Hex Editing Collection on EXE

[MrFlibble]

Nice!

Which of these values are modified compared to the original settings (apart from the Palace one that is)?

[drnovice]

repairCost = (si->o.buildCredits * 5) / (si->o.hitpoints * 3);

• Palace: 1
• Light Factory: 1
• Heavy Factory: 5
• Hi-Tech: 2
• IX: 2
• WOR: 1
• CY: 1
• Windtrap: 2
• Barracks: 1
• Starport: 1
• Refinery: 1
• Repair Facility: 5
• Turret: 1
• R-Turret: 2
• Spice Silo: 1
• Outpost: 1

Yes it's a bit different by original repair costs, but I tried to make sense of relationship between HP and Build Cost.

Again, the important thing is that this formula could work with modified values about existing Structures or even new structures created (therefore more than 512 HP structures).

[MrFlibble]

That's very cool! The repair expenditures in the original game needed the adjustments anyway.

BTW, drnovice, what hex editor do you use? I have two quite old programmes, and when implementing one of your fixes (the radar unit count one to be exact) I ran into the problem that neither of my editors are able to replace large chunks of code with the find-and-replace command (in fact, out of the two only ICY Hexplorer has the find-and-replace option anyway). So I had to split the code into several parts and replace them one by one, which was a bit tedious, and could in fact introduce errors into the modified EXE.

I assume that in more modern hex editors such routine is easily carried out by a single click, but I'm kind of not inclined to test several programmes out there to find out which does have this feature.

[drnovice]

I usually I write byte per byte "on my hands".
However you can use these ones:

https://www.google.it/#q=copy+paste+hex

HxD is a very good editor.

[Nyerguds]

BTW, drnovice, what hex editor do you use? I have two quite old programmes, and when implementing one of your fixes (the radar unit count one to be exact) I ran into the problem that neither of my editors are able to replace large chunks of code with the find-and-replace command (in fact, out of the two only ICY Hexplorer has the find-and-replace option anyway). So I had to split the code into several parts and replace them one by one, which was a bit tedious, and could in fact introduce errors into the modified EXE.

I personally use Editpad Pro. It's technically a text editor, but, throw any binary file in it, or just press ctrl+h, and it switches to hexadecimal mode. Has search & replace that supports regex, even in hex mode I think.

Only disadvantage is that it's a "free trial", meaning you gotta click away some small screen on startup every time.

[MrFlibble]

Interesting, thanks for the suggestion!

[Nyerguds]

Unlike a lot of applications, Editpad Pro also overwrites on pasting, if you pressed the Insert key to switch from Insert to Overwrite mode :)

And if you specifically tab to the bytes part in hex mode, it'll perfectly paste byte codes copied as text as the actual bytes.

[3371-Alpha]

Anyone tried converting these fixes to the other versions of the game/exe? Also several of the referencing posts listed in the documentation are missing or broken. I assume you upgraded this forum at one point. I say that because the same thing happened to the Quake forums (I have multiple tastes in video games).

[drnovice]

Hi!
What other versions do you refer? I applied those mods to v1.07 EU if I remember correctly.
If you want all documentation send me mp and I'll send you all stuff I worked for.

Edited March 30, 2018 by drnovice

[MrFlibble]

I decided to revisit Dune 2 modding and found the HEX editing collection very useful!

However, I need to note that in the file 0x047D00 fix loop reinforcements.pdf, the line you're suggesting to find

81 1f 50 16 8d 86 5e ff 50 9a f8 3a 00 00 83 c4

occurs multiple times across the binary, so it's probably more handy to use Segra's original fix where he suggests to look for

16 8D 86 5E FF 50 9A F8 3A 00 00 83 C4 08 8B D8 8E C2

and replace the beginning with

6A 00 6A 00 90 90 

 

Edited February 27 by MrFlibble