Dark Sun editor

Editor for Dark Sun
By C.k. (wolvy)
Date: November 16, 1993
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I would reccommend you read this or you might get confused by this
confusing editor. :}
Well, I entered writing this editor attempting to make an item editor.
As it turned out, the way SSI saved their item data, it was indexed to
some various numbers that had to be all in line to create an individual
item [i.e. you can't just change the item id number and change the item,
there are other numbers that configure what type of item it is and if
it's wrong, it doesn't make much a difference].  Also, for each type of
item, there was a mask number that had in it's 1 byte, if it was heavy
or not, if it was usable, what position the item CAN be used, and none
of this data looked to be a bit pattern, rather an index of some sort.
I searched through the exe's and finally, after wasting a ton of time, I
came to the realization that SSI has lost the ability to write games.
One situation in particular.  Let's take El's drinker for example.  El's
drinker is a blade that has the spell of vampiric touch attached to it,
so that during combat, you hit someone with the weapon, it sucks hit
points from the attackee and gives them to the attacker.  I attempted to
change the spell to something else to test a theory.  Sure enough, it
would change as I suspected, but as soon as you got into your first
combat afterwards, it would revert back to its normal self.
Seeing this and the stupidity in how it appends each screen to each
other and how the save files end up getting tremendously enormous and
how slow it takes to load/save each time, AND then having the end game
freeze up on me 3 times consecutively, I am giving this up for now.
Enclosed is what editor I had done with the character editor done at the
last minute.  There are not any doc files, just showing the keys
available on each of the menus.  What you can do is as follows:
Character Editing:  You start out in the main menu, from here you can
edit any of the character's attributes, etc.  Note, lots of edits will
get lost [in the attributes] when you raise a level.  Hit the function
keys F1 to F3 to edit the Psionic spells, the Preserver spells, and the
actual attributes themselves.  Alt 1 2 and 3 cycle the available types
for the corresponding texts on the screen.  Hit enter to edit items.
Item Editing:  If you actually read the above, you will know that I have
given up on the item editing portions until I get a renewed interest to
do so.  Other than that, the only things worth doing in here are editing
the item's plus [seems to be able to go into the higher numbers, but not
sure at what point is the highest], and editing the magic spells.  [note
previous statement about el's drinker, will only work on some items, and
that you can't just edit the item's magical property itself and it will
have a spell on it from that point on.
   Big by the way:  The game uses the same byte(s) to store the quantity
   for multiple items AND the magical spell attached, so another reason
   to beware of accidently saving the changes.
Another note:  In the Character and spell menus, any changes will be
made immediately.  Changes while editing the inventory items will be
saved ONLY after you manually save them.  Switching to another character
or exiting the menu for any reason WILL NOT save the changes.
While editing spells, note:  Preserver/cleric spells are no biggie, just
choose the spell by hitting enter and you know it.  Psionic spells
though, are stored in a 8 byte format.  Meaning, learning it each time
increases the spell known by 8, not by 1.  Use ctrl-left and right arrow
to increase/decrease the spell and ctrl-home/end to max/min the spell.
Btw, the program looks for certain files in the current directory that
are installed their when you install dark sun.  The reason I don't place
my email address anymore with my editors is that I don't want to be
getting messages such as: How come the editor doesn't work.
Answer:  Well, it would be nice to have some save games in the first
place to edit the save files with.
Other than that, the rest is wysiwyg.  Have phun.
L8r
C.k.
(wolvy)