Yup, I you feel adventurous, here is a little walkthrough on how to change stuff in the mod.
Please note that I
can't test this right now, as I don't have WCS installed on the computer I'm using right now.
Wing Commander Saga is based on the Freespace Open engine, meaning that it should be using the same basic data structure, loading priorities, etc.
-First, you'll need something to view .vp files, I recommend using
Maja
, as it is very intuitive.
-Once you have downloaded Maja, select "
File -> import package", browse to your WCS directory, there should be a bunch of .vp files.
-Look for something that looks like missions.vp; in any case, continue importing .vps until you find something that looks like
data/missions/<a bunch of .fs2 files>
-Find the mission you want to modify (or all of them), then
right-clic -> export folder -> <WCS directory>/data/missions. Anything contained in the data folder should, in theory, override everything else (mod data, "retail" data, etc.).
-Right now, the Wing Commander Saga Dev Kit hasn't been released (unless I missed news of it
: ), so you'll have to modify the mission files manually, using a text editor.
-The next part is a bit blurry for me (I don't usually modify missions loadouts manually), but you should look for (ctrl-f) something called "
#Players", then something called "
$Starting Shipname:", copy the ship's name, find the "
#Objects" section, then look for the player's ship name. Or you can go directly to "
#Object" and ctrl-f "
sandman"
-The section you want to modify is called "
$Class:". Note that this will modify only your ship, and not those of your wingmen.
If you want to know how the WCS team names its ship classes, you can look into the .vp files for something like
data/tables/ships.tbl or
data/tables/<something>-shp.tbm, and open these files with a text editor.
I'll be adding more colors in a few minutes.
EDIT - colored
Oh, and whatever happens,
DON'T MODIFY THE .VP THEMSELVES, always export what is inside somewhere else first (like
<WCS>/data),
then modify the files.
I hope I didn't make any mistake writing this
: