[Commander Gizmo]

First of all, thank you for the feedback. I am happy to finally have some dialog on the subject.

Just because you were unable to accomplish a solution to the problem, you assume no one else can either. How sadly close minded of you.

There is indeed a simple solution. Rather than blindly and clumsily looking for the x numbered occurrence of a value, a parser can take an object oriented approach. Find all the objects (which would have to be unique to function in almost any file) and then the properties there of. Rather than needing to know that a ship is the fourth or hundredth one in a file, you reference the unique identifier for the object and then the desired property. Because all files of a type follow a format, new files added can also be easily parsed using this high level parser rather than a best effort approach.

Coupled with a scripting language or plug-in functions with if...than...else statements and pattern matching, you could add, remove, and change any value in any file with confidence.

The very fact that the files exist and are read from by the game proves it is possible to parse them this way. How do you suppose Ubisoft created the files? Surely they did not open notepad to add a new ship. The game must have some method of parsing these files at a higher level or adding your new ships would be pointless.

Are you saying that all known SH3/4/5/6+ files store the value identifiers as plain text? There are no truly binary formatted files?


Stop trying to place your own limitations upon me. Does it help to know that I own an IT firm and don't have to write my software on my own? I do this professionally people.