Let's Figure out How to Pull Weapons Stats

[illram]

So the rough BO3 stats thread has sort of turned into chaos, and to kind of filter all the noise of that thread, I am creating this thread for a very simple purpose (one which was impossible for me to accomplish in the other thread): if anyone is interested in learning how to decrypt, decompress, and decipher fast files for the SOLE purpose of getting weapons stats (not modding or any related EULA violations, although the two share similar steps) then let's use this thread as a place to discuss that. This thread is not for politics or sanctimonious preaching about this or that. I simply think that this is perhaps a useful thing to know, or at least have some semblance of knowledge about, since we should never assume that Marvel is just going to keep doing this, even if someone pays him handsomely to do so. Mousey said the den irc chat, where Marvel hangs out, occasionally has discussions about this so if anyone hangs out there and wants to share here, please do so. Generally this would be useful stuff as a community to share with one another and collaborate on in a more permanent format than a chat room, as there is a new COD released every year so... let's see if we can figure this out before the next Call of Duty rolls around?

For about the past week or two, Megaqwerty and I have been poking around various websites and downloading various tools, such as .ff decryptors and ipak extractors for prior COD titles and playing around with them to see how they work, and playing around with the beta BO3 files to see what we can do with those (in a word: not much).

What we have done:

1. Tried the BO2 .ff explorer and the decryptor tools on the BO3 beta (fail)
2. ....
3. not profited. (/south park joke)

My basic understanding of the process is: decrypt the mp_common and mp_patch fast files, then examine them with a hex editor to pull the data. Which is apparently very tedious. Step 1 (decrypting) is the first hurdle so if anyone has ideas on that please share. Or if we are looking at this totally wrong let us know.

Our goal is really not to bust out BO3 weapons stats (although that would be nice) but just to see how hard it would be to try and learn this stuff ourselves to see if we could do this for next year's release. Mega and I are both starting at the bottom floor, basically. I know there are a lot of True Bros here who are technically inclined and maybe even do this type of stuff for other games--or even professionally--and we love gun stats, right? So I feel like this community is as good as any other to become a repository for this info.

So if anyone has anything to contribute to this endeavor, here is where you can do so.

[illram]

Nov 17, 2015 20:08:28 GMT -5 Mousey said:

1. run the game
2. search memory for certain values/patterns that were common for weapon files in previous games
3. dump the ever living shit out of everything
4. match up things that look similar to older weapon stats
5. convert certain values from hex to dec when they match up with damages or recoil or whatever
6. dont get vac banned



EDIT: and anyone expecting to get this done in a few hours should give up now

Thanks Mousey. I look at this as something that can be done over the course of a few months, not hours. Hopefully I have my expectations in order. I anticipate trying my hand at the mod tools (if they release Radiant, so I can make maps again) so I am hoping this dovetails a little with that.

Anyways, some follow up questions to your numbered list:

2 - this sounds like something you would only know if you did prior extractions, i.e. where in memory to look. Any program you would recommend to view this? Is the process here sort of like looking at a bunch of gibberish but eventually figuring out that the some hex scramble was the magic damage number you were looking for? If you never did this before how would you find them?
3 - by dump do you mean the fast files? Is there something other than mp_common or mp_patch (or whatever they are called) we should be dumping? This is the step I feel like we are running into trouble with, i.e. decrypting the fast files initially so we can dump them and then inspect them to find the stats.
6 - this is sort of scary. can we just copy the relevant fast files and then decrypt those, so the steam accessible game files are never changed? Or can two people collaborate, i.e. person A plays and sends the memory dump info to person B, person B then dumps their fast file and inspects, but never plays so steam doesn't think they're modding anything? Have you guys run into trouble with this on steam?

I don't own BO3 on PC yet, I am limited to just fooling around with the beta. I figure that is all I need if all I want to do at this point is basically figure out step 3 and maybe 2. (baby steps)

[Megaqwerty]

Nov 18, 2015 12:58:59 GMT -5 Mousey said:

as for avoiding bans im pretty sure you need a copy not tied to steam to avoid vac.

Can't just run the game offline?

Nov 18, 2015 12:58:59 GMT -5 Mousey said:

3. by dump i mean move a bunch of shit to a location thats easier to work with. you dont want to be reading and converting every value one by one unless you have some sort of script.

Marvel does this, but won't write a script?

[Megaqwerty]

Nov 22, 2015 17:43:55 GMT -5 Mousey said:

dukip tells me that vac has some means of detecting tampering while offline. idk any details or even the truth to it but hes done a lot of modding so i didnt question him. i didnt go and confirm that so feel free to look into it or whatever.

I doubt he would lie to you, but, if so, that's bullshit.

I remember using trainers in BO1 zombies without issue, but VAC may well have changed since then.

Good thing I don't care about Steam anymore.