PSP Mod

[Tersius]

I've got some design done on a new FFT mod.  My plan is to replace most of the classes with new ones.  My goal is to make the game significantly more difficult.  I've chosen the PSP version because the classes I am designing should be pretty interesting in the melee and rendezvous modes.

I think I can figure out most of it, but I've hit a few snags and need a little bit of help.  I suspect that most of what I need help with is going to require some direct hex editing on my part.  The reason I need help is I'm not quite sure what all of the appropriate addresses and values are, and a fair number of the files appear to be compressed and/or encrypted.

Things I need help with specifically:

1)  Changing the job names.  Apparently no one has had any real success with this.  I've been able to apply changes that are visible in the formation menu only.  I "cheated" and used FFTactext to do this.  Does anyone know how to decompress the files so I can work on them manually?  Also, why in the blazes are there so many different references to the class names?  I modified about a half a dozen of them, and I think I say about a half a dozen other references when I was digging around.

2)  Allowing access to the end-game maps and tutorial maps in melee mode.  This may require some work on the save files directly, but whatever works.

Also, is anyone interested in working on this mod with me?  I was planning on doing most of the "grunt work" myself  (I've had some design input from friends and family in regards to the class creation), and I was planning on doing as little work on sprites as possible.  However, from what I've seen on this site, I'm starting to come up with a few interesting ideas for sprites, but I don't have a any experience on working with sprites.  If anyone shows an interest in this, I'll take the time to talk about some of the ideas I have.  If not, I'll keep this as my own pet project.

[rayadolphus]

Sounds like fun. I'm sort of new to the whole hacking thing, but I'd be glad to help.

[Tersius]

Wow!  Someone responded to this post.  For those regulars, yes I still read the forums, I've just been too busy to post (I'm moving next week so I've been packing things up).

@ Rayadolphus:  I've got an excel sheet that lists the classes, abilities, etc. Would you like for me to post it?  I am replacing all of the classes in the game.   I'm mostly done, with it, but I think I'm going back to the drawing board with four of the classes I've designed.  The job classes are largely inspired by D&D, World of Warcraft, and a few other random sources.  My goal was to try to introduce some interesting new elements to the game while using the mechanics that are already in game.  For instance, the warrior class will be primarily a defensive class with abilities that encourage them to use counter attack as their primary damage dealing source.  A couple of their "poster skills" will be "duel" - inflicts don't move on self and all adjacent enemies, "defend" - a defend ability that heals 5% life and doesn't have to be put in the support slot, and "taunt" - which inflicts berserk on an enemy.

[CidIII]

All patches are welcome!

And, there is no patch yet that takes advantage of the PSP's awesomeness!

[SentinalBlade]

An excellent endeavor you've chosen... you should take a look at the Symbols of Rage forum section. i am doing what you are, but im going to be changing the storyline.

@A few snags

Text in the psp version is not always held in places it looks like it is. world.bin for example...well there isnt even one i believe, and if there is, no text is read from it, and straight from melonhead's mouth... "Some text locations remain unkown for the psp, and even for the psx" Best thing you can do is change them in battle, but its hard for psp users to do JUST that, you need to know what the move is while your learning it, and it gets annoying look at a text file on the compy telling you what each ability is and does...

That is impossible, more or less.
I have not added your maps, per say, but i have added a few of the unused maps. i should say TRIED...the result was the game not booting up and my psp making a noise i was afraid it would blow up with. I quickly pulled out my battery and let it cool before deleting the iso from my stick, and my PC. The problem here being that the menus are hardcoded. what i did was ASM, and it was probably done poorly. your welcome to try it, but until we figure out where the text that is called during the menu operations is held, chances are we wont be adding any maps like that anytime soon.

My suggestion to you is to make it a PSX version first. where all the text and things can be edited thouroly, and then when the psp text locations are discovered, then you can convert the patch to psp. Melonhead released a very early beta of a function that does that for me.... Given his permission to release it, i will. But not otherwise. It was back on the exact day the newest patcher was released, so its got nothing new in it save for the convert feature.It does not convert psp to psx.