Fixing the Screens(Work flow)

What dots are you talking about? There are no dots on the save screen. I am so confused.

If you are still talking about the menu.dat that is already solved (as mentioned in the blog post mentioned above). The SAVE CAREER screen is the final trouble. The only reference I could find to "save_background.bmp" was in the game executable. It must be hard coded since the developers probably assumed mod makers would never need to touch it. No reference to it in any .DAT file or .CON file.

Just following my list mate!

The dots on the map screenie, ya didn't even let me follow up my post with another one regarding the save_background image. I have a list I am working on and wanted to get this out before proceeding with the save. Care to brainstorm with me

Question how do I get to the screen without completing a mission?

The dots on the map screen are assigned in the Menu.dat and also in the .DAT files of each downloadable mission. You can't hack them in the .exe because the game processes these .DAT files just like it does .CON file. The game parses the files (sort of like how a web browser parses HTML and CSS files to figure out where elements should go on the screen).

The only thing you can figure out is how to center whole screens or how to put them in the top left at 0,0 coordinates.

Now that I have worked with screens that start at 0,0 it actually is the better way to go. Centered screens are the ones that are the pain in the ass.

However I don't want to move backwards. It would take a certain amount of wasted effort to fix all the screens so they uniformly center or not center the screens.

Now that I have enlisted my son's help his Python script removes all the tedium of processing the coordinates.

The only screens that would benefit from being centered are the 2 map screens and the save career screen. I can live with the map screens as they are but the save career screen will look pretty silly in the top left. An ideal situation would be to center it.

My post isn't being critical of you or the assistance you give the mod. You have been hitting it out of the park a lot lately. Just trying to explain things because I suck at communication and frequently over or under explain things.

It is possible that the x,y coordinates can be found in the game executable for the career save screen. It would be a pain in the ass though because there are a total of 6 screen elements to it giving a total of 12 x,y coordinates that would be hacked.

Update: I was wrong. Hacking individual elements isn't feasible on the Save Career screen because the game doesn't place elements in the traditional manner. Unless Copy-Cat has a breakthough with how to center screens I will have to leave the Save Career screen in the top left and just fill out the rest with interesting graphics.

Below is a test graphic leaving the Career Save in the top left while being balanced with other graphic elements. It looks better in full screen 1920x1080

Something is up with this save_background screen, if i revert to the 800 x 600 save_background screen using a mod to overwrite LR, the screen and most of the elements on the screen are centered. Do you get the same results?

It is also centered if I start a new career, pass a mission and save,

After looking thru the OP code, I cant' change the values to the position because they are the dimensions of the image used. These values are being passed into the ScreenRect variables. I believe the position of this screen is based on the dimensions of the image used. using a larger image will move the elements' (0,0) rect to the background's image (0,0) location.


Get on TS if you can..