Thanks for telling us.
Btw, the OP2Mapper.exe does draw the map correctly (except for a few tiles). (Use version 1.9.2) I wrote that one. It IS usable but it was kind of a rush job so as you can see, not the nicest. The current version I'm on (2.0.1) has those display problems solved. (However, it can't read or write maps yet.
) This is the map editor that we all here endorse as "the editor."
Kramy's editor.. I would lean away from that, it seems to not handle the edges of the map correctly. (Also, it doesn't seem to save 100% OP2 compatible maps all the time.. i've had a few times where a map that it saved crashed OP2 or caused game initialization to fail).
Op2maped.... I'm wondering where you got that? it's not available publicly anymore (as far as I know, at least not from us)
It's extremely slow and yes, doesn't... erm... quite work. It was a work in progress and released too early.
Edit: We do know about the reVOLver problems. A new VOL explorer is in the works (actually, it can extract files correctly, but is still too buggy to use.. also considering the fact that it doesn't repack files exactly the way it's supposed to... yet).
Regarding the tech levels, have a look at MULTITEK.TXT, EDENTEK.TXT or PLY_TEK.TXT in sheets.vol with a normal text editor (eg. Notepad). Each BEGIN_TECH line signals the start of a tech topic. (If the file is all strange binary characters, you need to update your copy of OP2).
There is a string in quotes, which is the display name of the tech as it appears in the list. After that there should be a 5 digit number.
The first two digits correspond to the tech level of the research, and the last 3 letters uniquely identify that research within the tech level. (There can't be any number collisions)
So, if you look at the first two digits you can identify all techs that are in a certain techlevel.
If you are creating a colony game, you can simply use the eden or plymouth tech tree by specifying the EDENTEK.TXT or PLY_TEK.TXT for the TechtreeName.
For a multiplayer game (or for any game), if the settings are not to your liking, you can make a copy of a techtree and change things as much as you want. (Just make sure you don't use a tech number twice)
Save the file as your own name with a .TXT on the end, and put it in your OP2 dir. Set the DLL's TechtreeName to the name of this text file, and your DLL will load this file. Whatever you do, please don't repack a changed file into the sheets, because it will modify your game, and either throw it out of sync with others in multiplayer, or make it totally incompatible (due to checksum change).