Hex Editing Fun in SC3000

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

On 6/10/2017 at 5:40 PM, Yohane Architects said:

I like to change in game dates, can you print screen the hex location for dates please and values like 1900 2000 and so on?

The location of the date moves around a wee little bit, but the actual counter for it is located somewhere in the 6C00 paragraph. This is for changing the year only. Here's the steps:

 

Save your game and remember what year it is. (Make a backup copy of it in case anything goes goofy.)

^ In this instance it is 1950.

 

Exit the game and open the saved city file in HxD. Search for 1950 (or whatever year yours is at) as an Integer number.

 

The first one it finds is always not the one we want. So, F3 to find again. It can be the next one, but it may not always be. Basically all you need to look for is the one we want is someplace soon after the start of the 6C00 paragraph and you will notice it finds it a few positions after the name of your city. (Date Test in this example.)

^ Notice the highlighted hex numbers are 1950 in reverse hex btye order. In other words 1950 decimal is really 079E but it is found as 9E07.

 

Decide what year you want it to be, convert to hex, and reverse the order. For example:

• 1900 = 076C and byte reversed is 6C07
• 1950 = 079E and byte reversed is 9E07
• 1992 = 07C8 and byte reversed is C807 <-- when Cori was born (that's why it's important!)
• 2000 = 07D0 and byte reversed is D007

I used the Decimal to Hexadecimal Converter, btw.

 

So now just plug in the reversed number for the date you want it to be and save the file. I'm setting it back to 1900 in the following:

 

You will notice when you get ready to open the file it will still show the old date. (We could hexily change that too, but it'll update itself as soon as you open the city.)

 

And now we see we have gone backward in time without the need of @Cyclone Boom's DeLorean.

 

And just for fun I set it to this:

 

[Yohane Architects 127]

@CorinaMarie

I need a medieval set for that year  would power plants be available in that year?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

32 minutes ago, Yohane Architects said:

I need a medieval set for that year  would power plants be available in that year?

Yep. Surprisingly I can plop either Coal or Oil Power Plants. (I'm letting it run with a population of 276 to see if it goes goofy cause of the date change. Tis July, 1493 now and all is well.)

[Yohane Architects 127]

I can use power to the masses cheat maybe.

or have everything placed with the select any building by landmark cheat

[Cool_Z 1,547]

On 6/10/2017 at 6:46 PM, CorinaMarie said:

And just for fun I set it to this:

 

 

[Yohane Architects 127]

Well it worked I can now start my cities to the dates normally found instead of 1900.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 minute ago, Yohane Architects said:

Well it worked I can now start my cities to the dates normally found instead of 1900.

Woot!

[Yohane Architects 127]

Ryuto City Past vs Present.

 

[SecretMbr_735754 2,157]

1 hour ago, Yohane Architects said:

Ryuto City Past vs Present.

Did you make a CJ or Gallery of pics on ST, if so can you link it?   Your SC3K cities are the most interesting examples of user-created content I've yet seen.

[catty-cb 4,392]

3 hours ago, RandyE said:

Did you make a CJ or Gallery of pics on ST, if so can you link it?   Your SC3K cities are the most interesting examples of user-created content I've yet seen.

Ditto that, @Yohane Architects posted a picture of his city over at CB Web (see front page)

https://community.simtropolis.com/clubs/26-city-builders-website/

I'll see if I can do a link to the fullsize picture .... can't link to it sorry I get a cloudflare error, need to check my settings over there and see if I can disable it 

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

9 hours ago, Yohane Architects said:

Ryuto City Past vs Present.

I love it! Drawing attention to the similarities and differences by encircling them in red is a good idea.

You could also post those pics in the Show us your before/after shots! thread. While that is actually in the SC4 section you could preface it by saying you know your pics are not SC4, but @CorinaMarie suggested peeps might like to see this. And one little tip. (Hopefully you won't mind.) Maybe turn off the grid before making the pics like you did in your post above.

Also, I feel this deserves its own thread here in the SC3000 section. I could split these posts out of this thread staring with your before and after one. Right now it seems a shame to have it buried in the midst of a technical thread. I would make the title Ryuto City, but you could change it if you wanted. Let me know if you'd like me to do this.

[Yohane Architects 127]

I have made the old 1500s town just need to fill the map with farms and vegetation.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

12 minutes ago, Yohane Architects said:

I have made the old 1500s town just need to fill the map with farms and vegetation.

Excellent.

[Yohane Architects 127]

On 6/10/2017 at 6:46 PM, CorinaMarie said:

And just for fun I set it to this:

I love <3 this time travelling device, cites from sc3k past 2050 seems uncanny for me. I like to edit them back in the 1900's and play them up to the 80s or 90s based on the SimCity technology and buildings.

[asasnat 216]

On 6/6/2017 at 12:18 PM, chfzdn said:

Unfortunately, we can't do this easily in SC4. SC4 is too complex. But, it's not impossible to do that. Just more difficult.

But the way, the result is impressive. It's more easily to mod than SC4. But, lack of advanced modders (those are create DLLs) makes barrier on this.

Hmm, I'm starting to gain some programming knowledge. Slowly but surely. Maybe I could be the one to reverse-engineer the inner workings of this game and develop modding? Who knows, time will tell.

On 6/11/2017 at 2:10 AM, CorinaMarie said:

Surprisingly I can plop either Coal or Oil Power Plants.

That's because both are always unlocked from year 0 onward. I don't know why they had to do it this way, they could've just made them available in 1900 and everything would work fine I think.

[TM Chan 0]

On 6/6/2017 at 8:57 AM, CorinaMarie said:

I can hide your file until you are ready to upload a new one. Or you could use the one I attached above, do a Save As (in game) to get the name you want (or leave it as is), and then upload that to your STEX entry.

 

The method outlined in this post above does work if tweaked a wee little bit. The whole problem is in step 5. Jumping to 5020 does not put us past the first entry and so the rest doesn't work because we are not in the right place. Here's a simplified version:

1. Download and install the HxD Hex Editor.
2. Start a new city on easy level and take out 10 loans of 25k each.
3. Save the city and exit the game.
4. Open the HxD Editor.
5. Load your .sc3 saved city file.
6. Press F3 to bring up the Find dialog box. Type in e09304 and change Datatype to Hex-values. (See pic below.)
7. Click ok. It'll find the first instance. Press F3 and it will find the 2nd instance.
8. Replace the E0 93 04 with FF FF FF and the 05 to the right with 06.
9. Save the file and exit HxD Editor.
10. Load the city in your game.

 

Edit: I just noticed this:

Based on my testing I believe it is stored in two places and the first one in the 0x5000 block is irrelevant. It's the later one (which floats all over the place location-wise) that is the single one that needs changed. That's the reason for doing the loans to have $300,000 on hand so that exact (reversed) hex value can be searched for. It also works for existing cities with specific uncommon funds. Like the Moscow city has $884,263 which is 0D 7E 27 in hex and is stored in the save files as 27 7E 0D.

Hello, I just tried the method for an existing city, but I always can find only the first instance when do the searching of HEX money, always no the 2nd instance and thus cannot edit the money. Why? Would you please help?

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

On 5/23/2023 at 3:47 PM, TM Chan said:

Hello, I just tried the method for an existing city, but I always can find only the first instance when do the searching of HEX money, always no the 2nd instance and thus cannot edit the money. Why? Would you please help?

Yikes!

I've been away for a couple of years, but if you are still needing help and come back we can look into this.

Edit: See my post below.

[Null 45 3,041]

On 6/5/2017 at 3:56 PM, CorinaMarie said:

Watching that video indicates the edit has to take place in the file while it's in memory. That might explain why my edits to the saved file on disk didn't work. What confuzzles me is how the game knew the un-hex-edited amount when re-loading the city.

It is possible that the total funds are stored in more than 1 location in the save file. I haven't found the budget layer save code yet, but the total funds are stored in 2 int64/quadword fields in memory.

It appears that a bunch of Maxis's internal development cheats were left in the Linux version of SC3K, while being removed from the Windows version. Maybe the Linux version of the game is a debug build? In addition to the usual development cheats (Save, Quit, etc) there is a dotcom cheat that gives the player 1 million simoleans. I have no clue why the Save and Quit cheats are part of the budget layer, possibly the developer of that component was the first to need them.

I am considering writing a SC3K extra cheats DLL that would re-add the dotcom cheat, and port over SC4's moolah and SimDate cheats (I saw a request in this thread about changing the in-game date). I am reusing the SC4 cheat names for that equivalent functionality because I can't think of anything better, but I am open to suggestions.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

4 hours ago, Null 45 said:

It is possible that the total funds are stored in more than 1 location in the save file.

Yep. I believe so too.

I've fairly sure that's what I discovered and worked out here, but I no longer have the means to actually test. (When I bumped this thread my thought was if @TM Chan came back I might be able to walk them thru it by asking for a screenshot or two and comparing to what I'd done long ago.)

[Null 45 3,041]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

Yep. I believe so too.

I got an 'extra cheats' DLL working that allows the funds and simulator date to be set in game, it also includes an implementation of the Maxis dotcom cheat that I mentioned above.

I confirmed that this info is preserved across saves.

I am not sure if the news ticker string can be directly set, I will have to investigate that part of the game code.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 minutes ago, Null 45 said:

I am not sure if the news ticker string can be directly set, I will have to investigate that part of the game code.

I'm sure you can.

(I did it in my first post of this thread tho I don't recall how now.)

[Null 45 3,041]

58 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

(I did it in my first post of this thread tho I don't recall how now.)

I attempted to update the news ticker using the message that the game sends when pausing or unpausing, it didn't work. There is a second message for updating the news ticker, but it is significantly more complicated to use.  It requires 2 news ticker structures that the compiler appears to have removed all layout information for, which makes them very difficult to reverse engineer.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

@Null 45 Sounds complexicated! You're well beyond my techy level so I'll just wish you good luck.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

On 5/23/2023 at 3:47 PM, TM Chan said:

Hello, I just tried the method for an existing city, but I always can find only the first instance when do the searching of HEX money, always no the 2nd instance and thus cannot edit the money. Why? Would you please help?

New, better answer! See here:

 

[Gernot66 186]

Cheat engines are ok but it's a hell if you have to bypass such junkware, i use since decades a simple but powerful hex-editor (Tiny Hexer) which can browse as well a running task. It's not as easy to find the respective value if you loose/gain like with a cheat engine but results in the same. Perhaps a bit advanced i'm aware, it's like working with the cheat engine of MESS you have to know the adresses and find them yourself.

Gell?

255 marios