Tables

Tables are the major data files in FreeSpace and FreeSpace 2. Compared with many other games, they are highly intuitive and easy to edit, requiring no special tools other than notepad. For more detail on specific tables, see the links below.

Table files

In general tables files are simple unformatted text files

.tbl files

These files are the basic FreeSpace table used for defining various aspects of the game. Game reads only single .tbl choosing the one it encounters first while parsing the game directories.

.tbm files

These files are modular table files. They can be used for adding content to the 'base' tables or to modify the data from those files.

Modular Tables

Notes of certain table files

Hardcoded table files

Some of the table files are not actually required as the basic version has been written directly to the code. However these can be overridden by table files present in game directories.

These files are not present in standard FreeSpace 2 .vp files

Species_defs.tbl
Objecttypes.tbl
iff_defs.tbl

Optional table files

Certain tables are not found from the code nor do they belong to the basic table set. These tables are parsed if game detects them

These files are not present in standard FreeSpace 2 .vp files

Armor.tbl Scripting.tbl

Important notes

Table entries must be ordered

• As a general rule, all Table entries must be ordered.
• Keep the order shown in the following help sections for each table in both normal tables (tbl files) and Modular Tables (tbm files). If you don't do it, you can get parser errors on FS2 or FRED2 loading when they are reading them.

Brief descriptions of table files

• Asterisks (*) denote a table added for Freespace 2. These are not required by FS1.
• Plus signs (⁺) denote a table added by the Source Code Project. These are not required by retail FS2
• For full list and links see Category:Tables

ai.tbl - Defines a small subset of the AI behavior.
ai_profiles.tbl⁺ - Defines extended options for AI behavior. AI profiles can be specified on a per-mission basis.
armor.tbl⁺ - Defines the behaviour of ship armor.
iff_defs.tbl⁺ - Defines IFF. New IFFs can be specified, with different behaviors for each.
ships.tbl - Defines the statistics of ships in-game.
species_defs.tbl⁺ - Defines characteristics of ships belonging to each species.
weapons.tbl - Defines the statistics of weapons in-game.