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Author Topic: utility creation  (Read 401 times)

Maythe

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utility creation
« on: January 10, 2012, 11:27:38 pm »

Hey everyone,

I've played dwarf fortress a while, but I'm new to the forums.  I understand that the game can be modded by editing the RAWS and what not, but I'm interested in how utilities such as Dwarf Therapist are developed- ones that are capable of running along-side the game and modifying it real-time.

I suspect doing so will require low-level and manual access of the memory used by Dwarf Fortress while running, but before I delve into that, I thought I'd check with the community first.

Thank you for any nudge in the right direction you can offer :)

-Maythe
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i2amroy

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Re: utility creation
« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2012, 11:33:40 pm »

Personally I don't know that much about utilities (I'm on a mac so it sort of limits what I can use out there) but I am fairly certain that yes, their creation involved the use of hex editors and other memory access devices to figure out where and how DF saves its data, and then utilizing that information. Then for updates of DF the utilities must check the memory locations again to see if they have changed and if so, change where they are attempting to intercept/read the messages.
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Meph

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Re: utility creation
« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2012, 12:04:07 am »

If you have any questions regarding the Lazy Newb Pack, I'd be happy to help. Have been staring at the source code and modding it the last 2 days :)
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Maythe

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Re: utility creation
« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2012, 12:18:55 am »

Thanks to both of you!  I will continue my research and check out the Lazy Newb Pack and post back later.
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