Dupe stats, save file editing, and a possible workaround

[saltyteabag]

So, I was pretty bummed when I started playing the Occupational Preview and found out that dupes no longer improve their stats over time.  I understand the reasoning, but I'll echo what a lot of others here have been saying: Why not just lower the stat cap, and use the jobs a way to further increase stats past the natural cap?  That way it doesn't feel like a huge nerf.  Dupes with 0 athletics are painfully slow at any job.  With most jobs having no path to increase that stat, It's pretty much come down to not picking dupes that don't have at least +3.  Anemic dupes are so much of a deal breaker that I don't think anyone even accepts them anymore.

Anyhow, since the preview came out I've been searching for a way to fix this.  I've seen some older posts about editing the save files with a hex editor, but it looks like that's not really practical since the Automation Update where they started compressing the files rather than leaving them plain text.  If anyone's got an easy way to decompress the data and edit it, please share it here because I couldn't figure it out.

In the mean time, I figured out a workaround that makes the Preview a little less painful to play.  You can either copy and paste a neural vascillator, or use the templates here, and just keep vascillating all your dupes until they get the "Rock Crusher" trait.  Since the strength stat was merged into athletics, it now gives +10 athletics.  There's a total of 4 possible traits to get from the vascillator, and you can't get duplicate traits, so at most you'll have to do each dupe 4 times.

I know it's kinda cheatey, but for me it was either this or quit playing.

[The Plum Gate]

This is not helpful to the topic, I know, but the preview isn't finished yet - don't jump the gun. It may not be obvious, but the Devs are listening. You're more likely to run into issues than solutions while they're still making tweaks to the job system.

[saltyteabag]

2 hours ago, The Plum Gate said:

This is not helpful to the topic, I know, but the preview isn't finished yet - don't jump the gun. It may not be obvious, but the Devs are listening. You're more likely to run into issues than solutions while they're still making tweaks to the job system.

Oh yeah, I'm hoping that it will be less of a nerf by the time this gets pushed out of preview.  But, just trying to figure a way forward in the mean time.

[Lord-Xanthor]

I'm about to buy 2 more copies for my kids. Hearing about nerfing like that, sort of is a bummer. Funny that my kids told me to hold off until the update was released so they could see my game, before deciding for themselves. Guess I now have to admit they were right lol. My suggestion though is this. If you make backups of both the data and game like I do, go back as far as you can, and start a game there. Then do what you want, adjustment wise, duplicate wise, stat wise, then once your 100% happy with what you got, then allow the game to update to its regular update and the game should update with it. I actually edit my own games down to the ML, but problem with this, I can't post the information for others, because the addresses constantly change. There will always be programs to offset changes, they just take time. Most don't write them till after the latest update is made. That's because no one want to spend hours to days writing a trainer, that will be made useless with just a single update. I actually signed up here today to see if I can find any templates for the debug mode. I'm surprised that isn't just a normal feature. Imagine how big the workshop would be if so many templates were made available for sharing.

[donutman07]

3 minutes ago, Lord-Xanthor said:

I'm about to buy 2 more copies for my kids. Hearing about nerfing like that, sort of is a bummer. Funny that my kids told me to hold off until the update was released so they could see my game, before deciding for themselves. Guess I now have to admit they were right lol. My suggestion though is this. If you make backups of both the data and game like I do, go back as far as you can, and start a game there. Then do what you want, adjustment wise, duplicate wise, stat wise, then once your 100% happy with what you got, then allow the game to update to its regular update and the game should update with it. I actually edit my own games down to the ML, but problem with this, I can't post the information for others, because the addresses constantly change. There will always be programs to offset changes, they just take time. Most don't write them till after the latest update is made. That's because no one want to spend hours to days writing a trainer, that will be made useless with just a single update. I actually signed up here today to see if I can find any templates for the debug mode. I'm surprised that isn't just a normal feature. Imagine how big the workshop would be if so many templates were made available for sharing.

just in case you didnt see this older thread:

 

[Lord-Xanthor]

30 minutes ago, donutman07 said:

just in case you didnt see this older thread:

 

Thanks. You know, I actually did find that earlier but never got to read it, and lost the info of where it came from in a google search. Had no clue it was from here. Spent two hours looking as was about to give up. One of my kids cats hopped on the tower and hit the reset key, and even history didn't nab it.

[The Plum Gate]

17 hours ago, Lord-Xanthor said:

Thanks. You know, I actually did find that earlier but never got to read it, and lost the info of where it came from in a google search. Had no clue it was from here. Spent two hours looking as was about to give up. One of my kids cats hopped on the tower and hit the reset key, and even history didn't nab it.

They just made more big changes to the preview.

I'd suggest you go into your windows power plan and change what happens when the rest button is pressed action to 'sleep', 'hibernate', or 'do nothing'.

[Lord-Xanthor]

It's the reset key built into the computer itself, not the one on the keyboard. I already have the keyboard ones disabled. Lost count how many times id hit the sleep key in the middle of something important >_<.. The OS has no control over the PCs reset =(

[AtmaDarkwolf]

it does mine.

 

In power settings, can change so that my power button (the physical one, not windows menu) can be set to do as he explained above (power off, sleep, hibernate, do nothing, etc)

Then when I DO need to shutdown (cold restart) just hold it in. I don't even have a reset button on the actual tower (Did on my last build) - to do a reset (which isn't ever necessary) u would have to tap the button on the actual mobo.

 

Hell you can even disconnect the leads coming off the pwr/rst headers and use the mobo with only the mobo buttons if one wanted.