Dehacked questions

[Yukarin]

Hi I have some questions about dehacked so here goes

1.)What is it and what does it do?
2.)Where can I get it?
3.)How do I use it?
4.)Is there an executable for windows?

[Scypek2]

I suppose that google search would answer all these questions, but okay...
That's a program for creating .deh (vanilla) or .bex (boom) patches. These patches added to command line parameters alters executable behavior, so you can, for example:
- modify text strings (to told your own storyline in an itermission text, for example)
- alter monster behaviour (so you can have an Imp that flies, shoots rockets and has 1000 hitpoints)
and alter more miscallenous values. Dehacked version for Windows is Whacked. I can't remember any exact links now and I could probably say something more, but really, everything you need is avaiable and you just have to search a little bit.

[Gez]

sgt dopey said:

1.)What is it and what does it do?

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/DeHackEd

sgt dopey said:

2.)Where can I get it?

http://www.doomworld.com/idgames/?id=7703

sgt dopey said:

3.)How do I use it?

http://www.aspectsweb.co.uk/dehacked/index.html

sgt dopey said:

4.)Is there an executable for windows?

http://doomwiki.org/wiki/WhackEd

[fraggle]

sgt dopey said:

Hi I have some questions about dehacked so here goes

1.)What is it and what does it do?

A short history lesson may help here. You're probably aware that Doom's IWAD file (doom.wad, doom2.wad, etc) contains most of the game data - sound effects, levels, music and so on. When you make your own PWADs you replace some of that data.

However, some of the game's behavior is not stored in the IWAD file. A simple example is the messages that pop up during play - eg. "picked up a clip". Other things include the number of hitpoints and other properties of objects, how monsters behave and animate, and how the player's weapons behave. These things are compiled into the exe file (doom.exe, doom2.exe, etc)

Back in the '90s before the Doom source code was released, the only way to change these things was by making a "hacked" exe file: if you took the normal DOS Doom exe file and made some tiny changes to just the right part of the file, you could change the game's behavior. Obviously this is kind of a messy way to do things. Distributing modified Doom executables was also not exactly legal.

Dehacked was created to make this easier. It gives a much more friendly interface that basically anyone can use to edit these things, and it also lets you distribute the changes as a text file. Here's what a dehacked patch looks like, for example. This made it possible to make more elaborate mods that changed the game's behavior, by including a dehacked patch with a WAD file. It's still kind of messy but it's the best that was possible at the time.

After the Doom source was released, most Doom source ports added support for loading dehacked patches as a command line parameter, which makes things much nicer and more convenient. Some ports let you include dehacked patches inside WADs. Nowadays the more elaborate ports like ZDoom or Eternity have alternative schemes that give you more even control and let you change the game behavior in more convenient or complicated ways than is possible with a dehacked patch.

[Yukarin]

Thanks guys :D

I got the latest beta of WhackEd and it stopped working with an error saying I'm missing MSSTDFMT.dll. Im running windows 7 home premium 64 bit if thats any help

Downloading the .DLL and putting it into the folder won't cause any nasty side effects will it?

[EarthQuake]

Can't be completely sure how it works on Windows 7, but no, dropping the library into the folder shouldn't have any problems as long as you download it from a reliable source. According to Google, MSSTDFMT.DLL is the "Data Reports" runtime library, so it doesn't sound like anything suspicious.

[Yukarin]

I tried downloading it and putting it in the folder but it still says its missing.

What do I do now

[EarthQuake]

Try the system directory ("c:/windows/system32/" for most versions of windows). If that fails, you might have to register the .dll using regsvr32.exe (which you can find instructions for on Google).

[Genki]

I've got another question, how do I add new strings to the list? All I can do is to modify them.

[Kappes Buur]

saifi said:

... how do I add new strings to the list?....

As the name implies, DEHACKED hacks the original resources to replace (as in alter) them.
To add anything new, you should be thinking of using a source port.