HEX EDITING: Adding more AI to the stock levels.

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 10:43 am

That's probably why the PSP was so crappy, with no online play, a bunch of levels missing...
No offense to the ONE PORTING GUY. I guess he did his best before the deadline. There wasn't nearly enough attention for the PSP, it'd seem.
But the PSP is just like the PC in that, if you hex edit something, it will change if it's supposed to. This psych0fred gentleman would just need to know if raising the AI per team limit would be possible in the PC version via hexing, because if it change be changed in the PC, it should be able to be changed in the PSP.

Post by **Teancum** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 12:12 pm

I can tell you right now from conversations with him that he wouldn't have the foggiest on the PSP's engine specs. He said the most he did on it was 'watch it being played on a dev machine'.

Sorry

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 10:25 pm

As I just said, changing the AI per team has nothing to do with the PSP in particular. If he knows how to change the AI per team with hex editing on the PC, then it will work for the PSP, so all he needs to know is what works on the PC because the PSP and PC are dangerously similar in their .LVLs.
For example, in the shell.lvl files for both the PC and PSP, there's a HUGE amount of stuff about "UnitCount", but I couldn't figure any of it out.

So, if he has the foggiest idea on how to hex edit to change the AI per team on the PC, whether it be global or level-specific, I would really love it if he'd tell me. Or you so you can tell me.

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 8:12 pm

So he doesn't know anything about changing the AI per team on the PC? Really?

Post by **Teancum** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 8:49 pm

Apparently you're not following man. Munges are different for each game. The source files may look exactly the same, but the programs used to compile them are different. That's why he'd have no idea. As I said before, you should look at the LUA scripts, as mission scripts reference, setup_teams.lua to set unit counts. Without knowing how to flat out read hex, I wish you the best of luck.

And again, with the engine, I was referring to my post about each different platform having a cap on the number of AI it can have. It's extremely probable, since the PSP is the weakest of all platforms, that what you see in-game is the very max AI you can get. But without having the specs on what the max is, without having PSP munge executables, without having PSP lua scripts, we have no way to help.

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:27 pm

Why didn't you say any of that before I double-posted?

20 AI per team isn't the actual limit for every map, dude. Mos Eisley has an excess of jawas, combined with the 20 standard AI and it doesn't skip a beat.
The cap limit has nothing to do with anything at this point, unless jawas somehow don't contribute to a cap limit. If jawas DO contribute, then it's about how high the AI Per Team variable will go.
The single player gets 10 AI per team as an option while the multiplayer gets 6 AI per team as an option, even though some gametypes that make the player alone allow for more than twelve enemies at one time. A cap limit wouldn't govern that single player/multiplayer AI limit difference.

Post by **Teancum** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:57 pm

Yes, but the Jawas are a separate team. So if your settings in-game are for the Max AI, that may be all you got.

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:58 pm

I don't understand your second sentence.
You read my second paragraph, right?

valiant · Post by **valiant** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 9:44 am

you could always use xl mode.

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 7:40 pm

It's the PSP version, so the mission.lvl doesn't have XL in it.

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 10:51 pm

It's become terribly obvious to me that shell.lvl doesn't seem to determine the AI Per Team amount. Or, in the least, the many "numbots" values have nothing to do with said amount, as they're perfectly identical on both the PC and the PSP. It seems that they only refer to the placement of AI per team in the options.
I may never change the AI Per Team, assuming it's not a defineable variable in the .LVL files, which surely it is.
I guess all I can do is work on getting levels into the PSP game without removing originals...

Post by **Teancum** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 11:03 pm

mission.lvl determines units, counts, etc. shell.lvl would determine what maps go in and what don't.

Just out of sheer curiosity, have you tried replacing the PSP's mission.lvl with the PC's?

Adreniline · Post by **Adreniline** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 11:10 pm

Broadus wrote:

I don't know how to munge a mission.lvl, but I know that if I did, it would screw everything up. When I take the present mission.lvl from the PC and put it onto the PSP, nothing changes except the models in the game get stretchy and weird and no sounds work.

Yes, he tried

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 11:22 pm

Yep, like Adreniline said. The reason everything gets stretchy is probably because the PSP has both "SetPSPModelMemory" and "SetPS2ModelMemory", while the PC only has "SetPS2ModelMemory". Though I'm not sure about the sound. Still, the PC mission.lvl doesn't add any more AI, sadly.

Broadus · Post by **Broadus** » Mon Oct 16, 2006 9:12 pm

So, what makes a level use units =, as opposed to the number set in the options?
Like, XL and the single player campaign use units =, so if you change the number after units =, it will change the number of AI that spawn. However, in all of the other gametypes, units = does absolutely nothing whatsoever.

I've been doing some studying, and I think I may have figured out how to munge my own mission.lvl using BF2 Mod Tools. Using the PC mission.lvl for the PSP works, but the models look jagged and crazy. So, I'm going test my theory on tat2g_eli (Mos Eisley's Hero Assault).
BUT I NEED YOUR HELP! Or whoever, really.

On the PC version of tat2g_eli, via hex editing, I found this (had to make it an image):

On the PSP version of tat2g_eli, via hex editing, I found this (also an image):

The differences are obvious. Ignore the SetMemoryPoolSize.

In the PC LUA of tat2g_eli (don't have the PSP LUA, obviously), that PC hex looks like this:

Code: Select all

StealArtistHeap(1536*1024)
SetPS2ModelMemory(2097152 + 65536 * 8)

If I'm right, in order to munge my own mission.lvl for the PSP without any stretchy visual errors, I need to add in ScriptCBGetPlatform, SetPSPModelMemory and SetPSPClipper, with the values shown in the picture, translated to something compatible with LUA. Also, I'll probably have to change the values of the StealArtistHeap and SetPS2ModelMemory (I'm not sure).
So... Anyone know what that might look like?