MoO2 galaxy sizes

[Spaced Cowboy]

Moom,

Tried to find C dis....Do you have a hint?

[Tom Kelly]

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

The document posted by Vmxa1 applies only to saved game files. It does not alter the galaxy size used in generating a new game. Further, alterations to the MAX_STARS value does not allow the addition of extra systems.

There is another value or control element that needs to be altered in order to generate a game with more star systems than the default 72. I suspect it is embedded in either the .exe file itself, or in one of the .lbx setup files. Again, any ideas are welcome.

[Tom Kelly]

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

My first attempt was to alter the 72-system limit to 100 in a saved game using a hex editor, and I then used Corion2 to add a new system. The editor gives me an error message stating that I have already reached the max number of systems.

My second attempt was to copy the data for a specific system with a hex editor, and paste it in with a different name, and different coordinates. When I attempt to load this file as a saved game, it crashes back to the windows desktop. Also, if I load this file with Corion2, it crashes as well.

I think the system limit may be related to the position of the system data in the save file. I am still looking though. Any ideas or help is greatly appreciated.

[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?

Is the .lbx editor you are using shareware? If so, please post it. Thanks.

[Tom Kelly]

Originally posted by vmxa1
Well we have disassembler that can take objects and put them back to asm code.

As with the .lbx editor above, if the program you refer to is shareware, please post a copy. Thanks.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Tom,

Just do a google search on disassembler. There are tons of freebies out there (It is not a hard program to write)

R:PM

[moomin]

Originally posted by RPMisCOOL
Tried to find C dis....Do you have a hint?

Heh. This sure brings back memories. Back when I was a uni student we used Sparcs a lot - and loo and behold, it turns out that the excellent C compiler Sun shipped with SunOS (and the less excellent they shipped with Solaris...) left the compiling hints in even when you specified a stripped binary - so disassembling the executables was really easy - the compiler came with a default decompiler that did just that. We used to try to write code that would trick the decompiler to produce a decompilation that wasn't a functional equivalent of the original code, some sort of meta-obfuscated C programming contest I guess - but the darn thing was good.

This can easily be simulated with most commercial Wintel compilers (except for MSVC, of course, which does not come with any kind of decompiling out of the box, although debugger trickery is still possible) but get your hands on a Borland Turbo C environ, and you'll see it does a good job too if you leave the hints in.

If you don't, it's another ballpark, but still possible. The tools of trade become proggie/hardware combos like an ICE disassember. It's orders of magintude more effort, but quite doable - for a recent outstanding effort look for the russian enthusiast version of Heores of Might & Magic III called WoG (Wake of the Gods). They took the binary, spent some serious effort and decopiled it to produce a entirely new game on the HoMMIII base, and the best Heroes game ever... impressive stuff.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Moom,

Yeah, a couple o' links suggested that Borland had one. I sort o' remember that one myself from college. Anyway, have you seen any freebies (WinOS)?