Patching MechCommander's "left arm bug" for fun and profit

Patching MechCommander's "left arm bug" for fun and profit(mhloppy.com)

37 points by Narann 3 days ago | 11 comments

Great writeup! Vividly remember this being a thing especially in multiplayer. What was that janky match matching service, MSN something?

Also a really underrated game, the mechanics (line of sight over the horizon stuff) and isometric graphics were pretty cool for the time and it had a well developed story/campaign mode.

derac 3 hours ago |

This is cool, maybe "target left arm" implies that it's your left, when targetting them and you're facing each other. So, their right arm.

derac 2 hours ago | |

Btw, I recently did my first patches with ghidra. Is there any way to avoid jumping into a code cave by shifting all the instructions up then updating any statements referring to those memory locations? Seems like it should be simple enoigh in theory, but I didn't find an implementation on a cursory search. Could probably code up a plugin pretty easily.

BobbyTables2 1 hour ago | | |

How can you be dead certain that all references are known in Ghidra?

Just non-disassembled function or unidentified struct would ruin your plans…

tangenter 2 hours ago |

I wish they would release MC1 source the way they did with MC2.

pkhuong 2 hours ago |

If you need a compact byte -> bit lookup table on x86, consider using the memory form of the bit test (BT) instruction.

20k 2 hours ago |

Oh man this was my biggest pet peeve with mechcommander as a kid, thanks for fixing it!

Night_Thastus 1 hour ago |

Now let's see this working for Darkest Hours. ;)

(Assuming they didn't fix it themselves, it is a pretty big overhaul to MC1)

99% sure it should work fine for (Exodus and Turncoat), (X-Ray and DSC Raid), and (Xenocide and Bengal Lancers) since those are just custom campaigns.

Lovely stuff. Always a joy to see anything MechWarrior related end up here on HN.

protocolture 2 hours ago |

I really need to put some of these techniques to the test with Metal Fatigue.

tangenter 2 hours ago | |

A rare gem to see someone talking about MF. I used to play lots of it with friends, our games would last for over 48 hours (we wouldn’t sleep). Different time.

protocolture 1 hour ago | | |

My games would last until whoever was hosting had the bug that kills the game due to having too many units, or running out of names for pilots.

And it was somehow still incredibly satisfying, even though there was probably just one bugger who went underground at the start and all the people who over invested in giant robots would have to play whack a mole to find him.