hack help [locked]

MetroidS

2006-01-24 05:07:53 pm

N00b Question if it has be answered, but what is a hack and how could i make one?

Thread title:

Yoshi348

2006-01-24 05:58:04 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

A hack would be editing the Super Metroid ROM, usually to change the level design around completely, and possibly other things too. I've heard of SMILE, a tool for making hacks, around here, but I've never used it; nevertheless, what I've heard makes me think it's not easy to use at all unless you know programming.

Kejardon

2006-01-24 06:08:45 pm

Embarrasing Fact: Power suit made by lowest bidder

No, it's not easy to use unless you know what you're doing.
As it is, the documentation on SMILE is really poor. Programming knowledge won't really help you much, what's needed is an explanation of all the tools in SMILE.
Of course, if you have programming experience with Super Metroid, a lot of it is understandable.

MetroidS

2006-01-26 01:24:55 pm

Metroid Hack help! How do u change water to lava or lava to water and be able to see and change the level of the water/lava? I'm using SMILE

Kamek

2006-01-30 09:19:52 pm

Where are the bombs in Metroid Limit? I found a room that looks like the bomb torizo room, but when I shoot the chozo egg thingy, it doesn't give me the bombs. Also, the gate closes gray behind me, so I'm stuck inside the room.

Everywhere else I've checked leads to dead ends or next-to-impossible-to-get missile expansions.

Qlex

2006-01-31 02:25:54 pm

Kamek, shoot the back of the statue so an enemy gets out, then wait.

P.JMan

2006-01-31 03:12:56 pm

I like Big Butts and I can not lie

Quote from Kamek:

Where are the bombs in Metroid Limit? I found a room that looks like the bomb torizo room, but when I shoot the chozo egg thingy, it doesn't give me the bombs. Also, the gate closes gray behind me, so I'm stuck inside the room.

Everywhere else I've checked leads to dead ends or next-to-impossible-to-get missile expansions.

Quote from Qlex:

Kamek, shoot the back of the statue so an enemy gets out, then wait

attachment:

bomb base.png

Qlex

2006-01-31 03:38:33 pm

Yeah thanks a lot P.JBoy, now it looks clear. An image is better than a thousand explanations Wink

.

Chanoire

2006-01-31 03:43:13 pm

Can we split off hack help into a different thread? It's a bit confusing to come in and see a question and/or answer that isn't actually for the game this forum is about but looks a lot like it. (Not to mention OMG SPOILERS for people who might play the hacks in future.)

Yoshi348

2006-01-31 04:11:54 pm

PAGE BREAKER

Ready and willing.

Yeah, you're probably right.

Kamek

2006-01-31 05:13:07 pm

Thanks Qlex and PJ. Was wondering about that, I thought my game had glitched or something.

I wasn't about to make a new topic, either, because

Quote from Arkarian:

Any new (or recent) topics asking for specific help will be locked, so do not make any.

Qlex

2006-02-01 11:46:05 am

Well, now that hacks are being popular, that is no longer specific help I think. Anyway I had a question, too : Where to find Grapple beam in Legacy? What technique to use?

P.JMan

2006-02-01 12:56:38 pm

I like Big Butts and I can not lie

why would you need grapple beam

EDIT:i just found it myself, you need power bombs to get it

Distort

2006-02-01 08:25:18 pm

Questions:

-What format does the ROM need t be in for SMILE to load it?
-Do you need a certain version of Super Metroid in order to have SMILE accept it?

Kejardon

2006-02-01 10:33:08 pm

Embarrasing Fact: Power suit made by lowest bidder

SMILE isn't picky. You can have a headerless rom or with header, PAL or NTSC. The only thing it doesn't do is zipped files.
As far as I know, there's only one format for roms: 65816 binary. The only way I can conceive of somehow messing that up is going from a big-endian to little-endian bit ordering, or vice versa. Which, if you're reading this, isn't very likely to happen.

Distort

2006-02-01 11:39:33 pm

Well, I guess I'll have to delve deeper in order to solve my problem..
SMILE will load the GUI, but it won't let me edit anything, and most of the stuff is grayed out. Any ideas?

Kejardon

2006-02-02 12:02:15 am

Embarrasing Fact: Power suit made by lowest bidder

Are you loading a room? There isn't much you can do until you load a room. (note the default screen is *NOT* a room for editing)

On the top left of the right section is a yellow box. That contains the room ID (specifically, it's the address in the rom where the room header is stored, which points to all the other information needed for any room). Select an ID to select a room.
Course, that's not the easiest way to move from room to room. For that, you can shift + right click on a door and go to enter room.

Distort

2006-02-02 12:26:30 am

*Looks like an idiot*
I'll try that tomorrow, hopefully it works.

Qlex

2006-02-02 01:33:09 am

Thanks to you so much P.JBoy, I knew it was there and I wanted to complete the game in the order meant by the creator of the hack, but I wasn't able to get it since I was trying to get to the room from the lower rooms >__________<.

P.JMan

2006-02-02 01:01:19 pm

I like Big Butts and I can not lie

where do you go after getting bombs al i could find is that heated room witch i die in

Kamek

2006-02-02 06:56:35 pm

Well, I'm stuck in Metroid Limit again. I got the bombs, an energy tank, and a few random missile expansions, but I'm still stuck. If I continue deeper into Crateria, I find myself in a superheated Norfair room which cannot be passed. If I go back to the wrecked ship, I find myself in a grappling hook room filled with water and deadly spikes on the bottom. Every place in between is either blocked off by power bomb blocks, super missile doors, or just plain gray doors.

If the whole hack is gonna be like this then I'm not even going to bother -- getting stuck all the time is not fun at all.

Distort

2006-02-02 10:59:53 pm

Help with beams:
I was messing around with Kejardon's RAM map and editing random variables when I came across the cooldown timer, I ended up with a machine gun type gun, which shoots 5 bullets almost instantly. My question is.. is there a way to change the cooldown speed, damage type, bullet effect or even directed path of bullets (or lasers, whatever you wanna call them) when a certain beam is equipped?

Qlex

2006-02-03 01:22:31 am

Kamek, you got in the wrong way, although it is a huge way. You must get back to wrecked ship, open a red hatch on the far right of the main room (If you get in crateria than in brinstar, then you're correct), and continue your way to find the ice beam in a weird watery room (it's hell hard, but it is possible.)
I think that also answers P.JBoy's question.
So recap : turn back, go to brinstar.
Edit : Made that post quick, so I'll explain a little more, just in order to be completely clear :
The room in wrecked ship I am talking about is the one you pass through in order to go to the room with grapple hooks you were talking about. It is the room you pass to get the morph ball etc...
The thing you must do:
- Get on the upper platforms (if you see some ball like the chozo's ball blocked by some kind of wall then you are approximatively there.)
- Find a way, a little lower, to the right (you will fall)
- Find a red hatch, open it. If you hear that music just like when you defeat a boss, then it's the good hatch.
From there you will make a little way to brinstar and will have to take the ice beam (the room where you must have it is quite... more than hell hard). I won't say more ^^ !
Oh, and if you say this is hard, then you haven't tried the grappling beam room yet : I'm stuck in it, I die all the time...
Edit2 : AND SAVESTATE A LOT, if not you will regret it. And I passed that damn room, I'm progressing again now.

Kejardon

2006-02-03 01:18:25 pm

Embarrasing Fact: Power suit made by lowest bidder

The beams all have individual cooldown times stored in the rom. You can change them easily with a hex editor. Damage is the same. As for the damage type, direction, and other related things, you'll have to do some asm hacking.

There are two lists of cooldowns. The first is for normal cooldown: they start at offset $84254, and go normal, wave, ice, wave+ice, spazer, spazer+wave, spazer+ice, spazer+wave+ice, plasma, etc. (the glitch beams also use this list). Charge beam cooldowns start at $84264, same order, glitch beams also use this list.

The second cooldown list is used if you hold down the fire button, and don't have the charge beam equipped. They start at $84283.

The damage list is organized really strangely; it uses a list of pointers to point to damage. Each entry uses 2 bytes.
Normal beam damage is at 98431
Wave beam damage is at 984B5
Ice beam damage is at 9849F
Wave/Ice at 984E1
Spazer @ 98447
Spazer/Wave @ 984F7
Spazer/Ice @ 9845D
Spazer/Wave/Ice @ 98473
Plasma @ 984CB
Plasma/Wave @ 9850D
Plasma/Ice @ 98523
Plasma/Wave/Ice @ 98489
Plasma/Spazer @ 98539
Plasma/Spazer/Wave @ 985D3
Plasma/Spazer/Ice @ 985A7
Plasma/Spazer/Wave/Ice @ 985E9
Charged Normal @ 98539
Charged Wave @ 985D3
Charged Ice @ 985A7
Charged Wave/Ice @ 985E9
Charged Spazer @ 9854F
Charged Spazer/Wave @ 985FF
Charged Spazer/Ice @ 98565
Charged Spazer/Wave/Ice @ 9857B
Charged Plasma @ 985BD
Charged Plasma/Wave @ 9862B
Charged Plasma/Ice @ 98615
Charged Plasma/Wave/Ice @ 98591
Charged Plasma/Spazer @ 98641
Charged Plasma/Spazer/Wave @ 98641
Charged Plasma/Spazer/Ice @ 98657
Charged Plasma/Spazer/Wave/Ice @ 98671 (I bet this is the same address used by power bombs, but I haven't checked)

::edit:: These values are all for *headerless* roms.
Also, if you want to use PAR codes instead of hacking a rom, you can get the code fairly easily from the offset in the headerless rom:

Take the front four digits. If this number is less than 8000, add 8000. Save this number for a bit.
Take the digits to the left, and multiply it by 2, then add 80. If you *didn't* add 8000 to the front two numbers, add another 1 now.
Take this number, append the 4 digits from earlier onto it, and then last put in the new value you want to use.

So, say you want to make a machine gun. Cooldown address is at $84254 in the rom, and you want to make the cooldown 00. So that becomes 90C25400. Now lets say you want to make that kill spore spawn in 1 hit. The damage is at $98431(1's place) and $98432(100's place). Changing $98432 will make a bigger difference, so let's change that to 10 (too big may cause some glitches, and 10 is plenty big). The code is then 93843210.

Then you go and realize that Spore Spawn is invincible to uncharged shots. Doh.
::/edit::

The beams all have individual cooldown times stored in the rom. You can change them easily with a hex editor. Damage is the same. As for the damage type, direction, and other related things, you'll have to do some asm hacking.

There are two lists of cooldowns. The first is for normal cooldown: they start at offset $84254, and go normal, wave, ice, wave+ice, spazer, spazer+wave, spazer+ice, spazer+wave+ice, plasma, etc. (the glitch beams also use this list). Charge beam cooldowns start at $84264, same order, glitch beams also use this list.

The second cooldown list is used if you hold down the fire button, and don't have the charge beam equipped. They start at $84283.

The damage list is organized really strangely; it uses a list of pointers to point to damage. Each entry uses 2 bytes.
Normal beam damage is at 98431
Wave beam damage is at 984B5
Ice beam damage is at 9849F
Wave/Ice at 984E1
Spazer @ 98447
Spazer/Wave @ 984F7
Spazer/Ice @ 9845D
Spazer/Wave/Ice @ 98473
Plasma @ 984CB
Plasma/Wave @ 9850D
Plasma/Ice @ 98523
Plasma/Wave/Ice @ 98489
Plasma/Spazer @ 98539
Plasma/Spazer/Wave @ 985D3
Plasma/Spazer/Ice @ 985A7
Plasma/Spazer/Wave/Ice @ 985E9
Charged Normal @ 98539
Charged Wave @ 985D3
Charged Ice @ 985A7
Charged Wave/Ice @ 985E9
Charged Spazer @ 9854F
Charged Spazer/Wave @ 985FF
Charged Spazer/Ice @ 98565
Charged Spazer/Wave/Ice @ 9857B
Charged Plasma @ 985BD
Charged Plasma/Wave @ 9862B
Charged Plasma/Ice @ 98615
Charged Plasma/Wave/Ice @ 98591
Charged Plasma/Spazer @ 98641
Charged Plasma/Spazer/Wave @ 98641
Charged Plasma/Spazer/Ice @ 98657
Charged Plasma/Spazer/Wave/Ice @ 98671 (I bet this is the same address used by power bombs, but I haven't checked)

::edit:: These values are all for *headerless* roms.
Also, if you want to use PAR codes instead of hacking a rom, you can get the code fairly easily from the offset in the headerless rom:

Take the front four digits. If this number is less than 8000, add 8000. Save this number for a bit.
Take the digits to the left, and multiply it by 2, then add 80. If you *didn't* add 8000 to the front two numbers, add another 1 now.
Take this number, append the 4 digits from earlier onto it, and then last put in the new value you want to use.

So, say you want to make a machine gun. Cooldown address is at $84254 in the rom, and you want to make the cooldown 00. So that becomes 90C25400. Now lets say you want to make that kill spore spawn in 1 hit. The damage is at $98431(1's place) and $98432(100's place). Changing $98432 will make a bigger difference, so let's change that to 10 (too big may cause some glitches, and 10 is plenty big). The code is then 93843210.

Then you go and realize that Spore Spawn is invincible to uncharged shots. Doh.
::/edit::

P.JMan

2006-02-03 02:44:10 pm

I like Big Butts and I can not lie

yyeeah,anyway i defeated without cheats so i just used save states every shooting round i didn't die
And maybe if you could in understandable english find an infinant missile code(cheats for super metroid don't work in limit)