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Descent cheats / Descent hints / Descent faqs / Descent solutions Descent cheat codes Each saved game begins with the game name (an ASCIIZ string). This is an easy way to tell which game you're messing around with. All offsets are in hex. All ints and long ints in the file are stored "back-words" in true x86 fashion. (i.e., least significant byte first, most significant byte last). You may want to back up your pilot file before mucking about in it with your hex editor, because I make no claims as to the accuracy of my typing, counting, record-keeping, or hex arithmetic. Please let me know if I have messed something up, or if I am just plain wrong. :) Offset: Offset in save: Description: ------- --------------- ------------ 0-13 X Header info? 14-2C 0-18 Saved game name 2E-38 1A-24 Pilot name saved under 4B 37 Quad lasers if 4, no quads for other values?? 50-51 3C-3D Energy level when last level was com- pleted. This appears to be a signed int. If it is less than 100, you get 100 energy... max energy value is for FF 7F in these two bytes. 52-53 3E-3F ??? 54-55 40-41 Shield levels... see energy notes 56 42 Number of lives, besides this one (so 06 gives you five lives spare) 57 43 Last level completed??? 58 44 Laser descriptor byte... see table below 59 45 Level at which game was started 5C 48 Weapon inventory bit field: 00000100 = spreadfire, 00000010 = Vulcan, 00000001 = lasers 5D 49 Missile inventory bit field: 00000100 = mines, 00000010 = homing missiles, 00000001 = concussion 60-61 4C-4D Vulcan ammo packs (one pack is approx. = to 25.501 rounds). I think this is signed, so don't go overboard folks ;) 68-69 54-55 # concussion missiles (unsigned) 6A-6B 56-57 # homing missiles (unsigned) 6C-6D 58-59 # mines (unsigned) *** smart missiles and mega missiles most likely will follow *** 72-75 5E-61 Possibly score at beginning of last level??? Can anybody help??? 76-79 62-65 Current score (signed I think) 7A-81 66-6D No clue... *** long stretch of ignorance... time of play must be stored somewhere *** A2 8E difficulty level (0=trainee, 1=rookie, etc.) A6 92 selected weapon (0=laser, 1=Vulcan, 2=spreadfire) Odd things will happen if you put higher numbers here AA 96 selected missile (0=concussion, 1=homing, 2=mines) AE 9A Display mode 0: Cockpit mode 1: Weird... bitmap-type background behind a squashed screen... looks as if video RAM isn't cleared up or something... : Status bar mode 3: Full screen mode 4: Cinematic, shaped like a movie screen... like the screen you get when you blow up 5: "Weird" on bottom half, cinematic on top... reverts to cinematic after death B2-B3 9E-9F # of pixels to display in horizontal direction. In conjunction with the vertical pixel settings, you can play with some pretty weird screen sizes. I like 320 X 23 myself :) B6 A2 # of pixels to display in vertical direction. This may be only one byte, but I'm not sure... the VR modes may require two bytes... ??? BA A6 Current level # (starts from 1) C2 00 Saved game 2 170 00 Saved game 3 *** many saved games follow... *** 6E0 XX Taunt macro 1. A 19-byte ASCIIZ string 6F9 XX Taunt macro 2 712 XX Taunt macro 3 72B XX Taunt macro 4 and some junk toward the end, probably representing controller configurations? Laser Descriptor Byte table --------------------------- This byte, at offset 44 within each saved game, is IMHO the funnest to play with. It appears that Descent references all weapons internally, both of the player and the baddies, using the same numbering system. So after level 4 lasers, you start getting into some neat weapons. :) What's more, slapping on a quad will make you more powerful than almost anything! Each weapon, regardless of type, runs off your energy. It takes four shots to deplete one energy unit, or two shots if you have quads. CAUTION: If you're running about with level 17 lasers (my personal favorite) and hit a laser powerup, your lasers will revert to level 4. But when you die, 16 laser powerups will still go floating into the room. Descriptor Byte Value: Description: --------------------- ----------- 00 Level 1 lasers 01 Level 2 02 Level 3 03 Level 4 04 Big, slow, weak, blue plasma balls... does anybody recognize these? 05 Yellow drone's fireballs (WEAK) 06 Reactor's red fireballs 07 Apparently nothing... I speculate that this might be the weapon of the green lifter drones... but I don't know how to use it 08 Concussion missiles! 09 Flares (this is hilarious... try it) 0A Blue drone's lasers 0B Vulcan cannon (fires slower than normal Vulcan) 0C Spreadfire cannon balls 0D Nothing again... 0E And again... 0F Homing missiles. Put quads on these babies! 10 Mines... Do NOT put quads on these! %-{ 11 Level 7 boss's missiles... these hit for HUGE damage and then fragment into tons of little green blobs that home onto enemies. The blobs are powerful but slow. 12 Nothing... 13 Just the green blobs from the boss missiles 14 Spreadfire cannon balls (possibly faster or stronger than for 0C ???) 15 Slow homing missiles 16 Slow (?) concussion missiles 17 Spreadfire cannon balls AGAIN 18 Wimpy, slow red lasers 19 Slow green lasers 1A Nothing AGAIN... 1B Yellow drone's fireballs... seem more powerful, and maybe faster??? 1C Wimpy, FAST red lasers 1D Same lasers... possibly stronger??? 1E and above seem to have the same red lasers... I haven't checked them all of course. Increasing the difficulty of the game will make some weapons faster or stronger. Happy hacking! Other Descent cheats hints faqs solutions: 1. Descent cheat codes 3. Descent cheat codes 1. Descent hints 1. Descent faq and solutions |