Pixel Ships Hacks

I've been absorbed in a new computer game lately called PixelShips. In this side-scrolling game you are able to fly up to 160 different ships up to 99,990 different arenas to complete various missions, earn upgrades, capture enemy ships, etc.

I enjoy playing PixelShips because it's a new game for me to hack. Most people don't get as much enjoyment as I do by finding out different hacks and cheats to make the game easier but I do. And since there are no cheats online for PixelShips (I'm apparently the first one to have hacked the program this extensively), I'm going to submit them here...
You will need a good hex editor that displays byte location in an offset number. You can check some of the links on my website if you need to find a hex editor.NOTE! Using a hex editor can be dangerous since it makes permanent changes to the file structure within a program. If you do not know what you are doing, make a backup of the file you will be editing, so you can recover if your hack does not work.

1. To put more ships into your computers memory.
When you first start playing PixelShips, the computer memory is blank because it expects you to capture enemy ships and fly them to add those ships and their specifications to your memory. Normally this is done by destroying a ship and
then vacuuming the pixels into your cargo. You will need to have less than 6 ships in your fleet to do this. Only ships that show up in your fleet are added to the flight computer. This is the only way in-game to add ships to the computers memory.
To put more ships into your flight computer's memory manually using a hex editor, you will need a hex editor that shows locations within a file in an byte offset number.
First, figure out which ship you want to see the stats for in your flight computer. All the ships in Pixel Ships are numbered. Take the ship number you want to see and add:

• 33 for Save Location 1
  
• 361 for Save Location 2
  
• 689 for Save Location 3
  
• 1017 for Save Location 4

Open the file, pilots.dat (contained in your PixelShips folder), in your hex editor. The calculation you just did will yield the offset number to be edited. Navigate to the correct offset location and place a "01" in that offset location. When you open Pixel Ships you will have a new ship in your flight computer.

2. To add ships to your Pixel Ships fleet, or change the ships in your fleet.
Normally this is done by destroying a ship and then vacuuming the pixels into your cargo. You will need to have less than 6 ships in your fleet to do this.
To add or change ships in your fleet manually, you will need a hex editor that shows locations within a file in an offset number, and a decimal-to-hexadecimal converter.
First, figure out which ship you want to add to your fleet. All the ships in Pixel Ships are numbered in the flight computer. Find the ship you want to add to your fleet and write down its number.
Convert that number to hexadecimal. This should leave you with a two-digit number (for the decimal numbers 1-16, remember to put a 0 in front, e.g; 01, 05, or 0A)
There are only six ships in any Pixels Ships fleet. Open pilots.dat in your hex editor. The fleets can be found and edited at:

• Offset 195-200 for Save Location 1
  
• Offset 523-528 for Save Location 2
  
• Offset 851-856 for Save Location 3
  
• Offset 1179-1184 for Save Location 4

When you navigate to those locations, you will see the hexadecimal numbers of your
current fleet. For there to be a ship present, the hexadecimal number must be greater
than "00".
"00"= No ship.
"01" – "A0" = ships.
You can change these numbers to change ships.
Or you can change any of the signed bytes within the correct offset location to the hexadecimal number of the ship you want in your fleet.

3. The best Pixel Ship ever.
Follow the instructions on #2 to add Pixel Ships to your fleet, but place "A1" in one of the locations. This releases the last Pixel Ship in the game (#161 - I'll bet you thought there was only 160 PixelShips right), and the most powerful Pixel Ship ever. If you want to add the stats for the PixelShip to your Pixel Computer, just follow step #1, but remember that this is ship 161.

Is Hacking Legal?

I'm not sure why I'm writing this. I think it's because I want to rant about a question I was asked the other day.
I showed a friend of mine my website (he liked it), which contains links to other sites where some hacking programs could be found. There are lots of programs there like, compilers, decompilers, hex editors, emulators, web site designers, etc. Most of the programs are free or shareware.
Anyway, my friend asked a question that most people at one time or another have asked me.

1. Hacking is illegal! Why would you be involved in something like that?

2. Are emulators really legal?

3. Aren't hex editors illegal?

4. Are keygens illegal?

I am sick and tired of answering these questions. So I am going to rant and answer them one by one in this blog.

Is hacking illegal?
No, hacking is not illegal!! Don't believe me?? Get out a dictionary. Better yet, just follow this link to see the definition of hacker. As you can see, hackers are not always in the wrong... The first, and primary definition of "hacker" is "One who is proficient at using or programming a computer; a computer buff." One that note, I am proud to stand up and say "I AM A HACKER!!!"
The problem with hacking is that you never hear about it unless you're hearing the negative. It's the second definition of hacker that brings shame down on us all. " One who uses programming skills to gain illegal access to a computer network or file."
I would compare computer hacking to driving a car. When you drive a car, you have two choices; you can obey the law, or you can ignore the law and possibly hurt yourself and others in the process. Hackers are programmers for whom computing is its own reward; we may enjoy the challenge of breaking into other computers but only when this does no harm; "true hackers subscribe to a code of ethics and look down upon "crackers". Most of us obey the law...

Are emulators illegal?
No, they are not illegal. The case of SONY V. CONNECTIX found that unauthorized emulation is perfectly legal. It was the decision of the court that CONNECTIX had the right to emulate the SONY Playstation and that reverse engineering of the Playstation BIOS for such a cause fell under fair usage. As a result of this case CONNECTIX was allowed to release it's Virtual Gaming Station for the Mac OS.

Ok, so it's legal, but is it right?
Emulation simply makes one hardware platform act like another. There is nothing wrong with making the hardware you own behave the way you want it to. That is exactly what software is for, it makes the hardware you own behave in a useful manner. Emulation is not used simply for playing console games on a PC. Emulators exist for all kinds of hardware and all types of platforms. Console emulation is only part of a very large emulation community.

Are ROM images legal?
Yes, under very specific circumstances. Section 117 of the US Copyright Law gives the owner of a software package the right to make an additional copy under certain provisions. If you adhere to the provisions then making ROM images is perfectly legal. However, legislation has been passed to prevent software piracy that makes game copying devices illegal. Using such a device to create a ROM image makes the resulting image illegal as well. Also you have to remember that there is a large amount of freeware / public domain roms that you can download from the internet, and only way to play them is to use emulator or a flash card!

Is distributing ROM images legal?
No, not clearly. Individuals and Companies have a right to back up their software. This does not give them the right to distribute that copy to others, even provided they also own a legal copy of the software. So, in short, it is perfectly legal for you to copy a software package you own, but not for you to give that copy away.

Are hex editors illegal?
No. People who think that really don't have a clue what a hex editor is. A hex editor is a program that lets you edit files at a low-level basis. Hex editors are byte oriented, they show you the physical contents of files (i.e. each individual byte).
In contrast, high-level applications (like word processing software) are representing the logical, not the physical contents of files. If you mark a word as bold, you're not interested in the physical coding within the file.
Consider so called "plain text" files like the ubiquitous README.TXT files, created e.g. using notepad (without any layout like bold formatted words etc). They don't contain only the plain text, but also end-of-line marks (and often tabstops). Unfortunately, these end-of-line marks (not visible itself in notepad, you'll see only the breaking line) are coded differently under Windows, Unix, and Macintosh.
A hex editor is mainly a tool to examine the physical (i.e. byte per byte) structure of files. For every programmer (like me) this is an almost daily duty, but for "normal" users this may sound strange.
So you need hex editors for mainly two reasons:

• 1. Examining the physical structure of a file, because you don't see the bytes stored in a file using the regular application to open it (this is true also for so called "plain text" files as explained above). You need this knowledge e.g. to write by yourself an application that will interpret the contents of a file properly.
• 2. Changing the contents of a file deliberately. This also requires to know exactly the file structure. If you don't know how watermarks are stored in JPGs, don't tamper with them - aside from the fact that it would be illegal to delete Copyright information.
  The above example shows that hex editors are legal or illegal. It's what you do with them that is legal or illegal (just like the proverbial car driver).

Are keygens illegal?
For the most part, yes. Keygen websites can be found all over the net, however for the most part, they are illegal. But let me give you an example of when a keygen is not illegal. A beta tester will use a keygen to determine if a program key verification program is working correctly. The beta tester will do this by generating thousands of unique keys from an encryption algorithm that is verified to be correct and test them against the program. Beta testers, like myself, regularly download keys from verified sources and use them in beta testing.
However, getting a keygen and using it to get access to a program to avoid paying the registration fee is completely illegal.

There I've finished my rant now. So now you know better...

It's called a bargain

So I was looking in my refrigerator the other day for something to eat and I realized there was nothing there... Time to go shopping.
I don't have a car, so all my shopping is either done with my parents (who can chauffeur me around from store to store), or alone (where I walk from store to store). Of these two options, neither is very appealing.
Walking is very tiring, especially when you're carrying around 20+ pounds of groceries from store to store. And I can't go very far walking (maybe a radius of 20 city blocks).
Shopping with Mom is also not appealing to me. It's not that we can't get along, it's just that we have different methods of shopping. I look at the advertisements in the paper and then go shopping. When I get to the grocery store, I take maybe 20 minutes shopping, checkout, then go home. Mom goes to the grocery store, gets the advertisements there, sits down somewhere and goes over every advertisement with the tireless energy of an editor looking for typos. Then after 30+ minutes, she buys one or two items and says she'll go somewhere else for the rest of the groceries.
I don't seem to have the level of patience to travel around from store to store looking for the best deals. Especially with the price of gasoline these days. I would think it would be better to look for deals and shop at the stores closest to home.
So anyway, Mom decided to go shopping for me. I asked her to find me a good deal of eggs, ham, coffee, and cheese.
Here's what I got, when she got back from the store.

• 1 HUGE bone-in ham
• 6 cartons - 1½ dozen eggs each
• 4 cans of coffee
• 4 blocks of cheese

Now, don't get me wrong. I buy in bulk too. I just don't buy quite so much bulk.
When I asked why she had to buy so much... she said, "You should buy in bulk when you see a deal. It's called a bargain."

Defective Hard Drive

So I've been looking for a new hard drive in the last few weeks, something to replace the frequent-crashing-way-too-slow-way-too-small-10Gb-hard drive that I have right now.

I checked out Geeks.com for a good deal and found one there, but it sold out before I got all my money together.So I checked out NewEgg to see if they had any deals. I found a great deal on a 250Gb, 7200 rpm, 16Mb cache hard drive for $93.98 + $3.00 shipping.I got my hard drive yesterday...

Now I ask you... Out of all the hard drives and hardware equipment that NewEgg ships out every day, what are the odds of this happening...I plugged the hard drive into my computer, got ready to format the hard drive with my Windows Xp Pro Cd, but the hard drive wouldn't post to the computer.I checked all the connections, restarted the computer in BIOS to check all the settings there (everything was fine), and restarted the computer. This time my new hard drive made this sickening grinding sound and stopped spinning. It did not post this time either.What are the odds out of a thousand hard drives, that I would be sent the one defective they had.

Oh, well. I'm going to send the hard drive back to Newegg for replacement. It's gonna take me another 3-4 weeks to get my NEW hard drive for my computer.

I guess I'll just keep going on dreams.