This chapter opening thing is really cool. Some challenges I am facing, though:
1 -
For some reason my sprites are garbled and I’m not really sure why. I’ve expanded the class table to 255 and all sprites are 32x32 sized.
2 -
I want to use this with MNC3, rather than MNC2. Is that possible? Normally MNC3 is only used to go to the final chapter without saving, but I’ll be using MNC3 to move between areas, with saving done at select points.
3 -
It is far far too long. All three parts of it are really cool - the spiraling images, the VS trainer display, and the units running along the bottom. I could see myself using the full version at a gym leader maaayybe, but even then it might be a bit long. Between areas, I’d rather use something that takes between 0 and 4 seconds. I timed it as taking 10 seconds when having a party of only 2 units. This would get annoying incredibly quickly, despite how cool it is. If I have to pick only one option (eg. I can’t use a longer version in some places but the shorter version in general), I’d probably try to skip the spiraling, show the vs chapter title, and figure out how to shorter the walking sprites significantly. It looks like CalculateMovement.asm and Init_MapSprites.asm have some stuff to do with speed of the sprites at the bottom at least. I couldn’t figure out how to skip the first segment from messing around with it for a little while. Cool stuff… I just want to make it much shorter.
4 -
Perhaps it would make more sense to have the spiral part a separate animation for use in events. Sometime I’d also like to figure out how to make use of this code by Leo, for example:
Exploding village gif
If each animation or effect can be called via events anyway, then the between chapters animation can be much shorter. (Perhaps it could even start with a BG set? Eg. Run crystals animation -> Set BG of crystals in place -> MNC3 for other animations, still displaying the BG -> start gym battle.) I’d also be really interested in an FEBuilder patch that lets you import a bunch of images in a table each with a frames delay for use with events as an animation at coordinates of your choice. But that’s another thought, I guess.
Thank you for making this and I’d appreciate it if you can point me in the right direction with anything. Keep up the great work! Cheers.
Alright. Updated the main post. There’s two versions of the Custom Chapter Intro now; One with gems/crystals, another without. The second one allows for backgrounds using up to 224 colours. Details in the README.
They’re both compatible with FEBuilder now. I decided to remove the ups patch though, because I think it’s ultimately too rigid.
I added a new thingy. It’s maybe a bit of a glorified application of the already amazing Expanded Modular Save, but I figured it could interest people all the same.
Create a backup save to return to, should things go awry. Just be careful, you can only go back a finite amount of times.
Here’s something that could be useful to World Map users. Although probably not to all five of us.
World Map flags! You can draw flags over multiple destinations, and paralogues will wave a green flag instead of the usual red one. More details in the opening post.
It’s still very WIP (materials have very little use, only one bonus has been implemented), but once it’s further along I’m planning on using it in my romhack.
Part of the idea is to give benched units a use by assigning them to forts instead. This will also incentivize people not get any units killed which should make the backup suspend function (a different hack) more useful.
Oh, I love this. I hate having my guys lose usefulness over the course of the game. Never thought of just… having them do stuff offscreen! Kind of brilliant.
EDIT:
If I can make a suggestion. I see that units get different levels of EXP when assigned. Why not use Affinity for this calculation? Maybe an Ice fort is super compatible with water/ice affinity units, but poorly compatible with fire and thunder, and neutral for other elements? Then since each fort would have an affinity restriction, it could increase the strategy of who you choose to post there.
Oh I like this idea! I think I’ll implement this. I’ll need to torture some playtesters with how much balancing that’s gonna take, but otherwise I don’t see any problems.
I found another minor (?) issue with the Danger Radius.
NPC units that have support levels active are marked even if you don’t press select (you can’t mark NPC units tho)
Looking at the unit struct in FEBuiler it seems that the patch uses the support byte to work:
But, wouldn’t that affect the support levels for enemy units you can recruit? (Or if you want enemies that have supports between them)
I needed a free bit in the RAM unit struct. I decided to go for bit 6 in byte 0x32 (support 1). I thought I had made sure this would only display the mark on enemies which have this bit set, but it seems NPCs are affected as well. Either way, enemies with supports will also trigger the mark in this case.
As it happens, I’m currently cleaning up Danger Radius and part of the new version will be that you can define which bit of which byte in the RAM unit struct you wish to use. I’ll have to take another look at why NPCs get marked as well.
Personally, I figure the most significant bit of byte 0x39 could work better. Teq Doq describes this one as “Bitfield; each bit is a support partner (in the order they appear in) and is set if a support has been obtained in that chapter”. I’d think it’s unlikely that one would ever be changed for enemy units in normal gameplay
Alright, I’ve finished the cleanup. Not much changed above-the-hood, but you can now change some variables in the main FogDR.event file. Tell me if NPCs still show the icon.
I’ve also implemented @Vesly 's SetNearbyDangerRadius.
Hey, man, it’s cool to see you still working on cool stuff! Just remembered a couple of stuff I wanted to say. Since you updated the dangerzone to make it better a little while ago, I think you should probably integrate that droppable item thingie into it as well. I have no idea how it works at all anymore (and didn’t even when I kinda made it), and I think you’d be better at maintaining it if you make more updates to dangerzone. Also, I just wanted to say that I think dangerzone conflicts with the Less Annoying Fog hack by Leonarth. I could be wrong, but if this makes sense to you, maybe look into it. Anyway, cool stuff as always, and I look forward to seeing what you do next
