Editing league structures & rules using a hex editor / ArtMoney

[Alessandro]

Alessandro - are you able to explain how you edited the exe in order to change the Austrian league to ten teams please? As an experiment, I have been trying to change the number of teams in the Danish league but without success.

Ok. Go to the first few posts, there is written how to change it with screens by Marek. I just counted blocks and substituted them as written by Marek. The problem is that it doesn't really work too well, eg if you try doing it with some leagues it won't work. I tested changing any league with any amount of teams, but the only one which worked relatively well was the 10-team Austrian league.
The problem is that the game needs - among other things - to know the conferences and divisions lineups. Eg if you follow the same thing, you can make a 30-team AHL, but only 27 teams will actually participate to the league no matter what.

[Primis]

Alessandro - are you able to explain how you edited the exe in order to change the Austrian league to ten teams please? As an experiment, I have been trying to change the number of teams in the Danish league but without success.

Ok. Go to the first few posts, there is written how to change it with screens by Marek. I just counted blocks and substituted them as written by Marek. The problem is that it doesn't really work too well, eg if you try doing it with some leagues it won't work. I tested changing any league with any amount of teams, but the only one which worked relatively well was the 10-team Austrian league.
The problem is that the game needs - among other things - to know the conferences and divisions lineups. Eg if you follow the same thing, you can make a 30-team AHL, but only 27 teams will actually participate to the league no matter what.

So that means there's still another value somewhere then capping it at 27, right?

[Alessandro]

No, I think simply the game wants the same structure in terms of conferences/divisions.

[Primis]

No, I think simply the game wants the same structure in terms of conferences/divisions.

That's still something that should be able to be edited in code though, no? The .EXE can't force a specific alignment without the parameters being in there somewhere?

[archibalduk]

Thanks Alessandro (and I'm glad the Updater is now working for you).

I've been following Marek's guides but without much success. Perhaps it is because I've been using a league that cannot be modified (i.e. Denmark). I'll try experimenting with Austria instead. Lazion's list is particularly interesting because it suggests as though there is quite a wide range of league sizes that can potentially be used.

I tried overwriting the whole usa_ahl.cpp section with the usa_nhl.cpp section in the exe. It changed the AHL so that there were two conferences (East and West) of seven teams each. The original four divisions were each there (with the usual seven/six teams per division) in addition to six NHL-style divisions (i.e. Pacific, North East, etc) which were all blank (IIRC). Trying to copy across the NHL structure is probably the best way to go because we'd need an NHL-style schedule in order to accommodate 30 teams in the AHL. I don't know how feasible this is really.

Maybe Art Money is the better way to go. The exe is compressed/wrapped and so changing things is less straightforward. The data in the memory/RAM is uncompressed and so it is technically easier to do things. However the problem is finding the location of things to edit. Again, I don't know how feasible it is to modify the schedule.

[Alessandro]

I'm not sure, but the problem might be in the fact that Denmark has also the Danish Cup to take into account. Copying the NHL structure is unuseful, because the AHL has 4 divisions, while NHL has six. You'd need to create 2 divisions to the AHL and tell via editor to what league they belong. I asked you long ago to make this change to the DB and now you understand why

[archibalduk]

I see. I can add additional divisions for testing purposes if you like. However I won't have time to create some sort of editor for some time because I need to prioritise the Updater.

I've been looking at your Austria exe and I think, in hindsight, the difficulty with the Danish league was because I'd not added additional teams to the database. If you increase the league size in the exe, EHM will crash unless you also add additional teams in the Editor. I've now increased the Austrian league to 16 teams and am simming through a season. I've noticed there are sections in the exe relating to some non-playable leagues, such as the BCHL. I'm wondering what would happen if I switched the data relating to Austria and the BCHL in the exe - would it effectively make the Austrian league the BCHL...

I'm also interested to see if I could replace one of the leagues, such as the Danish league, with the Swiss NLA. If I can get the correct structure then I think it should be possible. I haven't tried it yet, but switching nations should be relatively straightforward.

[archibalduk]

Some useful values for league structure in team/division number section here:
No olly used so there might be more

30 - 90 09 8F
27 - D0 ED 88
25 - 90 66 88
22 - 30 4E 90
21 - A0 B9 88

<SNIP>

I was looking through Marek's tutorial on Olly and it clicked that all of these values relate to offsets loaded in the memory. For example, if you look at Lazion's list above, he lists 27 (i.e. the size of the AHL) as D0 ED 88. So try this:

Load EHM and click on New Game. Then load ArtMoney (and select EHM from the 'Process' drop down box). In ArtMoney, click on Process -> Memory Editor. In the bottom left hand corner of the Memory Editor, click on the drop down menu entitled 'Moving' and select 'Moving to address'. This allows you to enter an offset/address to navigate to. In the 'Address' box, enter the value mentioned above but reverse the bytes and add two zeros in front of it (because an offset consists of eight digits). In other words, D0 ED 88 becomes 00 88 ED D0:



Therefore enter 0088EDD0 into the 'Address' box and press ENTER.

The value located at 0088EDD0 is displayed in the top left corner of the Memory Editor. Now, if you look at the value located at the offset directly to the right of this (i.e. at offset 0088EDD1), you will see the value is 1B. If you use this HEX to DECIMAL converter you will see that 1B in hex is 27 in decimal (i.e. the normal numbering system). As and aside, you can use Google to convert a decimal number to hex by typing "27 in hex" in the search box (like this).



Try doing the same for 30 teams (i.e. the size of the NHL). In Lazion's list it is 90 09 8F. Therefore, enter 008F0990 in the 'Address' box. As with the above example, you will find the hex equivalent to 30 (i.e. 1E) in the offset next to 008F0990 (i.e. at offset 008F0991).

This may well help us to find out what each hex value in the exe means. If you look at any of the rules .cpp sections, such as the AHL section:



You will see that we can split the values into a grid by grouping them into groups of four (I have used the green horizontal lines to illustrate this). You will see that I have circled in blue the aforementioned hex number relating to the 27 teams (i.e. D0 ED 88, or actually it is D0 ED 88 00). Perhaps if we look up all of these hex values in the Memory Editor using the method I mentioned above, we might be able to figure out exactly what each group of values does and maybe we can change them.

By following the method above, I have been able to decrease the number of teams in the Danish league from nine to eight (just by way of an example) using ArtMoney. The relevant hex number under the dan_elite.cpp section of the exe is E0 93 92 00. Therefore I navigated to 009293E0 in ArtMoney. At 009293E1 I found the value 09 (there are 9 teams in the Danish league by default) and therefore I changed this to 08. When starting a new game EHM, I got a cpp error (but it doesn't crash) - perhaps because I hadn't reduced the number of teams to eight in the database (but I haven't verified this yet). EHM then appeared with eight teams in the Danish league:





I've tried doing the same to the AHL but it didn't have any effect. However, as we've said before, it is probably because we also need to find the division and/or conference sizes. I'm therefore going to go through each of the values/offsets in the usa_ahl.cpp section to see if I can find any numbers relating to the division and conference sizes...

[archibalduk]

No luck with the AHL yet, but I've been looking at a few things previously mentioned in the Tutorials Thread. Maybe a lot of this is already known, but I'm going to post it here just in case.

From Marek:

Hex values for lineup rules

UK 11 foreigners:
20 12 8F

UK EIHL 10 foreigners:
30 19 8F

UK EPIHL 4 foreigners + 0 non-EUs:
70 14 8F

With regards to the UK EIHL 10 foreigners limit, I went to 008F 1930 (i.e. 30 19 8F = 00 8F 19 30 as per my post above). Further along the line in the Memory Editor, at 008F 193E, I found that it had a hex value of 0C (0C in hex = 10 - i.e. 10 foreigners). By changing this value, I could change the foreigner limit for the EIHL. The change takes effect instantly (i.e. refresh the EIHL League Info screen by navigating to another screen and then back to it).

008F 193E = EIHL & Challenge Cup max number of foreign players dressed
008F 1942 = EIHL & Challenge Cup max number of non-EU players dressed
008F 147E = EPIHL & EPL Cup max number of foreign players dressed
008F 1482 = EPIHL & EPL Cup max number of non-EU players dressed

* With regards to the above, if you set the value to 255 (FF in hex) it will disable that limit (i.e. so that you can remove the different foreigner rules)

Offset 008F 5E21 in ArtMoney controls multiple leagues of ten teams in EHM. If I change this number, it affects both the EIHL and Norwegian league (and maybe other ten team leagues - I haven't checked). This means that the offsets governing the number of teams doesn't have any effect on league structure (because the Norwegian league has relegation IIRC and certainly a different number of teams qualifying for the playoffs compared with the EIHL).

[Alessandro]

Excellent job Archie as usual. Of course the errors you're getting are because you didn't adjust the DB accordingly. I thought you would get to think about it
There are some leagues more in the exe because some of them were coded, but not included due to licenses (Switzerland, Italy, maybe France).
There are other cases of "multiple leagues", like Slovenia and Austria. This surely doesn't ease our efforts.
Any luck with your 16-team Austria?

[painkiller89]

this will be a patch of this in the future?

[Alessandro]

Let us achieve something before holding your breath, it's not given that we'll actually manage to do anything.

[archibalduk]

Any luck with your 16-team Austria?

I only simmed through to November, but it became a real mess. The standings said the teams had played something like 60 games each, teams had qualified for the playoffs, the teams were playing the playoffs at that time, yet there were still two/three months' worth of games listed in the schedule. No doubt it is because I updated purely the number of teams and not anything relating to the schedule/league/playoff structure. I'm now looking to see if I can alter the number of games played during the regular season.

It seems that each of the settings are placed relative to one another. This will make it easier to find. For example, the EIHL foreigners dressed limit is four offsets before the non-EU dressed limit. This is also the case for the EPIHL. Hopefully this is the case for the other rules for each league. Here's a table that illustrates what I mean:

[table][tr][td]008F 147E[/td][td]008F 147F[/td][td]008F 1480[/td][td]008F 1481[/td][td]008F 1482[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]EPIHL max foreigners dressed[/td][td]?[/td][td]?[/td][td]?[/td][td]EPIHL max non-EUs dressed[/td][/tr][/table]
[table][tr][td]008F 193E[/td][td]008F 193F[/td][td]008F 1940[/td][td]008F 1941[/td][td]008F 1942[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]EIHL max foreigners dressed[/td][td]?[/td][td]?[/td][td]?[/td][td]EIHL max non-EUs dressed[/td][/tr][/table]

Here's what I have so far (I'll update this list as I find more):


Art Money Offsets

NOTES
Max foreigners dressed: Set this to 255 (or FF in hex) to disable the restriction. This setting always seems to be located at offset xxxx xxxE.
Max non-EUs dressed: Set this to 255 (or FF in hex) to disable the restriction. This setting is always located four offsets after the max foreigners dress offset. It always seems to be located at offset xxxx xxx2. Unlike the max foreigners dressed setting, if the league by default has the max non-EUs dressed disabled (i.e. it is 255 in decimal / FF in hex) then it will crash if you try to change it to another number. There must be something else that has an effect on this restriction.


N America: AHL
0088 EDD1 = Number of teams (27) No effect? May need to update conference/division sizes in addition?
008F 5C52 = Max veteran players with more than 260 pro games played dressed. The number of games played threshold can be adjusted via 008F 5C57
008F 5C57 = Number of pro games played threshold for veteran players (note this is a 2-byte integer. I.e. the hex number spans 008F 5C57 - 5C58)

N America: CHL
008F 4DAC = Max veteran players with more than 280 pro games played dressed. The number of games played threshold can be adjusted via 008F 4DB1
008F 4DB1 = Number of pro games played threshold for veteran players (note this is a 2-byte integer. I.e. the hex number spans 008F 4DB1 - 4DB2)
008F 4DA2 = Max developmental players with less than 128 pro games played dressed. The number of games played threshold can be adjusted via 008F 4DA7
008F 4DA7 = Number of pro games played threshold for developmental players

N America: ECHL
008F 5473 = Number of pro games played threshold for veteran players (note this is a 2-byte integer. I.e. the hex number spans 008F 5473 - 5474)
008F 5478 = Max veteran players with more than 260 pro games played dressed. The number of games played threshold can be adjusted via 008F 5473
0088 6691 = Number of teams (27) No effect? Might cause a crash?

N America: NHL
008F 0991 = Number of teams (30) No effect? May need to update conference/division sizes in addition?
008F 5F9E = Max number of foreigners dressed
008F 62AA = Max number of players on roster. Changing this number results in unusual numbers in EHM (e.g. if you change it to 24, it changes the limit in game to 50).

N America: UHL
008F 4813 = Number of pro games played threshold for veteran players (note this is a 2-byte integer. I.e. the hex number spans 008F 4813 - 4814)
008F 4818 = Max veteran players with more than 300 pro games played dressed. The number of games played threshold can be adjusted via 008F 4813
008F 481D = Number of pro games played threshold for rookie players
008F 4822 = Max rookie players with less than 40 pro games played dressed. The number of games played threshold can be adjusted via 008F 481D

Canada: OHL
008E E3C1 = Number of teams (20) No effect? Might cause a crash?
008F 44CF = Number of years ago threshold for the max number of players dressed
008F 44D3 = Max players born 20 years ago dressed. The number of years ago threshold can be adjusted via 008F 44CF

Canada: QMJHL
008F 3D5F = Number of years ago threshold for the max number of players dressed
008F 3DBB = Max players born 20 years ago dressed. The number of years ago threshold can be adjusted via 008F 3D5F

Canada: WHL
0088 B9A1 = Number of teams (21) No effect? Might cause a crash?
008F 4120 = Number of years ago threshold for the max number of players dressed
008F 4124 = Max players born 20 years ago dressed. The number of years ago threshold can be adjusted via 008F 4120
008F 4128 = Number of years ago threshold for the max number of players dressed
008F 4171 = Max players born 16 years ago (or less). The number of years ago threshold can be adjusted via 008F 4128

Canada: Lower Leagues
008F 36BF = Number of years ago threshold for the max number of players dressed
008F 36C3 = Max players born 20 years ago dressed. The number of years ago threshold can be adjusted via 008F 36BF
008F 36C7 = Max rookie players dressed with less than 30 junior games played. The number of games played can be adjusted via 008F 36CC
008F 36CC = Junior games played threshold for dressed rookies

Austria
008E FFCE = Max number of foreigners dressed
0093 3811 = Number of teams (8) May cause a crash?

Czech Republic
008F 243E = Max number of foreigners dressed
0092 66B1 = Elite League: Number of teams (14)

Denmark
0092 93E1 = Number of teams (9)

Finland
008F 2BEE = Max number of foreigners dressed (all leagues)
0092 3931 = Mestis: Number of teams (12)
0092 66B1 = SM-Liiga: Number of teams (14)

Germany
008F 1CEE = Max number of foreigners dressed
008F 1CF2 = Age threshold for the min number of German players dressed
008F 1CF6 = Min German players 25 years or younger dressed. The age threshold can be adjusted via 008F 1CF2
0092 66B1 = Number of teams (14)

Great Britain
008F 122E = Lower leagues: Max number of foreigners dressed
008F 147E = EPIHL & EPL Cup: Max number of foreigners dressed
008F 1482 = EPIHL & EPL Cup: Max number of non-EUs dressed
008F 193E = EIHL & Challenge Cup: Max number of foreigners dressed
008F 1942 = EIHL & Challenge Cup: Max number of non-EUs dressed
008F 5E21 = EIHL: Number of teams (10)

Norway
008F 5E21 = Number of teams (10)

Russia
008F 051E = Superleague: Max number of foreigners dressed
008F 0522 = Superleague: Age threshold for the min number of Russian players dressed
008F 0526 = Superleague: Min Russian players 20 years or younger dressed. The age threshold can be adjusted via 008F 0522
008F 042E = Lower leagues: Max number of foreigners dressed
008F 0432 = Lower leagues: Age threshold for the min number of Russian players dressed
008F 0436 = Lower leagues: Min Russian players 22 years or younger dressed. The age threshold can be adjusted via 008F 0432

Slovakia
008F 00BE = Max number of foreigners dressed
008F 00C2 = Age threshold for the min number of Slovakian players dressed
008F 00C6 = Min Slovakian players 20 years or younger dressed. The age threshold can be adjusted via 008F 00C2
008F 5E21 = Number of teams (10)
0094 844F = Regular season schedule (League Overview Screen). Set this value to 1 and it removes the regular season section from the League Overview Screen.
0094 844F = Playoff final date (League Overview Screen). The date changes erratically if you change this value.
0094 8450 = Playoff final date (League Overview Screen). The date changes erratically if you change this value.


Slovenia
008E FFCE = Elite League: Max number of foreigners dressed
0093 2251 = Interliga: Number of teams (5) May cause a crash?
0093 3811 = Elite League: Number of teams (8) May cause a crash?

Sweden
008E FA7F = All leagues: Max number of foreigners dressed
0092 3931 = SEL: Number of teams (12)

International Tournaments
0090 4E39 = Euro Ice Hockey Challenge: Number of teams (11)

League Sizes (Number of Teams)
0088 6691 = ECHL (25) No effect? May cause a crash?
0088 B9A1 = WHL (21) No effect? May cause a crash?
0088 EDD1 = AHL (27) No effect?
008E E3C1 = OHL (20) No effect?
008F 0991 = NHL (30) No effect?
008F 5E21 = Norwegian Elite League, Slovakian Elite League, UK EIHL (10)
0090 4E39 = Euro Ice Hockey Challenge (11)
0092 3931 = Finnish Mestis, Swedish Elite (12)
0092 66B1 = Czech Elite League, Finnish SM-Liiga, German DEL (14)
0092 93E1 = Danish Elite League (9)
0093 2251 = Slovenian Interliga (5)
0093 3811 = Austrian Elite League, Slovenian Elite League (8) Appears to cause a crash?

[Alessandro]

Any luck with your 16-team Austria?

I only simmed through to November, but it became a real mess. The standings said the teams had played something like 60 games each, teams had qualified for the playoffs, the teams were playing the playoffs at that time, yet there were still two/three months' worth of games listed in the schedule. No doubt it is because I updated purely the number of teams and not anything relating to the schedule/league/playoff structure. I'm now looking to see if I can alter the number of games played during the regular season.

Yes, this happens when you don't update the rest of the values. It will most likely crash coming playoffs time or not having playoffs at all and crashing on june 30th. Have a look at the other 3 values posted by Marek

[archibalduk]

I have been going through the information listed here by Alessandro/Marek and have been able to identify a fairly wide range of line-up rules. I have updated my list of Art Money offsets. There is still a lot to be found in the line-up rules in that I have looked purely at the existing rules. I think if we look a little deeper at the data in the same location as those offsets we'll be able to activate/deactivate other rules for the leagues.

Next I'm going to go through the league size offsets (using Lazion's list as a starting point) and the various offsets in Alessandro's league patch which I'll add to the list. Then I'll try and find the roster rules and also the schedule/league/playoffs structures (leaving the most complex to last).

Note that in my offset list in the post above, I have only looked at the League Info screen to check that the Art Money changes take effect. I haven't actually tested out that the edited rules actually take effect. As there are so many leagues and rules to find, I'm concentrating solely on finding them rather than fully testing them out at this stage.

[archibalduk]

I've updated the list above: http://www.ehmtheblueline.com/forums/vi ... 88#p141488

[archibalduk]

I've made a couple of additional updates to the list. I'm struggling to find the roster rules unfortunately - they don't seem to be as straightforward to find as the players dressed rules.

[Saapas]

How big changes are possible?

[archibalduk]

Basically what I posted above and also what Alessandro achieved with his league patch (i.e. OT and shoot-out rules).

League sizes can be changed, but you also have to modify the schedule. I think the best way to do this is to edit the exe rather than the RAM / ArtMoney. Although a lot of league sizes can be modified to anything you want using ArtMoney, the difficulty is how to correctly update the league schedule accordingly.

[Saapas]

I was just wondering since Finnish Suomi Division has 2 conferences with 10 and 8 teams and it really goes like this: 3 qualifying conferences with 8,8 and 7 teams and 4 best of each conference goes to the real Suomi Division and 3 best teams of qualified teams compete against the last team on Finnish Mestis... Although they are changing the system to go to 16 teams with maybe 2 conferences and 8 teams on each on 2013-2014

[archibalduk]

The British EIHL is changing too. We'll have two conferences of five teams from next season (before we just had one conference/league with all ten teams in it).

Changing team numbers is, to an extent, possible. However, modifying the number of conferences and conference sizes is more problematic. It would need somebody to spend a lot of time experimenting if any progress is to be made in this area.

[Lazion]

I managed to add two extra divisions in AHL back in days, but there was some sort of problem there. Can't remember what it exactly was tho.. I'll try to play with hex-editor again if I find more spare time.

[archibalduk]

I managed to add two extra divisions in AHL back in days, but there was some sort of problem there. Can't remember what it exactly was tho.. I'll try to play with hex-editor again if I find more spare time.

Any info you can provide would be excellent. I get the impression from your posts here and on TBN that you achieved quite a lot in terms of the structure and schedules.

[Lazion]

Finally solved my last problem for saved game schedule editing. I'm going to write a guide soon.

I managed to do this for sg.. Kärpät is playing in NHL with SM-Liiga rules and there's only total of 29 teams. Game is probably going to crash anyway, but I look into this more after I finish my current history research task.

[archibalduk]

Wow! Nice work! Let me know how it goes.