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A couple more: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21739-resolved-allow-mantling-while-carrying-a-body/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22211-feature-proposal-new-lean-for-tdm-212/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22198-feature-proposal-frob-to-use-world-item/ https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22249-212-auto-search-bodies/

I'm happy to present my first FM, The Spider and the Finch. There may be a spider, but no ghosts or undead. It should run a couple hours. It's now available on the Missions page or the in-game downloader. Many thanks to the beta testers Acolytesix, Cambridge Spy, datiswous, madtaffer, Shadow, and wesp5 for helping me improve and making the mission to the best of my abilities. This would not be have been possible without Fidcal's excellent DarkRadiant tutorial. Thanks also to the many people who answered my questions in the TDM forums. Cheers! 2023-12-13 Mission updated to version 3. Fixed a bug where the optional loot option objective was not actually optional. Updated the animations for Astrid Added a hallway door so the guards are less likely to be aggroed en masse.

Nice OpenSource app which I use now on Desktop https://omega.gg/MotionBox/ MotionBox accesses and aggregates videos via the VBML language. It supports DuckDuckGo, BitTorrent, TMDB, YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Twitch, TikTok, Facebook, Odysee, PeerTube, Last.fm and SoundCloud. All of this inside multiple tabs and without ever showing an ad.

Public release v1.7.6 (with Dark Mod support) is out. Improvements since the final beta 14 are: Fixed a few remaining bugs with zip/pk4 support. Game Versions window now properly displays TDM version. Import window no longer has a vestigial off-screen TDM field (because TDM doesn't need or support importing). Web search option is now disabled if an unknown/unsupported FM is selected. If an FM with an unknown or unsupported game type is selected, the messages in the tab area now no longer refer to Thief 3 ("Mod management is not supported for Thief: Deadly Shadows"). The full changelog can be viewed at the release link. The de facto official AngelLoader thread is here: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=149706 Bug reports, feature requests etc. are usually posted there. I'll continue following this thread though. Thanks everyone and enjoy!

@stgatilov, thanks for sharing your thoughts about the original ideas behind the 3 levels, which I had not previously seen put so well. I was surprised that you considered that some of an individual AI's barks might go under "effects" instead of "speech". @snatcher likewise thought that, in effect, an AI's barks should be divided, though draws the dividing line elsewhere. I agree with you about the primary existing TDM audience for subtitles: those players appreciating help with spoken English, specially in dialects. I think partially-impaired-hearing individuals will also benefit. But, given subtitles in TDM and our newly prototyped method of indicating speaker sound source, I think we have an opportunity to enlarge the potential TDM community to include deaf players, or those who like to play games with sound off. This does involve sound categorization and visual cues, beyond just toggling story/speech/effects. Such cues could be universal (seen the same by everyone), or controlled by new options, to accommodate personal interest (or lack thereof). Let me be more specific. Consider the 2-level visual cues that snatcher preferred (while leaving open where to draw the line between the 2, or whether 2 is really too few). Examples of universal+fixed, which for barks could be done by me in the .subs file, are: bracketed vs unbracketed white vs yellow font, done by string markup. (This has significant drawback and limitations). Alternatively, there is categorization performed engine-side and passed to the GUI as one or more variables. The results could be universal, or the passed value(s) could be affected by additional optional settings. Displayed results could be, for instance: white vs yellow font, done by text font color choice Stone vs Carleton font wide vs narrow font wide vs narrow background field two different background tints or opacities colored border around backgrounds, with two different colors (Also, without involving new GUI variables, the engine could add brackets to selected strings) Turning to what additional optional settings might look like, at the basic level, you could just have an option that turns visual cues on or off. So, for example, if the visual cue was font choice, turning the visual cue option to off would cause all subtitles to use the same default font. More specificity is, of course, possible. (Maybe too, stgatilov, you could sneak in a related option to suppress "Just you wait!" audio and only play story clips!) If the barks were to be subdivided by the engine into (in this discussion) 2 categories, it could be done by a new per-line option in the .subs file, e.g, -cue 1. Or the categorization could be done entirely automatically on-the-fly by the engine, at the moment it's looking at the AI's current state & most recent state transition, in order to select a sound shader to play. It would probably use the standardized state-transition names as found in the AI .def files, e.g. "snd_foundDeadMale" rather than AI-specific sound shader names. So there would be a list of "snd_..." to determine when g_cue=1 instead of the default g_cue=0.

Good work! I enjoy short missions because things are nice and focused - you get in, you get out. Also I tend to do better with the loot amounts and I was able to get all the loot without too much trouble, which is rare for me. If I were to make a suggestion though - I found the intro briefing sequence a bit distracting because it was so obvious the narration was pitch-shifted to make a deeper voice. If you felt the original voice wasn't deep enough for your needs, I would either get someone on the forums to record it for you or just leave as is. That's my only real complaint and it's not even about the mission itself, so pretty good first start!

Beta 11 Fix finished-on state auto-update was unreliable Slighty improve scanner title/author detect Tags are now named some whatever regular-version-looking thing to force GitHub to put the newest at the top

Feedback needed. I plan to do all the "verbosity speech" subtitles for 2.12 (assuming Feb 2023 as target date), while leaving any "verbosity effects" for later. So I need a consensus on what we would like to see covered, or not, by "verbosity speech". Importantly, when you turn on "speech" subtitles in TDM, what would you expect to see or not see? Easier cases: manbeast (hear at tdm_ai_humanoid_beasts02.pk4\sound\voices\monster\manbeast) I would call as "speech", because it's still spoken and in English. steambots and automaton (tdm_ai_steambots01.pk4\sound\sfx\ai\) I would call as "effects", because of the non-language sounds & no vocal cords. Animals and Monsters [no human language spoken; so probably "effects"?]: raven (tdm_sound_vocals04.pk4\sound\voices\animal\) elemental (tdm_sound_vocals04.pk4\sound\voices\monster\elemental) spider (tdm_sound_vocals04.pk4\sound\voices\monster\spider) horse (tdm_sound_vocals05.pk4\sound\voices\animal\horse) zombie (tdm_sound_vocals05.pk4\sound\voices\undead\zombie) werebeast (tdm_ai_humanoid_beasts01.pk4\sound\voices\monster\werebeast) Edge cases: player (tdm_sound_vocals01.pk4\sound\voices\player) [mostly grunts, groans, some hmmms] revenant (tdm_sound_vocals05.pk4\sound\voices\undead\revenant)[a little english, a little latin, and much unintelligible/multiple-voices/sounds/reverb]

I'd like to better understand what you want. The design of dragging bodies is to hold frob (key down) to drag and release frob (key up) to let go. That way it's impossible to walk away while unintentionally dragging a body. Plus, it's quick to grab and move several body limbs in rapid succession. This is thought to provide a better experience, especially for new players. Towards the beginning of this thread, I created a "tdm_frobhold_drag_body_behavior" cvar. https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22198-feature-proposal-frob-to-use-world-item/&do=findComment&comment=487580 "tdm_frobhold_drag_body_behavior", default:"1" Which drag body behavior? 1 --- on frob key up, drop body (limb). 0 --- on second frob, drop body (limb), TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. That cvar was removed shortly afterwards, because it was said that it wasn't needed. With that cvar set to 0, a second frob would be required to let go of the body. Is that the behavior that you want? If so, I can add that cvar back. Also, I saw elsewhere that you want the ability to revert back to the old way. If you mean that all of the controls match TDM 2.11, that can be done with "tdm_frobhold_delay 0" and there will be a menu setting to disable it as well.

Not to be a nag, but I was thinking about the columns problem. If you go to the view source tab in the wiki article: https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Fan_Missions_for_The_Dark_Mod&action=edit The raw table data is accessible directly: |- !align=left|{{TDM-FM|written|Written in Stone}} |Bikerdude, Amadeus, Dragofer |{{Forumlink|https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21265-written-in-stone-beta-210-only-20220128/}} |2022-01-28 |338 |Yes |Yes |CCC 22, Elixir |City Missions |Undead, Horror Themes |- Each pipe character represents one of the columns.

I'm the developer of AngelLoader, a fan mission loader/manager for Thief 1/2/3/SS2. I recently decided to try adding Dark Mod support. The latest release is here: https://github.com/FenPhoenix/AngelLoader/releases I'm going to keep a log of issues, ideas, notes, etc. here and we can discuss them or whatnot. If anyone has ideas or suggestions, feel free to post them here. TDM version requirement: I've only tested it with TDM 2.11. I'm not sure but I dimly remember FMs used to be stored differently at some point in the past? If so, it wouldn't work with those older versions. I assume people would normally keep their TDM install up to date, but just a heads up. How it works: In the Settings window -> Paths tab, choose your Dark Mod executable. Click OK. Now your TDM FMs will be detected, scanned, and added to the list. For the other supported games, there is the concept of "installed" vs "not installed", this is because they normally come in archive files and then the loader can "install" them (extract the file into the "installed FMs" folder). For TDM there is no such concept (FMs are always installed), so the green checkmark "installed" indicator means that that FM is the currently selected one (the one that is loaded up when you start TDM), and only one TDM FM can be "selected" at a time. This indicator is kept in sync with the game, so if you change your selected FM inside TDM, AngelLoader will update its "selected" indicator in-app. Notes & Issues: Deleting FMs: Deleting TDM FMs is not supported yet. I notice TDM itself doesn't allow you to delete FMs either; it has been noted that people have accidentally lost their data and so the option was removed. AngelLoader puts files into the recycle bin when it deletes them, and I could add the option, but figured it was okay to leave it out initially since the game doesn't let you do it either. Note, though, that you can still delete TDM FMs from AngelLoader's database if you've manually deleted the actual FM from disk first. To do this, first click the "Show only unavailable FMs" button (red X page icon on the top bar). Last Played and Finished-On-Difficulty: Finished-on difficulty is now autodetected. Last played date is taken from the game's database only if AngelLoader doesn't have one in its own (its own is more granular). In the FMs folder, there is a file missions.tdminfo which stores certain pieces of data about FMs. Included among this data is which difficulty the mission has been finished on, and the last played date (down to the day only). AngelLoader also stores this information, but it doesn't get these values from this file at the moment. Instead, the last played date (down to the instant, not just the day) is set whenever an FM is started, and the finished-on state must be set manually. I could have it watch the file for changes and update the finished-on-difficulty automatically for the current FM. This would override the user setting, but in theory should be accurate anyway. I could also auto-update the last played date, but because it's only down to the day, that would be less optimal than just setting it on FM start, which would give a more granular date and would have sorting working better. So if you played two FMs in one day, the latest played one would sort at the top. Mods tab is disabled: For NewDark games, there is built-in support for mods, and they can be enabled or disabled per-FM in an official capacity. I've disabled the Mods tab for TDM because - from a cursory look anyway - I don't think there's such a per-FM method of mod management. Language selection is disabled: In the Edit FM tab, there's an option to choose which language to play an FM with. I've disabled it for TDM because there's a language option in-game (not the case with NewDark) and I haven't looked into how I would scan a TDM FM for supported languages anyway. "Play Without FM" Option: For the other games, there is the option (in the bottom bar) to play them with no FM. For TDM there is no such thing as "no FM", but the option is still there currently. It will simply start TDM without passing it anything, and whatever FM it has selected will be there. I might remove the option since it doesn't really make sense. This might make people wonder "where's the button for TDM" but on the other hand having it isn't really useful. Not sure. Mission downloading and updating: An in-app mission downloader is in progress. There is no mission downloader or anything like that currently. It simply lists what you've got on disk. This means that to get new FMs or check for updates to existing ones, you still have to go in-game. I don't know how people feel about the convenience factor of this, having to go in-game to get your FMs and then back out to AngelLoader. However, duplicating the TDM download functionality would mean it might well break if TDM ever changes anything about its downloader. Custom resource stats: In the Statistics tab, custom resource display is disabled for TDM. I haven't looked into what sort of "custom" things a TDM FM can have and how I can detect them. I may do this in the future.

Terrific! The beta test thread is up: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22238-beta-testing-the-spider-and-the-finch/

I confess that with some missions I have had quite a few problems, with puzzles that were not very clear in the readables (also due to very small letters or handwritings, with my old eyes i sometimes leave traces of my nose in the screen), as happens for sure to others also whose native language is not English. It will be much harder for those to finish it. But I don't think this mission falls into this category, where the main challenges are a good level of stealth and not so much the puzzles.

Welcome to the Dark Mod forums MarsManon! Thank you very much for the kind words about SLL, it's always nice to hear We all worked real hard on bringing Grayman's map to life and I'm glad you enjoyed it

I was so enchanted by this FM, I had to sign up to the forums the same day I finished it to come thank the authors Genuinely, truly incredible work! I was so overwhelmed in places that I resorted to just shouting joy at my monitor two, three, maybe four entirely separate times while playing. Exploring, puzzling, finding something new, trying to use it, and finding it does a whole new, separate, wonderful thing! There aren't enough words inside me to describe the feeling. It was breathtaking. I don't have any specific feedback that hasn't come through this thread before Thanks so much for making this, for all the inspiration and ingenuity and effort it took. If I never play another level this good, in any other game, in my life, I'd be fine with that.

There's a group of players who have meticulously tested and adjusted ghosting rules for The Dark Mod. Please see: Official Ghosting Rules: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148523 Ghost Rules Discussion: https://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148487 Why alienate an established group of dedicated players?

I don’t understand your point at all. In thief if a book is stationary frobbing it will read it. If it’s a inventory item you will pick it up and then you need to use it to read it. It is the exact same in TDM - is this too inconsistent? Why didn’t we change it? In thief bodies are primitive physics objects just like crates. Why did they not worry about whether this was inconsistent that the body didn’t first hover in front of the player instead of just shouldering it? Who knows - we weren’t in the room but as far as I can tell this has never confused anyone - where as it’s relatively easy to find examples of how tdms solutions are confusing and feel unnatural to players. TDM was created in response to negative feedback from the thief community about TDS. While I like the game TDS has notoriously bad game feel and it is disappointing to see people who love the games dismiss TDM using the same language and they never make it far enough with the game to see everything it has to offer. We have a lot offer. That is why it’s important to me as a player first and person who makes content for the game second.

OK I think I've got to the bottom of this. I've created this forum thread (with bug report): https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22221-bug-drowning-ai-in-shallow-water/ I can apply a workaround, although it won't be perfect and the bug itself needs fixing in the engine. There are a few other things that need fixing so will put an update together soonish.

If any mappers have encountered weirdness with kill objectives not working with drowning AI, I think I've found out why. I don't think it would be a particularly difficult one to fix either. I've raised this bug report: https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6323 Some context here: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/21837-fan-mission-the-lieutenant-2-high-expectations-by-frost_salamander-20230424/&do=findComment&comment=487316 I think this is a bug, but just raising here in case some people think otherwise.

I dom't use it, i found it here with the filter set to OpenSource. the TOS and PP isn't excluding for an OpenSource app, if they use ads mean that they also need to pay an server for this online service. OpenSource is not synonymous with free either, perhaps after the beta phase it is no longer free, so perhaps you can take advantage of the fact that it is still free to create a series of textures that can be used or search another one in Futuretools. AI generated textures and assets, by definition, don't have any copyright, so you can use them as you want. https://www.futuretools.io/?pricing-model=free|open-source&tags-n5zn=gaming

Hello TDM-ers. I am encountering an issue where textures seem to partially disappear. I tried searching the forums, but, I don't know what to search for. The missing textures are a worldspawn brush acting as a roof with {for now} flat iron texture. There are other worldspawn brushes right below to create an attic ceiling with roof framework board texture. These gaps appeared a few edits ago. I can't "undo" to get back before whatever edit did this. The gaps are only visible during play and are not visible during editing. Closing and reopening DR and TDM do not fix anything. Some of the brushes overlap in areas behind the play area but I have never seen an issue doing that. The attached image has the effect I am now seeing. Ideas on where to start debugging this? Very much appreciated. Clint

Awesome! Post is up! https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22200-beta-testing-the-house-of-delisle/#comment-487365 Thanks!

Complaint From Players The player must pick up candles before extinguishing them, and then the player must remember to drop the candle. The player must drag a body before shouldering it (picking it up), and the player must remember to frob again to stop dragging the body. The player finds this annoying or easy to make mistakes. For players who ghost, some of them have the goal of returning objects back to their original positions. With the current "pick up, use item, and drop" system, the item might not return easily or at all to its original position. For example, a candlestick might bounce off its holder. (See player quotes at the bottom.) Bug Tracker https://bugs.thedarkmod.com/view.php?id=6316 Problems to Solve How can the "pick up" step be eliminated so that the player can directly use or interact with the item where it is in the game world? How can so much key pressing and mouse clicking be eliminated when the player wants to directly use an item? How can candles be extinguished and lanterns toggled off/on without first picking them up? How can bodies be shouldered without first dragging them? Solution Design Goals Make TDM easier for new players while also improving it for longtime players. Reduce tedious steps for common frob interactions. Make it intuitive so that menu settings are unnecessary. Do not introduce bugs or break the game. Terms frob -- the frob button action happens instantly. hold frob -- the frob button is held for 200ms before the action happens. (This can be changed via cvar: 200ms by default.) Proposed Solution Note: Some issues have been struckthrough to show changes since the patch has been updated. Change how frobbing works for bodies, candles, and lanterns. For bodies: Frob to shoulder (pick up) a body. Second frob to drop shouldered body, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Hold frob (key down) to start drag, continue to hold frob (key down) to drag body, and then release frob (key up) to stop dragging body. Also, a body can be dragged immediately by holding frob and moving the mouse. For candles/lanterns: Frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. Hold frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to extinguish candles and toggle off/on lanterns. For food: Frob to pick it up, and then frob again to drop. Hold frob to eat food. For other items: No change. New cvar "tdm_frobhold_delay", default:"200" The frob hold delay (in ms) before drag or extinguish. Set to 0 for TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Benefits Bodies: New players will have less to learn to get started moving knocked out guards. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players have played several missions before realizing that they could shoulder a body instead of dragging it long distances. Frob to shoulder body matches Thief, so longtime Thief players will find it familiar. Second frob drops a shouldered body. Players still have the ability to both shoulder and drag bodies. Compatible with the new auto-search bodies feature. Dragging feels more natural -- just grab, hold, and drop with a single button press. There is no longer the need to press the button twice. Also, it's no longer possible to walk away from a body while unintentionally dragging it. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Candles: New players will have less to learn to get started extinguishing candles. With TDM v2.11 and earlier, some players didn't know they could extinguish candles by picking them up and using them. Instead, they resorted to throwing them to extinguish them or hiding them. Hold frob to extinguish a candle feels like "pinching" it out. Once a candle is picked up, players still have the ability to manipulate and use them the same way they are used to in TDM v2.11 and earlier. For players who ghost and have the goal of putting objects back to their original positions, they'll have an easier time and not have to deal with candles popping off their holders when trying to place them back carefully. Set "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar to delay of 0 to restore TDM v2.11 (and prior) behavior. Solution Issues Bodies: Frob does not drop a shouldered body, so that might be unexpected for new players. This is also different than Thief where a second frob will drop a body. "Use Inv. Item" or "Drop Inv. Item" drops the body. This is the same as TDM v2.11 and earlier. This is the price to pay for being able to frob (open/close) doors while shouldering a body. Patch was updated to drop body on second frob, while allowing frob on doors, switches, etc. Candles: Picking up a candle or lantern requires a slight delay, because the player must hold the frob button. The player might unintentionally extinguish a candle while moving it if they hold down frob. The player will need to learn that holding frob will extinguish the candle. The player can change the delay period via the "tdm_frobhold_delay" cvar. Also, when the cvar is set to a delay of 0, the behavior matches TDM v2.11 and earlier, meaning the player would have to first "Frob/Interact" to pick up the candle and then press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish it. Some players might unintentionally extinguish a candle when they are trying to move it or pick it up. They need to make sure to hold frob to initiate moving the candle. When a candle is unlit, it will highlight but do nothing on frob. That might confuse players. However, the player will likely learn after extinguishing several candles that an unlit candle still highlights. It makes sense that an already-extinguished candle cannot be extinguished on frob. The official "Training Mission" might need to have its instructions updated to correctly guide the player through candle manipulation training. Updating the training mission to include the hold frob to extinguish would probably be helpful. Similar Solutions In Fallout 4, frob uses an item and long-press frob picks it up. Goldwell's mission, "Accountant 2: New In Town", has candles that extinguish on frob without the need of picking them up first. Snatcher's TDM Modpack includes a "Blow / Ignite" item that allows the player to blow out candles Wesp5's Unofficial Patch provides a way to directly extinguish movable candles by frobbing. Demonstration Videos Note: The last two videos don't quite demonstrate the latest patch anymore. But the gist is the same. This feature proposal is best experienced in game, but some demonstration videos are better than nothing. The following videos show either a clear improvement or that the player is not slowed down with the change in controls. For example, "long-press" sounds long, but it really isn't. Video: Body Shouldering and Dragging The purpose of this video is to show that frob to shoulder a body is fast and long-press frob to drag a body is fast enough and accurate. Video: Long-Press Frob to Pick Up Candle The purpose of this video is to show how the long-press frob to pick up a candle isn't really much slower than regular frob. Video: Frob to Extinguish The purpose of this video -- if a bit contrived -- is to show the efficiency and precision of this proposed feature. The task in the video was for the player to as quickly and accurately as possible extinguish candles and put them back in their original positions. On the left, TDM v2.11 is shown. The player has to highlight each candle, press "Frob/Interact" to pick up, press "Use Inv. Item" to extinguish, make sure the candle is back in place, and finally press "Frob/Interact" to drop the candle. The result shows mistakes and candles getting misplaced. On the right, the proposed feature is shown. The player frobs to extinguish the candles. The result shows no mistakes and candles are kept in their original positions. Special Thanks @Wellingtoncrab was instrumental in improving this feature during its early stages. We had many discussions covering varying scenarios, pros, and cons, and how it would affect the gameplay and player experience. Originally, I had a completely different solution that added a special "use modifier" keybinding. He suggested the frob to use and long-press frob to pick up mechanics. I coded it up, gave it a try, and found it to be too good. Without his feedback and patience, this feature wouldn't be as good as it is. Thank you, @Wellingtoncrab! And, of note, @Wellingtoncrab hasn't been able to try it in game yet, because I'm using Linux and can't compile a Windows build for him. So, if this feature isn't good, that's my fault. Code Patch I'll post the code patch in another post below this one so that folks who compile TDM themselves can give this proposal a try in game. And, if you do, I look forward to your feedback! Player Complaints TTLG (2023-01-10) Player 1: TDM Forums (2021-03-13) Player 2: Player 3: TDM Forums (2023-06-17) Player 4: TDM Discord (2021-05-18) Player 5: TDM Discord (2023-02-14) Player 6: Player 7: Player 8:

@stgatilov, both the compressed Carleton and Stone fonts look better than the original uncompressed IMHO. We could give the user a choice of either, while keeping the gui scale factor fixed at 0.25 (e.g., 12 pt). If Stone's artifacting you mentioned was not too problematic. I did a statistical analysis of those two fonts, and Stone strings seemed to be slightly less wide than Carleton by about 7% (however, Stone 24pt requires scaling down to get to 12pt, and the analysis may not be treating the resulting "half-pixel" widths right.) But if true, background field widths based on Carleton should still be excellent for Stone. Another topic. I'd like to play around a bit with the 5 sound-source-location variables you were using to position the white bars. In file tdm_subtitles_message.gui, these were of form: "gui::subtitle0_oriBackLeft" // where 0 if subtitle was shown in vertical "slot 0"; could be 1 or 2 and name suffixes were _oriFront, _oriFrontLeft, _oriFrontRight, _oriBackLeft, and _oriBackRight Could you briefly explain what values these could take on, how they would work or differ, how often they get updated? Thanks

Not sure. It might include your username, where the exe is located, and system hardware. On Linux, if I'm concerned, I do: strings <file> | grep -i <search term> That'll at least match against plain text but not binary data. Perhaps you could use similar tools on Windows.