MoO2 galaxy sizes

[Clear Skies]

OK...I admit I'm something of a massive empire builder on MoO2, but does anyone else find even the Huge galaxy isn't big enough? Does anyone know of a way to alter the size of the galaxy?

(edit) just downloaded a HEX editor to see if I can't tweak some of the .lbx files, but I'm none too optimistic (especially since my programming skills are about equal to Robert Mugabe's niceness abilities). Anyone with a better solution?

[The Mad Monk]

Bigger galaxies, more races on the board at once.

That's all I really need to make my MoO2 experience...perfect.

I really wish they had allowed as large a game as you wanted, whether they thought your computer could handle it or not.

[vmxa1]

Man I thought I was a big fan, but I do not play Huge maps anymore, hardly even large ones. It is too much work to get all of those planets. If only I could just finish and not be compelled to have all planets (maybe a shrink).

[ravagon]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
Bigger galaxies, more races on the board at once.

That's all I really need to make my MoO2 experience...perfect.

I really wish they had allowed as large a game as you wanted, whether they thought your computer could handle it or not.

Now there's an idea! Being able to use all of the default races in a single game. Probably would have caused too many complaints with too many people exceeding their system specs though. Also I'm guessing it wouldn't become apparent until most of the galaxy had been colonized, hence a lot of game time is essentially wasted.

The Corion editor doesn't allow any more stars/colonies to be added to huge maps so I'd guess its probably a limit you can't break

[Clear Skies]

I know there's a way to do it - I've got a .lbx file editor and I've got all the code set out. Trouble is, there's several hundred pieces of data per file, and I have no way of knowing which one is the galaxy size variable

Anyone with any ideas?

[Tom Kelly]

Originally posted by Clear Skies
I know there's a way to do it - I've got a .lbx file editor and I've got all the code set out. Trouble is, there's several hundred pieces of data per file, and I have no way of knowing which one is the galaxy size variable

Anyone with any ideas?

The max number of systems is 71 (including blackholes). Look for that value with the hex editor search function. What kind of .lbx editor are you using? Let me know where you got it so I can give it a shot too - bigger galaxy sounds tempting....

[Spaced Cowboy]

Sounds like you would need to tweak more than that. What about the size of the screen and the zoom level? Could get real ugly, since some crashing might not occur until late game.

I'd really be sweet to have the source code. Is it possible to reverse engineer?

[Zealot]

Originally posted by RPMisCOOL
I'd really be sweet to have the source code. Is it possible to reverse engineer?

If it were, it would be the end of programmers in the long run. With other programmers copying your work, there wouldn't be editors to pay programmers to make new products and innovate.
Piracy steals editors; reverse engineering would steal programmers.

[vmxa1]

Well we have disassembler that can take objects and put them back to asm code.

[vmxa1]

see if this will help you it has the formats and shows the stars layout.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Vmxa1,

Exactly, I knew about disassemblers, even wrote one myself. Just wondering if anyone had taken it to the next step and tried to diassemble to a high level language like C? Anyone ever hear of that?

I'm thinking that it is possible to some degree. The resulting code would be somewhat incomprehensable because of generic variable names, however. I would be an interesting project, though.

[moomin]

C's been done, but the resulting code is often less than exciting... However, Java "executables" can be reverse-engineered to a state that's coparable to - or better - then the original code

[Spaced Cowboy]

Really,

Any idea where one could find the C disassembler?

[Tom Kelly]

Originally posted by RPMisCOOL
Sounds like you would need to tweak more than that. What about the size of the screen and the zoom level? Could get real ugly, since some crashing might not occur until late game.

I'd really be sweet to have the source code. Is it possible to reverse engineer?

There are additional concerns. However, the zoom and screen size can be left alone. Just add more systems so that the empty space in the map is more densely packed.

The additional concerns are things like the name list, the formula for placing/spacing the stars, and problems with overlap placement.

The MOO2 editor Corion2 will allow you to move stars, change names, characteristics, etc. - but no additional stars past the upper limit of 72 (not 71 as in my previous post)

I think the key is to alter the upper limit of the galaxy size. I've dug through some of the code, but it's still unclear. I'm still working on finding it, but if anybody has ideas, post it.

[Zealot]

vmxa1's doc has the constant that specifies the max number of systems to 72. Try chaging it.