Topic: Developing FF4kster: a comprehensive editor for FF4

[LordGarmonde]

Also a syntax update... In the AI there's a command called "Cast Black or White Magic Spell" and "Cast a Special Spell". Now the first one tells the enemy to randomly single target an ally or enemy. The second one tells the game to Multi-Target. There doesn't seem to be much special about it. I can change that easily enough with the indexes, but its just something to keep in mind.

I also had that same question. I think I figured out that the special part was being able to multi-target with magic usually not multi-targetable - like Baigan casting Haste on both of his arms.

[Pinkpuff]

Ah, well then that might actually do the trick in all reality.

If you do decide to try it, let me know how it goes!

Also a syntax update... In the AI there's a command called "Cast Black or White Magic Spell" and "Cast a Special Spell". Now the first one tells the enemy to randomly single target an ally or enemy. The second one tells the game to Multi-Target. There doesn't seem to be much special about it. I can change that easily enough with the indexes, but its just something to keep in mind.

Ok cool, I just got those descriptions either from some file or from some post here. Is the wording the only issue there, or does any of the actual functionality need changing?

May I ask as well why Golbez and Anna's character data isn't shown in the Actor's tab? Golbez, I can understand in a normal game sense. He's used in a pivotal battle scene, has no actual level up system. But he does have default stats and even has several Commands set as well as equipment (even though that equipment consists of a Flame Spear and Trashcans) and Anna is a completely blank slate. But the game does reserve five commands for her, so that actor slot can be used and is virtually unused by the game itself.

Is it because the information of these locations is unknown? If so I can do a quick search and bring them to light.

It's less about that and more about the character object that's being held in memory in FF4kster. When it loops through and writes all the characters, it does exactly that; writes all the characters. I think there was even a point where something was being messed up because it was reading and writing stuff for Golbez when it shouldn't have been and made it so you couldn't finish the game. As a result, the editor only reads in the "regular" characters. Since the actors are dependent on characters, it will mess up if it tries to reference a "nonexistent" (as far as it can tell) character such as Golbez or Anna. The easiest (laziest ^_^) solution was to just exclude their actors.

I can probably jury rig something if there's significant demand for such functionality, but otherwise I'd rather focus on more pressing things like the tile editor. I'll certainly add it to the feature request list though ^_^;

[Grimoire LD]

I'll try to check that out eventually.

Nope, the descriptions are all that is off, the functionality is perfectly fine. Though if I may make another request... there's several UNKNOWN's in the AI functions, but they're all under UNKNOWN rather than UNKNOWN 1, 2, etc. and because they are all the same label, it makes it difficult to test what each one is doing. I think some of them at least may have some function. One is used in the King Eblan fight, one in a Dummy battle with a Programmer and Two are used by Zeromus(Crystal Use one) .

Ah, so that's the reason. I understand then why Golbez and Anna aren't included yet. Yes your current goal is a more pressing matter admittedly.

[Grimoire LD]

I was thinking of adding the Serpent Road into my Combat Boost patch so I thought it might be best to test out this method. Then I came to the realization that I Don't know where the map pointers are. Do you happen to have any information on that PinkPuff?

[chillyfeez]

From yousei's doc:

B8200-B84FF   (178000-1782FF)   Town Map Pointers

is that what you're looking for?

[Grimoire LD]

Ah, since it said "Town Map" I thought it was referring purely to Towns... but there's not That many towns to take up that much space. Yes thank you very much Chillyfeez.

[vivify93]

• At this point, everything I know how to do has already been incorporated into the editor. However, I will still be adding things as they are found and documented well enough to do a proper job of it.

Hi all, I was just checking back in about this.

So, the item descriptions are out of the question for now? Or were they merely forgotten in the midst of all these more exciting revelations?

Thanks for your time.

[Pinkpuff]

They were forgotten; they're on the to-do-list

[Grimoire LD]

Hmm, PinkPuff there might be something wrong with the Level Up Editor...

For my patch I changed Kain3 into Edge2 and Tellah3 into Cid2, now everything works fine for Tellah, but Kain3 when changed had something strange happen to it... when I changed Kain3 to Edge2 Kain's default level changed to 25 and he Lost all of his previous level up data up to Level 25. As in 00's were written into his Actual level up data before Level 25. I can go into the Hex editor and change that back, but it seems like a mistake that such a thing should have happened in the first place.

[Pinkpuff]

Ok I think that fixed it. Give 'er a whirl and let me know.

[vivify93]

They were forgotten; they're on the to-do-list

Alright, that's fair enough! The only reason I'm so leechy about this, is because the lack of item descriptions is the one thing stopping Project II from being at 100% completion. I mean, I could learn to do it myself, but I'm too lazy, so, yeah. Thanks again! You rock!!

[Grimoire LD]

Hmm, looks like it worked. I took the steps I originally did to see if it would act the same way and it appeared not to do so. Good work! Also is that an initial attempt to include Golbez with Character 14 references? Very nice!

[chillyfeez]

Hi Pinkpuff - I discovered something that's not working right with FF4kster.
It seems the program isn't properly referencing (or editing) locations' treasure contents indices (byte 0C of location properties). It seems to work fine when changing/moving/adding treasure in rooms that already have treasure, but adding treasure to rooms that normally have no treasure is where the problem crops up.

For example: I'm adding a treasure chest in the Agart Inn, which normally has none. The Agart Inn's map index is 20 (hex), but its treasure contents index is 1F (for no discernible reason). When I edit the triggers in FF4kster, the treasure chest stays inaccessible unless I manually change the treasure contents index to 20 with a hex editor.

  looks like I'm wrong about how this byte works (I guess it's a running total of how many chests have been counted so far... ?), but the fact remains that it needs to be changed in order to add treasure chests where there previously were none.

[Pinkpuff]

Huh, I thought I handled that one a long time ago; apparently not? I'll look into it. Thanks.

  Definitely hasn't been handled yet. I'm gonna need some details though, in terms of what it should be doing. The Treasure Index (byte 0C of map properties) should be computed by the number of "treasure" type triggers encountered so far when enumerating the maps in index order, correct? And it's only one byte, correct? But there are more than 255 treasures in the game aren't there? Does the index reset after the upper world maps?

[chillyfeez]

... Yeah, damn. I was hoping that was info known but not by me. I'll have to fiddle around a bit. I'll let you know when I figure it all out.