I'm cleaning up dialogue in SR2, anyone interested in my work? (Files inside)

(IMPORTANT NOTE: There are now two separate files available here. One for your 1.3 Space Rangers 2, without Reboot installed, and one WITH the 2.0 Reboot expansion installed. Please make certain to get the correct one. I will continue to update the links below with the latest versions, as I manage to get them done. For now, any details about the versions that are important, I will just make in another post in this thread.)

Latest Files:                                          

1-5, for use with Space Rangers 2 v1.3 (On Date 6-18-2010)

2-4, for use with Space Rangers 2: Reboot v2.0 (On Date 6-18-2010)

Hey all, my title says it all. I'm an old Space Rangers 2 fan, and of course love the series.

The poor translation never bothered me enough to effect my enjoyment of the game, but the dialogue is pretty unclear at times. I intend no offense to any of the original translaters out there, as I am entirely grateful we've been able to play this little Russian gem of a game at all. I digress...

So anyways, I said to myself, maybe we can't get a patch that fixes the dialogue, but what if I could clean up and re-write some of that text? Maybe I can't design a game patch myself, but cleaning some of the text is up my alley, and that's exactly what I'm doing.

As you can imagine there's a ton of dialogue in the game and it's slow going, but it IS going. Mostly I was doing this for my own sake, but I figured there would be lots of players who would be interested, if I could do it. If nothing else, I'm hoping to make some things in the game more clear to us here in the U.S. Some of the translations of certain instructions in the game can leave you scratching your head.

Some of the translations are so unclear in face, that I've had to make my best guesses about them, or add my own imaginitive ideas to it, because I just can't figure out what was originally meant. Let me know if something does not seem to fit into the context of what is happening in your game. If it's one of my translations, then it should get fixed. I just don't have a save game for every single situation in the game, so all I can do is give it my best guess.

That said, I'm doing my best to mimic the current dialogue that's already there, so as not to take anything away from the game. For example, if a medical doctor warns you about the effects of stimulant use on your character, then I rewrite that translation in such a way that it's much more clear for us North American speakers, but still tries to get the point across as they seemed to want to present it. Here's an example of some work I did:

ORIGINAL LINE: "The quark bomb is a very expensive unit, with a payload of enormous destructive power. The bomb must be dropped from the ship, and after you fly as far away as possible, explode it with one shot. Then act upon the situation, provided that you stay alive!"

UPDATED LINE: "A Quark Bomb is a very expensive weapon with enormous destructive power. The bomb must be dropped out of the airlock, and then detonated in space by shooting it. Make certain to detonate the bomb from maximum range, and hope that you survive the ensuing blast."

ORIGINAL LINE: "A tranclucator is a unique autonomous system, intended for protecting its master. When injected into open space the device is actuated and starts monitoring the immediate environment. If the tranclucator thinks its master is in danger it unleashes its entire firepower onto the enemy. A lucky proprietor of one of those droids should not fear the devil himself, because a tranclucator is straight as a die."

UPDATED LINE: "A Tranclucator is a unique autonomous combat droid, first designed for defensive combat operations. When released into open space it analyzes its immediate surroundings, and initiates escort protocols for its owner. If the Tranclucator perceives a threat to its owner's safety, it immediately commences combat operations. The lucky owner of one of these combat droids need not fear anything, as the Tranclucator will defend him or her to the end of its own existence."

So you get the idea. Considering some of the badly done explanations in places like space stations, I thought maybe my work would be appreciated by other fans. As I said, I'm mostly just doing this for my own enjoyment; but if others out there find those two tiny examples even vaguely interesting, let me know. Sadly, it does not appear, at the moment, that there is any way for me to edit the in-game text quests (they're stored differently than standard dialogue), and get the changes back into the game. I'll have to keep working on that. Maybe something will come up.

Installation is simple. You just have to take my eng.dat file and replace the original in your Space Rangers 2 cfg folder. I have the Cinemaware version of the game (and Stardock's now of course), and assume it will work with any company's offering.