[Nx]

That's Gabe Koerner's reimagined Enterprise btw.

  ...that...that can't be in game...

Umm, it's not...

[FreeSpaceFreak]

I'm getting confused here. I'll try and summarize, feel free to correct me.

• .zip is standard issue on all Windows computers, easy to use and well-known.
• .rar compresses better than .zip and it's easy to use as well.
• .7z is slightly less user-friendly, but you can compress to and extract from all three formats.
• Furthermore, there are loads of other programs that work fine but which hardly anyone (i.e. apart from diehard computer specialists) knows about.

Am I right about this?

[karajorma]

You're getting confused between the format and the most common program for dealing with that format.

.zip is standard on Windows which means it has a huge userbase. The most common program for unzipping (apart from Windows itself) is WinZip.
.rar and .7z are newer than .zip and do a much better job of compression (important when we are talking about uploading and downloading files). .7z gives slightly better at compression than .rar

The two big programs for those formats are WinRar and 7zip (Although there are other choices). 7zip can extract but not create .rar files. WinRar's most recent version can extract .7z files based on what I've heard on this thread. Don't know if it can create them.

So it basically comes down to how widespread you think your archive will be. An unfinished ship mod is probably best off as a rar or 7z as it's unlikely anyone will download the mod to work on it on a PC where they can't also extract it. On the other hand if you're distributing your game for a bunch of average clueless computer users you're better off with zip as at least they can open it.

[peterc10]

Most people I know haven't even heard of 7z

Both rar and 7z are very similar, but i'm pretty sure that winrar has many more users.

I think the rar file is the better format as creating them on winrar is easier than creating a 7z file.

On the other hand I have only created one 7z file compared to many rar files so I may not know what i'm on about 

[Mobius]

∞ Incredible...I agree with PeterC10!!!

...Apocalypse is close! Apocalypse is close!!! ∞

[Nx]

Most people I know haven't even heard of 7z

Both rar and 7z are very similar, but i'm pretty sure that winrar has many more users.

I think the rar file is the better format as creating them on winrar is easier than creating a 7z file.

On the other hand I have only created one 7z file compared to many rar files so I may not know what i'm on about 

How does the user interface have anything to do with which format is better? 7zip is relatively new, so it doesn't have as many users as winrar, and the ui might still be rough around the edges, but the 7z format is actually more efficient than rar.

[Jeff Vader]

I think the rar file is the better format as creating them on winrar is easier than creating a 7z file.

What on Earth do you mean? At least with the current stable version, if you have your files in a folder or folders, just select them, right-click and select "Add to "Yaddayaddayadda.7z"" and you're done. The same goes for extracting. Right-click on an archive and select from the options ranging from "Extract here" to "Extract to...". Simple. Really simple.

[peterc10]

I think the rar file is the better format as creating them on winrar is easier than creating a 7z file.

What on Earth do you mean? At least with the current stable version, if you have your files in a folder or folders, just select them, right-click and select "Add to "Yaddayaddayadda.7z"" and you're done. The same goes for extracting. Right-click on an archive and select from the options ranging from "Extract here" to "Extract to...". Simple. Really simple.

Well I haven't used 7z for ages so I don't know what it is completely like at the moment, I did say that I might not know what I was on about 

[jr2]

www.7-zip.org  Version 4.57