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Re: Possible new utility for creating testbeds Thu, 26 February 2009 12:35 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
PaulCr

 
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m.a@stars[/email] wrote on Thu, 26 February 2009 00:07]
gible wrote on Wed, 25 February 2009 22:41

we'd just have to trust Paul Wink.

Or even better, trust the x-file sanitizer. Twisted Evil

Make no mistake, this could be an arms race. It's been a long long time since the ante was upped in tools. Excel is still the main caliber being used. But the game itself needs a good jolt to avoid stagnation, so if we can keep the worst cheats at bay, I'd say go for it. Experiment. Come up with mm tommy-guns. Bring Kandinsky and Dali to Universe Creation. Make this old beast the #1 strategy game again, bar none. Twisted Evil


I've just thrown together a test x file checker and put it on the website at http://stars.atlantissoftware.co.uk/StarsSupremacyHost.zip

The DLL has settings to allow or disallow each check for each individual player, the sample exe that comes with it though uses the default of disallowing them to every player. At the moment I'm only processing the x file, not the hst, there are 2 checks in the DLL that check any new designs created, they are

Allow22OrMoreSuperlatinumInASlot
AllowTenthStarbaseSlotToBeUsed

The first stops you building a spacedock with more than 21 Superlatinum, it should also work against an edited exe that changes ship or starbase hull configurations as well

The second stops a player from creating a design in the 10th starbase slot, it only needs setting for the final player to avoid the turn gen bug but the host might like to give everyone the same limitation, I expect most games would probably leave it off.

The checker uses the final design you enter to perform the check, ie if you create a dock with 24 superlatinum but then edit to reduce it to 21, even though both still appear in the x file, when the x file is processed the edited design replaces the first before the check takes place so you don't end up getting spurious error messages.

The DLL return an empty string if OK or an error message to display to the user, it is up to whatever calls the dll to decide what to do with the x file.

I'm going to need game files in which cheating takes place to add any more checks to the dll.


[Updated on: Thu, 26 February 2009 12:40]

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