Game Files

Geoscape Files

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

• ACTS.DAT
• 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 - Has all of the base layout and contents information, radar scanning abilities and other base information.
• BPROD.DAT - List of goods being produced.
• CRAFT.DAT - 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.
• DUM.BIN
• FACIL.DAT - Info on facilities you can build.
• IGLOB.DAT - Date and time.
• INTER.DAT
• LEASE.DAT
• LIGLOB.DAT - Money!
• LOC.DAT - Location of bases on the planet as well as other things like ships. Basically anything that is an icon on the Geoscape.
• PRODUCT.DAT - Info on things you can produce.
• PROJECT.DAT - These are things you are researching.
• PURCHASE.DAT - Info on stuff you can buy.
• RESEARCH.DAT - Completed research.
• SAVEINFO.DAT - Name of the saved game.
• SOLDIER.DAT - Data about the soldiers.
• TRANSFER.DAT - Personnel and goods being transferred.
• UIGLOB.DAT
• UP.DAT - UFOpaedia info.
• XBASES.DAT - Alien Base information
• XCOM.DAT - Contains X-Com activity in Countries and areas, for graphs
• ZONAL.DAT

(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 files are 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.

• BGLOB.DAT
• GEODATA.DAT
• MAP.DAT - Stores tile information for the whole map. Basically all static structures, such as trees, walls, floors and furniture.
• MISDATA.DAT
• 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.
• SMOKEBIT.DAT - Smoke particles and fire patches on the map.
• SMOKEREF.DAT - Smoke particles and fire patches on the map.
• SOURCEMP.DAT and TERMP.DAT - Both files are light source overlays. Ones for mobile light sources (i.e. your soldiers) and the other is for ambient (or fixed) lighting.
• UNITPOS.DAT - Controls every section of a small unit or a large unit in the map. Works hand in hand with unitref.dat. Controls ownership, visibility, whether the unit is under temporary mind control, etc.
• 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 - Map information, like map dimensions. Might also include the tileset and other map information. Stores the current turn and the actual turns, used mainly for testing grenade detonation conditions.

(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. Some additional information is created at the time the mission begins, but this is only saved to the harddrive if a manual save is made. If the game is loaded from a save slot, some files are read directly from that save slot, while others are used from the missdat folder. The missdat folder also contains all the files needed to create a standard Geoscape save for the game in progress.

• CODE.DAT
• DIRECT.DAT - Shows the save slot (if any) in use.
• GEODATA.DAT
• MISSION.DAT
• MISSION2.DAT
• OBPOS2.DAT
• OBPOSREF.DAT
• OPTION.DAT - Scroll speed settings etc.
• UNIPOS.DAT
• UNIREF.DAT
• UNIREF2.DAT
• UNITPOS.DAT

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