Eldibs

Interesting, because the only historical evidence I found via Google was an old forum thread of a few people citing a level cap. One of them was you. It also had a post of me saying that I had not edited my XP/levels. I don't have to go by memory. http://pied-piper.ermarian.net/topic/1/3117

Either the game checks to make sure your level stops at 50 or it doesn't. You can't have it both ways. If it's the former, that's a hard cap. If it's the latter, but stops you from progessing past 50 naturally (by reducing XP gains as you gain levels), that's a soft cap. It's very easy to check for a hard cap. If there were one, cheating to put your level past 50 (or giving yourself enough XP to do so) would cause the game to drop your level back down to 50. Such a hard cap is easily demonstrated by your food and gold, which, if they go over the cap of 25,000, the game drops them back down to the cap. Since the game doesn't do this to your characters' levels (in fact, the game shows a level up message for all the levels you spontaneously gain, indicating it's going through its normal level-up process), it absolutely does not have a hard cap of 50. Period. Now, whether it has a soft cap of level 50 is still in question, but also testable. Take a level 50 character to the best XP sources in the game and see if they can still gain a level from them. You're going merely by what your memory is telling you. Well, my memory is telling me that I did not manually edit my XP/levels on my old save (there's no point, everything can be gained via skill points), and that the editor bundled with the game utterly lacks the ability to edit your XP/levels. Until you have actual evidence, you're merely arguing by assertion with your word against mine.

I just did some quick testing, and if there is a level cap, it's not a hard level cap. I gave myself enough experience to hit level 51 with a baseline character (4999XP, plus the experience from killing a single enemy to make the game give out the level gains), which the game was happy to allow. Were there a hard-coded cap, it would have stopped at level 50 without additional editing. However, afterwards it stopped awarding experience for killing the low-level enemies I tested on, which would indicate a possible soft cap (eventually you'd be so high-level that all the enemies/quests/nodes/etc.. would just stop giving out experience), though without doing a lot more testing than I want to do I can't confirm that. FWIW, I learned something useful from all this, which was how to set up a virtual instance of Windows XP inside Windows 7, which was necessary to run the game.

My editing shenanigans were with items, not stats, and all my characters had different levels (ranging from 58-73). I won't discount the possibility however, since that file does have edited items and I may have mistyped an address when coding my old editor. Traits affected how much XP you needed to gain a level. The baseline is 100XP, adjusted up or down based on what advantages and disadvantages you took.

No, it's not. I pulled up an old saved game just to make sure, one with every character over fifty. Here, have a screenshot from Exile 2 - http://i.imgur.com/J6Hzt2U.png (Apologies for the tiny image. Uploading kills my connection.)

Something else to note is level caps. I'm not sure about the other games, but I know in the Exile series the level cap is at least above seventy, and that's reachable within the game.

I recently watched the new Daredevil series on Netflix and found it to be very enjoyable.

Exile series for sure, due to the inherent craziness of being the earliest releases. Force Barrier and Quickfire? Awesome. Ravage Enemy, Major Blessing, and a metric ton of Boots/Rings of Speed? Also awesome.

I dislike the concept of a "dislike button" for one reason only - negative attention is still attention, and thus it won't demotivate any attention seekers. Look at that atrocity of a video that is Rebecca Black's "Friday." Near-universally hated, but still incredibly famous. If everyone who saw it would've been silent about their hatred, it wouldn't have gotten so big. Things that are awful should not be well-known just for being awful, they should be hidden in a corner to die silently.

Don't feel so bad about taking so long to hit 1000. I've not even hit 900 yet...

Exile 2 for me as well. Exile 1's engine was too simplistic, and Exile 3's felt like it had been overcomplicated, where Exile 2 had a nice balance. Also, it was hard for me to look at all the bright colors in Exile 3, and Exile 1 was too grey.

I never bothered to name them either. I never had them long enough to get attached to them. Either I absorbed them for something stronger, or they died horrible, grisly deaths. Kinda like naming the cow you're going to have to eat. No sense in getting attached to them if they're just going to die soon.

I hate to revive a dead/dying topic, but anyways: A fix... If you can't get the puresteel from the Purity Workshop, press Shift+D and type sdf 73 10 0 I have no idea why that flag randomly gets set to 1 (which makes the game think you already opened the box), but setting it to 0 fixes it, allowing you to get the puresteel like normal. How you use this information is up to you.

I am reminded of the scene from the second Hot Shots movie, where he runs out of arrows, and has to use the chicken in his bow. Come to think of it, I would probably shape exploding chickens and cattle, and then mix them in with standard livestock. But only once or twice. It would probably get old pretty fast. But a fire-breathing chicken, now that would be entertainment that lasts...

What I meant with that was that your average law-abiding Shaper wouldn't need advanced protections because they'd most likely be making a single, easily-controllable creation (or just a few controllable creations), whereas a megalomaniac bent on conquest would most likely be making lots and lots of creations and would therefore have difficulty controlling them (or would make them completely uncontrollable), thus requiring some way to defend themselves from said creations without outright destroying all of them (which would put the madman back at square one).

Yes, but you still don't want them attacking you. If you're going for the whole "waves of creations to take over an area" plan, you pretty much want them to attack everything but you. Making them prone to attacking would make them prone to attacking you, and making them completely controllable would make it impossible to make waves after waves of them (and also might make them less prone to attack approaching Shapers). Hence, Monarch's control baton.

Perhaps high-end protections aren't cost effective for day-to-day shaping? I mean, if they're just making a single Fyora or Battle Alpha, there's no need to spend all the time and money on all sorts of barriers and puresteel gratings. Or maybe they're too wrapped up in the actual shaping to be concerned with things like magic barriers.

Originally Posted By: Lifecrafterandnoobeditor and i dont know if its possible to make creations that can move at a normal rate AND make other creations, the spawners werent exactly track runners... Drakons and Serviles. They can Shape (or at least be modified to be able to Shape), they are creations, and they can move around quite effectively. Originally Posted By: Nebulan If you are still sane enough to shape in the first place, you have the ability to shape creations with the knowledge not to attack their creator. This effect could even possible wear off in time just so the creation does not become confused at what not to attack. Of course they will be allowed to leave. Or, perhaps since a Shaper would also be an accomplished magician (presumably), you could create a device that generates a field that causes all creations in it to simultaneously become both drowsy and overcome with the urge to leave. Then, even if they did resist the urge to leave you alone, they'd be easy to stop. As an added safety measure, you could stick with weaker creations that are easy to affect with the field, which would also allow you to swarm an area with lots of creations more easily (a la Zergling Rush). Originally Posted By: Nebulan I'm not talking about shaping them miles away, I'm talking about shaping them from four feet underground with instructions to kill things, while you are safe. Perhaps some nice, thick puresteel grating, with a protective shield designed to stop blasts of fire/ice/acid, but allow everything else to pass through?

Email me a copy of your saved game (robertparker0523 (at) yahoo.com), or upload it somewhere and give me the link, because the program works perfectly on my saved games.

Just off the top of my head: Do you have the .Net Framework (available at Microsoft.com)? What exactly does it do when you try to run it?

I assume that since trainers and script edits are okay, that Saved Game Editors are too (excluding games which Jeff sells a saved game editor for, of course). That being said, for the Windows users among us, I present... The Geneforge 4 Character Editor. Right-click and 'Save As,' use Winrar to unrar it, load up your saved game, and edit away. You'll need the .Net framework if you don't have it already. You can edit your statistics (though unfortunately not your health/essence/level/experience/skill points), your skill levels (spells/creations), and the items in your backpack (though not your equipped items or Quick Slot items). Make sure that when you load your saved game into the program, you open the file named 'data' and NOT 'header' or 'items.' Read the included readme.txt file before using. Not as multi-platform as a script edit (and certainly not as pretty), but more effective at making precise character edits. Also, feel free to report any bugs you find, and I'll do my best to squish them.

Quote: I can explain that: with the advent of creations and their abilities to rend their foes, humans didn't need to focus nearly as extensively on mundane weaponry. Yes, but in the wilder parts of the world (where the first four games take place), Shapers aren't exactly found on every street corner. For instance, in Geneforge 3, you find something like 1-3 full shapers per island MAXIMUM. Besides, don't forget that outsiders are often hired by the Shapers as bodyguards/warriors/etc... and need effective weaponry to defend themselves. Quote: More likely, the reason spears aren't used is because the Shapers' standing army breathes fire and lacks opposable thumbs. If memory serves correctly, Thahds and Battle Alphas/Betas serve as the backbone of the Shaper army. Surely if they can use armor (as evidenced by them dropping Chitin/Iron armor fairly regularly) they can use weapons too.

How about better crafting? I mean, item enhancements and artifact making are neat and all, but it would be nice to actually have something to do with all those iron bars and hammers that seem to be lying around everywhere. Heck, you could even have a few quests involving it, like "I don't have permission to use the enchanted anvil at the fort, but you do. Could you take these items and make this item for me?" And how about those hatchets/hammers actually being usable as a weapon? You can pick up a stick and fend off your foes, but you can't snatch up a nearby hatchet and split some skull?

Originally Posted By: w-dueck I would suggest looking at the pages listed here. Also, which Exile are you playing? Aww, they have a link to an incredibly old version of my Item Editor. I feel special. I really should quit 'feature creep'-ing the latest version and upload it somewhere...

As far as character stats go, I've no idea what any of the locations are. However, for the items your characters are holding, I have somewhat extensive information for Exile 2 and 3. The following locations are for Character 1, Item Slot 1, for Exile 2, with 1 as the starting location (subtract 1 if you use 0 as the starting location, obviously). For each subsequent character, add 1581 to the location. For each subsequent item slot, add 79 to the location. For example, if you wish to see item slot 3 on character 2, you'd add 1581 + (79 * 2) to the location. Unless otherwise noted, to get any use from the information stored in the locations, all you need to do is reverse the Binary XOR operation (with a key of 107). 54605 = The starting location of the item's identified name. Undo the XOR encryption and use the number as the ASCII code. The name goes for about 15-20 characters (I forget the exact amount) 54630 = Same as above, except it's for the Unidentified name of the item. 54591 = Stores the item's graphic. I have a mostly complete list of values somewhere, but I'll have to hunt it down. 54577 = Item type. Once again, I have a list of the values somewhere, but I'll have to find it. 54579 = Damage/Defense/Item Level. For weapons, this location affects the damage, for armor, it affects defense, and for other items (rings, potions, whatever) it affects the item level. 54585 = Armor Bonus/Weapon defense. For armor, it affects the bonus, for weapons, it handles the defense attribute. 54583 = Affects the bonus stat of Weapons. I haven't played around with this location, so I don't know if it does anything for non-weapon items. 54593 = The item's ability. Again, I have a list of values that I've misplaced. 54603 = Magicalness. If the item is Magical, this will be a 1 (after the XOR operation), if not, it will be a 0. Yes, you can remove a weapon's magicalness to enchant it more than once (for instance, a Steel Waveblade (+2)(+2)). 54601 = Stores whether or not the item is identified. A 1 is yes, a 0 is no. 54581 = Handles the item's Encumbrance. 54587 = Handles the amount of charges the item has. Useless if the item has no abilities, but some item abilities will let you use the item infinitely if it has 0 charges (like the Orb of Thralni). Setting arrows/darts to have zero charges, however, does not give you infinite arrows. 54599 and 54600 = Stores the item's value. The formula for calculating the value is a + (b * 256), where a is the value in the first location, and b is the second. So, if the values are 184 and 11 (respectively), you'd end up with an item value of 3000 Use this information as you will, if you want to cheat massively, don't complain to me if it ruins your fun. As soon as I get time, I'll post my info on Exile 3 (assuming I don't decide to spend said time working on my idea for an A4 character editor). It's mostly the same, just different locations. Feel free to correct me, I've been working all night (I work the overnight shift), so I may have put a wrong number or something somewhere. Also, I've no idea what happens for items with negative stats (i.e. the Imp Weapons), as I haven't messed around with that, so don't ask me.