Easiest in-game Eschalon Character Editor!

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Ssschah
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Easiest in-game Eschalon Character Editor!

Post by Ssschah »

For all you looking to experiment, boost, or, just cheat, I have recently discovered what I consider the easiest way to do so! I, myself, have never wanted to mess around with scripts, or anything of the sort, so this is probably the best way to edit your character in-game (WHILE THE GAME IS RUNNING) for most of you as well.
Games this works for, so far:
Eschalon Book I: Unknown.
Eschalon Book II: Confirmed.
Eschalon Book III: Unconfirmed.
Before I jump into it, I'd like to give a moment to say that this *could* potentially screw up your game if you edit the wrong thing, so it wouldn't hurt to back things up and SAVE OFTEN if you're going to use this to cheat.
If you've played a game called "Faster Than Light" (on Mac), you've probably heard of this before. I'm not sure if this works on Windows, sorry!
Ok, here we go.
First, you'll want to download something called "Bit Slicer" (it's free)
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/34765/bit-slicer.
Now, according to the most recent download, it only works on Mac OS X 10.8+, but I run it on 10.7 (Lion) just fine.
So once you have Bitslicer, here's how you set it up.
It will ask you for your password everytime you start the application, then it will bring you to a short menu full of stuff that I don't even understand, but it's actually quite simple. You set it up EXACTLY as if you were playing FTL.
1. For the "Target", select it, scroll down, and select whichever Eschalon game you're playing (yes, the game can be open, and I'd suggest it is beforehand so it's on the list provided).
2. Next, set the data type to 32-bit Integer.
3. Select "signed".
4. Move down to the "Function" and ignore everything else above it. Set this to "= Value".
5. Lastly, the actual editing part. For the purpose of helping you understand, let's pretend you're stuck on money in an Eschalon Book 3 game you've been playing for a while. You have, say, 543 gold. Put that exact number in the "Value:" box, then hit "Search". Now, the lower the number you input, the longer the time it will load, but if it's higher than 100 it will only take about 10 seconds to load. (I just tried to load 0 for the amount of starting gold in Book 3, and it spent 25 minutes loading upwards of 50 million values so I highly recommend you DO NOT TRY TO ADJUST THE STARTING GOLD.)
Next, just keep playing the game. You can't do anything until the value you're trying to change, changes on its own so we can be certain. Let's say the next thing that happens is you sell a shield. +20 gold (give or take). Put 563 in the value box to replace the number you had there before. Hit Search. This narrows down the values it's giving you. Basically, it's now only searching for values that changed from a 543 to a 563, which isn't very many. On the assumption that there's one value, all you have to do is edit that number to anything you like. You can make it 999999 (I think. Though, I wouldn't set it that high, personally). Then when you go back to your game, you'll have that much gold.
Now onto the trickier stuff. If it generates more than one value. At this point, you can go through all the values one by one, changing one to the amount you want, checking your game, if it doesn't change repeating the process. Eventually, the one you want will come along. The easier way to deal with this, is to of course change your current gold value again in-game and narrow down the results further.
Let's say you've changed your gold, and now you want to change your experience. To change anything other than the value you've been narrowing down, you have to click the "Reset" button directly to the left of "Search". From here, you can figure it out (repeat the process above with the new thing you're trying to change).
Note: I haven't been able to change any attributes successfully, but you can temporarily set HP and mana above the maximum. And the xp seems a bit glitchy; You can set it above the next level marker and it won't tell you leveled up. But gold works for certain!
Note 2: I've only tested this for Eschalon Book II on my Mac. May not work for all the games.
Warning: Use this at your own risk. Not supported by Basilisk Games, and don't blame me if it screws up your game! (backups are called backups for a reason. As are saves).
Thynar
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Re: Easiest in-game Eschalon Character Editor!

Post by Thynar »

But I don't have a Mac, how do I do this?
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SpottedShroom
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Re: Easiest in-game Eschalon Character Editor!

Post by SpottedShroom »

I wouldn't call search-and-replace memory of a running process easier than using the python/X11 character editor, but to each their own.
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Ssschah
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Re: Easiest in-game Eschalon Character Editor!

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SpottedShroom wrote:I wouldn't call search-and-replace memory of a running process easier than using the python/X11 character editor, but to each their own.
True enough, but sadly the editor won't work on my computer. This will have to do.
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SpottedShroom
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Re: Easiest in-game Eschalon Character Editor!

Post by SpottedShroom »

Ssschah wrote: True enough, but sadly the editor won't work on my computer. This will have to do.
Mac OS 10.6?
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Ssschah
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Re: Easiest in-game Eschalon Character Editor!

Post by Ssschah »

SpottedShroom wrote:
Ssschah wrote: True enough, but sadly the editor won't work on my computer. This will have to do.
Mac OS 10.6?
OS 10.7 I can't get X11 to work, so the editor won't work either.
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SpottedShroom
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Re: Easiest in-game Eschalon Character Editor!

Post by SpottedShroom »

Ssschah wrote:
SpottedShroom wrote:
Ssschah wrote: True enough, but sadly the editor won't work on my computer. This will have to do.
Mac OS 10.6?
OS 10.7 I can't get X11 to work, so the editor won't work either.
How exactly does X11 not work? Have you tried the latest XQuartz instead of the X11.app that ships with 10.7?
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Re: Easiest in-game Eschalon Character Editor!

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]How exactly does X11 not work? Have you tried the latest XQuartz instead of the X11.app that ships with 10.7?
I've tried XQuartz, X11, heck, I've even tried things along the lines of Wine. They either don't start, or they send all sorts of errors to Terminal. I haven't investigated very thoroughly, but I'm not sure how to fix it.
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SpottedShroom
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Re: Easiest in-game Eschalon Character Editor!

Post by SpottedShroom »

Ssschah wrote:
]How exactly does X11 not work? Have you tried the latest XQuartz instead of the X11.app that ships with 10.7?
I've tried XQuartz, X11, heck, I've even tried things along the lines of Wine. They either don't start, or they send all sorts of errors to Terminal. I haven't investigated very thoroughly, but I'm not sure how to fix it.
If you like I'll do my best to help you get it working. PM me if you're interested.
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Ssschah
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Re: Easiest in-game Eschalon Character Editor!

Post by Ssschah »

SpottedShroom wrote:
Ssschah wrote:
]How exactly does X11 not work? Have you tried the latest XQuartz instead of the X11.app that ships with 10.7?
I've tried XQuartz, X11, heck, I've even tried things along the lines of Wine. They either don't start, or they send all sorts of errors to Terminal. I haven't investigated very thoroughly, but I'm not sure how to fix it.
If you like I'll do my best to help you get it working. PM me if you're interested.
Computer is currently getting fixed. I am interested in your offer, though. Maybe in a few days.
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