Temporal Flux FAQ

How can I quickly and easily listen to songs that I've edited?[edit]

Have a save game by Crono's house, and then enter PAR code 7E1B9Cxx, where xx is the song you want to play. It'll instantly stop playing the town music and begin with the new one.

JLukas

How do I test my hack? It's huge![edit]

Many roms have debug rooms that allowed the programmers to skip to various parts of the game to test stuff out and not have to play through the game to get to other worlds, locations and changes. I think it's a good idea for people to code one themselves, a room that won't be in the final, just have people that warp you to locations upon talking to them, different time periods, a good little space that will help with getting places and such, like an in game shortcut. When the hack is complete, it can be deleted, or left as a secret of sorts.... all kinds of possibilities.

Chickenlump

How do I know I'm not overwriting something when I use a value-to-mem operation?[edit]

Chrono Trigger contains many RAM addresses that control a variety of functions, from the status of a treasure chest to the color of the background of the Select overworld map. There are also two types of these addresses -- permanent and transitory. For instance, let's say you have a room with a person in it. If you talk to this person once, he or she will never appear again (value of 1). If you use a permanent value to mem operation, and make it so that when you speak to him, it writes a value of 1 to the memory, you can exit and re-enter and the person will be gone. However, if you use a transitory address, the value won't be permanent. A good way to find permanent addresses to use is to scour the various locations of the Chrono Trigger ROM and find simple addresses used for treasure chests and things. There's also some free space that isn't used anywhere in the game.

The game uses 512 bytes for your item inventory. The first set of 256 is for the type of item you have (ex: wood sword, iron sword, etc.) and the second of 256 is for the quantity (1-99) you have of that item. Here's the interesting part. The game only uses and is programmed for a total of 242 items. But the memory space was allocated for 256. That means 14 free bytes because no items exist, and another 14 free bytes that hold the quantity of those non-existant items. A total of 28 free bytes! It gets better; that memory space still gets saved to SRAM, making it perfect storyline flag expansion space.

What this means is:

Memory locations 7E24F2 through 7E24FF are free
Memory locations 7E25F2 through 7E25FF are free

You can use these locations as you wish. More space exists too. Concerning treasure chests, it appears memory range 7F0020-7F004F (48 bytes) is extra space reserved for additional treasure chests. It would be possible to use this as memory expansion space similar to the empty item inventory slots, provided you don't plan on creating more treasure chests that could potentially conflict. You could, for example, use 7F0030-7F004F for your own purposes, leaving 7F0020-7F002F for treasure chest expansion (127 slots, which is obviously a lot).

JLukas

I can't make this exit to the Overworld work right. The coordinates are messed up![edit]

If you're trying to make an exit to the Overworld from a location and find that you cannot seem to get the coordinates right (e.g. Crono ends up in the ocean when he uses the exit), it is because OW maps work in subtiles. The math does not work out quite as neatly, so instead of dividing your coordinates by 16 (the effect of shaving the last digit off), you need to divide by 8. So effectively, shave off the last digit, double, and add one if you want the character in the center of the tile (respective to that direction). REMEMBER that you're multiplying in hex! For instance, 26 x 2 = 4C, not 52. If you need help working in hexadecimal, just load up Windows calculator and hit the "Hex" button. It'll take care of everything else.

Geiger

When I edit a certain map, it messes up somewhere else![edit]

Locations are not the only store of data; maps are also correspondent to particular locations, meaning if you load Map 3 in an unused location, everything on Map 3 (which is in the Black Omen) will show up with whatever tileset you have loaded (probably looking like a bunch of garbage). Any edits to Map 3 will occur in the Black Omen as well, since both its location and the one you're editing use that map.

Geiger

When I use select tiles in the Overworld Editor, they come out different on the map. Why?[edit]

The top half of the Overworld tilesets is reserved for Layer 1, and the bottom for Layer 2. Layer 2 tiles pasted while working with Layer 1 will result in their Layer 1 equivalent, and vice versa, so painting a shore in Layer 1 might equate to part of a house. Make sure you're in the right mode.

ZeaLitY

Why doesn't my new Overworld Exit work?[edit]

Overworld exits must be placed on a tile that has the Exit bit set (displayed in yellow in the Overworld Tile Properties view)

You can copy and paste a tile from an existing exit to use, or set the Exit bit for the tile using the Overworld Tile Properties editor. It is important to note that changing a tile's properties will affect every instance of the tile on the map. It is highly recommended you only set the Exit bit when absolutely necessary to prevent problems with the Epoch.

A more technical reason for why an exit cannot just be any tile on the Overworld maps is that entering an exit takes precedence over boarding the Epoch (meaning if you were to ever land the Epoch on an exit, you would never be able to take off again). To avoid this issue, the programmers coded the Epoch so that it could not land on an exit.

Also, unlike Locations which actually build an "exit map" when they load, Overworld exit information is coded directly into the tile properties, essentially making it a part of the map proper. Allowing every tile to be an exit would disallow the Epoch to land anywhere at all.

Geiger, JLukas

How do I put comments into events?[edit]

Click Command to create a new empty spot (Return) in the tree where you want to put the comment, and then click on the new command to highlight it. Then, on the left, select Category Project. Type your comment in the Comments box and press Update.

JLukas

If you changed someone's starting default name via hex editor, would that person's name variable change in TF?[edit]

Since character naming is done through standard event commands, Flux has no way of knowing where, or even if the characters are given default names. And what should Flux do if the characters are named multiple times (as in the Flux teaser)? Flux can never feasibly infer what the character names are from the game data.

Geiger

From: Modification