Game Files

Not-for-profit, just-for-fun reverse engineering.

• General note re: Hex editing game files

Contains a quick introduction to using a most unlikely program to edit your game files, and suggestions on other editors out there.

• A primer for the Command Prompt (aka the command console).

Information on how to manage directories, files, plus other neat tricks that can be done through the command console that should not be forgotten in today's era of point and click madness.

Hatfarm / Chris Voss and DaiShiva (see file formats) also have notes on a number of XCOM's file formats not yet detailed on this wiki.

General File Information

Program Files

These are program files and static data files that are not part of the saved game files.

File	Description
GEODATA	Geoscape data. Includes localization strings, OBDATA.DAT for objects like weapons, WORLD.DAT for globe terrain.
GEOGRAPH	Graphics for UFOpaedia and research screen backgrounds.
MAPS	Pre-generated Battlescape terrain blocks (.MAP). These are filled in with terrain tiles. A few dozen blocks make up a battlescape.
MISSDAT	Holds the data from the previous mission. (Can be exploited).
ROUTES	Alien route maps (.RMP) for moving around the pre-generated Battlescape terrain blocks.
SOUND	1990-era sound drivers, or MIDI files for Windows version.
TERRAIN	Battlescape graphic tiles for buildings, ships, and terrain (.MCD, .PCK, and .TAB).
UFO2EXE\TACTICAL.EXE	The "Battlescape" program in DOS-release of UFO.
UFOEXE\GEOSCAPE.EXE	The "Geoscape" program that handles base management and aircraft.
UFOEXE\BLACK.EXE	The black screen UFO.BAT puts up when swapping between the above two programs.
UFOGRAPH	Misc graphics (.PCK) for soldier equipment screens, smoke, motion detector blobs.
UFOINTRO	Holds the introduction movie (.FLI) and the endgame pictures (.LBM).
UNITS	Battlescape graphics for soldiers, aliens, and the pixelated guns they hold. (.PCK and .TAB).

Geoscape Files

These are savegame files used by the Geoscape portion of the game. This can be considered a 'standard' save.

File	Description
ACTS.DAT	Contains information which acts with which priority in respective zones aliens are going to try.
AKNOW.DAT
ALIEN.DAT	Contains Alien activity in Countries and areas, for graphs.
ASTORE.DAT	Has the info on aliens in Alien Containment.
BASE.DAT (TFTD)	Has all of the base layout and contents information, radar scanning abilities and other base information.
BPROD.DAT (TFTD)	List of equipment being produced.
CRAFT.DAT (TFTD)	Has all the craft info, weapons, fuel, damage and items onboard. Also stores UFO information, although information is handled differently from friendly aircraft.
DIPLOM.DAT	Diplomacy info, and current and historical Country Funding.
DUM.BIN	Dummy file for keeping directory structure. Not used.
FACIL.DAT	Info on Base Facilities you can build.
IGLOB.DAT	Date and time.
INTER.DAT	Info on interception windows
LEASE.DAT
LIGLOB.DAT	Money! Also financial graph information.
LOC.DAT	Location of bases on the planet as well as other things like ships, waypoints and missions. Basically anything that is an icon on the Geoscape world view.
MISSIONS.DAT	Contains counters and race info on the ongoing alien acts.
PRODUCT.DAT (TFTD)	Info on things you can produce.
PROJECT.DAT (TFTD)	These are things you are researching.
PURCHASE.DAT (TFTD)	Info on stuff you can buy.
RESEARCH.DAT (TFTD)	Completed research.
SAVEINFO.DAT	Name of the saved game.
SITE.DAT	List of recent Terror Sites. (May be TFTD-only.)
SOLDIER.DAT (TFTD)	Data about the soldiers.
TRANSFER.DAT	Personnel and equipment being transferred.
UIGLOB.DAT	Holds the next numbers for UFOs, Terror Sites, Interceptors, etc. Also contains monthly scores for research.
UP.DAT	UFOpaedia info.
XBASES.DAT	Schedules attacks on X-COM bases.
XCOM.DAT	Contains X-Com activity in Countries and areas, for graphs.
ZONAL.DAT	Information on which zones and with what priority aliens are going to attack.

(28 files. Note that if you find a geoscape save with additional files, this simply means a battlescape save was made in that slot at some prior point. UFO does not remove unused save files).

Battlescape Files

These are savegame files created and used by the tactical portion of the game. They are only created if the game is saved while in the battlescape. Battlescape saves also contain all the files used in a standard save.

File	Description
BGLOB.DAT	Describes ambient light on map.
GEODATA.DAT	Details the map type and overall map structure.
MAP.DAT	Stores tile information for the whole map. Basically all static structures, such as trees, walls, floors and furniture.
MISDATA.DAT	Contains information on craft in use and which alien artefacts are available for use in combat.
OBPOS.DAT	Stores all the objects that your soldiers can pick up (guns, corpses, etc).
ROUTES.DAT	Stores nodes for soldier and alien spawn points, also acts as waypoints for AI pathfinding.
SEEMAP.DAT	Fog of war overlay.
SMOKBIT.DAT	Smoke particles and fire patches on the map.
SMOKREF.DAT	Smoke particles and fire patches on the map.
SOURCEMP.DAT	Light source overlays for mobile light sources (i.e. your soldiers).
TERMP.DAT	Light source overlays for ambient (or fixed) lighting.
UNITPOS.DAT	Controls ownership, visibility, whether the unit is under temporary mind control, etc. Works hand in hand with UNITREF.DAT.
UNITREF.DAT	Contains the primary stats for all units in combat. X-Com owned soldiers in this file are virtual copies of the soldiers in soldier.dat. Works very closely with unitpos.dat.
WGLOB.DAT	Battlescape map global information such as map dimensions and the number of turns that have elapsed.

(14 unique files, plus all 28 standard save files, totaling 42).

Missdat Files

These temporary files are used at run time, when a battlescape game is in progress. The missdat folder also contains all the files needed to create a standard Geoscape save for the game in progress.

When the tactical game engine starts, it first checks SAVEINFO.DAT to see if this is a new battle, or if you're loading a battlescape save game. In the case of the former, it generates a new map, based off these files:

• GEODATA.DAT
• MISSION.DAT
• OBPOSREF.DAT
• UNIPOS.DAT
• UNIREF.DAT

If you load a game, the tactical engine loads from the save slot directly, as according to DIRECT.DAT (which details the path to the slot in concern).

When combat ends, these files are created:

• CODE.DAT
• MISSION2.DAT
• OBPOS2.DAT
• OPTION.DAT
• UNIREF2.DAT
• UNITPOS.DAT

(12 unique files, plus 27 standard save files (does not use dum.bin), totaling 39).

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File Format information

Graphics

A list of specific image formats used by EU/TFTD.

Extension	Description
PCK	A run-length-encoded image format for storing one or more images with a dimension of 32x40 pixels. Used for sprites, tiles and inventory images. Usually accompanied by a TAB file, serving as an index to the image archive.
SCR & DAT	Stores uncompressed image data for the full screen backgrounds and the inventory screen icons.
SPK	Paper doll and UFOpedia images, among other full screen pictures.
BDY	Often used by TFTD in place of SPK.

Did You Know?

• If your game crashes and you are returned to previous mission, the game is actually referring to the battlescape information in the MISSDAT directory. Also, if a tactical mission is abnormally aborted, the results are obtained from the MISSDAT folder as well. Because the game was not able to update the files that hold the results of the last mission, your current game will be updated with information from the previous mission that was able to end normally. Abnormal program termination simply means that the tactical game engine crashed or was forced to crash by the user. This can be abused.

• Other exploits with gamefiles can be found here.

See Also

Game editors