WCPEdit Version 1.8 - May 8th, 1999
          Thomas Bruckner
     thomas.bruckner@netway.at    
 http://members.xoom.com/thomasbr/
===================================


1. What is WCPEdit
------------------
WCPEdit allows you to edit all of the ship stats in Wing
Commander Prophecy and SecretOps:

Awacs, Devastor, Devil Ray, Dralthi, Excalibur, Kilrathi 
Corvette, Manta, Morey, Panther, Piranha, Raynode, Shrike, 
Skate Cluster, Squid, Thunderbolt, Tigershark, Vaktoth, 
Vampire, Wasp, Lamprey, Marine LC, Ray, Refueler, Remora, 
Sar, Shuttle, Skate and Stingray.

This program is freeware.


2. How to install
-----------------
Extract wcpedit.zip into a temporary directory. Then run 
setup.exe. You can then select if you want to install WCPEdit
for Prophecy or SecretOps. WCPEdit will automatically look up
the correct directory to install into. Click on "Install" and 
the setup program will copy and extract all files.

Upon the first start WCPEdit will ask if it should backup game
files. If you chose to backup the files you can later undo any
changes made by WCPEdit by clicking the "Restore all changes"
button on the About-tab.

If something doesn't work or if you have any suggestions or 
comments feel free to email me:
thomas.bruckner@netway.at


3. How to get the ModelViewer working
-----------------------------------------------------------------
In order to display the models the ModelViewer needs to access
files in the mesh\ and mat\ directory. These files can be
extracted from data.tre with HCl's Treman 
(http://wc.questgate.net/hcl/tm-beta2.zip). 

Steps to extract mesh and mat files:
1. type in "treman data.tre" at the dos prompt
2. chose option 3 (extract one/some files...)
3. type in "m" (for multiple files)
4. type in "mesh\" and press enter
5. repeat these steps to extract all "mat\" and "pal\" files

When this is done, the model viewer can display the wireframe
models of the ships. In order to display textures, the MAT files
must be converted to BMPs. To do this you can use my program
MatToBmp (http://members.xoom.com/thomasbr/mattobmp.zip)

Steps to convert MAT files to BMPs
1. Copy all files from the PAL\ directory to the MAT\ directory
2. type in "mattobmp *.mat" at the dos prompt


4. History
----------

What's new in Version 1.8
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* the mesh viewer now uses OpenGl to draw the model, which is
  faster and looks better. It can display textures too now, if
  they exist (as BMPs, see my MatToBmp converter) in the mat\ 
  directory. See Section 3 of this readme, for instructions.

* fixed a bug in the IffReader which prevented the Ella mesh from
  be displayed.

* Added a few shortcuts that might be useful:
  Ctrl+i shows the file name of the ship
  Ctrl+b shows the file name of the mesh file
  Ctrl+d removes the currently selected ship
  Ctrl+k kills the ship file and removes the ship

* loading ships should be a bit faster now

* fixed a problem in the mesh viewer (Y axis was mirrored)

* fixed a problem with the Wasp (invalid floating point op)

* fixed a problem with swapping the Midway or Civil Cruiser

* removed Stredit from the zip file. It's available as a seperate
  download anyway.

* can edit missile turrets now

* loading mesh files is significantly faster (about 20x in 
  extreme cases)

* fixed a bug that caused a crash with some ships from WC3/4

* Edit armor and hitpoints for capship missiles

* Added the option to make charging guns (like the charging 
  massdriver). 

* corrected the Devil Ray's alignment (was confed in last beta)

Beta2
=====
* Turrets are now restored by the default-button.

* Included Model Viewer. Until I figure out how to do texture
  mapping in OpenGl this will be wireframe-only. WCPEdit scans 
  the mesh\ directory automatically, and will display the model 
  if the required mesh file is present. 

  You can rotate and zoom the model by pressing the following 
  keys on the numpad:
  +, -: zoom
  2, 8: rotate around the x-axis
  4, 6: rotate around the y-axis
  7, 9: rotate around the z-axis
  5   : reset view  

* Finished capship editing
  A word of caution: Don't use the ship-switcher to switch normal
  ships with capships. WCPEdit will have no problem with it, but
  the game doesn't like it. Switching capships amongst themselves
  is also a bad idea and works seldom.

* Default button on the gun and missile tabs

Beta1
=====
* Setup program

* Help file

* Included a copy of stredit and added a button for it on the 
  guns and missiles tabs. The original intention for this
  feature was to give the alien guns and missiles real names,
  but somehow this doesn't seem to work as their names will
  always remain laser/mine regardless of what you change in 
  spacefli.eng. It works however for all other guns and missiles.

* batch processing features (see help for details)

* Ships, guns and missiles now have a little icon that indicates
  their alignment (C = Confed, K = Kilrathi, A = Alien) 

* Renamed Panther RBL to Panther BL to remove inconsistences.

* Backup feature
  When WCPEdit is started the first time it will ask whether it
  should backup all important files. This will take about 200 kb
  (more if you choose to backup data.tre too). If you choose to
  backup these files you'll later be able to restore everything
  to it's original state, in the case anything should go wrong.

What's new in Version 1.7
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* makes it possible to use the Mass Driver and the Particle gun 
  in SecretOps. Useful for ships imported from WC3/WC4.

* New "Load ship" button
  This only load a ship and doesn't add it to wcpedit's shiplist. 
  Very useful for experimenting.

* Pilot-tab disabled (it wasn't very useful)
  If you want to experiment with the pilots you can make the 
  tab visible by setting the value for PilotTab in soinfo.dat 
  or wcpinfo.dat in the [info] section to 1.

* Can read Capships
  This is experimental. I could use some info if the values 
  displayed for capships are correct. Saving changes is not 
  possible yet.

  I also didn't include capships with wcpedit.zip, so you'll 
  have to use wcprip or a similar utility to extract them from 
  data.tre.

  The ship-switcher works with Capships too, but swapping a 
  fighter with a Capship crashes the game. WCPEdit doesn't 
  check what ships are swapped, so you'll have to be careful 
  when switching ships around.

* Changed a few guns and missile names

* fixed the " not found..." error that occurred sometimes when 
  starting wcpedit

* Hardpoints tab doesn't crash anymore when there are no ships
  in the shiplist

* fixed many minor problems

What's new in Version 1.61 (not released)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* Add Ship button
  This will open a file selection dialog that allows you to add 
  a ship to wcpedit's shiplist automatically, without having to 
  use the /addship command line switch. But please note that the
  ship file must be in the ships\ directory.

* New tab to edit pilots
  you have to have the file pilots.iff in your \pilots directory
  in order to have the pilot tab work.
  If you put misb.ini (from Mission Builder) into your wcpedit
  directory wcpedit will be able to display the names for the 
  pilots.

* Editing names of missiles and guns
  Edits the pointer to the name (in spaceflight.eng)

What was new in Version 1.6a
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* Fixed a bug that crashed the game when using certain 
  combinations of hardpoints.

What was new in Version 1.6
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* Added /addship command
  syntax is: wcpedit /addship [shipname] [filename] [meshname]
  shipname is the name of the ship as it appears on the shiplist
  filename is the .iff file in the \ships directory
  meshname is the .iff file in the \mesh directory

* Can edit meshfiles to change the position of hardpoints. For
  this feature to work, you have to extract the meshfile 
  corresponding to the ship from data.tre using HCl's WCPRIP
  (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/6483/files.htm)
  and then call wcpedit with the /addship command. For example, 
  to change the positions of the Piranha's guns:
  1. wcprip data.tre mesh\piranha.iff
  2. rename uncompr. to piranha.iff and move it into the \mesh
     directory.
  3. wcpedit /addship Piranha piranha.iff piranha.iff

  When you use HCl's ship converter it isn't necessary to do 
  this because the meshfile it is already created by the 
  converter.

* Number of missiles and decoys can now exceed 255
* can now make guns that need ammo 

What was new in Version 1.53a
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* no more 'Install WCPEdit...' messages now when using WCPEdit 
  with SecretOps
* can edit turrets now
* fixed "Range Check Error" which occurred when editing ships
  without a turret

What was new in Version 1.52
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* new options for missile editing
* added uninstall feature

What was new in Version 1.51
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* works now with WCP
* fixed Default button (didn't work correctly when using
  the Shipswitcher)
* finally fixed the floating-point-bug
* loading ships is a little faster now
* Missile spin rate and spoof probability
* added ability to edit/make MIRV missiles

What was new in Version 1.5
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* fixed one very small bug
* WCPedit works now with SecretOps
* Install.bat isn't needed anymore

What was new in Version 1.45
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* changed some minor things
* adding boosters is now possible

What was new in Version 1.41
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* finished Ship-Switcher

What was new in Version 1.4 (not released)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* Add/Remove Guns improved (less buggy)
* Some minor improvements
* added Ship-Switcher

What was new in Version 1.31
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* fixed "Invalid Bullet Type"-Bug

What was in Version 1.3
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* Default button
* Import/Export ships
* some error-checking code
* add/remove guns

What was new in Version 1.2
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* New things to edit:
  - Guns
  - Missiles
  - Hitpoints (How many hits the ship can take with armor and
               shields down)
  - Autoslide
  - Stormfire ammo
  - Mass (I don't know if this has any effects)

* Fixed one very stupid bug. (some values between 1000 and 
  8000 didn't work correctly)

What was new in Version 1.1
-----------------------------------------------------------------
* New things to edit:
  - Gun Energy/Recharge rate
  - Shield recharge rate
  - Y/P/R rate of change
  - Afterburner Fuel

* New Ships to edit:
  Remora, Marine LC, Skate, Refueler, Sar, Shuttle, Lamprey
  Barracuda and Stingray. All Ships in Prophecy can be
  edited now.
 
* Corrected some Ship and Missile names. (Thanks to Dustin 
  W. Evans who provided me with the names)


5. Known Problems
-----------------
* When adding a booster and autoslide to a ship the game will
  crash. To avoid this first add autoslide then save and then
  add a booster and save again.


6. Frequently Asked Question
----------------------------
Q: I edit the ships and save the modifications, but the game 
   exits when a mission is loaded or during a mission saying: 
   "GunSystem::GunSystem invalid bullet type"
A: Somehow (probably because of a previous version) one of 
   the files in the \ships directory got corrupted. To fix 
   this problem overwrite these files with the original ones 
   found in wcpedit.zip.

Q: I edit the ships but the modifications take no effect in
   the game. What i'm doing wrong.
A: For some ships there are multiple variants. You have to edit
   the correct variant in order to see the modifications in the
   game. For example: In most SecretOps missions the Panter RBL
   is used. So you have to edit this ship.

Q: After I modified some settings with WCPEdit the game crashes
   every time a mission is loaded.
A: Overwrite the files soinfo.dat, wcpinfo.dat and the files 
   in the \ships and \game directory with clean files from 
   wcpedit.zip


7. Where to get new versions
----------------------------
Visit my Wing Commander Homepage at: 
http://members.xoom.com/thomasbr/


8. Credits
----------
* HCl for his WCPRIP program
* Origin Systems for Wing Commander Prophecy and SecretOps