Quick Modding/Hacking Answers Thread

Okay, this is probably going to just be shouting in the void for help, but what the fuck does the first argument in <CIN (Character INput) do?

<CINxxxx:yyyy:zzzz

I get yyyy is the max amount of characters you can type in (up to 16 characters), and zzzz is what kind of characters you're inputting (0 - nothing, 1 - letters only, 2 - numbers only, 3 -letters and numbers), but what does xxxx fucking do? It really doesn't help either when the only mod, that ever has that TSC command in use, that I ever know of, is K:SS, and it's only ever used twice. Never again.

In room 9: <CIN0000:0010:0001
This is for naming lab samples, you can type up to 10 alphabetical characters, xxxx does seemingly nothing, despite having 0 as the value.
In room 10: <CIN0010:0009:0002 - for the password, you can type up to 9 numerical characters, xxxx does seemingly nothing, despite having 10 as the value.

If anyone else has also worked with the <CIN hack, if at all because the version Noxid released in their open-source hacks thread in 2012 is incomplete (and no longer available), any further knowledge would be hugely appreciated.

 

Can you make Organya View allow 10 character names? For some reason when ever I do it, the EXE just doesn't open and it only works if I put spaces at the beginning of the Window name/Version window name, making the character count 12 instead of 10. Is there anyway to make it accept less than 12 character names?

 

you mean the track names? how are you editing them? if it's through a hex editor, you have to make the character count stay the exact same as the vanilla title and just buffer 'leftovers' with spaces full stops at the end

 

No, not the track names, I'm talking about the Window title where it says "Organya Viewer [Music Stopped]".

 

What's the name you were thinking of changing "Organya View" to? For the title there are two strings to edit it under.

From 0xd200 to 0xd21f, the string "Organya View [Music Stopped]" is all in a 32 byte-long bank.

And from 0xd220 to 0xd22b the string "Organya View" is in a 12 byte-long bank.

If you wish to make the "Organya View" name shorter you can absolutely do that, you just need to fill the rest of the memory that allows it with zeroes, as shown here.

And the result should work just fine.

 

Thanks!

 

Can you move the health and level meter anywhere else on the screen in Cave Story? if so then how?

 

Does anyone know of a way to interrupt or break from a running event?

Spoiler: Screenshot

I'm trying to have a textbox that just idly shows text while you're in a trigger area, to use for showing level names (or just, some kind of tooltip or whatever.)
The problem is the player can't interact with objects (like doors) while the textbox is open. So you're just awkwardly stuck waiting for it to close.

I've tried removing any <WAI commands and just letting the H/V trigger trigger the event over and over, so the textbox atleast closes once you're no longer in the trigger, but that just results in ugly text flickering (and you still can't interact with anything for the frames the text is on screen, which just feels awkward and janky aha)

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

TSC events are very much just single threaded, and there is really no other way to run one event while another is running. You're going to need to workaround through other means like through entrance events (while you're entering a room) or even find better places where the textbox can be plopped in long enough before the <WAI timer finishes and goes to <END.

A possible idea is to place in another null NPC above the one used for the doorway, with the "Run Event on Contact" and "Spawn with Alt Direction" flags turned on, and while the text shows up, <MNP said null NPC to a different position, preferably somewhere where the player won't be able to bump into it, as well as add in a <FRE and a <WAI timer while the textbox is still on, and then still be able to interact with the null NPC used for the <TRA event afterwards. Clunky idea, but it's an example on what you can do to workaround the issue.

If that doesn't suffice and you're still wanting to use two different TSC events to run at the same time, there is one possible means, that can allow you to run two TSC events at the same time, given you're working on a freeware mod. Just be sure to plug in the ASM properly, and follow the instructions on how to use it. It is a proof of concept, but if it works, then that's great!

 

Unfortunately, the textbox being open requires the event to be running from what i can tell. Which means as long as it's open, interacting with interactable npcs is disabled >.>
I've tried a setup like this:
#0101
<WAI0001<EVE0101
#0102
<CAT<MS20-1: Hello World!<EVE0101
In the hopes that maybe I could maybe use some out of bounds flag checking in event 101 to poll for the player pressing down, to actually enter the level or something while the textbox is still open, but unfortunately even jumping to another event closes the textbox entirely :<

(and even if it worked i guess without some other way of breaking out of a currently running event, that still wouldn't solve me wanting the textbox to disappear if you move away from the door >.>)

 

Yeah, I get what you're going for, but I think even with custom ASM, you won't be having any luck with how the TSC goes in Freeware. Maybe it can be more feasible through the other two engines, CSE2 and d-rs, depending on whether you'd like to take the extra time to learning C++ or Rust. I know there's some people in the CSMC that can suggest ideas for that, even if the TSC required for that won't be 1:1 to your plans on how they'll work.

 

Noted, thanks for your help in any case :>

 

The problem is the player can't interact with objects (like doors) while the textbox is open.

This might not help with the flickering but you could try using key-related flags to check for player input, for example using <FLJ9094
:XXXX to check if the player is holding down the Z/Jump key (arrow key flags don't work with controller).

 

I was trying to make a boss fight, and when I ran the game it crashed. I used <BSL0000 and <BOA0020 individually and they both crashed the game.
(I was trying to use The Dragon Sisters btw.)
The same thing happened with Omega but only when I ran <BSL0000.
(Note: I did not mess with any of the major boss fights except the X and Y coordinates for spawning Omega.)
Here's the event code:

#0100
<BSL0000<CMU0004<BOA0020<MNA<END

#1000
<KEY<CNP0111:0012:0004<CNP0110:0012:0004
<ANP0111:0020:0004<ANP0110:0020:0004<MM0<WAI0200<SOU0029<TRA0010:0090:0000:0000<END

The code is pretty much the same as when I was trying to load in Omega.

 

Hmm strange. I had no problems using these commands. As I understand it, you made a small hack to change the initial position of Omega right? If you look through OllyDbg, these commands are responsible for this:

0047B71E    MOV DWORD PTR DS:[4BBA60],1B6000
0047B728    MOV DWORD PTR DS:[4BBA64],20000

You edited this, right?

 

Yeah, I did.

 

Well, I repeated your actions and <BSL and <BOA work properly. Maybe the problem is something else. Did you do anything else besides this?

 

I don't think so. But in case I did, here's the EXE file.

 

I checked and I can say that both Omega and Dragon Sisters work without errors. Honestly, I can't say what the problem is.

 

Is there something that could make them act weird if certain SkipFlags are set? Because I do have a couple that are over 100 if that has anything to do with it.