Changing Classes

[Willie]

Hey, so quick question. How do you change unit's classes in fe7? I've tried, but it didn't work. I'm using Nightmare 2 on mac.

[SquareRootOfPi]

Classes are set during events, you want to change what their class is the first time the game spawns them. This requires knowing which chapter the unit first appears in. Once you know that, you can disassemble their chapter events from the game and find their data to edit. Alternatively, there are some Nightmare modules that handle that (Chapter Unit Editors), although these only work with the events from the base game. If you use the Nightmare route, note that a unit can appear multiple times in the module (but only one is actually used for the spawning) so you'll want to change all their references to guarantee it goes through.

[Kuru]

SquareRootOfPi answered most of what you need to know. Just open your rom in Nightmare. Load up the FE7 modules and use the Chapter Unit module. There you can change the class and I think even items and other stuff. Then you will have to load the Character Class module and do some editing there as well. I hope this helps you some. That's what I do when I change classes, anyway.

[Willie]

SquareRootOfPi answered most of what you need to know. Just open your rom in Nightmare. Load up the FE7 modules and use the Chapter Unit module. There you can change the class and I think even items and other stuff. Then you will have to load the Character Class module and do some editing there as well. I hope this helps you some. That's what I do when I change classes, anyway.

Classes are set during events, you want to change what their class is the first time the game spawns them. This requires knowing which chapter the unit first appears in. Once you know that, you can disassemble their chapter events from the game and find their data to edit. Alternatively, there are some Nightmare modules that handle that (Chapter Unit Editors), although these only work with the events from the base game. If you use the Nightmare route, note that a unit can appear multiple times in the module (but only one is actually used for the spawning) so you'll want to change all their references to guarantee it goes through.

Thanks, I did it and it worked. :) But I got a new computer and went over to change the palettes and APE doesn't open. Are there any alternatives? (I don't want to use a hex editor)

EDIT: Also, I've tried redownloading APE.

Edited February 1, 2015 by Willie11111

[Kuru]

The way I do it is quite easy. I learned from watching a guy do it in a video on Youtube. I can't find the video or else I would have posted it for you. But anyway, I will describe to you what I do. You do need a Hex editor, though, but the process is quite simple. Here are all the steps I take when editing color palettes.

Changing Color Palettes using HxD

1. Open rom in GBA and go into battle with the character whose palette you wanna edit. The battle graphics must be on.

2. Pause it when the battle screen appears (I use control+P to pause)

3. After you've paused the game, go to Tools and Palette Viewer.

4. Next, a screen with a lot of squared colors will appear. The palettes are in there...

5. The palette of your character is the 10th line down on your right section, enemy is 8th. Once you identify it, now it is time to write all those numbers backwards. Underneath the left section of colors you will see R G B and VALUE and the numbers that you need will be shown to you in VALUE.

6. Start from the left. the light green square which will usually be 53 55. (However, for every color you have to do it backwards, so it's 55 53. Do this for every color in the palette, but put 00 after every four colors. In order to get your code, you will have to click on every color in the palette code and jot the value down.

7. If you do it correctly, you will have something like this after you've written down all the code: 55 53 FF 7F A7 71 E5 7E 00 18 3A 1E 4B B0 2D 7B 53 00 73 36 19 4B AF 6B E9 4E 00 28 36 85 29 C8 10 A5 14 (This is a wyvern rider's palette, btw.)

8. Now that you have your code, save it somewhere (I use notepad to keep the codes) so that you have the original always handy. You will need it. Copy it and paste it so that you can alter one and have the original in case you do something wrong.

9. Ok, so before you do anything else, take a look at the code in the paused screen and identify the colors you wanna edit. Say you want to change the hair color. Look at the code and the character and you'll find the colors easily, as well as the armor, etc. It's not hard. Those are the numbers you will change with your own. So change the colors with what you want. That means you will have an edited code with the color value you are replacing being different. Also, never change the 00 you input after every 4 colors or you'll mess it up.

10. Once you have your edited code, it is time to insert it. So open up your rom in your hex editor. I use HxD

11. You now have to replace the original code with the new one, so you need both codes. Go to Search and then Replace. A small box appears with some drop-down menus. In the DataType change it to Hex-Values. Put the original palette code at the top (Search For), and the one with the new colors in the next line (Replace With).

12. Hit Replace All and save your rom. And that's basically it.

This method is very simple. The toughest part would be jotting the palette code down, but that takes me but a minute. XD If you still have questions just ask away.

Edit..Lemme get you some screens to make it simpler.

Here are the screens:

This is what you'll see when you go into Palette viewer

This shows you Seth's palette and where you will be seeing the values. You see all those little squares in Seth's Palette? That's his palette code. You will need to jot all those numbers and letters down backwards. Like I said, 53 55 becomes 55 53, and so on for the rest of the code. Don't forget to add 00 after every four color values.

This is Seth's Original palette code, and the second one is an edited copy.

This is the menu where you go in your HxD: Search and then Replace.

This is the small box that appears after you choose Replace. Note that I already have changed DataType with Hex-Values and have also pasted both codes in the bars. Top one for original code, second line is for the edited one.

Once you hit Replace All HxD will tell you that it replaced the line, or at times it will tell you that it replaced several of them. Hit save after you hit ok.

Success! Seth's shield has been recolored.

Any other questions?

Edited February 2, 2015 by Terminator

[Klokinator]

Why would I use that ridiculous insane long tedious method when BSPalette + FErecolor takes 1/5th the time and amounts to choosing colors, pasting in the rom, and playtesting?

[Kuru]

Why would I use that ridiculous insane long tedious method when BSPalette + FErecolor takes 1/5th the time and amounts to choosing colors, pasting in the rom, and playtesting?

This is the only method I know how to use. I haven't done anything else. So, do you have a link to where I can study this method? If it really is much simpler, I sure wanna learn how to do it. :)