Dev's Limit Breaking 101 Techniques

@J.R. (re renaming freelancer.exe): DLLs don’t, FL Hack does (if FL is already running, or to use the hotkeys).

@adoxa
Thank you very much for the reply… this saves me a lot of time doing hex-edits just to check it out !
I hope you´re doin´ fine mate… many greetings
J.R.

You want to block those tools to peek your mod right?

This wasn´t my intention… Not really. I just realized that cloak.dll isn´t working anymore as soon as you rename Freelancer.exe. (I did this for the next update of my mod to enable “enhanced compatibility-check” on startup via my custom-build Mod-Launcher)

Anyways… Since there is already a note in Devs 101 (regarding the requirements when you´re going to rename the freelancer.exe)
I only thought its appropriate to tell other modders a fix for this specific cloak.dll “issue”.

Thats all…

adoxa wrote:
Louva asked me in an IM if ships could drop out of cruise once power runs out. He’s offline atm, so I’ll post it here for all to use.

# Drop out of cruise once power reaches 0.
# Jason Hood, 18 November, 2010.

File: common.dll
03659E: 79				[ 4F ]
036618: 8B 8E 94 01 00 00 EB 14		[ 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 ]
036634: 6A 00 E8 A5 D5 03 00 EB B1	[ 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 ]

```He also asked if power could have an activation delay like shields, but that can wait for another day…

I was change those hex code to Adoxa do, but seem like no effect, when I finish my cruise, the ship power still same like before, am I misunderstand the hex code mean?

It works the other way - if the cruise engine is draining power, once power runs out you’ll drop out of cruise.

Oh, now I know how to use it, thanks for your kind Adoxa.

Gold_Sear wrote:

content.dll, c4c01, 500f, min distance from player position at spawn moment that an NPC patrol with arrival = cruise will fly to when spawned ~Gold_Sear
content.dll, c4c06, 2000f, max distance from player position at spawn moment that an NPC patrol with arrival = cruise will fly to when spawned ~Gold_Sear

I have to apologize, these codes were originally found by M0tah :oops: (that is, the offsets, I discovered their purpose). So here’s the correct code:

content.dll, c4c01, 500f, min distance from player position at spawn moment that an NPC patrol with arrival = cruise will fly to when spawned ~Gold_Sear, M0tah
content.dll, c4c06, 2000f, max distance from player position at spawn moment that an NPC patrol with arrival = cruise will fly to when spawned ~Gold_Sear, M0tah

```Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused (especially: sorry M0tah!)

Vital wrote:
FormationOp
200f, 0x6c00d –
500f, 0x6c017 –

Could you spot a bit more light on this, especially first values, cos this 200 value seems to be familiar, thats the quote from one of my posts:

If one ship of the formation has 0, 0, 0 position, it dosn’t matter how far the others, they dock well(firstone goes first, others follow). It works till approximately 0, 0, 220 position, after this they start docking manuver, and… fly away from the gates about 5-6k, turn around, start docking manuver and it all repeats, if the ships a more then 5-6 k from the centre of formation, they just start spining around with their docklights blinking.
It’s impossible to dock while they are trying.

Maybe that 200 value can help here.

Found the last value:

common.dll, 6c017, 500f, distance ahead of the leader of the patrol the player (or any escort) 'anticipates' to go to when catching up in cruise (decrease this to make the player go in a straighter line towards the leader, but setting this too low causes the escorts to swing back and forth after a minor turn) ~Gold_Sear, M0tah
```The first value doesn't seem to have any effect, though.

EDIT: [it does](http://the-starport.net/freelancer/forum/viewtopic.php?post_id=61827#forumpost61827)

Found some new values, might be useful for some:

common.dll, 75b36, 500f, distance from the center of the leader of the patrol’s ship the escort will fly to in cruise (to catch up) before dropping out of cruise, when the leader has its cruise engines off ~Gold_Sear
Freelancer.exe, 1d2ef4, 2700f, negative z-coordinate of border between sector 4 and 5 (devided by NavMapScale; make this 0 to make the system map exactly according to the coordinate system in the ini file) ~Gold_Sear

Can anyone help about visibility distance of bases?

10000f freelancer.exe 213EC8 FriendlyFire maximum draw distance for some bases (like battleships)

i find offset about visibility bases 213EC8 and change float 10000 to 100000 or 1000000 but bases are disappear after distance is 14.7 how can i increase this distance?

I can’t be certain, because I’ve been out of modding a while so probably shouldn’t answer.

But, the entries in the data files for the stations etc, don’t they also have LOD ranges to update? I.e, not just as simple as slapping a hex edit on the EXE.

Zyos wrote:
I can’t be certain, because I’ve been out of modding a while so probably shouldn’t answer.

But, the entries in the data files for the stations etc, don’t they also have LOD ranges to update? I.e, not just as simple as slapping a hex edit on the EXE.

I can confirm that most bases have LODranges, but there are some exceptions:

• There is a maximum draw distance of 250000 for ALL things, that can be edited:

Freelancer.exe, 210534, 250000f, far plane of view frustum ~Dev
```* There is a maximum draw distance of 20000 for ships, that can be edited:

Freelancer.exe, 1C8910, 20000f, max distance at which ships can be seen, even if LODranges specify a higher range ~Dev, FriendlyFire

Freelancer.exe, 213EC8, 10000f, maximum draw distance for some bases (like battleships) ~FriendlyFire

- planets; no limit (except far plane of view frustum)
- suns; no limit (except far plane of view frustum)
- Jump Holes; seem to have a draw distance between 4000 and 4500, depending on the angle you look at them (straight 4000, side of screen 4500), could be a hex value offset that isn't discovered yet (by us)(?)
- track_ring; used in the Dublin race course, seem to be unlimited
- surprise_ge_fighter5; most likely bug, since all other surprise ships do have LODranges
- some random mission bases (random mission wplatforms do have LODranges, however)

@ilkerone
Hope this helps… if not, some other hex offsets need to be discovered.

Gold_Sear wrote:

• Jump Holes; seem to have a draw distance between 4000 and 4500, depending on the angle you look at them (straight 4000, side of screen 4500), could be a hex value offset that isn’t discovered yet (by us)(?)

No.
Jump holes use invisible models, so adding a LOD Range there won’t change anything.

Actually what you see are only effects, and those are gf_wormhole* in effects.ini.
There you see their [c] vis_type = EFT_JUMP_GATE_EFFECTS[/c]
Looking into effect_types.ini for EFT_JUMP_GATE_EFFECTS gives us [c]pbubble = 3000, 4000[/c].
pbubble is the visibility range.

100f 	freelancer.exe 	212B00 	Dev 	unknown, likely the first value of pbubble
500f 	freelancer.exe 	212B04 	Dev 	visual cutoff range of effects (second value of pbubble)
```(from eft_explosion_large)

Gold_Sear wrote:

• surprise_ge_fighter5; most likely bug, since all other surprise ships do have LODranges

just a typo I would think. the whole```
LODranges =

Most of those exceptions are rather straightforward. Planets don’t have LODs, they’re spheres generated on the fly. Suns and jump holes are not physical; their appearance is entirely determined by their effect. For suns, that’s all in stararch.ini. For jump holes, there’s an effect in the loadout, changing that effect’s draw distance will affect the jump hole itself (up to a certain limit, I believe there’s a max range for attached FX as well).

Skotty wrote:

Gold_Sear wrote:

• Jump Holes; seem to have a draw distance between 4000 and 4500, depending on the angle you look at them (straight 4000, side of screen 4500), could be a hex value offset that isn’t discovered yet (by us)(?)

No.
Jump holes use invisible models, so adding a LOD Range there won’t change anything.

Sorry, my mistake (although if you add Jump Hole archetype as asteroids inside a nebula, they’ll become slightly visible. To make invisible asteroids, use gravity_buoy archetype.)

Thanks!

Thank U.
Consider your work is very much appreciated.

Greetings J.R.

foxUnit01 wrote:

Let me know if there are any I missed! Maybe I’ll get to them this year.
fox

@foxUnit01
Found this while wandering the Forums but couldn´t find it in the current 101-List.

freelancer.exe, 00840B3, 0F84 --> 90E9  = remove the automatically generated portion of equipment infocards. ~M0tah

Note:
Only AFAIK this offset was found by M0tah.

Greetings
J.R.