Status: RC1 available!



All the most important features are done, and the ES save editor is now Release Candidate 1! This is your chance to check it out.



Files: Release Candidate 1. You'll need the Microsoft .NET 4.0 client to run this program. Just unzip somewhere and run the .exe.



Mid-game or any time, change any of these:

* Money and dust for any player

* Research stockpile for 1 turn research

* Jail Break (Play another empire)

* Faction traits, including special hidden traits

* Game difficulty

* Pirate difficulty

* Victory Conditions

* Hero attributes

* Population

* Planet type

* Planet size

* Convert outpost to colony

* Empire colors

* Hero injury and delay; reassign immediately



To help searchers: savegame save game jailbreak

Version checker to avoid ♥♥♥♥ing up an old save on a new version.

Backup of savegame and the ability to re-vert to the original unedited save without having to dig into the folders manually.

Perhaps the ability to alter planet anomalies and the presence of luxury/strategic resources, that'd surely be fun (if it's possible)!

flipstar: Of course, how could it not have that feature?



Mansen: I don't know what you're talking about. As for not corrupting saves, for sure.

The ability to add/remove factions?

Harel55 wrote:
The ability to add/remove factions?

Perhaps. I'm not sure how the game handles more than 8+pirates factions.

@Evilfred: I'll try to explain in depth then



1. Do savegames have any patch version information in them? If so have the editor check this. If the savegame version is never than the latest build the editor was made for throw a warning to the user - version mismatch can wreck savegames (even if they are simple XML search/replace commands)



2. Have the editor make a backupsave whenever it edits a savegame just in case something goes wrong. (copy, rename file extension to something like .bak) And let the user revert to the original savegame in case the edited one doesn't work. (via the program - so they don't have to open up folder and manually rename stuff back)

I wonder if there is anyway to indicate to other players in a MP game if a save file was edited?



My only real request is one button jail breaking.

Shivetya wrote:
I wonder if there is anyway to indicate to other players in a MP game if a save file was edited?

I'm sure Amplitude could toss in a checksum checker - if the file is edited the checksum no longer matches and it shows as edited.

sweet, look forward to trying that out! Particularly modifying systems would be good fun!

Mansen wrote:
@Evilfred: I'll try to explain in depth then



1. Do savegames have any patch version information in them? If so have the editor check this. If the savegame version is never than the latest build the editor was made for throw a warning to the user - version mismatch can wreck savegames (even if they are simple XML search/replace commands)



2. Have the editor make a backupsave whenever it edits a savegame just in case something goes wrong. (copy, rename file extension to something like .bak) And let the user revert to the original savegame in case the edited one doesn't work. (via the program - so they don't have to open up folder and manually rename stuff back)

For #1, yes they have game version as well as mod version. However, the editor program is generally likely to work with new versions, right up until it doesn't :-) For #2, I'll encourage users to re-save their game under a different name after editing it. Thus they have both files and can load either, no need to even use the editor again.

Shivetya wrote:
I wonder if there is anyway to indicate to other players in a MP game if a save file was edited?



My only real request is one button jail breaking.

I haven't played MP, and I don't know if it's hardened against cheaters. If you grabbed a save from someone you don't trust and started playing, I think you're in for whatever you get :-) On the plus side, you could inspect the game with the editor yourself to see if it looks fishy.



Edit: Yes, jail breaking looks trivial. Thanks for the request.

TS, mb you'll add progress to the first post? It's easier to see and one doesn't need to look through whole topic for newest version.

And thanks for your work.=)

Perhaps move this to modding?



One click jail break would go a long way to checking effects of mods on AI

I would like to make each race have their own racial hero type at game start,rather than random.If this could be done with a save game that would be very nice.

Pretty neat! Once we get more than one tool, it will be worthwhile to have a tools subforum. Can you make File->Save save over the existing file, or at least display the filename in the banner or near the top of the GUI? Then File->Save As will bring up the file browser like File->Save does today. Since the only feature so far is jailbreak, save "over" the existing file is a very common action.



What language is it implemented in? Was there a special trick to find the save directory automatically, or to read from a 7zip file? I had thought about starting a mod-merge tool (wrapping diff/patch) but it never got off the drawing board.

davea wrote:
Pretty neat! Once we get more than one tool, it will be worthwhile to have a tools subforum. Can you make File->Save save over the existing file, or at least display the filename in the banner or near the top of the GUI? Then File->Save As will bring up the file browser like File->Save does today. Since the only feature so far is jailbreak, save "over" the existing file is a very common action.



What language is it implemented in? Was there a special trick to find the save directory automatically, or to read from a 7zip file? I had thought about starting a mod-merge tool (wrapping diff/patch) but it never got off the drawing board.

I want to discourage people from overwriting their existing save, just in case something goes wrong. Hence File/Save prompts for file name. The file name is displayed in the main app title bar already :-) Also it now has two features and I'll slowly add more.



It's written in C#, which seems like a fair choice for a GUI tool to edit XML. The save directory is in a consistent location so there's not much of a trick there. The tool actually understands the XML format, and I think you'd need to do the same to write a mod-merge tool.

EvilFred wrote:
The file name is displayed in the main app title bar already

So it is. Still, "file->open" (not "load"), "file->save", and "file->save as" are so common, it just jumps out.

It's written in C#, which seems like a fair choice for a GUI tool to edit XML.

I guess I should put C# next on my list of languages to learn someday. Is there a particular source code library you have used to read/write xml?

View/Change winning conditions would be nice.

It would be nice to ask for xml files if there isn't installed game. And if possible show more informative exception messages to user. For example, I've got message "Object reference not set to an instant of an object" instead of your exception message in code "Failed to read install path from registry".

Ghost4254 wrote:
It would be nice to ask for xml files if there isn't installed game.

Sorry, what? The tool reads a save game file. It does not read the installed game xml files. I am pretty sure there is no "legal" use for reading the game xml files if the user does not have the game installed.