I've been dicking around with Cheat Engine lately, and been obliterating the very fabric of many realities in various games (provided they're CPU-friendly enough to not crash CE as I work on them (mostly emulated and classic DOS games), and I have got around to thinking, how many of you use Cheat Engine, and for what purpose/to what extent?
This thread is also to come up with ways that CE can help out with LPs, and their storytelling as anyone plays them. The idea of the LP thing came along as I was using the program to find out the codes for modifying base values, stats for troops, and etc. in X-Com, and just how much more interesting storytelling can be with the use of this for various purposes (I had Command John Rambo 1-man-army a UFO (UFO-1, BTW), and he came in with a kill record of 65,335 kills, and 0 missions). He was MIA, but then came back once the Skyranger returned because God I willed it to be (by modding a little code).
X-Com being a good example, I already found the code clusters where the bases, their names, layouts, time until completion of a building and so on are, and figured that I can custom-make my base at the very start of the game without needing to save first for a savegame editor. Same could be said about the troops as well. Especially awesome, I found out that you can revive lost troops before their code gets overwritten by a new guy (Change 2 bits labeled FFFF somewhere before their name back to 0000, and they're back at base. KIA/MIA, doesn't matter, they're home. I assume -1 (or FFFF, in this case) means lost forever, whereas 0000/01/02/03 means which base they belong to. Nonetheless, lost a guy, had someone killed, got someone in the LP that wants their dude back? Well, here you go.). Ranks can be modified, as well as how long they should stay in the hospital; you can even have psi-capable guys before the labs are even researched. Oh, the many uses this can have to improve story-telling.
Other games like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy have also been interesting in messing with the code as well. I was bothered by the limits of the Level-1 challenge, and how many fights you had to avoid, so why not give them a persistent Level 1, and always at 0 EXP to ensure it stays that way? In some cases, the EXP/TECH gain can also be modded in to give zilch as well post-combat. You get the loot, but not the experience. Not bad for challenges. I also found it funny to replace Crono with Magus from beginning to end. Made the New Game+ 1st Lavos encounter even more appropriate solo. You can't do that at any time in the game normally. That fight was rather epic.
Of course, I'm still a bit of a cheater at heart, and want to use this to cheat for my own reasons, ranking from avoiding the grind, to becoming a god in these games, and being able to blow up Narshe at the very beginning of FF3/6 with Ultima while I am using Magitek Armor is always fun, as well as 1-shotting a literally unkillable creature in-game (Finally killed that damn guardian at Vector long before the finale).
As I have been screwing around with this, I have been getting to understand some games a whole lot better in how their code is handled, and it gives me a much greater appreciation for all the work that goes into them in the long-run. Just as well, it makes me feel rather proud of myself for my level of intuition in estimating the common-ground of where the codes lie when it comes to searching. For example, most-every DOSBOX code games use is located within (05000000 -> 0FFFFFFF). Everything before 05000000 is DOSBOX itself, and up until 0FFFFFFF is the game data before the more obscure stuff appears (usually access strings to other game packages the game itself accesses and etc. or a whole mess of nothing). Some other games that access other files, I had to really pat myself on the back for figuring this one out, you can modify strings for them to access things they normally shouldn't (like alternate character files within the game, other scenes and levels and so forth; in other cases, a background can turn into a spritesheet of a character if you can find it).
What other crazy fun things have you done/can be done with games using Cheat Engine?
EDIT:
Oh yeah, and feel free to submit Cheat Tables and anything else Cheat Engine related as well (scripts, trainers, etc.). Don't forget to use Pointers in some games, especially emulated ones (DosBox uses at least 1 pointer in games, since the code shifts all over the place every reload.). If you have a bunch of code to covert to pointers, get Calc, or any other calculator program that can allow a Programmer's Caluclator, and do the pointer offset math for them to make the task a tad easier; way easier if they also have a consistent offset from each other as well.
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Topic: Cheat Engine and General Gaming and LPs (Read 1695 times)