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Messages - pokeytax

1
PSX FFT Hacking / Re: Changle Shields to Mantles
June 20, 2013, 06:38:43 pm
You can try this hack: http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=6505.msg185882#msg185882.  But in order to get fewer shields and more mantles, you'll have to scoot a lot of armor over, which is a huge pain.  (You also do have to go through and update everything in Patcher, additionally.)  No guarantees on the hack fully working, it's been a while.
2
PSX FFT Hacking / Re: ARH: Ability Requirements Hack
April 24, 2013, 05:53:43 pm
1)

2) Nope.  My best guess is that it was not just the unaligned loads but also the jump on the AI side.  To make this version work, I had to move that to the Materia Blade check, and go dig the no longer available unit ID out of a technically unallocated part of the stack.

But... personally, I have encountered some really resilient bugs on PSX, more so than on other consoles.  Whether it's some undocumented PSX register protocol, some sloppiness I keep overlooking, or magic, who knows, but sometimes, it's easier to rewrite code that doesn't work than debug it.
3
PSX FFT Hacking / Re: ARH: Ability Requirements Hack
April 15, 2013, 09:02:59 pm


This is a WIP new ARH version.  Along with fixing console compatibility, it attempts to implement Xif's idea for arbitrary unit data checks:

Quote from: Xifanie

If [Chocobo Riding] != 0x00 (meaning, the unit IS riding something)
return TRUE

If [HP] / [Max HP] < 10%
AND
If [HP] > 0
Return TRUE



What it probably does is make your entire party sterile and initiate an infinite Quick loop, because it's an ambitious hack that I haven't thoroughly tested.  But, better to post it for the adventurous than let it rot on my hard drive.  And of course, thanks again Xif, for making a hack so good it's mandatory.
4
I'm going to get to playing the rest of this later on, but I just wanted to note:
- I lost the Alma battle twice somehow because I'm a terrible player and a terrible human being.  I think it somehow contains Raven's soul.
- That Dante scene in the intro is just as good every time I watch it.  Just terrific work.  The events in general are great of course, but even compared to a really good baseline I can't get over how slick that is.
- Smoke Break is a great skill.  I almost don't want it to have a "better" implementation just because it's scientifically the perfect use of that formula.
5
While it's not really a mod, the Suikogaiden Vol. 1 translation patch I have been working on is finally done.  If you love visual novels and Suikoden, or if you love one of those things and are willing to tolerate the other, it's worth a look.
6
Thanks, guys.  Like I said, though, it's really just someone else's notes.  I hardly did any ASM at all.

It's been vastly improved since the first version and a lot of stuff sounds quite good.  The OP now includes a much more ambitious track.  It's not a perfect rendition, but it gives you a good idea of where we are at now.
7
Help! / Re: Perfume ribbons for male?
March 22, 2013, 07:08:05 pm
Like most miscellaneous hex edits, you can do this with Raven's Spreadsheets - specifically, the Item Workbook Compilation.
8
This is an Excel workbook (Excel-only, OpenOffice won't work) that converts MIDI files (.mid) to SMD files (.SMD), which FFT can play.

It is not finished, and 10% of what you put in will come out unlistenable, but for a lot of songs it sounds... surprisingly nice.  If you apply the patch and select New Game, that will give you an idea of what an ambitious MIDI sounds like right now.  Or just listen to the .mp3, which I recorded out of pSX: Test SMD

Important notes:
- You're going to get a bum instrument once in a while.  I might be able to sort these out, or it might have to be done in "post-production".
- The files are rather large and the sound is tinny.  You may need to overwrite one of the larger tracks to get even a small MIDI to fit.  Again, still under construction.

Instructions:
Open the notebook and change the file path as desired.  You can either leave the "Y" in the yellow box to have the spreadsheet automatically spit out an .xml file which will tell FFTorgASM to overwrite MUSIC99 into the same directory, or leave it blank and just let the spreadsheet produce raw hex.  Run the "Convert" macro.  If you didn't choose XML, copy the hex and overwrite an existing file using a hex editor, then use CDMage to import that file back to your FFT ISO.  Leaving the remainder of the existing file in there is fine, there's no need to zero it.

If you're going to be trying a bunch of midis, I suggest just plopping this into your FFTorgASM folder to streamline the process.  Change path, run macro, run FFTorgASM.

I thoughtlessly neglected to mention before that this is really little more than an implementation of the excellent work gomtuu did on this a while back.  I'm not sure if anyone else helped, but if so, thanks to them as well!

EDIT: Fixed some critical bugs with sustained notes and instrumentation.  It's sounding much improved.
3/3/2014 EDIT: I fixed a really stupid bug that threw errors sometimes, although the hex output was still okay. However, I'm not certain what's causing fdc's bug without seeing the midi file. I will be back in a month or two when my schedule is clearer to see if people are still having issues.

03/Dec/2020 NYZER EDIT: Fixed a bug in the macro that caused an issue when running the Convert macro. DO NOT change the file name or it'll return. Kept the original file as the one labeled "(Old)". Also added some further instructions in the Control Panel to help anyone who might not be familiar with Excel macros.
9
Bump!

I've been tinkering with this.  In fact, I have a working MIDI converter.  The output is recognizable, but awful, due to a combination of the percussion channel being read as pitched, my current inability to play notes that are longer than a couple measures, instruments being arbitrarily remapped because I don't know the instrument codes for FFT, and probably some other issues like dropped notes and bad header data being masked by the above.  They're also fairly large, which I can do a bit to remedy, but not too much.  I'll keep at it.

If anyone has any notes on the coding end of this beyond what's on the wiki, that would be music to my ears.  gomtuu's stuff (I think? anyone who pitched in has my thanks too) was instrumental in getting this thing humming along.
10
Glain, that should work great then (with your fix applied).  Also that's really good knowledge to have.  By manipulating what order you have items in, you can tell the game which accessories to consider.

Hm, thanks for that note, Celdia.  I really need to code up something that allows you to determine, for every skillset, what skills are considered learned, so you can have stuff like Red Magic.  Probably when I redo RAD I will try to allow a lot of that functionality separately, for people who don't necessarily need a bunch of jobs but do need better controls over skillsets, learned abilities, etc.

I updated the equipment sorting hack to properly load accessory evasion multiplicatively (e.g. 3 x Small Mantle gives 28% evasion, not 30%).  I don't know of any other bugs yet, but it's too wide-ranging of a hack for there not to be any.
11
Quote from: hierophant on February 23, 2013, 09:23:55 am
--Skip title screen, go directly to an event.


Skipping the introduction and booting immediately to an event in New Game is something I have tried a few times and found very difficult.  But it's also something many patches would like, so I haven't given up.  Skipping the title screen entirely might be doable once that's figured out.

Quote from: hierophant on February 23, 2013, 09:23:55 am
--Have an equipped item allow access to a command set. (For example, an equipped masamune allows access to the "masamune" skillset, populated by the "masamune" ability)


You can do this using the Skillsets tab of the ALMA spreadsheet: http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=6664.0.

I definitely recommend you check the Important Links thread in this forum, particularly "Programs, Spreadsheets, Other Utilities".  Stuff like Raven's Spreadsheets and ALMA, if you aren't already familiar, will give you a lot of functionality to play with.

Quote from: hierophant on February 23, 2013, 09:23:55 am
--Any ability that would check for range checks the jump stat for horiz/vert range.  Never mind if this would affect Attack.  Also with this:  Move stat = Move & Jump.


This is a little involved, because you would have to change every Jump check in the code.  It's also probably not very generally applicable, and would only help your patch.  It never hurts to ask!  But realistically, with so much else to do, I don't think I will ever get to this one.

Quote
Edit2:  So I forgot monster skill triggers on adjacent monsters.  Could this be rigged to give a unit haste when an enemy is adjacent?


Unfortunately, the game only checks this (I would guess) when you open a monster's skillset.  I have been thinking about how to route some more context-sensitive stuff like this through ALMA, but it would take some work.
12
I'm going to do some tinkering and find out.  I would guess so (should just pull the palette and graphic) but I'm still concentrating on getting basic gear shipshape rather than weapons/throwables/shields.  I certainly wouldn't be shocked if there is more dumb hardcoding there.  In fact, my Yagyu Darkness looked like a dagger, which is suspiciously normal... hm.  Definitely still a lot of work to do.

Glain, I adjusted those hardchecks - but if I read your thread right, the random equip routine isn't all that random, so I'll probably get randoms with three Leather Mantles rather than an interesting and diverse mix of stuff, right?

I think I'm going to have to code a multiplicative evasion routine for multiple accessories.  I need to do something to repair base functionality in any case and additive evasion gets too silly too fast.
13
This is an upgraded version of the equipment sorting hacks/spreadsheet earlier in this thread.  It lets you change shields to hats to armors to accessories, and change which items go in which slots.  For example, vanilla has 16 shields / 28 hats / 36 armors / 32 accessories.  You could change that to 16/32/32/32; or to 24 shields / 40 hats / 48 accessories and allow a second accessory in place of armor; or 96 accessories and three accessory equip slots.  You will need to change the item's type in FFTPatcher to match its new classification, and you should probably not change weapons into other equipment into items.

This should be pretty robust, covering the formation screen, the unit random equip algorithm, Equip Change (ugh), previews, and shops.  However, I'm sure I still missed some things, so let me know if you find them (and backup your patch before you try it).  Units with preset equipment will still have what you gave them, even if they absurdly have a helmet and armor instead of three hats, and the random equip algorithm might well give people two of the same thing, but it's a start.

Still need to figure out how to make the six throwables fully usable weapons and sort out some of the grousing it is doing about HP/MP <=> PEv/MEv.  [EDIT: hm, I just stabbed somebody with a Yagyu Darkness after changing item data.  I'll have to test more but this is looking better than it did last time I tried.]  And I would like to have this interact with RSM so that RSM could change your equip scheme... but wow, talk about a headache.
14
Hacking/Patching Tools / Re: Emulators with debuggers
February 10, 2013, 09:41:31 pm
Hm... I'll try a little harder to sort out my issue then.  If NO$PSX is like NO$GBA, it will have much more versatile breakpoints than pSX and the ability to view VRAM.  But I'm not so eager to move on just yet (NO$PSX is certainly still a work in progress).
15
Hacking/Patching Tools / Emulators with debuggers
February 09, 2013, 12:19:20 pm
pSX seems to be crashing in the item shop ("Buy") for me on Windows 7.  This is distressing as I rely on the built-in debugger.

Has anyone else tried NO$PSX yet?  It seems to be working fine for me so far (EDIT: well until I tried to go to the Formation screen), after applying a proper BIOS, although using proper register labels (v2, r1, a0, etc.) drives me nuts.  Based on my experience using NO$GBA to hack Suikoden Card Stories for GBA, this might prove to be a superior hacking emulator in the long run.

If I somehow missed a previous emulator discussion thread by all means move this there.
16
Non-FFT Modding / Re: Suikoden patcher
February 08, 2013, 01:31:58 pm
Can someone upload MasterGrand's file to a different host?  I'm curious, but I'm not signing up for a credit card to see someone's hacking notes.
17
Quote from: Dome on February 08, 2013, 04:17:52 am
Question:
Does this version fixes the "Beowulf problem"?


Yes, this includes a WLDCORE edit to remove the Beowulf check.  I don't really like doing so when that may interfere with existing patches, but it's the simplest thing and the patch author can always just remove that line from the XML.
18
No problem.  Have you (or anybody) noticed any issues?
19
Dome, I don't think the link in the OP is the most recent version.  Can you update it to this one?
20
I was definitely aware of load delay, branch delay, load alignment, and mflo/mfhi pipelining.  All of my hacks target pSX, which seems stricter than ePSXe and has the handy debugger.

Hmmm... some of you may remember me whining about bizarre errors I got when writing ALMA that triggered in pSX, but not ePSXe, and only in runtime, not in stepthrough.  Just terrible stuff where a section would crash after 3 nops but not after 5 nops, and LOAD instructions in branch delay slots caused problems even when the results weren't being used at the destination.  (e.g. http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=6664.180#msg151469)  The most rational explanation is still that I screwed up somehow, but I checked every line of my code enough times to be sure that it wasn't an ASM 101 mistake.  Maybe I was simply cramming so many instructions in that it introduced inconsistency into the game loop?  Does that even make sense?  In any case, if there's a root cause to this I did not address, that could be creating problems on physical systems.

Anyway, I'm curious enough to test ALMA and RAD on a physical PSX myself and see if it works.