Well who needs Help or just want to talk?

Ok, I asked you these in the other topic, but you never replied rune, so:

-by ROM, do you mean where it has all those 000000 bits, if so is that freed up when I delete maps? I delete all of them when I start a game from scratch.

-The EXP table is the same for each weapon (Except for Alucard, he gets a double length EXP table ) so would I just need two tables, give them an ID and use it as [XPTblID][WpnID][Level] for it, so if I used Richard, and he had the Blade level 5 it would be Richard[Blade][5] or something like that?

-Id probably start off with attempting to remove the EXP drop, then adding another 3, then another 3. That would give me 9 levels, 3 levels till the gun bullet changes.

-Where exactly is the existing weapon code, and which Hex editor is best for the job. I use Hexplorer but I think something else might be better.

Heh delete this post and just PM Rune

 

The reason I haven't replied is because I wasn't there. I don't have the internet at home (don't really need it...) and I'm not exactly bursting with enough free time at work to spend it on a message board. Sorry about the delay. I'll reply here since it might be useful to other people who want to accomplish similare things.

The ROM is the executable itself, essentially. The confusion might be my fault - I use the term "ROM" to refer to the physical contents of a game/program/whatnot and "RAM" to what's loaded in memory, a habit picked up when I was heavily into ROM hacking and SNES games. You CAN'T just put random bits of data in random places. It doesn't take too long to test that - chances are you'll stumble on what appears to be empty data, have it used somewhere, and run into a weird unexplicable crash. Your best bet is to add it at the end of the executable - I believe there's a good chunk of padding there that you can use.

The [] notation comes from various low-level programming languages and is used to denote an array. It has nothing to do with assembly (though assembly represents something else with those: pointers. Which essentially serve the role of array in most cases.) I used it to illustrate how you could structure your data.

What I meant by splitting up the task in different sub-tasks wasn't to do one level at a time, but one change at a time. Get the new exp mechanisms working first, for instance. Move on to linking stats to level. Then create new weapons and such. That way if you hit a snag, at least you'll have something to show for your hard work. Trying to do it all in one step will get you nowhere.

Any hex editor works. A hex editor, after all, is a hex editor. You don't need the doodads, bells, and whistles. Just find one you're comfortable with. If it can edit hex, it's good enough for anything. In fact, the less features, the better - bloatware is unecessary.

As for where the code lies, feel free to have a look at the assembly dump I posted a little while back. Keep in mind that I don't have internet access at home. The easiest way to find it is to isolate the offset in RAM where weapon data is manipulated and find references to it in the code.

 

If you're looking for a Hex Editor, I'd recommend XVI32. Small, quick, and simple. It has some things that look advanced and such, but I never found a need to use them.

 

If you're looking for a Hex Editor, I'd recommend XVI32. Small, quick, and simple. It has some things that look advanced and such, but I never found a need to use them.

That's what I use, too. It's lightweight and easy to use.

I also use MSVC6's built-in hex editor out of habit, but loading up MSVC takes up a while - it's a C++ IDE and compiler after all, not a bona-fide hex editor. Plus the price tag is a bit hefty if you're just going to use it to edit hex.

XVI32 is potentially the best one you can get; I second Osmose's post.