Editing of PDT file

[Rosseau]

Forgive my ignorance and the fact that I am coming late to the party.

I'd like my foot infantry to move faster, historical or not. Tiller has that handy pdt file editor to handle that. Or, is there guidance for us to directly edit the pdt file for infantry speed in various terrain?

Vietnam will be a slogfest I understand, but may also want to up movement rates a bit in that game.

Thanks!

[Oberst_Klink]

ORIGINAL: Rosseau

Forgive my ignorance and the fact that I am coming late to the party.

I'd like my foot infantry to move faster, historical or not. Tiller has that handy pdt file editor to handle that. Or, is there guidance for us to directly edit the pdt file for infantry speed in various terrain?

Vietnam will be a slogfest I understand, but may also want to up movement rates a bit in that game.

Thanks!

Here's a relevant thread about editing in general, including the .pdt files.

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3611260

Klink, Oberst

[Crossroads]

Hello Rosseau, movement cost per hex is done with the movement.pdt, but if I understood you correctly, you are interested of tweaking certain units rather than terrain cost?

The parameter to play with then would be the "Speed" value in nation's Platoon**.OOB. Code does not use Cross country speed, or XCspeed, although it is there too. So just tweak unit's Speed value.

[Crossroads]

Having read your post again, you are asking for the general terrain cost modifier after all, right.

Well, that's a bit more complicated. I wrote this once to explain it all under the JTCS games, I hope it helps a bit to understand how the file works:

Infantry. For instance, WF Bootcamp 1, and the US Rifle Platoon 44 grunts there. Have a look at them with Arkady's Unit Viewer, you will notice their (Road) Speed is set at 10. (10 kmh to be precise).

Infantry (and any unit type) movement rate is defined in Movement.pdt, or in its encrypted format, pdx rather. If you open the pdt file, what you will find is four sets of intimidating looking tables. Those tables are the movement rates for the fourteen unit types covered within the JTCS game: Tracked, Halftrack, Armored Car, Truck, Wagon, Foot, Motorcycle, Train, Ski, Horse, Boat, Raft, Air, and Ship.

The four sets are for movement rates under Normal, Soft, Mud, and Snow. (As of CSME 2.0, we've added two more to accommodate for the coming East Front game: Frozen, and Deep Snow).

Then, each column represents a unique terrain type, first one being Clear, and then all the others. First all full hex terrain types, then all Hex Side types. I am pretty sure all new terrain types such as Airfield etc were added to the end, so the first ten columns for instance would be Clear, (Deep) Water, Forest, Marsh, Building, Village, City, Beach, Orchard, and Rough. Then Shallow (Water), Impassable (all 0s), Industrial, Field (as of CSME 2.0: Grain Field), Suburb, Swamp, and Vineyard. And on they go, CS has a ton of terrain types, which is very nice of course.

A value of "0" means the unit type / conditions / hex type does not allow said unit entering a hex of that type at all, otherwise there's the movement cost there. A unit can always enter a hex once, regardless of cost, so like with Forest having a cost of "8000", those units can enter it using all their Action points.

Foot movement on Normal under Road terrain is there, somewhere (my helper tool accomodates for the latest revision, I have the old helper somewhere ...), where the movement rate on Paved Road is "100". As for most other land moving units as well, meaning that on paved roads the units can move at the default Speed set at its platoon**.oob file.

Rifle Infantry 44 with its Speed of "10" and Paved Road parameter "100" then has its hex entry cost calculated, resulting in 25 in this case. Formula uses the 6 minutes turns ie. 10 turns to an hour conversion, meaning Rifle'44 can enter four Paved Road hexes each turn. Four * 250 meters is one kilometer per turn, with 10 turns to an hour they ten travel the set 10 kmh.

Next I'd need to name all the columns for you so you'd know how to alter them for Foot units (sixth row under each table set per the four Ground Conditions). I'll dig them up and list them in a day or three.

[Crossroads]

With my two above posts and your CS Vietnam analogy in mind:

[*] If you want each and eveery foot unit to move faster through Jungle, mod the Movement.pdt tables (lower the Jungle column cost values)
[*] If you want only the VM/VC foot units to move faster through Jungle, mod the North Vietnamese Platoon.oob file for the said units (up their Speed value)

This should be safe to try out, if you want. As of CSME 2.0, game defaults to unencrypted OOB / PDT files vs computer play. So create a JSGME mod, jug the movement / platoon files you want to mod there, edit them, enable the mod.

I will get back to you with movement pdt column titles.