Here I will tell you differences between X2 and X3 and future plans of conversion of my X2 tools to be X3 compatible.
T files and X3 Editor
X3E is already out. Here is the thread. I hope that the 1st version will not be total disaster
T files in X3 have almost the same structure as they had in X2. Only few values was inserted in some files and the "footer" was extended from 5 to 9 values. Unlike in X2 there can also be string values presented in the T files (well maybe it was possible even in X2 - who knows?).
Egosoft has partially dropped the old numeric file naming convetion and it's using human readable names in most of body entries which is good.
TShips - they are almost the same. The major difference is that missiles are now defined via missile mask (similar to lasers).
BOBs, BODs and X2BC
X2 BOD Compiler/BOB Decompiler is partially updated to X3 BOB format. It will be released under the old name - X2BC. It's my revenge to Egosoft for not having version information in their BOB1 format and because they are still using the BOB1 header, I will continue to use the name X2BC.
BOB1 (bob) format - BOB format was extended in X3. It contains secondary set of UV coordinates (I hope it is secondary UV
) and also bunch of numbers which meaning is absolutely unknown to me 
Also new material called material6 was introduced. It's structure is highly dynamic (it acts like array of names/values).
CUT1 (bob) format - the only change is that the body id is now a string value
Body BOD format - Body BOD format is the same as it was in X2 - except the new material6.
Scene BOD format - scenes are also the same, but they can now reference the bodies with strings instead of numbers.
BOB decompilation - because the BOD format remains the same while the BOB conterpart has changed, there are problems with the decompilation. You will loose information when you decompile the BOB file. I will probably owercome this limitation as I already did in X2 but I don't like it to have "smart" and "dumb" format.
3DS max/gmax support
DXBOX2 will be updated. I don't know whether I will release X3 version or I will update the X2 version. There is no need to make special x3 version but as X2 and x3 have different directory structure I will have to find out how to merge it.
Text XML files
They are same as they were in X2, but new pages were introduced.
page 17 is extended by page 300017
page 7 is extended by page 300007
Galaxy Maps
The basic layout is the same but new attributes were introduced and subobject ("s") can now have string value instead of index. That's good because now the maps no longer depend on the order of objects in T files - because objects are referenced by their ID instead of index.
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