Happy 2010 everyone, I hope you enjoyed(or enjoying, as the case may be for some) the holidays!

The title is descriptive of everything in this post other than the order, as I’m starting with the shoutout to an absolutely awesome mod.

Corporations is a work in progress by logarithm64, who is honestly one of the talented modders this website has seen. I’m not going to bore you with my own description. Here’s a link to the thread itself.

Now for the good news. The good news is that Vbulletin 4 has gone gold! What does this mean? It means it’s stable and ready for public use. The upgrade won’t be immediate, I have a lot of kinks to work out still, but it’s progressing at a steady rate.

It’s quite obvious that bad news is the last part of this article. I’ve put a lot of time and money into Sporedum(formerly Spore Mods). This year you have all been very generous with donations, for the most part hosting has been covered. The times when donation haven’t quite done it, I’ve been able to pay for the cost.

But right now, I simply don’t have any cash to spare for Sporedum, or much of anything right now. This community is depending on you to keep it alive, for now. The due date for hosting payment is due by the 17th of every month. If I’m not able to make the payment, then Sporedum will go down until it is made. Every cent helps, so don’t hesitate to donate because you feel it isn’t enough.

Thank you all for your continuing support of the site, without all of you, who knows how long Sporedum/Spore Mods would have survived.

Last October spore was the 13th top selling PC game, this month spore didn’t get anywhere close.

Here is the October sales chart for reference.

TOP-SELLING PC GAMES – OCTOBER 2009
Last Month / Rank / Title / Publisher
2 / 1 / The Sims 3 / Electronic Arts
1 / 2 / Aion / NCsoft
** / 3 / Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy / Her Interactive
4 / 4 / World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King / Blizzard
6 / 5 / Mumbo Jumbo Assortment / Mumbo Jumbo
7 / 6 / The Sims 2 Double Deluxe / Electronic Arts
** / 7 / Borderlands / 2K Games (Take-Two)
** / 8 / Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising / Codemasters
** / 9 / IGT Slots: Texas Tea / Masque
8 / 10 / World of Warcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard
9 / 11 / Reel Deal Slots Treasures of the Far East / Phantom Efx
10 / 12 / World of Warcraft / Blizzard
11 / 13 / Spore / Electronic Arts
** / 14 / Fallout 3: GOTY Ed. / Bethesda Softworks
13 / 15 / Starcraft: Battle Chest / Blizzard
14 / 16 / Zuma’s Revenge / PopCap Games
12 / 17 / Grand Theft Auto IV / Rockstar Games (Take-Two)
** / 18 / Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion GOTY Ed. / 2K Games (Take-Two)
19 / 19 / Civilization IV: Complete Ed. / 2K Games (Take-Two)
** / 20 / The SimCity Box / Electronic Arts

With GA and patch 1.5 released the production of mods had slowed down to a halt. But not any more, the modders have started modding again. I’m particularity excited about platinum spore. (http://sporedum.net/forum/showthread.php?p=40934#post40934)

Keep up the good work guys!

In an interview late last year, it was heard from Spore Executive Lucy Bradshaw that expansion packs would not only include new assets, such as parts, but also more editors. A single example was given to this, that being the Flora Editor.

Here is the quotation;

“When we started Spore, we were thinking about how we’d make an engine that had the possibility of expansion, so yes, we’ll add to the experience. I think, however, we have a very cool opportunity to take Spore in a few different directions too.

The editors are so cool and fun, that we want to advance those as well as the gameplay that we put into the core game. We are not shipping with the flora editor. Sorry. It’s something we eventually want to get out there as it is fun to work with.”

So, there it is. Flora Editor will be released at some point in the future. We’ve already seen the big release of Galactic Adventures and the first Parts Expansion, “Cute and Creepy”. Cute and Creepy was released November 18 2008 and Galactic Adventures was released June 23 2009. From that, surely there must be a new Expansion near to release?”

Well its a little late to releese it now if your planning on getting it for Christmas, but we are still looking forward to it, sporedum will keep you informed on the latest updates of this might be expansion pack

This is a little bit “naughty”. But I didn’t want to leave you people here in the dark.

Unlimited Energy

Unlimited energy at the click of a button…

You will have to do this every time you start up a mission.

1)     Open up TSearch or Cheat Engine (or on Macs ihaxgamez program), whichever you like more, and select SporeApp.exe.

2)     Start an adventure that you need unlimited energy for.

3)     Depending on how much energy your captain has, the value would be different, for 1000 energy the value is 17530 for 2000 energy the value is 17658.

4)     Without spending any energy (meaning you have full power) search for the value listed in step 3 that represents your captain.

5)     Now spend some energy (easiest way is if you have a jump pack) and press pause (you can just press the P key on your keyboard).

6)     Now search for HAS DECREASED

7)     You should have only one value, sometimes more, it will always be around 17000 so that will be a clue to the correct address. Just spend more energy if there is more then one value and search for HAS DECREASED again.

8)     Freeze this value.

CAPTAIN LOCKED….. UNLOCKED

1)      Open up TSearch or Cheat Engine (or on Macs ihaxgamez program), whichever you like more, and select SporeApp.exe.

2)      Go into the Quick Play Menu

3)      Click on Choose and Adventure and select Maxis made

4)      Select the game called Bahaha 500 Time Trials and stay in the menu in the picture bellow, search for: 131454782

5)      Now Select a different adventure which is also made by Maxis called Adventure Town stay in the menu in the picture bellow, refine (not a new search, you are looking for values that changed) your search for: 0

6)      Now click next and go to the Choose or Create Your Captain screen and select the MAXIS made creation called Bananaz.

7)      Refine your search for: 107860938

8)      Now you should only have one address, this address will tell you the value of your captain.

9)      Click on select Captain again and select your Captain which you wish to play in locked missions. Look at the hacking program you used and the value in the address will have changed. This is what you can call your captains ID number/social security code… Copy it down for future use.

10)  Go back and select a Locked Adventure you wish to play. Change the address to your Captains ID number. Go through the menus and play!

11)  If you do not restart Spore, you can redo step 10 as many times as you wish. You can get an easy few hundred points this way. If you restart spore, you will have to find the address again following the steps, your captains ID number will not change.

Locked parts

So you want to play with all the parts… greedy….

So how this works is you create a captain in the regular Captain Outfitter and then force the game to allow him to become one of your main captains. This might look like it’s a long hack, but it is really quite fast and you in comparison to playing many hours to get these parts a 10 min hack is really worth it.

1) Open up TSearch or Cheat Engine (or on Macs ihaxgamez program), whichever you like more, and select SporeApp.exe.

2) In the main menu of Spore, click on Create.

3) Select the Captain Outfitter

4) Create a creature and outfit it with all the Captain parts you wish to be able to play in the future. Just for the fun of it, I used my Stuffed Turkey creation and loaded it up with as many parts as I could.

5) Now we will need to find the ID number for this creation in order to force it into your Adventure.

Go into your Sporepedia

6) Find Bunny Froo Froo (Made by Maxis) and Edit it

7) When in the editing menu, search for the value:106741386

Click on the Sporepedia again and find Bratubette (Made by Maxis), open it up in the editor too

9) When in the editing menu, refine for the value:108897080

10) Just to be on the safe side, one more creation to make sure we have the correct address. Open up Al Packa the same way as Bunny Froo Froo and Bratubette. Look for the address that changed to 142074034, that will tell you your creations ID number.

11) Now find your creation in Sporepedia and open it in the editor.

For me the address changed to 143840788, your value will be different, write it down, you will need your creations ID number or you will have to redo steps 5-11.

12) Now we need to force your creation into an adventure. Once you successfully complete the adventure, your captain will become legitimate and you can use it without hacking in the future.

13) Start a NEW search in your  hacking program and go into the Quick Play Menu

14) Click on Choose and Adventure and select Maxis made

15) Select the game called Bahaha 500 Time Trials and stay in the menu in the picture bellow, search for: 131454782

16) Now Select a different adventure which is also made by Maxis called Adventure Town stay in the menu in the picture bellow, refine (not a new search, you are looking for values that changed) your search for: 0

17) Now click next and go to the Choose or Create Your Captain screen and select the MAXIS made creation called Bananaz.

18)  Refine your search for: 107860938

19)  Now you should only have one address, select an easy adventure for you to finish, select any captain and then change the value to the value of your captain with the extra parts. Continue through and finish the adventure.

Congratulations! You now have a captain with all the parts you could have dreamed of!

Final Notes

You can download cheat engine here:

http://cheatengine.org/download/CheatEngine55.exe

And here is a guide on how to use it:

http://forum.cheatengine.org/viewtopic.php?t=26540

Some people already know about this, but for those who don’t…

How to make a cannon, well sort of.

• First your going to want to make a gate in GA
• Then insert a cannon ball
• Make it so the cannon ball if right in the centrer of the gate
• Then insert another gate
• Put this gate CLOSE to the other gate, so there is a very small space between them
• Play the adventure
• The cannon ball should fire out of the two gates in about 2 seconds.
• Take note of which way it fires and at what angle.
• Now enter the editor again
• You should now edit your “cannon” to make it fire the way you want it

You may want to try…

• A pirate ship encounter
• Survive the meteor strike
• Clark and Stanley get hit by a cannon

Keep in mind:

• It will take a few attempts to get this right
• The cannon fires in a slightly different direction each play through
• ^Thus you can’t make a mouse trap contraption using this (unfortunately)

1.) Load a “Blue Gate”
2.) Find a Building, click on “EDIT” in the lower-right hand corner
3.) When it opens the Editor, find a Creature
4.) Click on the Creature, then click “EDIT” again
5.) Click the Green Tick in the Lower-Right corner.
6.) You should Now have a Completely Still Creature in your Adventure! You can also use Grenades ect. Instead of gates.

Thanks to Galox from the DMC for posting this.

Hi there people, its Deza here to tell you how to get the most out of your spore game graphics wise. This guide is intended for people who have medium to good computers, and a little bit of time to get everything working.

I’ll start of by saying that you need to make sure your graphics drivers are up to date. By doing this you will probably increase the graphical compatibility throughout your computer, and decrease the amount of graphical bugs that your computer inflicts on games such as spore. This isn’t such an easy task as some might assume so to help you here are a few links google pulled up; Link 1 Link 2 Link

Once your Graphics drivers are up to date, it is time to load spore up. For those who have the Galactic Adventures Expansion Pack, its in your interests to start on a blank planet with a few buildings and (non – aggressive) creatures and vehicles. If you lack GA, then go to one of your saved games on the creature stage (the reason you did this is so you could see the effects of your Graphics tweaking). Now click the start button in the bottom left hand corner and click on settings. Start of by putting everything on low, if there is no lag, no problems, then you are all good to continue. Below I have made a list out of all the graphics options in order of importance, meaning you would put them on high before anything else.
WARNING: PUTTING EVERYTHING ON HIGH MIGHT CAUSE GAME SLOWDOWN

• Player Model Quality – Increases the quality of everything player made, a must.
• Texture Detail – This improves the quality of texture on buildings and vehicles, type in “high res texture level” in the cheat menu (pull it up by pressing CTR-ALT-C in game) and its takes it a little step further.
• Lighting Quality – Adds a nice finish on everything, introducing some pretty good lighting effects, keep in mind though that there isn’t much difference between high and medium.
• Planet Quality – Adds grass to planets on medium and makes the water more realistic.
• Depth of Field -  Increases the distance at which you can see objects, its quite good, but it takes a little processing power from your computer.
• Graphic Effects – Doesn’t add much, just some ripples in the water and moving parts on buildings, doesn’t take that much processing power.
• Shadows – Adds shadows to objects and creatures. On the lowest setting its a fuzzy circle, which is good enough for most, but as you put it higher it takes a lot of effort from your computer.

You also need to take into consideration the fact that shadows and lighting quality are the most demanding of the Graphics settings, putting these both on low will allow you to put others on high and medium without causing you to lose to that many FPS.

You also want to combine the settings so you get the best Graphics to Speed ratio possible, If your eye isn’t good enough to tell you what the speed is your games running at you can download this, a free tool that can show you how many fps your getting.

The last thing I’m going to recommend to you is this, free software that shuts down all background processes while you are playing your game. This allows your computer to be able to focus 101% on your game your playing and nothing else. Although it  makes the biggest difference on older computers, it does do some changes on average and high spec computers, so its worth a try if you’ve exhausted everything else.

Now this guide is drawing to a close its time to draw your attention to one crucial factor, don’t forget to have fun. Spend some time sorting out your graphics, but then forget about them, and enjoy the best spore has to offer. I learnt this from a friend, when he pointed out I spent more time fiddling with the graphics than actually playing the game. Keeping everything I’ve said here in mind, its time for you to maximize the graphical potential of your spore game. Good luck!

Hey, Its Deza here, just letting you know that I’ve joined the sporedum team. I look forward to posting on this site, and helping it reach its full potential.