FAQ

Here's a new FAQ, based on some actual questions I've received instead of made up ones. Also see the old FAQ which answers some more in-game questions.

Q: Could TOU have a online multiplayer option?
A: Unfortunately, that's nearly impossible. See the last question for a more lengthy answer.

Q: TOU could really have a new version with new weapons and some fixed features.
A: 70+ weapons should be enough for anyone :P. I'm not interested in extending TOU anymore.

Q: Will there be a ship editor?
A: No. There's a ship conversion tool though, which takes one image and a text file with ship properties and converts it to a SHP file: download. You'll need to replace one of the existing SHP files (in ships-directory). An older conversion tool is also available. It allows you to use different image for every angle.

Q: Weapon X is pretty unbalanced?
A: Try out this packet to edit weapon properties. You can edit loading times of weapons and the damage of some weapons, among other properties. Experiment. Some people have then asked what weapon numbers 101-109 are for. They are for particles such as snow, ship debris and other things that fly around like bullets but which you can't shoot yourself.

Q: What's that error message in the menu saying "TOU Error! Please exit TOU and fix the problem blahblah computer error"?
A: I've tried to fix it but it's hopeless. Often when that error comes, you can just start a new game.

Q: A Linux port?
A: I've heard that TOU runs on Linux with Cedega, but most likely it will run with Wine today as well.. I won't be making a port of TOU. Several people have contacted me and offered to port TOU to Linux. But after I've given them the source code, I haven't heard of them since. See the next question for a pretty good reason.

Q: Why isn't TOU open source?
A: Well, I am a recent fan of open source and would release any new stuff as such, but TOU's code is just too bad :). Its scarce comments are mostly in finnish, and so are some of the variable and function names. If you really want to see some specific parts of the code or are interested in some of the techniques TOU uses, just contact me.

Q: How to get Joystic support in TOU?
A: With this program (note: I haven't tried that program and don't know how/if it works).

Q: What program can I use to save TGAs required by the levels?
A: GIMP is a good choice for level editing. It's free and featureful.

Q: Could you make a level editor?
A: No. There's already a level converter that you can use to create maps out of pictures made with your favourite image manipulation program. I think it's a better solution than some featureless home-made image manipulation program.

Q: I found a picture called splay.jpg in TOU's folders. It looks like TOU should have some mission levels but how can I play them?
A: There indeed were plans for single player missions in TOU, but making them good and polished was too much trouble so I decided to leave that unfinished feature completely out of the game (except for that one JPG file which I forgot there). But since you read the FAQ this far you must be some sort of TOU enthusiast who doesn't mind trying out unfinished features. So here is a ZIP which enables the single player campaign mode (can also be played with two players). Just extract it to TOU's main directory so that it replaces the old tou.exe and creates some new folders. The mission menu can be accessed from below "Exit game". Some of the missions are actually pretty fun in my opinion, but many of them are just bad or too easy. So take it or leave it - I won't be improving the missons.

Q: So why doesn't TOU have online multiplayer option?
A: I started programming the game before I even had an internet connection, let alone knew how to program any of the stuff required for it. So needless to say, the whole game was designed to work traditionally on just one computer, and adding a multiplayer capability to it afterwards would've been quite a feat. First of all the code was designed so badly, or not designed at all, that extending it to have multiplayer would've required changes in about 10000 places, potentially breaking other stuff on the way. And there are some practical limitations as well. There's just so much stuff in motion in the game world, like destructible walls, mutable walls (brickwall, plastic explosives), gates, turrets, possibly hundreds of troopers and so on. If all this information wasn't being synchronized constantly, the game would go out of sync between the players quite soon. And synchronizing it would mean lots of (too much) data to transfer (or a better overall design). A stripped down version of TOU might've been more realistic, but then again you can try out Subspace/Continuum to fill that gap. It's free as well.