Hex Editing of Starfleet executables

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d4v1ks:

--- Quote from: Captain Adam on January 11, 2017, 08:56:33 pm ---Tar, I just put the Saratoga Mega Phasers on an Excelsior pylons, LMAO, looks like a BEAST!

--- End quote ---

:o you are not trying to tease up people with a model pack of some sort, are you?

Captain Adam:
If I didn't have to work 9+ hours and have this terrible NYC commute each day I would but you know how time and fatigue affect modding. Sorry.

I will work harder on it. :P

xeryx:
I have been able to do some testing this afternoon, and I am very pleased to say that I have great news.

The new values that TAR provided for the Skirmish helped a lot.

Initially, I used fighters as my testing tool. I spaced out all fighters 2 years apart. So I could determine the effects of the numbers in the era's. Then I could see what fighters showed up and when. When I reached the end of a fighter in the list, It gave me the year. Which corresponded somewhat with the numbers below.

The original values are
0= early,7= middle, 35=late, 100=advanced

Thankfully the numbers were actually very straight forward.

The original year (2263) value is the zero year in the fighter list as well! Mine is set to 2253

In the EXE, I set my year tab numbers to these in the Skirmish mode 9,19,29,100. I kept the hundred years out so that all ships could be included. Then I set up my fighters were also set for ISD's of -50-11, 11-21,21-31,31-999 Great news! All fighters showed up correctly for each era.

Testing revealed that the numbers should be used for the ending date of the ERA. We are now one step closer.

Once I have my ships list complete I will verify with it as well, but I am pretty sure it works just fine.

I am unsure if those numbers above affected the campaign at all, but my fighters worked in exactly as they were supposed to in the campaign as well.

Right now I am just glad things work correctly.

Need to test this; To see if these numbers affect the ERA's in the Campaign, if not then there is another set of numbers that do. Maybe they are similar to the ones Tar already found? Also, the missile ISD's which I will find the exact dates for and report them here. They will be like these numbers were, additive because they acted the same after changing my start date.

I will test my campaign after I make my years of in-service edits, so that should be this weekend sometime.

Great JOB! TAR!
BTW I need my account activated or an activation email sent to me on Hot and Spicy, but no one has answered my multiple emails to them. So that is why I am posting here.

Great Scotts what a great looking ship you have there.

TarMinyatur:
I tested missile speed availability tonight. The game treats this differently in campaign mode.

In skirmish mode the era acts as an incremental counter (0 to 3).

Early (0) does not activate the right arrow next to missile speed, so you're stuck with slow.
Mid (1) activates the right arrow, allowing you to choose medium speed missiles. The right arrow is dark.
Late (2) activates the right arrow when you choose medium speed, allowing fast missiles. The right arrow is dark.
Advanced (3) activates the right arrow when you choose fast speed, but nothing is better than fast. The right arrow is bright but useless.

The Skirmish Eras for the SFC_Editor are ignored in Skirmish mode for missile speed. All that matters is the Era choice via the Era button.

Customized Eras do indeed affect ship and fighter selection. If I set the values to 0, 1, 2, 3 then only ships with YFA of 3 or less (Year 2266 by default) will appear in the Advanced-era vessel library. Only fighters with a YFA of 3 or less will appear in spacedock.

In campaign mode, missile speed upgrades are determined by the time.gf modifier.

[Clock/StartingDate]
BaseYear   = 0 // 2263 is just for show
0         = 0 // (Negative numbers or letters are converted to zero).
1         = 0 // Medium speed drones arrive in 4th year.
2         = 2 // Medium speed drones arrive in 2nd year.
3         = 10 // Medium instantly available. Fast drones arrive in 7th year.

So obviously the game has hardcoded the values 4 and 17 for missile speed upgrades.

04 00 00 00 11 00 00 00 are the 8 consecutive bytes to search for in the .exe.

Fighters seem to be delayed in appearing in the dynaverse spacedock. A fighter with a YFA of 7 wasn't available until 3 years later than expected. Could simply be some lag in updating the ftrlist. My game turns were quicker than typical, just 90 seconds/turn instead of 10 minutes or whatever for a real campaign.

TarMinyatur:
The dates for missile speed upgrades can be customized for your campaigns. It doesn't have to be +4 and +17.

Good thing Taldren picked a number like 17 for the year of fast missile arrival (2280-2263=17). Searching for 16's would have been brutal! IDA found a small number of cmp eax,17h. I actually found the button elements first. Lots of verification going on in the UI.

StarFleetOP.txt:

--- Code: ---Tab Year

CDA68: 1i // Vessel Library's "Date Introduced" (Shiplist YFA is added to this value) // 2263
47BFE4: 4i // Final inclusive year of Era, in terms of YFA, for Skirmish Mode (Early, Mid, Late, Advanced) // 0, 7, 35, 100
8689F: 1b // YFA Medium-speed Missiles (button highlighter) // 4
86B4F: 1b // YFA Medium-speed Missiles (button click) // 4
DB0FB: 1b // YFA Medium-speed Missiles (verifier) // 4
868B7: 1b // YFA Fast-speed Missiles (button highlighter) // 17
86B63: 1b // YFA Fast-speed Missiles (button click) // 17
DB100: 1b // YFA Fast-speed Missiles (verifier) // 17

--- End code ---

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