Sigh, only after I drew these diagrams did I realise they would be much more useful if I drew them numbering top to bottom, not bottom to top, and starting from zero instead of one. eek.
SWOS Tactics File Hex Analysis
This page attempts to
decrypt the SWOS tactics file, in the hope of re-engineering the game. The
manual gives us some hints about how SWOS manages tactics:
The game comes with 10 preset tactics covering all the popular
formations used in modern football, plus six slots for you to save your own
custom designs to. All of the tactics in the game are based on a grid which
defines 35 separate areas of the pitch that the ball can be in at any one
time, and 240 separate positions that any one player can be in at any one
time. The Edit Tactics menu deals with the six Custom Tactics slots (called
'User A' to 'User F'), and presents you with six tools to help you shape them.
The .TAC files all have 370 bytes and I'll try and
work out what they're all used for. First, the 35 ball areas:
Note that the
areas have been measured to be approximately correct.
The tactics file is
divided into players positions that they should run to when the ball is in one
of the 35 positions. The first 8 bytes of the file are a string containing the
name of the tactic, then bytes 9 to 166 (hex) are used to define where the
players should run to when the ball is in one of the areas. The goalkeeper is
not included in the 10 players. The last few bytes in the file from 167 to 171
are a magic number sequence (probably) and always is the following bytes: 00 FF
FF 00 01 FF FF 01 FF FF 00 This was probably used by SWOS to check file
validity.
Within the file, player positions are held in sequences. So,
for player 1 you have all his possible positions for each ball location in
order. For example, player 6 has all his possible positions located within the
file in the bytes B8-DA. The diagram below shows the ranges for each player and
their customary pitch locations: Use the
following formula to find the byte defining where the player will run
to: (Player No * 35) - 26 + (Ball Location - 1) The hex location within
the tactics file will give you the place that the player will run to. e.g. If
I wanted to find out where player 8 would run to when the ball was in quadrant
35, then I'd calculate this as (8*35) - 26 + (35-1) = 288 = 120 Hex. The value
in the file at 0x120 would tell me where the player would run
to.
So the only thing left is the player positions. For example,
if we have value 7F in 0x120 what does that mean? 7F is a position on the
pitch that the player should run to. You can calculate it by using the following
picture. The position should be calculated X-Y. So if we're trying to work out
where 7F is, it's going to be position 7 on the X-axis, and position F on the
Y-axis. In other words, right in the opponents goal mouth (what a
goal-hanger).
Again, to re-iterate - if we have byte 7F in position
120 of the file, this means that when the ball is in quadrant 35 (top left
corner), player 8, normally the left winger will be madly sprinting towards the
goal-mouth of the opponents. This must be from the Davide Ginola
tactic.... Positions on this
diagram should be approximately correct here.
Tactics file was
decoded by Jonathan Daniel using WinHex 9.92 SR-4 and Sensible Soccer Euro
Champions Edition. I've done it because it'll be very helpful to anyone trying
to make a clone.
SWOS Java 
