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Hello! This is my first time posting anything on here so I apologize if I'm not using this correctly but I hit a road block pretty quickly and need help.
I have an idea for a rom hack that I really want to execute on so I've spent days looking at tutorials, reading forums, watching videos, etc and I've gotten to a point where I've successfully decompiled, edited, and built a functional gba file. I'm using Pierangeli's "Costume Menu by Slawter666 in the RHH Pokémon Expansion" and I've been able to edit it a bit to add in specific characters that I want to the costume menu. I generally understand how to fully edit the costume menu so that's not really a problem, the problem occurs with the idea I have for the rom-hack. If I can't get this to function, there will be no point to work on anything else in the rom hack because EVERYTHING revolves around these mechanics.
I want to be able to swap characters and make the swap change your Pokémon as well. Kind of like a full loadout swap for 6 separate characters. I also want to force each character to only use one Pokémon at a time, BUT also allow you to choose from 6 or more Pokémon to act as the character's "partner". Swapping Pokemon mid battle would then require you to swap characters, effectively making a character based party system and not the Pokémon based one that we all know and love. Each major battle will have you thinking about which of your character's set of Pokémon should act as the partner in case you end up needing to swap.
As an example, if you have Cynthia and Steven as characters, Cynthia would have Garchomp, Milotic, Lucario, etc and Steven would have Metagross, Claydol, Aggron, etc. Say you are battling a ground type trial or gym or whatever. Before battling the leader, you'd ideally make Cynthia's partner Milotic and Steven's Claydol. Then if you ever need to swap off of Cynthia and Milotic, you'd swap to Steven's Claydol... or you can just brute force it with Garchomp. I'm not your dad, play how you want. This is the base of how I want to change the battle system for this rom hack.
Menu wise I had the thought of having a PARTY menu option where you go to change the order of characters, and a PARTNER menu that would effectively function as a PC where you can swap out your character's main partner Pokemon from their team. I have an example of what I would want the PARTY menu to look like made on PyxelEdit.
![[PokeCommunity.com] I'm not sure where to go from here! [Pokeemerald decomp project roadblock]](https://data.pokecommunity.com/attachments/85/85939-a8037db90d8763404bc3d28a1bbaadde.jpg "[PokeCommunity.com] I'm not sure where to go from here! [Pokeemerald decomp project roadblock]")
I also had the idea of giving each character a personalized ability in addition to the Pokémon's native ability. My idea to do this was to see how Calyrex Rider's duo ability was implemented an make special versions of each character's Pokémon and just give them two abilities. If there's an easier way to implement this idea I'd like to work on that as well but this is not as important as the mechanics above....
That all being said...
I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO DO ANY OF THIS!!!
I don't know if I missed it, if it hasn't been done, or isn't possible but I haven't found ANY tutorials or community projects that A. allow for Pokémon loadouts or B. force you to only use one Pokemon. I'd say that I have a fairly rudimentary understanding of coding for games but I can generally pick up on things if explained well... or at least that's how I felt until now. I don't even know what to look for to start trying to do this on my own. I'm not asking for someone to swoop in and just do it all for me (though I wouldn't be mad if someone did do that), but if anyone knows if something like this has been done, or knows how to do it and can either explain to me or walk me through the steps of what to do I'd REALLY appreciate it. I have been thinking about a story for a Pokémon game like for years now because sometimes I just get the Pokémon brain worms that I can't really do much about it so I just let the worms run. I've finally found the motivation to start making the rom hack on my own and I want to make some significant progress before said motivation starts to wane.
Again, any help would be VASTLY appreciated...
TLDR: SEND HELP!
I have an idea for a rom hack that I really want to execute on so I've spent days looking at tutorials, reading forums, watching videos, etc and I've gotten to a point where I've successfully decompiled, edited, and built a functional gba file. I'm using Pierangeli's "Costume Menu by Slawter666 in the RHH Pokémon Expansion" and I've been able to edit it a bit to add in specific characters that I want to the costume menu. I generally understand how to fully edit the costume menu so that's not really a problem, the problem occurs with the idea I have for the rom-hack. If I can't get this to function, there will be no point to work on anything else in the rom hack because EVERYTHING revolves around these mechanics.
I want to be able to swap characters and make the swap change your Pokémon as well. Kind of like a full loadout swap for 6 separate characters. I also want to force each character to only use one Pokémon at a time, BUT also allow you to choose from 6 or more Pokémon to act as the character's "partner". Swapping Pokemon mid battle would then require you to swap characters, effectively making a character based party system and not the Pokémon based one that we all know and love. Each major battle will have you thinking about which of your character's set of Pokémon should act as the partner in case you end up needing to swap.
As an example, if you have Cynthia and Steven as characters, Cynthia would have Garchomp, Milotic, Lucario, etc and Steven would have Metagross, Claydol, Aggron, etc. Say you are battling a ground type trial or gym or whatever. Before battling the leader, you'd ideally make Cynthia's partner Milotic and Steven's Claydol. Then if you ever need to swap off of Cynthia and Milotic, you'd swap to Steven's Claydol... or you can just brute force it with Garchomp. I'm not your dad, play how you want. This is the base of how I want to change the battle system for this rom hack.
Menu wise I had the thought of having a PARTY menu option where you go to change the order of characters, and a PARTNER menu that would effectively function as a PC where you can swap out your character's main partner Pokemon from their team. I have an example of what I would want the PARTY menu to look like made on PyxelEdit.
I also had the idea of giving each character a personalized ability in addition to the Pokémon's native ability. My idea to do this was to see how Calyrex Rider's duo ability was implemented an make special versions of each character's Pokémon and just give them two abilities. If there's an easier way to implement this idea I'd like to work on that as well but this is not as important as the mechanics above....
That all being said...
I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO DO ANY OF THIS!!!
I don't know if I missed it, if it hasn't been done, or isn't possible but I haven't found ANY tutorials or community projects that A. allow for Pokémon loadouts or B. force you to only use one Pokemon. I'd say that I have a fairly rudimentary understanding of coding for games but I can generally pick up on things if explained well... or at least that's how I felt until now. I don't even know what to look for to start trying to do this on my own. I'm not asking for someone to swoop in and just do it all for me (though I wouldn't be mad if someone did do that), but if anyone knows if something like this has been done, or knows how to do it and can either explain to me or walk me through the steps of what to do I'd REALLY appreciate it. I have been thinking about a story for a Pokémon game like for years now because sometimes I just get the Pokémon brain worms that I can't really do much about it so I just let the worms run. I've finally found the motivation to start making the rom hack on my own and I want to make some significant progress before said motivation starts to wane.
Again, any help would be VASTLY appreciated...
TLDR: SEND HELP!
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