8th Playable Character Possible?! (Updating!)

[Mauron]

Just what I was thinking about. How do you track down the event data in the ROM itself?

If you mean tracing the code in a debugger, the easiest way is to open an event in TF that contains an event command you want to study.  Then note the offset next to it in the tree.

Events are decompressed to RAM starting at 7F2000.  If you set a read breakpoint on the address you noted above, +7F2000, it'll put you at the start point of loading the event command routines.

Ex: if you see the following in an event

[0123] SpecialDialog NamePC Crono

The read breakpoint is 7F2123

That's what I was looking for. Is there an easy way to identify the end of the given code? It's still a little tricky for me.

[JLukas]

It should be just a RTS unless the command has subroutines of its own.  You can set a second breakpoint for the following event command, and when it hits that you know the command you were working on is done.

[justin3009]

Hmm...That's awkward.  Starting at 21E714, there's Crono and crew's sprite assembly again.  Only awkward thing, if you change it, doens't alter anything for them...That's very strange.

[Mauron]

How carefully did you check for changes you made? Either there's some small place that uses it, or it's junk data. Either way, we should be able to use it as free space, with some repointing in the case of the former.

[justin3009]

Usually if you mess with the sprite assembly, anything can happen to the sprite.  But the walking running battle everything was in tact...so i'm not sure what it was.  It's listed in this area though

"21DF80   23FFFF   TASM   N   "Sprite Assembly, Location Tiles"   2007.06.12"  I highly doubt that Location Tiles would have the same exact Sprite assembly as the heroes..

[Mauron]

I found an oddity with the Millennial Fair race. It seems the Green Ambler and Steel Runner will sometimes have their colors change for a race.

[justin3009]

Yea, I noticed that as well...It's very rare for it to happen for me now though, probably because I switched some stuff around.

[Mauron]

Any idea what?

Have you looked through other parts of the game to see if Reptites and those soldiers react the same way?

[justin3009]

I don't ahve any savestates like that.  And I only have 8th char loading up in Millenial fair, Guardia Forest, and Crono's house...so i'd also ahve to check that later.  (Man I can't spell have today)

[Mauron]

I can run through it. I need a better save game anyway.

[Mauron]

I found something related to the eight character's damage.

This is the eight character's attack result, with a breakpoint on 7EAE7B, which I'm fairly certain is the damage dealt. It uses two bytes to store.

Code: [Select]

$C1/D529 8E 7B AE STX $AE7B  [$7E:AE7B] A:0000 X:0000 Y:0000 D:0000 DB:7E S:06E4 P:envMxdiZC HC:0076 VC:070 00 FL:41
This is Crono's attack result, same setup.

Code: [Select]

$C1/D529 8E 7B AE STX $AE7B  [$7E:AE7B] A:0000 X:0000 Y:0000 D:0000 DB:7E S:06E4 P:envMxdiZC HC:0830 VC:200 00 FL:41
$C1/DE7D 8D 7B AE STA $AE7B  [$7E:AE7B] A:0010 X:0014 Y:0005 D:0000 DB:7E S:06E0 P:envmxdizc HC:0212 VC:205 00 FL:43
Crono did 16 damage that turn. Using Magus and Marle got me the same results, excluding amount of damage.

Code: [Select]

$C1/D8D7 8E 7B AE STX $AE7B  [$7E:AE7B] A:0000 X:0000 Y:0004 D:0000 DB:7E S:06E8 P:envMxdiZC HC:1358 VC:126 00 FL:65495
$C1/DE7D 8D 7B AE STA $AE7B  [$7E:AE7B] A:0004 X:0004 Y:0001 D:0000 DB:7E S:06E4 P:envmxdizc HC:0830 VC:098 00 FL:65497
The above were the results of a Hetake's attack. It did 4 damage.

I think if we can find out why C1DE7D isn't called, the character will do damage.

[justin3009]

- Portrait.  As you can see it loads up Lightning's magic header graphics.  I was testing out stuff for pointers and I saw these.

3FD5E4   3FDBE3   GFX   N   Magic type graphics   2003.05.01
3FDBE4   3FE55B   GFX   N   Menu graphics   2006.12.20
3FE55C   3FE8DB   GFX   N   Character save portraits (4 bit plane)   2006.12.20

Reverse character save portraits's and you get 5CE5FF which is at 2FCA1 and it DOES point there and it does work.  So I thought "Hey let's do this with magic graphics"  E4D5FF...313EC8, altering it does NOTHING to the magic header graphics which is bothering me...I'm going to see if I can move that and maybe it'll keep the 8th chars portrait in that area to throw up there.

Edit: Fails ;/

Edit 2: Um...Another huge issue, probably something I did though.  Apparently the shop doesn't work anymore, and some NPC graphics are destroyed and garbled ><

[justin3009]

DOUBLE POST!  GOT THE 8TH PORTRAIT WORKING! 

3FCE88 - I had that in my notes for Magic Garphics.  I repointed that to the end of the rom, moved the graphics there, and edited the graphics up for Lightning where they originally were and now the 8th portrait IS working!  The only issue is the palette! ><



Edit: Wow this is awkward.  So I modified the original magic header graphics and it worked fine.  The new imported ones at the end looked normal and the modified looked modified.  Now, I altered the palette location, and for some reason it's rerouting back to the top again O_o

[magustrigger]

If it helps any I combined some patches and a save state I downloaded and started a New Game+ from the data and my party had only Epoch, with Crono's sprite and a screwy character portrait.  He had a helmet for his weapon icon, and when I tried him in battle he had every status effect possible and eventually died from poison shortly after his stop wore off.  Though he did have 999 HP and the Hetakes couldn't touch him because of an obscenely high evade stat.  Actually... I think all of his stats were maxed out but that may have been the save state's doing and not the 8th character's obscurity...  If it would help cracking the code for making new techs or evolving the 8th character I can link you to said patches and save states...

[justin3009]

We're above and beyond all of that right now.  Looks like Status effects won't start right at battle since we've been fixing it up.  We have all max stats, but it seems to gain too much life sometimes.