UFO – Extraterrestrials

UFO - Extraterrestrials

Savegame Editing:
-----------------
Submitted by: RM

First unpack the save game using the command:

ProjectX.exe saveeditor.xscr unpack slot[n]

Where [n] is the save slot you want to use.
This creates 3 text files.
Open globeSave.xsv in a text editor.
Change the value after 'actualFinance' to 
2,000,000,000 to get that much money.

Search for all instances of:

agilityACT/agilityMAX, braveryACT/braveryMAX, 
perceptionACT/perceptionMAX, shootingACT/shootingMAX, 
strengthACT/strengthMAX, throwingACT/throwingMAX, 
vitalityACT/vitalityMAX 

and change to 100 to max out stats.

Change all instances of 'rank' to 12 for highest rank.

(Note: when units are promoted they get bonus points to spend and if 
your stats are all = max, it will not let you proceed. 
Setting rank to max should avoid the problem).
The value for 'Technicians' and 'Scientists' can be changed to speed 
up research and production.
Finally, to build base facilities instantly you can change the 
corresponding 'build' value to 'true', but this can cause issues in 
the game.
The values in the 'storeItems' section correspond to all the items 
in your bases, make sure you already have at least 1 or research 
items may not trigger correctly.
Note: Combat mission saves when unpacked have missionSave.xsv and you
can win missions easily if you replace all 'stunned false' to 'stunned 
true' which will stun all the aliens.
When done, repack the save game with:

ProjectX.exe saveeditor.xscr pack slot[n]


Setting Up So We Can Do Mods 
============================ 
- Put "XBig.exe" in the directory Data". 
- Run CMD (the dosbox window). 
- Type in: cd "Data" 
- Type in: xbig.exe e system.xbg 
- When it's finished you'll find a lot of new files in the "Data" folder. 
System.xbg unpacks into a lot of files with the *.xscr extension, and these 
are the files that you can edit to Mod the game. 
- Rename "system.xbg" to "system.bak" for backup purposes. 
- Important: for this step we will use one of the two "Blank*.xbig" files: 
* Use "Blank.xbig" - if you have the English retail version of the game. 
* Use "Blank - Russian.xbig" if you have the cracked Russian version (but 
installed with the English language). 
* Copy the appropriate file into the "Data" folder". 
- Rename the appropriate file from the above step to "System.xbg". 
- Notice that XBIG becomes XBG. this is important! 
- The purpose of the above steps is to fool the game into using this new 
"System.xbg" file, which is really blank, so the game has to use the other 
file that you unpacked from the original "system.xbg". 
- Backup all the new folders and the "*.xscr" files so you can edit them, etc. 


Modding To Make The Game A Little Better 
======================================== 
Ok, now to do some modding to make the game a little better: 

File: Default.cfg 
----------------- 
soldiers 
{ 
walkSpeed 0.0014 // old value: 0.0016 
runSpeed 0.0033 
walkFrInterval 90 // old value: 100 
runFrInterval 100 
rotateInterval 100 
} 

Removing a single zero after decimal point in walkSpeed and runSpeed values will 
significally speed up units animation in battles. 

camera 
{ 
// All types of movement 
speed 0.015 
// When following an object, how far from the center of the screen it is 
// allowed to go 
follow_dist 4 
// How far from the unit to jump when shooting 
preshoot_jump 0 
// Wait this time after jumping to the unit before creating the bullet 
preshoot_delay 500 
// How long to wait looking at the explosion before shooting the next bullet 
// from burst shoot 
shoot_retreat_delay 1000 
} 

Doing the same to speed value here will make camera do it's "selection scroll" 
so much faster. 

File: consts.xscr 
----------------- 
To change how many technicians and scientists you get with each lab/workshop: 

const int WORKSHOP_TECHNICIANS = 10; 
const int ADVANCED_WORKSHOP_TECHNICIANS = 30; 
const int LABORATORY_SCIENTISTS = 10; 
const int DOUBLE_LABORATORY_SCIENTISTS = 30; 

To change the economy and how much stuff buys/sells for, just increase: 

const float BUY_SELL_PRICE_NORMAL = 0.3; 
// Normal buy/sell price is 30% from production price 
const float BUY_SELL_PRICE_ALIEN_ARTIFACT = 0.4; 
// Unknown ship item price is 10% from buyPrice 

FOR SIGHT RANGE to increase range of view (these are MY settings). 
This will be MUCH better on the map and give you better viewing degrees: 

const float SIGHT_H_ANGLE = PI/1.5; 
const float SIGHT_V_ANGLE = PI/1.5; 

I also increased the RANGE and made the range for the AI the same instead of greater 
than mine (but you can just increase each by 2 and leave the aliens with an advantage 
if you want): 

const int SIGHT_RANGE = 16; 
const int AI_SIGHT_RANGE = 16; 

You might want to set it to 18 and 20 instead of 16 and 16 to give you and the AI 
an even bigger boost and let the aliens keep their advantage (only slightly). 


Debug/Cheats 
============ 
This explains how to enable the debug/cheats and what is available after you enable them. 

To unlock TONS of debug and cheat hot keys, open up Const.xscr and change 

const bool debugKeys = false; 
to 
const bool debugKeys = true; 

Now all of the debug and cheat keys will work. Here are all the various cheats 
and debug keys that now work: 

Tactical Mode Hot Keys: 
----------------------- 
Shift + Arrow Keys Rotate camera around and change viewing angle freely. 
Numpad +- Zoom camera in and out. 
Numpad / & * Change camera perspective. 
Numpad 1-9 Number keys moves the camera around. 
Numpad Enter Returns the camera to default settings. 
Numpad Del Resets camera lock-on/center. E.G. when it locks on to 
follow a bullet or scroll to your soldier starting to move 
you can tap this. 
Numpad Ins Instantly centers camera on your selected unit. 
Pause Use pause key to disable that grid/s. 
PgUp/PgDown Switch elevation levels. 
Arrow Keys Move your units. (Un)fortunately you also move through 
walls and impassable tiles when doing that. 
Spacebar Press it during aliens' turn to end their turn immediately. 
S Fully reveals fog of war and grants complete viewing range. 
L Kills all foes instantly. End turn to win. 
A Auto-battle. The PC takes over and plays instead of you. 
Press space to regain control. 
1,2,3,4,5 Equips currently selected soldier in different kinds of 
armor, 1 being the worst, 5 being the best. 
O If vitality parameter of currently selected soldier is > 
35, decreases it by 5 each time you press the key. 
P If vitality is <=95, increases it by 5 each time. 
U,I Does same things respectively for shooting parameter. 
Q Fully restore unit's AP. 
K Kill your currently selected unit. 
B Blasts whole level to smithereens making a level field out 
of it. All buildings, walls, obstacles get destroyed. It 
doesn't actually harm any entities. Fun to see first time. 

Geoscape: 
--------- 
F7 Brings up the Geoscape debug menu which is very interesting. 

It shows the intelligence score for you and the aliens in different countries, 
which probably influences chances to find each other's bases. 

It also displays your exact score country by country, telling you exactly how many, 
and in which countries, there are alien bases. 

It allows you to generate UFO's and terror sites, edit your finances, increase or 
reduce alien aggression level, enable Geoscape debug mode which grants you a great 
deal of power over UFO's by just clicking on them. There's no way you can disable 
it, I guess. 

F9 - Displays some debug info including FPS. 
F10 - Disables displaying of the debug info. 
A - Increase alien agression level by 20 points. 
G - Generates 20 random UFO's. 
M - Generates a random UFO. Perhaps it also gives you complete radar 
coverage over the entire globe, I'm not sure. 
B - Generates UFO with retaliation mission. 
C - Generates UFO with build base mission. 
V - Generates UFO with spy mission. 
T - Generates UFO with terror mission. 
D - Dumps a bunch of Geoscape-related info to files. 
S - Recruits new soldiers. 
P - Promote all soldiers, you get to distribute 5 points with each soldier. 
Even those who are already of maximum rank. 
U - Unlocks the whole UFOpedia. 
Y - Adds 10 of every item in your base stores. 
J - Adds 1,000,000 of money. Go to the base screen in order to see it. 
7,8,9 - Presumably instantly starts base defense missions on your first, second 
or third base. For me, the game crashed. 

That's it for the debug and cheat keys. There's lots of good cheats here, including 
recruiting soldiers, leveling them, money, etc. 


Editing Saved Games 
=================== 
First, unpack the save game using this command: 

ProjectX.exe saveeditor.xscr unpack slot{n} 

where {n} is the save slot you want to use. 

This creates 3 text files: 

baseSave.xsv 
globeSave.xsv 
metadata 

The file "Metadata" is useless, but the other two files are text files that you can edit. 

Note: Combat mission saves, when unpacked, also have an additional file, 
"missionSave.xsv", and you can win missions easily if you replace all 
'stunned false' entries to 'stunned true', which will stun all of the 
aliens. 

In globeSave.xsv you can edit your money, Game time, and lots of other things, including 
your troops and inventory. Search for strength and you find: 

className "CVector" 
} //rightShoulder 
shootingACT 86 
shootingMAX 86 
size 1 
strengthACT 92 
strengthMAX 92 
throwingACT 92 
throwingMAX 94 
totalDamage 0 
unitTypeId "human" 
vitalityACT 95 
vitalityMAX 95 

It's the actual (the ACT) amount of the stats and then the maximum, you can edit those four 
stats, but agility and perception are located a little further up. Just search for each of 
them and you can change the stats for each. You can also change what armor they have and so 
forth. You can search for your trooper names in there as well and the info for them (their 
inventory, etc.) is around. The "CVector" is a class that stands for a trooper. Now, in 
baseSave.xsv you can edit what techs are available, what UFOpedia stuff is unlocked, etc. 
At the beginning you see lots of entries like: 

24 
{ 
available false 
className "WeaponXFileCartridgeType" 
otherData "weapons.Pweapons.other.plasmaRifleAmmo" 

Change available to true and you should be able to have whatever you want. I have not 
played with it yet (you may need to change some other stuff further down?). 

UFOpedia entries are under: UFOpediaTree. 

On to editing some specific values. 

Open "globeSave.xsv" in a text editor. Search for the value 'actualFinance' and change 
the value after it to 2,000,000,000 to get that much money. 

Search for all instances of: 

agilityACT/agilityMAX 
braveryACT/braveryMAX 
perceptionACT/perceptionMAX 
shootingACT/shootingMAX 
strengthACT/strengthMAX 
throwingACT/throwingMAX 
vitalityACT/vitalityMAX 

and change each value to 100 to max out the stats. 

Search for all instances of 'rank' and change the value to 12 for the highest rank. 

Note: When units are promoted they get bonus points to spend, and if your stats 
are all equal to the max, it will not let you proceed. Setting rank to 
the max should avoid the problem. 

The values for 'Technicians' and 'Scientists' can be changed to speed up research 
and production. 

Finally, to build base facilities instantly you can change the corresponding 'build' 
value to 'true', but this can cause issues in the game. 

The values in the 'storeItems' section correspond to all the items in your bases, make 
sure you already have at least 1 or research items may not trigger correctly. 

When done, repack the save game with: 

ProjectX.exe saveeditor.xscr pack slot{n} 

Note: When you unpack and pack a save game the game will be launched and then 
just sit there. SO, press alt-F4 to close the program after each 
pack/unpack. 

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