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
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.
