Change Date/Time In-Game. Remove the 13-Year Time Limit

P

platon

First time out of the vault
My question is a simple one:
Is there a method to set the Fallout2 starting year a few years back?

I mean that it's not nice to make a mod that takes place even before FO1 and the pipboy clock shows all wrong... Of course I can always explain that the pipboy is broken (disconnected wires etc. etc.) and because of that the date is shown all wrong... but it wouldn't be the same. I doubt that I never get my mod finished, but hey, strange things could happen... I would anyway appreciate every help that I get. Yes and if it's HARDCODED (damn that word), is there a way turning clock backwards through scripting?
 
I have to admit that I was a bit too impatient :oops:
I've located the current bytes from the fallout2.exe that contained the starting year..., now it would be nice if some programmer (shouldn't be too difficult :lol: ) would make a nice application to change these bytes... The offset is 0009376c, (C108 = year 2241 U.S. version).
 
( Just to continue the monologue: )

Offsets should be:
Fallout2 (U.S.): 0009376c
Fallout2 (U.K.): 0009351c
Fallout1: 00081e2c
Fallout1 Demo: 0005c42c
(Really don't know about these, those are just what my Hex Workshop says)

If it's any use, the bytes come always after word 8db0.
(I wish that all this information wasn't already here somewhere).
 
Nope :D . But anyway, I wouldn't be a perfectionist if I left everything half way, so:

mapper2.exe: 000bd84c

Now that should be all. So tell me, how could anyone play (even) Fallout2 for 13 game years? :wink:
 
The longest I have played it is around 9 game years and 5 months, the only reason I stopped was because I wanted to try new mods.

Considering the worldmap can be expanded and all the stuff you could add to the game, I think it would be easy to play for 13 years and over if you are a game super freak like me.
 
anyone care to put all of these offsets in a file somewhere??

also I would like to know where it sets the start point for on the worldmap the first time you go on it..

i've done our map and put all of our towns on it, but when i exit our start town of ELKO which is in roughly the same place that Broken Hills would be ( see worldmap on our site for details.. ), it put me outside of where arroyo should have been.. ( or v13 in fallout 1 for that matter ). which is what makes me think it's hard coded somewhere..
 
About that "13 year limit", it can be very simply removed (I managed to track down bytes that affect the checking somehow), but it still have some major problems.

As some of you know Fallout2 uses ticks as it's basic time units (10 ticks=1 second etc.). Well when the game starts In 2241 the 4 bytes variable runs out in 2255 (March 8th). The year limit was added because of that (it ends the game in year 2254). Well after that date (March 8th) the clock goes around and starts from 2241...

BUT there is another problem. If the player doesn't sleep (or advance time by a script) over first 40 minutes of March the 8th 2255 the game crashes (gets stuck). So if you choose to sleep until midnight in March 7th game crashes.

Really don't know why but this is the situation at the moment.

Bytes to tinker:
00 03 CC 12 starting from offset 000938d8, just change them to FF FF FF FF. (that's for U.S.-version, UK offset should be 00093688)

Now this should work. Can't guarantee anything (maybe it just messes everything totally) and people: remember to make backups of your fallout2.exe
 
To ColJack:
Could you inform me more about that starting place problem, just to see if it's worth of putting time in. Did you replace Arroyo with your starting town (game might check the first in the list). Is there any scripting command to move PC in the world map? That's how you could simply put the PC to location you wish for...

Anyway there is a comment in city.txt after the Arroyo's coordinates: 'Absolute position?' that could refer to hardcoding...

We'll maybe never know, but that shouldn't stop us trying.
 
yes i replaced the start town with our own start town, and the only map name that remains the same is artemple because that is hard coded as the start map.. namewise...

i altered the area position in the city.txt file to put it in the right place on the worldmap where we wanted the start map to start.


but when i use the exit grid to go to the world map for the first time, it puts me outside of where arroyo should be.. but after traversing the distance to the start town, and once again exiting it to the world map, it puts me outside of the town.. not back where arroyo should be...

i'm assuming it saves your location on the world map when you enter a town into a variable somewhere ( there is a command to read your x,y position on the world map,) but i don't know if there is a command to set it...
there should be. i'm prety sure you get "warped" to the golgotha graveyard outside of reno in one quest, and have to walk it back to new reno..?
 
Yes you're right that artemple is hard coded as a starting map. When I changed the mention of artemple.map in fallout2.exe to sftanker.map starting place changed as well. But when I left the San Fran to worldmap the game didn't teleport me to Arroyo. I was able to continue from San Francisco... Only bad thing that I ran into was that when I entered worldmap "camera" was over Arroyo.

When you release your total conversion did you have in mind to release some sort of fallout2.exe -altering (patch like City Limit patch?) also to change starting year or something...
 
One more thing: there are GotoXY and SetXY scripting commands in one of the unoffical compilers. They could be there to set Worldmap position (hope so, otherwise I'd look stupid).

I have a some sort of strange feeling that this conversation has gone a bit off-topic...
 
platon said:
I have to admit that I was a bit too impatient :oops:
I've located the current bytes from the fallout2.exe that contained the starting year..., now it would be nice if some programmer (shouldn't be too difficult :lol: ) would make a nice application to change these bytes... The offset is 0009376c, (C108 = year 2241 U.S. version).
Click to expand...

Ok, I got the year working but I can't find the rest of the date (and time); any idea where the day and the month is? I want to make a TC of Fallout 1 in FO2 engine.
 
OK, I thought I'd raise the dead here a bit, but this is just so darn interesting :)

platon said:
Corpse, what version of the game are you using? UK? US? Are you editing the exe or use some virtual patching thing? Did you check that text file (http://koti.mbnet.fi/platonjr/offsets.txt)?
Click to expand...

OK, where abouts can I get a virtual patching thingie? I've found a utility that will patch the exe, but I would like like that does it virtualy in the system memory rather than edit the exe
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top