Aleph Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 I'm some kind of LLC and have been for a while. Some of you have already donated to me to promote various research projects and some of those few have even received some form of thanks for said donations in the form of a Fire Emblem hack of their specification. Yes, this is similar to Blazer's topic. The difference is I've been doing it longer, have this as my actual job and have a more specific proposal. One of you came to me with a request for a hack as well as information about the process of procuring it and, as expected, declined to fund the labour required. Well that sucks. You didn't get what you wanted (a hack) and I didn't get what I wanted (financial security, food, healthcare, whatever other things money affords). That's a lose-lose and that's just not utilitarian. Hell, I'd accept donations in the form of things that aren't money if they're useful for a) keeping me alive or b) reverse engineering things, as per the purpose of this..."charity". The donation link isn't super hard to find (it's been in my signature about as long as I've been running this business - a couple of years). I guess I can move it to a more visible location, though. In right about the middle of this document https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/336940/Software/Hextator%27s%20Doc/README.html is this IF YOU LIKE THIS SOFTWARE Feel free to donate: (Donation link) So there's that, and here's this: The hack which was requested was to revamp the FE8 Skill Hack (this one https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/336940/Software/Hextator%27s%20Doc/Media/Games/Reverse%20Engineering/Console/NGBA/Fire%20Emblem/Game%20Doc/8%20-%20Sacred%20Stones/Skill%20Editing/folDIR.html ) by adding new skills (specifically, Sol, Wrath, Resolve and Paragon). Anyone interested in seeing that come about can just fund the research and it will be done. Feel free to contribute other ideas for what to spend these resources on. By "these resources" I of course refer to your kind donations Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agro Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 Sorry if this is a dumb question to you, but do you think it's possible to set up supports in a table of events rather than... whatever it is now? As far as I know you can only use 2 songs for supports and obviously there are things we don't quite know how to do (X happens if Support A between Alice and Bob is reached? not sure) and there are other obvious applications for it like giving items and the like. I can imagine this being a little bit of a problem when it comes to the Support Viewer, but you know, take them as they come, or something like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleph Posted October 2, 2013 Author Share Posted October 2, 2013 (edited) I actually haven't messed with events much (read: I quit hacking them before Nintenlord came along with the EA) so I'd have to get familiar with them. Perhaps you can give some (more?) examples that would make it clear what the input and output you're expecting to be possible is like. A requirements document, if you will Edited October 2, 2013 by Solais Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agro Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 (edited) do you really want me to make a whole document?! Uh, here goes... Problem: supports are limited, in GBAFE, to only being text and (currently) only two songs are able to be played (Serra's and Merlinus's themes). In games such as FE4, the equivalent of support conversations would often yield stat bonuses or even items, which is a pretty cool feature. Currently, it's not possible to do this in GBAFEs. In addition to this, in later games such as FE12, sound effects also play during text, which is pretty cool. In FE12 sound effects and music are actually handled by text commands, but if supports could be done via events it would be easy to do this and also the actual process of editing supports would be in a format that people who could make use of the hack would actually understand and be familiar with. I'd imagine it to be resulting in the creation of a Nightmare module table editor-thing where you can edit each support slot, and in each support there's either 3 simple text pointers or 3 pointers to event data (similar to the Death Quote Editor). The game would, by default, simply carry out the text if there is not pointer to event data. If there is event data, then the game would call that data instead. The event data would be something like this: org 0xD00000 EliwoodNinian: MUS2 NiniansTheme TEX1 0x500 REMA ITGC Ninian BodyRing ASMC 0x234AB // assembly code or otherwise (?) that would increase support level between involved characters MURE ENUT 0x70 ENDA This event pretty much says "to be written at 0xD00000: Play Ninian's theme, display text 0x500, return to map, give Ninian a body ring, increase their support level, return music to previous song, flag event ID 0x70 as "true", end events". This way, if a game's ending or a certain event would only play if Eliwood and Ninian reached this support level, it would be easy to make a conditional event later on. Edited October 2, 2013 by Agro Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleph Posted October 2, 2013 Author Share Posted October 2, 2013 The latter half of your post is more like the visual presentation I was looking for. Now if I only had the resources to devote time to such efforts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleph Posted October 6, 2013 Author Share Posted October 6, 2013 This is definitely a great idea for a hack. IS could have done a lot more with support conversations if they simply reused their event engine. Things aren't going too quickly. The sanest approach I've come up with is having choosing "Support" do what choosing "Visit" would do if the option were available, then having some way of knowing that the menu option selected had actually said "Support" so that the code which checks which tile you're on to determine the Visit event is overridden to run an event determined by which characters are supporting and what level of support they are at (this could be extended to allow more than 3 support events, though I'm not sure how complicated it would be to modify the rest of the support system to account for the new levels). I have many notes for doing the latter but not nearly enough for doing the former (making the Support command do what the Visit command does). Here's what I have so far http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/336940/Software/Hextator%27s%20Doc/Media/Games/Reverse%20Engineering/Console/NGBA/Fire%20Emblem/Game%20Doc/7%20-%20Blazing%20Sword/Menus/folDIR.html It was a considerable amount of work just determining this much (something like 2 hours). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendor Posted October 18, 2013 Share Posted October 18, 2013 I'd still pay for it Just not $720 :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleph Posted October 19, 2013 Author Share Posted October 19, 2013 - Might not take that long - This is (sort of) a charity, so (as I've said) it is the community's concern. Surely I'd put more effort into prospects elected by the more avid contributors (read: have, am and will), but I'd like to think it's a pool to fund research for the community as a whole. That is, any amount of currency, more or less than 720$, would be spent on "reversing and writing software", not "hacking X for person Y". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendor Posted October 19, 2013 Share Posted October 19, 2013 I've donated some to the communal cause. Maybe I should donate more if headway is made? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleph Posted October 23, 2013 Author Share Posted October 23, 2013 Some slight progress This seems familiar...oh wait. Yeah... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Red Posted October 23, 2013 Share Posted October 23, 2013 This was that weird support hack or whatever, right? Glad I'm not trying it, it sounds like a pain in the butt and I wouldn't get paid enough to do it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleph Posted October 23, 2013 Author Share Posted October 23, 2013 Actually, I think I've just about got it. Provided my plan to redirect support conversations to visit commands (and then redirect those to custom events instead of visiting) works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agro Posted October 24, 2013 Share Posted October 24, 2013 Out of curiosity, how is that text being called at the moment? It doesn't look like it's been done using Support given that there aren't any characters next to them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Red Posted October 24, 2013 Share Posted October 24, 2013 actually, given what I've read and my limited understanding of it, that seems like a somewhat legitimate worry, if part of the hack is that the "support" command must not only say "support" when it's activated, but must be triggered in a similar way to normal supports (characters next to each other, choose the character to support, THEN have an event--unlike say, visiting a village or having a seize event, where the event activates as soon as you choose the command from the command menu) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendor Posted October 24, 2013 Share Posted October 24, 2013 if that's true you might be able to use "Talk" instead of "Visit" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CT075 Posted October 24, 2013 Share Posted October 24, 2013 if my hunch is right it's just bypassing the "support" command and just directly calling the event or something Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleph Posted October 24, 2013 Author Share Posted October 24, 2013 (edited) I picked "Item" and had it do "Visit" for a tile that I wasn't on. When it's done I will be able to pick "Support", choose the character to support with and then have it run events instead of supports. If necessary I will add in functionality to actually modify support levels post-supporting. ...Can events presently edit supports to begin with ME I FAIL at's this? Edited October 24, 2013 by Insidious Silence Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Red Posted October 24, 2013 Share Posted October 24, 2013 not sure I understood but events can't be used to edit support levels unless you write your own ASM routine and call that through events and I don't think that really counts as events anymore if you do that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleph Posted October 26, 2013 Author Share Posted October 26, 2013 Well support levels are easy enough to modify. They sit at the value below the level they're ready to reach and one is added to that value once the actual support conversation ensues. Both characters share a value with each other. I'll probably just hijack the code that handles it already either way since there's other tedious stuff like analyzing the support table to find which slot each character corresponds to for each other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleph Posted November 2, 2013 Author Share Posted November 2, 2013 The research phase for the event support project is nearly complete, meaning it's about time to start writing actual implementation code. This will require some collaboration in the form of API specification and funding for yet unsupported labour. Regarding the intense delay: Aside from being incredibly deterred by vidyagames/insomnia/being noctural, I also had that week of pleurisy (which is presently ongoing) and no healthcare (fuck the usa) to do anything about it with. For reference, approximately 6-7 hours of work, ignoring (as always) work not done at full capacity, has gone into this project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendor Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 (edited) Obama Care FTW!! ;D I'd definitely be interested in seeing this realised, ie I'll be willing to chip in with other members for the cost of labour. What command are you using as a base for the new "Support" and if supports will be done through events can you force it or add conditions to it? Like "IF Event ID 0x67 was triggered then the support can happen, if it wasn't then it can't" or make it part of the opening event/ending event/ whatever. And I know it's a long shot, but what about stat boosts after the conversation like in FE4? Edited November 4, 2013 by Brendor the Brave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Red Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 Pfft I could have done this in 2.71828182846 hours. And I wouldn't even need health care Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendor Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 (edited) Then do it hotshot ;) Now that I think on it, couldn't an FE4 style stat boost be possible through a very specific assembly that fucks with the RAM? Like if you load the value of the stat you want and and add what you want to the value then do some TEX6 and SOUN codes for aesthetics to show the boost given? (eg. Have a TEX6 say something like "Eliwood's strength increased by 2!"?) Edited November 4, 2013 by Brendor the Brave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aleph Posted November 4, 2013 Author Share Posted November 4, 2013 As far as I can tell anything you can do with a Visit event be able to be done with a Support event, since I'm hijacking the Visit code. I imagine it will be a rather huge improvement to hacking FE7 and make that many more people give up on the much better FE8 (although I could port it if it were a priority). Assuming anyone still bothers hacking FE games instead of using an engine these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brendor Posted November 4, 2013 Share Posted November 4, 2013 maybe more people would try FE8 if it had more skills :D What do you expect labour for this to cost? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.