MT — Mission Briefing Text (.MT)

FA_2.LIB contains 363 .MT files — roughly one per mission. Each stores the full text content for the pre-mission briefing and post-mission debrief screens. Format is plain ASCII text using a shared directive/markup engine with .TXT files.

Tools

fx

fx mt info <file.MT>       # mission id/title/type + section count + round-trip

Parsing rides the shared directive engine in lib/src/txt.cpp (the same line-preserving parser as TXT); lib/src/mt.cpp adds the section-1 header semantics.

tests/test_mt.cpp runs a census over all 363 .MT files in a real install (under FX_FA_ROOT): each round-trips byte-identically, every directive it uses is one the engine knows, its sections are the documented 4 or 5 (346 use 4, 17 use 5), and the 361 that carry an identifier line decode it.

The round-trip is worth exactly what it costs: txt_write replays the file's own lines, so all 363 would round-trip byte-identically whether or not the decoder understood a thing — and for years, while the codec was dropping the mission ID on 263 of them, they did.

File Layout

Plain ASCII text, CRLF line endings. Directives begin with . and may be chained on one line, separated by spaces. Plain text between directives is rendered in the current active style. Directives may also appear inline within a content line (e.g. .header TITLE .body renders "TITLE" in header style then switches to body).

Directives

The complete vocabulary, read out of the executable — the text interpreter (FormatDirective, 0x47E1B0; the engine around it is documented in shell-ui.md § The text/format engine) compares each token against exactly these, lowercased. A token it does not recognise is rendered as text, which is why a briefing can write "get the .ell out" as prose (~K30.MT) without it meaning anything.

Directive	Off form	Description
.section <N>	—	Begin numbered section (see Section Semantics below)
.page	—	Page break within a section — a new screen, not a new section
.title	—	Title render style
.header	—	Header render style
.body	—	Body render style
.italic	..italic	Italic
.bold	..bold	Bold
.underline	..underline	Underline
.left .right .center .full	—	Alignment (.full = justified)
.indent_left .indent_right	.indent_off	Indent
.picture <name>	—	Inline image
.sound <name>	—	Play a sound
.music <name>	.music_off	Play music
.button	..button	Delimit a button (UI templates — see TXT)
.dbutton	..dbutton	Delimit a disabled button

Directives apply until overridden. Alignment and style are independent — .center .underline .header sets all three simultaneously. The .. prefix turns the named directive off; it is not a general "close" marker (.section and .page have no off form).

tests/test_txt.cpp asserts that every directive fx reports, across all 363 .MT and all 8 .TXT files in a real install, is one of the above.

Section Semantics

Sections 1–5 are observed across all 363 files:

Section	Purpose
1	Mission identifier — a plain text line (<ID> (<annotation>), see below) followed by title and mission type
2	Pre-mission briefing — location, date/time, objectives, threat data
3	Debrief (primary outcome — typically success for single-player, Blue success for multiplayer)
4	Debrief (secondary outcome — failure, or Red success for multiplayer)
5	Debrief (draw / objectives incomplete)

Most single-player missions use sections 1–4. Multiplayer and some campaign missions use all 5.

Section 1 ID Line

The first content line of section 1 is shaped:

<MISSIONID>  (<annotation>)

Any leading dashes are decoration. Of the 361 shipped .MT files that carry an identifier line, 244 write a bare AB01, 100 write --AB01, and ~FANOTH.MT writes -RB12 with a single dash. What identifies the line is its shape — one unspaced token, then a parenthesised note — not a prefix.

An earlier version of this page said the -- was "the engine's cue (inferred) to parse this line as the mission ID". It is not, and the inference was never checked: the engine never parses this line at all. It renders section 1 through the text interpreter (0x47E1B0) like any other text — there is no mission-ID parser in the binary. The codec believed the doc, required the --, and so lost the ID on 263 of the 363 files, shifting every other field up by one: the title came out as the ID line and the mission type as the title. Every one of them still round-tripped byte-identically. See #491.

The parenthesised note is an annotation, not a key. It is usually the file's own name, but the designers were not consistent: ~FANOTH.MT writes a theater (Panama) and EXAMPLE.MT names a different file (extra01). Do not resolve anything with it.

QUICK.MT and QUICKMP.MT have no identifier line — their section 1 opens with a plain title (QUICK MISSION). A line with no parenthesised note is a title, not an ID.

Example — BEXTRA01.MT (complete section 2)

.section 2
.center .underline .header
WEAPONS FREE
..underline .left .body

TARTU AIRBASE
DATE :  February 22
LOCAL  TIME :  1200
WEATHER :  Cloudy

.header .underline
MISSION OBJECTIVE
..underline .body
Destroy all guerrilla structures and vehicles in the area.

.header .underline
THREAT SUPPRESSION DATA
..underline .body
GROUND  OPPOSITION :  Shoulder-launched SAMs
AIR  OPPOSITION :  Possible U.N Rafales, Mirage 2000s

Related

Formats: M — .M mission files that reference these briefing texts by filename; TXT — uses the same directive engine; adds .button and .picture for UI screens.