I think it might be realtively easy, however i am making some assumptions about the way things work. One would have to figure out if the .ini files can be edited while the game is running (easy). Then one could write an .exe that basically does search and replace functions against the .ini files containing prices so that the next time that .ini was loaded (say a player enters a station) that the new prices are loaded from the file. It could change then every so often.

That would involve modifying the .exe no doubt. The values you set in the .ini files are constants, and for a dynamic system you need variables. These are going to be in the .exe, perhaps a .dll, and not the data files.

DarkJackal

You can make a quick and dirty 'Limited Simulated Dynamic Economy'.

I did not write a true randomize program like he said but...

Make up about 30 or whatever altered commodity price files and have a small program running along with game to pick one randomly and write over the present one. It can only can do this on program EXE start up.

Are you saying that the ini file for goods prices are only read once by EXE when the game starts up?

Edit:

Verified, sadly true. The EXE reads the goods.ini file for prices and stuff only on start up. Can not change prices during the game running. Must exit out, change prices, then restart.

Maybe ther is a way to command the EXE to re-read the goods.ini file, among other things later on once Freelancer.exe is open source decompiled to alter it.

Edited by - Xerx on 18-03-2003 08:36:57

Changing a file the Freelancer client uses midstream normally works okay, but it doesn't update the change. To my knowledge, any time you do that in MP, it brings the server down very badly. I was modding in flak cannons while my friends were playing on my server, and I accidentally saved the changes. The server died a horrible death right then