Playing With Seven Headquarters (in Vanilla X3AP)

[Bothersome]

My brother has been playing Abion Prelude for some time now and has set up seven headquarters in his game. Six in one sector (screen shot below) and one in another sector.

This is without any outside of game programs, scripts, mods, hacks, etc. It is all done in the vanilla game with the current 2.0 build of Albion Prelude and bonus pack.

The screen shot is not photo edited in any way and the save game is posted below in case you want to check it all out.

Not only that, but the game is a near perfect game in economy supply and demand. All totally automatic with 235 ships and 829 stations !!!!!! You can see how to setup a huge empire with no blinking stations and all producing. Space is mapped with 1653 Advanced Satellites so you can see it all. Game was started with Argon Peacekeeper and Terran rep was pulled from bottom to 23% Terran Hero of Sol.

Game provided has no Modified Tag !!!!!

Screen shot -> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54171727/6-PHQ.bmp
Saved game on slot #1 - > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54171727/X01.sav

Edited 2012-Apr-12:

Good news at last, we finally have a new game (with many more clues) for all to examine. And this time with a bit more challenge for those that like such things.

Download X3 Master Pro's Conundrum here -> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54171727/X02.sav

This game will allow you to place your own player headquarters (all 7 of them) where you want them. The game is mostly un-finished. No cheats other than an in game exploit (as previously described) was used to make this unique start. The hub mission is not started yet. Only the Argon main plot and the PHQ mission is completed. But there is a new challenge for you. You'll figure it out when you get to playing.

For those that are just treasure hunting the exploit, this game should be much easier to examine because of a much smaller game and time-line.

Have fun !!

Edited 2012-Apr-17:

For people that don't want to go through a difficult challenge of getting 7 player headquarters in X3TC,... My brother offers the following game.

X3TC saved game on Slot #3 -> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54171727/X03.sav

Game time is 1 day 8 hours with no modified flag for Vanilla X3TC. Headquarters awaits your placement on Orca ships. No tricks this time.

[Morkonan]

Very nice!

There's a way to dupe PHQs, but I don't remember what it is. I also don't have AP, so can't take advantage of such a nice save game.

But, the great thing about X3 is the feeling of achievement you can get after building a large empire all on your own. Plus, it'd take fifty hours to figure out where all his stuff was and what it was doing...

PS - I am curious how he achieved all that with so few ships, though. I guess our playstyles are different. I tend to be very fleet-heavy so far.

[SinisterDeath]

Programs like cheat engine to spawn credits... don't trigger modified tag. The only way to 'prove' its been used, or not been used, is to link to the part in your statistics of 'credits earned' versus how many credits you actually 'have'.... But this would obviously only work... if you never spent anything.

[stg1969]

Just out of interest, why would you want so many HQ's in one sector?

[TTD]

Just out of interest, why would you want so many HQ's in one sector?

Ship production and parking lots.
You could be producing a different type of ship in each of them or build one ship type en-mass.

I do this often with my modded games,which I suspect this is,although very cleverly done.

Now if the Pilot could reveal how it was done then I would be interested in returning to AP.

Else I stick to TC .

[Ravna]

All you need to know is a little assembler.
Would you like a non-modified game start ?
Let's say . . all rep maxed out, max credits, Hub and a few HQs ?

Takes me 5 min to make you one - but where's the fun in that ?

[Eisenkalle]

Looking good.
Be so kind and convert the bmp into jpg.
The bmp is 7 MB large!
You can even do this with paint.

[TBV]

Very nice!

They haven't quite fixed the trade menu exploit fully then?

[Rhox]

They have definetely fixed the CLS exploit discovered by kurush as far as I know. Do you mean that by trade menu exploit or is there yet another exploit I don't know yet?

best regards,
Rhox

[Alan Phipps]

Do we really want such a vanilla exploit as open information here? A lot of players became upset that the CLS exploit was openly discussed here. At the very least I would expect use of Spoiler tags but once it is released it will not stay hidden for long.

[highflier]

btw, the cls dupe bug is fixed in AP but you still not fully, its just working different now.

[TBV]

Do we really want such a vanilla exploit as open information here?

Too late?

The fact that it still exists in some form is evident from the OP. I suspect it
wont take the determined experimenter more than a few hours to duplicate it
now that it's just a question of finding what they know is there.

Sounds like Bothersome's brother needs to be on the beta-testing team. This
is the second time he's managed to find such a potentially game-breaking exploit.

[lubnius]

While we wait for at least one hq, others enjoy seven... that aside, looks impressive.

[David Howland]

Seven HQs heaven gimme, gimme, gimme!
I am still playing TC, I am anti-Steam but for this I would sell my soul!

[dougeye]

Seven HQs heaven gimme, gimme, gimme!
I am still playing TC, I am anti-Steam but for this I would sell my soul!

Steam summer sale! buy AP for 50% and get 10 free PHQ's lol

[Virtualaughing]

first reaction....... it is a generous offer to giveaway such savedgame

after that...... with this action you pretty much ruined all the stats uploads because many ppl will be vainglorious about an achievment which is not their job and time :/

[Bothersome]

Well, Egosoft needed to redo the whole statistics thing anyway. Lumping everybody in together for totals means nothing to me. I want to see a ladder system. I want to know where *I* stand vs my peers.

[kurush]

I am really curious how it was achieved. I can see the following options:
1) Changing a type of an existing factory stored in your EQ with a memory editor. I did this to get repair lasers, PALC and PBC before they become available via normal means and before I went to #2.
2) Using a hack similar to what I've done to be able to run any scripts or mods without getting *modified*. I can now create a "vanilla" save with 100 Xenon #decas flying in Argon prime, if somebody is interested.
3) Some unknown exploit. CLS exploit seems to be fixed, so unless I missed something, there must be another one.

[ThommoHawk]

I am downloading this savegame with the hope there are a few correctly functioning UT's in the game (have been trying to catch a *BUG* in my game) but if it has been cheat-created then it may not help anyway. I am not interested in expoiting the player stats anyhow as I am already happy with my existing ones ... nice, shiney, medals, polishpolish ... but I will do anything I can to fix my stupid UTs!

[kurush]

cheat-created

OP said that no outside programs were used, so it must be some yet unknown exploit. Or, may be his brother punk'd him with memory editor Hard to understand what is the difference though, the CLS cloning exploit was pretty bad. I hope OP reveals to us what it was.