40d:Cheating

Cheating is changing the game files to make dwarf fortress easier. This is distinctly different from exploits.

Reaction Additions

All additions to the raw files require a new world to be created to take effect.

Generally speaking, modifications to an existing entry in a raw file don't require a new world.

Worlds created before the modifications were made won't be playable unless the previous version of the raw file is restored. Save your custom raw files if you want to continue playing your game at some future point.

Attempting to play worlds not generated with identical reaction additions will fail on load.

Easy Rough Gems

[REACTION:FREE_GEMS22] [NAME: make (insert gem name)] [SMELTER] [PRODUCT:100:10:ROUGH:NO_SUBTYPE:STONE:(insert gem name)]

It's really easy. All you have to do is take the name of the gem from stonegem matgloss and put it in the name and at the end of the product. Take all of that and paste it into the reaction_standard. Create a new world and poof! Your smelter will spit out gems of that type.

Easy Adamantine

Add this:

    [REACTION:ADAMANTINE_WAFERS]
    [NAME:make adamantine wafers]
    [SMELTER]
    [REAGENT]
    [PRODUCT:100:1:BAR:NO_SUBTYPE:METAL:ADAMANTINE]

into reaction_standard.txt. The next time you make a world your dwarves will be capable of creating adamantine from nothing.

Make Stone Into Logs

Add this:

    [REACTION:FREE_WOOD]
    [NAME:stone to wood]
    [SMELTER]
    [REAGENT:1:STONE:NO_SUBTYPE:STONE:NO_MATGLOSS]
    [PRODUCT:100:1:WOOD:NO_SUBTYPE:WOOD:OAK]

to reaction_standard.txt. As with any custom addition to the raws, you must generate a new world to use it.

Creature Token Modifications

Note that as above, many of these changes will require a new world. The example listed below is a notable exception.

If you feel you need your enemies (or victims) to drop better loot...

...add something like this to their creature entries.

    [ITEMCORPSE:ARMOR:ITEM_ARMOR_CHAINMAIL:METAL:ADAMANTINE]
    [ITEMCORPSE_QUALITY:5]

Note that you do not need to make a new world for this to work, and that you can even change this entry in-between saves on the same adventurer (and by highly likely extension, fortress), which has immense and obvious cheating potential. You may want to take a look at the Item tokens page for a better general understanding of the ITEMCORPSE tag; ITEMCORPSE_QUALITY, on the other hand, simply ranges from 0 (no quality modifier) to 5 (masterpiece quality).

River Freeze

By setting temperature to NO in the init.txt file, a frozen river will remain frozen even during summer, allowing you to do anything you need to do before unfreezing it. This is especially useful for retrieving items or digging tunnels straight up to water sources without them flooding.

Savescumming

Savescumming refers to the practice of regularly backing up your saves so you can revert to one if your fortress crumbles to the last. This can be toggled to be done automatically in the init file, so some might not consider this to be cheating.

Another method to save scum is open up task manager (ctrl+alt+delete) and open the Processes tab, and then selecting dwarfort.exe and clicking on end task. This will cause dwarf fortress to close, without overwriting the last saved game. WARNING: closing the game in this manner has been known to cause inflate errors, especially in adventurer mode.

Memory Editing

Main article: Memory editing

Memory editing refers to using an external program to modify numbers within the game. This is at its most useful when choosing what to take with you, as you can give yourself an unlimited number of points. What doesn't work in the new version is giving your starting dwarves tons of prof skills, since there now is a limit in how many skills they can start with. You can still start your dwarves with all proficient skills, but you need to change the skill limit value first on every dwarf you want to do this with, also when editing the memory values with such programs as CheatEngine in adventure mode your point value is 4bytes but in fortress you have to change the search to 2bytes only for hex editors though(NOTE as of 0.27.176.38c I have found that you can only edit the value of the first dwarf in you starting team)

The utilities page has several tools that do specific memory hacks, such as to teleport a creature.

Don't forget, Cheat-O-Matic is a very easy to use tool for memory hacking, use it to change starting points, the dwarf skill limits, etc.

Editing the memory of a game has a possibility to cause the game to crash or misbehave, including corrupting of saves.

NOTE: WPE may be flagged as a virus because it injects a DLL, and certain viruses out there use similar techniques to steal sensitive information.

Links

Various Memory Hacking Tools:	WPE Pro/PermEdit/Tsearch, ARTMONEY, Cheat-O-Matic, Cheat Engine

Guide on how to edit the starting skills and points using TSearch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boC-IxvkYsI