How To: Modify EntityDataStorage files

Introduction

An EntityDataStorage file essentially works like a container for individual 'Actor' types. The usual use-case are cars, the subway train (not supported in Toolkit) and 'City ActionPoints'. To launch the editor for this type of file, unpack one of the vehicle SDS archives. An example is pc/sds/cars/ascot_baileys200_pha.sds. Once you have unpacked this archive, you will notice a file called EntityDataStorage_X.eds. Navigate to this file inside the Game Explorer tool, and double click the file.

The Editor

1. Toolbar - File - Includes options to save, exit and reload. This is self-explanatory behaviour. Tools - Includes the ability to 'Export To XML', 'Import To XML', 'Copy' and 'Paste'.

• XML Functionality - When exporting to an XML format using Tools -> Export To XML, the Toolkit will prompt you for a new file name and location. It's quite a hefty and messy XML, but plans are to improve this. Once you have changed the XML, you can then use the Tools -> Import To XML functionality to re-import the EntityDataStorage data. This will directly replace all existing data currently loaded. Once that has completed, you can navigate to File -> Save.

• Copy & Paste Functionality - Copy and Paste functionality works by selecting a table you want to copy, then clicking Tools -> Copy. Then click on the table you want to replace with the copied data, and navigation to and click Tools -> Paste.

2. Entity Data Tree - The root entity data and any other data attached to this entity. For example, the 'Entity' node stores data about the car and tuning tables available, whereas each node starting with 'Table' contains the actual handling data for the specified tuning table. It is still unknown on which tables are linked to which tuning levels, and why the number of tables is much greater than the amount present in the game.

3. Tuning Table data - All available data to modify a vehicles handling is present (but this excludes tires), it's quite a lot of data to digest, and very difficult to explain what each one does. I highly recommend that you play around with values and see what you find. Furthermore, I would highly avoid changing any array/list sizes - the game expects them to be a fixed number and will mean the game will fail to load the edited file.