TESA Documentation
Using TESA
When you start up TESA you will be prompted to pick a game (if more than one game exists) and a map (if more than one exists). TESA ships with all the Battlefield 2 32-player maps, so you should have a few to choose from. After picking the map, you are dropped into an empty strategy in TESA.
From here it's really easy. To add a squad, click "Add Squad". To add a team member, click "Add Member". To move people about, click them and drag them to where you want them to be. There is no limit on the number of people in a squad, but there is a limit to how many team members you can have - it is the number of people in the map divided by the number of possible sides to play. For a 32 player map this means you can add 16 people to each side. To delete a player click on the player then click "Remove Selected". Do the same thing to remove a squad - all the players will be dropped into the unassigned squad instead of being removed.
To edit the side overview, click the side name label or the map name label at the top of TESA. To edit a squad overview, click the squad. To edit a team member, click the member. In each case the right hand pane will populate with the current settings for whatever you clicked. There is no save button, it saves it all as you go. If you want to edit the other side, select it in the menu. The first time you switch to another faction any team members set up in the first faction are dropped through into the 'Unassigned' squad with a default setup.
In the squad panel (left) the blue icons show the squad leaders, the black ones are standard team members. There can only be one squad leader per squad, and none in the unassigned squad. To rename a member or squad, select it and right click and pick 'Rename'. To change the squad leader, right click on a team member in the squad and select 'Set as Squad Leader'. If you remove a squad leader the first person in the squad will be promoted to be the new squad leader. You can move people around in squads by dragging them.
If you want to start again, click File->New Strategy. The loading and saving are self explanatory. If you want to output the strategy to an html file, click on the 'Generate HTML' menu. There are three options. Standard HTML prompts you to save the html strategy to somewhere on your hard drive. Headerless standard HTML outputs the same content as standard html, only without the head/title etc, and it puts the resulting html into a window on screen and copies the contents of the window to your clipboard. (All you need to do is hit Ctrl+V to paste it into a forum window). The last option uses CSS to format the html page, and when it saves the file to your hard drive it also copies 'default.css' (see below) into the same folder you saved the file to.
And that's it! Easy huh?
Modifying the game environment
TESA is very customizable. By changing the files listed below (found in the "games" directory) you can modify it for a particular game. If you want to modify the Battlefield 2 files that ship with the program, feel free to do so - just take a backup first. If you wish to make a game environment for another game, copy the "Battlefield 2" folder in games and paste it there with a new name (e.g. "Call of Duty"), then go and modify the game files.
All of the files listed below are found in the games/gameNameHere folder inside the extracted tesa zip file. In each file a line starting with # is considered a comment line.
squadnames.txt
The squadnames.txt file is simply a list of all the squad names used in the interface. In order to prevent customization to one particular game, the commander for BF2 is listed as their own squad. Use common sense to make sure you limit the squads to the right numbers, because TESA won't do it for you.
Example content from squadnames.txt:
Commander
Alpha
Bravo
Charlie |
kits.txt
The kits.txt file is simply a list of all the kits used in the interface. Example content from kits.txt:
playerspervehicle.txt
This file lists partial vehicle names and the number of seats in the vehicle. The names are partial, so when the map is loaded the first match is taken. So if you like to call an HMMWV a 'HMMWV Jeep', you should have 'HMMWV' before 'Jeep' in the file otherwise it will be given the wrong number of seats. If a vehicle listed in a map does not feature in this file it will be given only one seat. Seats are taken when you select something other than "none" for the team member's vehicle in TESA. If all the seats in a vehicle are taken it disappears from the list.
htmlcolors.txt
NB: This has been deprecated but keep for defaulting purposes.
The htmlcolors file determines what colours/fonts will be used in the standard html output option in TESA. Each line should contain just one definition, with the exception of the 'Faction Colors' line, which may contain any number of colors, separated by commas. The layout is as follows (note: case, commas and colons are very important):
Body Color: #172F42
Font Color: #ffffff
Member Color: #99ff00
Faction Colors: #99ffff, #ff3300, #00FF00
Font Face: Arial
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htmltags.txt and bbtags.txt
The two tags files determine the tagging system that will be used for generating the html page. Each file contains opening and closing tags for different parts of the file - such as the headings, squad names, etc. Some of the tags have a middle tag too... this is because of things such as image urls. You should ensure all the variable names are there (the variable names are what comes before the colon) but what comes after the colon may be simply blank. Below shows a portion of the html tags and bbtags files:
body: <body bgcolor=#172F42>
generalText: <font face="Arial" color=#ffffff size=2>
headingOpen: <font size=5><b>
headingClose: </b></font>
mapDescriptionOpen: <font size=3><i>
mapDescriptionClose: </i></font>
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body:
generalText:
headingOpen: [size=5][b]
headingClose: [/b][/size]
mapDescriptionOpen: [size=3][i]
mapDescriptionClose: [/i][/size]
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default.css
This file is the css file that will be copied into the same folder the Generate HTML-> CSS HTML file is output to. It contains all the settings for all the different headings written to the file. The content is what you'd expect in a css file.
Creating your own maps
To make TESA work for another game it makes sense to be able to include any number of map files for that game. The map files are located in the games/gameNameHere/maps folder in the extracted tesa folder. Each map file is presented in the following format:
Map Name: mapNameHere
Map Description: description
Number of Players: numberOfPlayers
Sides: sideName1, sideName2
URL to Image: urlToImage
Uncappable Flag: flagName, initial side - must be either one of the listed sides, or blank
Cappable Flag: flagName, initial side - must be either one of the listed sides, or blank
nameOfSide (must match listed sides): list of vehicles, separated by commas
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The only enforced comma is the comma after the flagname, all the rest of the commas are used to separate out lists of sides or vehicles. The case and the colons must remain the same. All lines are optional, if it is not given then it will not be set when the map is parsed (and consequently, output to html). It is not necessary to have any vehicles listed at flag, but any vehicles you do list must come after the flag name and there must be only one list for each side. Any vehicles not in the playerspervehicle.txt file will be given only one seat. Below is an example map file (Dalian Plant 32 Player):
Map Name: Dalian Plant
Map Description:
Number of Players: 32
Sides: US, CN
URL to Image: http://img76.imageshack.us/img76/3158/dalianplantflags5qb.jpg
Uncappable Flag: USS Essex, US
US: AH-1Z Attack Chopper, UH-60 Transport Chopper 1, UH-60 Transport Chopper 2, RIB Boat 1, RIB Boat 2, RIB Boat 3, F35B Fighter Plane 1, F35B Fighter Plane 2, USS Essex 1, USS Essex 2
Uncappable Flag: Chinese Airfield (HeliPad), CN
CN: Z-10 Attack Chopper, J10 Plane 1, J10 Plane 2, FAV Jeep, IGLA, HJ-8
Uncappable Flag: Chinese Airfield (Buildings), CN
CN: Z8 Transport Chopper, Type-98 Tank, WZ-551 APC, IGLA, HJ-8 1, HJ-8 2
Cappable Flag: Reactors,
US: AH-1Z Attack Chopper, M1A2 Abrams Tank, DPV Jeep 1, DPV Jeep 2, TOW
CN: FAV Jeep, FAV Jeep,WZ-551 APC, HJ-8
Cappable Flag: South Docks,
US: DPV Jeep 1, DPV Jeep 2, M1A2 Abrams Tank, Stinger
CN: FAV Jeep 1, FAV Jeep 2, Type-98 Tank, IGLA
Cappable Flag: Main Entrance,
US: LAV-25, DPV Jeep, Stinger, TOW
CN: Z-10 Attack Chopper, Type-98 Tank, FAV Jeep, IGLA, HJ-8
Cappable Flag: Maintenance Building,
US: LAV-25 APC, DPV Jeep, Stinger
CN: WZ-551 APC, FAV Jeep, IGLA
Uncappable Flag: Squad Leader, US
Uncappable Flag: Squad Leader, CN
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Hopefully, this is enough information to get you sorted with TESA! If it's not, jump over to the forums :)
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