Hacking the Armada savegame file (using DC Link) Released 10/30/2000 Written by James Roman (aolsucks_hard@yahoo.com) Version 1.0 1. Contents 1. Contents 2. Introduction 3. Version History 4. What You Need 5. The Process A. Raising Your Credit Limit (so to speak) B. Taking Your Game To A Whole New Level C. Experiencing New Things 6. Other Slot Locations 7. Acknoledgements and Stuff 8. Things Missing From This FAQ 9. Copyrights 10. Bad Sites (AKA Ripoff Sites) 2. Introduction I recently bought a used copy of Armada from Games 4 Less ($15, I couldn't resist) and a NEXUS memory card. I played Armada for a while, and then I decided to see if I could mess with the savegame. This FAQ contains my findings. 3. Version History - Version 1: Original version of this FAQ. Section 5 partially complete. Section 5 only has instructions for editing the first save slot's credits. I need to figure out the positions of the other slots information before I add anything else to this document. I also need to figure out how Items are stored. If you can help me, email me. (Released 10/30/2000 (my 20th birthday)) - Version 1.5: Added 2nd character save slot information, and cleaned up a lot of my errors. (Released 10/30/2000 (later that day, natrually) - Version 2: Added the Good Sites/Bad Sites sections. I haven't been playing Armada much lately, so I haven't gotten anything done with the FAQ. I should be starting work on it again pretty soon, though. No finish date is possible right now, since I never know when I'll get the urge to do some more work on it. Oh yes, this FAQ is now mirrored at Al Amaloo's site (http://www.gamewinners.com and http://vgstrategies.about.com). 4. What You Need - Dreamcast (duh) - Armada by Metro3D (duh) - Nexus Memory Card (I used the 4meg, 16meg should work too) with PC link cable - DC Link (I used 2.3b; there might be a new version out by now: http://www.hkems.com/download.htm) - Windows Calculator (in Scientific mode, used to convert decimal numbers to hex with absolute ease) - Some patience. 5. The Process A. Raising Your Credit Limit (so to speak) NOTE: Make a backup of your save file (double click it, click Export, and give it a name) before you edit it, especially if you've never done this before. I'm going to assume that you have a little knowledge of hexadecimal. First, hook everything up. Turn on your Dreamcast. Open up DC Link and pray that it works. If not, take out the Link cable from the top of the NEXUS card and re-insert it. It's a cheaply made cable, so it doesn't work 100% of the time. Once you do get it working, click on the Armada savegame (hint: its the A). On the left, a small toolbar will slide into view, with two buttons on it: Edit and Disasm (Disasm = disassemble and is disabled). Click Edit. A window will pop up with HEX on the left (lots of two character bytes) and ASCII text on the right (the ASCII equivalent of the HEX bytes). I've found that Armada stores the numerical data with the first and last bytes transposed. Meaning, that if you have 915 credits (393 in HEX), then it'll show up 93 03 in the save file. Keep this in mind. Okay. Credits are stored in the line 0xA30 for the first character save slot. You'll know its the first character save slot because on the right, you'll see the name of the character that is in the first slot. The credits are the first three bytes in the line. Change them to FF FF FF. Now, hit File - Save and close the window. DC Link will transfer the edited save file to your NEXUS, overwriting your original save file. Unplug the link cable from your NEXUS card, and start up Armada like usual. BAM! You should have somewhere in the range of 16 million credits. You're done, if all went well. B. Taking Your Game To A Whole New Level For the player one spot, the level is hidden in the 0x390 line, 5 bytes in (aka 0x395). You'll spot your characters current rather easily. Change this number to something (44 (2c in hex) is the last level where you get ship powerups for gaining levels). I don't know what the max is here, but I would think 255 (FF in hex) would work. C. Experiencing New Things Experience is also in the 0x390 line, only this time its 13, 14 and 15 bytes from the left (the number at the 13th byte may be blank if you don't have more than 255 experience). Changing these bytes to FF FF FF will give something like 16 million experience points. 6. Other Slot Locations A. Slot 2 1. Experience Experience for the second save slot is located on line 0x500, bytes 5, 6 & 7. Change them to FF FF 4A for all the experience you can handle. Note that there seems to be a limit on experience. 2. Credits Credits for the second save slot is also located on line 0x500. The bytes to change are bytes 9-11. Set them all to FF, and you'll have 16 million credits. 3. Level The level for the second character save slot is on line 0x4F0, byte 12. I think theres a cap on this. Read above in section 5 for more details. 7. Acknoledgements and Stuff Thanks! ======= - Metro 3D For taking a game that had a lot of production problems, and was originally panned by most reviewers (before release) and creating this absolute work of art. - Sega For creating a DAMNED good video game console, and keeping the prices down so that small time video game companies like Metro 3D could create absolute gems like this. - Sony For not being Sega. THANK YOU! If Sony owned Sega, we'd have wound up with a crappy video game system (can anyone say POS2? I knew you could) - Wedge55 For allowing me to discover the Dreamcast through a LOT of multiplayer play. And, of course, for having the guts to rent Armada and get me hooked on it. - Games 4 Less Damn BIG store, great selection, EXCELLENT prices. Check this place out if you can. - You! For taking the time to read this. Hopefully, now you know how to 'hack' Armada's save file, and might even be able to help me. 8. Things Missing From This FAQ 1. Item hacking - I'm working on this, but it doesn't look too good. It's pretty hard to figure out the bytes that are changed when you buy/sell new items. If you can help me with this, let me know. 2. Other Save Slots - Again, I'm working on this, but the going is slow. Once I get this done, I'll have to re-organize the FAQ, which isn't that big of a problem. Again, if you can help me with this, please let me know. 3. Review - Hopefully, by the next update, I'll have written my own review of this game. It's certainly worth the effort. Any Dreamcast owner who hasen't at least rented this game is missing out. 9. Copyrights This FAQ is Copyright (c) 2000 James Roman. All of the text within this document is mine and mine only. All views/opinions represented here are mine, and don't necessarily represent anyone elses point of view. DO NOT COPY THIS FAQ UNLESS YOU EMAIL ME. If you want to use this FAQ in a magazine or distribute it on ANY media (including Floppy Disk, CD-ROM, DVD, Digital Tape, Internet) send me an email. Questions or comments should be sent to aolsucks_hard@yahoo.com Any mail from idiots (aka flamers, spammers, people who don't know what Windows Calculator is) will be ignored. Repeat offences will be dealt with, without warning, by using the Block Sender function of Outlook Express. Armada is a copyright of Metro 3D, and Dreamcast is a copyright of Sega. Yadda yadda yadda. These programs were used in the making of this FAQ: 1. DCLink 2.3B 2. Notepad 3. Hex Workshop 4. Hackman 5. MS-DOS Edit 10. Bad Game Sites (Aka Ripoff sites) == Well, I just got an email from someone over at FBGames.com (at the mention of this site, the crowd begins to load their guns) asking permission to use my FAQ on their site. I was all ready to accept, but before I did, I decided to take a look at the site, to make sure it was something I wanted to be a part of. The site wasn't quite finished, but there was enough there for me to navigate around relatively easily. I went to the Dreamcast section, looked for Armada, and, lo and behold, my FAQ was already up there, even before I gave the O.K.! Needless to say, this pissed me off. I have declined their invitiation to host my FAQ, and I suggest that any current or future FAQ writer does the same. I'll be checking back tomarrow to make sure that my FAQ was taken down, and if not, I'll be sure to look into any means necessary to force its removal. 11. Good Sites (Aka: Ones that are allowed to mirror this FAQ) == The following sites have been given permission to mirror this FAQ: - GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com) - Al Alamoo and Company (http://www.gamewinners.com and http://vgstrategies.about.com) If you see any other sites out there hosting this FAQ, then send me an email at aolsucks_hard@yahoo.com . Action will be taken. Thanks! == END