Steel Panthers Weapon Editor Utility v1.0 by Nicholas Bell ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DISCLAIMER - AGREEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Users of these programs must accept this disclaimer of warranty: "This software is supplied on an AS IS basis. The author specifically disclaims ANY warranty, expressed or implied, as to the fitness for any particular purpose of the software. Under no circumstances will the author be liable for any direct, consequential, special, indirect, or other damages including, but not limited to, loss of data, profit, or the use of the software arising from the distribution, use, misuse, or inability to use the software. YOU USE THIS SOFTWARE AT YOUR OWN RISK. BY USING THE SOFTWARE, YOU AGREE TO THE TERMS OF USAGE SET FORTH IN THIS DISCLAIMER." NOTICE ~~~~~~ These programs are not in any way connected with or endorsed or supported by Strategic Simulations, Inc. TRADEMARKS ~~~~~~~~~~ Steel Panthers is a trademark of Strategic Simulations, Inc. DISTRIBUTION NOTICE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This program is being released by the author as freeware. It is NOT public domain! You may copy and use the program freely. You may distribute it to whomever you like but: 1. Do NOT distribute modified versions. 2. Do NOT bundlle with other programs. 3. ALWAYS distribute with the documentation. 4. Do NOT charge a fee for distribution. No other limitations are placed on the usage of the software. No fee is charged for the use of the software. *** WARNING *** ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This program makes permanent modifications to the following files in the STEEL PANTHERS program: OBBR, OBMA, OBPZ, OBJA, OBUS. If you have any problems please copy ALL these files back into your STEEL PANTHERS directory from your STEEL PANTHERS CD. INSTALLATION ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Copy the WPNEDIT.EXE file into your STEEL PANTHERS main directory. USE ~~~ Weapon characteristics are stored in the OB?? files. Each OB?? file contains duplicate weapon data (and country specific unit formation data used in constructing scenarios). The WPNEDIT program will modify all OB?? files simultaneously without distribing the formation data. The reason all OB files have to be modified even though they all contain identical weapon data is because STEEL PANTHERS loads the weapon data based on the opponents. For example, OBPZ controls the German and Soviet weapon data. OBUS controls the German and US weapon data. Thus if you were to only modify the 88 L56 in OBPZ, then if you fought the Americans, the 88 would be unmodified. In any case, you do not have to worry about it. Note that weapon characteristics are not scenario dependent like unit characteristics. If you change the penetration value of a weapon it will have that new value in all scenarios old and new. Be sure to check the entire list when modifying a specific weapon, since many countries have specific versions of their weapon. Use the (v) View function to check the entire weapon list and you will see how the specific country's weapons are grouped together. Some conutries use the same weapon, eg Britain and Germany both use RIFLE weapon number #1, while the Japanese use Rifle weapon number #205. Note that some weapons are duplicated, eg their are 2 entries of the 88mm L71 Pak (#62 and #150). #150 is titled 88 L71 Pak 43 while #62 is merely a 88 L71 Pak. Same weapon, same values, but probably some weird situation involving ownership. Perhaps a situation where Rumanians used it against the Germans? The weapon values in STEEL PANTHERS are nearly all identical to those in TYPHOON OF STEEL. There are some which I have been unable to determine. These are listed as UNKNOWNS. Editing these might cause problems, so unless you are familiar with hex editing and the technique used to determine unknown values, do not mess with these. UNKNOWN AP requires a bit of explaining. Except for the AP Penetration and HE values, all weapon characteristics are stored in simple arrays with one byte per weapon characteristic. The AP and HE values, however, are stored every other byte, but not in an integer format! For the HE values the bytes in between are all nulls. However, for the AP values there are values which are listed as UNKNOWN AP. If you read the values SSI gave out in the V1.1 readme.txt you will note that some AA weapons have AP values which are listed by WPNEDIT as UNKNOWN APs. Either STEEL PANTHERS can play musical chairs with arrays or somebody made a typo in either the data base or the v1.1 readme.txt. DEFINITIONS ~~~~~~~~~~~ The following is from the STEEL PANTHERS V1.1 documentation: "Key: HE= High Explosive value, used to determine HE attacks against soft targets like infantry. AP Pen.= Max unmodified penetration for the AP round. HVAP Pen.= Max unmodified penetration for the HVAP round. HEAT= Max unmodified High Explosive Anti-tank penetration. Range= Max range for the weapon, in hexes. Accuracy= Number of hexes the weapon will have an unmodified 50% chance to hit its target. Example= Accuracy is 8, this means the weapon will have from 1 to 8 hexes, a unmodified base hit chance of 50%. Note this number can go up or down due to various modifiers in the game." Not listed is SIZE, which refers to the size of the weapon's projectile. Size has a major impact on the lethality of HE fire and in determining the damage resulting from successful armor penetration. For purposes of modifying range and accuracy, each hex equals 50 meters When modifying penetration values, each point equals 10 centimeters (as does each point of armor on the AFV's) CONCLUSION ~~~~~~~~~~ The purpose of making this editor was to enable me to easily correct the incorrect weapon data in STEEL PANTHERS in order to improve its realism. This is a highly subjective matter. Test range data and reality infrequently coincide. For example, in every tactical level wargame (both board and computer) the 2 pdr and 57mm ATG are always overrated in terms of range, accuracy, and most importantly, penetration. The 2 pdr projecticle usually shattered on German face-hardened armor and US Amry units frequently left their 57mm's behind because they were considered useless against even Pzkfw IVs. In any case, if you were interested enough to download this program you probably have enough interest, sources, and ideas on how the weapons could be better modeled. I also wanted to experiment with doubling the range and accuracy of the weapons to decrease the scale to 25 meters. Since the maps are too large for the number of units allowed in the game (and we cannot make a 20 hex wide map which would be about right) I'm thinking one way to solve the unit number limitation - realistic unit frontage issue is to decrease the size of the battlefield. Of course, I'd rather have the abilility to control 200 units per side . If you have problems, bug reports, suggestions, contact me at: 72162.1667@compuserve.com. Enjoy! Nicholas Bell 9 DEC 95