Changing text messages with stringtable.csv

This article discusses hacking the stringtable as a means of customising the messages sent to other players during a game of Flashpoint. Game messages such as "ATTACK BMP" and "[Luedog] was killed by [_Sfly29_] (Friendly fire)" are stored client side for easy internationalisation and hence can be individually edited.

To edit the stringtable, open up your favourite text editor and load res/bin/stringtable.csv under your Flashpoint installation directory. You can also use a spreadsheet program if you want; the stringtable is, as the name implies, a table of strings in comma-separated format.

The layout of the stringtable is simple enough to understand. First comes a key, a means of identifying the strings to the game. Then come various language values of each key. For example, the translations of Danger appear in the line

STR_COMBAT,Danger,Danger,Pericolo,Peligro,Gefahr,Nebezpeci

To change a game message, all you have to do is find the relevant string in this file and edit it. So to change "ROGER" to "OK BOSS" you would search for all occurrences of ROGER and edit appropriately.

Substitutions

Some strings contain % substitutions. For example:

STR_KILLED_BY_FRIENDLY,%s (%s %d) was killed by %s (Friendly fire)

The game replaces each % sequence by a certain value, depending on the context of the string. in the above example the first %s will be replaced by your name, the (%s %d) will be something like (Alpha Green 3) and the final %s will be the name of the player who teamkilled you. Keep these substitutions in mind as you write your strings.

Other strings contain % substitutions with numbers.

STR_SENT_TARGET_1,"%1, TARGET %2"

These are more or less the same as the %s substitutions only ordered.

Server strings

Some strings are only sent by the server. "Player [icarus_uk] is loosing connection" is one such example. Changing these will have no effect unless you are hosting a game.