Looking for mods? Can't make RebEd load cards? This is the thread for you!

1) Install Rebellion, if you haven't already
1b) After installing, DO NOT MOVE THE REBELLION FOLDER.
1c) Launch Rebellion. You don't need to play a game, just reach the main menu, then close.

2) Install RebEd
RebEd, cards, how-tos, and other useful information and downloads can be found throughout swrebellion.com.
2b) Go to the folder you installed RebEd to. Make sure d3drm.dll is in that folder. If it isn't, copy it from your Rebellion directory and put it there.
2c) You must run RebEd's installer. Copying the files from somewhere isn't good enough.

3) To make RebEd cards work, we need to trick RebEd. Go to your Rebellion directory and create a new folder called "Trick". Now move the MDATA folder into Trick.
3b) At this point, Rebellion will complain about a CD and won't start. Step 4 fixes this.

4) You need to manually change some registry settings. If you don't know how to do this, find a tutorial like this one on wikihow or elsewhere.

In Regedit, search for "DllLocation". Make sure you find registry entries for Rebellion, then change the DllLocation entry to point to your main Rebellion directory. In the same registry area, you should see "TooBigLocation". This needs to point to the Trick folder.

If you don't have those registry keys, your install is messed up. Jamison on the Steam Rebellion forums lists the most probable locations for the keys, but reinstalling is likely far easier. If you use Jamison's info, only use ONE \ when editing the registry directly; two \\ are only used when making a .reg file.

Congratulations, you're done! At this point, Rebellion and RebEd should work, including loading cards. If it doesn't, don't panic! The above is the cleanest approach, but only works 50% of the time for me. The alternate method given below seems to always work.

ALTERNATE METHOD:
After completing all four steps above, go back to your Rebellion folder. Move the MDATA folder back into your main Rebellion directory, delete the Trick folder, and then copy your entire Rebellion folder. Go to another hard drive, partition, or pop in a thumb drive to use, then paste the entire Rebellion directory to this new location. Ensure the folder name is just "Rebellion". For example, if you installed Rebellion into C:\<anything>, then copy and rename the folder to D:\Rebellion.

This will mimic the CD. Go back into the registry and change DllLocation and TooBigLocation to point to this new place (D:\Rebellion as an example).

This doubles the size of your install, but it is still only 1GB. It does require a second drive, partition, or thumb drive, which may be troublesome for some. Note that this second method requires the folder be named "Rebellion" and it must be in the base directory of a partition other than the one you installed Rebellion to.

If after doing this it still doesn't work for you, uninstall everything and try again. This time, skip the trick method and go straight to the alternate method.

Technical details and additional modding options
#1) Do not use RebEd's "Partial Installer", "scan for SWRE", or "Manual SWRE setup" features. They never worked well and don't work at all with anything newer than Windows 2000. Additionally, RebEd is supposed to let you change an entire sector's colonized status in the "Galaxy Mapper", but this is broken. In the upper left, you can select "Systems" and do each system's colonized status individually.

#2) Below are some things you may wish to change which RebEd cannot modify:
a) Ships' models in tactical combat. Details on swrebellion.com

b) The AI Value setting can be changed with SWRE. What exactly this does has always been open to debate. Finding a copy of SWRE may be difficult, and this is (to my knowledge) the only thing it does that RebEd doesn't do.

c) If you want to change the time it takes non-ship units to go from planet to planet (like personnel, facilities, and fighters without hyperdrive engines), here is how:
c1) Back up the GNPRTB.DAT file in case something goes wrong. (Find it in the GDATA folder of your installation directory.)
c2) Use a hex editor, like XVI32, to open the file (not your backup!)
c3) Go to the hex addresses that correspond to the difficulty and side you want to change, then tweak the number however you like. For example, if you want units to travel twice as fast, change the default 64 to 32. Single digit values, like 8, must be typed as 08. If using XVI32, use the Address -> Go To option, and Hex value listed below, to go directly to the right place, then simply type a number with that address selected. Make sure to save the file when your edits are done.

Empire
Novice 00000032
Intermediate 00000036
Expert 0000003a

Rebels
Novice 0000003e
Intermediate 00000042
Expert 00000046

Han Solo (twice as fast as others, default 32 instead of 64)
Novice 00000a5e
Intermediate 00000a5a
Expert 00000a56

d) A bug keeps you from skipping the briefings at the beginning of a new game. Renaming or deleting the files ALBRIEF.DLL and EMBRIEF.DLL will make the game skip them (AL is Alliance, EM is Empire).

#3) If you do move your Rebellion folder, you just have to re-edit your registry settings with the new values. Likewise, you should be able to put your MDATA folder anywhere you want, so long as TooBigLocation points to MDATA's parent folder and MDATA is in a different location than your Rebellion's main directory. Note this sometimes fails, hence the alternate method mentioned above.

#4) MULTIPLAYER MODS: this is easily doable, provided whoever you play with is cooperative.

a) Both players need the same version of all files modified by RebEd. Use the "Save Settings" and "Load Settings" feature of RebEd to accomplish this easily.

b) If either player has changed the 3d ship models used in tactical combat, RebEd cannot transfer those changes; I'm not sure if the models must be the same for both players. Experiment as you desire.

c) If you have made other gameplay changes, such as changing the speed of units described above, you'll need to make identical changes on both players' copies. This is most easily accomplished by sending one player's version of whatever file was modified to the other player.

c1) NOTE: For multiplayer games to have modified unit travel times, you need to change the easy settings.

Q&A
* Rebellion won't start in step 1.
FIX: You can either reinstall, or use the registry settings in step 4.

* RebEd throws an error. (Any error: missing files, incomplete install, whatever.)
FIX: Close RebEd entirely and make sure Rebellion is not running. Try again. If you get the same error, make sure d3drm.dll and vcl30.dpl are in your RebEd folder. If they both are, chances are very good there are mistakes in your registry. If you are absolutely sure there are none, then restart your computer to clear a weird cache error I sometimes get. If you still see the same error, uninstall Rebellion, delete any lingering registry settings associated with it, and reinstall again, making sure to do step 4 again.

* When I do a tactical battle instead of letting the game automate it, the game crashes (or it crashes right after the battle completes).
FIX: This has always been a little unstable. About 1 in 25 tactical battles crash for me. There is no fix, just save often. However, if you crash a lot or crash every time a specific battle happens, it usually means a 3d model for a ship got messed up. If you changed a ship model, restore the original model. If in RebEd you made it possible for the Alliance to build Imperial starfighters or vice versa (like Rebels making TIE fighters or Imps making X-Wings), that will also crash tactical combat (note this happens with starfighters but not capital ships). As a last option, you can always verify the game integrity or uninstall/reinstall to fix any corrupted files, or use backup files to undo changes you made.

* When I try to load a card, RebEd tells me I need a full install. What gives?
FIX: Go back to Steps 3 and 4 above. Either you didn't move MDATA correctly, or your registry settings for TooBigLocation are wrong, or RebEd is being dumb and you need to use the alternate method.

* When I load Rebellion, the first two videos play, but then I get a black screen with the mouse cursor and no sound.
FIX: You have corrupt files and/or duplicate and conflicting registry settings. Uninstall and then reinstall Rebellion. Make sure to change the registry again.

EDIT: Slight changes to some wording and added extra info about changing unit travel speeds.

I am stuck on the Regedit part. I do not know how to change the DllLocation entrypoint to the main rebellion directory. Or how do put the TooBigLocation into the trick folder.

Thank you for your help

If you've never edited the registry before, you need to view a tutorial. There are many good tutorials online, it should be easy to find one with a google search.

To change DllLocation and TooBigLocation, you need to search the registry (using the search function). When Regedit finds one, make sure you're in a folder called Star Wars Rebellion (or something similar). Then you edit the key to point to the correct file path. Two examples of what this might look like:
DllLocation = C:\Program Files\Star Wars Rebellion
TooBigLocation = C:\Program Files\Star Wars Rebellion\Trick

Obviously, the above examples would only work if you installed Rebellion to C:\Program Files\Star Wars Rebellion.

I for the life of my cannot make this work.

My problem is I don't have a partition to do the copy paste bit on.

A flash drive could work, as it counts as a separate "drive". I got mine working this way, although I did have to use the registry edit mentioned above.

Just wanted to comment that I have Rebellion installed to default directory on my E drive and then installed RebEd under that folder and then copied my d3drm dll (after running game before obviously) and put it in RebEd folder and now when I run RedEd it works fine without having to do anything else. No CD warning messages, etc. So it appears that GOG has taken care of something in the install to avoid the CD error or maybe I have a more updated version of RebEdit. Not sure. Anyway just FYI for anyone else trying to get to it. I am running Windows 7 on this computer.

If you get the same error, make sure d3drm.dll and vcl30.dpl are in your RebEd folder.

My rebed folder (fresh install) does not have d3drm.dll and vcl30.dpl...I was able to copy d3drm.dll from the Rebellion directory, but I don't see vcl30.dpl...could this be causing the card loading problem for me?

--Note - I only tried the 1st 4 steps - I don't have a partitioned drive or thumb drive handy to test the alternate method yet...grabbing one from work later today.

Ok, I got this to "work" the first time i tried it, (using the copy the entire folder method) but it gave me three of one character, I assume because i hit the wrong button a couple times while loading character tiles. So i went over to rebed and hit restore all, and everything went back to as before. Then i tried to reload the tiles, but nothing happened. So i uninstalled, reinstalled, did all the things to make this work again, and i had no access to any characters. So I backed out, restore all, reload, and had access only to main characters. No amount of recruitment would bring in a minor character and there were none in the initial loading. So uninstall, reinstall, re-rebed, try messing with the main characters... no access to main characters. what am I missing? also now when i hit restore all in rebed, it crashes the game upon launching past the main screen

freshly reinstalled everything. character cards load, save character cards, launch, no minor character access.

freshly reinstalled everything. capital ship cards load, save capital ship cards, launch, game essentially freezes (can move cursor around and click on things, except theres nothing really to click on because its trying to start the briefing but cant) speaking of the briefing, way back when there was a way other than renaming/deleting the DLL to skip the briefing by just hitting esc or something wasnt there? what ever happened to that?

does rebed need to be open when running the game to have the character cards load? the first time i set it all up, it didnt seem necessary. At the moment, if it is open, no minor character cards load at all, but when its closed, the vanilla minor characters are all accounted for. Im trying to troubleshoot this in the dark and getting annoyed, especially given how easy it seemed to get it to go the first time.

update: I know its working because i accidentally replaced y-wings with tie interceptors. But none of the other changes i made seem to have loaded. going to reinstall/reload everything once more and see what happens