuff to the tech tree).

You mean stuff like that? File:Ufo weight.zip ;-) Seb76 18:09, 28 March 2008 (PDT)

That's pretty impressive... :O Reckon you could get it to display unit strength as well? Bomb Bloke 20:53, 28 March 2008 (PDT)

You are correct, I could have done it. Have a look at the updated version ;-) Seb76 10:23, 29 March 2008 (PDT)

That's nearly perfect, but... well, there's always a catch, isn't there? ;)

For whatever reason, the weight carried by some troopers won't display. Here's a sample save game: File:GAME 4.zip (check the guy in front of the ramp). I've tried loading up the units in concern and they do get their TU penalty if I go over their limit, but the weight carried always shows up as "0" on their inventory screens.

In most of my saves (just about any that involve flying suits) it doesn't work for any units. Bomb Bloke 19:53, 29 March 2008 (PDT)

I'm using offset 0x28 of unitref.dat to get the soldier.dat index (to in turn get the carried weigth via an already builtin function). Strangely it is set to 0xff for some units. Did you mess too much with this file? Or maybe offset 0x28 is not yet completely understood. Seb76 02:07, 30 March 2008 (PDT)

I think I nailed it. Care for another try? Seb76 02:42, 30 March 2008 (PDT)

Yes, this one seems to be working perfectly. Mind if I build it into a patcher tomorrow and stick it up on StrategyCore, so it can be used with other mods? (or does it add code to the end of the executable, like Mok's does)?

Some code is added in the executable in a padding section (unused space in the binary) so the file has still the same size. It'll conflict with other patches if they use the same place in the executable to inject their code (the patch specifics are available on the download page). I have no account in SC so I don't know what other mods do... Perhaps a bit of testing is required before posting this (does it works if you MC an alien and go to its inventory screen?). Seb76 10:09, 30 March 2008 (PDT)

That offset isn't used by non-X-Com troopers (the trooper in front of the ramp was created with my editor, which "wipes" that offset for clones). So it should've also failed for civilians and aliens.

Not sure why it failed for my flying suit troopers. I was starting to think large units might've been messing up the calculation. Bomb Bloke 08:34, 30 March 2008 (PDT)

The first version was faulty anyway: it used the soldier.dat entry index instead of unitpos index. It worked as long as noone died else things start to get out of sync. Seb76 10:09, 30 March 2008 (PDT)

If you know specific methods to crash the editor, or have certain save games it won't load, I'd love to see them. I'm forever working bugs out of the thing but I'm limited in that I never get any actual bug reports. :(

I do know that it probably won't load XcomUtil based saves that use alternate terrain sets (eg. Hobbes's maps).

- Bomb Bloke 19:02, 25 March 2008 (PDT)

Thanks BB. What tends to happen is the editor hangs during file load, on the saved games list screen. The only clue is that the mouse pointer is visible/movable(normally the pointer disappears during file load). Back in the BBmap_edit.bat Dos window, it will have an "Array out of bounds" error (generic, I know). Will try to get a reproducible bug and send you the game save dir. Cheers, Spike 01:56, 27 March 2008 (PDT)

Categorization Guidelines

Hey BB, I've noticed that you've removed some categories from a few pages and stated you reason as 'redundant categories'. My first thought was that there isn't such thing as a redundant category (the more the merrier since I see them as tags for the articles that help connect common theme pages together) but I've been reading Wikipedia's policy regarding categorization and while I do not agree with all aspects of their policy I think it might be better if we set a common guideline of our own. What do you think should be accepted regarding categorization? Hobbes 13:06, 18 December 2009 (EST)

The way I see it, pages should be in as few categories as possible, and preferably child categories at that. If you want an example as to why, take a look at the Apocalypse cat - it's downright broken. Page one tells you there are 199 articles - there's actually 271 at present (and four sub-cats, only one of which is visible on the first page - hardly intuitive for finding stuff!), but you won't be given that information unless you jump to page two. And as for using a list like that to locate articles on a specific theme? There's too much junk to read through, you can only get anywhere if you already know exactly what you're looking for!

In comparison, try looking at the Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense category. You should find it dead easy to get to a page about any given topic that's categorised in there, even if you didn't start out knowing what it was called. Obviously I still consider there to be some more work to be done (base modules, X-COM craft + their weapons, not to mention the game files), but I'm sure you get the general idea of how that style of things affects practicality.

If an article looks like it belongs in two categories, ask yourself - should one of those categories actually belong in the other as well? If so, then the article certainly doesn't need to be placed in both.

We also had not one, but two categories for UFO - one called "Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense" and one called just "EU". I've since moved all articles out of EU.

Ideally, all categories will eventually link back to one "master" category, sorta like how all articles lead back (eventually) to the main page.

-Bomb Bloke 17:57, 18 December 2009 (EST)

OK, makes sense, my idea originally for the categories was that we should look at them simply by looking into the page elements and creating cats for each for them, making as much associations between pages as possible (an 'horizontal' view, i guess). Your 'vertical' helps to keep things tidier but at the same time i'm wondering if it doesn't prevent the creation of common categories to which all games can be related. Hobbes 17:50, 19 December 2009 (EST)

It allows for common categories (assuming you mean stuff like this?), but unfortunately most of the obvious names to use for them are dedicated to UFO:EU articles - meaning a whole bunch of pages need to be moved to allow for it.

But what the heck. I'm up for that.

- Bomb Bloke 17:55, 19 December 2009 (EST)

Come to think of it, I'm tempted to just scrap the UFOs/USOs category and just throw the contents in the generic Craft category. Can't see the need to have both. - Bomb Bloke 18:08, 19 December 2009 (EST)

We now have a primary category. - Bomb Bloke 19:29, 19 December 2009 (EST)

OK, it's making sense to me right now how the Category: Apocalypse should be reorganized. It is still a mess but it helps that you don't have to look for all Apoc related pages since they are already there :) Hobbes 20:24, 21 December 2009 (EST)

Indeed. There's a couple of hundred pages related to the other games that simply aren't sorted at all. - Bomb Bloke 06:33, 22 December 2009 (EST)

Windows 7 64-bit + XcomUtil + bb_tact

"This version of D:\games\ufo\BBReset.exe is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running. Check your computer's system information to see whether you need a x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of the program, and then contact the software publisher."

I'm getting the above message on every switch between geoscape and tactical when using your mod with XcomUtil. Does that mean your mod won't run, or am I doing something wrong? Rovlad 19:37, 5 May 2010 (EDT)

Nevermind, I figured it out after skimmering through .bat files a bit. For some reason your installer did not detect my system to be 64 bit (could be because it's not AMD-based). I've manually replaced BBReset.exe with BBReset32.exe and it works fine now.

Cheers! Rovlad 20:31, 5 May 2010 (EDT)

That's odd; last I knew, it used the same check that XcomUtil uses for its own executables. Having users manually moving files about isn't an ideal solution, so I'll have to take a closer look at it. Thanks for the heads-up. - Bomb Bloke 21:10, 5 May 2010 (EDT)

No problem, let me know if you need any specific information on the system, steps taken during setup process or whatever. One thing for certain, XcomUtil has detected 64-bit correctly right off the bat. Perhaps your installer could just check for "64-bit system" flag from XcuSetup to set everything up accordingly? It would not be a perfect solution, but since running XcomUtil is the only way to use bb_tact with 64-bit system (at least for now), it probably still is a feasible thought. Rovlad 08:06, 6 May 2010 (EDT)

Actually, never mind that. I've digged a bit more and discovered that Example.txt file in \XcomUtil\Addon directory is a bit outdated in terms of detecting 64-bit OS. You can fix your installation script by taking a look at \XcomUtil\batch\SysCheck.bat to see how it handles system detection now. Rovlad 10:19, 14 May 2010 (EDT)

Night vision goggles for soldiers during night missions

Hello there again.

I have drawn some graphics today which replace several images to add night vision goggles on soldiers' heads (for overalls and personal armor troopers). There are 19 images for both xcom_0.pck and xcom_1.pck, 38 in total. I've compiled them into pck files for testing (using your tools, of course!) and they seem to be working properly.

Thing is, I'm not very keen in actual modding, and seeing as your camouflage mod serves the very similar purpose (being purely a visual enhancement), I was wondering if you would be interested in using these for your own mod. As far as I understand, it would require a pre-battle check to see if it's a night mission, and only use new graphics in this case.

Anyway, let me know what you think.

- Rovlad 20:05, 14 May 2010 (EDT)

I think that sounds awesome. Right off the bat, you'd be able to tell whether night-rules were in effect for that battle or not, simply by checking how your soldiers are outfitted. Though, I don't suppose you could also update the SPKs for inventory screens? There's a tool in my pack for converting those back and forth, works much the same way as the PCK one.

Actually, I could even take it a step further: Make it so that, when using the goggles, mission light-levels are capped at the point just before "night-time" rules come into effect. So that it's visibly "dusky" to the user, but your troops still have full range of vision (like when you're in a base defense mission for eg). It always seemed rather silly that soldiers didn't have some sort of attached visual aid (like, say, a flashlight).

- Bomb Bloke 02:38, 22 May 2010 (EDT)

Clean Up

If it is in your abilities can you erase all these Russian blank pages (and their discussions)? They are redundant and left after vandals invasion. Thanks. ---ufo.mesh 05:32, 27 August 2010 (EDT)

BBmod.bat error: "dont find xcloader"

I cant install the BB mod set. When I run the BBMod.bat, the game begins with the intro without sounds and I get a black screen. When swap to the desktop I see the error message: unable to locate "xcloader". But, the xcloader.exe is in the folder. I have xcomutil and the seb76 extended mod installed. I run xcusetup and recognices the BBmod. But when a mission beggins the game crashes: error, unable to find kevlar brown...(the BBMod.bat dont worked)

- user: man.manza (juny 2011)

Sorry, I made some changes the other week and probably didn't test them too well before uploading.

Am sick at the moment, and not really in the mood to smooth it all out. You should be able to work around the main issue though.

Grab a fresh copy of f0dder's loader. In the "xcom1" folder of the archive, there's a file "patch.dll", you'll need to replace the one BBMod had with this. If you're running TFTD then don't worry about getting the new patch file.

There is no good reason why the batch wouldn't be able to find XCLoader, which is included in the toolkit archive now, so I'm assuming you're seeing the prompt to locate the game EXE instead... Either way I have no clue why the game would've started anyway.

Anyway, if that doesn't sort things, odds are it's unhappy because you didn't run "UniGen.bat" from the bb_tact folder before starting the mod. I'd tried to rig things so that you didn't need to do this unless you wanted to use the uniform manager, but I may have messed that up - if so, you'll probably need to reinstall the game and try again from scratch (backup your save folders if you're worried they'll be affected).

If you're still having trouble, I'll need some more info to go off. OS? Windows Collectors Edition, or through DOSBox? Which release of the game - Steam, GameTap, original disks/CD?...

By the by, you can automatically generate a signature for your comments by typing four tiles (~~~~).

- Bomb Bloke (Talk/Contribs) 07:28, 22 June 2011 (EDT)

Sorry, my previous post show a lack of information.

My PC: AMD Phenom II X4 965 processor, 2.18Ghz, 3,25Gb ram. WindowsXP ue.

And detailed steps: -clean copy of Steam "ufo defense" (windows CE version... I think) -Applied the seb76 extended mod. (The game runs successfully). -Copy the BB tool files in the ufo folder. (xcloader.exe is there) -Check bb_tact\Config\BBmod.ini: uniforms: off -run BBModBat... -black screen. Nothing happens... -press enter, again, and again... -at least several error messages: error: cant find personal armor set "alloy" using default instead... ...path not found in module BBreset at address 26EC:19Ac unable to found xcloader... etc... -I exit to the desktop. A windows tell me: "unable to fing xcloader.exe etc..." -I finish the process at the task manager.

Delete the entire ufo folder.

Download again from steam.

-New clean copy. Now without Seb76 Extended mod. -Check the vanilla game. Run "UFO Defense.exe". OK. Exit game. -Copy the BBtoolpack files in the game folder -This time I run the UniGen.bat first: ...procesing. It works. -I enable the uniforms in BBmod.ini -Run the BBMod.bat -intro without sound, black screen, exits to desktop, and the same windows message: "unable to fing xcloader.exe etc..."

-Copy the files from the xcom1 folder of xcombugfix091 (the file you linked me) and replace patch.dll. -Same error.

--Man.manza 12:34, 22 June 2011 (EDT)

Ok, if it's the Steam release, try this.

Goto the folder that contains the DOSBox executable and configuration file. This will typically be:

C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\xcom ufo defense

In there is "dosbox.conf", open that in a text editor (eg drag'n'drop the file into a Notepad window) and scroll right down to the bottom of it.

You'll see a line that states "call ufocd.bat", change this to "call bbmod.bat", then save the file. Run "dosbox.exe" (or just launch the game through the Steam interface, which uses DOSBox by default) and it should work. If you want to go back to running the game normally, just change the line in "dosbox.conf" back to "call ufocd.bat" again.

The idea is that BBMod seems to be getting confused by the fact that the Steam release contains BOTH DOS and Windows versions of UFO. It sees the DOS version first and tries to run that, but fails horribly unless you use DOSBox. There's plenty of irony there, because I'm the one who requested that it be that way... - Bomb Bloke (Talk/Contribs) 23:01, 22 June 2011 (EDT)

If, on the other hand, you want to force it to use CE, then delete UFOEXE\Black.exe and run BBMod.bat directly. - Bomb Bloke (Talk/Contribs) 23:22, 22 June 2011 (EDT)

Remember when editing wiki pages that when you hit submit, the page is replaced with whatever you had in the edit box. Meaning that if you hit edit, wait a few hours, then submit the page... if anyone has made any other changes within to the page within that time, they'll be lost. Best to re-press the edit button if you've left it a while, just in case the page version you're looking at is no longer up to date.

You can keep track of when a page was last changed using the "history" link at the very top of the article, or, using the "recent changes" link listed in the toolbox to the left. - Bomb Bloke (Talk/Contribs) 18:30, 23 June 2011 (EDT)

Convusopedia?

Why to keep in the toolpack a ready to use script for converting Ufopedia while not another one for TFTD? There is one here: File:Convusopedia.zip, perhaps you will add it to your pack?

Sherlock 06:12, 20 January 2013 (EST)

I threw that batch together in order to populate this page, and I'm fairly sure I did one for TFTD too in order to churn out this one too. But I don't think I got around to putting it in my main "release" folder, so that one got lost somewhere along the line...

I'll certainly throw that new one into my next update, thanks. :) - Bomb Bloke (Talk/Contribs) 09:12, 21 January 2013 (EST)

UFO/TFTD CE EXE Splitter / Merger

Files produced by this splitter differs from that produced with XComUtil. And even if we took the correction for TFTDextender error when exiting geoscape, there are still 5 bytes different. What is it for?

BTW., the newest version of TFTDextender generates Geoscape-exiting errors with any known version of the split exe.~Perhaps any further corrections are needed.

Sherlock 06:12, 20 January 2013 (EST)

Five bytes? Well that's interesting...

The reason the files differ is because kryub came up with a fix for the error in Scott's original code, and I implemented that fix into my version of the splitter. And I tested it, and it worked, though I now can't remember if it worked in conjunction with Extender. It's the sort of thing I'd've tested, but I just can't remember for certain.

But I also get the same crash as you do when used with TFTDExtender. And maybe without it, too, though TFTDExtender causes the game to report the same errors in different ways. I'd been meaning to try playing with the Extender INI to try and narrow it down, but since kryub told me to alter six bytes, I might've messed up. Though I've got a vague memory he might've told me to change a byte to something it was already set to, which'd explain the thingy. I've sorta been assuming something in Extender changed after I implemented the patch.

Urgh. Too late at night for thinking. If I got the patch wrong then I should be able to fix it in the morning. Or later in the morning, I should say. Otherwise I can hopefully at least isolate it down to a specific cause. - Bomb Bloke (Talk/Contribs) 09:12, 21 January 2013 (EST)

Ok, did some tests, here's what I can say for sure at the moment:

Kryub's patch works and is implemented in my version of the splitter correctly.

On my Windows 7 machine, I created a fresh install of TFTD, used my splitter, and confirmed it worked as intended. I then installed the latest TFTDextender+patch, and it still worked just fine. Ditto with my ComboMod going (which tweaks the TFTDextender INI a bit).

I copied that installation over my network to my XP Pro SP2 machine, and tested there: that errored out, but only when using TFTDextender.

So it appears there's an OS-specific problem there (either that or Windows 7 is somehow suppressing the error - actually, having TFTDextender suppress errors entirely would be a somewhat viable fix in itself). I'll see if I can do some more tests tonight, and hopefully I can narrow it down to a specific function of the extender that's conflicting. - Bomb Bloke (Talk/Contribs) 19:55, 21 January 2013 (EST)

User talk:Bomb Bloke

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