Problem with Modifications

[Thimon86]

Hello, I recently stumbled across this forum and especially the Recoding, Bug Fix, etc. section of it draw my attention.
Now after changing a few things I have some questions.

After reading trough the Topics I changed some things in the game by using the Ultimate Editor and some with hex editor.
All the results I wanted did appear, but there were also some (unwanted) side effects which shouldn't appear I think.
Well it's nod as bad as it sounds, the game runs stable but some things kinda randomly changed.

First off all, that is what I changed:

Ultimate Editor:
- larger Galaxy size (big one is now 32x25)
- changed the planet type values (more "useful" planets, less barren, volcano and so on)

Hex edited in trek.exe:
(if neccessary I can give the exact position in hte code where I edited something and what I did. I did after reading through the topics containing the code positions and changes)

- set the minimum number of planets to 4
- set the maximum number of planets per system to 8 in order to avoid 10 star systems which crash the game

- changed the population limits for free systems to: min 130 max 500
- pop limits for minor race systems: only changed max to 500
- pop limits fpr additional major empire starting systems: min 200 max 500

That's what I've changed so far and (almost) everything worked out fine as it should. The game seems more stable than before the editing

But as I said there appeared some unwanted side effects:

- everything mentioned above worked fine except for the max number of planets per system: I found a lot of systems with nine plantes in the game I opened and also discovered two 10 planet systems which led to some ctd's (I just didn't learn not to click on them ^^)

- borg cubes spawned much more often than normal I would say (I destroyed 8 of them throughout the ca. 430 rounds the game lasted and there were at least 4 more spread around in the galaxy when the game ended). They pretty much did all the work for me by almost wiping out the other 4 major empires. So in the end I had almost nothing to do to win the game -.- (also in the first 350 rounds or so they only attacked the AI never me)

- very unstable diplomatics (even more unstable than normal ) I got offerd a lot of contracts only to be in war after another round, allies declared war on me without any reason. Had an alliance with another major race for about 200 rounds anf from one round to another they declared war on me etc.

- upgrading buildings on planets: needed most of the times less rounds than predicted o.O
for example industry upgrade should have taken 20 rounds or so, but was finished after about 15 (no there was no big change in morale or something which could have led to faster finish so I have no clue where this appeared from)
this effect took place almost everywhere and the longer the build took the bigger the dicrepancy got. another exmaple: got a minor race as member which had not a single industry building. I also noticed the described effect so I tried to let them build it with their industry capacity of 5 ^^
Should hav taken about 1100 rounds. after 50 turns or so I looked after them and and there were about 600 turns left to finish the building...this just ain't right.

Other than those more or less strange things the gae runs normal, as said before.
I'm using vanilla botf version 1.0.2 with the aforementioned changes.

If anybody got an Idea why those side effects appear please let me know.

Thanks in advance

[Peter1981]

- set the minimum number of planets to 4
- set the maximum number of planets per system to 8 in order to avoid 10 star systems which crash the game

There are three locations for Additional Major Empire Starting system, Minor Race system and, Free system. Taht are tested for maximum number of planets test. but during Star system generation a random number of planets is added to the value at 0xB4577 initiall in vanilla it's 01 -- I assume you changed this to 04?
the following three address contain the upper limit tests and will need to be set not higher than 09.

Code: Select all

0xB3D30 07
0xB3F80 07
0xB41FF 07

Gowron Wrote:

:

Code: Select all

004B5169 BE07000000              mov esi, 00000007   // [esi] = 7 

...

This opens up a wide variety of options, for example changing the divisor from 7 to 1 (division by 1, remainder is always zero) and changing

Code: Select all

:004B5175 8D4201                  lea eax, dword[edx+01] 

to

Code: Select all

:004B5175 8D4209                  lea eax, dword[edx+09] 

will result in 9 planets per system, barring population capacity boundaries.

Check this value isn't greater than 6 as this would.

Borg spawn as they consum population take a look at Spocks-Cuddly-Tribble's post on random events for more infomation on why this happens.

More population == More Borg

viewtopic.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopi ... ndom+evets

The diplomacy instability will be due to the Borg as the ravage trough AI territory they can quickly mop up the AI's fleet making them weak and defensive but this usually manifests as a peace treaty one turn followed by a breaking of that treaty and a war declaration the next. (Might have something to do with AI moral calculations?)

Regarding you precieved issue with building completion did you alter the building stats in anyway (intentionally or not)?

[Thimon86]

Thanks for the quick answer!

There are three locations for Additional Major Empire Starting system, Minor Race system and, Free system. Taht are tested for maximum number of planets test. but during Star system generation a random number of planets is added to the value at 0xB4577 initiall in vanilla it's 01 -- I assume you changed this to 04?
the following three address contain the upper limit tests and will need to be set not higher than 09.

Is 0xB4577 code line 000b5470h: in trek.exe? (sorry for that I didn't get how to correctly convert those adresses in UE and find them in trek.exe with Ultra Edit so I searched for the bits of code given after the adress ^^)

In this line I changed 8D 42 01 to 8D 42 04 which should lead to at least 4 planets per system right?

Code: Select all

0xB3D30 07
0xB3F80 07
0xB41FF 07

are these the 66 83 7D 6A 07 values at 000b3d30h (free) 000b3f80h (minor) and b41f0 (add. major)? I changed these three to 66 83 7D 6A 08 which should result in max. 8 planets per system, I guess ?


Gowron Wrote:

:

Code: Select all

004B5169 BE07000000              mov esi, 00000007   // [esi] = 7 

...

This opens up a wide variety of options, for example changing the divisor from 7 to 1 (division by 1, remainder is always zero) and changing

Code: Select all

:004B5175 8D4201                  lea eax, dword[edx+01] 

to

Code: Select all

:004B5175 8D4209                  lea eax, dword[edx+09] 

will result in 9 planets per system, barring population capacity boundaries.

This could also be the one I changed. But this would result in 9 Plantes everytime?! But there were a lot systems with less than nine planets. from 4 to 8.

Borg spawn as they consum population take a look at Spocks-Cuddly-Tribble's post on random events for more infomation on why this happens.

More population == More Borg

The diplomacy instability will be due to the Borg as the ravage trough AI territory they can quickly mop up the AI's fleet making them weak and defensive but this usually manifests as a peace treaty one turn followed by a breaking of that treaty and a war declaration the next. (Might have something to do with AI moral calculations?)

This sounds pretty logic I must say. So I either go back to normal pop limits or search the forum for a way to prevent the game from spanwning borg cubes. The AI just can't handle them.

Looks like they're going "Wahh the Borg are gonna kill us all. Help me! When they spawn in their territory (let's say in a already assimilated system or empty one). Because nothing is there the Borg will appear somewhere else the following round and they're saying: Ha the borg dissappeared, so I'm gonna kick ur a** instead! ^^

Regarding you precieved issue with building completion did you alter the building stats in anyway (intentionally or not)?

Nope, I did not change anything in there. That's why it's confusing me that much.

[Peter1981]

Set the three maximum as you like less than 10 of course; and make sure that the minimum number of planet (i.e. vanilla = 1; your mod = 4) when added to the multiple is equal or less than 10;

i.e. 10 - min planets = X

Code: Select all

004B5169 BE0X000000              mov esi, 00000007   // [esi] = X

To improve the borg problem use UE to increase the production cost of a borg cube.

Really not quite sure what has happened to your buildings. Changing planet population size, galaxy size and minimum number of planets should not affect the building of structures. (anyone got any ideas on this?)

[Thimon86]

Ok if I get that right I should not need to replace (after setting mininum number of planets to 3) teh 7 in the mentioned code line because 7 + 3 equals 10.
That should avoid 10 planet systems then I guess.

Thanks for the tip about the borg problem. I think that should work out.

For the buildings: Well getting things built faster is not a real hindering problem, it's just weird. I'll check if this still appears in future games.

[Peter1981]

or change the 7 to a six?

[Thimon86]

That would've been the other possibility, yes. But it works like that and 3 or more planets per system is enough. Thanks!

For the Borg problem: I changed the value to an very very high value (beyond 1 000 000) and started a new game. I've finished the game by now and didn't encounter a single borg cube.

BUT now my sister started a game and cubes started popping up again like crazy ^^
I checked the value and it returned to normal again, without me doing anything. I tried to up it again but I can't manage to save the change. It always returns to the normal value when closing UE. Strange...

About the faster building/upgrading: well, it looks like it's been because of morale changes (loyal doesn't necessesarily equal loyal for exmple, I've overseen that). So no more worrying about that.

EDIT: I tried and failed again. I mean I could change other values (planet population stats) and they didn't return to normal. But I can't edit the ship stats, those changes were not saved again.

EDIT2: I also can change the stats of other ships (tried out the romulan warbird). Seems like it's just the borg who don't want to be excluded of the game

EDIT3: Those other changes are saved in UE, but do not appear in the game itself. I'm pretty much puzzled right now -.-

[Peter1981]

max if value for ship cost IIRC is #FFFF (2^16)-1 =65525 so try this value

Is this a mod of vanilla or something else

check stbof.ini for the correct file paths

[Thimon86]

max if value for ship cost IIRC is #FFFF (2^16)-1 =65525 so try this value

Hmm...the actual value for the borg cube is already higher than that (65535).

Is this a mod of vanilla or something else

I modded vanilla botf version 1.0.2

check stbof.ini for the correct file paths

That could be the solution for some issues I got because I simply duplicated the botf Folder before changing anything and all changes I did went to the files in the new botf2 Folder while the stbotf.ini is still linked to normal folder C:\botf. (My sister wanted to play vanilla botf )

It explains that for example the changes in planet type probability also occured in "her" botf, while changes in trek.exe (galaxy size) only appeared in "my" botf2.

It doesn't really explain why the production-cost workaround for the borg cube had effect once and that on my botf2 although stbotf.ini was still linked to botf. That should've affected her game then, not mine. hmm...

But I think I know why that doesn't work anymore. She had major trouble with borg too, so I changed the value in her stbotf.res as well (to a different value though). This might have caused some kind of conflict which resulted in deleting the changes.

I'll try linking my stbotf.ini to the correct folder now and then try again.
Theres also a line that says Borg = ON. Let's see what happens if I change that to OFF

[Peter1981]

my vanilla stboft.ini file has

CDPATH=C:\botf\
HDPATH=C:\botf\

where as if you've made a mod directory

C:\boft\MOD\

then

CDPATH=C:\botf\MOD\
HDPATH=C:\botf\MOD\

you cannot have file names with spaces

ie

C:\botf\NEW MOD\

-----------------------------------------------------

I assume that you have made a

C:\botf2\

copy of the original vanilla 1.0.2 folder

check within this folder what the stbof.ini file has for both CD and HD PATH

If not using 'no CD' then CDPATH= should be the drive letter of the CD-ROM drive you are using e.g. D:\

Both players must have the same files eles you'll get sync. errors.
hope this helps