General Modding Question

[PhoenixHeart]

First off - I'm not trying to mod Disco or cheat, I just need help, and I figure someone here might be able and willing to give me a hand.

My question is pretty simple - how do I edit the vanilla .ini files in Freelancer's data folder? (i.e. DATA\EQUIPMENT\weapon_equip.ini) They seem to be compressed .ini files, and I've noticed that I'm able to open modded ini's in, say, notepad, but not the vanilla ones. I've tried Tinyfish's 1.44 ini editor, but for some ungodly reason it changes all of the Rate of Fire values, so all the gun DPS's end up changed (8.33 becomes 10, 4.00 becomes 3.33, etc).

Is there another tool that can be used to open the vanilla .ini's?