I think, Scyzer knows this stuff better than me, as I'm not the enemy expert but I'll try to help.
You'll not need to know ASM to edit delay, but you may have to know it to find exact delay. Sometimes, common sense in enough.
First of all, use the backups and write the changes you've made to the text file.
1. Locate the Enemy Bank. You'll need to open SMILE, selcet desired enemy and look at his DNA until you see it.
2. Find Initiation AI pointer. Again in DNA.
3. After you got the info, open your ROM in the desired enemy bank and go to Initiation AI pointer.
Example:
Enemy is Waver.
Enemy Bank is A3.
Initiation AI is 86ED.
You target is A3:86ED or 1186ED
4. Find Instruction pointer. All you need to do is search for 9D 92 0F. 2 bytes before 9D 92 0F is Instruction pointer. I've found one at 11873C. Bytes are A7 86.
5. Jump for Instruction pointer. If the byte before Instruction pointer is A9 (meaning the whole string is A9 A7 86 9D 92 0F) you may jump to this pointer without fear. In this case, A3:86A7 or 1186A7. Sometimes byte before pointer is B9. In that case, it leads not to the pointer itself, but to array consisting of pointers. Each word there is an individiual pointer, mostly for displaying different sprites when facing left or right or when climbing the walls.
6. Search for positive. You'll see a lot of instructions. Each one is a pointer to the same bank. You'll need to search for XX 00. It will be the delay most likely. Sometimes, such kind of values are used for some sort of counters.
Just change a few values, save and exit and notice what is changed. Keep in mind that the whole array is not continuus. There are also instuctions that jumps to another place in the same bank.
7. Pair rule. Delays and tilemap pointers are always forming the pairs. Look what I've found at 1186A7:
01 00 4A 88
01 00 is a delay of 1 frame and 884A is the pointer for the sprite tilemap.
8. You can also edit the tilemap. To do it, read
this doc. Format is the same. Tile number is offset from Enemy Tiles pointer. Again, look for it in SMILE. For the Waver, it is AE8600 (8600 in bank AE or 170600). Just open TLP at this offset and you'll see the tiles. View format should be SNES. To get the correct palette, extract it from SMILE and Load in TLP.
This is enough to edit tilemaps for normal enemies that having Normal GFX (Not Special GFX like Space Pirates, their tilemap is complex).
9. Repeat steps 4-8. There are maybe a few Instruction pointers in Initiation AI.
A. Find Running AI pointer (or pointers). Again in DNA.
B. Repeat steps 3-8.
