Formcomp.dat
From EECH Central
Editing Unit Types with FORMCOMP.DAT
- FORMCOMP.DAT is a text file that allows you to adjust which units appear in the game (helicopters, aircraft, vehicles).
- To change the default unit set for the whole game, modify
\common\data\formcomp.dat
. - To change the unit set for a whole map, add or copy a new
formcomp.dat
to the (root of the) desired map directory (e.g.\common\maps\mapXX\formcomp.dat
). - To change the unit set for a specific campaign or skirmish, add or copy a new
formcomp.dat
to the desired campaign or skirmish subdirectory within the map directory (e.g.\common\maps\mapXX\camp01\formcomp.dat
). - Ignore
formcomp.dat
in the \common\maps\mapXX\campaign\ directory, changing it does nothing!
Tips:
- Remember, forward slashes (
// this is a comment
) are comments only and have no impact in the game. - Use your text editor's find-and-replace feature to replace the name of one vehicle with another.
- Don't be confused by the fact that
formcomp.dat
files are sometimes in all caps vs. lowercase; it doesn't make any difference.
Example: Replacing Comanches with AH-64D's
Looking in a default \Razorworks\common\data\FORMCOMP.DAT
we see the following as we scroll down through the "helicopter groups" section:
- FORMATION_COMPONENT
- TYPE HELICOPTER_LIGHT_RECON_ATTACK_GROUP
- TYPE ROW_LEFT
- COUNT 2
- GROUP_RECON_ATTACK_HELICOPTER
- AIRCRAFT_RAH66_COMANCHE
- AIRCRAFT_KA52_HOKUM_B
- AIRCRAFT_RAH66_COMANCHE
- AIRCRAFT_KA52_HOKUM_B
- END
Elswhere in FORMCOMP.DAT
we see that the AH-64D Apache is referred to as AIRCRAFT_AH64D_APACHE_LONGBOW
.
In the above section, we perform a simple find and replace of AIRCRAFT_RAH66_COMANCHE
with AIRCRAFT_AH64D_APACHE_LONGBOW
resulting in:
- FORMATION_COMPONENT
- TYPE HELICOPTER_LIGHT_RECON_ATTACK_GROUP
- TYPE ROW_LEFT
- COUNT 2
- GROUP_RECON_ATTACK_HELICOPTER
- AIRCRAFT_AH64D_APACHE_LONGBOW
- AIRCRAFT_KA52_HOKUM_B
- AIRCRAFT_AH64D_APACHE_LONGBOW
- AIRCRAFT_KA52_HOKUM_B
- END
Save over your old FORMCOMP.DAT
and the next time you start EECH, Comanches will no longer be available and you will have AH-64D Longbows in their place. (And because we just modified the FORMCOMP.DAT
in \Razorworks\common\data\
, this change will affect all maps/campaigns/skirmishes which do not have their own specific FORMCOMP.DAT
).