NSS2 Save game editor

[Dan Atkinson]

Hey,

I seem to be making a lot of non-important posts lately!

Anyway, to cut a long story short... I've figured out most of the save game data for NSS2 and I'm interested in putting together an editor for people to edit their stats.

Does this appeal to anyone?

Right now I've discovered how to edit:
All skills
Salary
Contract termination date
Sponsor dates
Sponsor payments
Items bought (including special items!!! )
and
cash.

Now although this editor would give the user extraordinary powers to cheat, I was actually wanting to aim it at veteran players who were in their mid 20's who wanted an increased challenge (eg reduced money to fight bankrupcy, reduced stats etc etc).

I've already pm'd siread about this but thought I would ask the community first. Ideas and comments welcome!

[siread]

Yes, i like the idea of an editor - it will be useful for me too!

[JJU]

Nice one Dan! I'm all for it, tried myself some way back but only managed to corrupt the saved game file despite being really careful!

Look forward to hearing more.

[Shorty]

Ye, that would be good.

[Dan Atkinson]

Well I did some more work on it last night. I figured out a bit more of the data.

In response to your corrupting the data, I think the problem that you had is that you maybe tried editing the data in something like Notepad. This does not preserve linebreaks so when it is re-saved, the data is corrupted. I recommend something like JEdit. Anyway, I've got some excellent proof that the editing is successful.

Here's a few shots of an edited game.






You may also like to note that I have been able to add all of the special items (and have also corrected 'peice'! :wink: ) so that the player has a better chance of getting a girl. It's also possible to change the prices in the save game data so you could theoretically change the prices to minus values. This would cause the game to 'pay' you every time you bought an item.

I'd just like to thank Siread for responding to my e-mail. You've made it a hell of a lot easier to see what's what!

Here's a simple document with my descriptions of the data. It's not good by any means but it's just trial and error.
http://dan-atkinson.com/nss/nss.txt

If the data stays more or less the same in different games (which I think it does) then I'll set about making something pretty soon. Although my HND course comes first so it may be a little while.

There you have it. That's me for now!

[Dan Atkinson]

Should also add that I have found the value for energy but I forgot to edit it back to 100 after the match! :o

[Shorty]

In response to your corrupting the data, I think the problem that you had is that you maybe tried editing the data in something like Notepad. This does not preserve linebreaks so when it is re-saved, the data is corrupted. I recommend something like JEdit.

I have been editing my game with notepad, I know nothing about editing, but have fugured out skills, relationships, except girlfriend, wage, cost of living, etc, and i have got no data corruption, I have been careful, and I have lost one game trying but have cracked most of it, with no editing knowledge.

[mrcancer1981]

I myself am very confused. I use a normal everyday Hex editor for my editings, and I can't seem to figure how you have your lines, Dan. Line 40 on my Hex editor is way different than the name. How exactly do you go about your editing?

[Dan Atkinson]

I did explain that I use JEdit in my earlier posts. Go have a look at what JEdit is. Using a Hex editor is a bit unneccessary unless you're editing executables or complex data files. Thankfully, Siread made the save games quite easy to read and understand so a hex editor is more or less useless and unneccessary.

Are you sure you edited your game in Notepad? Notepad doesn't understand the line breaks in the .nss files.

[Dan Atkinson]

Hey again!

Right, I've written most of the stuff for the editor now.

I've got the following sorted out:

Contracts (both club and sponsors)
Stats (except red and yellow cards)
Skills
Relationships (I think! 8) )

By sorted, I mean actually in the editor.

I was going to put stuff in like league tables but that's a little more work.

I haven't written the items section yet, I spent the afternoon writing a half-decent method of reading the file into the array and then spitting it out in lines.

There is of course one huge downfall with this method. If you look at two save game files, you'll see that they don't always match up. Some values stay the same, some don't.

This is where I need siread (or someone else) to tell me more or less the exact structure of the files. I keep finding small things (like sounds and tips flags at the beginning of the file) and they're taking time. Any help with the structure would be greatly appreciated guys!

Anyway, time for some screenshots methinks.

[JJU]

I can't answer any of those queries but just wanted to say "Top notch work!"

Let's just hope it can be used to enhance the game in a positive way

[pookie]

I love cheating a lot....
but i Seriously feel I respect this game too much, to use this editor..
Its just way to powerful, and I believe would cause a user to get bored with the game half way throught the season.

I did cheat a little bit myself tho, in after going through one season of development, I went into Notepad, and made my self one year younger again, to get an extra year of boost of development at an early age, and give myself that extra edge..
but any more cheating would be too much.

[Dan Atkinson]

Hi there,

I appreciate your concerns, I really do. I can honestly understand that the temptation to cheat with a tool like this is great. But what I'm offering is a chance for people. Just because there is the possibility to cheat, doesn't mean that all people will use it to make themselves super.

I work with Mind Compression, one of the most respected and oldest communities in the Football Manager arena. I know for a fact that there are tonnes of people who use our editors to do things other than ruin their game with high stats and the like.

I was thinking of placing a 'God' and 'Sod' mode into the editor as well. Sort of a quick cheating method. Obviously God mode would make the player super, and Sod mode would make them, crap and old. I don't know if it's possible for a player to start again once inside the game.

I hope to release the editor in the next couple of days. Although it's looking likely that Tuesday will be on the cards (no laptop net access at uni). Please don't hold me to Tuesday as I still have one major problem to contend with.

That is this:

Reading data from the file is absolutely no problem, I had that one sussed in an hour. I'm no expert at C# but I know my way around a lot of programming languages! Anyway, so I wrote a streamreader for that and the file reads in a few of the stats and values. When it comes to writing I've got a problem.

Basically when the file is saved, it first reads in the original file to an array, it then dumps this into the new file. Once that is done, it then takes the values that were edited, and puts them in one line at the time. Unfortunately, it appends them to the end instead of actually placing them in the correct area.

Another problem: Not all files are identical. Obvious I know but what I mean is that the actual lines values differ somewhat from file to file. I don't know quite to what extent (I can only guess that zero values are placed in areas not used since each file (or all that I have tested) are in the region of 1.19mbits.

So... Please Siread can you provide me with the information I need? It only takes a sec to send me the info. I'd be very happy if you did!

Warning:
The editor in it's first version or so will have NO kind of error support. This means that if there's an error, it will either crash, or come up with a scary warning. This will come later I hope! :wink:

I am also thinking of placing a block into the editor to stop you overwriting files. This may only be in for the first few versions (until I can ensure that the editor works ok with most peoples games.

There's a lot of asthetic work to be done on it (as you can tell from the pics) but right now asthetics are the very least of my concerns!

No new data found as I spent all night trying to sort out the saving problem.

That reminds me... It took me about 3-4 hours at best to find that info, I only started playing that game a week or so ago. People have been playing this game for ages. Does anyone have any more precise data than me? I'd be willing to share! Anything with line numbers in would be a great help.

[JJU]

Are there any apps that don't require a 50+ mb java download to run that could do the same job as JEdit? I'm tempted to have a play about myself but am feeling lazy!

[FCKBO]

Where can i get the editor??