Skills and SPECIALS

[Sunnie]

Not going to be source access to this engine, ever.

Bethsoft has been using and modifying this engine since Oblivion, and using a more advanced version of it for Skyrim. No source code release will ever happen.

 

Skill max settings are hard codded in the engine. In order to change them it would require code changes to the engine source and then a complete rebuild of the files, which would also advance the version number. Giving the public access to the source and ability to rebuild the whole game would quickly kill any ability to provide support for the commercial game.

[NorthWolf]

I believe you made another thread regarding source code access wherein myself and others put forward the reasons you will not get source code access. This is Fallout: New Vegas, not Civilization 5. They are not made by the same companies and do not have engines that are even passingly similar to each other. If you want to push the boundaries, use the NVSE. Since the NVSE doesn't support this, learn how to do memory debugging so you can hook the relevant functions and variables regarding the maximum skill cap and modify them to your liking, if it's even possible (it theoretically should be, since skills must at least be allocated a byte for their integer value each, if not more).

[Jopo80]

Once more I run into the word I hate: HARD CODED.

 

What is the reason they have to have ANYTHING hard coded? Is it just to piss us off? Is it just corporate malevolence? Do they ACTUALLY have a valid reason for setting the skill levels at max 100 and stats at 10 or did someone at Bethesda just have a moment of brilliance and DECIDED it so?

 

I mean it´s their game, it´s their right to make all kinds of decisions. They could decide to make the game COMPLETELY unmodable and lock every file behind passwords or something if they wanted to, but in their good grace they have allowed us to modify parts of the game. THEY decide what to allow us to modify and THEY also decide what mods they allow on their forums, not all mods are welcome.

 

Personally I am sick and tired of developers telling me what I can and cannot do. I want to modify skills and stats and THEY are telling me, you can´t by hard coding it. I suspect it is also impossible to add new skills, because that too would require source access.

 

Firaxis developers of Civilization 5 set a good example of how things SHOULD BE by allowing the community source access. Hopefully other companies will follow suit as they are inferior to Firaxis as long as they hoard access only to themselves. Games should be designed in such a way that it allows for maximum modability, it should be one of the guiding principles of game design. "Design the game you want." The motto of Firaxis should be a guiding line for all games houses.

 

If I cannot do what I want, then what´s the point? I didn´t buy Fallout NV to play it, I bought it to edit it and now I´m being told that this or that cannot be done? It seems I wasted 20 euros on FONV. Not going to happen on Fallout 4, if I acquire it, it will be through torrents. I won´t waste my money on something that doesn´t allow me the freedom I want.

 

Cheers !

Edited July 4, 2011 by Jopo80

[NorthWolf]

Once more I run into the word I hate: HARD CODED.

 

What is the reason they have to have ANYTHING hard coded? Is it just to piss us off? Is it just corporate malevolence? Do they ACTUALLY have a valid reason for setting the skill levels at max 100 and stats at 10 or did someone at Bethesda just have a moment of brilliance and DECIDED it so?

 

I mean it´s their game, it´s their right to make all kinds of decisions. They could decide to make the game COMPLETELY unmodable and lock every file behind passwords or something if they wanted to, but in their good grace they have allowed us to modify parts of the game. THEY decide what to allow us to modify and THEY also decide what mods they allow on their forums, not all mods are welcome.

 

Personally I am sick and tired of developers telling me what I can and cannot do. I want to modify skills and stats and THEY are telling me, you can´t by hard coding it. I suspect it is also impossible to add new skills, because that too would require source access.

 

Firaxis developers of Civilization 5 set a good example of how things SHOULD BE by allowing the community source access. Hopefully other companies will follow suit as they are inferior to Firaxis as long as they hoard access only to themselves. Games should be designed in such a way that it allows for maximum modability, it should be one of the guiding principles of game design. "Design the game you want." The motto of Firaxis should be a guiding line for all games houses.

 

If I cannot do what I want, then what´s the point? I didn´t buy Fallout NV to play it, I bought it to edit it and now I´m being told that this or that cannot be done? It seems I wasted 20 euros on FONV. Not going to happen on Fallout 4, if I acquire it, it will be through torrents. I won´t waste my money on something that doesn´t allow me the freedom I want.

 

Cheers !

Seriously, mate? For one, I already found two modifications that do what you want: one sets the skill cap to the hex max (255), and one makes sure skill progress continues until level 200. If you spent some time actually looking for these mods instead of getting angry at being unable to change aspects of the game, you would have saved yourself several days of doing nothing.

 

However, you've been told how to do what you want (NVSE, repeatedly), but ignored that (repeatedly). Why do companies hardcode things? The same reason you can't use a pistol to dry clean your clothing. Theoretically you could add in the functionality to make a pistol-dry-cleaner but it's not practical and you won't make money doing it. Similarly, hard working scripters can only make their code so exposed to the end user before it becomes a logistic nightmare where they can't maintain it with patches and don't know if users can do things like put viruses in their game or if modifications will wreck the entire game at the most mundane changes.

 

So show some respect. Civilization 5, unless it has progressed massively from the Civilization games I remember, has a really simple engine. I could probably emulate the Civilization engine's non-graphical code and I'm just some undergrad who's done a few work terms. Meanwhile, the Gamebyro engine is leased, making it legally impossible to expose all source code, and the modifications done to it are probably more complicated than the entirety of Civ5's engine.

 

Anyway, you'll probably get banned because of your decision to pre-emptively pirate Fallout 4.

[SmileyCat]

W-O-R-D

[Korodic]

you could control the skills with a script. As the max is 255.

 

EDIT: Be grateful you get to edit this game at all, and yeah LMFAO it's possible.

Edited July 4, 2011 by Skibblets

[Sunnie]

NVSE does wonders getting around hard coded features, if one just puts forth the effort to make the changes. Seriously OP, They didn't develop the game just so you could mod it. Buying it solely to mod it and not play it is about as idiotic as a statement gets (unless you purchased the game with the intent to make mods for profit?). Makes me wonder if you actually did buy the game, but that's just me.

[Jopo80]

So buying a game in order to mod it is IDIOTIC ??!! Thank you, much appreciated. I bought both Fallout 3 and NV. Do you want to see a receipt? Civilization 5 I "acquired" and was sorely disappointed by the vanilla games features, so I won´t be buying it until very much later when all the expansions are out and I can get a Gold pack. Hopefully the developers make the additions I hope for in the expansions. Pirating a game for preview purposes is quite OK with me and it´s ok for any other reason aswell. Yes, I do piracy, movies, porn, games, music, you name it. Don´t tell me I should be an honest citizen and pay for all of it when others don´t, I´m only doing what others do. On the other hand I DO have purchased copies of some good games and an extensive collection of DVD movies bought from the shop. My Windows 7 is an original, I wanted the support services and updates, so I bought it.

In my view I´ve paid my share to support the capitalistic engine and evil megacorporations Piracy is a crime in Finland, but I´m not too worried about being sued. If they started going after every student and teenager doing piracy they would flood the justice system with cases and overstretch the resources of the police. No they have better things to do than to chase down software pirates. Occasionally they shut down a torrent server for show, but that´s it.

 

Besides, there is the question of ruining peoples lives. If someone is actually caught doing piracy, they slap MASSIVE reparation demands on you. How would you like to pay a couple of hundred thousand Euros in reparations and fines. You would be in debt for the rest of your life. Say bye bye to dreams of a house or a car or pretty much anything. No, that kind of sentencing ruins lives. Personally if I got slapped with that kind of a sentence, I´d rather buy a gun and blow my heart to the wall and let others deal with the reparations. Suicide is not a crime, it is a power each of us has although the society will do everything in their power to stop you from using that power, including taking away your power of self determination and locking you up "for your own protection", because it is viewed that a suicidal person is not qualified to make decisions about his/her own future.

What right does the society have to decide someones fate for them? If someone WANTS to die, then he/she should be able to make that choice freely and without intervention from the society. You have a right to die if you choose to do so, but if you enter suicide as the purpose of buying a gun in your permit application, they will reject it and most likely lock you up, again "for your own protection", so you can´t trust the society in that issue. If you want to die, then the society is your enemy although they come in the disguise of "helping you with your mental problems", because a suicidal person MUST be sick or mad, a healthy person would not do such a thing or would he/she?

 

Personally I´ve been locked up against my will in a mental asylum three times, for depression. So I know what a complete waste of time being in such a facility is. That and the medications you have to eat don´t cure ANYTHING. I don´t feel any different or happier with anti-depressants. And as for suicidal thoughts, for those they don´t have a pill you can take, although I´m pretty sure some brilliant neurochemist is working right now to make that happen. If they could stop suicidal thoughts with a pill, then why not force all suicidal people to eat them? It would ONLY be taking away FREE WILL, but only "for their own protection", after all BIG BROTHER KNOWS BEST, doesn´t he?

 

Personally I think it is a fortuitous that I´m unable to buy a gun RIGHT NOW, because you have to have a doctors clean bill of health before buying your first gun in Finland. Obviously this rule was implemented to stop mental patients and potentially suicidal ones from obtaining a gun. I think the rule is that you cannot be on any psych meds when applying for a gun and SOMEDAY I might very well get rid of my meds and THEN I can get my permit and a gun and THEN there will be NOTHING to stop me from using that sovereign power over my own life. ( you CAN get a power trip from controlling your own life) Nothing except myself and from what you have read, would you entrust me with the control of someones life, namely my own? I wouldn´t, but then there´s ABSOLUTELY NOTHING anyone can do about it, except try to plead with me to not do it or if they can try to lock me up again until I change my mind and I´ll tell you that if I decide to die, there´s not gonna be any change of heart in the last minute. I spend time every night thinking about killing myself, so when the time comes, I will have everything thought out, planned out etc. All I require is a gun and then I won´t fail in executing my decision.Live or Die, I choose for myself, not the society or anyone else. Everyone else´s opinions and feelings are COMPLETELY irrelevant when deciding about your own fate. Relatives, family members etc. are all irrelevant when your own life is concerned. That is my view. If someone tries to talk down a potential suicide, then the first thing they´ll probably invoke is to THINK OF YOUR FAMILY, but that´s just the point, if you are going to decide about your own fate, then you can´t be tied to anyone on this earth.

Did you know that attempting suicide was a crime punishable by death in England in the 19th century? If you tried to kill yourself and failed, then the government would do the job for you and properly.

 

Anyway, I´m not gonna go as far as to threaten suicide on this forum, because threatening is a crime (illicit threat) in Finland, but I´m not sure if that applies to suicide threats. However, I will say that unless there is a miraculous change of my fortunes then it´s only a matter of time. It may be a long time, but at some point it will be inevitable, consider that a threat if you like, personally I consider it to be only stating facts and I´m not too worried about the authorities banging down my door challenging me about my intentions, they´ve already done it once and all I had to do was to assure them that I was OK, so I lied, teehee :devil: I won´t deny my plans because there is nothing they can do and I can always threaten to kill myself at once if they attempt to raise charges, who will win, me or the society and the justice system?

 

Here, let me put a question forth: Do you believe in a persons right to die? Some would say that suicide is NEVER only a persons own choice, but involves those around him/her, so it is NOT purely a personal choice if you take that point of view. In my view you cannot take into consideration anyone else but yourself, it is YOUR choice, the last choice you will ever make if you do it, but still it IS your own choice and in the end no one can deny it from you, they CAN and WILL try, but will fail ultimately if you persist. The only way would be to suppress free will at least partly with medications or otherwise, would you advocate that then (only for sick people of course)?

 

If you want to engage in a philosophical conversation about right and wrong then be my guest. Did you know that pirates have a political party in Sweden and Finland advocating legalized piracy for personal use? I wholeheartedly support their agenda, knowledge belongs to the PEOPLE. Oh yes, but what would happen to the games industry or Hollywood if everyone just pirated their products? They would make no money and without money they could not hire programmers or artists or anyone to make their games etc. You would still have games and films made by hobby groups, such as different mod groups, but would those games be as good as professionally made?

 

Besides I´m not too worried about the Hollywood going bust over piracy. If you look at how much money the latest blockbusters have made then they are still making handsome profits even if they didn´t sell a single DVD. As for games, I buy the games I consider to be worth the money and pirate the rest. I´m sure the biggest names in the games industry make healthy profits even despite piracy, otherwise all the companies would have gone bust a long time ago.

 

As for "advocating piracy" which may or may not be banned in this forum (is threatening suicide banned aswell?), I have but one thing to say. If I do it then so does just about everyone else in this forum, they just don´t openly parade it in their posts. If the cops raided YOUR house tomorrow, what would they find? If they start banning people for piracy they´ll have to ban a good deal of the members or has everyone suddenly become squeaky clean and deleted all their pirated stuff? I bet there isn´t a single one on these forums who can say they´ve paid for EVERYTHING on their computer, if they have then having a clean conscience has a high price tag. Personally I´m willing to forego the moral superiority in order to get all the stuff that´s available online.

 

Banning piracy advocation is just another in the series of banned discussion topics, which is one way to limit free speech. It appears Forums are NOT democratic arenas, but dictatorships run by the administrators at their whims (is trashtalking about forum admins BANNED?) But I´m not trashtalking or spreading misinformation, because that´s how these forums work, power is invested in a few individuals who are NOT democratically elected by the members as they should be, but are instead appointed by the forum owner and that owner can set ANY rules he/she likes without approval from the members.

 

Examples:

Paradox Interactive, the developers of some very good strategy games like Hearts of Iron 3 and Europa Universalis 3 (of which both I own an original copy) have some policies. In their WW-2 themed Hearts of Iron 3 there will not be and there will not be any discussion or any mods on their forum which have anything to do with the Holocaust, Chemical weapons (although nukes are in the game, a double standard) or terror bombing (systematic aerial bombing of civilians, not to be confused with terrorist bombing), prison camps or death camps and other horrible stuff, Nazi flags or other insignia etc. etc. As mentioned discussion of these topics is BANNED and once I got two fat red cards for advocating terror bombing, chemical weapons etc. just for the fun of it. It might be fun to wreak a little havoc on your enemies and besides, in a strategy game there isn´t any graphical voilence, it´s just the idea and EVEN THE IDEA IS BANNED.

What happened next is that some loyal snitch of a forum citizen reported my post to the admins and I got a fat RED card and another one for arguing moderator decision. So where is the freedom of the Internet if you are not allowed to speak your mind on the forums, huh? Here I am wrapping myself into the flag of free speech, objections anyone?

 

Talking of banned topics, Bethesda has banned all adult content from their forums and that includes child killing, although the player can freely massacre the little children of Little Lamplight if he/she wants to. Forgive me for being stereotypical but it is just so typically conservative American to ban nudity, especially womens nipples. All in the interest of getting a 13+ rating for the game, Just so little kids aren´t horrified and traumatized by improper materials, but on the other hand the game has plenty of gore, guns, death, drugs etc. etc. Heck you can even cannibalize corpses with the proper perk.

 

 

As I´ve stated many games are not good enough in my mind to be played as vanilla versions, so I aspire to mod them and make them into something BETTER, that´s why I buy them and that´s why I mod them. Besides its my money, I can do whatever the hell I want with it, burn it if I like (actually burning money IS a crime). I hope swearing isn´t banned on the forums.

 

Anyway, cheers!

Edited July 6, 2011 by Jopo80

[NorthWolf]

Dude, wow. At first I thought you'd be pitching a weak, semi-political rant about how the Man is keeping you down because you can't steal video games, but... wow. :confused:

[buddah]

Glad you got it our of your system, TLDR. More bashing of the site and the staff by an admitted thief and pirate.

This topic is not useless as the OP has been shown the door.

 

Closed, so it can die the ignoble death it so rightly deserves.

 

Buddah