333 replies to this topic

[Sharp]

Wow, works quite well, awesome work j'ordos.

Working on the Agent Equipment looks like the next step. Still yet to test out all the features (like buying an alien battleship from the market )

[j'ordos]

Small update, check first post.

edit: This post has been split, the editor can be downloaded here: http://www.xcomufo.c...topic=242028524. This thread is for discussion only.

Edited by j'ordos, 02 January 2008 - 09:33 AM.

[j'ordos]

More updates, I think the agent equipment now only lacks one more thing: editing the effects of the items that aren't weapons. You can edit which item has which effect (so you could give the motion scanner the shield function, though this would replace the motion scanning function) but you can't alter what it does (how many shield points the shield would give). Would be nice if it's possible.
Other than that I guess it's all there, still quite a few unknown fields and fields with question marks (mostly means I didn't test them, just deducted them)... Armor doesn't always seem to do what it should, don't know.
At least it can edit everything Overkill can (and more) which was pretty much the benchmark as there is no other agent equipment editor

I'm sorry it's rather unintuitive, I'd be happy to forward any complaints to the xcom3 programmers

Edited by j'ordos, 21 May 2006 - 04:50 PM.

[Sharp]

Looks really really good, il be able to test it this weekend hopefully and give you some feedback.

[Sharp]

Well the editor works amazingly well. You are a genius j'ordos.

Would be nice to have armour editing, and the vehicle layout editer is hard to use (but i've got a better one of those anyways), the equipment editor is easy enough to use and the editor isn't buggy (apart from the damned escape button, why won't it consistently work )

Still, this is one of the best XCom Editors i've seen, great work.

[j'ordos]

Thanks
You can edit armour, in the agent equipment 1 section, IIRC. Although it's not complete yet, altering the armour rating doesn't seem to have any effect (EDIT: actual armour rating is edited, the 'maximum' armour rating is not, you can only see this in the battlescape), and I don't know what makes the MarSec torso fly, but then there's still a few 'unknown' fields in there, you could try to fiddle with those, or it might just depend on the picture or something...

Yeah, AVE's editor is a lot better for editing vehicle layouts, but unfortunately it's not completely correct, there were some mistakes in the hexa.txt file he based it on

I made a small update a while ago btw., adding a 'mass edit' function.

Edited by j'ordos, 31 May 2006 - 08:07 AM.

[Sharp]

Hmm fiddling with the unknowns, sounds fun, testing seems more of Zombie's or NKF's alley but il give it a bash, can't see me making thousands of tests or anything but im sure il find some way to test out.

Hmm one interesting thing ive just thought out which should be fun to try, what happens to edited agent equipment in a battlescape save? Can see it now, the moment that heavy launcher wielding cultist has finally passed on il set the power from 0 to 1000 and then see how the cultists like missiles now muhahahahahah

About the mass edit function, is that like your lovely road war editor where you could increase all weapon ranges by 150% etc..., sounds nice but I suppose that would increase alien stuff as well?

One nice thing though would be to link in ammo and guns and stuff rather then having to edit multiple fields, though I suppose having it unlinked would make it far more versatile, I wonder what happens when you have a gun which has 5 rounds with ammo that has 50

[j'ordos]

I don't think the savedgames store weapon data as well, so your scenario would be entirely possible, haven't tried it though
The mass edit function is indeed pretty much that, you can also enter a constant value instead of a percentage (if you want to make every item manufacturable in a small workshop, for example). You can roughly select which records you want to edit, so you can leave out the alien weapons. (you enter the first and last record to edit, those two and everything in between will be altered). It's mainly useful because it shows the value of that particular field for every record you're going to edit, so you can easily compare them.
Yeah, merging Agent Equipment 1,2 & 3 and Craft Equipment 1 & 2 would easier to use, I might look into it later, there's not much versatility that would be lost by doing that anyway, but for now I just left everything as it's stored in the .exe's.
Apocalypse keeps track of individual bullets instead of clips, so all that would happen is that you could reload your weapon 10 times with one clip.
edit: found out seomthings about armor, will probably update it this weekend or something.

Edited by j'ordos, 31 May 2006 - 08:13 AM.

[Sharp]

Initial testing has shown that armour can be changed, the unknown2 field which you have in the comments as armour rating but makes no difference in-game actually does make a difference.

It does not change what the total armour of a piece is, but it changes the acutal number so if you change it to 99 you get armour in battle rated 99/45, however unknown fields 3,4 and 5 have not yielded any differences so far. More testing to do.

[j'ordos]

Yeah, found it out just yesterday . Also found out that the 'item effect' field, which I thought was just the location for armour, actually really is the item effect, didn't look into it properly back then. Changing that one does alter the total protection, and also holds the ability to fly, and the picture (in battle picture that is, not in the equip screen) etc... I'll try to find the location of those things for the next update.
edit: found them . I'll try to update it soon, I made a mistake when packing this version anyway, as the cfg file in the archive still points to the directory I myself installed xcom3 to, so even if you put it in the xcom apocalypse base dir it'll give you an error saying it can't find ufo2p.exe. Simply blank the first line of apoc'd.cfg to fix it.

Edited by j'ordos, 01 June 2006 - 11:31 AM.

[j'ordos]

version 1.23 here, added more armor stuff and fixed the escape button.
reuploaded version, mass edit function wasn't updated with new armor stuff. <_<

Edited by j'ordos, 02 June 2006 - 02:44 PM.

[Aiki-Knight]

My God, j'ordos - I've been reading through this thread. You are a GOD! You appear to have done what others have not - injected new life into X3 with an editor that can really expand the horizons of the game. I will try your editor this week. But even on the basis of what's been said in this thread, I congratulate you on your excellence, and thank you for your diligence and generosity.

The truth is that programmers like you are the ones who keep the old games alive and fresh. I have no programming knowledge (I'm a linguist by profession - I suck at computers), and would not know even where to begin. I would never be able to accomplish this. But it sounds like it is possible to re-tool much of the game to our liking. I like the idea that, as the game goes on, we can continue to open up the development continuum - increasing armour values, flying disruptor armour (possibly?), different manufacturability (as engineering becomes more refined).

I also play Transport Tycoon, which is older than XCOM 3, but one German guy has been just hammering away at improving the game, which is just a fantastic game with all the improvements. Now XCOM3 benefits from the same re-invigoration from fan programmers. Thanks!

[j'ordos]

While I'm at it, I released a new version of apoc'd a few weeks ago, version 1.24.
It fixes a few bugs (such as a blank screen when editing some fields, when there should have been a list of possible values to enter) and replaces some numbers with more user friendly descriptions (for example, the damage type in agent equipment 3 - which is read from the exe, so don't ask me why the 'explosive' damage type is in there twice)
I had intended to just wait 'till I had something new, but it'll probably be a while before that happens.

edit: oh, and thanks

Edited by j'ordos, 26 September 2006 - 10:40 AM.

[Red Stone]

*X-COMgasms*

You Are An Hero.

A Winrar is you.

You win the intarnets.

I cannot come up with enough geek-supplication to sufficiently express my emotions at this moment, j'ordos. o_o *salutes!*

[Sorrow]

Great editor .

Sadly, the armor editing still doesn't work right - I'm working on a mod that brings back lethal weapon damages from UFO and I wanted to modify megapol and marsec armor to make them more like UFO power suits, but when I edit the protection, armor in tactical missions stille have 38/110 etc. protection . Is this editor still worked on?

[Steelion]

I thought they repaired at your base. Give em a day or two, I bet that'll fix it.

[j'ordos]

The armor parts are also located in the agent equipment 1 section, there you need to edit a field called 'Unknown 2'. This will set the 'actual' armor rating.

[Sorrow]

Thanks for info, it works great now .

[j'ordos]

Apoc'd returns bigger&better than ever!
Version 2.00 already, check first post for details.

Edited by j'ordos, 14 April 2007 - 08:22 PM.

[Steelion]

Sweet. Now we can muck up the aliens themseves!

[Sorrow]

Yay !
*downloads*

[j'ordos]

New version as I found a rather bad bug when saving data both to tacp & ufo2p.exe (in other words: when editing agent equipment, damage modifiers&alien unit stats). Please restore your backup of tacp.exe and download the new version.
For those who are interested:
when reading data apoc'd determines whether it uses data from ufo2p.exe or tacp.exe (depends on which menu you came from: cityscape editing or battlescape editing), including offset data (location within the exe where the piece of data in question is stored). When saving changes it used only that offset for both ufo2p and tacp.exe, while these are in fact different for both files. This is no real problem when you edited that data in the battlescape menu as those offsets go beyond the size of ufo2p.exe, meaning data was actually only being written to tacp.exe. But when you edited through the cityscape menu, and thus used the offsets for ufo2p.exe it would overwrite some other data in tacp.exe. No telling what it affected (though so far I noticed no problems, tacp.exe contains quite a bit of blank data (reserved for future use/stripped out stuff?) so it could be nothing).

I also added backup creation for the 'CitymapX.bld' files in the ufodata folder (Buildings). This because editing a blank 'building' to create a new one WILL crash xcom apocalypse, which cannot be undone by resetting the values to 0!

On a lighter note, I did make a useful discovery in the savegame -> buildings data: amount&types of aliens present. Should make that tedious 'desinfectation' process much easier. Or just set to 0, problem solved (Don't know what that'd do with the infiltration rate though). Can also be used to create some sort of skirmish, just select amount of each alien type and change building function to get the map you want. Even UFO's can be selected (also quite a few unused building functions, all except for 'people tube' have no map file, and the people tube map has a messed up palette)
Not sure what the maximal # of aliens are in battle, I went a bit overboard once and a good amount never appeared plus brainsucker pods & hyperworms no longer spawned after a while.

edit: v2.02 released.

Edited by j'ordos, 10 April 2007 - 06:09 PM.

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

Hey Jordos, you know how you can edit the ammount of slots and such of the Vehicles?
What about Agents? Dont they deserve to be able to grow more pockets

[j'ordos]

It's in the vehicle Equipment layouts section in the edit Cityscape menu. Editing should be pretty straightforward, select the vehicle, enter amount of slots, x&y position, size and type. For the remaining fields it's best to look at the values other slots of the same type have and copy them. Note that cargo slots are all separate 1 by 1 slots.
I recommend AVE's editor for this though, it has a graphical UI http://www.xcomufo.c...?showtopic=7832

Haven't looked at the agents yet, but it looks like their slots are already drawn on their equippic, so I don't know if it's possible to add more and if they would be visible.

[darquan]

Great editor thanks alot! I love apocalype (and the first two but theres so much more to apoc, lost some atmosphere with the grpahics but the sound makes up for it. I only wish they'd make a sequal to rival it. I've tried all of them but they seemed aimed at younger generation with better graphics but less depth, gameplay and atmosphere. Ten years on and i still get together with friends to to play apoc.

As it wasnt finished there are some balance issues that the editor largely fixes but i wonder if its possible:

To have a lesser value for x-com using disrupter shields and cloaking shields (say half) then the aliens and other agencies?

Is there some way that only the aliens can use teleporters? (although we can just not use them)

And cruicially is there someway i can multiply the number of aliens/enemies on each mission 2 or 3 times?

Thx again and for any help. (sorry if this the right place for this post but it seemed appropriate)

[j'ordos]

Thanks for the comment!

What you're asking is currently not possible, I don't even know how to edit the amount of shield points the shield gives yet . Altering things so that they are less effective for Xcom alone is probably impossible even if I found it, sorry
What you could do is increasing the damage modifiers against the disruptor shield for the disruptor&entropy enzyme damage types. Assuming the player mainly uses toxiguns or standard megaprime weapons this should mainly aid the aliens.
The teleporter, probably easiest solution is not to use it yes . You can remove it's effect completely (aliens can't use it as well as xcom anyway), or maybe even increasing the reload time would help a bit?

Number of aliens/enemies present on each mission can be altered using apocutil: http://members.aol.c...jones/xcomutil/.
Happy bug hunting!

[darquan]

wow fast reply and great news thanks alot!

We wondered if you would consider some changes we think would make a big difference or if they're possible?

1) Morale. I think morale is a missed oppurtunity. Rather than the simplistic 'you
lose a bit of morale for every soldier lost and gain a bit for every alien killed', i would
add;

- for every shot that is fired at a soldier they loose 1 morale point - 0.1 for every point
of bravery (or somthing similar) this would represent 'courage under fire' and would make weak weapons like the machine gun better, and devestator cannons worse.

2) darkness. Many fans have commented on the fact that apoc lacks the 'darkness factor'
of xcom 1&2. The graphics in apoc are all too bright. I would add a simple bit of code that
decreases the lumination of tiles the further away they get from a light source or agent when indoors.
This wouldnt be so easy in programming terms as it would affect shooting mechanics which i suspect
are complicated. Obviously adding day-night cycle would be the ideal.

3) Multiplayer. do you think multiplayer co-op would be possible? Im not sure if it would be a substantial programming effort
or not?

again thanks for the programming wisdom.

Edited by j'ordos, 05 May 2007 - 07:35 PM.

[j'ordos]

Those things unfortunately go way beyond the simple data editing of apoc'd and would probably require the source code of xcom apocalypse. Can't help you with that It'd be great to have some real effects for morale and especially the lighting though.

Multiplayer was implemented to some degree, and it would be possible to play a PBEM tactical mission, though so far there's no easy to use tool like xcomutil for that
http://www.xcomufo.c...?showtopic=5537

[jos]

Hi

Thanks for your good works on Apoc J'ordos. Its good to see someone
else can see the potential in such an awesome in-depth game.
As darquan points out the new xcom games barely have enough depth
to reach the teen market, let alone adult market like me! Apocalypse
represents intelligent gaming with depth and character like no other.

But my question to j'ordos; is it possible to get the source code and
implement some more basic changes??

[j'ordos]

Chances of someone getting the source code would be very unlikely, sorry. Don't know if anyone even still has it . Too bad as there seems to be much wasted potential in xcom3...

Edited by j'ordos, 05 May 2007 - 01:15 PM.

[darquan]

Well thats a shame. As you say it's an unfinished masterpiece but with your editor the apocutil can certainly fill in for difficulty.

I can't get apocutil to work i unzipped it to the xcoma folder but nothing happens when i click on it. When i tell it to run as vdms it gives description of commands you can do then says: press a key to continue and closes. I couldnt access it via command prompt or find any instructions for getting to the prompt to enter these commands. Can you point me inthe right direction?

[jos]

Hmmm. Yes i've heared source code can be difficult to get hold of.
Presumably moby games or whoever have it and they're not giving
away!

Well, then lets make our own Apoc inspired re-make! We've had spin
-offs of xcom 1 & 2 but what about 3?
We can make the source code open source so the programmers dont have shedloads
of work to do. Im a graphics and animation guy. We can build it on
the principles of apoc, copying the game mechanics (which work so well)
and re-introduce all the implementations that were left out or missed
oppurtunities.... and, in fact, i would aim to make it as mod-able as
possible as there are clearly so many people who want to tweak these
games to their own preferences.

Whaddya think?
Are you a programmer jordos?

[j'ordos]

About apocutil, it's a commandline utility as you already found out. To use it, go to the properties page of the VDMSound shortcut you created and select the VDMSound tab. There you press the 'advanced' button. Under the program tab there should be a field called 'arguments'. There you type: "ALIENS:nn WRITE" (without quotation marks) where nn is a percentage from 1 to 250. Obviously you'll want something above 100 .
For those without VDMSound this can also be done in the properties page of the exe itself (or a shortcut thereof), but the window will most likely disappear immediately when run, so you can't see what it did.

A full remake of xcom3 is a bit out of my league in terms of programming skills, to put it gently
Just take a look at project xenocide (hosted on these very forums) and you'll see the tremendous amount of work required to get something this big up and running. And considering not even the Gollop brothers and their team managed to pull it off (okay, they did have a time limit ) I'm not about to try.

[darquan]

I have vdmsound and tried creating a shortcut as i didnt have one, but the shortcut didn't have a VDMsound tab. I couldn't find an arguments field in the exe file either (afraid i'm a novice at this sortta thing)

however i went to command prompt, opened xcoma directory and typed: "APOCUTIL ALN:250%ANY WRITE" and it said:
Pentium version of UFO2P.EXE detected
Number of aliens has been updated
Pentium version of TACP.EXE detected

But when i started game and spun to a mission only one anthropod with brainsucker launcher turned up
Should that have worked or how can i create a shortcut to VDMsound with the right tab?

thankyou for this help! gonna be great once setup

Jos i and friends are seriously considering taking up coding etc just for this game, were looking into getting the sourcecode from hasbro or moby games (whoever got it microprose). To put in some of the things missed out, aliens crawling on walls, indepth politics (assasinations and imprisonment), changing cityscape graphics (make it sinister), moral system, multiple dimensions, nighttime, balancing and coop multiplayer (as well as taking out saving the game just saved when you quit). Thats how much we love this game Think we can do it if we can get the code?

[j'ordos]

Perhaps you have an older version of VDMSound. The exe 'properties' doesn't call it 'arguments' I believe, but I'm not sure what it does call it (using dutch windows). It's under the 'program' tab there anyway
I think it doesn't work for the aliens that are already present at the beginning of the game (I believe you're talking about that mission), as I found out in apoc'd that those numbers are stored in the savegame. Try raiding an organisation and if you're still not sure, set the percentage to 1 and raid again.

Not taking into account the process of getting the sourcecode, I suppose it'd depend on your skill, free time and mainly the motivation whether you'll be able to do it, as it'll be a long process no matter what. I can't even finish something simple because I lose interest all the time . And if you haven't done any programming before it'll probably be very painful, so you'll need a LOT of motivation
But hey nothing's impossible, some fans managed to get the sourcecode of Tyrian: http://tyrian2k.prob...read=1171083618.

edit: while I'm at it I also released verion 2.03. Seems like it's quite a big update

Edited by j'ordos, 05 May 2007 - 07:09 PM.

[darquan]

GREAT! it works i tested it, theres no doubt. THX!

Just changing a few things with your editor. From the readme i take it that i can change the sniper rifle for example to increase range, accuracy and the ammo to increase power (the worst weapon if you ask me). i saved and i started a new game, so it does happen just doesn't show up ingame stats because its the start? i changed marsec armour and bought one but too same thing there. most of the things were later in the game, teleporters, ships, toxi guns etc all downgraded, how i understand it the stats for those should show up ingame. Is there some early thing i can do to test it works something that should show up?

[j'ordos]

Editing power/range/accuracy/... should be visible right from the start, just look at the stats in the UFOPaedia or in the agent equipment screen.
Do note that there are two values to edit for armor, the 'Maximum armor rating' in the agent equipment 2 section, and the 'Unknown 2' In the agent equipment 1 section (which is the 'actual armor rating'). Also don't forget to save the changes when you're done editing.

The only thing that might not have been visible from the start is the increasing of the amount of aliens with apocutil, because that anthropod+3 brainsuckers are generated every game right in the beginning. You should wait for the first UFOs to drop some aliens, or the first raid to see whether it really did work or not.

[darquan]

Definatly got hundreds of aliens i took it down to the minimum which is 10 and had a couple then the max of 250% and had 25 odd aliens

Ah i got the editor now it all works perfectly! you've been a great help and have sealed the fate of millions of aliens thanks a ton!

If we do get are mits on the sourcecode we might tap you and/or any other interrested parties for some help or advice if you don't mind i guess we'll just make a running thread in the modding section.

[jos]

Hello again J'ordos
I have a few questions concerning hex editing of Apoc:

1) Do you know what triggers base attacks and how to
make them more freuquent? i think they're one of the
more interesting elements of the game but the aliens
(and organisations for that matter) are lame.

2) what are the alien ships doing when they hover over
abuilding and drop sprinkle dust on them>? is it a bug as
nothing seems to result.

Ive been trying to get hold of the source code but obviously
its not easy.... can i ask; why can some things be edited
with your excellent hex editor and some things require the
source code to recompile? im not a programmer so i dont
understand any of it.

Thanks, Jos

[j'ordos]

No idea about 1) as of yet, sorry.

2) is the 'micronoid rain', no aliens are dropped, but there is a (small) chance the organisation will suddenly become 100% infiltrated. If it doesn't succeed nothing happens

Well hex editing is basically altering existing data. Data that is (relatively) easy to find on top of that. Most of the sections you can edit in apoc'd have some known values you can work off (price/damage/... ). For example the funding, you know the starting funds so you put it in hex and search for that value. If you find multiple instances you either try altering them all and testing the effect, or look for something you know might be nearby, in this case the starting government funding. If there still are multiple instances you'll have to test them.
But base attacks frequency is harder as I wouldn't know what to look for. Though it's probably possible to 'force' UFO's to do a base attack by editing the savegame -> vehicles section, as of yet I don't have any idea what exactly should be edited. The 'Rules of Engagement (setting)' field seems to be some sort of mission type for UFOs, but editing it doesn't affect them. Probably need to alter more stuff, like destination map position and such. It'd remove the element of surprise though
And then there are things such as adding lighting, or adding multiplayer, I wouldn't have ANY idea how to do that with hex editing.

Edited by j'ordos, 02 June 2007 - 07:16 AM.

[j'ordos]

Though it's probably possible to 'force' UFO's to do a base attack by editing the savegame -> vehicles section, as of yet I don't have any idea what exactly should be edited.

Making progress though


Xcom Infiltrating CoS

[Sorrow]

Ohohoho ! Looks promising .

[j'ordos]

Too bad it doesn't do anything tho (unless you change the ship type to an alien transporter or something, but that doesn't really do you any good). I can also make it do a micronoid rain thing, but I haven't tested to see if that does have an effect... Making the organisation 100% allied to you would be nice
Too bad I don't know how to force overspawn missions yet, but I'm sure that's just a matter of time.
Anyway, it seems I got the force base missions stuff working, I'll try to release a new version sometime soon (need to polish things a bit).
For those who can't wait :
You need to edit 'Unknown 152' (edit: in the savegames -> vehicles section ofcourse), which is the target building. The number corresponds to the building list also in the savegame section, you'll have to count which number your base is or to make things easier, tell a vehicle to attack your base, save and check unknown 152 for that vehicle in apoc'd, should be the same.
The field below unknown 152 (unkown 153) is the 'mission': 1=attack, 2=micronoid, 3=drop aliens & 4 = attack again (don't know why)
Then you also need to edit the destination X&Y position for the UFO. These are Unknown 83&84 respectively. To find out these values copy themfrom (preferably) the X&Y position of a ground vehicle currently stationed at that base.
That should do it. You can change the type of the UFO to get the amount of invaders you want
Well, here's hoping increasing the base attacks frequency will be easier (for the end-user that is)

edit: well, apparently setting unknown 153 ('mission') to 5 is the overspawn drop. But there seems to be more to it as even though the white tube thingy appeared below my phoenix hovercar no overspawn appeared, even when I set the vehicle type to mothership and changed the owner to alien....

Edited by j'ordos, 07 June 2007 - 05:54 AM.

[j'ordos]

Well at least it works

Edited by j'ordos, 07 June 2007 - 06:09 AM.

[Sharp]

Well that should make everyone friendly to XCom then

[NRN_R_Sumo1]

uh oh.. Can you say Reload? xD

[darquan]

Hey Jordos,

I was wondering if you had anyidea how to increase the
number of human soldiers on corporation raids and base
attacks? they need a few more men they're so crap!

Also, any luck on how to increaase the frequency of alien
and / or human base attacks? .... Other than forcing an attack?

Thanks.

[j'ordos]

No, no idea how to do all that, sorry. The apocutil option only increases alien loadouts on UFOs it seems.

[Steelion]

Love the new view vehicle function. I never used the edit layout function because I could never see what I was doing!

[j'ordos]

Thanks, the next version also adds view functions for the buildings section and the savegame -> vehicles section (showing vehicle position and destination/target).