X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter: Installing Patches
Tech | Controls | Missions

 

This page covers installing patches into X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and falls apart in 3 main sections:

- Craft Installation Guide
- Useage In Missions Guide
- Important Notes

You'll need WinZIP or PKUnzip to unpack most of the downloads. Most downloads contain .doc or .txt files, often called "readme.txt", read these! They contain valuable information about what you downloaded and how you should install it.

Most of the patches in the archive contain automated install/uninstall scripts, making manual installation unnecessary. Some older patches require manual installation and some people may prefer to install patches manually, so detailed instructions are set out below.
Most manual installations will require TIE patch for windows. It may be obtained from the File Archive.
Patches Requireing Manual Installation: All Infiltrator Wing Patches, Some TIE Corps XWA Patches, all patches on Windows XP machines.

If you got any other questions or if you got hints yourself, don't hesitate to contact the SCO. If you need another type of help, use the links below the titlebar.

 

  Craft Installation Guide
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  • Place the following files from the zip in the appropriate Locations:
    FRONTTXT.TXT - main XvT or BoP folder
    SPECDESC.TXT - main XvT or BoP folder
    STRINGS.TXT - main XvT or BoP folder
    FRNTSPEC.LST - FRONTRES folder
    *.LFD - CP640 folder
    *.LFD - CP640 folder
    *.INT - CP640 folder
    *.PNL - CP640 folder
    *.OPT - IVFILES folder
  • The file with the .XvT or .114 extension *must* be patched into your copy of XvT for the craft to function correctly, the file with the .BOP extention is for BoP. Place this file into a temporary folder of your choice, and do the following:
    1. Download TIE Patch for Windows (TPWin) from the EH Science Office. (Note that only TPWin, not TIE Patch for DOS, should be used for patching XvT or BoP.) Extract the program into a folder on your hard drive, where it is recommended you leave it installed for future installations. This document will assume C:\TPWin. (Make sure you extract the entire program and not just the EXE! You'll get errors on execution if some of the files aren't there.)

    2. Go to the TPWin folder, and run TPWin.EXE. (Click CONTINUE in the credits dialog box that pops up.)

    3. You will next be presented with a "Select Patch File" dialog box. First, set the "List files of type:" field to "All Files (*.*)", then go to the folder to which you extracted the patch (.BoP or .114) file, select it, and click OK.

    4. You will next be presented with a "Help me find FLIGHT.OVL/Z_TIE__.EXE" dialog box. You won't be using either of those filenames, but it will still work so long as you make sure that you set the "List files of type:" field to "All Files (*.*)", as you did in the previous step. Once you've done that, go to your XWA folder (on most systems this is C:\Program Files\LucasArts\XwingTie\(BalanceOfPower)), select z_XvT__.exe, and click OK. (Note that TPWin is a 16-bit program, and does not support long file names. Thus, a folder such as "C:\Program Files" will appear as C:\PROGRA~1, or similar.)

    5. Next, you find yourself at the TPWin main screen, with your source file and destination path both reflected therein. Out of the two options presented to you, do NOT select "SideWinder Patched" (this is only for TIE Disk/CD), but do select "Make Backup". Click the "Patch!" button.

    6. In the resulting "Save Backup as..." dialog box, select a folder and assign a filename to what will be a backup copy of your current z_XvT__.exe file. Note that you may only use DOS 8.3 format for filenames in this program.

    7. Next, you will get either one or two dialog boxes, the last of which should report a successful patching. Click OK, and exit from TPWin.

 

  Useage In Missions Guide
Originally by Fleet Admiral Kermalius top

 

To make a mission for X-Wing vs TIE Fighter using a custom ship is quite simple & similar to the process on other platforms. When creating the mission, you make it as per normal but when you are specifying the ship type for a flight group, you need to specify a different value.

In the readme for each ship is will say "To make a mission using the [craft]:", below it will specify either the TIE Defender or the Missile boat (for non-IW patches).
Most Editors (XvTEd certainly does) will allow you to select these craft in the mission.

You must specify that the patch is required in the readme for you mission, including the patch with the battle is generally a welcome curteosy. Without the patch XvT will lock up the players computer, requireing a hard reboot.

 

  Important Notes
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Unzipping: Do NOT just unzip any downloaded patch straight into your game directories. Always use an empty "Temp" directory. Unzip with support for subdirectories

Back Ups: all your original files are backed up on your CD - don't worry, it's easy to repair anything. As long as you keep everything devided over the folders in the same way they are on your CD. If all else fails you can always reinstall it.

Newer Patches: Newer patches do not distribute the full .txt and .lst files to save bandwidth. Instead they feature *.1, *.2,... files with just the bit of the .txt or .lst file that has been changed. You'll have to copy paste these lines into the corresponding .txt or .lst files manually.

Balance of Power: When installing into BoP, make sure to do the procedure doubly for both XvT and BoP. Your patch should unzip the BoP files in a BOP subfolder, use these for BoP.

Windows XP: Windows doesn't like the .bat setup of the EH patches, instead use the XP installer.

 

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Site/page created 22/aug/99, updated 02/apr/01. Version 3.0b. Copyright © 1999, for BS4U by Ender mBind