Research: Adding New Moves to Gen 3

[Jambo51]

Originally Posted by Leafbarrett

So basically I'm screwed and Flare Blitz is stuck with goddamn Odor Sleuth's animation, and I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing with that Flare Blitz script or where it needs to go. Absolutely fantastic.

Bit much on the attitude! Chill out. For what it's worth, my post had a bit too much attitude yesterday, so I'm sorry about that.

You can only have a maximum of 255 battle script effects due to how the data table for the attacks is laid out. The effect it uses is only allocated a single byte, which is obviously too little for any more. My solution on FR uses one of the padding bytes to set a table value. What this means is that I have a table of tables in my ROM, and the aforementioned value sets which of the tables I want to get the Battle Script from, and then it reads the effect byte to get the actual script from the wanted table. It works, but is not ideal, since there are potential clashes (and also helpful coincidences - like I set Flare Blitz to Table 1 Effect 75 (or something like that) and because the existing code in the ROM doesn't check the table ID, Flare Blitz inherits its melting ice effect as well).

I explicitly stated in the post that you quoted that if you searched for a certain string of bytes that it would most likely be in the ROM. I ensured I left out anything BPRE specific in that string, so try searching for it. It should only appear once in the entire ROM and it should appear in a string looking somewhat like this:

00 01 XX XX XX 08 00 00 02 03 04 05 06 07 09 0A 0E 5C 00 3A 0B 00 0C 00 0D 12 40 00 0F 12 40 00 15 19 00 00 00 00 00 00

This string of commands is the workhorse of the battle scripting attack system. It generally executes most attacks, and most of their effects, which is why I branch back to it after executing the first effect (the recoil) to continue execution. The goto command in Battle Scripting is 28, so if you see a 28 followed by a pointer, it is likely to be a goto command.

The script should work as is as long as you "correct" the pointers after the 01 and 28 commands. I told you above how to track down the script which I go to after executing the Flare Blitz script. You can find the necessary pointer to go after the 01 command by finding that string of commands.

This should help somewhat. Sadly, I genuinely can't help with the animations.

[Chaos Rush]

I'm confused at how to use custom battle scripts, though. Do we need to manually expand the battle script table? (and yes, I know you can only have up to 255)

EDIT: I just went ahead and expanded the table. Working on Roost, if you assign Featherdance's animation to it, then set the battle script to this:

00 02 03 7B D1 7D 1D 08 01 09 0A 35 D0 32 02 02 00 01 00 00 45 07 16 00 00 00 00 0B 01 0C 01 10 4B 00 12 40 00 28 4E 69 1D 08

You'll have a move identical to Roost but without the flying type removal. It will even play the healing animation. The bytes that I bolded is the command to play the healing animation.



EDIT: Does the callasm command work in battle scripts? I need it for removing the Flying type for 1 turn. (Not sure if this matters, but I'm working with FireRed)

[Jambo51]

Nah, I wrote a completely custom command for the callasm command. It's fairly simple to do, all things considered. Also, my script is somewhat more simplistic, since mines just has the callasm, and then I just branch to the Milk Drink script to take care of the rest.

I've now written 5 custom commands for the game:
F8 (Callasm)
F9 (Store Half-Word)
FA (Store Word)
FB (Check Used Attack)
FC (Set Pledge Effect)

These sit on top of the existing commands, and the 1 index for all hack I applied to command 0x10. All in all, it works rather well.

[Gamer2020]

Well guys I have made some progress on BSE!

It now compiles! I tested it a little while ago with this very simple script.

#org 0x800000
capture
end

It's still very basic in nature though and not every command is implemented. It is still a step in helping everyone be able to create their own move effects. These are the commands I have implemented to far. They're kind of blah so please give me some feedback on their names.
(Credit to JPAN and Jambo51 for their research!)

"&H0" = "unknownCommand0x00NoArgs"
"&H1" = "SomeCompare"
"&H2" = "usedattackmsg"
"&H3" = "hitmisscalc"
"&H4" = "critcalc" 
"&H5" = "basedmgcalc"
"&H6" = "typedmgcalc"
"&H7" = "effectcheck1"
"&H8" = "effectcheck2"
"&H9" = "baexe"
"&HA" = "turncheck" 
"&HB" = "healthbardec"
"&HC" = "healthvaldec"
"&HD" = "critcheck"
"&HE" = "unkloopcheck"
"&H10" = "msgdisplay" 
"&H12" = "seffectmsgdisplay" 
"&H1A" = "faintdisplay" 
"&H23" = "battleendfunc" 
"&H24" = "ifwildend" 
"&H26" = "storebyteforjump"
"&H27" = "jumpifbyte"
"&H28" = "goto" 
"&H2E" = "storebyte" 
"&H2F" = "addbyte"
"&H30" = "subtractbyte"
"&H31" = "copyarray"
"&H32" = "addarray" 
"&H39" = "pause" 
"&H3A" = "wait" 
"&H3C" = "return1" 
"&H3D" = "return2" 
"H3F" = "end"
"&H41" = "call" 
"&H45" = "animationprint"
"&H4C" = "pokemondataswitch"
"&H4D" = "pokemonbattledataswitch"
"&H4E" = "pokemonandhealthbardisplay"
"&H53" = "trainerdisplay"
"&H55" = "lvlupsnd"
"&H56" = "pkmfntsnd"
"&H57" = "flee"
"&H5C" = "hitflash"
"&H61" = "pkmswianimation"
"&H91" = "givemoney"
"&HEF" = "capture"

[Darkrai Lv.1000]

I have a question regarding the first method of adding moves.
By "supports up to 511 moves", do you mean that I can add up to 511 extra moves, or add to the existing 354 until I have exactly 511 (basically adding 157 new moves)?

[Ark_Silvanos]

511 total. The game's default coding i believe only supports 512 moves. So we get (511 moves + struggle). if you want more, you gotta use Jambo's asm routine to change the way moves are loaded.

[Darkrai Lv.1000]

Thanks. Doing this, I've successfully added the 157 extra moves in Ruby. I also have those extra 157 slots in PGE after Psycho Boost. But am I supposed to get "unhandled exception" errors when I click on any one of them? Clicking continue lets me go as normal, but I think it might be tied to the free space I gave. When it says I have to leave 13 x the number of new attacks free bytes, I calculated it and replaced those corresponding FF's with 00's. Am I supposed to do that, or leave them as FF's?

EDIT: it just doesn't seem to matter whether I use 00's or FF's (I still don't know which is the right one, though), I just keep getting that error. It still works as normal, but that error is annoying. I'm sure I've done it right... :/

[Jambo51]

Originally Posted by Darkrai Lv.1000

Thanks. Doing this, I've successfully added the 157 extra moves in Ruby. I also have those extra 157 slots in PGE after Psycho Boost. But am I supposed to get "unhandled exception" errors when I click on any one of them? Clicking continue lets me go as normal, but I think it might be tied to the free space I gave. When it says I have to leave 13 x the number of new attacks free bytes, I calculated it and replaced those corresponding FF's with 00's. Am I supposed to do that, or leave them as FF's?

EDIT: it just doesn't seem to matter whether I use 00's or FF's (I still don't know which is the right one, though), I just keep getting that error. It still works as normal, but that error is annoying. I'm sure I've done it right... :/

Hmm, that free space is for the attack names. If you leave it as all 00's, it will definitely cause an error in PGE. The all 0xFF's may do so as well since it would cause PGE to display an "empty" name. Try copying and pasting the first 157 move names into that space, it may help.

[Darkrai Lv.1000]

I've just now tried that, but the errors still came up. Turns out, the cause of the error had to do with the effect of the new moves. All of them had effect 255 preset, same as the number in the error (SelectedIndex=255), and changing that to an existing effect got rid of it. However, I still get another one, where the SelectedIndex=47, that only comes up when I open the attack editor, and when selecting the first Pound attack. Other than that, everything's smooth sailing now. Thanks for the tutorial!

[Winter Fountain]

Sorry for sounding like a noob (because I've never hex edited anything before,) but... What's all this repointing about and how do you do it? And how much is 4260 bytes?

[crowlover]

I'm trying to figure out how to implement Dragon Tail's effect, but I'm not sure if the Whirlwind/Roar effect has anything built into it to handle doing damage.

How would you modify the Whirlwind/Roar effect to have it do damage before it switches the target out?

[timson733333]

Originally Posted by Winter Fountain

Sorry for sounding like a noob (because I've never hex edited anything before,) but... What's all this repointing about and how do you do it? And how much is 4260 bytes?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but repointing is when you take the reverse offset of the regular table and replace all instances of it in the ROM with the reverse offset of the new table...? That's what I've been doing, so I hope I haven't been screwing it up.

Originally Posted by Jambo51

Make sure you leave (13 * number of new attacks) free bytes after the end of the data you just copied before doing this next stage.

Next, navigate to 0x1C68F4, and copy 1420 bytes, and paste them into free space in the ROM, making sure the pointer is THUMB aligned. That is, ends with a 0, 4, 8 or C.

Then, go back to 0x1C68F4 and copy (4 * number of new attacks) bytes of data, and paste it into the area after the already copied data. So for example, if you repointed to 0x9F0000, you would paste this latest data starting at 0x9F058C.

I don't get these steps.

EDIT: Okay, now I get it. I've expanded the move table! But when I view the moves in PGE, they're all glitched and have random powers/effects, and when I boot up my ROM, it crashes after gender selection. Am I doing something wrong? I selected the bytes in hex; should I have selected the bytes in decimal (e.g. converting 4260 to 10A4?) Other than that I think I repointed right (unless my definition of repointing was wrong, then please correct me) and I put everything into free space.

EDIT AGAIN: I selected the bytes in decimal and this time the moves came out clear. I made the move after Psycho Boost have a name, and then I booted up the ROM. Still crashes at gender selection. Is there something else I need to do?

EDIT YET AGAIN: Ok, it looks like whenever there's a name input, the game crashes. But the moves work just fine if I upload another savestate and bypass the name selection.

Originally Posted by crowlover

I'm trying to figure out how to implement Dragon Tail's effect, but I'm not sure if the Whirlwind/Roar effect has anything built into it to handle doing damage.

How would you modify the Whirlwind/Roar effect to have it do damage before it switches the target out?

I've played a hack where the creator has effects play one after another (like Close Combat, the special defense drop is applied separately after the defense drop; or Growth, where the Special Attack rise is applied as a separate effect after the Attack rise.) So you might be able to make it have a damaging effect first, and then the Whirlwind effect afterwards. However, it will break through a Substitute.

[Winter Fountain]

Originally Posted by timson733333

Correct me if I'm wrong, but repointing is when you take the reverse offset of the regular table and replace all instances of it in the ROM with the reverse offset of the new table...? That's what I've been doing, so I hope I haven't been screwing it up.

Uh. Sorry, I still don't get it, Timson. >.< Sorry for being such a noob...

Originally Posted by timson733333

EDIT: Okay, now I get it. I've expanded the move table! But when I view the moves in PGE, they're all glitched and have random powers/effects, and when I boot up my ROM, it crashes after gender selection. Am I doing something wrong? I selected the bytes in hex; should I have selected the bytes in decimal (e.g. converting 4260 to 10A4?) Other than that I think I repointed right (unless my definition of repointing was wrong, then please correct me) and I put everything into free space.

EDIT AGAIN: I selected the bytes in decimal and this time the moves came out clear. I made the move after Psycho Boost have a name, and then I booted up the ROM. Still crashes at gender selection. Is there something else I need to do?

EDIT YET AGAIN: Ok, it looks like whenever there's a name input, the game crashes. But the moves work just fine if I upload another savestate and bypass the name selection.

You're just lucky you got it to work. All I've done is crash my ROMs. I don't know where to paste or what to do or what to "repoint."

[timson733333]

Originally Posted by Winter Fountain

Uh. Sorry, I still don't get it

Gonna try my best to explain...

Ok, so you know that pointers in the hex are the reverse of the offset that it points to, right? So if we have some stuff at 0xABCDEF, there will be instances of the hex code "EF CD AB" in the ROM. These instances are read to "point" towards 0xABCDEF. If you move some stuff from and after 0xABCDEF to a free space offset, let's say 0x900000, you haven't yet told the ROM to read off of there. So what you do is replace all instances of "EF CD AB" with "00 00 90" (the reverse of 900000.) That way the ROM knows to read from 0x900000, and not 0xABCDEF.

[crowlover]

I've got something that might work for Dragon Tail. I pretty much wrote the code and added the bit between the Whirlwind/Roar pointer and the next pointer. Not sure if this would work or I would need to do something different with it:

00 01 5E 69 1D 08 00 00 02 03 04 05 06 07 09 0A 0E 5C 00 3A 0B 00 0C 00 0D 12 40 00 0F 12 40 00 00 02 03 1E 00 15 08 94 1D 08 21 00 00 04 00 00 00 27 8F 1D 08 01 F2 7D 1D 08 FF FF 01 60 69 1D 08 00 00 8F F2 7D 1D 08

Also, I unfortunately don't know where the table with the pointers for individual attack effects is in Fire Red. If this is where I'm supposed to have a pointer to this, or if it's a different table, could you please tell me?

Sorry fo the trouble.

[timson733333]

Originally Posted by timson733333

EDIT YET AGAIN: Ok, it looks like whenever there's a name input, the game crashes. But the moves work just fine if I upload another savestate and bypass the name selection.

I recently tried doing everything again, only to be met with the same result. Do I need to use JPAN's hacked engine, or am I repointing things wrong?

[Darkrai Lv.1000]

Is there a resource that tells where the list of effects and commands are for doing battle script work in Ruby? Everything seems to be only for Fire Red, as far as I can see. xD

[Jambo51]

Originally Posted by timson733333

I recently tried doing everything again, only to be met with the same result. Do I need to use JPAN's hacked engine, or am I repointing things wrong?

I just tested with a fresh save (a completely fresh save on the 649 patch, which has had this hack applied) and it got through to Pallet Town with no issues whatsoever.

However, I may have missed out some steps or something somewhere along the line in this thread. I'll see if I can find any such missed steps.

ETA: Did a quick dry run, and it worked absolutely fine, so I genuinely don't know what the problem is.

Originally Posted by Darkrai Lv.1000

Is there a resource that tells where the list of effects and commands are for doing battle script work in Ruby? Everything seems to be only for Fire Red, as far as I can see. xD

Answer to this is simple - I'm the only person researching these commands. I researched them for FR because I need them for FR. Simples.

However, the good news is that the BS system was carried over from Ruby to FR in the first place, so if you update your pointers correctly, it should still be compatible.

[Darkrai Lv.1000]

I see. I'll just search for the table of battle scripts. I'll amend(sp?) with the offset and similar findings if I happen to find it.

So, once I've created my custom script, how do I go about using it in game? Do I need to repoint the effect table and add a new effect at the end for the new move? Or could I replace what looks like effect 214? Scratch that, I've figured it out.

EDIT: I have located the table of the 214(213?) different effects in Ruby. That offset is 0x1D6BBC.
The basic damage script seems to be located at 0x1D6F3A as well.

I've noticed that the basic damage script is completely identical between Ruby and Fire Red. The only difference is that pointer at the beginning.

Never thought I'd say this, but this is actually quite fun, searching for the bits and pieces that make up a game. But how do I know what I need to copy after the storebyte command? How would I create a 2-turn attack? Does the "first turn fly/bounce/dig/invincible" go before the part that does damage? Same with the high crit rate effect.

[timson733333]

Originally Posted by Jambo51

Now, navigate back to 0x250C04 and copy (12 * number of new attacks) worth of data. This should ensure that the new attacks you add inherit some sensible data which PGE can work with.

I didn't see this step before. o_o

Anyways, where am I supposed to paste this data?

Edit: Ok, I posted it directly after the corresponding pasted data and the moves work like a charm in Emerald. But I don't think I've found the limiter. I did a hex string search for the corresponding limiter in FireRed (B1 20 40 00 81 42), but when I overwrote that with 0s it still didn't work. Help?

[Jambo51]

Originally Posted by timson733333

I didn't see this step before. o_o

Anyways, where am I supposed to paste this data?

Edit: Ok, I posted it directly after the corresponding pasted data and the moves work like a charm in Emerald. But I don't think I've found the limiter. I did a hex string search for the corresponding limiter in FireRed (B1 20 40 00 81 42), but when I overwrote that with 0s it still didn't work. Help?

You're not crazy. It wasn't there before. I added it because I noticed that PGE didn't like having a bunch of 0xFFs as the "data".

Same applies to the names.

The limiter is in a different location in Emerald, and may not use that string of hex commands. I believe Gamer2020 posted the location of that limiter a few posts after the first post. Check his post out.

You ARE correcting the offsets for Emerald, right? I just want to make sure you are, because all the pointers in my first post are for FR specifically.

[timson733333]

Originally Posted by Jambo51

You're not crazy. It wasn't there before. I added it because I noticed that PGE didn't like having a bunch of 0xFFs as the "data".

Same applies to the names.

The limiter is in a different location in Emerald, and may not use that string of hex commands. I believe Gamer2020 posted the location of that limiter a few posts after the first post. Check his post out.

You ARE correcting the offsets for Emerald, right? I just want to make sure you are, because all the pointers in my first post are for FR specifically.

Yep, I found the corresponding offsets in roms.ini. I saw Gamer2020's post and replaced the bytes, and it worked. Nothing seems to be wrong now (name input doesn't screw up the game, like my first attempt with FireRed did) but I'll post here if I encounter any further errors.

EDIT: I uploaded the .ips of the FireRed modification I did. The move table is expanded, but it always crashes at name selection. Test it, I really want to know what I'm doing wrong in FireRed because the expanded move table works flawlessly in Emerald.

Offsets I repointed to:

Attack names - 0x8DC410
Attack data - 0x723D80
Attack animations - 0x7F8F60

[itman]

I made move effects for U-turn/Volt Tackle, Wake-Up Slap, and Hammer Arm.

I tested them and they work.

U-Turn/Volt Tackle

Spoiler:

00 01 5E 69 1D 08 00 00 02 03 04 05 06 07 09 0A 0E 5C 00 3A 0B 00 0C 00 0D 12 40 00 0F 12 40 00 4F 81 47 69 1D 08 50 01 F2 7D 1D 08 E2 01 3A 51 01 02 58 01 4C 01 4D 01 73 01 10 03 00 4E 01 01 3A 52 01 28 4E 69 1D 08 28 47 69 1D 08

Wake-Up Slap

Spoiler:

1D 00 00 00 00 01 00 69 1D 08 2E 85 3E 02 02 A3 1C 00 07 00 00 00 77 04 90 08 28 00 69 1D 08 2E D2 3F 02 02 02 28 00 69 1D 08

Hammer Arm

Spoiler:

2E 85 3E 02 02 D8 28 00 69 1D 08

[timson733333]

Can anyone please test the patch I made?

[itman]

Originally Posted by timson733333

Can anyone please test the patch I made?

I just did everything that JPAN said in his post and it worked without any problems, so to be honest you probably did something wrong. I would just start over and try again. Make sure you correctly repoint ALL the pointers to the new locations of each table, since there are A LOT.