Dynamic trading possible?

  • I don´t think this is possible... To do that you would have to change the ini files during the game and that requires the game to send a sort of "message" that you have traded something... And things like "messaging" are hard coded... :-(

  • Yeah, this isn´t an INI issue. The INI files are loaded when the server starts up, and I don´t see any reason why the server would bother checking them again to see if they´ve changed. I´m wondering if a mod DLL (er something) would allow you to dynamically change some of the game info while it´s running. For the message problem, worst case scenario, I could write a program to watch traffic on the port and intercept "commodity traded" messages. I´m just wondering if a mod would be able to actually change the prices.

  • goods.ini are only read in while start up of EXE. There are no global variable to test for amounts watched. Unless, I tried this but need a better programmer than me... I used a Memory Editor turned Trainer that runs along side with FL EXE and modifies the 900+ or so memory locations where Goods price data is at and I was able to change the price WHILE the EXE was Running! It is a start...I need more programming in C++ knowledge. Open source code decompile EXE and patch it would be nice, but this ius best for now. Try it, it really does work.

  • Xerx! I´m impressed, that´s awesome! That´s half the work done right there! I´m a pretty good Perl Programmer by trade, but I can work my way through C/C++. I appreciate you letting me know that it´s even possible, but can you post your work so I can have a stab at it? <img src=smilies/icon_smile.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

  • Ok I was using SEAL 2.0 it was freeware fro a reason. It is limited to only holding 10,000 returns out of the memory. It is about 3 years old and it has severe limatations. i was able to find Boron amount of units stored in your cargo and the other memory adress where it stores the amount of Boron units bought. Thus I can change the price of Boron higher as you by up more units. I need a better memory editor to find the other commodities. They are stored higher in memory. That is why the game requires a certain amount of RAM to hold these values. 10,000 return value numbers limit max out of my 7FFFFF (393MEG RAM) adresses is not going to find for me all the values. I could force it to search different adress lenghts from one higher adress to another, but that is very hard slow work! It does have that ability from one adress to another, but it will only return up to 10,000 results. There are ALOT of repeating numbers in there! Boron alone return 373,000 hits but only displayed the first 10,000 values. Luck i found it. I tried for Water, but it is stored even higher than that, can not be found. I did find the memory spot for the money stored. I need to look for a better memory editor than can read higher amounts of data. The stuff gets read in from goods.ini file, and is stored in RAM spots that stay put, but alot of the prices you see are stored randomly because it is only using it as a temp scratch pad. Use the numbers in the goods.ini file. Oddly, I would think the game would stick the values in relative memory locations, not in the same places every time. I did load up other programs to get FL to load into a different memory adress its data. Seems to put the data back into the same places; I expected it to be relative where there is room to place it. This is getting to be frustrating. One step forward, then two steps back. Slow progress sorry. Once I get a better memory editor to use, I can do much more faster....anyone know of a better one? That is freeware or low cost?

  • From what I´ve found out about Freelancer lately, I´m starting to doubt this idea will work. Xerx, you were able to change commodity prices on your own machine, but what I wanted to do would be to have a multiplayer server change the prices, and have those prices reflected by the clients. Since Freelancer expects the INI files to be the same on everyone´s machine, I don´t see why the programmers would have bothered having clients request commodity prices every time they land on a base. Xerx, is there any way we could test your commodity price adjustment over multi-player? You could set up a server and I could connect to it, then you could change the price of Boron and I could re-dock and tell you if it worked. Or, if you have two machines, you could test it yourself.

  • Yes, it is more of a mess the further i got into it. It is a long story. I am going to take a break from this and finish up simple MOD and leave this Dynamic Change Prices on the fly alone for a bit. The data is stored not as the value listed in goods.ini and it seems for some the data is moving around; I mean not relative adressing; it would take a program very much sophisticated to think like a human to track down the dynamic data storage it does...probably to save on RAM space so it would leave more room and not require 512 MEG RAM to run game. It is some kind of Dynamic RAM Memory Compression going on to conserve RAM since goods data is not constantly being accessed so they compress it in memory after read in. Pretty high brow stuff there. Please give me the open source code! WAHHHH. <img src=smilies/icon_smile_sad.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

  • Xerx it seems likely that the information in memmory is moved around based on what system you are currently in. In addition, since the price of goods is determined by the station (or planet) chances are that the modifier (not the price itself) is stored along the the station (or planet) in memory, which is probably stored with the system.

  • IMO this is a waste of time... Don´t understand me wrong, I want this to be possible... With &quot;messages&quot; I meant the EXE communicating with a DLL, not just a port... To make this happen the EXE has to ba modified to send a &quot;message&quot; to a custom made DLL that there was a trade and tah tha INI files should be rewritten and reloaded.... I think that´s not possible without the sourcecode... <img src=smilies/icon_smile_sad.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle>

  • Memory editor? as in cheat program? only 1 that I know of which is updated quite regularly is TSearch latest version 1.6b http://membres.lycos.fr/tsearch/ It supports networking as in e.g. some games you can´t minimize the game you can use 2nd pc to find the memory values. Very helpful program &amp; alot better IMHO than gamewiz &amp; etc. Works with Win XP

  • This is deafinantly possible, I have heard of a few MP servers that have Psudo Dynamic economys, sorry I don´t know any more, that is all I know, but just wanted to keep you from giving up, because I know it is possible. --I am not responsable for my actions.--

    [img=http://mysite.verizon.net/res0za58/Pics/sig_screen.jpg]

  • These psudo-dynamic economies are made by having the client-side mod updated every week or so, though. It´s kind of a pain in the ass for both the server admins and for the players.

  • This is an admirable goal to attain. But don´t forget some planets or stations just have to spend more on commodities regardless how much the receive, because they have a situation limiting the resource. That is also a market possibility. To further complicate your lives <img src=smilies/icon_smile_wink.gif width=15 height=15 border=0 align=middle> , markets would also be variable to how far the commodity has to travel to reach the station and how trecherous the route. Spectre-Man

    ___________________________________________________________ Sir Spectre giving the Spammysburg Address on 5/13/2004 22:21 PST: 12 posts and 2 days ago, we brought forth on this forum a new direction, conceived in spam and dedicated to the preposition that all posts are created useless. Now we are engaged in a great civil disobedience testing whether that thread or any thread so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great forum of that nonsense. We have come to dedicate a portion of that forum as a final resting-place for those topics that gave of their importance that spam might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this ... blah blah blah, spam spam spam.

  • I have heard of a MOD that a server used so that for every hour a base didn´t recive a given commodity, the price they would pay would go up by 5% with a limit of 150%, and for every 15-20 people who bought a commodity, the price would go up by 5% with a limit of 150%, and if nobody bought the given comodity, the price would go down by 5% every hour, with a minimum of 50%. It sounded like a great idea, but I have no clue where to get the MOD. I know that in order to achive this, they had to MOD some of the prices in the INIs, and create an exe to measure the time and calculate the incriment. Mabe something like this would work, or mabe you could find the MOD? --I am not responsable for my actions.--

    [img=http://mysite.verizon.net/res0za58/Pics/sig_screen.jpg]

  • That doesn´t sound possible, to the best of my knowledge. The ini´s are read at start up, and are not reread until reboot. So, even if you changed the price in the ini´s every hour, the program wouldn´t know any different. This definately would not work on a server, since all prices are client side. Therefore, not only does the server admin have no control over the prices at the bases, but I don´t believe there´s even a log of transactions generated.

  • sorry to grave dig, but this needs to be brought back to life. Any news on memory editing? --------------- Genius Writer Freelancer Software Development Kit