Pentagram (again)

[Dino3]

This is directed to members of the Pentagram team.

I've made a little program to work together with Pentagram. What it does is receive user input (a number) and run mapdisp.exe with the corresponding map number.

I wanted to ask if it's OK to distribute this program, since Pentagram is yours and not mine. This program is just an addition to Pentagram to make accessing different maps more easily.

If you want to see it, you may download it from my Ultima 8 Utilities page (it is the "Pentagram Map Executer").

I've also made a list of map numbers, which is available from both on that page and in the zip archive containing my Pentagram Map Executer (PME).

If you have something against releasing this program, I will remove it from my page, but if you approve, I will announce it in my news.

Thanks in advance.

[wjp]

No problems here

[Dino3]

Thanks! You may also host it for download yourself as well together with Pentagram if you wish. I will announce it on my site tomorrow.

[wjp]

Oh, btw, you have map 28 listed as 'mess', while the pentagram docs say it's the 'Carthax Breaking Ground'. (The place where you break the dam to free Hydros)

[Dino3]

Breaking Ground? Can't be... it's just a cave opening with a small lake. The breaking ground cave contained a long tunnel with trolls and stuff... this is just a little pool. And there's unbuilt terrain to the northeast (to the right), that's why I called it a mess.

Pentagram docs? What Pentagram docs?

Thanks for telling me btw...

[Dino3]

You're right actually... there is a cave west of that mess! And it's the Breaking Ground cave. Thanks! If you find any more, please let me know so I can update my information.

[wjp]

Yes, but at the end of the tunnel was this small lake with the dam with the tombstone on top.


Pentagram docs are in pentagram's CVS (in the docs/ dir). They're mostly file format specs.

[Dino3]

Right again. Thanks.

[Dino3]

Since you appear to know quite a bit about U8 code (having sort of 'hacked' into it with Pentagram), can you tell me something?

Before making this little Pentagram Map Executer, I wanted to do something bigger... I wanted to make an Ultima 8 dialogue patch to fix dialogue errors and possibly solve nitpicks on Hacki's Ultima Page as well as correct spelling errors and such. However, when I edited a single character in the EUSECODE.FLX file, Ultima 8 would not run.

Do you know why?

[wjp]

That would depend on which character it was

I wouldn't expect that simply replacing a character in dialogue text would cause U8 not to run. I don't know if U8 contains any checksum checks to see if usecode wasn't altered, though.

Inserting or deleting characters would cause big problems, OTOH.

[Dino3]

I simply removed a character (a normal character - a letter "e") from one of the books in the usecode, and U8 would not run.

[wjp]

Yes, that would cause problems. The thing is that the usecode file is filled with references to itself. Removing a character somewhere invalidates all references to locations behind the byte you deleted.

If you really want to remove a letter from a string, the safest way to do so would be by replacing it with a space, I think. (Or you can add the space at the end of the string). As long as the string stays the same length it should be ok.

[Colourless]

I personally have already made some modified usecode, to test out one of the opcodes, but it is a real problem attempting to change/remove bytes from the functions. As far as we know, there is no 'nop' opcode so you can't fill in space where there were removed bytes. Additionally, if you need to add characters you will also have problems.

As wjp said, you really need to make sure your new string is exactly the same length as the old one.

In the future we hope to have tools available that will allow you to modify usecode. Additionally, we may add in the ability for Pentagram to load usecode 'patches'.

[Darke]

U8's usecode doesn't contain any checksums, Colourless has successfully modified some of the scripts before to test out our hypotheses on how usecode is run and it's worked fine.

You do, like wjp said, need to make sure that if you modify a string, you need to keep it's length the same.

[Dino3]

As long as the string stays the same length it should be ok.

Same length? I thought so!

So it *would* be possible to make some sort of dialogue patch...

>>we may add in the ability for Pentagram to load usecode 'patches'.

It would be nice to add some new features into Pentagram

[Colourless]

I thought it would be better for Pentagram to actually have some features at all

[Dino3]

Being a map and shapes viewer, it already has some features. But it WOULD help if some more were added... such as an Exult-type engine to run Ultima 8, perhaps?
*Ducks to avoid a vase thrown at me*
Well really, people would be VERY grateful if you could do such a thing. Of course, I think you've already decided "NO" a long time ago, so I won't waste my time trying to persuade me.

Something you could add is a GUI to access maps in the map viewer... just like the Map Executer I made, but instead a graphical interface allowing you to access maps from it by just clicking a button. I wanted to do such a thing, but things greater than a command line program are beyond my petty programming abilities.

And while we mentioned usecode, how about an interface to talk to whoever you want?

And btw, W. J. P. is Arthuris Dragon, right? I very much like his Ultima Page. Please don't let it die like other Ultima sites!

[wjp]

> such as an Exult-type engine to run Ultima 8, perhaps?
> *Ducks to avoid a vase thrown at me*
> Well really, people would be VERY grateful if you could do such a thing. Of
> course, I think you've already decided "NO" a long time ago, so I won't
> waste my time trying to persuade me.

Um, actually... that's exactly what the point of Pentagram is

http://pentagram.sf.net


> And btw, W. J. P. is Arthuris Dragon, right?

That would be me, yes

> I very much like his Ultima Page. Please don't let it die like other Ultima sites!

Thanks
Current URL is http://www.math.leidenuniv.nl/~wpalenst/ultima/
It isn't really 'dead', although I don't think I'll update it much. I'm not really sure about what to add.

[Dino3]

>>Um, actually... that's exactly what the point of Pentagram is

Yes, but I read somewhere that the Pentagram team is tired of reverse engineering Ultima 7 to make Exult and is only starting Pentagram in the hope that someone else might make the Ultima 8 engine... isn't that it?

>>I don't think I'll update it much. I'm not really sure about what to add.

Oh, don't worry about that! As long as your information doesn't get lost and the site isn't down, it doesn't matter! I just don't want to lose those Ultima Underworld maps and other stuff! (In fact I saved your ENTIRE site!!)

[wjp]

>>Um, actually... that's exactly what the point of Pentagram is

>Yes, but I read somewhere that the Pentagram team is tired of reverse
>engineering Ultima 7 to make Exult and is only starting Pentagram in the
>hope that someone else might make the Ultima 8 engine... isn't that it?

No, it isn't

We're working on creating an U8 engine ourselves

[Dino3]

>>We're working on creating an U8 engine ourselves

Wonderful!!! I can't wait for it to be done!