Final Fantasy Hacktics

Thanks LastingDawn, hope people get some use out of it!

Posted a hack that lets berserk units use abilities in a specifiable skillset if they are weapon-range flagged. Go Go Deathblow!

Well, dance and song abilities are super-hardcoded. They all use the same formula, and that formula calls this routine:

http://ffhacktics.com/wiki/Song_abilities

and the one right next to it for dance abilities. That routine is deciding what happens based on the ability slot I believe. So if you're using the original formula, that's why the effects of the ability is changing.

Try using a different formula that can inflict status. If that doesn't work, you'll probably have to make an ASM hack (which would be pretty simple i think), or use different ability slots.

Posted Alternate Permadeath hack I was talking about awhile ago.

I hate to be disheartening, but the chances are slim. Idk if it's something Xifanie would want to look into, but the hack sounds complicated to do... I'm not sure if anybody has the time to look into it. The most you can do is post in the ASM proposals, or ASM request threads (which I think you already posted in the ASM requests. I'd plan to work around it now, sorry >_>

I'm not sure anybody knows tbh...

Sorry I meant to respond to this in the other thread. You do need an ASM hack, all ability procs are only on the unit that was hit to the best of my knowledge.

Well... hex numbers can represent a whole crapload of things. It could be assembly code. It could be visual graphics. It could be sound effect information. It could be music. It could be straight up data. So honestly, who knows what it could be.

different files on the ISO are loaded into different places in RAM. So even though it may be 00's right now, the game may load some data in their later, erasing your hack.

The only reason what we call free space is safe, is because we know that it was just filled with japanese characters that were never used in the US version, and nothing is ever loaded there.

you have some problems with your hack. The location you're jumping to in the weapon formula thing is 0x951c0... that's not in free space. Free space starts at like 0xE92ac and goes to somewhere around 0xf7000. So your hack should be jumping in there somewhere. Other places that have 00's may (and probably are) used by the game for dynamically loaded stuff.

Also, you're jumping back to 0x185bf4. Which is where you jumped from. which means you will endlessly jump back and forth and effectively freeze the game. you gotta jump back to 2 locations after the original jump - 0x185bfc

I did run into an exception with TacText while trying to patch a an iso with a file edited with the FFTText Editor >_>

I gotta try editing it again from a fresh base and see if I can find out what's causing it. Maybe a bad character like an ! or something?

but that aside, this thing is nothing short of friggin awesome

Nice job in helping yourself learn ASM. I hope the resources we provided here helped alot. If you have any questions you can always ask. We enjoy helping people who take the time to read and learn as much as they could. 

I just popped it in real quick, it runs really smooth! I'm interested in this with it being written in C#...

my FPS ran around 60 or so. I did the AI test, and I think when it cycled back to my original character, it hung up and I got a "that laggy? 1" message a couple times in the console.

was this written using XNA? I think it was Eldiran that was saying C# was kind of inefficient and that XNA was getting phased out or something. C# is my best bet for writing my own game or something of the sort though, i love the language. What do you think?

just out of curiousity, who's that dude insaeno? they had some good analogies.

1. OK so... instructions (like the ones that appear in what Xifanie posted) are encoded into Hex numbers. so something like

addiu r2, r3, 0x0010

gets encoded into

10006224

the game reads those numbers and reacts accordingly, while humans generally like to see the other format.  Except SecondAdvent cause he's a RobotASMGuruGenius. Patch xmls for use in FFTOrgASM generally use the hex numbers. Glain wrote a program called MassHexASM which converts to and from either format. It can be found here: http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=7130.0

2. Instructions unfortunately cannot be padded out. The instructions are stored in memory and some instructions jump to specific addresses in memory. If everything gets moved down then all the jumps are off. However, there are ways of fixing load delays in a somewhat convenient way. Basically you can jump to free space, pad whatever you want or write whatever code you want, then jump back to the original routine, all of which does not affect the overall length of the original routine.

3. If I'm correct, I believe that when you load a value, you can only load from addresses which have a multiple of 4 for some emulators. so

lw r2, 0x0004 (r2)

would work while

lw r2, 0x0006 (r2)

would not. Keep in mind that it's a hexadecimal number system so the immediate would have to end in 0x0000, 0x0004, 0x0008, or 0x000C.

If you haven't already, I'd suggest looking at the tutorials that various users have posted on the forums. They all cover different stuff and the more collective knowledge you have, the more things start to make sense.http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=9204.0

this may also be useful: http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=9608.0

Different emulators react differently to various "illegal procedures" in asm code. For example, when you load a value to a register, it usually doesn't appear there until 2 commands later for some emulators. If you tried to use the value 1 command after the load, it wouldnt be there yet and could cause problems. So if the asm hacks you used don't follow the safest procedures of how to code, they may fail on some emulators this way.

So really the only way to fix it is scan the asm hacks and see if you can find some of those illegal series of commands. Unfortunately people started writing hacks before we knew about those issues :/

Okay, been a long time. I've been playing with the patcher source code over the past year or so and added some stuff. I'm hoping there aren't too many issues and please let me know if there are, and I will fix them up if possible. I don't have an extensive changelog but here's the general rundown:

FFTOrgASM
-The program now loads all files into a listbox on the left hand side. There's also an "All" option to view a master list of all patches in all files. When the patch button is clicked, it will patch whatever patches are selected in the right hand side listbox. This means if you select patches in "All" and then switch to a specific file and patch from there, only the patches from that file will be applied.
-The program now reports any file that did not load correctly because of formatting errors. It also tells you generally where the error is, but in a dumb way unfortunately.
-The program now patches to savestates. It won't patch to any file that's not loaded into the RAM of the savestate already though. You have to patch iso for that.
-The conflict checker is built in just for convenience.
-I've tried to compile all the ASM's i could into the default hacks, so there should be some more in there along with fixed versions.

FFTPatcher
-Now Patches to SaveState same as FFTorgASM
-Item Effects are now editable.. I can't remember if they were or not in the last version.

ShiShiSpriteEditor
-MON, RUKA, and both of Altima's forms animations are viewable.
-WEP frames and animations are viewable... but I'm pretty sure they don't load correctly.

FFTacText
-I think I messed with this a little bit looking for the .dte error but didn't get anywhere. I recommend using the last known working version which I think is the one included in .457?

I think that's all. May not be perfect or have bugs but I hope it helps. I didn't want it to continue sitting on my hard drive out of reach of people who could use it. Let me know if you encounter bugs and I'll try to list them and fix them.

Edits: Seems like Jumza is having trouble opening them. I should mention that you need to update your .net framework to 4.5 for the new FFTorgASM.

What game did you code in C# Eldiran? I'd like to learn more about what goes into it as I've been doing a lot of C# stuff the past couple years

Yep, however it's not just simple hex edits like patcher does. You have to code what the reaction actually does. The code is here: http://ffhacktics.com/wiki/BATTLE.BIN and formulas are here http://ffhacktics.com/wiki/Formulas

small modifications are much easier to do than big changes, and there are quite a few R/S/M modificaitons already available. More will be available once JoT5 chapter 2 is released too

I think the jp lines are these:

82006324
82004224

0x82 = 130 decimal.. so that's my guess. I'll make it a variable when I put it in patcher so it's adjustable

Oh my gosh congrats! And thanks for posting. I'm gonna add this to the default hacks in the next FFTPatcher to be released soon. Glad I could help

if you're looking to change the effects (as in the effect animation and not what the ability actually does), you can do this via FFTPatcher in the abilities tab. There should be an Effect drop-down box and you can choose which one you want. I think?

what happens here... if i'm reading correctly... is this. The game displays damage separately for "arrow hitting unit" and "effect hitting unit". So when you use a weapon-range ability with an effect, the game displays damage/status once for the arrow, and then once for the effect. This is what makes thedouble popup. I tried fixing it awhile ago but caused some nasty bugs in the process. Just gonna have to work around it.

Also... I think... when you use a weapon-range ability with CT.. and then move it cancels your charge. I could be wrong. I also think I made a hack for JoT5 that causes move to be greyed out if you use such a charge ability that way. I'll look for it later.

Charge abilities also have hardcoding for their effect. Idk how to replicate it with a normal ability.