Starlancer Open-Source Project

Open-source reverse-engineering tools and documentation for Starlancer (Digital Anvil / Microsoft, 2000) — the space-combat flight sim.

⚖️ You must own a legal copy of Starlancer to use these tools with the game. This repository contains only original code and documentation — no game binaries, assets, or other copyrighted material, and none should ever be committed here (see .gitignore).

Starlancer Studio — the all-in-one app

⬇ Download StarlancerStudio.exe · Windows, no install · verify with SHA256SUMS.txt

tools/slstudio_app.py is a single desktop app (and a one-file .exe) that fronts the whole toolchain in a dark "Alliance Naval Command" cockpit — eight sections:

• Dashboard — at-a-glance status of your install (the three EXE fixes, controller shim, boot logos), a one-click Apply Recommended Fixes, and a backup / restore manager.
• Patcher — widescreen Hor+ and the RE'd crash fixes, per-fix verify / revert.
• Ship Switcher, Stats Editor, HOG Tools — the editors, in a GUI.
• Controller Shim — install the XInput → DirectInput proxy for modern pads.
• Boot Videos — blank the startup branding logos.
• Ready-to-Play — a wizard that stages a complete, patched, ready-to-run copy into an output folder.

Like every tool here it is static — it reads and patches local copies only and never launches the game. The only third-party runtime dependency (customtkinter) is bundled. As a one-file PyInstaller build, some antivirus heuristics may flag it — a common false positive; the full source is in this repo, and the release ships a SHA256SUMS.txt to verify your download.

Documentation

Formats & archives

Path	Description
docs/hog-format.md	.HOG archive format (Electronic Arts BIGF).
docs/stats-format.md	SHIP/GUN/MISSILESTATS.BIN — 352-byte stat record layout.
docs/shp-format.md	.SHP 3D-model format: RefPack container, tagged-chunk stream, parts / LODs / attachments / animations — independently derived, every field evidence-tagged.

Missions & campaign

Path	Description
docs/dte-format.md	.DTE mission format: RefPack container, trigger system, scripting VM.
docs/dte-scripting-reference.md	Complete trigger / Executor-command / AI-code / opcode tables.
docs/campaign-flow.md	Campaign mission flow: progression rule, in-game↔.dte numbering, the 24-mission map.

Engine & modern systems

Path	Description
docs/engine-map.md	Engine architecture: middleware stack + per-subsystem address map.
docs/modern-fixes.md	Modern-Windows fix catalogue (boot-video skip, wrappers, native Hor+ widescreen, DRM, audio …) — RE-backed.
docs/running-on-modern-windows.md	Setup checklist & folder layout — ordered, end-to-end guide to running your owned copy on Win10/11 (DRM, wrappers, our patches, controller, DirectPlay) + troubleshooting map.
docs/modding-scene.md	Community modding tools, the widescreen gap, and DRM notes.
docs/external-re-credits.md	Provenance record — whose external reverse-engineering we build on, what we verified ourselves, and what we deliberately did not copy.

Game content reference

Path	Description
docs/game-reference/	Ships, fighters, characters, the full campaign, factions and weapons. Compiled from the Starlancer Fandom Wiki (CC BY-SA 3.0) and cross-checked against our RE.

See also the project wiki for the engine reference.

Tools

Python 3 (plus one PowerShell + Ghidra-script pair). The command-line tools are standard-library only; Starlancer Studio and the icon/build tooling have optional dependencies listed in requirements-optional.txt. The tools operate on files from your own copy of the game; none contain or redistribute game data, and none ever launch the game.

Archive, formats & missions

Path	Description
tools/hog_extract.py	List / extract .HOG archives; --decompress expands RefPack payloads (98% of resource.hog).
tools/refpack.py	EA RefPack / "QFS" decompressor — the codec wrapping almost every resource.hog member. Standalone CLI + self-test.
tools/hog_pack.py	Write / repack .HOG (BIGF) archives (byte-identical round-trip).
tools/dte_parse.py	.DTE mission decoder (RefPack + 27-section directory + script disasm) + reference tables.
tools/shp_parse.py	.SHP model decoder — chunk walk, typed dumps, structure tree, Wavefront OBJ export, validation sweep.

Editors

Path	Description
tools/slstats.py	Ship / weapon stat editor (the stat .BIN tables).
tools/slswitch.py	Coalition ship-switcher (data-layer .shp swap in the HOG).
tools/slstudio_app.py	Starlancer Studio — the all-in-one GUI (see above); fronts every tool.
tools/slstudio_core.py	Studio's headless core — install scan, exe classification (stock / patched / SafeDisc loader, each with its evidence), patch state, shim and logo probes. Standard library only, no GUI toolkit, so it runs and is tested on every platform. scan <folder> [--json].
tools/slstudio.py	Legacy 2-tab Tkinter GUI (stdlib-only fallback).

Modern-systems fixes (patch a local copy of your own exe / .HOG — never the original, never run)

Path	Description
tools/sl_patch.py	Modern-systems patch pack — one declarative code-cave engine applying any subset of the static EXE fixes (--widescreen WxH Hor+, --fix-medal, --fix-multicore) with a sidecar manifest and per-fix --verify / --revert / --revert-only. (--fps explains the cap; it's a vsync/wrapper matter, not an exe patch.)
tools/ws_patch.py	Deprecated alias for sl_patch.py --widescreen — keeps the old --width/--height CLI working (byte-identical output).
tools/sl_emu.py	Function-level emulator — executes ONE routine out of a local image copy inside a sandboxed CPU emulator and reports what it computes and every store it makes. Used to verify the widescreen fix by measurement. Never launches the game: no process, no window, no audio. Needs unicorn (optional). See docs/emulation-harness.md.
tools/blank_boot_videos.py	Skip the boot Bink movies by blanking them in a .HOG.
tools/xinput_shim/	XInput controller shim — a proxy dinput.dll (C, 32-bit) that forwards keyboard/mouse to real DirectInput and synthesizes the joystick from XInput with separate triggers (no-rumble v1). Source + build.bat + test host.

Reverse-engineering & analysis

Path	Description
tools/pe_inspect.py	Read-only PE header / section / entropy / imports inspector.
tools/pe_icon.py	Read-only PE app-icon extractor (rebuilds a .ico from RT_GROUP_ICON/RT_ICON; never executes the target).
tools/make_icon.py	Generator for Starlancer Studio's original app icon (PIL primitives — no game art).
tools/bin_explore.py · tools/bin_diff.py	Generic binary explore / diff helpers.
tools/map_engine.py	Cluster decompiled functions into subsystems (builds the engine map).
tools/ghidra_headless.ps1 + tools/ghidra_scripts/ExportAll.java	Headless Ghidra import / analyze / export automation.

Tests & guard

Path	Description
tools/check_no_game_data.py	Game-data guard (run by the pre-commit hook and CI).
tests/run_all.py	Pre-PR / CI gate — hog + sl_patch self-tests + guard (no game files needed).
tests/hog_selftest.py	Extractor self-test.
tests/sl_patch_selftest.py	Patch-engine self-test (synthetic PE; apply / verify / revert / manifest / ordering).

Quick start

python tools/hog_extract.py path/to/resource.hog            # list contents
python tools/hog_extract.py path/to/resource.hog -o out/    # extract everything
python tools/slstats.py --help                              # ship/weapon stat editor
python tools/dte_parse.py ref exec                          # print the Executor command table
python tools/dte_parse.py decode mission1.dte               # decompress (RefPack) + decode a mission
python tools/sl_patch.py --fov-table                        # preview the Hor+ widescreen FOV per aspect
python tools/sl_patch.py --widescreen 1920x1080 in.exe out.exe      # patch a local exe copy
python tools/sl_emu.py compare stock.exe patched.exe        # MEASURE the fix (emulated, never launched)
python tools/slstudio_core.py scan "D:\Games\Starlancer"   # what state is this install in?
python tests/run_all.py                                     # run the full self-test gate

Status

Documented & tooled: the .HOG/BIGF archive format (extractor + packer), the ship/weapon stat tables (editor + GUI), the Coalition ship-switcher, and the .DTE mission format — the RefPack container is decoded end-to-end (dte_parse.py decodes all 44 missions: directory, ships, triggers, and the script bytecode) plus the full scripting opcode/command reference. A modern-Windows fix catalogue (docs/modern-fixes.md), fusing community fixes with our RE, ships with a boot-video-skip tool, native Hor+ widescreen, and the RE'd crash fixes (medal-case, multi-core) — all via the tools/sl_patch.py declarative patch-pack (per-fix verify / revert), and all wrapped together with the editors and the controller shim in the Starlancer Studio app. The .SHP ship-model format is now specified in docs/shp-format.md (independent static RE; decoder + OBJ export in tools/shp_parse.py); its remaining gaps are listed in that document's §9. The 100-FPS cap is settled rather than open — static RE showed it is the simulation timebase plus renderer vsync, not an exe limiter, so the uncap is a wrapper setting and this project ships no FPS patch by design.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md (dev setup, commit style, and how to submit) and our CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md. The one hard rule: never commit game data (binaries, assets, or decrypted/derivative game files); a .gitignore, a pre-commit guard, and a CI check (tools/check_no_game_data.py) enforce it. Run python tests/run_all.py before a PR. To report a guard bypass or other issue privately, see SECURITY.md.

AI transparency

This project is, by design, AI-assisted reverse engineering — essentially all of its code and documentation were written by Anthropic's Claude under human direction. See AI-TRANSPARENCY.md for the full implementation disclosure.

Credits

This project stands on the work of the Starlancer modding community. The file formats here were reverse-engineered independently (clean-room, statically); these are the people whose earlier tools and research we build on, with thanks:

• DraconPern & KingLord — the .HOG / EA BIGF archive format (the SLExtract tool, with source released). Basis for hog_extract.py / hog_pack.py.
• Captain Foster / Starlancer ME — .DTE mission opcode / trigger / ship-ID tables and observed in-game semantics — https://starlancerme.blogspot.com/ · @CaptainFoster. Fused into dte_parse.py and the .DTE docs.
• "Userunfriendly" — the hexcheat known-delta stat pack that revealed the SHIP/GUN/MISSILESTATS.BIN field offsets — basis for slstats.py.
• Dustin — SLEdit, whose data-layer Coalition ship-switch mechanic is reimplemented by slswitch.py.
• Mario "HCl" Brito — SL Tool, LWO2SL, and the MilkShape .SHP import/export plugins — the prior art for the .SHP 3D-model format. Our own spec (docs/shp-format.md) was derived independently from the executable and the game files, without reference to those tools.
• Raidersoft (StarLancEdit) and Twister / Twisted Media (Saved Game Editor) — the MYGAME*.IFF save and profile.bin formats (RE planned).
• DMJC — StarLanceDecomp (independent RE notes on the same binary) and neoslancer (a C++/SDL2 Linux port). Their work prompted our RefPack archive-layer audit and corrected our identification of the mission gameplay loop; their .SPR, .FNT and DirectPlay coverage goes well beyond ours. No code from either repository is used here — see docs/external-re-credits.md for exactly what crossed over, what we verified, and why.
• esc0rtd3w — the blank-intro-videos project, whose black blank.bik the Studio build bundles as its boot-video placeholder when a copy is placed in tools/assets/ (the clip is not part of this repo; without it the Studio uses its own generated zero-frame clip from blank_boot_videos.py). https://github.com/esc0rtd3w/blank-intro-videos/
• The game content reference (docs/game-reference/) is compiled from the community Starlancer Wiki on Fandom under CC BY-SA 3.0 (those pages are offered under the same terms; the rest of the repo remains GPL-3.0). With thanks to the Starlancer Wiki editors.

Many of these tools are preserved in the Starlancer-mod-tools mirror; each remains under its original author's terms (typically freeware).

License

Copyright (C) 2026 LordBlacksun.

Free software under the GNU General Public License v3.0 only — see LICENSE. You may use, modify, and redistribute it under those terms; derivative works must also be released under the GPL, so improvements come back to the community.

One documented exception: the game-content pages under docs/game-reference/ are compiled from the community Starlancer Wiki and are offered under CC BY-SA 3.0, the same terms as their source. Everything else in this repository is GPL-3.0-only.