okay, the link in the OP is fixed. I dont know how it switched to that other one, which was info for the xp imbalance.

As for the big button... I do seem to be having some difficulty with the newer version (probably because I'm now editing it with openoffice instead of excel); however if you have one of the older versions, it should work. when you load the chart it should popup a message box saying something about macros. If your security settings are too high (which it might be by default), it will tell you that the macros are disabled and where to go to change the settings. Otherwise, the popup box will give you a choice to enable or disable the macros. enable them (you only have to do this if you want to change what files the chart refrences from).

Now, when you hit the button, it will ask you for the file location of each and every ship. This will take some time to go through, but will allow you mix and match locations if that is your preference (it also is designed this way to make it easy to add ships onto the chart that were not there before for modders). As listed in the instructions, you will want to convert the BINs to TXTs. Im not 100% sure because my version isnt working right now (will fix asap and re-post), but if there is a ship you do not want to update, you should just be able to hit cancel and that will skip that ship. I'll probably try it out when I get it fixed with the Equilibrium mod, as that is the only mod I personally run right now. I may as well post that as well.

ill see what i can do

does this need bumping again? really? sheesh. plz sticky this already... or well, new patch soon so... itll be worthless, but its less worthless than that other one you got.

In honor of making the sticky, I've been secretly working on this at work where we have excel. So the Excel Macro is back, and it does update by importing txt files again (provided you have converted the binaries to .txts), and its updated with the Diplomacy 1.2 stuff.

There are a couple other tweaks, I think, since the last version (I say I think because I've been using it for awhile now, but might not have updated the online version). The most notable of which is part of the sandbox page where it calculates a total fleet cost between the 2 sets of ships with conversion of metal and crystal into credits (you can set the conversion ratio).

for modders: you can use this chart as well. if you were to say, double the damage on the illuminator's side beams and put that in your mod, simply go to the page with the big button, hit it, and it will start asking you for filenames (ie. frigatepsilight, fighterphasecombat), if the illuminator is your only change, you can just hit cancel for everything but the illuminator (which will take awhile, but a heck of alot faster than manually changing things). New ships will take some work

If you do use this for comparing stats in a mod, I'd recomend saving the chart under a new name so that you can compare the differences. If anyone has any new types of calculations they would like to see added, let me know.

This is going to need updating again.   Not much though... only change is the antiveryheavy vs capital armor.

just look up "harpo diplomacy 1.31" in the search.  You should find it.

the way it should work is that if you have for example, replaced the TEC scout with.... I don't know.... a Super Star Destroyer... you would have to actually replace it in the update. So I believe it would be asking for techfrigatescout.entity, and you would then go to your mod folder and find the dastardlyempiresuperstardestroyerscout.entity. Do not mix capitals with frigates.... I was just being humorous in this example.

I does not matter that the files are .entity and not .txt, as long as can be read as if they were .txts. As far as which files you want, you want to start with the directory that you dumped the bin->txt converted files in. Then, look for the specific ship in the diplomacy folder first (if you downloaded the folder, you obviously want the latest version. If its not there, check the entrenchment folder. If its not there, check the vanilla game info folder. If you have a mod ship.... well, look above

So, you hit the big button, and it should ask you for each file 1 by 1. Don't forget that excel defaults to looking for .xls and such. since you are looking for .entity, you need to set it to 'all files'. If you've only changed 1 ship out of everything, I'd recommend skipping every ship other than the one you changed, as it's much easier to skip and nothing else has changed.

So far, I'm the only one I know who has changed the files and tried importing the files. So, let me know if this isnt working still. You might have macros disabled, make sure they can run. If you're in anyway fluent in excel, I can explain how it works if you want to know how to play with the formulas and such. I'd recommend saving an extra copy so that you have something to go back to if you mess it up somehow.

ok, the new chart is up. pdf to follow. its annoying that i have different programs on different computers to do all this

as far as the way to import stuff.... well, it was supposed to tell you what file it is looking for... that kind of makes sense, right? I guess it doesnt do that. Why? It's disgruntled.

To re-gruntle it, you have to unhide some/all the hidden sheets. These hidden sheets have the text files imported into them. Theres one such sheet for each ship, thats how the information is retrieved. To update the information on the hidden sheet, simply right click any cell on said sheet (after it's no longer hidden), and go to refresh (should be there. If its not, kick your keyboard 3 times and try again while using the monitor as a mouse pad). it will then popup 1 dialog box asking which file. All that i said in the previous post about how to do that still applies.

You probably want to re-hide the sheet when you're done. This is a temporary measure, as I'm sure you're not phsycic and therefore know which file of the ~300 .entity files it wants. I'll see what I can do to fix this, but I dont know how long it'll take

I dont really type anything in. The excel file pulls the data directly from the game files, so I doubt that its a typo. However, it does pull the data via long crazy formulas. These formulas do not get changed, but lets see...

DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALSHIP:CapitalShip 1

so... yeah, its 100% of the base damage.

Earlier in this post, leadhead mentioned that anti-very-heavy vs capital damage needed to be updated. It should be 60%, right? Always happy to check that it jives with other data. If it doesnt, its useless, so is there anything else that anyone thinks looks off?

To be fair, I havent checked to see if he updated it. I just randomly saw it on the forums one day and thought it would make a great addition to my excel sheet. It really doesnt have any different information; but half the battle when looking at a Wall O' Numbers is finding a good way to visualize the numbers so that you can compare them. His chart did that fairly well for those basic stats.

Actually, I just noticed that the Mine squadron on that page does not have armor info, so I looked at it and found the gameplay constants file overwrote the data there... so, there is a tiny error. I'm sure it'll throw off alot of master-battle plans Will be fixed in short order

Actually, I just went looking through a few older charts.... it looks like capitals have been at 100% for awhile. Also, it shows capitals as doing 100% vs light armor, which is wrong. Never noticed it before, but I think thats a mistake in that picture, not a change by the developers.

It looks like the Pirate ship that used to have an anti-module attack type now has an anti-medium attack type. Interesting....

I could suggest, if you feel like it and have the time, adding the experience value of each ship in the frigate comparison chart.