Modifying save games (VFS files) in UFO Aftermath

[Compo-The-Smoggie]

Hi,

 

I'm a newbie to the forum but not to the X-COM series games.

 

Back in the day, I loved gaming on UFO: Enemy Unknown. I picked up X-COM: Apocalypse but couldn't fathom the gameplay out and not so long ago, I saw a pre-owned UFO Aftermath in a shop that I picked up and haven't stopped playing since.

 

Since I know UFO Aftermath is a game back from 2003, enthusiasm about playing it may have waned somewhat, but playing it now, I've came across a few things that I'd like to be answered by forum members who may know or have experience in these issues.

 

First thing is modifying save game files as stated in my topic title. I was looking at the destination folder where my game was installed and came across the save game files and naturally had a good look at them. I identified parts of it that stated the statistics of the characters I use in the game and thought I'd have a little play with the save game file. Values for the likes of Willpower etc I bumped up a point and saved the file.

 

When I loaded the game up and tried loading the save game, it crashed, a fatal error prompt appeared on my desktop and the game just froze.

 

I've read some of the other forum posts about 'ultra-heroic soldiers' and that. I've currently got a squad on level 25, all super-heroic and I thought once I hit was it 168200 points or something like that, that was be the ceiling for the character levels but having saw they increase beyond that, what is the maximum?

 

Also, due to my frustration with the Retribution mission, I was a bit hacked off with having to load up the game everytime after losing it and resorted to the 'quickabsolutevictory' cheat. After I got past that hurdle I thought, what next, oh yeah, I need to check the engineering/research screen for anymore jobs to do.

 

No interplanetary space ship research options!?!? WTF!?!? I'm only missing this on the Spaceship Retribution engineering option.

 

I'm currently on Sun 12th April 2009 and I'm just playing in hope the mission appears again. I'm letting bases fall to the aliens in hope I get the big spaceship again and I can do the mission again properly. It ain't helping with controlling the biomass on Earth which I've nearly eradicated as well.

 

Help please.

 

Thanks.

[Pete]

Hey there - only just spotted this topic (been away a while) but surprised nobody has chipped in.

 

My memory is foggy and I never tried editing any of the files, but have you patched the game to the 1.4 version and tried any of the editors here: https://www.strategycore.co.uk/files/ufo-aftermath/ ?

 

Hope that's of some help and sorry I can't help with any specifics. I seem to remember being one of the lucky ones for whom the game managed to play through fine first time.