FE7 Stats and Promotions

[The Wandering Mercenary]

Hi there everyone. I'm pretty new to hacking but I have a few questions about hacking FE7.

Is it possible to make all units have a strength stat and a magic stat like in FE9 and FE10? I have a character that will use knives and when she promotes she will be able to use magic. Which also brings me to ask, is it possible to add knives as a weapon in the game as well?

Another thing I was wondering about was branched promotions in FE7. They are already programmed in FE8, but could it be done in FE7? And what about third tier promotions like in FE10?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[deranger]

Everything is possible. However all the things you're asking are pretty difficult to do.

One of the beast hackers made a patch to split magic and swords, but I think it had some problems attached to it. Damn memory loss. One way would be to make her have swords, and then gain a magical sword locked to her endgame (it's the best a novice hacker can do)

Adding more weapon types has been attempted, but never successfully as far as I know. There are, again, ways to mimick knives, say making them a type of sword locked to a certain class, make them give no weapon EXP, and make all knife users have an E in swords, while all "regular" swords require level D or up. However, they would still be affected by the weapon triangle.

Split promotions have not been done as far as I'm aware. And I'm not sure about third tiers either.

I would start off with making a hack with the features available to you, learn to event hack and write a good story. You can always add crazy shit later if you get really good at hacking.

[Jubby]

Xeld made a patch that works fine to split Mag and Str. It requires no statsheet modification cause it shows Mag and Magic weapon levels when a weapon using the Mag stat is equipped, and Str and Melee weapon level icons when an item using Str is equipped.

I think Deranger is referring to Nintenlord's patch, which shows both all the time. I don't know what the exact problems are with it, but you could try it out, it's located in the Notes section of his thread.

You could just classify the knife as a bow with no Weapon level, thus making it unaffected by the weapon triange and locked to that character. If you want to have different weapon level knives, though, you're pretty much fucked without ASM.

Branched promotions would be a B-aaaaaaaaatch of cookies. No, seriously that would be pretty tough, too.

3rd tier promotions are possible if you make all the animations so that their palettes are compatible with their 2nd tier counterparts. i.e. If, say, Erk were to have an archsage promotion after sage, his sage palette would have to be compatible with both the archsage animation and the sage one. This is because while you can make as many promotions as you want (You could do 17th tier if you wanted, redundant as it is) without ASM your character only gets 2 palettes, decided by whether the class is specified as promoted or not.

That's REALLY wordy but you seem well-spoken so hopefully you get it. If not, you could PM me and I'll go over what I meant (I've actually thought about and looked for ways to implement all this stuff except for the branched promotions, so I can give you my brainstorms if you're interested.

[The Wandering Mercenary]

I think Deranger is referring to Nintenlord's patch, which shows both all the time. I don't know what the exact problems are with it, but you could try it out, it's located in the Notes section of his thread.

Hmm, I shall check that out sometime today or tomorrow. Not sure completely how to make a patch work, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.

You could just classify the knife as a bow with no Weapon level, thus making it unaffected by the weapon triange and locked to that character. If you want to have different weapon level knives, though, you're pretty much fucked without ASM.

Pardon my lack of knowledge but what exactly is ASM and how would I go about "using" it or "fixing" it to do what I would like it to do? But let me guess, that is something for expert hackers and not for an amateur like me...

That's REALLY wordy but you seem well-spoken so hopefully you get it. If not, you could PM me and I'll go over what I meant (I've actually thought about and looked for ways to implement all this stuff except for the branched promotions, so I can give you my brainstorms if you're interested.

No worries, I understood what you wrote just fine! And I would be very interested to hear what ideas you have. They might help me understand hacking FE better.

I would start off with making a hack with the features available to you, learn to event hack and write a good story. You can always add crazy shit later if you get really good at hacking.

I honestly agree with you, but it frustrates me that our hacks are limited to the technology at hand. I never thought about hacking FE until recently, after the FE paper and pencil game I made took too long to actually play (what with calculating all the hits and crits, nothing hard, but something that can be time consuming, not to mention setting up the map with units and if you blew on the paper units would be flying everywhere...), but with the paper and pencil style game I could implement any crazy type of gismo I wanted to, which was nice. I suppose I'll have to make a new FE storyline and all but that shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks for the input deranger, Jubby!

[CT075]

Hmm, I shall check that out sometime today or tomorrow. Not sure completely how to make a patch work, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Normally I'd have some snide comment about how many seconds it takes to to look at the screen and see this:

but I'm feeling nice today so instead I'll do it for you.

Pardon my lack of knowledge but what exactly is ASM and how would I go about "using" it or "fixing" it to do what I would like it to do? But let me guess, that is something for expert hackers and not for an amateur like me...

ASM stands for assembly hacking, which means taking the bytecode in the game itself, transforming it into commands like this:

foo:
   push    {A, B, C, D}

   // Use A-D
   mov     A, #1        
   mov     B, #2        
   mov     C, #3        
   call    bar
   mov     D, global_var0

   // global_var1 = A+B+C+D
   add     A, B
   add     A, C
   add     A, D
   mov     global_var1, A
   pop     {A-D}
   return
bar:
   push    {A-C}

   // A=2; B=5; C= A+B;
   mov     A, #2
   mov     B, #5
   mov     C, A
   add     C, B

   // global_var0= A+B+C (is 2*C)
   add     C, C
   mov     global_var, C
   pop     {A-C}
   return

except ten times more complex, and rewriting it so the game does what you want it to.

Or, in other words, you're essentially rewriting the game engine to your specifications.

I honestly agree with you, but it frustrates me that our hacks are limited to the technology at hand. I never thought about hacking FE until recently, after the FE paper and pencil game I made took too long to actually play (what with calculating all the hits and crits, nothing hard, but something that can be time consuming, not to mention setting up the map with units and if you blew on the paper units would be flying everywhere...), but with the paper and pencil style game I could implement any crazy type of gismo I wanted to, which was nice. I suppose I'll have to make a new FE storyline and all but that shouldn't be a problem.

It's not really a 'technology' problem per se, just that we're trying to do things with the engine that the engine was clearly never intended to do; it's almost like the game was a finished product that was not supposed to be messed with! (*rimshot*)

On the other hand, you could always try FEXP, an FE-based RPG Maker XP engine written entirely in Ruby, although at the moment it's largely incomplete. Or you could always write your own engine in a language like python or java or C or what have you; that way you have no system limitations beyond what your own mind can come up with.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Camtech

[The Wandering Mercenary]

Normally I'd have some snide comment about how many seconds it takes to to look at the screen and see this:

but I'm feeling nice today so instead I'll do it for you.

It is not so much that I can not search it up myself, but more that I would probably mess it up XD. I'm not so good at technology sometimes but I manage somehow...But thanks anyway.

And I see what you mean by complex! Using ASM probably is not going to be my method of doing things, but I'll look up tutorials just because anyway.

It's not really a 'technology' problem per se, just that we're trying to do things with the engine that the engine was clearly never intended to do; it's almost like the game was a finished product that was not supposed to be messed with! (*rimshot*)

Sounds about right.

Or you could always write your own engine in a language like python or java or C or what have you; that way you have no system limitations beyond what your own mind can come up with.

Has anyone attempted this successfully? I ask because I myself have with java and I have made a few programs myself, but it would seem complex making AI and having graphics (since I use command prompt, I haven't done any Java graphics yet, but I know it can be done). I've also googled it before. There is this one site that looked promising: http://code.google.com/p/firemblem/ but I'll need more Java knowledge and practice before I believe I'll be able to apply it correctly without anxiety.

And thanks for the input. I may not be the brightest out there but we all strive for some sort of achievement, do we not?

[deranger]

Has anyone attempted this successfully? I ask because I myself have with java and I have made a few programs myself, but it would seem complex making AI and having graphics (since I use command prompt, I haven't done any Java graphics yet, but I know it can be done).

http://www.bwdyeti.com/fe7x/

bwdyeti wrote FEXP and is currently writing FE7x in XNA. So he's actually got his own engine going, and isn't using ROMs.

There's a topic for FE7x in ROM hacking too.

[CT075]

Has anyone attempted this successfully? I ask because I myself have with java and I have made a few programs myself, but it would seem complex making AI and having graphics (since I use command prompt, I haven't done any Java graphics yet, but I know it can be done). I've also googled it before. There is this one site that looked promising: http://code.google.com/p/firemblem/ but I'll need more Java knowledge and practice before I believe I'll be able to apply it correctly without anxiety.

I did link you to FEXP, which is (currently) the most successful attempt out there; I also have some old source files (also in java!) from my own attempt at this (abandoned largely because of other issues but I don't feel like picking it up again for a while). Throw me a PM if you want them.

Edited December 30, 2011 by Camtech

[Jubby]

Lawl if you can do ASM, you're pretty much set, but since I'm not fucking awesome like Cam trained in the art of ASM, I've kinda gotta think within the system to see what it allows me to do, ways to bend the rules. Like this kinda thinking: http://femodding.wikia.com/wiki/Weapon_Lock_Notes It's tricky :P

[CT075]

lol, I'm not that good I swear. All I know about ASM is that 'mov r0,A' makes the variable 'A' equal whatever is currently at the top of the memory stack (which is another term that I have no fucking clue about).

But you make a good point in that, within said limits, your creativity is the next barrier. With enough creativity, you can achieve a lot of things you wouldn't think possible otherwise (Arch's achievement system is a good example).

I know that I come across as a smart-ass know-it-all (don't mind me, just your [un?]friendly neighborhood asshole~), but 65% of what I know comes from reading tutorials and sitting in on discussions with Arch/Nintenlord/Hextator/etc. absorbing stuff by osmosis; 5% comes from understanding C (converting ASM to C makes things slightly less 'don't panic!' worthy with emphasis on 'slightly') and the other 30% comes from experimenting. If something you want to do seems possible with the engine but is reliant on a certain feature/implementation that you're not sure works a certain way, try it! I am not a super-genius like Hex or Zahlman (you should see me actually trying to write events instead of spouting about them - I have to look almost everything up at least once); these tutorials and tools are designed to make them as understandable as possible.

you kids and your tools dun know what it is to work! back in my day, we had to insert events with a hex editor

[Jubby]

If I had to insert events with a hex editor, it would be another reskin hack from me. And I'm the same way, never remember those damn event codes (Even the order for unit's attributes when LOU1-ing them) (Other than reading tutorials) listening is the best way to learn except in school because a good 60% of teachers are at least half-retarded. And I don't even know why there's a variable, so knowing how to make it equal something is probably a good 14 steps ahead of me. I just know the r's are important :P There are a lot of crossed out lines, I get too carried away.