Remilton, you are correct. The colors are apparently determined and triggered elsewhere. If you know where please let me know.
Thank goodness for Rubini's HT mod. It saves a lot of hunting time.
I have been using the Type 34 DD as my test subject.
To correct a statement I made earlier, the Myros No Color mod affects con colors as you zoom in and out on the map... not apparently what I thought earlier. (I thought it had to do with range to contact.
A misconception I have fiured out. the "_shp" tga files only determine the SIZE of the hand-drawn ship. Any changes to its color simply fill the space with a solid rectangle. The rectangle size is proportionate to the size of the ship in question. By swapping _shp files you can get a battleship-sized contact for an S-Boat if you wanted.
Therefore the hand-drawn ship files must be packed away in a DAT file or something similar. I checked the dat file for the Type 34 and only found its skin.
Also secondary to this, unless the _shp files are somehow layered
I don't think that photoshop will help.
I need to know two things:
1) What file determines the color trigger for all ships... potentially we could set them all to be blue for friendly, neutral, and enemy. Green just doesn't seem right and red would be a good alternative.
2) Where are the "hand-drawn" ship tga files.
If either requires hex editing skills... I'm sunk.

I think that this process may have something to do with why the RUb map contact arrangement is the way it is and I am running into old problems.