Final Fantasy Hacktics

The functional part of the program is basically done, what I'm doing now is trying to store all the data(offsets, hex values, strings that are associated with them so you know what you are looking at) required to edit every quest in the game(instead of hard coding data for 1 or 2 to test it). Problem is I need to associate each property with a quest, and some properties (such as units) have sub-properties(jobs, abilities, equipment etc). This is something I would normally do using a database(a text file would be too long and a the search operations would increase run time and the required length of code by too much) for a personal project or web application, but this is supposed to be a standalone editor,. I'm not really willing to type up text files that long and even developing an algorithm too peel the info and sort it into something remotely efficient of lennart's spreadsheets would be a pain. So I can either make a more specialized application that only edits enemy units for each quest and their properties with internal resources or I can make an all around quest editor that can affect all the properties of a quest(law, loot, ap , exp, rank, clan stat requirements etc), but would require the user to download and setup a database on their local system server that the application can reference.(I'm not willing to host an online database since my aws free database usage is nearly maxed out already because of some other stuff I was doing) I'm not sure whether or not the community would be willing to do that so I'm asking here before I make a decision.

Note: the database application would most likely take a similar time frame as the specialized one so that's not really a factor, and either way since these are winform applications developed in visual studio you will need the .net framework to run it, but if you are playing any games on your computer chances are you already installed it, and if not it takes like 5 minutes.

So I'm starting work on the enemy formation editor now, didn't want to make a new thread because I'm literally just starting even though I've mostly figured out how to do it. It make take a bit longer since I decided to do it in C# which I'm learning now for work. Figured it would be decent practice.

Managed to find some data for unique jobs on romhacking.net posted by edea. Checked the Hex myself this doesn't seem right maybe he was using a different version of the game? The guy has been working on this for ages and has a lot of other hex editing posts so I'm assuming he knows what he is doing.

Update:Ok I am almost certain I've found the information he was referring to it starts at offset 053FFEA0(was going through all the unknowns in lennart's spreadsheet that more or less matched the number of player jobs + hidden jobs) in the NA version of the game and follows the structure described above. I haven't gotten around to testing this yet.(Haven't setup an emulator and I've been working on this for 3 days I need some sleep), but I've manually gone through the first 10 or so entries and they all match the values you would expect from humes. If that is some kind of coincidence then I am GONNA BE PISSED.

Post below.

Normally I would edit instead of double-post, but this felt bump-worthy: I found the data I was looking for!  It had to be manually traced, though; a trace logger would've saved a lot of headache on this one.

The requested data starts at offset $0540018c when looking at the ROM in a hex editor (I'm not sure how to put that in proper notation, apologies).  The space occupied is filled exactly; there's no room to add new Jobs unless someone manages to expand a DS ROM (not likely at this time), but the jobs that are already there can be manipulated pretty easily.  Note that the Job's Race byte (located elsewhere, in the $0522CAAB area) must be set to match the unit's, or the Job still won't show up on their list.

Each entry is 12 bytes long.
Code: [Select]

Byte 00: Order the job will appear in on any given unit's Job List should they qualify.
Byte 01: Actual Job ID.
Bytes 02-03: You can specify up to two unique sprites here; only units with those sprites will have the Job show up
     on their List, even if the unit otherwise belongs to the correct race.
Bytes 04-09: A-Ability mastery requirements from up to three different Jobs.
Bytes 0A-0B: Quest completion prerequisite.

Does anyone know where this is located in hex? I'm assuming it has a similar structure as ffta, and I've been looking for it for days its driving me nuts.

Does anyone know if Lennart gave permission for others to edit/update his tools? I don't really want to mess around with them without consent.

Ok I think I understand how the enemy formation data works based on the Lennart's charts. I'm gonna take a look at his ability editor because it seems like it wouldn't be that hard to adapt one of the current tools into what I'm trying to do. I probably need to write up a quick algorithm to figure out what abilities and equipment its legal(as in unlikely to crash the game or need new animations) for each enemy unit to have and then I'll organize everything by the specific battle.

Getting tired of scrolling through this excel sheet so I'm writing some SQL queries to find the information I need. Since I'm really rusty on SQL this may take a bit.

Update:Okay as a test run to make sure I know what I'm doing before trying to create a new java application I'm going to try and update lennart's job editor so that job requirements/and names can be changed in it.(figure this would save time when trying to replace/edit jobs) Problem is I can't find the data about job requirements you mentioned in the spreadsheet. Some help would be appreciated.

Hi I'm a  Java and C/C++ programmer(learning python now) who was looking to mod this game(one of my childhood favorites). The lack of tools kind of turned me off, so I figured I would try and do something about that first. I'm looking to create an enemy formation editor since that seems to be the least developed area of the toolset and changing enemy reactive and passive abilities looks like the best way to generate strategic difficulty with little effort. I don't really have experience hex editing, but I've read some tutorials and messed around with Windhex. I've looked around the forums and found lennart's spreadsheet, but I can't make sense of the enemy data stuff for quests as of now. As far as I can tell your the only person who seems like you get this so I would really appreciate it if you could give me an overview of the spreadsheet structure and an example of how you go about changing enemy abilities and equipment for a specific quest. I can probably start working from there.