HCl's old files (1997-1999)

Archive - Work done between 1997 - 1999

This section contains a list of WC editing projects i worked on, on the period of time between 1997-1999. It has been completely restructured, with projects and tasks summarized and organized by games now.

Some files are still missing (and not even listed) but they will be re-uploaded hopefully soon, the site is currently undergoing some changes.

Wing Commander 1

Work done between 1997 and 1999 consisted on:

- Mission editing: research of the mission files and constructing a small, text-based, mission editor
- Researching the RLE format used to code images (also used by some of the later games)
- Importing new ships (pic: WC2 Ferret imported into WC1)
- Creation of a ship viewer tool

Files

Uncompressed Module.000 - Useful for WC1 mission building.

WC1 Ship Viewer - Old program that allows viewing the Bitmaps of WC1 ships, source code included.

WC1 test mission - New wc1 mission, replaces the first mission on the game.

Wing Commander 2

Work done between 1997 and 1999 consisted on:

- Mission editing: research of the mission files and constructing a small, text-based, mission editor
- Creation of a ship viewer tool
- Creation of a ship stat editor.

Files

Uncompressed Module.000 - Useful for WC2 mission building.

WC2 Ship Viewer - Old program that allows viewing the Bitmaps of WC2 ships, source code included.

Privateer 1

Work done between 1997 and 1999 consisted on:

- Mission editing: research of the mission files.
- Creation of a ship viewer tool
- Ship editing research: modification of ship stats, ship switching and ship importing.
- Research of the TRE format used by Privateer (and Armada)

Files

Privateer 1 Ship Viewer - Old program that allows viewing the Bitmaps of P1 ships.

Dralthi Patch - Allows you to fly a Dralthi, works with Floppy and CD versions of Privateer. Replaces the Tarsus.

Stiletto Patch - Allows you to fly a Stiletto, works with Floppy and CD versions of Privateer. Replaces the Tarsus.

Wing Commander Academy

Work done between 1997 and 1999 consisted on:

- Creation of a ship stat editor.
- Research of the speech format used by Academy (and WC2), and construction of a speech converter.
- Ship conversions between WC1/2 and Academy
- EXE research and patching to improve the game (add Drakhai pilots, the ability to use confed pilots on any ship, etc)
- Mission format research (gauntlet)

Files

Wingmen Voices - These are the voices for Hobbes, Angel, Maniac and Lightspeed (who have Stingray's voice). Unzip the files into the gamedat directory.

Bloodfang Patch - This replaces the Epee with the Bloodfang. Place the files XSHIP and INTELSHP on the gamedat directory and run FANG.EXE before running WCA.EXE

Fly Kilrathi Ships - An old tutorial on how to fly Kilrathi ships on Academy.

Gothri Patch (+ fix for VDU name) - This replaces the Epee with the Gothri. Place the files XSHIP and INTELSHP on the gamedat directory and run GOTHRI.EXE before running WCA.EXE

Kamekh/Fralthra Patch - This replaces the Dorkathi with the Kamekh and the Data Pod with the Fralthra. To choose a difficulty level to the data pod, choose the level first, and then click on the pod icon.

Gauntlet Editor - Allows editing and viewing the Academy gauntlet. Place this program on the gamedat directory

Drakhai Patch - Adds a 5th difficulty level: the Drakhai

Ralatha Patch - This patch makes the Ralatha friendly by default (instead of the Human Starbase). Made obsolete by the multiple friendlies patch.

Multiple Friendlies Patch - This patch allows you to specify which ships to make friendly, by using a special difficulty level (level 0). Level 5 (Drakhai, from a previous patch) is supported. This is an EXE patch, assembly patch source code included!

Wing Commander 2 / Academy ship editor - This editor allows you to edit the ships stats of all Wing Commander 2 and Wing Commander Academy ships. NOTE: If you want to edit Wing Commander Academy ships, please download the uncompressed ships' files here (~866Kb)

Kilrathi Depot Patch - Replaces the Human Starbase with the WC2 Kilrathi Depot.

Speech Converter - Allows converting VOC files to Academy speech format.

Wing Commander Armada

Work done between 1997 and 1999 consisted on:

- Ship format research, which included conversion of WC3 and WC4 ships into Armada
- Mission format research (gauntlet)
- Creation of WC to DXF converter for Armada models (which also worked for WC3 and WC4 models)

Files

Wing Commander 3

Work done between 1997 and 1999 consisted on:

- Research of the TRE format and compression algorithms used by WC3 (and wc4)
- Mission research, and construction of a small, text-based, mission editor.

Files

Wing Commander 4

Work done between 1997 and 1999 consisted on:

- Mission research, and construction of a small, text-based, mission editor.
- Importing ships from Armada and WC3 for use with the mission editor (pic: WC3 Darket imported into WC4)
- Generic ship modifications and switching

Files

Super Hellcat - Improved Hellcat fighter.

Super Dragon - Improved Dragon fighter.

Privateer 2

Work done between 1997 and 1999 consisted on:

- Research of the BIG IFF format and compression algorithms used by Privateer2
- Mission research (mainly the ones stored on the savegames)
- Ship format research (pic: the mesh from Kronos' ship)

Files

P2 Midi Files - Ripped from the game.

Wing Commander Prophecy / Secret Ops

Work done between 1997 and 1999 consisted on:

- Research of the TRE format and compression algorithm used by Prophecy (and Secret Ops)
- Research of the XA algorithm used on comm files (*.XA), music files (*.MGI) and FMV (*.WVE): included construction of a MGI ripper, MGI2WAV (now made obsolete by the Prophecy Audio Tool)
- Research and documentation of the mission command interpreter used by these games, which included the CRC generation algorithm
- Mission editing: included construction of two simple mission compilers (one an Assembly-like compiler, the other a C-like compiler)
- MAT format research, which included documenting the RLE format used by these games
- 3D format research, including the BSP-tree format used by the games and some early conversion tools
- Ship importing from previous games (pics: Kilrathi carrier and Behemoth conversions)
- Documenting the algorithm used to generate a Secret Ops key, and implementing a Key Generator

Files

Wing Commander Prophecy - Confed Gauntlet - A mission where you face waves of confed fighters, originally found on the game's data.tre

Wing Commander Prophecy - Modified Confed Gauntlet - A modification of the Confed Gauntlet mission, more challenging than the original.

TRE Manager - Allows extracting files from the TRE archives of any WC game.

Wing Commander Secret Ops - Key Generator - If you can't get a Secret Ops key from the Origin website, try this one.

All this is quite old, of course. Most recent research can be found on other areas of this site, which are organized by years (the 2002 area contains all the work done during the year 2002)

Addendum: Post 1999 archive

TRE Maker - Small utility for creating TRE files for WCP/WCSO. Includes source code.

BMP Tools - Two small tools which allow converting 24 bit BMPs to 16-bit RLEs and 8-bit BMPs with a transparency map to MAT format (WCP/WCSO)