A16 - Way to Edit Skill Levels? [Solved - Workaround]

[BOYCOTT S-T-E-A-M!]

The recent B112 update for A16 changed the skill "misc crafting" from a 0-100 skill into a 5 rank perk.

The server my friends and I play on was updated, but we didn't start fresh characters. So this left us with odd situations such as having 23 out of 5 ranks of "misc crafting".

This causes some wonky stuff. Such as having it affect repair quality by something like -21312837158715 which means anything you repair becomes quality 1. God only knows what other funky stuff it could be causing.


Is there any way to edit the skills of persistent characters on a dedicated server so that the incorrect skill can be put into the proper tolerance?

[...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...]

Did you tell your friends this is A16 Experimental?
Do you know you're meant / may have to start a new game after every small release?

I'd start a new game if I were you.

[jfinney66]

I've just tested this in SP, I automatically have rank 5 unlocked although it does say 66/5. Repair is pretty good with me only losing 1 quality on a steel axe. Can't really comment on MP though,

[BOYCOTT S-T-E-A-M!]

Originally posted by Jost Amman:

Did you tell your friends this is A16 Experimental?
Do you know you're meant / may have to start a new game after every small release?

I'd start a new game if I were you.

I could understand getting that answer if I was making an all caps grammar massacre posting asking the devs to be hanged and demanding a full refund (with interest) for this horrid issue which is clearly a personal attack against my person.... but thats not the case here.

I assure you. We both know its early access, we know its alpha, etc, etc.

It is only one single skill bugged out and could easily be fixed by just editing it lower ourselves there really isn't much reason to fully restart from scratch. Just wanted to see if there was a way to address the issue easily ourselves quick.

[BOYCOTT S-T-E-A-M!]

Originally posted by jfinney66:

I've just tested this in SP, I automatically have rank 5 unlocked although it does say 66/5. Repair is pretty good with me only losing 1 quality on a steel axe. Can't really comment on MP though,

Interesting. Out of curiousity do you have any "aviator goggles" or other clothing items that are affected by the "misc crafting" that you could try repairing?

[jfinney66]

The easy solution would be to not repair anything but instead combine in workbench, you don't lose any quality this way although it may cost a lot, on the upside though you could end up with 600 tools/weapons a lot earlier

[jfinney66]

just tested on nerdy glases, boy that sucks, went from 25 to 8 durability, that needs fixing for sure

[BOYCOTT S-T-E-A-M!]

It doesn't really need fixing by TFP to be honest. Starting fresh in a stable build players shouldn't be able to invest beyond the maximum. So normally this shouldn't be able to occur.

It might be a good idea though to have some error proofing code to set it back to maximum if the value is ever beyond maximum, but its not really necessary.

I am pretty much just looking for a quick fix for ourselves. Which is why I posted in the general discussion and not as a bug report.

[...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...]

Did you try to see if there's any option in the Debug menu maybe? :-|
Console commands only allow you to increase XP on as kill so I don't think they'll be useful...

[BOYCOTT S-T-E-A-M!]

Initially I checked out the console commands or xml editing, but those both only seemed to offer ways to increase the gain rate multipliers and such. Nothing to reduce a current players skill level.

Never thought of the debug menu though. I'll have to look into that one. Thanks for the suggestion!

[...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...]

Originally posted by BOYCOTT S-T-E-A-M!:

Initially I checked out the console commands or xml editing, but those both only seemed to offer ways to increase the gain rate multipliers and such. Nothing to reduce a current players skill level.

Never thought of the debug menu though. I'll have to look into that one. Thanks for the suggestion!

One weird idea to try (didn't test it myself) is to use a negative number with the console command which adds skill XP. Worth a try IMO.

[Hotdog Vendor]

im on MP server and got 100/5 now. My repairs keep same quality for tools and weapons. I was lvl 79 when the changes happened so I lost out on 79 skill points :(
Most stuff in A16 turned out well but im guessing the server I play on will reset once again when more stable A16 is out. Best to just enjoy the new stuff atm and try to ignore the bugs which is hard atm i cant even load into world :(

[vv [FuMM]]

This is possible to do. I just messed around for a while and found where the skills are located. This is specific to your save game file though and will change depending on locations inside your save game file.

Different player name lengths,player model names etc will all change the locations you need to edit. If you feel brave and you know how to use a hex editor and how to compair and edit files then you can do so. If not then I might beable to talk you through it.

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If you feel brave. You have been warned. Don't try this. You have been warned again. Don't try this. Make sure you backup your save game file and know what you are trying to edit. This may still not work.

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ok. If you feel brave and know how to use a hex editor then try the following.

The save game file is variable length. So trying to use basic static byte counting (telling you where the location is) may not work reliably. It's much easyer to find a reasonably sane point and count backwards or forwards.

I've found one such place.

Search for "quest_basicsurvival1" (remove the quotes). If you find this string then you may be in luck.

The byte before this string should be &14. That's the length of the "quest_basicsurvival1" string (remove the quotes). If you see another value then you may have made a mistake. Now's the hardpart. Count backwards. Go back 564 bytes (in decimal) or &234 (hex). That's not including the &14 byte.

You should see the number that's the skill points for the incorrect level at that byte offset. You should see some null bytes (&0) before and after it. I count 3 before and 3 after. I can see &0 &0 &0 &5 &0 &0 &0. So you'd look for 23 or &17 in hex and change that to a 5.

Make sure you save your save game file and then close the hex editor.

Good luck.

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I have purposely obmitted save game file names because if you have no way to find that information out then I doubt you should try this as using a hexeditor is much harder to do. Ask a programmer/admin etc instead to try this.

[YamaKami]

Originally posted by Jost Amman:

Did you tell your friends this is A16 Experimental?
Do you know you're meant / may have to start a new game after every small release?

I'd start a new game if I were you.

+1

[Kryptokind]

Same happened with my SP save today. Didn't even know it got updated, started prepping for the first horde and looting and stuff, and suddenly noticed all armour repairs ends up at 1.

[BOYCOTT S-T-E-A-M!]

Originally posted by vv FuMM:

Thanks a bunch for the info about a good starting location in the save file for hex editing.

I have Cheat Engine and a least one other hex editor on my end. I'll have to check into that as a possible quick fix. I've done some CRC hacking before to solve emulation issues with ancient software so I can probably manage it.

It may be awhile until I can get the save files from my friend running the server though.


Another possible solution I need to check out is the console command "giveselfskillxp" since you can specify a skill name and value. Assuming it accepts negative values it might be possible to reduce them that way. Can't test this one yet since my friend running the server hasn't managed to get console command permissions to work for some reason.

Originally posted by YamaKami:

Originally posted by Jost Amman:

Did you tell your friends this is A16 Experimental?
Do you know you're meant / may have to start a new game after every small release?

I'd start a new game if I were you.

+1

Its not a major issue. Its an annoyance at most. If it turns into a bigger issue then we'll fully restart, but most likely we'll just goof around in this version until the stable release comes out.

Originally posted by Some asian kid:

Same happened with my SP save today. Didn't even know it got updated, started prepping for the first horde and looting and stuff, and suddenly noticed all armour repairs ends up at 1.

Just pay attention anytime you go to repair an item. If it list "misc crafting", with a huge negative number, as one of the skills for that item then don't repair it unless you're okay with it being reduced to quality level 1.