Chrono Trigger Complete Mod Questions

[HydroChronic]

Hi Guys,

With this being my first post I'll give a little background for myself before getting into the meat of my questions.  I am currently a college student studying Game Development & Design.  My primary focus is programming and system implementations.  I am hoping it use Temporal Flux with the Game Development Club at my college to make a mod for Chrono Trigger.  I have been playing around with it for the past few days and have managed to get a general handle on Location, Overworld and Event Development & Design using the tutorials from the site.

So now, onto my questions.  My plan has been to use only specific parts of Chrono Trigger to make the game.  Specifically the lower level game systems (ie. the battle, party management, item & equipment management systems) and the assets.  As for the rest of the game (ie. Locations, Overworld maps, Dialog & Story) I wanted to make it all new.  So, is there any easy way to remove all of the data I don't need?

Also, are there any tutorials or threads which cover in detail how the individual Event Scripting Commands work?  Also how these commands work together with each other.  For instance, how do all of your available characters get drawn at The End of Time and allow you to talk to them in order to select them for your party?  I have also been playing with having Enemies and NPCs in the same room, but after the battle the NPC's sprite is replaced with some (what seems to be) battle text. I assume this is a side effect of the Battle System, but I am not exactly sure.

Thanks,

J

PS. I'm not sure if this is the correct thread for these questions. So if I'm outta line, someone give me a little check back on course.  --Thanks

[justin3009]

There's a way to remove all text and re-do that, but as for event removing and what not, do not do that.  Just modify what's already there or delete what you might not need, but do NOT delete everything.

For characters loading up, in the event coding there's a "Load PC XXXXX) Controllable Infinite, Return.  Those will load up the PC automatically.

[HydroChronic]

Hey Justin,

Thanks for the quick reply and also complements on your name (I'm a Justin also).

Anywho, thanks for the advice with removing Events.  Is this because some events are used by Menu Screens, etc?  Also, since I will be removing things I don't plan on using in order to make space for new content, is it dangerous to completely edit entire maps and/or events?  Are there certain Maps and/or Events which are necessary for the game to run properly?

I want to know of any dependencies that the game has before I go tearing out its guts.  I know there is no way that I'll end up using ALL of the space that the ROM can hold (especially with the Extend Rom Hack) so I don't have any real problem with just replacing the stuff that I won't be using (which will be pretty much everything).  But I would like to avoid a "deck of cards" situation which turns into a disgusting mess halfway through development.

I've also got another question which I will be toying with tonight.  How difficult is it to re-design the Overworld Maps?  Such as if I completely re-design the land shapes, remove most existing buildings and add a bunch of my own.

Thanks Again,

J

[Agent 12]

Hey HydroChronic,

In general don't touch OW events, it's really easy to brick your game.  If you do change it make incredibly small changes at a time.

As for locations there's a  few sneaky ones hanging around.  I remember there ended up being a bug cause the inn in guardia was dependent on another locations events (when you sleep).  But if you are doing a game totally from scratch (i.e. even removing the inns and stuff) then you should be fine.  I'd keep the location 00 events cause they are complicated and pretty general for any modification.

--JP

[HydroChronic]

Alright, thanks a lot guys.

I've gotten that Events should be maintained as much as possible, with special emphasis on OW Events (I had been looking at these for the past couple of hours).  But I'm getting the impression that the maps can be modded to my heart's content.  Is this accurate?

Can you suggest any other Events which are useful for modification?  I've noticed that the End of Time Events are useful in order to interact with non-active party members, so I will be studying that very closely.  I would expect that Magus's Castle Entrance is a good one too, since it uses the CopyTiles function.  Any others which floating around out there?

[ZeaLitY]

Maps can be modded to your heart's content, but you may tire of setting solidity and Z-plane, building stairways, etc.

Look for Medina Elder's House 1F, NPC Ozzie, to see how a MemCopy can apply a different palette to a character on the fly (Ozzie, who is naturally green, is turned blue there by that command).

[Chrono'99]

You can't have NPCs on screen during battles, so you have them move out of the screen before the battle or use other tricks to hide them. However if you really need to show an NPC, Justin3009 devised a workaround in another thread (but you have to use Chrono Tweaker or hex):

I tested something out on the rom and used the Macabre as the test subject.  I set EVERYTHING of his to 0, Life Damage Hit everything.  I then set him to static and placed him next to a random enemy in Guardia Forest.  Ends up being, if everything's set to zero and Static, the enemy will stay in battle but cannot be hit and will not be affected by spell graphics =]

The map used by inns and pretty much any event that happens on a black screen (like "Crono! Wake up!") is {10F} Special Purpose Area.

[HydroChronic]

Cool.  Thanks a lot guys.  You guys really helped to bring me up to speed so I can try to get this project off the ground almost immediately.  I'll keep you guys posted on progress (and questions).