Outpost 2 · bei.pm
The file formats described on this page are based on the technical analysis of intellectual property by Dynamix, Inc. and Sierra Entertainment.
The intellectual property is now part of the Activision Publishing, Inc. / Activision Blizzard, Inc. estate and is currently owned by Microsoft Corp..
The information has been gathered through Reverse Engineering and Data Analysis for the purposes of archiving and interoperability with historical data.
No proprietary or confidential specifications were used.
The game is currently available for purchase as a download at gog.com.
Artwork of the game
The following series of articles documents my findings regarding the data formats in the real-time strategy game "Outpost 2: Divided Destiny", which was released by Sierra in 1997 and developed by Dynamix.
I focused primarily on analysing the game's data - and what to do with it - from around 1st November 2015 to 14th November 2015.
According to the information I have been able to gather so far, Dynamix - like many commercial companies - did not develop certain data formats specifically for Outpost 2, but also used them in other projects such as the Mechwarrior series (with modifications).
Regardless, it can also be noted that the innovative capacity of the file formats is quite limited and often builds on long-established concepts from common formats such as JFIF and RIFF.
Further information for interpreting the tables and data formats can be found under What is what?.
The data provided here is generally to be understood as Little Endian.
In conclusion, it can be said that reverse engineering was a lot of fun, even though it is not complete.
Of course, I can also only recommend playing the game yourself, as it offers interesting game mechanics.
The article series is divided into the following areas:
The series of articles can also be presented for better archiving on a single page