Playing With UrW Files

All visited local terrains in Unreal World are being saved in UrW save folder in files ZOOMINDEX..DAT, ZOOMMAP.DAT and ZOOMMAPS.DAT.



When you enter unknown local terrain (terrain which you haven't entered before), all data from this terrain (look, trees, items etc.) will be created and saved to these zoom- files, especially to zoommaps.dat file. Every visited local terrain is "big" approx. 2MB so if you enter 500 local terrains, size of zoommaps.dat will be over 1GB!

You can freely delete these 3 zoom- files, if you do delete them, all visited local terrains' data will be deleted. So if you go to a terrain where you've been earlier before deleting zoom- files, this local terrain will be created again and everything will be different, except terrain roughness.If you delete a terrain where you have a settlement, your house and all items and animals at that terrain will disappear.

Well, deleting these files can bring benefits. For example: if you go to a village for the first time and you can't buy or get something you need, get out to the wilderness and delete zoom- files (or move them to a backup folder before entering an unsaved terrain if you have your own settlement or e.g. trap fence somewhere) and enter village again. You will enter completely new village with potentially other shops, other fenced animals etc.

There's also a trick to delete all known local terrains except one. Enter the terrain which you want to keep saved, don't save the game, browse your save folder (press alt+tab to minimize game window and go to another window) and delete these zoom- files. Go back to the game and your local terrain which you're in is still there with all stuff existing. If you go to save folder again, you will see that zoom- files are re-created with size like at image abow.

Playing with zoom- files can let you copy items - more about this in Exploits page.