I’d like to see C++ in action by macroing trigger actions in closed-source video games. For example, there’s a game on every Windows machine called Space Pinball. I would like to macro in some key-bound targeting by figuring out the physics of the ball and the force of the flippers. Another game that would be fun to play would be something like Final Fantasy VII. I have some simple math that I do in my head as I play FFVII on an emulator on my machine. I usually play in the underground submarine to level up, and I want to have my characters burn the appropriate spells or items based on their hp and what-have-you. I also want to include an autobuy function. Similarly, getting the Gold Chocobo takes forever. I wonder if I could automate this as a coding project….
The two main parts of macroing/botting, I imagine, would be:
A) Receiving info from the games, and
B) Sending latency-free keystrokes to the games.
I anticipate many other troubles, of course.
Now, someone told me a good way to get started would be to build my own text-only versions of the games and try to mess around with the code there to get everything right. Since I’m starting to get pretty good at that, I think I’m ready to tackle the barriers I’ve listed above. How can I start to get to the point where I can macro games? 😀
I’m afraid that what you’re asking for is not as easy as you might think. Usually games with bots/macros are open source, or at least some documentation/APIs are available (for example Half-Life 1 had a lot of mods and bots because it had an SDK). If nothing like this is available, you have no other way than reverse engineer the game and try to figure out how it does work (debugging for example, I recommend OllyDebugger). This is no easy stuff if you’re not comfortable with programming, and even so RE takes time and experience.