A potential reason for problems and CTD

[h.sie]

While trying to get familiar with cameras.dat, I found a potential CTD reason if cameras.dat is edited with newer S3Ditor Versions (thanks, skywasjer for this great tool!) and if the player uses the Sabotage and Malfuntion - Option of Sh3-Commander (thanks, J.Jones for another great tool):

The Sabotage and Malfuntion-Option uses a file called RandomizedEvents.cfg which contains Hex-Pointers to the data positions in binary files like Cameras.dat. In a case of a sabotage, a binary value which is referred by such a Hex-pointer is changed in order to simulate sabotage. For example, the zoom of the periscopes is restricted to 1x.

When editing cameras.dat with a newer version of S3D, the AuthorInfo chunk is 71 bytes longer as is has been when editing with older versions of S3D. This means: All Hex-pointers point to wrong data positions, so that undesired data is changed. This can lead to a CTD (which in fact is perfect sabotage).

So if you change cameras.dat values with a newer version of S3D, the pointers in RandomizedEvents.cfg have to be adapted to prevent from unwanted side-effects like CTD in conjunction with sabotage & malfunction. Otherwise your cameras.dat is not compatible with Sabotage and Malfuntion.


excuse my bad english!
h.sie