Colony Game Bug

[ImpulziveMyztik]

Dunno if anybody else has noticed this or posted about this, and I searched long and hard but didn't find anything, so please forgive if this is a repeat post.

The problem is thus:

Scenario: Post Release Colony Demo

Problem: When you have built the spaceport and retrieved the wreckage, then you take it back to the spaceport to unload it. When you unload it, the game crashes. At least, it does for me. Now, there has been some minor modification to the game to allow it to run on my system, but nothing in the scenarios has changed. Is it just me, was the scenario designed that way(it is a demo, after all), or is it indeed a bug?

[Hidiot]

Nothing you can do can fix missions, cause they're hard-coded into their own .dll

The crash is a mission bug they didn't fix when they made the map so you're stuck with it. Just be happy you finished

[Sirbomber]

The mission works fine in the demo, but not in the final game.

[Hooman]

Maybe a tech ID changed between the two versions? That could probably cause a crash under those exact conditions. If that's the case, it probably wouldn't be too hard to fix with a hex editor. (Change 4 bytes). Of course you need to find where those bytes are first, and what they should be changed to.
 

[ImpulziveMyztik]

Nothing you can do can fix missions, cause they're hard-coded into their own .dll

Like I said, its not a mission, but a colony game, and one made by someone here, dunno who, sry.

As far as editing with a hex editor, I have a couple editor programs, but know nothing about the structure of this particular game. Any help in that department?

[Hidiot]

missions,colony games, multi player maps, whatever. They all need a .dll to run and the .dll contains the info on all object and preset events

[Sirbomber]

Like I said, its not a mission, but a colony game, and one made by someone here, dunno who, sry.

Scenario: Post Release Colony Demo

No, that was a Dynamix-made map released with a demo made by Sierra. We didn't make it.

[ImpulziveMyztik]

In that case, do you happen to know what dll(s) that colony game is? I have a rough program that is actually quite efficient at cracking open dll's and modifying them.

[Hooman]

All colony games DLLs start with a "c" in their name. You'll have to infer the rest.
 

[Sirbomber]

Post-Release Colony Demo : cds1.dll

[ImpulziveMyztik]

Thank you very much.
now we see if I remember any game style programming :blink:  :whistle:  

[Hooman]

This may be of interest:

Code: [Select]

11004F42    68 80150000      PUSH 1580

That's the third parameter to TethysGame::CreateWreck, which is the tech ID that is given by the wreckage. The value 0x1580 = 5504.
Checking demotekm.txt, we find:

Code: [Select]

BEGIN_TECH "EDWARD Satellite" 05504

Also, remember the note in the SDK at then end of that function declaration:

Code: [Select]

	static int __fastcall CreateWreck(int tileX, int tileY, enum map_id techID, int bInitiallyVisible);  	// Note: techID must be >= 8000 but < (8000+4096)

I'd say that's most likely a problem.