[DFTFD] Saving Games When Playing Custom SP Maps?

[meeshu]

As far as I know, there is no way to save a game when playing a SP custom map. The "F11" key for saving games apparently only works for the default included games, it doesn't seem to work for custom maps(?)

Is there any way to save SP custom map games (and of course to load them later)?

Is there a patch or hack available to allow saving of custom maps?

Thanks.

[Scott]

So inside one of the old Readme.txt that I have, I found this. Follow these instructions and see if it works:

Note about the save/load option:
===============================
You can save/load your custom SP, or MP Coop missions in SP Quick mission mode, with F11 (or whatever key you attributed the save game to).
Since "save game" was only possible with the stock SP missions, you have to consider the following in order to make this feature work:

· the name of your bms should NOT be longer than 11 alfa-numeric characters (extension NOT included). The hyphen and underscore are allowed, special characters and spaces should NOT be used.

· your bms file has to be packed into the Dflw.pff file AND in the gamedir (important). Although you can only see 3 available slots, you can save/load up to 9 slots (1 to 9 on the keyboard - not the keypad!).

Upon saving, you will notice that a bmx file will be created in the gamedir.
The bmx file name will be preceded with a 0 (zero), then the actual name and will end with the save slot number.

Example:
Let's say your bms file is called Testing.bms...
You save your position in slot 1.
The bmx file will be saved in the gamedir as: 0Testing1.bmx
Etc...

[meeshu]

Thanks for the details.

Unfortunately, this procedure doesn't seem to work (for DFTFD). The instructions seem to be for DFLW anyway.

I renamed a custom SP map to "12345678.bms".

Saved this renamed file to main game directory (C:\Program Files\Novalogic\Delta Force Task Force Dagger\ and also to the pff named SMALL.PFF (there is no Dflw.pff file in DFTFD).

SMALL.PFF file also contains other bms files so I thought the custom SP map 12345678.bms file should also go in there.

But while playing the custom map (12345678.bms) and pressing the F11 key, nothing seems to happen (no messages or anything). Exited the map and went back to the quick missions menu to see if the game was saved for the map 12345678, but the only option was to start the game from the beginning again! The three saved game slots were all grayed out!?

So it appears that the custom map was not saved!?

Any other ideas?

[Scott]

Sorry I don't have any other ideas for that

[meeshu]

Hmm! I'm still looking into this issue of being able to save custom maps.

A question in relation to this issue -

Under Quick Missions (where the default SP and any custom maps are listed), there is a "title" on the left which relates to the mission, and "Mission Data" on the right which provides details of the mission.

Question is, where does the "title" text come from for the (25 or so) default maps?

For example, for the first default SP mission (map D06M01.BMS), the "title" says -

Operation Lion
DTG 190230Z

But on looking at this map (after converting it to a .mis file for editing) I can't find where the "title" text is entered for the mission? There was no entry in the .mis file for "Operation Lion DTG 190230Z"!?

So where is the "title" text "Operation Lion DTG 190230Z" coming from?

[Scott]

It's probable coming from on the of the resource files that just matches the bms file name to a string of text like that. At least, that's how it was in DF2.

[Guest001]

Originally Posted by meeshu

Hmm! I'm still looking into this issue of being able to save custom maps.

A question in relation to this issue -

Under Quick Missions (where the default SP and any custom maps are listed), there is a "title" on the left which relates to the mission, and "Mission Data" on the right which provides details of the mission.

Question is, where does the "title" text come from for the (25 or so) default maps?

For example, for the first default SP mission (map D06M01.BMS), the "title" says -

Operation Lion
DTG 190230Z

But on looking at this map (after converting it to a .mis file for editing) I can't find where the "title" text is entered for the mission? There was no entry in the .mis file for "Operation Lion DTG 190230Z"!?

So where is the "title" text "Operation Lion DTG 190230Z" coming from?

The mission name can be retrieved by the game from inside the bms (entered during editing) or the bin file (probably packed inside the pff).


BIN entry.
'[info]'
Title = " ";
briefing = " ";

[meeshu]

Thanks for the comments.

After a bit of searching, the mission title text apparently comes from the BRIEF.BIN file within the SMALL.PFF file.

This might be a clue to determining how to enable saving custom maps.

I've already done some editing of several files (using a HEX editor), but so far the game crashes with a sysdump message. Crash probably caused by changing file size.

[meeshu]

After some experimentation and by editing certain files, I can now save custom SP maps!!

Apart from editing certain files, at this stage there doesn't seem to be an easier way of enabling saving of custom SP maps.

However, there are some minor issues to be sorted out yet. Once done, I'll detail what has to be done in order to enable saving custom (SP) maps.

[Guest001]

Originally Posted by meeshu

After some experimentation and by editing certain files, I can now save custom SP maps!!

Apart from editing certain files, at this stage there doesn't seem to be an easier way of enabling saving of custom SP maps.

However, there are some minor issues to be sorted out yet. Once done, I'll detail what has to be done in order to enable saving custom (SP) maps.

Good to hear you sorted it out.
Perhaps if you post some details of you methodology and some script - maybe someone would be interested enough to make something to help all the DFTFD mappers with this issue?

[Scott]

Nice work meeshu!

[meeshu]

OK!

Basically, placing custom (SP) maps within the games main directory does not allow saving of the those custom map games.

Tried placing custom map within the file SMALL.PFF where the default maps are also stored. But again saving of custom map games was still not possible.

By looking into various game files it was found that there were references to the default maps within the main game executable DFTFD.exe and within the file BRIEF.BIN (which is located within the SMALL.PFF file).

To allow saving games from custom SP maps basically requires editing the main game executable DFTFD.exe using a HEX editor, AND by saving the custom map in file SMALL.PFF.

Within the DFTFD.exe file, the name of the custom map has to be entered at the BOTTOM of the list of the default maps so it will become the FIRST map in the list of available Quick Missions maps.

Custom map should NOT be entered at the TOP of the list because the number of maps available in the Quick Missions screen limits the number of maps to the FIRST 26 maps. There are already 26 default maps included with the game. If custom map is entered at the top, the custom map will be number 27 in this case and the LAST in the list, and since it exceeds the limit of 26 maps, it will not appear in the list of available maps in the Quick Missions screen.

There will probably be dome sort of definition that sets the number of displayed Quick Missions maps to 26. If this definition could be found, then the number of displayed maps should be able to be increased.

The custom map name has to be entered into the DFTFD.exe using a HEX editor and using Hex code. The Hex codes to use can be found by looking nearby existing codes.

One line of Hex code should be allocated for this custom map, and any bytes short of completing the line of code should be filled in using zero's.

Now, to prevent the possibility of game crashes, the DFTFD.exe file size should remain the same after entering the custom map name. So this means having to delete one line of zero's located just a bit above the last map (map D06M25.BMS). Once done, the DFTFD.exe file should be saved.

That's basically it!

Here are some screenshots which may help -









It is noticed that the custom map (in this case a map named ITB.BMS) mission name and mission data/details are just part of the map name surrounded by question marks. The reason being that the mission name and mission details have not been defined within the file BRIEF.BIN which is located within the SMALL.PFF file.

The game expects details to be available from the file BRIEF.BIN, but since no details for this custom map have been entered (yet) into the BRIEF.BIN file, then the question marks are displayed.

However, editing the BRIEF.BIN file to enter the custom map mission name and details is a problem. Because there is very little in the way of spare one line "zero's" to delete/edit to enable entering data for the custom map AND to retain the same file size.

It was found that by editing the BRIEF.BIN file and changing it's file size caused the game to crash with sysdumps!

It might be possible to edit the BRIEF.BIN file and add custom mission details, but the file size will change (increase), and in order to make the game run without crashing, the entire game may have to be recompiled!? A major job, which is beyond my abilities!!

EDIT: Now getting sysdumps when trying to load saved custom game. First saved game seems to load and run OK, but the second saved game always crashes DFTFD with sysdump message!

[Scott]

Nice work meeshu!

Thanks for posting your solution!

[meeshu]

I suspect the save custom map function is not quite working properly. And as mentioned above, the second saved game crashes when trying to run it. Also the load game F12 key doesn't seem to be working either.

There is still some work to be done to ensure the saved custom games are saved properly, and, if possible, adding custom mission heading and mission briefing details. Also trying to get the number of quick missions displayed to more than 26, and finally getting the load game (F12 key) to work (properly).

All this might need having to disassemble the program (DFTFD.exe) and see what is happening and where. But this is getting down to assembly language level which can be difficult to understand and trace.

[meeshu]

Further update:

Although custom games seem to be saved and can be (re)loaded, there is a problem.

After loading a custom saved game, the save seems to have forgotten what weapon was being carried at the time, and when loading the saved game the weapon had changed back to the default weapon for the map!?

Also, if the player and/or the enemy were above ground in a tower or on a walkway etc when the custom game was saved, the player and/or the enemy will fall down to ground level when the saved game is loaded!?

This doesn't seem to happen all the time though. However I did fiddle a bit more with the BRIEF.BIN file, so that might have screwed things up a bit.

The default Quick Missions seem to save and load OK without any issue (if playing the stock DFTFD game without any modifications). The problem seems related to the editing of the BRIEF.BIN file and/or editing of the DFTFD.exe file.

So more work has to be done to ensure there are no bad side effects of editing files to enable custom map saving.

[Guest001]

? C:\Program Files\NovaLogic\Deta Force Task Force Dagger\DFTFD.exe

! C:\Program Files (x86)\NovaLogic\Deta Force Task Force Dagger\DFTFD.exe

[meeshu]

Thanks for the comment, but I'm not sure the directory name/path is the issue here.

Anyway, I'm heavily occupied with other things at the moment, so refining the custom map save and load functions so that they work properly will take awhile yet. It seems that some other game files will also have to be edited in order for save/load to work OK.

Sorry.