Talk:RESEARCH.DAT

If anyone has information about byte 05 please share it! Radar99 12:58, 29 December 2006 (PST)

I'm showing all 00's on a new game. could this be the number of times that live alien was researched? --BladeFireLight 02:15, 19 January 2010 (EST)

Can this file be used to modify research prerequisites?--amitakartok 11:27, 2 August 2013 (EDT)

I've never hacked this file, but based on what others wrote, it looks like the answer is "No, with an asterisk". Compare what's written for bytes 02-03 with the bullet in Cheats And Hacks that starts with "Eliminate the need...". It looks like the only thing that can be changed is whether something needs to be in storage (which is to say, you can't change it to be something else, but you can change it to not be needed). But then you get a little weirdness in the game displays, as shown in "Eliminate...". The way it works makes sense... finding an unresearched object only ever allows you to research that object, and may also unlock research that needs no object. But there's nothing that lets you research something else. Hope this helps. -MikeTheRed 19:09, 2 August 2013 (EDT)

No. The prequisite tree is a long routine of if-then statements hard-coded into Geoscape.exe. Ex: if byte pointer at 0x4A2345 is 0 then goto to this line else unlock research on topic 0x21. As Mike said, you might be able to eleminate the prerequisites but not change them or add new ones.- Tycho