FFTA Abilities Spreadsheet

[Ethereal Embrace]

That list would certainly be helpful.  Another thing, I haven't checked myself, but what determines a move's range to be weapon and not a numerically fixed value instead?  I'm particularly interested in replicating the effect of Earth Render except that I would prefer it have a limited range of either 4 or maybe 5.

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

Anyone want to take over updating for this spreadsheet?  Because I have a lot on my hands, working on SaGa Frontier.

@Eternal248:
Insert another post before my first post in this topic, and assign that post to the person who decides to take over.  Or just assign my first post to them, so they can edit it, and reupload new versions of the speadsheet to that post.

[Naoto]

I'ma see what I can contribute, and it's basically me messing around with the bytes.  What I said before about byte 0x14 being a choose from a ability graphics list can be extended to byte 0x15 where the full hexadecimal is 0x(byte 15 digits)(byte 14 digits).  To put simply, byte 15 is 1 if the number exceeds 0xFF and 0 otherwise.  I'm pretty sure about this as it would make sense.

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

Last updated on Saturday, March 10th, 2012.
*Added link to Terrence Fergussen's Battle Mechanics Guide, at GameFAQs, as well as what to search for to reach the relevent part of the guide.
*Exposed the Workspace sheet, where all the concatenation goes on.
*Updated key with Height Factor, Ability Animation, and Ability Effects 1 through 4.
*Changed the compressed archive to a *.ZIP file, so even less technical savvy is required to use the spreadsheet.

Things to do:
*Need lists of bytes, explanations, and descriptions for Ability Effects and Ability Animations.  For Ability Effects, this means attaching a byte to Terrence Fergussen's explanations and descriptions.  For Ability Animations, this means attaching the name of an ability - or a description of the animation - to the data found in that column.

http://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/Final_Fantasy_Tactics_Advance:Abilities

[Naoto]

Messing around with the ROM a bit more, I find that byte 0x16 contains a mapping from the ability to its description string.  Again, it's like Madeen's ability description byte maps to the string "Deals Holy Damage!".

Also, since there are so many strings, I believe that byte 0x17 contains that overflow bit like for the ability graphics, as it is 0 unless the ability description byte is forced to overflow into another bit.  In this case, byte 0x17 becomes a 1.

[Naoto]

So I found out that it seems that HxD works on my laptop as well.  I think that the reason behind it might be that if I try to paste into XVI32, it pastes insert whereas in HxD, it does a paste write.  Or maybe, something to that extent, I dunno

In any case, I found that bytes 05->08 collectively have something to deal with the range.  Of course, some bits will translate to a certain targeting configuration.  I haven't tested it through to the rom yet though.  I've been basically eyeballing anything I can from TFergusson's Mechanics Guide <- Amazing work.

Also, I found that bytes 0x10 to 0x13 likely collectively determine the properties of an ability like reflectable and whatnot.  I am currently trying to figure out this part.  It's a ton of eyeballing right now

Attached is what i believe is my findings.  There's a LOT of missing information though.  Please fill in the blanks wherever possible.

[Eternal]

Thanks for the .txt! This will be helpful.

[Darthatron]

Code Select Expand

Key:
R = Reflectable
S = Stealable
M = Not Silencable
O = Offensive
I = Ignore Reaction
! = R-Ab:Return Magic
@ = R-Ab:Absorb MP
P = Is Physical

Byte #1| Byte #2| Byte #3| Byte #4
RIO----- ---!--MS -----P@- --------
Protect: 10000001 01100001 00010000 00000000
Dispel: 00000001 01100001 00010000 00000000

Holy: 00100001 11110001 00010010 00000000
Judge: 00100000 11100001 00010000 00000000

U.Blow: 00100000 10110010 00010110 00000000
Fire: 10100001 11110101 00011010 00000000

Greas.B.: 01100000 01110010 00010100 00000000
From my notes. Looks like you found most of them already, though.

[Naoto]

The silencable aspect though doesn't seem to agree with the spreadsheet though completely.  One example is alpha, alpha is apparently silencable, but I don't think it contains that not silencable bit.

[Darthatron]

Oh? But it's checked in the function. :\

[Naoto]

I know :/

I thought along the exact same line of reasoning you did...  Until I found some odd exceptions, maybe there's another flag bit to signify why this is so?  I dunno.

[Pickle Girl Fanboy]

Does anyone know how they did the same thing in FFTA2?  That could give some hints, or at least mystify you sufficiently if you find that they did the same thing there.

[Eternal]

Edea made a display spreadsheet for FFTA2 a while back, and it seemed to have a very similar format to FFTA's ability setups.

[Naoto]

There doesn't seem to be an ffta2 forum topic.  Where is this?

[Eternal]

I don't think Edea ever posted it on here. I'll ask her when I see her again.

[Naoto]

Random question that I found in the spreadsheet:  what does the ability mythril do?  Is it a throwaway ability?  It just seems so random.

[Eternal]

Mythril Combo, maybe?

[Naoto]

Huh... maybe... but that would be weird.  The supposed Mythril is placed between the Juggler skillset and the Sniper skillset I believe and it seems completely out of place (hidden ability perhaps?).  Also, on an interesting note, it does not seem any of the abilities are on this spreadsheet.  Maybe this means they undergo different treatment than the rest of the abilities?

[Naoto]

So I made a random guess at what the 0x01 bit did in the 0x11 byte, and I tested my guess to get an interesting result.  Unless I'm mistaken, that bit signifies if one can use doublecast with that ability.  Either that, or that the bit signifies that it is some form of magic as basically all of the magic abilities have this bit, but removing it seems to remove doublecast's compatibility with it.  This might allow for us to now use doublecast with ultima hehe

[Ethereal Embrace]

I remember Darth was discussing how we wanted Red Mage's doublecast to NOT affect Summoning magic.  This may be the solution.