X-com, hex editor, and steam

Drake the Dragonheart

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Aug 14, 2008
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The X-com complete pack was available on steam, all 5 X-com games, for 2$. Just couldn't pass that up

I actually have the CD for X-com Apocalypse, though, that runs into the old game/newish computer problem.

I remember someone used a hex edit money trick for Apoc. I tell you not having to worry about money let me focus on other things. Still sucked when Transtellar decide the aliens were their "friends" much like the Cult of Sirius. Which meant no transferring. But I got around that by "selling" stuff I wanted to go to another base and "buying" it at the desired base. Sure cost a few extra bucks, but money wasn't a problem.

But enough of that, what I am getting at is apparently hex editor can be used on UFO Defense and Terror from the Deep. Anyone who has played either, the later in particular, knows how infuriating the agents piss poor accuracy at the beginning can be. Thrown in that in TFTD they make you fight an entire army of aliens that almost never miss before you have armor!

Also it would be nice to to have a just a bit more elerium to give a bit of a cushion. Let a base go for a while thinking I could get elerium raiding supply ships, but never caught one, and then when I finally had enough and took down the base, NO ELERIUM!

Thing is, I run the games on steam, so can I still use hex editor with them? Anyone here have work with hex editor before?
 

Bostur

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Mar 14, 2011
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Take this with a big bucket of salt since I haven't played them on Steam, but I have a feeling those old games don't have Steam DRM. To try it out make sure you set the game to not update automatically or Steam may overvrite any changes you make. Then go ahead and edit the files and see if the games will still run. If not simply use Steam to check the files and it will automatically update to the original file contents.

I am assuming you know what to change, because messing around with a hex editor at random will more often than not break the games if you don't know exactly what to edit. Of course reinstalling should fix any damage done.
 

Dryk

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Dec 4, 2011
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The hex editor just edits save files right? I've modified some of my UFO Defence saves without issue in the past, I needed to because the game got stuck in an infinite loop
 

KarmaTheAlligator

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Mar 2, 2011
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I've used xcomed [http://www.jennana.com/projects/xcomed.php] with my Steam version of X-COM and TFTD without problems. I've also used another program just to modify the money (before getting xcomed), again with no problems.
 

Bostur

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Dryk said:
The hex editor just edits save files right? I've modified some of my UFO Defence saves without issue in the past, I needed to because the game got stuck in an infinite loop
A hex editor can edit any file. It shows the contents of the files as individual bytes or words. they are mostly used to edit binary files that contain values that a text editor can't show. Save files are good for experimenting, because they only contain data and can be relatively easy to interpret. In order to edit an executable file one would usually need to decompile the contents and interpret the assembly code, a much harder task.

Messing around on the level of individual bytes is often a daunting task, and when possible it's often better to use specialized tools designed for a particular file type. But if one knows exactly which data to modify hex editors are quite simple to use.

For a quick introduction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hex_editor
 

Smooth Operator

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Generally Steam doesn't really care what you do with your single player games, it may start thinking the game is broken and needs to be fixed but that can be disabled so mod on!
 

Bertylicious

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Mastering the economy in XCom Apocolypse was basically THE game. Everything else was just dealing with poppers and entropy guns. The rest of the game was just setting the map on fire.

To get elerium from the alien base meant taking the command centre intact. Each console (looks like a big purple table) in there granted 50 elerium. That means that if you send a blaster bomb up the big elevator in the middle room and/or sprayed wildly up there and ended up seeing all those things going BANG in the dark in a chain reaction that you had lost all the best bits.

For ships the key component is the UFO power source, the orange tube sticking out of a grey base. Looks like a shit lava lamp. If that goes boom the area about it will be as wrecked as a 40 year old porn star's arsehole. If you can take down even small ufos with minimum force, i.e. using weapons that inflict as little damage as possible, then each power source will give you 50 elerium.
 
Apr 5, 2008
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Yeah you'll be fine. I've modded tons of Steam games in many ways without issue. If you did a "Verify Data" after though, it might replace the modified file.

You only need to be concerned if you're messing with a VAC enabled game while connected to a VAC enabled server, or trying to tamper with DRM. Anything else is fair game.
 

Denamic

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Steam DRM is basically just a dll hooked into the executable. There's no reason hex editing or memory hacks wouldn't work.
I generally don't do hex editing; takes too much effort finding the correct values. I tend to use memory hacks instead, where I can find the values I want through the process of elimination. It's much easier and faster. Most of the time.
 

Drake the Dragonheart

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Aug 14, 2008
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Bertylicious said:
Mastering the economy in XCom Apocolypse was basically THE game. Everything else was just dealing with poppers and entropy guns. The rest of the game was just setting the map on fire.
Poppers weren't too much trouble after I had the devastator cannon, and even less after getting X-Com Disruptor shield armor. Dimension missile launcher, sure it made the popper explode, but usually from far enough away to not endanger agents, and the disruptor shields could handle that.

Entropy launchers, I flipping hated those things!