You mean you can't read them when you open? If so then... yeah me too. If I misunderstood then nevermind.

They're changed to binary or whatever for better performance. Not the format used for mods that you can actually read.

So is it possible to change/convert those binary files into normal acsii readable text files?

Nope because we don't know how they're encoded. We'll have to wait for IC to release the text versions of the 1.03 files.

......... wow wtf.

Jeeze no kidding...well as long as we know we will eventually get to edit the files again, otherwise we just took a huge step backwards.

Wait, have entity files been changed significantly (I am talking about extra stuff added which will cause a minidump if not found)? Because my old .entity files for units work just fine. But then again, my mod is not tweaking old units as much as adding new ones...

No, as far as I can tell there weren't any formatting changes that will cause minidumps. Obviously LRFs and siege ships were changed, and research times - but the formatting should be the same.

The most important file that was changed is gameplay.constants which was provided in text format. The rest of the changes are pretty easy to reproduce with the 1.02 files, I believe.

Edit: I think the reason innociv wants the new ones specifically is that he (and a few others) believe there were hidden changes made to LRFs (like armor type or something) because it looks to them like they're easier to kill.