TL;DR: Is there a way to force deploy in FE6? Merlinus specifically?
Hi there FEU!
I’ve been messing around with FE6 a lot recently using FE Builder, and I’d like to eventually release my own gameplay revision patch for the game (I know, another one).
I’m currently evaluating Merlinus as a unit. Him taking up a deployment slot feels really bad for the player, because there’s always another unit you’d rather field. The obvious solution would be to just give the convoy to Roy, but I kind of like having Merlinus as a separate unit and don’t really want to just remove him, either.
Basically, my ideal way to change him would be to just force deploy him, meaning you won’t have to give up on another character just so you can field him.
Unfortunately, the functionality to force deploy units doesn’t exist for FE6 under “advanced editors” in FE Builder. Only Roy is hardcoded to be forced on every map, and it looks like there aren’t any patches for this, either.
I thought about just adding Merlinus as a turn 1 reinforcement, but then he can’t access the Supply anymore (Another thing that’s apparently hardcoded in FE6’s engine - if the Transporter unit isn’t selected in Battle Preps, then he can’t access the Supply command, even when he spawns in later).
Does anyone have any experience with this? Is there a way to force deploy units in FE6?
Thanks a lot!
This is coming from a romhacker with little no to actual hacking experience, so take this with a grain of salt.
But from what I remember, in the final chapter, there’s one unit other than Roy that will be force deployed if you have her in the party, which is Fae. Maybe there’s some type of code that makes the game to force deploy her in the game, which could be used to force deploy Merlinus in the rest of the maps (while also making sure to increase the amount of units you’re able to deploy to one so that way you still have one free space), but I’d have to check if that’s the case.
Thanks. Yeah, I’d definitely raise the deploy limit for (most of) the maps if I actually forced Merlinus for every chapter.
I didn’t think of Fae’s force deployment - checked it out in FE Builder, but I couldn’t find anything helpful. Fae being force deployed is probably not easy to change / replicate, either. Maybe I’ll just have to settle for Roy as the convoy.
0x79408 has the global forced unit ID, 0x79410 has the final chapter ID and 0x79414 has the unit ID blocked in that chapter. Jump to those addresses in the hex editor to change them to what you’d like.
The easiest way to do what you want is to swap Merlinus with Clarine in the character editor (make sure to change his hardcoding too), then in the hex editor jump to the first address and paste 02 29 05 DD. This means changing it from “if equal to Roy’s ID” to “if equal or less than now-Merlinus’s ID”. Keep in mind that this also means swapping every event-related thing tied to Clarine and Merlinus.
Change the second address to 0x80 to mean every map, or the third address to 0x89 to mean every character. So it, respectively, makes it so that Fae is forced in every chapter, or that every character is forced on the final chapter. If you make both changes, every character is forced in every chapter. Do it the other way around to make it so every character whose ID matches the chapter ID will be forced. If you change the byte after those addresses you can change the comparisons, which are respectively “equal to”, “not equal to” and “not equal to”.
If you want a more elegant solution or something more creative, that’s the point where you’d have to get deeper into ASM. Unlike FE7 and FE8, FE6 has those forced deployments hardcoded instead of as a list, so you’d have to hook those addresses I mentioned and make it read from a list defined in free space.
Thanks for the response! I just tried it and it actually seems to work. I’ll do some more testing when I can and see if I run into any complications.
