I had no luck with this, but I massively overdid it with CheatEngine the first go-around. Was lucky I had an older save to go back to, because I couldn't do any missions. Seems to be some protection built into the game...

I wonder if manually setting it so you level at, say, 4 or 5 over and over (set the 5 4-byte variables to like 3xp under the requirement, so 7997) and then just level up repeatedly until you've got your points how you want them?

Or if it's a more robust built-in cap on how many evolution points you can have, total. In which case I don't think something like that would work and we might be simply "forced" to play the game normally with regard to the basic character statistics.

The game does not fuss about a character that is substantially overleveled, although I strongly recommend sticking to level 17 (even if it means going in and reducing XP to stay there) in the early game. You can't spend points outside of the four main stats until you progress farther, and 17 has 16 upgrade points to evolve them all for a more rad (and still totally enjoyable, set it to hard for fun times with slightly more challenge, haha). I did all collectables, blacknet, and golded available Radnet and never had to back my EXP down, but far warning not to out level your stats so that you can level up later and spend points! Once you max your level, that's it, and it locks you out of six ugrades because you can't level up to spend the points, even by going back in EXP. So, for the whole starting sandbox in the region (Yellow Zone, that's no spoiler), don't max your level. 17 is perfect.

Once you progress (well, very shortly after you progress) Spoiler:

Whew.

[Edited by tides, 7/28/2012 8:11:51 AM]