HWP editing

[inteck]

First of all let me give a healthy round of applause to Sid Garcia and his pages dedicated to modifying X-com . Finally someone has come up with the knowledge of how to modify the game itself and not just the save files!!! . Unfortunately, his topics on HWP editing leave out a couple of REALLY irritating details .

 

The 1st really irritating thing is the ammo amount used by the HWP's.....the offset for the tanks ammo amount was never mentioned. It would have been excellent if my Tank/Rocket Launcher or my Blaster Hovertank could carry more than 8 shells . The same goes for that really weak Tank/Cannon and its 30 shots . If the ammo amount is in the tactical.exe I can't find it. I have also looked in the Geoscape.exe.....can't find it there either (it's got to be somewhere!!!!where is it???!!!).

The 2nd irritating thing is the info for your tanks in the Ufopedia......It IS NOT updated by modifying the statistics in the tactical.exe. The correct info for the Weapon type, ammunition Capacity (WHERE IS IT??!!), and power, is not correctly displayed after modifying the tactical.exe; Unlike the time units, health and armor which ARE correctly displayed after being updated/modified in the Geoscape.exe.

 

If anyone could tell or give me some information as to where the location of these offsets in the files are please let me know.

 

Thanks in advance

Inteck

[Fox]

It's natural that the UFOpaedia wouldn't be updated with new info, they are only picture files. They do not react with modifications to the game. Think of it as if you painted a self portrait, and then you shaved your head. Would the picture then change to show you bald?

 

And yes, I am the master of analogies.

[inteck]

The pedia IS updated/updatable. When you hex modify the Tank armor values and other statistics in the geoscape.exe, the changes appear in the UFOPEDIA immedietly(you have to restart the game of course).....The reason it Can and does change is because the raw data you see on the side has values which work in conjunction with the english.dat file under the geodata folder. There is nothing in the UFOPEDIA which can't be changed.....Including the pictures which are somewhere under the pck files. Just try modifying a couple of values in the geoscape.exe yourself and see what I mean, or, better yet - download a program called Xc2me2. It edits just about everything in both games (xcom1 and 2).....Not the save files but the game itself. So my above question still stands....Where is the ammunition amount for the HWP's in the geoscape located at......along with the power and weapon type.

[BladeFireLight]

After talking to some of the other people I know who edit the game. the concesis is that no one knows the location. it will be in geoscape but we dont know where

 

so unless your going to reverse enginere the game for us. you guess is as good as mine :dontgetit:

[BladeFireLight]

Their is a way to add ammo to a tank. but not so that it is done by the game. In the unitref.dat in the saved game or uniref.dat in missdat (precombat only) you can update the amo remaining on each tank indivdualy. this would alow for the adding up to 255 shots to a tank.

 

to do it automaticaly you could creat a command line util (DOS) that made the changes, and run it from one of the precombat hook files used by xcomutil.

althow I dont see the fun in having that many shots. It would get old really quick.

 

I can get you the offset if you really want it

 

-Blade FireLight

[inteck]

Yes i'm still looking for the offset.

[BladeFireLight]

Unitref.dat is created when you save a game, or in the missdat dir when you load.

uniref.dat is written by geoscape to the missdat dir just as combat starts (this is the best place to start IMHO. but the changes have to be made befor tactical.exe starts)

unitref2.dat is used only after combat has finished so is of no real use for this project

 

each file contains the stats of each unit on the battlefeild. each entery is 0x7B bytes long. the units name begins at offset 0x56. Offset 0x75 is the ammo counter for tanks.(this is not used by any other unit type)

 

-Blade FireLight