Money, again...

[Rares]

Hi to all... I have a small question: there is a money cheat code or a hex address to edit to add more money ? I'm playing the game just for fun and for exploration. Thanks.

[Aures]

Afaik there are no cheat codes of any kind.

There is a very easy way to make money quickly, I give steps to it in the OP of the thread Easy Money (hint + explicit spoiler) so if you don't want to spend much time making money just do that once or twice and you will be pretty set. Some people don't like to use this method of making money because they consider it to be too quick and easy. It is a part of the game design though so it doesn't even count as an exploit.

You could probably use a universal trainer to track down the right hex address to edit but it will probably take longer than using the above method. Using a hex editor is also generally frowned upon (where it is not explicitly forbidden) for any multiplayer game so if you plan on playing MP with the profile you would be better off making money legitimately.

[Inverness]

I have a question about it too. Very early in the IMG questline I discovered a way to make a lot of money very easily. Are you saying that this was overlooked on purpose, Aures?

[Aures]

No I did that run a few times when I first did the IMG quest, good money for that stage of the game. But you would have to do runs to that container for hours and hours to equal one trip as outlined in that thread. Compared to that trade run emptying out the container in the IMG quest is chump change.

And I have just confirmed an even quicker way of making money, it will rake in more than 10 times the profit of the method I posted about. I will eventually explain it in that thread when I have the details worked out and I have tested it to see just how quickly I can make money (I might wait until someone has claimed the prize for guessing what game I am testing before I post the method, haven't decided yet). I expect the profit to be in the billions per hour.

Btw Rares if you check out the thread Cap'n Aures sez "Respect my authoritah!" I am offering 250,000,000 credits to anyone who can guess what game I am beta testing. Should tide you over for a while if you feel like playing guessing games rather than working for a living.

EDIT: Using my new method of making money I expect to make 2+ billion credits per hour based on my testing today. There are plenty of games with money cheat codes where it would take longer to cheat in that much (ie the kind where you press a key combination or something that instantly gives you several thousand a pop).

[Edited on 6-11-2010 by Aures]

[widden]

so...what do you do with billions of credits in this game?

P.S. I've found that early container-cheat money-making way as well, it brings in about 550K per trip (which is about a minute).

And I've been taken aback. It makes any other activity (at that level) totally pointless. It's a bit of a turn-off to be honest.
It seems like an oversight to leave that sort of thing in a game like this, and IIRC even the description says you'll find ONE good thing in the container, not an endless supply. And that's how it should be IMHO.

[Edited on 11-6-2010 by widden]

[Aures]

Nope it is totally intentional and is not a cheat. I agree it makes money making any other way kind of pointless. But the point of a game is to have fun, not to grind (*cough* military rank *cough*). I remember grinding for cash in Legends, I like that I have never cared about money since after my first day of play in Mercenary. Even in Legends once you had good kit and knew how to make money fast it quickly became a non-issue.

Stuff gets more expensive as your civilian rank increases, costs me more than 500k a cycle to rent out a hanger. Station licenses now cost me a couple of hundred million. If I was renting out a couple of hangers I would actually lose money by spending my time going back and forth to that container.

I did that part of the quest on my first day so I don't remember exactly what the message said but I think it just talked about a container location rather than specify an amount (might have said something like "something good", definitely didn't say anything like "You will find one single use container that you can get a good item from once").

What you do with billions of credits is raise your rank, beyond that it is up to you. Plaster trade stations all over uncharted space, keep a couple of frames and good equipment in a hanger in every system, bribe your way to a good reputation in every system, fire fulcrum torpedoes at everyone you run into etc. In most games you reach a point where you have absurd amounts of money, games like X3 where there is always something useful you can do with your money (ie invest it so you make money even faster) are the exception rather than the rule.

[widden]

I sortof understand what you're saying, and if I'd play the game again, I probably would not want to go through all the hoops.
However, getting (relatively) big money right at the start without really working for it removes the feeling of achievement. You know, that warm and fuzzy thing inside, that you've finally got enough to buy that L3 gun, because you've been a mighty warrior/clever merchant/assiduous miner/... What it does instead is puts the focus totally on fighting. That's the only thing at this point, what you really need to master to move ahead. And it's very hard at the start. So in my opinion this is a bit of a mistake from the game devs, it unbalances the early part of the game, completely.

That was - I think - one of the best things in Elite (if you've heard of the game) that it took you through all parts of the game, step-by-step.

As to how much money you need now, when you're a legend in your own right - I think that's absolutely irrelevant. We're talking about a container you get after a mere couple of hours of gameplay.

[Maarschalk]

Hi Rares and Widden. Welcome to the game and forum. Hope to see you guys out there.......

[deathMinder]

Well I think that's part of the beauty of this game, is that while there's no real reason to mine oxygen, its the fact that you can. Maybe only once in the time that you play the game?

This game is not a skinner box. You're not gonna press a button and some Random Number Generator is gonna say "Congratulations! You get a cookie!" but then you have to press the button another 100 times hoping you get the button.

Instead you get vastness and immersion. This game is for the kind of person that tries to jump off the edge of the screen in Mario Bros to see if they can find a warp zone.

I will agree that we are driven toward combat in this game. Fortunately its a great sim for that, and as cool as the universe is, I get the impression that this is where Vice is trying to place the focus. There is one heck of a learning curve here for those not experienced in newtonian flight models, but I think thatps part of the fun part. Believe it or not, I learned a lot by doing the early missions, like cleaning the solar panels, or blowing up roids (try doing that while keeping a 700+ velocity in inertial mode and you'll be on the right path for beginning combat.) The racing is good as well, but I admit that I got tired of going back and forth from the station to the mission site before I actually finished one. It would be nice if there was a non-timed version of that one, cause I think its a great teaching tool.

Anywho.. hope to see both of you online!

[Aures]

I understand where you are coming from widden. The easy ways of making money do cheapen the other methods available in the early game. But, it does not put the entire focus on combat. The IMG quest includes a bit of everything including combat but you don't have to do the IMG quest or participate in combat, you can go your entire Evochron Mercenary career without firing a shot if that is what you want to do. The focus is not totally on fighting regardless of how easy or hard it is to make money. It does make focusing on combat easier when scraping enough together for decent kit is straightforward. People who just want to fight would find being forced to do other things tedious (in fact there is another thread on this forum where someone complained that using that IMG container was annoying because they just wanted to fight) as the OP demonstrates.

Originally posted by widden
So in my opinion this is a bit of a mistake from the game devs, it unbalances the early part of the game, completely.

Game dev, not devs. It is not a mistake, you just need to readjust your perspective on what a lot of money is. 500K is NOT a lot of money in Evochron, it wont even get you a full tank of gas most places if you have maxed out your fuel tanks.

Originally posted by widden
That was - I think - one of the best things in Elite (if you've heard of the game) that it took you through all parts of the game, step-by-step.

I still play the second sequel FFE (with a fix to get actual inertial motion rather than constant velocity relative to closest body) sometimes. Elite may have some hand holding but FFE chucks you in the deep end, you will be lucky if you are able to complete your first trade run without getting blown out of the sky.

Originally posted by widden
As to how much money you need now, when you're a legend in your own right - I think that's absolutely irrelevant. We're talking about a container you get after a mere couple of hours of gameplay.

Sorry, that was a direct response to your previous post so it is not irrelevant:

Originally posted by widden
so...what do you do with billions of credits in this game?

[Rares]

@ Aures: I guess it's Freespace 3 ? But, hey the open source...

BTW: I'm doing the impossible. I'll have to use Winhex and guess/find the money hex address.

PS: Right now there is no trainer or other kind of program to modify the amount of money.

[Aures]

Universal trainers do just what they say, they edit the quantities in memory for any game. It is just a process of looking for an amount equal to your cash, changing your cash, eliminating anything that doesn't match your new value etc until you find the right address. No need to find one made specifically for Mercenary. You can do the same thing with a plain hex editor but it will take longer, it is certainly not impossible. It will probably take a lot longer than just earning some cash the easy way.

FFE=Frontier First Encounters, second sequal to Elite (released in 1998 I believe).

[SeeJay]

Welcome to a great sim guy's. I did A LOT of cleaning and mining Plutonium in the beginning.

It's actually fun to fill your cargo bays when someone is attacking you. Keeping the asteroid as
a shield while mining could be a challenge when the foe's are increasing in numbers.

Then just kick their behind because they annoyed you.