Hard-coded FTL Modding

Discuss and distribute tools and methods for modding. Moderator - Grognak
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mr_easy_money
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Re: Hard-coded FTL Modding

Postby mr_easy_money » Sat Mar 11, 2017 11:36 am

Northern_Warrior wrote:I ran the game in a debugger, and edited the code in assembly, slowly, by seeing what does what.


then that means you wouldn't be able to (legally) distribute a mod of it, unless you made it into a patch somehow... :roll:
Northern_Warrior
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Re: Hard-coded FTL Modding

Postby Northern_Warrior » Sat Mar 11, 2017 11:53 am

mr_easy_money wrote:
Northern_Warrior wrote:I ran the game in a debugger, and edited the code in assembly, slowly, by seeing what does what.


then that means you wouldn't be able to (legally) distribute a mod of it, unless you made it into a patch somehow... :roll:


I thought of that too. You see, it works sort of like a trainer, you run the game and my 'program', you press F5 and it activates every effect by editing the code as the game is running. No need to even patch the executable, just run my program and the game at the same time, press F5 once, and you're done. If people want, I can make it into a patch too, I just made it its own separate program because it's more convenient.
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elijahdb
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Re: Hard-coded FTL Modding

Postby elijahdb » Sat Mar 11, 2017 1:15 pm

Northern_Warrior wrote:1: You mean this? :twisted:

Image


Image

Hey, look, shield drones are actually useful now.


*faints*

Can you make it do just two bars instead of five, though? That's WAY too powerful, dude... XD
I've created Type C Hulls for the enemy Mantis, Slug, Rock, and Zoltan ships, and anyone can use these for a mod.
Check out the details here.
Northern_Warrior
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Re: Hard-coded FTL Modding

Postby Northern_Warrior » Sat Mar 11, 2017 7:55 pm

An update, I've made the battery infinite so you only need to press it once and it will last the whole battle. I've also changed how the mind control system works. You can now only control one enemy crew member per battle, however the mind control lasts permanently.

Image
As you can see, the mind control is infinite...


Image
... and it's locked once that crew member dies until the end of the battle.


elijahdb wrote:*faints*

Can you make it do just two bars instead of five, though? That's WAY too powerful, dude... XD


Sure, I'll think about balancing it a bit later. My primary concern right now are new features.
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elijahdb
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Re: Hard-coded FTL Modding

Postby elijahdb » Sat Mar 11, 2017 9:40 pm

Awesome, sounds good! I'm really looking forward to the results on your stuff; you're making modding breakthroughs no one's been able to do so fast its ridiculous!
I've created Type C Hulls for the enemy Mantis, Slug, Rock, and Zoltan ships, and anyone can use these for a mod.
Check out the details here.
Northern_Warrior
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Re: Hard-coded FTL Modding

Postby Northern_Warrior » Sun Mar 12, 2017 8:11 am

:twisted:

Image


Image


Image


Image


Image


Image
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mr_easy_money
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Re: Hard-coded FTL Modding

Postby mr_easy_money » Sun Mar 12, 2017 9:58 am

Northern_Warrior wrote: :twisted:

what does the crew screen look like :P

oh and is this only all one race at a time or did you do that just for show?

---
about how you're doing this...

so basically you're editing it in assembly which would make things in a bigger scale take longer to implement. right now it seems like so far what you've posted is "minor" things like redefining values and surpassing limits, but what about something like giving drones abilities weapons have, like chain cooldown or charge abilities (like the shield drone gradually increasing shield charge from 1 to 5).
oh and how about giving the player a zoltan shield like the flagship's big zoltan shield? you did do 5 zoltan shields, but you can't tell how big the zoltan shield is, making it kinda unreliable.
-

now, I don't know how to navigate assembly, but if you're doing this, could you show exactly what you're doing?
(like which sections of code you're editing or whatever, etc. like I said I still don't quite understand how you're doing this...)

maybe I won't be able to figure out anything but then maybe you could get more people to find stuff, and who knows maybe it'll expand into something big...
Northern_Warrior
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Re: Hard-coded FTL Modding

Postby Northern_Warrior » Sun Mar 12, 2017 10:54 am

mr_easy_money wrote:what does the crew screen look like :P

oh and is this only all one race at a time or did you do that just for show?


The crew screen still shows that you need to dissmiss someone, however if you press escape you will go back to the game and it won't force that screen to show up. The UI there is also not broken, although it only shows 9 crew members ( and I made it so you can have an unlimited amount ). And no, it's not just one race at a time, you can have any kind of crew member you want, I just did it for show ( and to show off my ships ).


mr_easy_money wrote:about how you're doing this...

so basically you're editing it in assembly which would make things in a bigger scale take longer to implement. right now it seems like so far what you've posted is "minor" things like redefining values and surpassing limits, but what about something like giving drones abilities weapons have, like chain cooldown or charge abilities (like the shield drone gradually increasing shield charge from 1 to 5).
oh and how about giving the player a zoltan shield like the flagship's big zoltan shield? you did do 5 zoltan shields, but you can't tell how big the zoltan shield is, making it kinda unreliable.


Honestly, everything is a 'minor' thing of redefining a value, when you consider that I already have the information about the chain cooldown or charge abilities in the game ( unless I decide to add completely new concepts to the game, which would take even longer ). Sure, adding new ones will take a lot longer, which is why I'm avoiding doing that for now ( that and the UI, as re-drawing the UI will be a bit more work as well ).

mr_easy_money wrote:now, I don't know how to navigate assembly, but if you're doing this, could you show exactly what you're doing?
(like which sections of code you're editing or whatever, etc. like I said I still don't quite understand how you're doing this...)

maybe I won't be able to figure out anything but then maybe you could get more people to find stuff, and who knows maybe it'll expand into something big...

Well, like I said, I'm using a debugger to show the code in assembly, I am then doing things in the game that change those values, and through testing I determine which part of the code does what ( the amount of assembly code is massive and doing it without running the game and doing the things I want to change, then looking them up in the code, would take way too long ).

I could try and take a few screenshots of the debugger and the assembly code in the future, but I don't think most people would really want to do this, as this is game programming on existing values ( and it's very time consuming ). I'll think about it though, perhaps even make a tutorial? We'll see.
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mr_easy_money
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Re: Hard-coded FTL Modding

Postby mr_easy_money » Sun Mar 12, 2017 11:21 am

Northern_Warrior wrote:Well, like I said, I'm using a debugger to show the code in assembly, I am then doing things in the game that change those values, and through testing I determine which part of the code does what ( the amount of assembly code is massive and doing it without running the game and doing the things I want to change, then looking them up in the code, would take way too long ).

I could try and take a few screenshots of the debugger and the assembly code in the future, but I don't think most people would really want to do this, as this is game programming on existing values ( and it's very time consuming ). I'll think about it though, perhaps even make a tutorial? We'll see.

okay, I think I understand what you're doing... sorta. obviously since I hardly know assembly it's hard to picture what exactly you're doing, but you need not describe that.

I was just thinking of some sort of documenting what changes you've made, so that if someone were to do this, they'd know what you've "discovered". if you do make a tutorial, it should be for people who already know the prerequisite knowledge you have (not newbies like me).

maybe some people are interested? who knows? what you're delving into is pretty much untouched material...
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Katabatic
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Re: Hard-coded FTL Modding

Postby Katabatic » Sun Mar 12, 2017 5:47 pm

Can you change the thruster animation placement on the kestrel & fed cruisers? I hate not having working animations on my custom fed cruiser.

http://www.ftlgame.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2725
Above link says it is impossible to change the thruster positions as they're hard-coded.