Real modding | Changing Item stats and Speech text

Overview

Delve into the amazing world of modding with one of the first methods to actually mod the game. Easily change various item stats such as the name, info, is it illegal, do npcs carry it, can it be found in desks and a much more! Edit the hilarious NPC speech text to have your own fun sayings!

Introduction

So I’ve been playing this game lately and I’ve gotten quite interested with it. I thought you know what would make this game better? Mods. So I decided to start unpacking the game to see what I can find. With my analysis I was able to unpack the .map and .dat files found within the game files. This includes “items.dat”, “speech.dat”, “EA.map” and “perks.map”. After a lot of work with this data I was able to construct a basic map viewer with basic editing features.With this I was able to do slight adjustments to the EA.map and stick a TV from the perks.map in my cell.
Now for a quick explanation on how this was done and we’ll get to actually doing it the easy way. Each file is encrypted with Blowfish-compat ECB using the key “mothking” as of when this key was written. Once decrypted changes can be made and re-encrypted using the same method. Good thing you don’t need any of this technical stuff!

Downloading/setting up the tool

I’ve created a special tool specifically for editing the Items.dat file and the speech.dat tool. It’s a poor program but it gets the job done quite well.
Now lets get started. As of the latest key i’m using for decrypting and encrypting the files, it’s “mothking” without the quotes. This is by default in the application so if the key doesn’t change you’re good to go! We first need to make a backup of our files which we’re going to edit because yes you can actually break the game and make it freeze by doing this, so you need to be careful. Goto your escapists install dir, “C:Program Files (x86)SteamSteamAppscommonThe EscapistsData” or “C:Program FilesSteamSteamAppscommonThe EscapistsData” and make backups of your “items.dat” and “speech.dat”. Put them somewhere safe(printing this file is not recommended).

Now for downloading the file, simply download {LINK REMOVED}This file and unzip it to any location. This is what we’re going to use for the modding and changes. Once the file is extract, make sure to open it. You should see a blank screen.
If you have gotten this far then we’re ready to start modding!

Editing the items.dat(Item data)

First we’re going press the tiny down arrow next to file and press the open button. We’re going to browse back to our game folder which is
C:Program Files (x86)SteamSteamAppscommonThe EscapistsData
or
C:Program FilesSteamSteamAppscommonThe EscapistsData
and we’re going to open our “items.dat” file. Once opened we should see a window like this
This is where we can edit our items in the game. Once an item is double clicked the options to edit the item come up.
Please keep in mind that these definitions could be wrong since i’m still looking into the game.

• Item ID: The ID of the item(don’t change this)
• Item Name: The name of the item(Best not to change this as well)
• Item info: Description of the item
• Illegal: Is the item contraband?
• NPC Carry: Do NPCs carry this item around?
• Found in desks: Can the item be found in inmates desks?
• Craft 1-3: The crafting note text(not the actual crafting itself)
• Digging: How well is the digging 0-5
• Chipping: How well is the chipping 0-5
• Decay: How much the item decays with each use? 0-100
• Gift: How much OP do you get for gifting this item
• Cutting: How well is the cutting 0-5
• Weapon: How strong is the weapon? 0-5
• Intelligence: How much intelligence is needed to craft an item (Needs to be > 0 if crafting)
• Outfit/Defence: How much defense you get from the outfit.
• Base buy price: The price at which the item is set at OP 50?

After you have edited an item, close out of the item info. Once you’ve made all your changes to the items.dat, Goto file, save and replace your items.dat

Enjoy your newly made changes!

Editing the speech.dat(Speech text)

Come back later, I never added file saving for that because i’m lazy! I’ll add it at some point but here’s a picture of it.

Conclusion

I’m making updates every so often so keep a lookout on this guide as I might post updates to it(speech.dat & .map files).

Current Application version: v1.0.0.0
Current key: mothking
Working as of version: alpha v0.759