Good ole save game editor/modding

[Velanestar]

So, I've played this game for well over a decade, enjoyed countless conquest victories and bs defeats at the hands of rigged senate elections, I've been wiped out by the Antarans after foolishly declaring war within 100 turns of the game starting and having found 3 antaran x's just to be eliminated by my father in multiplayer. And i have a lot of great memories with this game, and back in the day the save game editor was a fun tool to either make the game hilariously easy or immensely difficult.
But for the life of me I can not get it to work.
It keeps "not finding" a bunch of the data/assets, even when placed- and extracted. It's incredibly annoying too because it says to "open settings" and when I do, it does absolutely nothing.
I load a save file, has more errors, then crashes if i attempt ANYTHING...most of the time.
Any clues as to what to do?
Also I've seen the patch methods for adding mods but I am not sure it will fix this issue as they're not related to the .EXE file.

[Alien]

I just spend some time chatting with the author of the application, who happens to be a Steam user too :-).
It turns out the Master of Orion 3 SaveGame Editor requires a specific registry key to work. Since the modern installers do not write them, you need to create it manually.

Assuming you have a 64-bit Windows, you need to create this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Infogrames\Master of Orion III

Now add a REG_SZ called 'Program Location' and give it the value of the path to the game, e.g. 'C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Master of Orion 3'.

When you start the application you will no longer be greeted by a lot of errors (maybe just one now).

[Velanestar]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll let you all know if this works!

[Velanestar]

No longer getting any errors, its running like it did in the past ...cept one minor detail. upon clicking saving, be it save as or just save- it CTDs...any clues?

[Alien]

Unfortunately I have the same -- crash. I tried a Windows XP VM and a retail install (without mods) and it still crashed. I do see 1 error on startup (File not found <empty>) and I suspect it is linked to that, however since no details are mentioned I'm left in the dark.
I did talk to Bhruic about the crash and I learned it is a C++ application and there is no debugging switch or anything. He does still have the source code, but I doubt he is willing to fix the problem. It's not a very rewarding chore...

[Krenztor]

Originally posted by Alien:

I just spend some time chatting with the author of the application, who happens to be a Steam user too :-).
It turns out the Master of Orion 3 SaveGame Editor requires a specific registry key to work. Since the modern installers do not write them, you need to create it manually.

Assuming you have a 64-bit Windows, you need to create this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Infogrames\Master of Orion III

Now add a REG_SZ called 'Program Location' and give it the value of the path to the game, e.g. 'C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Master of Orion 3'.

When you start the application you will no longer be greeted by a lot of errors (maybe just one now).

Thanks for this! I never would have figured out that this registry key was missing.

[Mnemon]

Originally posted by Velenastar:

No longer getting any errors, its running like it did in the past ...cept one minor detail. upon clicking saving, be it save as or just save- it CTDs...any clues?

It will crash on save if lacking some permissions, running in suitable compatibility mode and/or as admin can avoid it iirc.

[Velanestar]

Originally posted by Mnemon:

Originally posted by Velenastar:

No longer getting any errors, its running like it did in the past ...cept one minor detail. upon clicking saving, be it save as or just save- it CTDs...any clues?

It will crash on save if lacking some permissions, running in suitable compatibility mode and/or as admin can avoid it iirc.

okay i know its super late,
Upon opening there is an error but it says " not found, check settings"
And unfortunately if i open it, immediately save it successfully saves but CTDs if i try to edit anything, if i open it and go to edit stuff, i can edit all i want- then if i try to save- it CTDs
i ran it in compatibility for service pack 2 windows xp
and as administrator.
No dice.
._. i feel like I'm missing something obvious.

[raz.campbell]

Hi mate
About that suggestion that Alien offered, I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, because I'm still getting a LOT of errors. I've included a screenshot of the regedit. If it looks like I've done it properly, please let me know. If I've done something wrong, please let me know how to fix it.
Thanks.

[raz.campbell]

Hello again
It seems I found a solution to my erstwhile problem. The error messages kept insisting that spreadsheet.mob and wStrings.mob were not located in the proper place. I went into the settings.ini file and redirected things to the new game location, but the savegame editor INSISTED that moo3.exe needed to be on Drive O, in Program Files (x86), etc...

When changing setting.ini to reflect the new path of moo3.exe made no difference at all, I wondered if I could rename one of my unused drives to 'O' and then just create a path of folders, leading to the two files that it wanted (wStrings and Spreadsheet.mob). I put an old Moo3.exe file in that new folder, in that newly renamed hard drive and tried running the editor.

It worked perfectly. I wish I understood what was going on...

[Geodik]

Anyone alive? Good programm but i want to be able to edit specials, want to make Sentient friend planet with Natural wonders xD. How to find programm dev?

[cbltv1]

Now that MicroSoft Windows removed 32 bit Explorer my MoO3 won't launch. Any work arounds? Suggestions? I'm using win 10 64 Pro. Worked up until last November 2023

[Geodik]

Originally posted by Alien:

I just spend some time chatting with the author of the application, who happens to be a Steam user too :-).
It turns out the Master of Orion 3 SaveGame Editor requires a specific registry key to work. Since the modern installers do not write them, you need to create it manually.

Assuming you have a 64-bit Windows, you need to create this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Infogrames\Master of Orion III

Now add a REG_SZ called 'Program Location' and give it the value of the path to the game, e.g. 'C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\Master of Orion 3'.

When you start the application you will no longer be greeted by a lot of errors (maybe just one now).

Pls answer, i want to contact author of save file editor, can you give his contacs?