Trying and failing to copy a map

For my mod that I'm making, I need to make a second map identical to another map, because I need to be on that map at one point and have friendly NPCs and I need to return to that map later and have both enemies and a boss battle, and from what I understand that requires both spritesheets and a given map can only have two spritesheets. Unfortunately, I can't find any way of making a second map that is identical to the first except by manually creating an exact copy in the editor, which would take a while as the map is not small. Is there some way besides the long, slow method of creating my copy?

I already tried making a new map, changing all settings to match the one I wanted to copy, deleting the files in data/stage associated with it, copying all four files associated with the original in data/stage and renaming them to the deleted files, but it didn't work.

 

I'm not sure, as I've never tried it myself, but I believe the map data is stored in Cave Story/Data and is a pxe or pxa file. If you figured out which map is yours, copied the file, and renamed it, that might work. It might take a bit of experimentation, though.

 

I already tried making a new map, changing all settings to match the one I wanted to copy, deleting the files in data/stage associated with it, copying all four files associated with the original in data/stage and renaming them to the deleted files, but it didn't work.

This worked for me just now.
I'd try it again before manually recreating the whole map.

edit: Are you sure you even need to remake the map? If your enemys are called from sheet 1, and your friendly npc's come from regu, then you can probably put the boss on 2 and not worry about using a whole nother map. Just use the "npc is only visable / invisable if flag X is set" flags on things.

 

I already tried making a new map, changing all settings to match the one I wanted to copy, deleting the files in data/stage associated with it, copying all four files associated with the original in data/stage and renaming them to the deleted files, but it didn't work.

Ummm... all four files? There's only three (*.pxm, *.pxe, *.tsc). If you just don't copy whatever the fourth file was, it should work.

 

I used the fourth (pxa, not all maps have it, and i forget what it does) but, it still worked.

btw, iirc
pxE = Entities on the map
pxM = the Map itself
tsc = the SCripT

 

The Stage folder contains five types of files and two types of data.

The two types of data are maps and tilesets.

For every map there are three files:
*.pxm (map data)
*.pxe (entity data)
*.tsc (script)

For every tileset there are two files:
Prt*.pbm (tile graphics)
*.pxa (tile behavior)