jgrand Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 So I'm trying to just use Nightmare exclusively in my RNGless hack since I'm decent with the "creative" side of game design but I'm so slow when it comes to the "technical" side of things, (It took me three hours to implement that whole "fixed poison damage" ASM thing. My brain doesn't seem to manage such things very well, especially when it's my first attempt at it; the tutorials I looked up turned out to be a mindfuck, mostly) Nightmare's proven pretty simple and forgiving to work with, so I was planning on just using that all the way through my RNGless rebalancing hack, but I've hit a few snags here and there. (And yes, I checked FE Universe like a good little hacker. I found nothing relating to my questions.) I'm trying to use the Chapter Unit Editor module to edit unit positions and inventory (obviously) but when I got to chapter 12 of Eliwood's Story, I couldn't edit any of the allied slots besides Hector and Oswin. So, any changes I made to the slots 0x00, 0x01 through 0x05 of the Chapter 12 Unit Editor (Eliwood, Marcus, Rebecca, Lowen, Dorcas, Batre) AREN'T SAVED. Even changing the Character Reference Number doesn't do anything for those specific slots (like changing Rebecca to Pent. Just as a test to see if any changes are saved. This kind of thing works on any chapter of Lyn's story without a preparation screen). It didn't really matter in chapter 12, since I was able to edit all those allied units in Chapter 11E. But now, in Chapter 13, I can't edit Matthew's or Serra's inventory. Also, there are two instances of Matthew in Chapter 13, 0x08 and 0x13. Changes to both aren't saved either. I haven't tested it yet, but I bet I won't be able edit Kent, Sain, Lyn or Wil's inventory either , when I get to them in Eliwood's Story (I should be able to, even though they're returning characters; I was able to edit Dorcas's inventory in Chapter 11E). So my questions are: Why can't I edit those certain slots on certain chapters? Are those slots modified by hardcoded events that override the stuff I change in Nightmare or something? It seems so arbitrary and I'd like an understanding of why it's happening, especially if I can't edit certain enemy slots in later chapters for no reason, too. I hope this all makes sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CT075 Posted July 9, 2015 Share Posted July 9, 2015 i'm pretty sure matthew and serra are loaded in chapter 12 changes you make beyond the chapter in which they are first loaded are ignored Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgrand Posted July 10, 2015 Author Share Posted July 10, 2015 i'm pretty sure matthew and serra are loaded in chapter 12 Oh, you're right. They pop in with Hector and Oswin in a cutscene and then leave again until the start of Chapter 13... I didn't notice that as their first loading point in Eliwood's Story. I was able to change their inventory in Chapter 12 and that worked. changes you make beyond the chapter in which they are first loaded are ignored Yeah, I know; you can't change an allied unit's level or inventory when you've already set it in a previous chapter (and that's good), but you can change certain things like the unit's map coordinates. And I think I put too much emphasis on the inventory part in my first post that I didn't really illustrate the main problem. So using Chapter 3 as an example, the values in "slot" 0x03 of the Chapter 3 Unit Editor that I can't change are marked with red X's (and I can't change them because Sain was first loaded in Chapter 2, which is fine, I was able to change all that earlier). The stuff that I can still change are marked with green checkmarks. Screenshot So I can change the Character Reference Number to make Athos or whoever I want appear where Sain normally is in Chapter 3 (plus I could change his level and inventory, since it's the first time Athos was loaded) and change his map coordinates to be right next to the boss or off in another corner. Of course, I don't need to change allied unit's into anyone else in my hack, but changing the starting positions of allied units is one of the few tools I have to modify chapters with Nightmare. But when I got to Chapter 12, the game wouldn't register any changes to the Character Reference Number and I thought it wasn't registering any changes to the unit's map coordinates, since I tested every ally's Character Reference Number in Chapter 12 and 13, none of them were changing, then I tested Eliwood's and Marcus's map coordinates in Chapter 12, and they didn't move, and I assumed no one else would move either (got lazy). Upon later testing, I found out that 0x00 and 0x01 (Eliwood and Marcus) were the only slots that wouldn't let me change the map coordinates (so I felt pretty damn stupid). In Chapter 13, The only unit who I couldn't move was 0x06 (Hector). So the questions I had still stand, they just weren't nearly as bad as I thought they were (I thought I couldn't change any allied unit's map coordinates. Or certain unit's inventory since I didn't notice Matt and Serra were loaded in for a deep and emotionally compelling two seconds in chapter 12... There are still arbitrary constraints that would prevent me from moving the entire party around in an attempt to make better use of the map. Do you think I should just bite the bullet and learn how to use the Event Assembler and try to recreate the chapters and cutscenes with that? Nightmare seems to grant less and less control the further I get in the game. I'm kinda sorta pretty maybe sure that it's the chapter data that's overriding certain parts of Nightmare's changes, and the Event Assembler is what controls all that. I haven't yet tested the later chapters to see if there are any random units whose map coordinates can't be changed, but I'll try when I get more free time. Sidenote: Nightmare is also becoming kind of unwieldy with its structure now since it's accounting for Hector's Story. Chapter 13 has roughly 14 enemies on the map and about 6 more reinforcements, yet the slots in the Chapter Unit Editor stops at 0x46 with a lot of random separators instead of Good, Separator, Bad, Separator, Reinforcements, etc. It'll just require more trial and error on my part to see which enemies are a part of Eliwood's Story, but it's another thing nudging me away from Nightmare now. Plus, I can't modify when reinforcements spawn or how many turns they'll spawn with Nightmare, only what they are when they spawn and where they spawn, so Event Assembler would let me change the every aspect of reinforcements, right? Maybe I could start using Mappy while I'm at it to tweak the original maps since any map with a river looks terrible and there are way too many single-tile chokepoints in almost every map. Plus making my own maps and tweaking them until they were perfect was one of the most fun and memorable things from trying to hack years ago. ^.^ ... That shit took forever, though, so I'd probably just stick with small tweaks to the original maps, if anything. :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CT075 Posted July 10, 2015 Share Posted July 10, 2015 (edited) pay attention to which unit you're editing a lot of times they'll load a duplicate for the cutscene (in which case you'd need to find a different entry) it's 100% possible to edit the game around using nothing but the nightmare modules (i know this for a fact because i've done so), but it gets increasingly painful as the game goes on just because the enemies get less organized the second thing to remember is that the tutorial units are not under your control - they are forced into whatever stat/class values they have at the end of lyn mode and those are fixed. inventory shouldn't be though Edited July 10, 2015 by CT075 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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