Cricket Captain 2018 Club Editor

[weetabixharry]

Edit: There is now a full Player/Club editor available for download here:

https://www.planetcricket.org/forums/threads/editor-for-cricket-captain-2018-release.114601

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I haven't posted on these forums in some years. Around a decade ago, I co-wrote the ICC 2009 Editor (but all credit goes to Fe98 for writing the ICC 2008 Editor, and everyone else for reverse-engineering the memory addresses).

If I remember correctly, I also updated the Editor for ICC 2011. However, with increasing numbers of people playing online, it was controversial as the online game was apparently being ruined by cheaters.

Back in those days, I remember there was a huge community effort to reverse-engineer the memory locations of the various player attributes. Does this still happen? Have the Editor / Scout / Stats Editor been updated at all in recent years?

I think the general feeling was that manually editing memory locations was sufficiently difficult that the type of people capable of doing it were likely to be big ICC enthusiasts and not online cheats. However, publicly releasing the editor gave free access to all the idiots who just wanted to cheat online and ruin it for everyone else.

Personally, I have never played ICC online, so I think it's a real shame if these tools aren't developed any more. In my opinion, the biggest risk for cheating is also the least interesting feature of the editor: changing player abilities. For me, I really just want the following:

• Infinite budget;
• Infinite training/physio/fielding sessions;
• Read-only access to player abilities (e.g. ICC Scout);
• Ability to remove player injuries.

I have written a simple "Club Editor" for Cricket Captain 2018 (v18.03), which gives the first two of these. The interface is identical to the old Editors:



My feeling is that these things are elementary to change using CheatEngine, so there would be little harm in releasing this publicly. If there is a general agreement on this, then I will happily upload it to this thread.

It would be really nice to update ICC Scout, but this would require a bigger community effort. I'm not sure how much interest there is in that now.

 

[Aislabie]

I would quite like to play around with this, mostly to create domestic saves where the teams are really cash-limited

Pretty sure nobody would mind either, given that this isn't for the most up-to-date version of the game

 

[Aalay]

Personally, I have never played ICC online, so I think it's a real shame if these tools aren't developed any more.

This is me. I have never played a single game of ICC online but I still enjoy the game without the online aspect of it. I agree with both the points that you have highlighted that there will be little to no harm if an editor is released for that. I also want someone to release an editor that works for Mac and also allows me to edit player abilities. Again, this is not for online gaming but just for my own enjoyment and the tweaks that I want to make with certain players who are not good in games but are amazing in real life. I know that some scumbags will take advantage of it in online games but because of those few people, it just hinders my experiance of playing this game. I know the developers update the players when you post it in ICC forum but I just find it exhausting to list all of that now even though I have done it in past. I wish there was a way we could edit players but it would have no effect on online aspect of the game.

 

[weetabixharry]

This is me. I have never played a single game of ICC online but I still enjoy the game without the online aspect of it. I agree with both the points that you have highlighted that there will be little to no harm if an editor is released for that. I also want someone to release an editor that works for Mac and also allows me to edit player abilities. Again, this is not for online gaming but just for my own enjoyment and the tweaks that I want to make with certain players who are not good in games but are amazing in real life. I know that some scumbags will take advantage of it in online games but because of those few people, it just hinders my experiance of playing this game. I know the developers update the players when you post it in ICC forum but I just find it exhausting to list all of that now even though I have done it in past. I wish there was a way we could edit players but it would have no effect on online aspect of the game.

I am working on this. I have now written a full editor (but sadly only for Windows) and I want to ensure it can't be used online. I am currently looking at a couple of options:

1) It looks like Easy Mode games can't be used online. I am trying to reverse-engineer that so the editor will only run in easy mode.
2) It looks like the latest update of each Cricket Captain (2018.xx, 2019.yy etc) is required for online play. Usually, all the memory pointers change after every update, so as long as editors are only released for older versions, then there should be no risk.

I would probably suggest that any editor releases should significantly lag the game releases anyway. As we approach 2020, I think it should be fine to release an editor for an old release of Cricket Captain 2018.

Here's a couple of screenshots showing everything I can edit so far. I had to work quite hard to find a way to allow all players to be available for every game (remove injuries, retirements, international commitments, IPL commitments, foreign player quotas). I haven't included potential abilities for batting and bowling yet because the interface is starting to get cluttered and I need to move some things around.

 

[weetabixharry]

I would quite like to play around with this, mostly to create domestic saves where the teams are really cash-limited

Pretty sure nobody would mind either, given that this isn't for the most up-to-date version of the game

I never thought about editing other teams' budgets. I'll look into adding that.

 

[Aislabie]

Looks like you've done some excellent work here.

With the previous editor I used (2009, so some time ago) it would just open up whichever team was currently being displayed. So if I had Surrey's details open, I'd be editing Surrey's budget even if the save was for Northants (as all good saves should be)

 

[Aalay]

I am working on this. I have now written a full editor (but sadly only for Windows) and I want to ensure it can't be used online. I am currently looking at a couple of options

This looks awesome. It is frustrating that I won't be able to run it on Mac but at least people who are using Windows will now at least have an opportunity to play the game with their own tweaks. I think it will definitely improve the gameplay experiance for those users. I currently own the copy of 2019 version so will it work on that or just 2018 version? I love the detailing and appreciate the work that you have put in the editor.

 

[weetabixharry]

With the previous editor I used (2009, so some time ago) it would just open up whichever team was currently being displayed. So if I had Surrey's details open, I'd be editing Surrey's budget even if the save was for Northants (as all good saves should be)

Ah, so maybe I have thought about this before?! Long time ago! I've implemented it in the new editor, but then got hugely side-tracked trying to display the correct team name in the editor so you know whose budget you're editing. This is pretty pointless and surprisingly difficult, but it's annoying so I'll keep trying for a bit.

I have so far failed to reverse-engineer the "Easy Mode" setting - it's looking very difficult. I'm also now not so confident that it's safe to publicly release an editor for a "non-latest" minor release of Cricket Captain. It seems that games saved for an earlier minor release (e.g. 18.03) can be loaded in the latest release (e.g. 18.091). I want to support the developers of the game, so I really need to figure something out.

 

[Aislabie]

I feel like this is somethink that would be easily solved with an in-game editor which, if used renders the save ineligible for online. It seems hard to imagine that this would be especially hard for Childish Things if a fan can reverse-engineer 90% of it from outside

 

[weetabixharry]

It is frustrating that I won't be able to run it on Mac

Yeah, I agree. I've had a quick look into this, and it seems like compiling this for Mac is theoretically possible nowadays (since 2017). My main problem is that the only Mac I have access to is currently running Windows 10 and I'm pretty sure I've lost any trace of the Mac OS. If I can find the licence for the OS, then I'll stick another hard drive in and have a go.

I currently own the copy of 2019 version so will it work on that or just 2018 version?

Nothing will currently work for Cricket Captain 2019 (or even any minor release apart from 2018.03). Most of it ("Club Editor" and "Player Editor") would only need minor changes to support other releases. The "Global Settings" parts (particularly allowing unavailable IPL players to play) were much more difficult and I'm not sure I'd want to go to the trouble of doing that again!

A decade ago, there was a big community effort to find what needed to change after each new release. The rise in importance of online play has largely killed that, and it's quite hard work without that kind of help.

I'm not sure why the game developers are so uninterested in providing their own editor, or at least making it easier for someone like me to make an editor that won't destroy the online game. It would be so much easier to make it work from their side.

 

[weetabixharry]

I feel like this is somethink that would be easily solved with an in-game editor which, if used renders the save ineligible for online. It seems hard to imagine that this would be especially hard for Childish Things if a fan can reverse-engineer 90% of it from outside

I couldn't agree more. This would be so much easier to solve from their side. Even if they don't release their own editor, making two distinct game modes (which could look identical to the user, but with slightly different memory locations under the bonnet) would be in their interest. A lot of the online cheating would go away if the internet became flooded with cheat tables and editors for the "Editable" (offline) game mode.

Sure, a small number of very committed cheaters might persist to hack the online version. But in my experience, the people who put in the hours to reverse-engineer the game are big enthusiasts and don't want to ruin the fun for others.

 

[weetabixharry]

I think I may have found a way to detect "Easy Mode". I've tested it on about 20 different saved games so far, with 100% success rate.

I'll test it some more and then maybe upload a dummy editor that just tells you which game mode you're running. If it's reliable, then I think we can release an editor that won't affect online play.

 

[weetabixharry]

I have attached a heavily stripped down editor, in the hope that anyone who reads this can help to test out the "Easy Mode" detection (so the editor can't be used online).

The editor has now been updated to work with Cricket Captain 2018, version 18.09 (the latest version on Steam). If you don't own CC 2018 yet, you can download the free demo (click "Download Demo" here), which should also work.

The intended behaviour is that in any Easy Mode game, this minimal editor will be available:

(User Guide: Only Load/Save Budget from the "Team Details" screen in Cricket Captain. Only Add Coach+Physio from the "Coach & Physio" screen.)

Any attempt to use the editor in a Normal Mode game (eligible for online play), should issue this error message and exit:


With all my savegames, this works 100% of the time (i.e. rejects 100% of Normal Mode games and accepts 100% of Easy Mode games).

Please let me know if this works for you. If it does, then I think I can upload the full editor without any risk to online play.

 

[Aislabie]

Doesn't look like it's quite working properly for me I'm afraid. I have tried the classic off-and-on-again approach

 

[weetabixharry]

Okay, I was erring on the side of caution and may have been too cautious. Can you send me a screenshot of your Options screen? (Showing all the version info).

Also, is it possible to upload your savegame? It should be located in:
C:\Users\[USER NAME]\AppData\Roaming\Childish Things\Cricket Captain 2018

I created a brand new savegame (attached), similar to yours. It works fine for me. Can you try this one? (You may want to backup your one before overwriting).