Overtuning ships, repair laser and 2nd HQ in TC vanilla. Exploit howto with pictures)

[Nanook]

Except for one minor detail. Users of vanilla bug exploits, such as this one, can legitimately upload their stats, get all the Steam achievements, etc., without being tagged as 'modified'. Therefore, it changes the playing field when comparing results to other players that don't indulge in these kinds of exploited bugs. In other words, it isn't 'fair' when comparing to other players. In this regard, it cannot be considered a true 'single player' choice, since one of the main reasons people post their stats is for bragging rights.

And I reiterate, this particular exploit is the result of a bug. The others mentioned aren't true exploits because they were programmed into the game by the devs and should be considered legitimate gameplay mechanics, despite some people's opinions. Even things like the no-tubes mod that doesn't give a modified tag don't really give the player any gameplay advantage, beyond being able to play the game without annoying lag. There's no 'fairness' issue involved.

The same cannot be said for a bug that allows you to seriously overtune your ships to your advantage. This is one of the main reasons I simply don't bother with stats and achievements. It makes them meaningless.

[Alan Phipps]

I deliberately didn't mention uploading before. IMHO it isn't totally meaningless as I think that, warts and all, it acts as a catalyst for some people to try to stretch their play. Examples: Have I visited all the sectors? Have I been able to get as many Blueprints as I can? Can I actually be the world's best taxi driver? etc. I even recall the odd bloodthirsty 'race' in some categories! It also leads to healthy research projects on these forums - eg How many ships can be RE'd in vanilla?

Sure we think that a hex editor or other tools have 'helped' a few stats in the past. Still, it gives us targets to tilt at even if some seem far-fetched. You can also generally recognise the 'Where did that come from?' stats as a lot of them have subtle interlinkages with other stats and the sudden spurt of growth in one area doesn't always add up taken in the round!

[glenmcd]

Lastly there is the ultimate vanilla hoodwink, the gamesave hex-editor.

Great post Alan (and Nanook). Alan, are you sure that gamesave hacks have been done on TC? I visited that a while back and concluded that it wasn't going to be easy at all. The files are very highly compressed and unless you can both decompress and then recompress, there's no chance of any edit being possible. And that's assuming that there's no checksumming or encryption used either. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Egosoft had considered save file security at all, as few companies do.

[Alan Phipps]

@ glenmcd: I chose this thread as it is old enough not to upset anyone involved (I hope) and only refers to early attempts that later became more sophisticated without giving too much away. The engine and methodology hasn't changed that much since later X2 days. http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=440356

[kurush]

Even so, all these other 'exploits' are in the game due to developer will.

So, you are trying to say that infinite mineral spawn, that by the way only happens OOS, was the developer intent? It looks like a bug to me, considering all those non-intuitive steps we need to take to actually make it running. Admittedly, it would be harder to fix the OOS behavior than to fix this particular cloning bug, but this is about the only difference I can see between the two. The rest sounds like speculation.

[Alan Phipps]

The infinite rock respawn was deliberately introduced as the 'mobile mining improvement' in patch 2.1 (read the changelog) and it happens both OOS and IS. It is just that IS you are more likely to make a mistake that stops the respawn (every rock from an outcrop must be collected and not destroyed to get a respawn).

[glenmcd]

Even so, all these other 'exploits' are in the game due to developer will.

So, you are trying to say that infinite mineral spawn, that by the way only happens OOS, was the developer intent? It looks like a bug to me, considering all those non-intuitive steps we need to take to actually make it running. Admittedly, it would be harder to fix the OOS behavior than to fix this particular cloning bug, but this is about the only difference I can see between the two. The rest sounds like speculation.

To really go berserk with Nividium mining, you need a shipyard that sells mining ships in a sector that neighboors a quiet, dead-end sector with Nividium roids. It's even better if said sector also has silicon and ore, so you can build whatever supporting complexes you want (although none are essential). If the devs had thought about all this and intended to make it happen, they'd call that sector:

Spoiler

Show

Perpetual Sin.

[kurush]

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Egosoft had considered save file security at all, as few companies do.

I actually wish they spent that effort on the gameplay instead. All such defenses can be broken easily and you don't even need a savegame editor. With memory editor I was able to hack in most objects not available in Vanilla such as Valhalla, IBL, ghoul, spectre factories, terran laser towers, repair laser, you name it And of course it is trivial to use it for unlimited cash or something similar.

[kurush]

The infinite rock respawn was deliberately introduced as the 'mobile mining improvement' in patch 2.1

Well, if this was intended, then having unlimited cash due to other exploits shouldn't be such a game breaking thing Both result in you having to build multiple trading stations to hold all that cash.

[glenmcd]

@ glenmcd: I chose this thread as it is old enough not to upset anyone involved (I hope) and only refers to early attempts that later became more sophisticated without giving too much away. The engine and methodology hasn't changed that much since later X2 days. http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?p=440356

I see it: ES went to compressed save files in X2 V1.3. If the hackers managed to get beyond that then yes they have become quite a bit more sophisticated. Assuming the compression algorithm isn't public that is.

[Cycrow]

When I first read this thread, I got excited about extending the cargobay. The overtunes on engine and rudder are great of course, but I so enjoy trading (from my personal ship) that I made a couple of changes to my TShips as well as doing the engine/rudder overtunes as per above and now have the following (a work in progress):
Medusa Prototype
speed: 622
rudder: 81
laser regen: 2000 (8 x PBEs last for a minute, take 10 secs to fully recharge)
cargobay: can take XL cargo, size = 10,000,000 units.

I still can't carry stations in my M3 (still trying but doesn't look good), so I'm going to need a TL also (with super upgrades of course). But at least one can dock in the other, and being able to overtune engine, rudder and cargobay means I can select the TL based on something I can't change easily, such as an unimpeded view out of the cockpit (Ryu being worst in this regard and MSF best). With a large enough cargobay, a TL can carry a huge quantity+range of stations, greatly streamlining the building of complexes as well as NPC build missions. I still need to find what stations can be purchased where. I still need to earn the credits to buy the stations. The main difference is that I can complete a mission by doing some set of sub-tasks once, rather than fifty times. Also, I outfit my two ships personally, and do so once per gamestart.

Can you see where this is going? It's decreasing the pressure to micro-manage. You can do more things without requiring a fleet which in turn need refueling which in turn...

The question of game balancing has come up a few times in this thread and I guess for good reason. But don't just think about how you should be limiting your upgrades. Also think about taking on greater challenges, now that you have the tools to make success possible.

Credits:
thanks to Litcube and kurush for getting me thinking about huge cargobays.

it cant carry stations because the cargo class is wrong, stations are of class ST, not XL, ie one higher than XL

[glenmcd]

it cant carry stations because the cargo class is wrong, stations are of class ST, not XL, ie one higher than XL

Thanks Cycrow. I noticed that and did a few experiments with it. There seems to be two places that the cargo class is set in TShips general. But even setting both of these to ST wasn't good enough. Yes, the menu at shipyards changed, stations being shown in white text instead of red meaning you can now purchase. But when it gets to the screen where you select which ship to place the factory in, the list was empty. I went a little beyond that and changed the class of ship to TL. Even though the model was still M3 (to view), it was no longer allowed to dock at normal stations, thus negating the benefits that I was seeking. But up to XL cargo and 2M size cargobay it all works great and I was able to continue to dock in ships. I suspect that the reason that it didn't find a ship to place the factory in was that it was only searching for ships in the capital docking bays. At that point I was still docked at a standard docking hook; redocking put me in the capital bays.

[philip_hughes]

Can't you upgrade the cargo bay of the yaki TL? Wouldn't THAT make an interesting ship?

[Rhox]

Can't you upgrade the cargo bay of the yaki TL? Wouldn't THAT make an interesting ship?

It would indeed be an interesting but overpowered ship. That would basically be an Ozias with armament, even though TS wouldn't be able to dock with the Ryu...
I'll stay with the Atmo Lifter anyway...

best regards,

Rhox

[Hubert99]

Today I staged my first exploit. Aka Overtuned Hades, BABY. Baby being the name of the ship. Isn't she quite a babe ? I always liked her appereance, but I had a prejudice toward a ship having 137m/s top speed and 5x25MJ shielding.

Now, this is not an issue. Her new top speed is a whooping 206.2 m/s !!!

Yeah, I know. It's a lot. But ... she's the only one in the universe !

I will use her to cruise around, and show off. Maybe I'll finally fill her cargo with Tomahawks. This being a leisurelike activity, I think I'll just put up high buy orders at one of my gas stations for the missiles. Nothing fancy, like a complex, or such. Maybe I'll use the opportunity to finally get a certain achievment, related to exploding solar plants.

Do you think I'll be overdressed for the occasion ?

PS. Guess I could've just use a booster. But this is a more elegant, rotten, dirty rich of a solution.

[Laden Swallow]

Can you use a similar method to this to ensure 'availability' of L variants of ships.

I.e. Undock 2 ships simultaneously to move the bar down 2 from the S line to the L line?

[Aro]

Give it a try, but it may be simpler to use two ships docking to give yourself time to get set up.

[kurush]

Can you use a similar method to this to ensure 'availability' of L variants of ships.

I.e. Undock 2 ships simultaneously to move the bar down 2 from the S line to the L line?

You can probably try by ordering one of your ships to dock on the shipyard and then sit waiting for the UI to shift. I haven't tried it though and this exploit doesn't work on some stations such as player EQ, Hub or HQ.

[glenmcd]

Can you use a similar method to this to ensure 'availability' of L variants of ships.

I.e. Undock 2 ships simultaneously to move the bar down 2 from the S line to the L line?

I couldn't. I tried various things at a shipyard a while back but the shipyard menus seem relatively solid. What I most wanted was to get paid for an expensive ship but actually give them a cheap one. Or pay for a cheap one but get an expensive one. Shipyards don't get rattled by ships coming or going.

It's very easy to get L variants at any shipyard. When you dock, check. If there's no L, then reload the autosave from when you just docked. Something like one in eight times you'll get L, regardless of how mature the game is. It's random, which can be beaten by forcing the dice to roll as many times as necessary to satisfy your requirements. If you are OOS, I'm not exactly sure when the dice are rolled. But the variants available can changed between checks done only seconds apart.

[glenmcd]

EDIT: how silly of me, you don't need the Xenon Hub. Player EQd should be fine.

Sadly, player EQ and HUB seem to lack this particular feature. The quantity is getting reset properly. Otherwise, you would already have the above mentioned thread about repair laser posted by me

It's possible to work around the fix. I've been able to take over all wares from shipyards in both my Xenon Hub and player Equipment Docks, generate some factories using the original exploit, and transfer them into TLs and build from there. I haven't got it so reliable that it works for every ware every time. But I've generated many factories and even ships including Qs, Js and Ks. Obviously, you can take over all wares from Xenon Shipyards too. The only Kha'ark stations I currently have access to this game are just that, Kha'ark stations. Just what the hell you do with ships inside a Xenon Hub, EQd or Mammoth well I'm not up to that part just yet. So far it's worked using the HOME and END keys but not arrows. I think it's worth examining closely which pairs of wares it works with, and if the pattern can be worked out, then it should be possible to generate any and all factories and perhaps other wares, by a system of adding all wares from station and then selective deletion. If that's what it takes to get a vanilla repair laser then hey why not. Something else I haven't explored is whether using the dockware manager to add a ware or some other method, may dictate which wares can be generated. In my curent start I've got a mixture. When you try this, start with a bunch of crystals in your TL, and use their quantity to generate some Argon Crystal M / Crystal L factories. I used the wares list from Argon Prime Shipyard. This seemed to work every time in my game. Your current notoriety with the owner of the factory type does not limit your ability to generate their factories/ships nor use their shipyard wares list.

There are limits to how many factories you can store in a player EQd at one time, but somewhat relaxed for the Xenon Hub The PHQ is more relaxed again. In any case you just xfer to another Mammoth and generate another batch. I haven't yet tried player TPs or the PHQ.