Quick Modding/Hacking Answers Thread

Thank you all. I've got Finals coming up this week, guess I can use whatever leftover time I have in each class, usually about an hour, to work on my mod. I actually made some progress, updated the Development Blog a couple of times, just didn't bump it because I didn't want to sound like an annoying blogger.

 

The link to your blog seems to be broken. Or I'm doing things wrong.

 

The link to your blog seems to be broken. Or I'm doing things wrong.

Shoot, not only is the link to the Development Thread broken, it's leading to the thread....in an entirely different forum I go to.

Thanks Carrotlord.

 

I was just working on a level in my mod, and in the editor it looks like this:

http://postimage.org/]

[/url]
http://postimage.org/][/URL] (Oh and also dont go "OMG 2x RES HAX ZOMG", I just scaled the house tileset to 2x and tried to make it like the official rescales, no hacking involved. its for a weird house where everythings giant)

but in the actual game it looks like this:

http://postimage.org/]

[/url]
http://postimage.org/][/URL]
How do i get rid of the weird house+hell transfusion and make it look like its supposed to?

 

Well um
just because you made the tilesets bigger doesn't mean the game can display them that way >_>

 

Well um
just because you made the tilesets bigger doesn't mean the game can display them that way >_>

Oh, ok, I had just changed the tilesets width also, and now it works. (But i had to get rid of some tiles i liked D=)

 

This isn't necessarily an easy question.
Where in the world is the Island animation file located?
You know, the one where it either falls (and boom) or stays in the sky
I've looked around with Resource Hacker, but somehow it isn't there
I've looked my way through all most of the Data files...
Where in the heck is it?
FYI, I'm wanting to find it, duplicate one, and then edit it so the island goes up, off the top of the screen.
Any suggestions? Or should I just set the trees/black the island is above as a new background and make the island a sprite?
How difficult would this be? Easier? Or harder?
Just so you know, I'm using CE because it's what I tried out first

 

It's hardcoded at uhh
0040DB70 - TSC Show Distant View of Island [XX1]
the image files are in ncpIsland I think, or maybe in the stage folder.
so to make it (or anything) behave differently you'd need to use asm.

 

Yes you need OllyDbg, a hex editor, Flat x86-32 Assembler, or the Doukutsu Assembler.
In other words, CE has no feature to edit the island's animation.

 

When putting org files into cave story with resource hacker, do you have to replace songs or can you have more then whats already there?

 

You can add more, but the game won't know how to find them without some modification. See: http://www.cavestory.org/forums/threads/2082/

 

Okay

Alright, despite the progress I've made with my mod, I can't seem to learn flags despite repeated tries. I know I'm going to need flags in order to make the whole morals-system work. (Different choices, different text, etc.) So here's the first one that WILL require flags to work out. (Or I may be having an idiot moment and may not need flags for this after all.)
[img=[url="https://andwhyisit.bugsiteguardian.com/cstsf/archive1/p199646-0-9qckef.png%5D"]https://andwhyisit.bugsiteguardian.com/cstsf/archive1/p199646-0-9qckef.png][/url]

Event 120 is the first meeting.
Event 121 is the conversation that inevitably happens, but you can refuse to segway into this in the form of a Yes/No question at the end of Event 120. I need to know how to start the conversation at Event 121 if you refuse to segway into it.
Event 121 and 122 are also the crossroads on what weapons you get, but both end up going to Event 123, that will change into some other event once your objective is complete.

I may have to set flags for the door that leads to the room it takes place in, it just depends on how I want to execute it. Let's call it door #0106

Okay Jon your going about this the wrong way.
I'll try and explain as best as I can.

First off flags aren't events, they are totally by themselves out there.
If your Modding a clean version of cavestory pixel uses a lot of flags, so just to
Be sure I usually start at 8000

Let me show you an example of how flags would normally work.

#0100
<KEY<FLJ8000:0101<MSGHello world!<NOD<FL+8000<END
............/\ this says that if flag is set, go to event.../\ this sets the flag
Now that it's set when you talk to them again, it will go to event 101

Now you basically use the same concept on doors, YNJ's, and other such situations.

 

It is the worst possible idea to start at 8000.

Flags above 7999 don't save. (I actually don't remember the exact cutoff point, but I do know that flag 9999 is really not going to save. Probably).

You should start at 4001.

Use flag 4000, and drowning will crash the game.
Everything below 4000 is used for something, but there are also lots of gaps between Pixel's own flags. So there are plenty of flags below 4000 that are safe.

Everything from 4001 to 7999 is free for your own use though.

EDIT: I just checked Noxid's documentation on ASM, and yes, there are 8000 flags.

0049DDA0 EventFlags x 03E8, 1 bit each so 8000 flags.
Now, flags start at 0 and end at 7999. Notice that because flags don't start at 1, you cannot really use flag 8000.

Flag 8000 will still work in game because it's a RAM offset.
However, it will not save to Profile.dat, which is an important feature of flags.

I suggest that you don't use flags below 100. Definitely do not use flags 0-63 because those are actually skipflags that don't get saved anyway (I don't remember, but I think this is true).

You can't have more than 64 skipflags.
You can't have more than 8000 - 64 = 7936 flags saved to Profile.dat.

 

actually the skipflags and regular flags only overlap if you use out-of-bounds values for skipflags, which is why large values for skipflags have unexpected behaviour

 

So does that mean the 64 bits for skipflags come directly before the regular flags?

Man I am rusty on this...

 

I suggest that you don't use flags below 100. Definitely do not use flags 0-63 because those are actually skipflags that don't get saved anyway (I don't remember, but I think this is true).

I've been using flags 10-30 safely in my mod... nothing bad has happened yet
Or am I just getting lucky?
Skipflags...*Interest level went up by 2* What do they do again? If this happens
1.Start game from save
2.Skipflag sets
3.Player dies
Does the Skipflag stay? or does it turn off?

 

It stays as long as the game is running
that is the point of skipflags.
But, if you set a skipflag that's too large it'll get reset if you die without saving because it gets treated like a regular flag.
Also there shouldn't be any real reason not to use low-ish flags, but I do know that maybe flag 0 or 1 is automatically set, and whatever that flag used for saving is automatically set.

 

0000 is like a weird flag. You get it when you get the Polar Star. There is no TSC for it.
We haven't found the assembly that does this.

The flag for saving is like 400 something. And I'm pretty sure it's set by the TSC, not by the executable, though I might be totally wrong.

 

Is assembly needed to add another mimiga mask item? (I mean so the character can have 3 different spritesets instead of 2)

 

Yes, although there is at least one well-documented hackpatch to do that. Check the modding forums and stuff for a thread. Super simple stuff.