Questions I Would Ask BattleBelk V2

[Phobos]

An upgraded re-post of a thread that should not have been locked.

Last Updated 10/17/2011
These are the questions I will ask BattleBelk if I ever see him online again:

• How did you enable 6th unit spawn button, was it by editing some common/munged/*.script files?
• Is it possible to remove multi-player chat function completely either for server host, or from client view?
• Is it possible to get more than 32 AI to spawn in multi-player? http://www.swbfgamers.com/index.php?topic=3885.0
• How do you prevent kill score from resetting to 0 after 255?
• Is there a way to demunge the .script files in your interface builder?
• Is there an application or tool that can allow dedicated hosting server tools for SWBF1 v1.2 to log the IP addresses of everyone who joins the server into a text file?
• What file contains the code that decides what modifications are and are not online compatible (client crashing)?
• What TGA did you use for wireframe?
• How did BattleBelk hide the reinforcement numbers in game?

Discussion of implementation of these mod ideas into swbf1 is encouraged but I do not care to hear your concerns about EULA breaches or off topic spam.

Theoretical approaches to removing multi-player chat function:

• Hex editing .script files in common/munged
• Finding memory address pointers in cheat engine and creating a hack or trainer with an on/off switch
• Finding the LVL which contains chat font textures and make them alpha channel

BattleBelk hiding reinforcement numbers: http://www.xfire.com/video/ec7db/

*How did BattleBelk hide the reinforcement numbers in game? I have been able to hide all interface textures except those numbers and the ammunition numbers from showing up. Knowing the answer to this might help find how to remove or mask the chat. I think the chat, reinforcement numbers, spawn timer, and who killed who text is all related somehow. If you can remove one, you can remove others. BattleBelk figured it out (partially).

Ideas that have been confirmed to not work through my testing:

I spent almost 30 minutes directly modifying every single tga file (all 154 of them plus the others in msh) and making them alpha. It does exactly what battlebelk did except it also hides crosshairs, but doesn't hide reinforcement numbers or weapon ammunition numbers. There are no TGA files in shell or core to edit either. See here, http://www.xfire.com/video/4e7bd0/
Except I left the crosshairs and weapon icon textures on for this video.

Data which may or may not be of use for answering some of these questions:

Use command "luac -l" to disassemble byte-code into a slightly more meaningful
opcode format.

To everyone, please do not discuss legality issues about these ideas in the thread either. We have talked enough about that in the previous thread and it serves no purpose to repeat the phrase "it's illegal" every time someone posts a new idea. I am asking Led to delete every post that is off-topic on this thread, so it may be concise enough to contain only that which is relevant to discovery of the answers.

[SleepKiller]

•Is it possible to get more than 32 AI to spawn in multi-player?

You know I think I found a way to do this..... But I'm only gonna tell you if you lose your attitude and stop sayying my work is simple and easy it is in no way as easy as you think it is.

And your theory of making the fonts alpha would not work the game uses a pool of fonts globally you would be making all the game text invisable.

And btw just so you know LucasArts does still monitor SWBF1 if they find a modified EXE they ban its CD key from connecting to the master server, so you can breach the EULA but you are at a high at risk of being disconnected from multiplayer. (And I'm not joking I've seen CD keys banned this year.)

And please remember the concept of HAND.

[Led]

i was thinking that you could get more than 32 ai by making a local team3 the same as a playing team,
like CIS, in a CW era map.

It would be a server side only mod ( I think, Ive not tried it yet).

Make local team 4 for Clones.

You would be able to restrict teams, too, by appropriate use of the map script.  (Both sides spawn the same units).

[SleepKiller]

Yeah that would work to. I tried testing my theory with 100 AI per team.... the client side crashed but the server kept on ticking, so I think it is possible to do it as long as you don't go over board.

[Phobos]

You know I think I found a way to do this..... But I'm only gonna tell you if you lose your attitude and stop sayying my work is simple and easy it is in no way as easy as you think it is.

Deathmatch is way, way easy. Bamdur and I showed led the 2 simple LUA lines, so he can verify its simplicity. Extracting TGA from LVL is also simple using 2 small tools. It is not hard at all to: Enable deathmatch, Extract TGA. If your or my attitude keeps you from sharing your theories good for you but I will share all of mine here no matter how much criticism they receive.

And your theory of making the fonts alpha would not work the game uses a pool of fonts globally you would be making all the game text invisable.

Battlebelk made the reinforcement numbers invisible, but it's not known (yet) whether or not this impacted other textures. It is also not known if font color is a texture or a script code.

And btw just so you know LucasArts does still monitor SWBF1 if they find a modified EXE they ban its CD key from connecting to the master server, so you can breach the EULA but you are at a high at risk of being disconnected from multiplayer. (And I'm not joking I've seen CD keys banned this year.)

3 reasons I do not believe that at all
1) The no cd hack is very popular, public domain and nobody has ever been banned from playing in MP for using it.
2) No cd keys ive used have ever been banned. i have over 20 public domain ones and a few private ones
3) LucasArts does not control gamespy's server
*) Where is the source? Where did you "see cd keys banned this year"?
If you can link me a source I'll reconsider thinking you just made that all up.

And please remember the concept of HAND.

?

Yeah that would work to. I tried testing my theory with 100 AI per team.... the client side crashed but the server kept on ticking, so I think it is possible to do it as long as you don't go over board.

Need to establish and document the limits, the exact maximum number which borderlines between stability and crashing. I noticed just making 30 gammoreans spawn instead of 3 by increasing the native count will crash clients on jabba. Only way to get a pig swarm is by making gammoreans spawn on team 1 or 2. Have not tested team 4 yet but team 3 clearly has a small limit, under 10 I think.

Might need to somehow hack or modify the dedicated server tools to allow the option of selecting over 32 AI to spawn in MP servers.

[SleepKiller]

Deathmatch is way, way easy. Bamdur and I showed led the 2 simple LUA lines, so he can verify its simplicity. Extracting TGA from LVL is also simple using 2 small tools. It is not hard at all to: Enable deathmatch, Extract TGA. If your or my attitude keeps you from sharing your theories good for you but I will share all of mine here no matter how much criticism they receive.
Battlebelk made the reinforcement numbers invisible, but it's not known (yet) whether or not this impacted other textures. It is also not known if font color is a texture or a script code.
3 reasons I do not believe that at all
1) The no cd hack is very popular, public domain and nobody has ever been banned from playing in MP for using it.
2) No cd keys ive used have ever been banned. i have over 20 public domain ones and a few private ones
3) LucasArts does not control gamespy's server
*) Where is the source? Where did you "see cd keys banned this year"?
If you can link me a source I'll reconsider thinking you just made that all up.?

by Buckler; please refrain from personal attacks you still do not understand how many days/weeks I spent devoloping deathmatch you lot get to see the finsihed product and thus thanks to my hard research see the resault that you think is all so simple and that I made it in an hour, I did not. And tehir is more than LUA to it if you want it to work properly Bamdur never recieved my full source.

And I was using a no cd crack that was working fine one day and the next the master server rejected the exe from connecting to it.

And H/b]ave A/b] N/b]ice D/b]ay.

[Bamdur]

Lets be Friendly!

[jdee-barc]

And H/b]ave A/b] N/b]ice D/b]ay.

AH. I get it now. 

And I was using a no cd crack that was working fine one day and the next the master server rejected the exe from connecting to it.

1. removed (don't want to start a drama about GT's rules)
2. The thing about the master server rejecting and whatnot  is actually true. i used to have it, and then the samething happened to me

Lets be Friendly!

I concur. If we want to get anywhere with this discussion, we can't have what happened last thread happen again.

[SleepKiller]

Yes I would love to be friendly but he always seems to think my work is all so easy (And that just ticks me off.) and that I tried that one method and what not befor I got the end result. 

[jdee-barc]

yeah about deathmatch mode, would you mind sharing with me, at least, how to do it?

[Led]

Yes I would love to be friendly but he always seems to think my work is all so easy (And that just ticks me off.) and that I tried that one method and what not befor I got the end result.

Well, no one can control what other people think, so getting mad is not so productive.  If it matters to you that others know you spent a lot of time on it, list your steps and mis-steps, and give an accounting of your time.

If you value other peoples time (and you don't have to) then releasing your methods will earn appreciation as well as recognition, and may let others build upon what you have done. 

I personally would have to imagine that psych0fred and the other creators of SWBF would be very surprised to learn what the modding community has been able to do, thanks in a very large part to them releasing the mod tools and giving some basic instruction on their use.  It is with their efforts upon which we all hope to build.

[Phobos]

by Buckler; please refrain from personal attacks you still do not understand how many days/weeks I spent devoloping deathmatch you lot get to see the finsihed product and thus thanks to my hard research see the resault that you think is all so simple and that I made it in an hour, I did not. And tehir is more than LUA to it if you want it to work properly Bamdur never recieved my full source.

And I was using a no cd crack that was working fine one day and the next the master server rejected the exe from connecting to it.

And H/b]ave A/b] N/b]ice D/b]ay.

Good thing I didn't see your personal attack towards me which was censored.

Cd key errors happen randomly. Restart your game and they go away. CD keys don't get banned you just think they do. Deathmatch works properly with teh mods bamdur and I made and if you claim to have more "secret code" I really couldn't care less.

I spent dozens of hours tweaking the hovernaut assets from psych0fred's website, and months of developing phobos. Compare his odf to the ODF i released with swbf1 hovernaut assets and you will see the hard work I put in. I shared this with the modding community. Some have expressed their appreciation, and I don't think hoarding those assets would have been nice even though I spent many hours working on it and someone else can just make a few edits and take credit for it. Because, I care far more about expanding the swbf1 modding community's assets than restricting them.

[SleepKiller]

Trust me the attack really was not that bad  And I did restart my game and it was banned I tried it several times just as I'm sure jdee did.

[Phobos]

Trust me the attack really was not that bad  And I did restart my game and it was banned I tried it several times just as I'm sure jdee did.

CD key not authorized does not mean it's banned. Punch in a different one then your old one and it will fix the bug and start working again. CD keys don't get banned by servers.

I've updated first post to include link to led's new thread about going past 32 ai limit.

[Led]

OK, lets move back on topic.  I can create a CD key thread if needed