Tutorial
Updated
Ecolibrium cheat-mod
Game presentation
Ecolibrium is a nice real-time ecosystem simulation game from 2012 if you have some time to kill. It can be downloaded for free on PSN:
https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/ecolibrium-psvita/
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-vita/ecolibrium
Unavailable PSN issue
The first time the game is loaded, it will require a PSN connection (some game rules are not directly in the game so they are downloaded from the server and kept in the game save). So if you didn't already play and kept the game (or kept a CMA backup), you will need to have 2 PS Vita activated with the same PSN account, one updated to latest firmware for PSN connection (to initialize the game save and backup it with CMA) and the other on 3.60 firmware for HENkaku.
Why cheating?
The main problem with this game is the business model where you must buy expensive random packs to get some specific creatures and items tokens required for your ecosystems evolution. Of course you can also buy creatures and items on the player trade market but some rare creatures and most items are now nearly impossible to find. In addition, due to the recent PSN lost on HENkaku, the market place is currently locked.
Cheat possibilities
This cheat pack offers a way to get any creature and item token for free: no need to buy expensive packs to get the rarest tokens. It also allow to remove natural disasters from ecosystems and transforms all challenges areas into additional ecosystems. However, online challenge area is kept because it can be used for free tokens renewal. It pushes the number of ecosystems from 6 to 11!
Cheats limitation
The cheat-mod main purpose is to generate new rare tokens through rewards on fake additionnal challenges. But first you should be warned:
- For a specific item/creature, you cannot have more than 99 tokens (additional tokens will be lost)
- On items, the totality of reward tokens can be lost if the total exceeds 99 tokens (this is why this mod doesn't give the maximum token count)
- Unfortunatly, all reward item tokens will be at level 1
Activate a cheat-mod
You need HENkaku for this cheat-mod because the game patch is mandatory to play (so the PFS protection must be broken).
1) Download the game on PSN (the cheat I made is for european version with title ID PCSF00092, I didn't try it on other versions)
2) Download the latest game update (should be 1.03)
3) Fully dump the game and its update using MaiDumpTool
4) Delete the downloaded game and restore the MaiDumpTool version (full game and patch)
5) Replace the file "ux0/app/PCSF00092/DEFINITIONS_PSVITA.VFS" with one of the attached archive (depending on what you want to do)
Archive files
The "PreserveGame" directory contains mods which preserve original game rules (challenges, disasters and number of free play ecosystems):
- "Original" contains a backup of the original "DEFINITIONS_PSVITA.VFS"
- "Reset" contains a mod to reset cheat challenges
- "Reward" contains a mod with 10 cheat challenges which give the rarest tokens
The "EcosystemsMod" directory contains mods which changes game rules (offline challenges areas replaced by free play ecosystems and no more disasters):
- "Default" contains a mod with new game rules
- "Reset" contains a mod to reset cheat challenges and which respects the new game rules
- "Reward" contains a mod with 75 cheat challenges which give all possible tokens and unlock all the stuff which should be released if you would play with original game rules
The "Screenshots" directory contains various pictures to illustrate some cheat use steps and drawbacks:
- "EcoMod-X" pictures show the additional free play ecosystems when "EcosystemsMod" cheats are used
- "EcoModRestartReason" picture demonstrate why new free ecosystems should be reset (due to useless artefect which takes 4% of vegetation)
- "ResetForReward-X" pictures illustrate steps to reset the "Online challenge" area state for its usage with cheat challenges
- "Reward-X" pictures show cheat challenges behavior
- "RewardLogIssue" picture illustrates a log issue when cheat challenges are disabled (there is no name anymore for those challenges so their identifiers appear instead)
Use cheat challenges
To activate cheat challenges, use the "DEFINITIONS_PSVITA.VFS" file from "Reward" directory. In the game, simply go inside "Online challenge" and finish all offered challenges (they shouldn't be difficult :-)).
Now, the main problem is that, once a challenge is finished, you cannot get the reward tokens by doing the challenge again (only a part of ecopoints can be gotten). So before activating cheat challenges, you must reset the "challenges completed" state:
1) Use the "DEFINITIONS_PSVITA.VFS" file from "Reset" directory
2) In the game, go inside "Online challenge" which should be renamed as "Restart"
3) Colonize the "Restart" ecosystem (if you already did some online challenges, you should recognize your last configuration)
4) Restart this ecosystem even if it is already empty (the ecosystem name you give doesn't matter)
Now, the "challenges completed" state should be reset for the "Online challenge" area so you can re-activate cheat challenges by copying the "DEFINITIONS_PSVITA.VFS" file from "Reward" directory.
Other research results on the game
Most of the game is described though XML files. This cheat is just a modified part of the game internal XML files.
I did some researches on the XML reward tags, specially "AnimalUnlock" and "PlantUnlock" which allow to unlock some creature/items to allow them to be bought with game money instead of tokens. The problem is that it will only "ungrey" the creature/item thumbnail on "bronze/silver/gold/platinum" classes but you still need a token to insert the creature/item in the ecosystem.
It is impossible to have the same kind of reward on the same challenge (only the latest reward of each kind will be kept): this is why I wasn't able to create a single challenge which gives everything.
The game can simulate up to 12 areas, I tried to add more than 12 but they are ignored. There are 3 kinds of area:
- Online challenge
- Offline challenges group
- Free play ecosystem
By default, 6 areas are used for free play ecosystems, 5 for offline challenges and 1 for online challenge. For a specific area, its kind can be changed through XML editing. When it is changed, the area still keeps its ecosystem state: all trees, artefacts and creatures are kept. In an ecosystem converted from challenge group kind to free play kind, if you wish to get rid of "Challenge artefact" (which only displays challenge rules), the only way is to restart the ecosystem. But, if you do this, don't forget that transforming back your free play ecosystem to challenge group will erase challenges completion!
About challenges groups, the first group (with ID "0") is reserved for tutorials: victory conditions are completly ignored in this group so it cannot be used for cheat challenges.
I didn't take too much time to change creatures and trees behavior because I don't wish to alterate the game too much. So if you find some other cool modifications, don't hesitate to publish them!
Ecolibrium is a nice real-time ecosystem simulation game from 2012 if you have some time to kill. It can be downloaded for free on PSN:
https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/ecolibrium-psvita/
http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-vita/ecolibrium
Unavailable PSN issue
The first time the game is loaded, it will require a PSN connection (some game rules are not directly in the game so they are downloaded from the server and kept in the game save). So if you didn't already play and kept the game (or kept a CMA backup), you will need to have 2 PS Vita activated with the same PSN account, one updated to latest firmware for PSN connection (to initialize the game save and backup it with CMA) and the other on 3.60 firmware for HENkaku.
Why cheating?
The main problem with this game is the business model where you must buy expensive random packs to get some specific creatures and items tokens required for your ecosystems evolution. Of course you can also buy creatures and items on the player trade market but some rare creatures and most items are now nearly impossible to find. In addition, due to the recent PSN lost on HENkaku, the market place is currently locked.
Cheat possibilities
This cheat pack offers a way to get any creature and item token for free: no need to buy expensive packs to get the rarest tokens. It also allow to remove natural disasters from ecosystems and transforms all challenges areas into additional ecosystems. However, online challenge area is kept because it can be used for free tokens renewal. It pushes the number of ecosystems from 6 to 11!
Cheats limitation
The cheat-mod main purpose is to generate new rare tokens through rewards on fake additionnal challenges. But first you should be warned:
- For a specific item/creature, you cannot have more than 99 tokens (additional tokens will be lost)
- On items, the totality of reward tokens can be lost if the total exceeds 99 tokens (this is why this mod doesn't give the maximum token count)
- Unfortunatly, all reward item tokens will be at level 1
Activate a cheat-mod
You need HENkaku for this cheat-mod because the game patch is mandatory to play (so the PFS protection must be broken).
1) Download the game on PSN (the cheat I made is for european version with title ID PCSF00092, I didn't try it on other versions)
2) Download the latest game update (should be 1.03)
3) Fully dump the game and its update using MaiDumpTool
4) Delete the downloaded game and restore the MaiDumpTool version (full game and patch)
5) Replace the file "ux0/app/PCSF00092/DEFINITIONS_PSVITA.VFS" with one of the attached archive (depending on what you want to do)
Archive files
The "PreserveGame" directory contains mods which preserve original game rules (challenges, disasters and number of free play ecosystems):
- "Original" contains a backup of the original "DEFINITIONS_PSVITA.VFS"
- "Reset" contains a mod to reset cheat challenges
- "Reward" contains a mod with 10 cheat challenges which give the rarest tokens
The "EcosystemsMod" directory contains mods which changes game rules (offline challenges areas replaced by free play ecosystems and no more disasters):
- "Default" contains a mod with new game rules
- "Reset" contains a mod to reset cheat challenges and which respects the new game rules
- "Reward" contains a mod with 75 cheat challenges which give all possible tokens and unlock all the stuff which should be released if you would play with original game rules
The "Screenshots" directory contains various pictures to illustrate some cheat use steps and drawbacks:
- "EcoMod-X" pictures show the additional free play ecosystems when "EcosystemsMod" cheats are used
- "EcoModRestartReason" picture demonstrate why new free ecosystems should be reset (due to useless artefect which takes 4% of vegetation)
- "ResetForReward-X" pictures illustrate steps to reset the "Online challenge" area state for its usage with cheat challenges
- "Reward-X" pictures show cheat challenges behavior
- "RewardLogIssue" picture illustrates a log issue when cheat challenges are disabled (there is no name anymore for those challenges so their identifiers appear instead)
Use cheat challenges
To activate cheat challenges, use the "DEFINITIONS_PSVITA.VFS" file from "Reward" directory. In the game, simply go inside "Online challenge" and finish all offered challenges (they shouldn't be difficult :-)).
Now, the main problem is that, once a challenge is finished, you cannot get the reward tokens by doing the challenge again (only a part of ecopoints can be gotten). So before activating cheat challenges, you must reset the "challenges completed" state:
1) Use the "DEFINITIONS_PSVITA.VFS" file from "Reset" directory
2) In the game, go inside "Online challenge" which should be renamed as "Restart"
3) Colonize the "Restart" ecosystem (if you already did some online challenges, you should recognize your last configuration)
4) Restart this ecosystem even if it is already empty (the ecosystem name you give doesn't matter)
Now, the "challenges completed" state should be reset for the "Online challenge" area so you can re-activate cheat challenges by copying the "DEFINITIONS_PSVITA.VFS" file from "Reward" directory.
Other research results on the game
Most of the game is described though XML files. This cheat is just a modified part of the game internal XML files.
I did some researches on the XML reward tags, specially "AnimalUnlock" and "PlantUnlock" which allow to unlock some creature/items to allow them to be bought with game money instead of tokens. The problem is that it will only "ungrey" the creature/item thumbnail on "bronze/silver/gold/platinum" classes but you still need a token to insert the creature/item in the ecosystem.
It is impossible to have the same kind of reward on the same challenge (only the latest reward of each kind will be kept): this is why I wasn't able to create a single challenge which gives everything.
The game can simulate up to 12 areas, I tried to add more than 12 but they are ignored. There are 3 kinds of area:
- Online challenge
- Offline challenges group
- Free play ecosystem
By default, 6 areas are used for free play ecosystems, 5 for offline challenges and 1 for online challenge. For a specific area, its kind can be changed through XML editing. When it is changed, the area still keeps its ecosystem state: all trees, artefacts and creatures are kept. In an ecosystem converted from challenge group kind to free play kind, if you wish to get rid of "Challenge artefact" (which only displays challenge rules), the only way is to restart the ecosystem. But, if you do this, don't forget that transforming back your free play ecosystem to challenge group will erase challenges completion!
About challenges groups, the first group (with ID "0") is reserved for tutorials: victory conditions are completly ignored in this group so it cannot be used for cheat challenges.
I didn't take too much time to change creatures and trees behavior because I don't wish to alterate the game too much. So if you find some other cool modifications, don't hesitate to publish them!
Last edited by OperationNT,
