Custom Classes?

[Green_Unit]

Hey guys. I have been wondering about making another FE Sacred Stones hack. I want to implement custom classes. How do I make one??

[bløød]

Are you using FEBuilder?

[Green_Unit]

yes, I am thanks for asking

[bløød]

Implementing custom classes is kind of a long process, but I guess I can teach you the basics.

First go to the class editor of FEBuilder.

Here, you will need to choose one of the ID's for your custom class. The GBA games support up to 127 classes (from ID 01 to 7F). ROM hacking has many limitations and attempting to go above that number will most likely cause other things in the ROM to break elsewhere. Therefore, you must choose an ID that is either unused or that you intend to replace in your hack. In this example, I will be using the King class (ID 73). The ID 73 in vanilla Sacred Stones is Fado's class from the prologue. You can see from the screenshot that I already replaced it with Zephiel's class from FE6. You will need to edit everything in this page for your custom class to work as intended. Most of those things are self-explanatory and are also explained further by moving your cursor on top of them. 

To assign a name and a description to your class, just click on each of them and you will be taken to the text editor:

 

Type the name of your class and then click "Write to ROM" to save it. Afterwards, do the same to the description. If the text is too large, FEBuilder will warn you. 
Back to the class editor, the "promotes to" is kinda useless because you set promotions in another editor of the FEBuilder, which I will explain later. Next, set the hover map animations by clicking that field. You will be taken to this page:

Here, click the "import image" button to import you animations (duh). FEBuilder will specify the dimentions of the file. You can find many free to use resources on FE Universe's repository. Next, click "jump to moving map anime". In the following page you can set the animations of the class for when they are moving (duh). 

Always remember to click "write to ROM" after every edit, otherwise they won't be saved.
Back to the class editor page. Next, set the class portrait for generic enemy units assigned to the class.

Again, click "import image" to set a custom portrait. Remeber to also set the "state" field to 1=Normal. Write to ROM. 
Back at the class editor. "Movement speed" should be set to 1 for heavy and armored units. All else should be set to 0. The "sort order" is the order the unit will be set when the player calls for the unit list in the game. Keep in mind that this is an hexadecimal value.

 The "skill" will only be available if you have installed the skill system patch. Here, you can set a skill that every unit using this class will have. I set the skill armor march for the King. The stats are self-explanatory. Keep in mind that the final stats any given unit will have is the sum of the class base stats and the character stats (which can be edited in the character editor). The "enemy growths" are used for generic enemies assigned to the class. 

To be continued....

[bløød]

Part 2

Let's move on to the "promotion gains". These are the additional stats points a unit will gain when they promote into this class. The "base wlvl" determines what weapons the class is able to use, as well as the wlvl points a unit will gain when they promote into the class. Never mix physical weapons with magic without using a patch. If you do it, the game will get confused and won't know if the unit has Str or Mag. 0 means the class cannot use the weapon. 1-30 means E rank. 31- 70 D rank. 71-120 C rank. 121-180 B rank. 181-250 A rank. And 251 for S rank. Do not set multiple S ranks or things will get glitchy. 

The abilities are self-explanatory and are better explained when you hover your cursor over them, so I will not go over them. 
Now, the right column. Let's skip the "animation pointer" for now. The "movement cost" determines how the class' movement will vary depending on the type of terrain. You can click on it to open the editor and assign each value yourself, but honestly, I just copy the movement type of a closely related class. For instance, my king is using the same movement cost as the general. "Rain" and "snow" cost are leftovers from FE7 and unused in FE8. Terrain AVO, DEF and RES is the bonus the class will receive when standing on defensive terrain. This is especially important for flying units, which don't receive them. The ??????? field is better left alone, but some classes like pirates, berserkers and mages have some value assigned to it, so it must have something to do with sea, mountain and desert tiles. 

Alright, now let's mess around with the animation pointer. Click and you will be taken to this page:

This is where you set the battle animations for the class. The upper part shows the class ID's and the animations "attached" to them. The lower part shows all the individual animations in the ROM. The ROM has a limit of 255 (from 01 to FF) battle animations, and you cannot go above that. Before attaching the animations to the class in the upper part, you must import the individual animations to the available slots in the lower part. In my example, the Eckesachs animation is set to the slot CC, the lance animation to the slot CD, the melee axe animation to CE, the throwable axe animation to CF, the sword animation to A6 and the item (unarmed) animation to 95. You can set animations for individual items (like I did with Eckesachs and throwable axes) or for weapons of a category (swords, axes, bows, etc.). In the GBA games, all the throwable axes must have an individual animation assigned to them, which is different from the melee axe animation. That's just how it works. After importing the individual animations, it's time to "attach" them to the class. To "attach" the animations to a class,  select the class ID in the upper part and click the "extended list" button to its right to reserve a number of slots for the animations.

 

In my example, the king needs 10 slots: 
-1 for swords
-1 for lances
-1 for melee axes
-1 for unarmed
-1 for Eckesachs
-5 for all the 5 throwable axes in my hack

Now you can edit each slot to tell the game which animation it should use. If you want to set an animation for a specific item, do as I did for Eckesachs:

1. Set the "animation ID" to CC, which you should have imported in the previous steps.
2. Set "Special" to 0=item specification
3. Now select the specific item. Egg Sacks is using the item ID E6 in my hack.

Remember that you will need to do this for every throwable axe in your hack.

To set animations for a category instead of a specific item, do the following:

 

1. Set the appropriate "animation ID"
2. Set "special" to 1=type designation
3. Set the appropriate weapon type. 
(0= Swords; 1= Lances; 2= Melee axes; 3=Bows; 4= Staves; 5=Anima; 6=Light; 7=Dark; 9=Item (Unarmed))

And I hope you've been remembering to "write to ROM". One last info here: in this page you can set the palettes for generic units using the class. You can set them for player units, NPC units, enemy units and gray units. Just click the "palette" buttom to do so. 

You can also edit the battle animations here to add and remove stuff like sound effects and frames. Click the "editor button" to do it. This is more advanced stuff though.

 

And we're done with the battle animations and the class editor page. Yay!

But that doesn't mean your custom class is ready to shine just yet.

There's still a couple of things you need to set. 

To be continued.

 

[bløød]

Part 3

And now for the final details. Your custom class is nearly done, but there are some other things that need to be done. You must select the appropriate movement sounds for that class whenever it moves on the map. Go to the "movement sounds" editor:

Select the class and an appropriate sound from the drop-down menu:

Next is the promotion branch for the class. If it is a base class, you must set its promotions. If if is a promoted class, you need to set from which class it promotes. Go to the "promotion branches" menu.

Select you custom class and the class(es) it promotes to/from. In my example, the king is a standalone class, so let's use the cavalier instead.

Ok, so now the game knows what classes promote from/to to your custom class. But it also needs to know what item will let the player do so. To set it, go to the "promotion item" editor.

Here you can quickly set the promotion items and what classes use them.

Lastly, you need to set item effectiveness against your custom class. In my example, I want the King to be considered an armored unit, so I will need to go to the weapons that are effective against armored units and include the king class. 

And with that, I think we're pretty much done. Your custom class is fully integrated into the game and ready to land some critical hits on random bandits. 

I suggest downloading my Sacred Trilogy hack and opening it with FEBuilder so you can mess around with the examples I gave in this short tutorial. Have fun.

 

[Green_Unit]

Wow, this is amazing! How did you do all this?

 

[bløød]

A lot of trial and error...