General Help Thread

[biospark]

Considering the number of questions I've received, especially not related to MAGE, I've decided to make this thread. You can ask questions about Zero Mission here.

If you have a question that directly concerns MAGE, post it here: http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3969.0.html

[MBT808]

what are the limits to the beam animation/sprite detail of samus' weapons in ZM?

[biospark]

what are the limits to the beam animation/sprite detail of samus' weapons in ZM?

The graphics have to fit within the space shown here:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

As for animation, you can freely change it, but you'd have to locate the OAM data and know how to edit it. You can edit the graphics with MAGE, but it won't help you with the animation.

[MBT808]

bio, where can I find the behaviour governing Deorem's escape in Brinstar(I want to buff its HP and want to remove the event if you take to long to beat it, it runs off)?

[biospark]

bio, where can I find the behaviour governing Deorem's escape in Brinstar(I want to buff its HP and want to remove the event if you take to long to beat it, it runs off)?

Deorem's AI starts at 0x8023520. You'd probably want to find any RAM values that trigger the escape. There's probably a RAM value that counts the number of rounds or something like that. Then in the AI, you could prevent that value from being checked.

You can modify the health of secondary sprite 0xA, which corresponds to Deorem's eye.

[hypetor]

Hi there!
I would like to know if there's any chance of starting the game with zero suit, and then as the game goes on, you can use the classic one.

I thought of making the event where you lose it as soon as you arrive to chozodia at the start of the game without any scene. But I can't find anything like that tho .-.

BTW: Already googled it for a couple of hours and didnt found anything like what I want, just some patches for DH where you CAN'T return to the classic suit.

Thank you kindly <3

[interdpth]

There's a lot of details.
http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php?topic=1543.0 Can you get you started. I know there's a recent hack that starts you off as Zero Suit. I think I dropped some

here's more intro information:
http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3926.msg52384.html#msg52384

Some more knolwedge in http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3969.msg53757.html#msg53757 check out what kazuto says and I say.

Happy hacking.

[hypetor]

There's a lot of details.
http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php?topic=1543.0 Can you get you started. I know there's a recent hack that starts you off as Zero Suit. I think I dropped some

here's more intro information:
http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3926.msg52384.html#msg52384

Some more knolwedge in http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3969.msg53757.html#msg53757 check out what kazuto says and I say.

Happy hacking.

Yea that's what I was talking about. Also checked it but without any results.

As for the addresses that I have found on the second link, if I'm not wrong I'm supposed to give em the value '2'.  I've tried that with another values too and almost all of them just broke the rom. That's why I was looking for some way to just change the event of chozozia to the very beginning. That way there shouldn't be any issues...well fck  :lol:
I remember reading on the slime guide 'probably your ideas are either impossible or hard as fuck, so give up on them'
Maybe I should just do something else. Ty anyway

[interdpth]

Naw it's not, if someone doesn't help you or you don't figure it out send me a message this weekend and i'll dig in.

[MBT808]

new problem, I'm trying to add new beam sprites to the game, but something goes wrong during import and the palette messes up. any ideas(done in mage)?

in the attachment are the new sprite, the old long beam, and a image showing whats going on(pallette is the same colors in the new as used in the original)

[biospark]

new problem, I'm trying to add new beam sprites to the game, but something goes wrong during import and the palette messes up. any ideas(done in mage)?

You should have posted this in the MAGE thread. Anyway, this is a bug I recently discovered in the most recent version of MAGE. Using this older version should work:

http://arkarian.org/tdk/mage/old/mage-0.7.0.zip

[Kiteguy666]

How do you make it so that the save stations do not disable when a countdown is occurring?

[biospark]

How do you make it so that the save stations do not disable when a countdown is occurring?

You'd have to look through the AI for save stations. It starts at 0x8020228. AI for Chozodia save stations starts at 0x8047280. However, I wouldn't recommend it, since the countdown timer isn't saved when you save the game. Also, there would probably be some graphical glitches if you saved and reloaded during a countdown.

[Golden Warrior]

I have a plethora of questions I've been trying to find answers to for awhile, so I'm glad this exists:

1. Is there a way to have Samus start out with an item? The item I specifically want to have from the start is the Power Grip. If there is a way to have it not even show up on the menu, I'd like to have that happen as well. In the same train of thought, I've seen that the unknown items can be activated right away. How do I go about making that happen?

2. How can I disable the intro animation (Samus opening her eyes) or at least is there a way to have said animation not mess up the background of the room (I am not using Brinstar's default)?

3. If I want a certain enemy to never return when it is destroyed, how would I do that?

4. I have the Charge Beam as a standalone item, but I still want the player to fight Deorem after getting it. Can I have the player fight Deorem and just have it not drop the item somehow? (Actually, can I even cause Deorem to appear if the Charge Beam is collected?)

I know some of these questions may not quite be general, but I'm not sure where else to put them. For reference, I have a bit of experience in hex editing if that is required, although I haven't a clue what I'm doing when it comes to ASM.

[interdpth]

I have a plethora of questions I've been trying to find answers to for awhile, so I'm glad this exists:

1. Is there a way to have Samus start out with an item? The item I specifically want to have from the start is the Power Grip. If there is a way to have it not even show up on the menu, I'd like to have that happen as well. In the same train of thought, I've seen that the unknown items can be activated right away. How do I go about making that happen?

2. How can I disable the intro animation (Samus opening her eyes) or at least is there a way to have said animation not mess up the background of the room (I am not using Brinstar's default)?

3. If I want a certain enemy to never return when it is destroyed, how would I do that?

4. I have the Charge Beam as a standalone item, but I still want the player to fight Deorem after getting it. Can I have the player fight Deorem and just have it not drop the item somehow? (Actually, can I even cause Deorem to appear if the Charge Beam is collected?)

I know some of these questions may not quite be general, but I'm not sure where else to put them. For reference, I have a bit of experience in hex editing if that is required, although I haven't a clue what I'm doing when it comes to ASM.

1 and 2 can be answered with this post http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,4141.msg56654.html#msg56654 but you will need to do some ASM hacking, a hex editor can do some of it. But you'll need to modify some code.

3, you can change the spritesets via events. So just modify that in the header for your room. Said boss triggers the event(You'd have to set that up or base it around an existing one)

4. You can grant charge beam however you want, in the bosses AI you'll just need to figure out what function activates the dropping and zero/nop it out.

These are semi-advanced. But feel free to ask specific questions.

[Kiteguy666]

Can you upload a Resource Thread for Metroid Zero Mission?

[biospark]

It would be the same except for the RAM/ROM maps and symbols file. Unfortutely, my maps for ZM have hardly anything, so there's no point in sharing them at this point. I will once they get filled out more.

Also, ZM reuses a ton of code from Fusion, so for the ROM map it's just a matter of finding the functions I already found in Fusion.

[Kiteguy666]

Also, about the Deorem thing, I looked for the 0x8023520 AI with the HxD editor, but when I found it, there was only FF's. And I had to use Decimal view instead of Hexadecimal view because I couldn't find the AI in Hexadecimal view.

I'm sorry if you feel like I have been annoying you, I'm just not good with this ASM stuff

[biospark]

Also, about the Deorem thing, I looked for the 0x8023520 AI with the HxD editor, but when I found it, there was only FF's. And I had to use Decimal view instead of Hexadecimal view because I couldn't find the AI in Hexadecimal view.

I'm sorry if you feel like I have been annoying you, I'm just not good with this ASM stuff

You need to use a debugging emulator like no$gba to view the AI. But unless you're familiar with ASM it won't do you much good.

[marianne]

I'm totally new to rom hacking (other than IPS patching or the occasional hex edit where I've been told the address to edit and the value to edit it to), but not to programming or to computer use in general. I was just wondering how hard it'd be to make my ideal Metroid Zero Mission tweaky hack. Basically, I'd want:

1) No more map hints from Chozo statues. They can refill my health, that's fine, I just don't want the map hints. Even if it's a kludgy workaround that places the map marker on the same room as the Chozo statue you're currently visiting that'd be acceptable, but a neater solution would be welcomed.

2) Optionally, I'd like Hard mode available from the start. This is much lower priority than eliminating the map hints from the Chorizo sausages, given that I'm a vegetarian and want to make MZM veggie-friendly.

So, anyone willing to help me out in this, give me some pointers, etc? Thank you all, fellow Metroid-nerds :D

[Quietus]

For number one, see this post onwards. :^_^:

[biospark]

1) No more map hints from Chozo statues. They can refill my health, that's fine, I just don't want the map hints. Even if it's a kludgy workaround that places the map marker on the same room as the Chozo statue you're currently visiting that'd be acceptable, but a neater solution would be welcomed.

This is actually part of the patch list in MAGE, so it should be super easy to apply. The post Quietus linked is actually a patch that removes some of the statues. The patch in MAGE leaves them all in (though you'll probably want to remove the very first one, I believe you get stuck otherwise).

Hard mode from the start should be a really easy tweak. I'll look into it and edit this post.

Edit: change the byte at 0x7DE0E from 04 to 11. Let me know if that works.

[DeadSkullzJr]

How do I make it so Samus gains the Power suit with varia?

[FelixWright]

Lately I've been focusing more on the graphical side of my hack than actual level design.

There are some tweaks I've made to palettes (in particular, changing the yellow in 32BA48 to a more greenish color.) which sometimes work, and other times don't.



Taking this yellow in the first screenshot as an example, it shows up as a different color once a file is loaded, but when I have a file to select the colour stays true to the original. Do you happen to have any information on why this happens, or should I look further into this on my own?

[Cpt.Glitch]

Again this is probably me just being dumb, so forgive me.
My E-tank/missile/ect. tiles no longer animate unless they are the "Hidden" clipdata type. At first, I thought it was me overwriting placeholder tiles in the tileset, so I edited the tileset to not be in those areas, but turns out that is not the issue.