[OrionSR]

<Enex Testing 003>

I was going to abandon this save, but it ended up being fairly interesting anyway. I'm glad I've got your interest though, I need someone to do the testing for me. This file has some interesting features, and not everything is working, but the save file is a little flaky so I need to start a new game. This is a In the Beginning save created with the IPL enexes I was experimenting with but messed up my other gamesaves so the new paths were removed from my system files. However, this file has a few interesting surprises so I included my updates in it.

1. Loads at Palomino Creek - there's a surprise out front; it should be fairly obvious.
Changed the price, model, a flag or something, and the type on Palomino's save icon to match those available for purchase in Los Santos. Search for F8 04 02 00 11 20 - locked, and F9 04 02 00 12 10 - unlocked.

2. Make your way to Blueberry Acres, or change the load spot to the apartment, and check out the new item types in the usual spot in the field. The save disk doesn't work, and I tried moving the Airstrip Save Icon to the same general area but it didn't move. But if anything weird happens between the spawn pile and the SMG, please let me know.
Working Oyster, Horseshoe, and Photo Icon. Counts as collected in stats, items to collect is still 50.

3. Change the load spot to Hashbury with the save editor and load again. If you find that interesting, Prickle Pine is also pretty good. Be sure to check the wardrobes as well.
CJ will exit the wardrobes or safehouse to unexpected locations like Pier 69 or a small casino in NW Las Venturas. Caused by using standard enex paths on a save created with a few modification. Entrance permissions are also scrambled.

The glowing lights in the Fern Jetpack save were rockets and hydra flares. The flares disappear for a while when touched. At the time I could only work with weapons type, but they ended up being one of the better choices. Adrenaline Pills must be a built in feature of the GTA3 engine used in San Andreas, they just didn't implement them, but change the type and there they are. It looks pretty bad with the frame limiter off.

And the garages wouldn't open for the NRGs because that was part of the challenge. I got Engineless NRGs into a garage that had never been opened, so they obviously were not spawned. However, I should have left one alone for comparison.

This post has been edited by OrionSR on Wednesday, Aug 8 2007, 06:04

[OrionSR]

I can read the spawn pool in the save file fairly well now. I can see the rapidly respawning sniper rifle on top of the hill overlooking the SF airport and Fire Extinquishers that are inserted through IPL and missing from many people's 2nd game because they started from their other gamesave and didn't start up fresh. There are the IR Goggle marked as spawn until collected just like the oysters and and horseshoes, that can easily be fixed.

It helped to start with a nice clean file, even going into the Pig Pen caused extra spawns to be inserted into the pool. Now I can read it fairly well. All the drops and spawns; cop guns, money, gang war weapons, armor and health, and apparently lots of cocktails from the End of the Line mission. It all ends up in the spawn pool, which is constantly changing and updating as the game progresses.

Some of the spawns are used and will shortly be marked as expired. Expired spawned eventually get deleted and possibly tracked in the pool so I've been leaving them alone. But expired and used spawns are fair game. All I need to do is change the type or fix the flags and the spawn become permanent, or oyster, or anything else I can spawn.

But it looks like all I need to do to insert new objects into a save is copy and paste the relevant bytes into a blank section of the pool, or over temporary spawns before they are deleted. If I understand the tools properly, I should be able to place objects with a 3d Mapping tool, export the new items to IPL, start a new game to convert the IPL to gamesave format, and then copy and paste the new items into the save.

Oh yeah, and fix the checksum, can't forget that step. I'm still looking for a method to add vehicles spawns to an existing game.

[rubregg]

ah. good, the forum's up again

I tried out your "<Enex Testing 003>" save. Cool spawning edits!

• loading at Palomino Creek: ok, so I found out that buying the save house *gives* me money (negative value, I suppose?), but I'm confused about the screen output. The icon looks as if buying the house costs $297.680, and when I buy it my money increases by $30.000.

• loading at Hashbury: The wardrobe takes me to El Quebrados and the door to Redsands West. In both cases I first get a 'Whetstone' location notification on the screen before the real one shows up.

• loading at Prickle Pine: The wardrobe beams me to Pier 69, with a 'The Strip' notification in-between. The door beams me to the Camels Toe save house, outside the wardrobe; the wardrobe beams me back. Way cool!

• running around Blueberry Acres - everything as you described, and nothing strange happens between the icons and the SMG. Are the Horseshoe and Oyster additional icons or moved ones? Since they're 'counting' in the stats and all....

Today I finally found a bit of time to read through your postings. I think I'm getting the basic idea of what you're doing, but I'm still lost in the details. Still following with great interest though!!

In 'Skipping Palomino' I've managed 12 jumps within the 4:30 time limit and I'm currently trying on the 13....

[OrionSR]

QUOTE (rubregg @ Aug 8 2007, 15:31)

ah. good, the forum's up again I tried out your "<Enex Testing 003>" save. Cool spawning edits!

I wish I had a clue about editing the path nodes. It would make alternate load locations a lot easier. I'd like to start poking around with them but I'm absolutely clueless about where to start. This is simply the result of using standard pathnodes on a non-standard save. I'm not sure how to take advantage of this other than try it out as see what happens.

QUOTE

• loading at Palomino Creek: ok, so I found out that buying the save house *gives* me money (negative value, I suppose?), but I'm confused about the screen output. The icon looks as if buying the house costs $297.680, and when I buy it my money increases by $30.000.

This has something to do with the way the program is reading this variable. Whatever does the money treats it as a number that can only be positive or negative, and the display routine reads it as a positive number only - or something like that. I'm still getting confused about the correct terminology. I think I need to revise several of my descriptions to read as characters instead of bytes. If I understand it correctly, F is a byte, FF is a character, FF FF is a word, and FF FF FF FF is a dword. Anyway, depending on how the variable is defined, FF could be -1 or 255. (signed and unsigned integers)

I followed up on the obvious potential glitch of picking the lock. BTW, I suspect I could make that icon an MP5 and unlock the door when it was collected, but there's no need to get too weird about the variables. Anyway, I picked the lock at Fort Carson, bought the house, and then completed Yay Ka-Boom Boom to unlock the desert. Nothing crashed, so I don't think anything is broken, but a new buy icon was out front of the house, and when purchased, it didn't get rid of the green house map icon.

QUOTE

• running around Blueberry Acres - everything as you described, and nothing strange happens between the icons and the SMG. Are the Horseshoe and Oyster additional icons or moved ones? Since they're 'counting' in the stats and all....

The horseshoe, oyster, and photo ops appear to count just like any other of that type. I don't think it matters much which model is used, the type would control the action of scoring the item in the stats. The SAMA doesn't detect the new items either. On second thought, the model must be a primary consideration. The type influences display, collection, respawning, and recycling. The same type (type 3, collect once) is used for oysters, horseshoes, IR goggles, and the health in Madd Dogg's mansion, so the model for pickups is the primary factor for what they do.

QUOTE

Today I finally found a bit of time to read through your postings. I think I'm getting the basic idea of what you're doing, but I'm still lost in the details. Still following with great interest though!! In 'Skipping Palomino' I've managed 12 jumps within the 4:30 time limit and I'm currently trying on the 13....

Nice work on the jumps, I should settle back and play some more. Most of my game time now is running outside to see if everything is spawning the way I intend. If you decide you'd like to get into the editing, I'll try to do a rewrite and step you through the basics.

Vehicles: This block can expand during a new game, like when vehicles are added through IPL, but adding a new vehicle after that would require understanding the save format well enough to scoot around everything that follows. I think I'll stick to working with the 200 or so vehicle spawners current on the map. Moving them around, and changing their properties, isn't all that difficult. Also, there are 3 blank and 1 unused license plate slots. It only works on certain vehicles, but might make a nice touch on one of the events.

Pickups: This is a fixed size and a dynamic pool of items. New items can easily be added to the game by changing the types and properties of temporary drops, or possibly by filling in the blank spots in the pool.

Unique Jumps, Enexes, Paths, Audio Zones, and many other features of IPL do not appear to be recorded in the gamesave.

Looking at the documentation available, Objects and Garages are part of the gamesave, and it might be possible to install them through IPL on a new game.

Pathnode cubes (whatever that means) are part of the gamesave, and I think this is why the enex paths got scrambled. It sure would be cool to mix and match the nodes as desired, but I don't even know where to start.

Restart Possitions: This might be a better place to work on starting points for missions. It should be possible, there is a save anywhere mod included as an option in the Space Einstein mod. But again, I can't decode anything inside this block.

Blips: These are still giving me a bit of trouble. I can create new blips by laying down the map marker, saving, and then editing the marker's id so the marker function won't delete it the next time the marker is used. It doesn't have any trouble laying down a new markers even if it can't find the old one. The biggest problem I'm having is calculating the position. A 4 character float variable is used, and I haven't got a clue about how to transpose it to and from hex. Also, the map marker doesn't record an altitude, so to get the correct Z I need to lay another marker with an X or Y value equal to the Z value I'm after, and then transpose the numbers.

Update: I found a couple of tools to help translate to and from floating point and hex. Hex2Float and Float2Hex are apparently functions that are unavailable in spreadsheets, and I don't hold out much hope of building one myself. These links make it possible to decode and encode these coordinates accurately, but it's still and awkward process.

<IEEE-754 Hex2Dec HTML> - math professor's website
<IEEE-754 Dec2Hex HTML> - math professor's website
<Hex2Floa.EXE in Tools.rar> - somebody's game ripping tools, missing Floa2Hex

I can't remember all the values, but I've got some control over the blips that remain on radar when out of range and or have a mission circle associated with the blip. There are 60 or so icons to choose from, and if an icon isn't used, then the square blip that indicate position above or below CJ is displayed in either yellow, red, or blue. <Map Icon List>

Blips appear to be in a dynamic pool and are created and destroyed as required. I was able to dig out several of the old blips from the NRG-500 challenge before they got recycled. Unfortunately, I cannot get a corona associated with a blip. I'm starting to suspect that the coronas are objects with blips attached to them rather than the other way around.

If you want to see the progress I've made check out <Blip Testing 004>. Sorry, many of the locations are a little close together and clutter the radar, and the red house is a bit in the way. The main variables are icon type or color, with and without mission circles, with or without blips, and radar behavior. There's a blue marker on top of the hill; it took a while to get it up there instead of inside the hill.

This post has been edited by OrionSR on Friday, Aug 10 2007, 01:07

[OrionSR]

This post is a collection of the most recent saves for each event, but since the posts of the original descriptions are locked, I moved them over here. We should get things updated with the most recent information - I lost track of the better ideas.

Badlands Endurance Rally

<Badlands Endurance - no Catalina, no gangs>

Using the modified Bullet provided with the save, complete the following Unique Stunt Jumps and return the Black Bullet to the Palomino Creek garage. Completing the jump for the bonus is not required, but the jump must at least be found to trigger the slo-mo camera angle. Jump numbers (#) referenced are from maps provided by dark52. The timer starts with the loading of the save at 07:04, and ends with a screenshot in the Palomino Creek garage. Optionally, the Rally can be raced with other gamesaves, and an overall time recorded as the difference in time from the first jump until the car is parked in the garage. Additional screenshots of jumps or other highlights may be included in the Finishing screenshot.

1) Palomino Creek (#25)
2) Montgomery Intersection (#27)
3) Dillimore (#28)
4) Unity Station (#9)
5) Jefferson's Pedestrian Overpass (#13)
6) Palomino Creek garage (Finish)

Gold - 11:20 (4:00)
Silver - 11:40 (4:20)
Bronze - 12:00 (4:40)

Achievements

_____________________

Katie Jumps

<Katie Jumps - revert>

Meet Katie for a date while driving an NRG. The date will automatically fail due to the high wanted level, but Katie will remain on the back of the bike for 6 minutes before she bails and runs off. The goal is to complete as many SF unique stunt jumps as possible and score the bonus with Katie as a passenger.

Achievements

_____________________

Skipping Palomino

<Skipping Palomino (no mission markers)>

<Link to Palomino Post in this thread>

This post has been edited by OrionSR on Friday, Aug 10 2007, 00:27

[rubregg]

QUOTE (OrionSR @ Aug 9 2007, 12:16)

If I understand it correctly, F is a byte, FF is a character, FF FF is a word, and FF FF FF FF is a dword. Anyway, depending on how the variable is defined, FF could be -1 or 255. (signed and unsigned integers)

I'm also confused about the term 'char' or 'character' for a variable and I don't know what it means. But I do know that a 'byte' is FF, not F. One byte is 8 bits, so it can represent 2^8 = 256 different numbers:
00000000 -> 11111111 = 0 -> 255 = 00 -> FF.

Every 2-digit hex number your editor shows you represents one byte of the file you've opened.

On the others I just did a bit of reading:

The size of a 'word' actually depends on the computer architecture, and on our x86'es it's defined as 16 bits, which is 2 bytes, so FF FF. 'dword' is 'double word', so 32 bits or 4 bytes or FF FF FF FF. Similarly: qword - quadruple word - 64 bits - 8 bytes.

Signed Integers:
Oops. Looks like FF could mean even more than 255 or -1. I can only quote here, so according to wikipedia -1 would be the most commonly used 'Two's complement' representation. For many more see here.


Thanks again for keeping me informed about your editing frenzies. I'm not sure I'll have the time to really get into those myself too soon, but it's nice to know some basics and to have them all here in the topic.

Good idea on the 'event summary posting' too. I was eventually going to suggest something like that, but I was toying around with the thought of editing the first couple of posts in this topic, so that in the end we'd have all the final race descriptions (and save files) at the top of the thread. One posting per race for better linkability? Ah, details later, for now it's good to have them all together here.


I started taking in-game screenshots of the Skipping Palomino jumps. Since we're going to publish a map with the jumps, what would you think about spicing it up with in-game shots, similarly to the collectibles' maps by 708145? I was thinking something like one shot of the starting position and one shot in mid-jump, what do you say, too much of a spoiler?

I finally made 14 jumps in Skipping Palomino, hooray!! With 'survivor' achievement (last jump) but without any triple insanes.

[OrionSR]

Nice Screenshot for your Skipping Palomino run. I do like the colors we ended up with for this event. And although I still doubt that 15 can be complete within the time limit, I didn't uses the same jumps that you did. Besides, 14 was intense with very little margin for error.

I spent a little time poking around with the various properties of the vehicle spawners and looking through the block to see what was there. Many of the vehicles that spawn in fixed places are not one of the spawners. If I search for NRGs I only find the ones at the dry dock and bike school. The NRGs at the SF airport and LS car park must be generated someplace else. I guess this explains why certain spawns are more reliable than others. I was hoping to track down the lost Hotdog Trucks in LS, but there aren't any in the list.

I can toggle the display variable on the hidden vehicles. This includes all of the fixed spawns for the export list that are only available briefly. It seems like a bit of a waste. Unhiding the Monster at the 8-Track didn't seem to confuse the game at all after completing the mission. Another strange find is that the locked vehicles of girlfriends and the SF airport are actually two vehicles. One is always locked, and the other isn't. I'm not sure why they didn't toggle the locks instead how it is displayed. Also, if too many vehicle spawners are in the same general area (about 6 or 7), then they stop working as reliably. The furthest vehicle is unlikely to spawn until it is approached from a different direction - but we knew this already. I haven't messed with the locks other than to pass variables into them with IPL so I knew which parameters controlled the different fields, but I'm pretty sure I can unlock them and disable the alarms without any problem.

[crazyanurag]

Don't mind me. I've just come in here to break up your chatfest. I can't yet turn this thread into a triopoly until my friend decides to return the SA disc to me. But hey, nice thread, and plenty of good ideas. I'd be game for all of these!

You'll Never Walk Alone

[OrionSR]

More Enex Glitching

I messed around with adding and removing enexes again today. Below are some of the more interesting finds. A few might make a good alternate starting spot for rallies, but most are just interesting for the unusual location. I'm not having any luck figuring out how this glitch works. It sure would be nice to be able to plug any destination into the closet.

<LV Burgershot> - loads right there at the mission.
<Extra Room> - interesting lighting.
<Ghost House>- watch your step.
<Empty Plane> - from the Free Fall mission.
<Nice House> - I wonder why this wasn't used for a safehouse.
<Garcia and Caligula's> - don't forget to check the other side of Caligula's.
<Upper Pier 69> - out of reach of the cops, but needs a vehicle spawn.

[OrionSR]

<Enex Switching 06>

After comparing several different game starts with and without additional enexes, I finally figured out how the glitch works. In the process, I also learned how to pick the locks on all the doors. Unfortunately, the barbers, and store clerks still don't appear, so I've got some more work to do in that department. Still, I can now plug just about any door into any location.

Enex Switch 6 has several features. I'll leave most of them to a surprise, but mostly because it'll take a while to document everything properly. These are the basic things to look for:

All of the standard wardrobes have been redirected to what I thought might make the most interesting starting points for rallies or challenges. However, don't switch the load spot with the save game editor until after you've tried where I've got it saved. There is a surprise in the wardrobes, but you'll need to look around to find one that works.

I didn't change the main doors on the safe houses, but almost all of the other doors in Los Santos have been redirected to various interiors. Most of them are only accessible during missions or seen during cut scenes, but a few that aren't officially in the game at all. Some of the doors allow vehicles. Also, a few mission-only doors have been unlocked and left alone.

I can now save almost anywhere; you see what I mean when you load the save. This was something I stumbled across as I was putting the final touches on the crafted save. If you decide to skip the interior tour, then be sure to check out the tower lift downtown. This door opens some other great opportunities for rallies and challenges.


Wardobe Map

Link Enex Interior Changer -> Redirection
00DB CARLS Johnson House Int 00E3 to LV Steakhouse - Old Strip
00DE MADDOGS Maddog Top int none
00DF MDDOGS Maddog Bottom int none
0159 CHANGER Wardrobe Int N/A
015C SVVGMD Prickle Pine Int 0174 to Top of Pier 69
015D SVSFSM Paradiso Int 016F to Secret Valley - Smokin Beef Grill
015E SVLABIG LA's Big House Int 016C/D/E to Changer
015F SVSFMD Hashbury Int 0175 to Changer
0160 SVLASM Jefferson Int 016B to Big Ear Tower
0161 SVHOT1 Queens Int 0165 to Below the Belt
0162 SVVGHO1 Clown's Pocket Int 0168 to Tierra Robada Diner
0163 SVVGHO2 Old Venturas Strip Int 0169 to Juniper Hollow Diner - near Katie's
0164 SVc*nt Dillimore Int 016A to Lil Probe Inn
0166 SVGNMT2 Red Bed Room 016C/D/E to Changer
0167 SVGNMT1 Tan Bed Room 016C/D/E to Changer
0171 SVSFBG Calton Heights Int 0170 to Top of Dam
0172 SVLAMD Verdant Bluffs Int 0173 to Caligula's Roof S

Since Hashbury changer is near the bottom of the list it was the easiest location to use for testing. On this save left to the default setting.

This is the normal link for Hashbury's connection to it's wardrobe.

CODE

75 01 04 40 59 01

75 01 - Hashbury's interior's link address
04 - <Door Flags>
40 - door is unlocked
59 01 - link to changer.

The link addresses listed are for a save with standard enex connections. The 2nd hex number is the changer door associated with that interior. If custom IPL enexes are added in GTA.DAT before the standard IPL enexes, then the links will be shifted accordingly. Links are constantly being rebuilt. By default, the changer is linked to the Queen's interior until it is used from another safe house, then the changer changes it link to the new safehouse until used from another location. Same thing happens with multiple doors to the same interior. There's only 3 bytes difference (and the checksum) between saves at the different country houses; the link in, the link out, and... the same change in an object or something I can't identify.

I've got a good list of the various interiors relinked in this save, but it's fairly long (including the ones I didn't change, 50 links) and will clutter things considerably. There are 375 default links, the full list would be more than appropriate, and my list is still fairly incomplete.

This post has been edited by OrionSR on Wednesday, Aug 15 2007, 09:58

[rubregg]

@OrionSR
Phew, you've surely done loads of great research there. I've been away for a few days, but I continued brushing up the map for Skipping Palomino. I'm going to put it on a website similar to those collectibles maps with clickable in-game pictures, so I had to learn a bit of javascript (from scratch). I'll have even less time than usual for the coming 2 weeks, but what I have so far looks promising. What's left to do is getting the map clickable, which I'll figure out eventually.

@crazyanurag
Hey, great to see you back, mate
Hope you'll get that disc back soon...

[OrionSR]

I posted a different version of this report in another topic, but thought you'd want to see it. The angles I've been setting for vehicles in text IPL files haven't been working out for me, but I finally figured out a decent solution. But more importantly, I've managed to isolate the always display flag so I can force vehicles to appear exactly where we want them so we'll have much less trouble with spawning. For example, the Bullet will suddenly appear on the walkway in Palomino as CJ exits the safe house. But I still don't have a way to supply nitrous on a spawn or strip the engine off a spawning NRG.

I figured out a system that is working for placing the correct vehicle rotaion through text IPLs. I tested several vehicles with "angles" (as set in the IPL) from -4 through 8 and noticed the difference between the "rotation" (as measured by GTACC) was approximately 57 degrees. I used this figure to calculate angles for text IPL vehicles and got the placement I was hoping to achieve. But 57 degrees is such an odd angle that I converted my figures to radians, rounded, and came up with 40 radians or 56.25 degrees per unit of angle. Actually 41 radians or 57.65 degrees was a little closer to my average, but 40 radians per unit makes more sense than 41. Anyway, I'll update this if I can narrow it down any further. Meanwhile, the formula below should work fairly well. I'm back to using 57 to convert to "angles", 56.25 was over rotating my vehicles. I supposed it helps it read the definitions, I thought radians were simply a 256 "degree" version of a 360 degree circle, but it turns out to be quite different. Anyway, the proper factor should be 180/pi, or 57.2958.

I tried setting various numbers in the Flag field, but the only change I observed in the save file was that the 2 flag was set if an odd number was entered. When set, the 2 flag will force the vehicle to appear as CJ exits or loads to that location. If you don't hide it around a corner or something the vehicles will suddenly appear out of thin air.

Description: # X, Y, Z, A, Vid, Color 1, Color 2, Flag, Alarm, Lock, ?? (usually 0), Value (usually 10000)
IPL Format: 2210.581, 118.2939, 26.53699, 4.737, 522, -1, -1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 10000 //NRG-500 Palomino
Cords Compass: NRG-500~#xcord#, #ycord#, #zcord#, 0, 522, -1, -1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 10000 //NRG-500 |0|0|0|0|0|0


# X, Y, Z, Angle, Vid, C1, C2, Flag, Alarm, Lock, ??, Value

Angle=Degrees/~57.2958 (180/pi)
Flag of 1, -1, (odd) = always spawns


BTW, <Cords Compass> by Xmen, is a very handy tool for placing items and vehicles. It doesn't provide a reading for angle, but I need to convert the angles manually anyway so it's not a big handicap. It works great for pickups. I keep different copies of the program and it's configuration file in subfolders so I can have a vehicle and pickup window running at the same time. I've got a fairly complete file for the pickups, I'd post it here but there are almost 50 lines, and I've been posting too much stuff on editing in a racing topic anyway. But here are a couple of lines for an example. The Train Track setting was provided by the author. I think the -1 value will place the item at CJ's feet, and I should probably start using that value for my vehicles. The A- in Ring Box stands for Armor; I plan to do a search and replace with the hex editor and fix them all at once.

Train Track~#xcord# #ycord# #zcord# 0|0|0|-1|0|0|0
A-Ring Box~39, #xcord#, #ycord#, #zcord# //A-Ring Box |0|0|0|0|0|0

This post has been edited by OrionSR on Friday, Aug 24 2007, 16:58

[rubregg]

... just very briefly popping in to say 'hi' & to catch up with things. Like I said I've hardly got any time at all though this week & next, but I just wanted to let you know I'm not gone... I've nudged Kusak into trying out our 3 nearly finished races and he seems to have lots of fun so far. (and no, I haven't given away any of the palomino jumps...)

[OrionSR]

Well, you're having better luck than I am. I tried talking Phreak into trying the events, but didn't have any luck. I found this to be a little depressing. If I can't get him to try the rallies I'm not sure anyone will. I've been spending my spare time working on a starter save for the chain game. I've learned a few new tricks, but I'm saving them for a surprise. The new tricks don't really seem to have any benefit for rallies anyway.

We need some sort of summary for our current events. The ones I posted are fairly incomplete since none of the achievements are listed, and it's buried in the middle of the thread and hard to find unless you know where to look.

This post has been edited by OrionSR on Friday, Aug 24 2007, 16:57

[GTA Phreak]

Don't mind me.
I'm breaking in a new joypad controller, - so I'm basicly out of control at anything exceding grandma speed atm.

[OrionSR]

Ah! There's hope yet. Speed isn't really the concern; not hitting things and running a clean route should be good enough to earn the gold medal. There's roughly 20 to 30 seconds of slack in each event to allow room for extra stunts, achievements, posing, and mistakes. Most of the fun is suppose to be searching out the jumps and routes. But you tend to work quietly until you can post the best time, so I'm never sure what you are up to.

[rubregg]

...eerr... don't mind me.... I'm sort of back. Real life will keep me busy enough though, so I won't have the time to really get into save game editing on your level, OrionSR. But still, as I mentioned, I kept working on a web presentation of the Skipping Palomino Creek Jumps while I was away. It took me a while, because last time I made a web page was 10 or 11 years ago (yes, seriously ) but I finally seem to be getting the look-and-feel the way I want it to be. All in all I'd say roughly 80% should be completed, including the complicated bits. I hope it'll be a pleasant surprise once it's up.

...and it might actually be needed. Now Kusak is a fairly experienced player, but he gave up eventually, said it took him ages to find jumps. He didn't find too many either... The good news is: no problems with the save game.

As for the collection of where we stand with the rallies and all the major summaries / infos - I do suggest we edit the first posting(s) of this topic for this. That way it won't get lost. So I could either put it all into my first posting, or we could share the load in the first couple of postings, maybe one posting for each rally would be a good idea. I haven't checked yet, but I suspect most of the original postings' contents might be obsolete by now so they can be 'overwritten'. If some important information was there anyway, we could still leave that at the bottom, maybe edited to a small font size.

Oh, and: Hi GTA Phreak ! Good to see we have company round here...

This post has been edited by rubregg on Sunday, Sep 9 2007, 09:30

[OrionSR]

Oh, hey. Welcome back.

How about if I get rid of that wall of text, perhaps post some administrative detail that you won't need to change, and clean up that little message, and then you can have a relatively clean 1st page to work with. Or, edit the 1st couple of messages for now, but plan on starting a new topic for the actual release of the event(s). We can keep this topic active for administrative purposes and reduce unnecessary clutter in the event topic. This was where I thought we were headed eventually anyway.

The save file editing has gotten a bit out of hand. pdescobar has returned, and we're teaming up to create a new save for round 20 of the chain game. I've pick up a few tricks, and some will definitely be useful for rallies. Fortunately, the need to hex edit files continues to be reduced. I got into massive IPL editing for a while, now pd has me writing code as well.

I'm reluctant to discuss too many of the new discoveries. I'm holding on to several as a surprise for the round after next. Skipping Palomino and Badlands Endurance are both being integrated into the save, but I'll probably add bulletproofing to the Bullet to deal with the gangs. I'm not having any luck keeping an NRG near Katie's house, but this really isn't too much of a concern. The question is, would you prefer to wait until round 20 and enjoy the hunt for changes, or would you like to be in on the testing of the new save?

[rubregg]

QUOTE (OrionSR @ Sep 9 2007, 17:18)

Or, edit the 1st couple of messages for now, but plan on starting a new topic for the actual release of the event(s). We can keep this topic active for administrative purposes and reduce unnecessary clutter in the event topic. This was where I thought we were headed eventually anyway.

Yes, I see it this way too. Let's keep using this topic for administrative clutter discussions (happily for all rally or chaingame related off-topicness as well) and post an extra "Rally Pack" topic once we got it together. Still I generally think one posting per race is a good idea. This way it's easier to link to a specific race and also we can share the load of keeping race infos up-to-date (rules details, medal standards, scoreboard, etc).

What do you think of that for now?

...sooo...
What races do we have up to now...:
definitely: Skipping Palomino, Badlands Endurance, Katie Jumps
discussed: Swat Vigilante, Redsands Westking, 4star LV weapon run, (anything else?)

Let's see... I have the first posting - I'd suggest using that for a bit of introductory babble. Then you have 2 consecutive postings, after that I have 3 consecutive postings (uh-oh... ah, I can always delete some...). So, if you want to post and moderate all your suggested races, you post them and I'll delete my postings. If you're fine with sharing the load, what about if I posted Skipping Palomino, since I'm making the jump-finder? Or, whatever else you're happy with, of course...

This way you could use your 2 postings to post "Badlands Endurance" and "Katie Jumps", next I'd post "Skipping Palomino" and maybe "Redsands Westking" (or maybe not yet?) and let's leave the rest for now?

QUOTE (OrionSR @ cont.)

The save file editing has gotten a bit out of hand. (...) ... or would you like to be in on the testing of the new save?

Have you guys discussed the modding issues in a topic or in pms? I think I remember you mentioning you posted in the modding forum, didn't you? Could you give me the link(s) please? I'm still interested in the basic how-to and all....

QUOTE (OrionSR @ cont.)

Skipping Palomino and Badlands Endurance are both being integrated into the save (...)

Ok, so now I am just too sodding curious. Hell yes, I'd like to test. I hope I have enough time, but I'll do the best I can. Also I should really get my Skipping Palomino Jump Finder up before round 20 starts then.... aaaaaah, no pressure..... ... LOL.....

[OrionSR]

Okay then, this is good news. The project has become quite complex, and I could really use your help integrating 4-star challenge and rally events into the save. I'll send you a PM with the information you need. We were doing a lot of our work with PM, but this quickly became difficult to manage so were using another tool. The process is being documented thoroughly and hopefully will be useful for anyone else trying to do something similar, but for now we're holding on to the best secrets.

Whatever you want to do with the Rally Challenges is fine with me. I'm really tied up with trying to get this save working the way I have planned, so if you are willing to take the lead on the rallies, I'm perfectly happy to follow.