Yep, that worked, thank you!

I've been messing around with it and using it to increase the 80-item limit in X-Com as an experiment. I had it working in the Geoscape but have been side-tracked before I could finish fixing it in the tactical portion. It is a pretty nice tool.

Does the ability to obtain or ask about the "Unique ships" go away or become hidden after a while? I've been promoted to Ace, killed two of the Dominator leaders, about 130 Dominators, 30-40 Pirates, and I have almost 1 million credits but I don't even see the option for a unique ship anymore...

Anyone else had this?

No, it does not go away. But you can only ask about it on the stations that have build one. If you did not write the station names in your notes (F1), you will have to go find one by visiting the stations.

Anybody know what the uniques are like, yet?

Okay, I got the game crash to desktop when asking about the unique military ship
I downloaded your patch but when I tried to run it an error msg window opened and said it couldn't find debugmsg.dll

Help!!!!

put the new .exe in the same folder you installed Reboot. Run the new .exe instead of the old .exe

To those of you who have managed to get one of the unique ships:

Do they actually *work*? That is, do they give the bonuses they say they do?

I was able to get all three ships, but I could not notice any difference in their performance.

Yet another bug then by the sounds of it.

So in summary:

We're missing text quests that never got translated (despite waiting a very long time for the translation to be done!)

The game as released has a crash to desktop error in one of the bigger new features which has only been corrected at all thanks to the efforts of a player. Even then the feature does not actually work properly.

The unique ships don't have the properties they are supposed to.

There seems to be no sign of the new equipment that is supposed to have been added. (See the post by Malodarom toward the bottom of this page:
http://elementalgames.com/forum/msg.php?lang=eng&forum=rangers&theme=484&&page=1 )
Anyone actually found any of this stuff?


Can any programmers shed some light on how this can have been so bodged? Is it not just a case of taking the (properly working) Russian version of the code and changing the text files? Why would the code itself have to be substantially altered?

I have been digging further into the code of the unique ships.

The situation:
When you ask about the unique ship, the code actually creates it, in order to look up/calculate its price. At the step of adding the unique properties, it crashed with the error SpecialToEquipment, because it knew something went wrong. When I forced the program to ignore the error, it would calculate a value of one, it would fail altogether. My 'fix' until now has been the skipping the unique properties step altogether.
When you actually buy the ship, the code is run again, and then it is actually created. Continuing

I will see whether I can fix the REAL problem, but that may not be as easy as skipping the problem, which was what I previously did.

Greatly appreciated, netriak. I'm a bit surprised (given my layman's knowledge) that you're able to get that much detail without the source code. I'd be interested to know how...can you point me in the right direction to start learning (or are we talking years of knowledge to even get started here?)

Of course, it shouldn't be up to you...

No years of knowledge required (to get started). I did not have much prior knowledge before trying to fix Space rangers 2, just some general programming, assembly and hex editing knowledge.

I use The free version of IDA for disassembly purposes.

Work on getting the unique ships to do unique stuff is progressing.
Apparently the unique ability isn't being found. As a test, I have been able to get the unique ship to use the abilities and descriptive text of a micromodule, which worked perfectly. That proves that the system is functional at least, and fixing it may be possible.

Operation fix the executable seems to be a success, just view this screenshot.

I will have to some further testing before I make the fix publicably available.

As you can see it is bigger, more expensive and mentions unique abilities.

SUCCESS! Not only do the unique ships work now, but the unique equipment is spawning now too!

Summary of bugs:

The trade good search parameters do not work properly: Fixed by me.

Unique ship crash: Now fully fixed by me, the ships have their special powers, and the right price.

Unique equipment doesn't spawn: This was infact the SAME bug as the unique ship crash. My fix fixed that too as a side-effect. The unique equipment looks nice, and contains unique hulls too.
For example, in the pirate base I see several new Pigamar series hulls, with increased capacity for carrying missiles.

So, what bugs are left?

Download the new fixed exe here:
Mediafire download link

Wow. Just...wow.

Many, many thanks!

Let me know if it works for you. I have only been able to test the military unique ship, since that was the only one I had the requirements for, although I'm sure all of them work now.
Note that any unique ships bought with my old fix will remain as they are, they will not be retroactively fixed. You will have to buy a new one if you want to see them working.

Also, try to see whether the unique equipment is now spawning over time in Space stations.
Different space stations carry different types of unique equipment, planets never carry unique equipment.

By the way, are you still interested in learning how to do stuff like this? If so, I can write up how I managed to fix the problem, the route I took, and what the problem actually was.

Yeah, but very busy for a while yet so don't spend the time. I assume you'll remember how you did it, so when I eventually get around to it, I'll see if I can recreate your fix. Might ask for some hints then.

Sure, I'd be happy to give some hints if you need them whenever you get the time to try it yourself.

dude, Netriak, the company should send a decent little stipend your way for your work! I can't speak for anyone else, but i REALLY appreciate your work on this!

Netriak - If you can send your writeup to me via email ([email protected]) I'll pass it along the chain back to Elemental Games. Maybe they can fix this up in a patch.

Sure, I'll do that.

Edit: I've send an email.

Also, if you want any more details, just ask, but I think I've supplied sufficient information for it to be fixed.