Cheat Engine

Meanbunny · How do I cheat? Reputation: 0 Joined: 31 Mar 2015 Posts: 4

Hey there, I am fairly new to hacking games and I have been recently playing the game "Tactics Ogre : Let Us Cling Together" for the Playstation 1 and there is something that I have found extremely difficult to figure out.

Every character in this game from the beginning has an alignment. L, N or C. That stands for Lawful, Neutral and Chaos. Alignments are important because they control which classes you can become later in the game. To see a characters alignment, you go to the character screen and it just shows in the top left corner as a single letter, either L, N or C.

The issue is that I have no idea how you would even go about trying to find where the address is that controls which alignment a character is. I can confirm the main characters alignment can change in the game depending on certain choices made. If anyone can help me to figure out how I would go about doing this, I would be greatly indebted to them.

Thanks to anyone who has any ideas. Have a great day.

Zanzer · Posted: Tue Mar 31, 2015 7:34 pm Post subject:

Chances are the value is stored as a number.
For example, 0 = Neutral, 1 = Lawful, 2 = Chaotic
Or possibly -1 = Chaotic, 0 = Neutral, 1 = Lawful

If the game requires you to take several actions to go from one alignment to the next, then it may store a total.
For example, <-10 = Chaos, -10 through 10 = Neutral, >10 = Lawful
When you do a good deed, it increments the value by 1. Negative deed decrements the value.
In this case, the value could possibly be a float that increments and decrements.

The game may also calculate your alignment on the fly.
It may keep separate totals. One for good deeds and one for bad deeds.
When querying your alignment, it takes good deeds minus bad deeds and uses that result.

Have fun. Smile

Meanbunny · How do I cheat? Reputation: 0 Joined: 31 Mar 2015 Posts: 4

Thanks for your reply. I am almost positive that it does store them as a number sort of like 1 = L, 2 = N, 3 = C. The problem is I don't know how this information even helps me to find the address where it is kept. I know this is probably the case because your elemental sign which is right next to your alignment uses 1, 2, 3 and 4 to specify the value for your element.

Your alignment does not float per say according to what you do in the game, you just make certain choices at certain parts of the story and the game switches your alignment according to that, but it doesnt ever change on the fly from small events. Also, everyone else that is not the main character has no way to change their alignment. That is where my problem is. If you have any ideas on how I can go about figuring this out, I do appreciate it very much. Have a great day.

Zanzer · Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2015 7:32 pm Post subject:

It would be very hard to find the value unless you are able to repeatedly change it back and forth.

Normally for these types, you would search unknown initial value.
When you change it in game, rescan for changed value. Repeat.
If the value changes to what it was during your initial scan, switch your scan to compare the first results and unchanged value.

However, if you're going to go hours between alignment shifts, this isn't very helpful.

Another way that is often useful is to find other values related to your character.
Open it in memory view and examine all other variables nearby.
If possible, dump the huge block of bytes someplace right before you change alignment.
Afterwards, dump the same bytes and see if any shifted by 1.

Meanbunny · How do I cheat? Reputation: 0 Joined: 31 Mar 2015 Posts: 4

Thanks for the reply. The only thing I could think to do is save state before an alignment change and then after the alignment change. That way I can load the saves back and forth from one alignment to the other. I'm not sure if that will work with save states or not, but I guess its worth a try.

I am not sure how to compare to the first scan to see everything that changed by 1. If you can explain how without you having to put too much effort into it that would help, but I don't expect you to spend all your time helping me figure this out though. Thanks a bunch and I will keep tinkering to see if I can figure this out.

Zanzer · Posted: Thu Apr 02, 2015 11:32 am Post subject:

Loading a save likely won't work. Game probably starts with all new memory addresses.

When doing a search, you can choose Compare to first scan from the Scan Type dropdown.
This causes the next scans you perform to check against the initial value that started the search.
Don't forget to turn it off when going back to normal scans, select Compare to last scan.