How can I add extra abilities to a race? I'm using the FFTA All in One editor but I don't really see a way to select skills for the race/job to have. I only see that I can change the start and end points. Note: I don't want to create new abilities, just add them to races,including monsters.
You could move the abilities and jobs around so that overlapping the starting point of one race and the ending point of the next achieves the desired result.
But frankly the easiest way to increase the size of a race's ability list without removing anything will be to do it manually in a hex editor, unless I'm forgetting something about AIO right now.
How would I go about the hex editing route?
Also, In the job editor I saw many empty jobs entries with completely blank stats. Does this mean I could use this space for new jobs? Or are they dummy entries used by the game somewhere.
If you're not already at the hex editing level, just be warned that hex editors are not plug-and-play tools like AIO. I don't think anyone has ever done the exact thing that you're trying to do, so you'll have to understand hexadecimal, repointing, and get used to using your selected hex editor's search features if you're intent on going further into this. Finding unexplored pieces of a game that you specifically want can take a long, long time even if you're familiar with hex. (ASM hackers can use some sort of number magic to go much, much faster if you're willing to learn assembly.)
You'll find a large chunk of the known ROM addresses here:
http://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/Final_Fantasy_Tactics_Advance
I don't remember off the top of my head how the ROM stores the ability lists by race, but it should be relatively easy to find them by searching for the ID values and then working backwards to the pointers. You would then need to repoint to a chunk of empty space in the ROM and write your own ability lists with the changes you want. (If it's organized by pointers, might've been ranges.) I never had any reason to add more abilities personally, since 10+ abilities per job seemed perfectly reasonable to me.
Adding more jobs is touchier. First off, most of those "blank" entries are actually for NPC classes that aren't generally used in battle iirc. Even if you did replace some things, you'd have to get the after battle dialogue working. No one has ever looked into and successfully found the way post-mission messages are called afaik. That's also why you can't just change one of the recruited characters to Llednar randomly and expect it to work. :/
Cool. Thanks for the information. I'm not sure how far I'll get with it as the desire to mess with the abilities isn't all that great. It's mostly for monsters that I want to do it actually as they generally consist of 1 or 2 actions then a support/reaction.]
The extra job thing was also for monsters as I noticed that everything has 3 sprite palettes and in the previous tactics game each monster had 3 variations. I think only drakes and flans have more than 2 variations in this game.
Why would the post mission text be a problem? I'm assuming you mean it would cause a problem in the game If one of the new jobs were dispatched to a mission and the pass/fail dialogue came up for character?
Also, I feel like I've seen it somewhere around here before but cannot find it. How can I disable mp regeneration? I know it's possible since the Grim Grimoire hack uses it.
I remembered asking Darth about how his AIO's MP regen feature worked. Looked through my notes, turns out I can actually give you a solid answer for that one. :D
If you want to set it to zero (effectively disabled) it only takes a few seconds. Just go to 0x93096 in a hex editor and change those four bytes (which are originally A0 23 DB 02) to 00 23 1B 04.
Awesome. That was easy to do. Thanks!