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Editing the EXE
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ronnraymore
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 3:44 pm    Post subject: Mods to rocks, reefs, storms, and hurricanes? Reply with quote

Mandiuscreel

Very impressive work!)

I really hate the stupid rocks, reefs, storms, and hurricanes that Atari offered as "enhancements" to the game.

Just the opposite for me...really irritatingly frustrating...think Windows95:(

In your work with the exe have you found were these really stupid enhancements are generated?

The first disc I bought and installed on my Win7 Thinkpad (Lenovo) during setup gave me a series of options to allow these enhancements to make the game fun. I thought of the original Gold version and found those rocks, reefs, storms, and hurricanes to be realistic and not a pain the in the A, so I allowed them to be added to the play feature.

What I got was such an obvious blunder created by Atari Mario programmers who think such stupidity is fun. Acrobatics in the sword fighting that are impossible for any human, only purpose is to impede the actions of the player. Storms that suddenly appear in restricted waters and ship fighting without warning causing damage until rank makes it a no cost nuisance. Crescents of ship-sized rocks that appear in unnatural locations, middle of harbors, shipping lanes, narrows, harbor entrances...places where such rocks do not exist in reality. Computer ships sail right over them with no effect while the player ships have the bottoms torn out and sink, even the pinnaces!(

Just one irritatingly stupid affectation after another whose only purpose is to interfere with the game play and skills of the player.

I bought a second, new still in the wrapper disc from Mastertronic, and installed on a cloned Win7 on another Thinkpad but did not get the same setup feature to not select these "enhancements" I am really at a loss to understand what is going on.

Do you have any idea of how to deselect these "enhancements" or remove them so I can once again enjoy the game, even if the escort ships fire through the target vessel hitting me instead of them, and sail through the target to engage me...more stupidity.

Thanks in advance...while this Atari farce is not the quality of the original, it does have some good features that could be enjoyable, without the enhancements.
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Pirate
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 11:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not trying to step on any toes here though I am plenty onary enough to do something like that, but to me storms reefs etc were all hazards back in the day and still are for that matter. Storms can pop up fast and back in those days where there just wasn't any radio broadcasts or super reliable ways to predict these things. Many a ship has been lost due to reefs rocks and storms etc and not just the ones in this game.
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fleetp
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 1:05 am    Post subject: Re: Mods to rocks, reefs, storms, and hurricanes? Reply with quote

ronnraymore wrote:
Mandiuscreel

Very impressive work!)

I really hate the stupid rocks, reefs, storms, and hurricanes that Atari offered as "enhancements" to the game.

Just the opposite for me...really irritatingly frustrating...think Windows95:(

In your work with the exe have you found were these really stupid enhancements are generated?


You've already made a post about this. Please don't make multiple posts on the same thing.
Very respectfully,
fleet (moderator)
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ronnraymore
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PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2016 4:12 pm    Post subject: Who owns the rights to Pirates? Reply with quote

Just read that Mastertronics has gone into bankruptcy, that is the name on my disc box. Atari bought the rights from Sid, and, in my opinion, has corrupted the concept beyond all enjoyable recognition. The program logic is badly done, stupid is a word that comes to mind. Obviously no research was done about all aspects of this game...even a casual watching of a pirates movie, or a reading of the Hornblower series of books would provide detail and accuracy to the seafaring skills. The sword fighting acrobatics is just insulting for a player...Mario antics from Atari no doubt. The rocks and reefs, storms, and V formation of fleet that spread out over a scale of hundreds of miles is just insulting for the player, the ship ends of the V run over rocks and get the bottoms torn out. Just so much wrong, and no one seems able to mod these defects to make the play more realistic. Galleons and large sailing ships do not spin like tops while you maneuver a fast pinnace around to board, nor do frigates. Sloops while tacking into the wind do NOT stop while facing into the wind, the inertia of tons of ship and cargo carry it forward while the sail is jibbed. Brigs sail into the wind, even the description agrees with this, with the same speed as with the wind or broad-reach to the wind due to the mix of square and triangular sails...not stop as they head into the wind while maneuvering.
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Pirate
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PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2016 5:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well since SMP clearly stinks in your opinion and to make it worthy enough to satisfy you would mean rewriting for the most part the whole entire game might I suggest you steer your ship in another direction. There are other games out there that will more than test your seafaring skills but if you insist on smp being the game you want it to be might a suggest a good bottle of rum. Down that sucker in a hurry and then fire up smp. I'm betting you will see a whole new world at least briefly but hey it's worth a shot.
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Mandiuscreel
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PostPosted: Mon May 09, 2016 10:16 pm    Post subject: Re: Mods to rocks, reefs, storms, and hurricanes? Reply with quote

ronnraymore wrote:
In your work with the exe have you found were these really stupid enhancements are generated?


Unfortunately, I haven't worked out how to remove "enhancements". They seem to be part of a subroutine rather than a data block.

My method for modding is making changes to the data blocks for the ships, which are found in a few different locations (check out the rest of the Editing the EXE thread for things I've discovered). AdamMil is more up on the subroutines than I am.
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AdamMil
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PostPosted: Fri May 13, 2016 3:37 am    Post subject: Re: Mods to rocks, reefs, storms, and hurricanes? Reply with quote

Mandiuscreel wrote:
ronnraymore wrote:
In your work with the exe have you found were these really stupid enhancements are generated?


Unfortunately, I haven't worked out how to remove "enhancements". They seem to be part of a subroutine rather than a data block.

My method for modding is making changes to the data blocks for the ships, which are found in a few different locations (check out the rest of the Editing the EXE thread for things I've discovered). AdamMil is more up on the subroutines than I am.

You can probably prevent ships from stopping while turning into the wind by changing their points of sail array to contain no negative values, though I haven't tested it. Perhaps if the "into the wind" values are just zero rather than -1 or -2, the ship wouldn't stop abruptly. Info on the locations of the points of sail array can be found earlier in this thread.

Preventing it from creating random rocks and whatnot in the battle screen should also be possible. I haven't searched for that code, but if somebody can bother finding the name of one of the textures or models used for them then I can search the .exe for references to those strings and try to understand the surrounding code. (Without any clues like model or texture names, it'll take too many hours to hunt that code down.)
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ronnraymore
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 3:54 pm    Post subject: What a shame Reply with quote

No one bothered to actually Beta test with gamers to show all the really BOGUS garbage in this programming.

Shame no one at Firaxis knows anything about the subject of the game or can write code that is not so buggy that it is irritating to play it.

Can't understand how Sid, in good faith to the community, could put his name onto this Firaxis version of a Win95 quality programming abortion.
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ronnraymore
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 27, 2016 4:35 pm    Post subject: Sailing in the Carib Reply with quote

I've been at sea in the Carib, and I can tell you that storms do not suddenly appear. The horizon and beyond is available for the casual scan, and nimbo-cumulus clouds that cause squalls are easily seen and actions taken to reef sail, batten down, and otherwise get ready to ride it out if you can't sail around it. This game is totally unrealistic even to the point of being insulting to the gamer. Sid's original game contained reefs that are reasonable and not meant to be obstacles to navigation or ports. A casual look at the charts for the Carib would reveal where these are located. They also are not rocks that stick up above the surface in places which are deep water channels. Having to point a ship in the direction to scan is stupid in the extreme, the "eyes of the ship" is an ancient idea and continued as a quaint saying. I could go on and on. And I really do wish another more realistic game was available but no one has come up with an alternative. You'd think after 10 years someone in the industry would take this garbage prototype and clean it up using modern techniques...and this time run Beta testing with gamers to learn what irritating bugs remain. Rather than being more worried about hackers getting in and stealing the intellectual property. This work was obviously not QA'd.
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ronnraymore
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 3:01 pm    Post subject: exe editing...where? Reply with quote

I would really need to mod the exe in order to change some very irritating errors is design, i.e., the galleons moving at 0-1 knot spin about to always present a broadside to my circling pinnace traveling 12-14 knots! This is just too stupid for words. I think that moding the Twist factor assigned to big ships would greatly improve the battle experience.

Unfortunately, I cannot find an exe file in the C drive of the installed game whether I use the DVD or 2CD game versions. People here say how easy it is to get into the exe and make necessary changes to factors to make the play reasonable.

Anyone have an idea why I cannot locate the exe? I have Admin Privs and running Win7 Business on a thinkpad (IBM) with plenty of power and RAM. Why am I not able to find the exe file? Is it hidden? How do I un-hide it?
I am at a loss to understand what is going on.
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fleetp
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 4:05 pm    Post subject: Re: exe editing...where? Reply with quote

ronnraymore wrote:
I would really need to mod the exe in order to change some very irritating errors is design, i.e., the galleons moving at 0-1 knot spin about to always present a broadside to my circling pinnace traveling 12-14 knots! This is just too stupid for words. I think that moding the Twist factor assigned to big ships would greatly improve the battle experience.

Unfortunately, I cannot find an exe file in the C drive of the installed game whether I use the DVD or 2CD game versions. People here say how easy it is to get into the exe and make necessary changes to factors to make the play reasonable.

Anyone have an idea why I cannot locate the exe? I have Admin Privs and running Win7 Business on a thinkpad (IBM) with plenty of power and RAM. Why am I not able to find the exe file? Is it hidden? How do I un-hide it?
I am at a loss to understand what is going on.


Can you find the folder named Firaxis Games? If so, post a screenshot of the contents.

Incidemntally, I don't recall ANYBODY here saying that modifying the exe file is easy.
If anything, it is very much a trial and error process.


Last edited by fleetp on Sat Aug 06, 2016 12:40 am; edited 1 time in total
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Pirate
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2016 7:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The exe should look like a tiny pirate flag icon. C:\Program Files (x86)\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Pirates!. make backups of it before doing any modding.
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ronnraymore
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2016 2:28 pm    Post subject: Tiny piratge flag exe file Reply with quote

Doesn't appear in the C drive list under Firaxis, appears on the cd and dvd but, of course those cannot be altered. Three folders and four files appear, none of which show the icon. The custom folder is available and I have loaded all the mods for characters, enjoying very much the improvement...with the exception of the naval uniformed smugglers, which I find even on Pinnaces, which is NOT a military vessel. The only military Pinnace is the "Mail Runner", on which military would be proper. Most sloops are not military but merchant vessels captured or bought and placed into service...a very common practice. While I would expect to see uniforms on merchant vessels that are militarized, I should not see them on all smuggler ships. The keymap is one of the files shown, but when I go in and alter the key assignments the change does not appear on the virtual number pad...? what is going on? Any ideas or similar experiences?

I believe this raises concern about the statement that all non-merchant specific smuggler vessels are designated by the code as "military" causing the military garb on the characters.

Is it possible that the cd and dvd I have does not write the exe to the C drive but uses the cd or dvd as a drive? When I swap out disks I get a prompt to insert a specific disk into the D drive in order to even start the game. That specific disk is the one used to install the game on the C drive.

When I change the audio, video, and features sliders those settings are not saved. Every time I restart the game all have returned to the same original settings....very irritating since I have to go through and reset all.

The cd set does not require the unlock code to install. Is this an indicator that this is a later version that does not install the full set of controls?
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fleetp
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 09, 2016 4:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"Is it possible that the cd and dvd I have does not write the exe to the C drive but uses the cd or dvd as a drive?"

I think you've discovered why you can't find the exe file.
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ronnraymore
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 10, 2016 2:10 pm    Post subject: My mistake :( Reply with quote

The mention of an icon similar to the one on the desktop made me double check the cd listing and I did find the icon ... I was looking for a file extension .exe which is what is usually used for such things and just didn't consider the icon as the indicator. However, the 3.2 Mb file size let me know that this was a big file and the exe.

Okay...that mystery solved, let's proceed to opening and moding the exe. When I click on it the game starts, which is what should happen, so I'm not bothered by that. However, what do you use to get into and mod this file? I need to download and install it.

Thanks mate
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