Editing files

[Kiknurazz91]

I noticed screen shots of people in campaign having billions upon billions of dollars in naval budget. Is there a way to edit save files to change the amount of money you have in campaign? What else can be edited? I am on PC and have both steam and the non steam version of this game.

Edited March 2, 2022 by Kiknurazz91

[AurumCorvus]

A lot can be edited. But first, a disclaimer. The devs have said that this creates bugs and instability.

Also, what you're seeing all around the forums is a bug with AI nations. It's currently thought that there is an issue with negative overflow looping around, but that's not official.

If you're still interested and willing to accept bugs, I can give you a quick guide on what we know so far.

[Candle_86]

Based on Nicks ask we should not edit the files at least for the Beta, it doesn't help them if it causes bugs to crop up

[Kiknurazz91]

All i was really wanting to do was maybe increase the starting funds by a few million is all. Nothing too game changing.

[AurumCorvus]

To change funds, you have two methods, both revolving around the same field. Open up your save_0.json file (at <userdir>\Appdata\LocalLow\GameLabs\UltimateAdmiralDreadnoughts\save_0.json)

To edit funds for any nation (including yours), find them (yours is generally first), and find the "cash" field. You now have two choices:

(1) Directly edit the number to whatever you want. Larger numbers are generally written in scientific notation, but you can put in whatever you want. It's a float number, so it's subject to general restrictions (and also the plus points) of a float number. Note that if you put in a full number, the game will convert it to a scientific notation number at the first opportunity, and you may encounter a few rounding errors in that.

(2) Put "Infinity" (inc. quotes) into the field. This will give you an unlimited amount of funds. However, I extremely caution you about this path, even more than the devs already have. This is putting a string into a float place, and is probably causing all sorts of errors on the backend. If you do go down this path (and find it fun), accept the bugs and live with them.

Like I said before, the devs have already cautioned us. Don't spam the devs with bug reports regarding errors with this save file. But also have fun and enjoy it!

[Skeksis]

On 3/3/2022 at 8:14 PM, Kiknurazz91 said:

All i was really wanting to do was maybe increase the starting funds by a few million is all. Nothing too game changing.

In layman terms, just edit the first digit after ‘cash’ e.g. if  2.34343400000000E+0006 (2.3 million), edit the first digit to 9.34343400000000E+0006, (9.3 million).

I edit this too, so I can have the best ships to start with from the technology level available and also to match enemy ship numbers with that tech level.

Otherwise, based on funds available, you have to build the cheapest ships you can and that’s no fun. Actually it's just hard to scale down your designs, to sacrifice so much ship's ability just to start a campaign. 😥

Hopefully with a full continuous campaign we'll be able to generate enough funds, through winning battles, claiming ports, trade and peacetime etc. so that we can always build/design the best ships to the tech limit/level available.

PS, always make a backup file copy first!

Edited March 20, 2022 by Skeksis