Jump to content

Modifying Tecmo Bowl - the original


Knobbe

Recommended Posts

A lot of you have used TSB manager on Tecmo Super Bowl. However, before that came out there was an editor for the original Tecmo Bowl. However, this only edited the Player names and stats.

Tecmo Bowl Editor - http://www.knobbe.org/downloads/pafiled ... egory&id=8

This weekend I received an e-mail from a guy who'd seen my request for Tecmo Bowl player attributes and sent me an e-mail showing me where the data was and explaining most of it. I'm going over it myself and should be able to release the data plus what it all does in the near future. Maybe Emuware will decide this is Manager worthy although the demand for Tecmo Bowl isn't all that great.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was bored this summer and used a hex editor to make a pre-season version of tecmo bowl. however, I found that you can change the player's numbers (you know, the ones that are under his name at the top) and it won't affect his play. I tried to change the numbers to believable ones for today's stars but they played like the old guys. For instance, on the colts Jack Trudeau was the worst QB and although Manning's stats are better, he plays like Jack. but its fun if you have a hankering for some tecmo bowl with a new twist.

scott

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is what I've come up with most of the work being done by iyiiki

For a list of all players, click here

Roms are hexidecimal based. That means that they are base 16 instead of base 10. The range is from 0-F. A=10, B=11, C=12, D=13, E=14, F=15, 10=16, 11=17, 1F=31, etc...

Bo Jackson 43 0B 50 8A

Bit 1: 4 -> Acceleration time (Rushing Power) - The larger the number, the more time it takes for the player to get to max speed. Every offensive player in the game has a 3 for this value except Bo with 4 and Indy WR Bill Brooks with an 8. Bo is likely this way to nerf the fact that he has the highest max speed. For defensive players this varies from 7 to 9. Most players are 8 or 9 with several of your elite guys like a LT at 7. All kickers and punters have a value of A meaning they change direction slower than anyone else in the game.

Bit 2: 3 -> Initial speed (Running Speed) - This is the speed you run at while you are accelerating to max speed. For offensive players this number varies from 0-4. For defensive players, it varies from 0-3 though only Ronnie Lott and LT have a 3 value.

Bit 3 and 4: 0B -> Max speed - The speed at which players top out at after accelerating from their initial speed. Offensive players vary from 05 to 0B while defensive players vary from 0C to 12. You can really tell the difference in offensive players when this is changed but I had a hard time finding differences in defensive players. It be nice if someone could verify or disprove the defensive part.

Bit 5 and 6: 50 -> Hitting Power - The higher the hitting power, the more likely you are to win grapples or "popcorn" the other player. Offensive players vary from 20-60 though 30-38 is the norm. Defensive players vary from 30-56. My guess is that there is a equation for popcorn, grapple, and tackles based on the variences between hitting powers.

Bit 7: 8 -> Race - Tecmo has it's basic black or white player setting. 0 is used for white and 8 is used for black. Any value from 0-7 is white or any value from 8-F is black.

Bit 8: A -> Special Ability -

Quarter Backs: All QBs have the value 8 here except for John Elway, who has the value 3. I have no idea why this is or what it does. Any one notice anything different about Elway than the other QBs besides the fact he is fast. (His other stats make him faster) Does he run more than other QBs? If so this could be a scrambling number similar to the one TSB has.

RBs, WRs, TE: This value controls the QB passing speed/pitching speed plus it possibly might control the receiving ability. The numbers vary from 8-E here while most players on the same team have the same values.

Kickers and Punters - These probably control either the max distance the ball travels or the speed of the kick meter, but I honestly didn't care enough to figure it out. Kickers vary from 5 - A while Punters vary from 6 to E.

Kick Returners and Defensive players - These players all have a value of 0 which means that they don't use this bit. Changing it also seems to have no affect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did a little testing on the max speed numbers for the defense. They do apply. I set up Dallas' defense to all have 90 0C 30 00, except Jeffcoat, who was 90 xx 30 80, so everyone has the same initial speed and delay, and Jeffcoat is the only player with dark skin, so he's easy to single out. This way I could test how different values in the max speed area would affect a single player.

There is a difference, though it isn't as noticable as it is for an offensive player. Often, this is because the defender gets blocked and never gets into the open field. A low hitting power strongly hinders any advantage in max speed. And it seems that the speed of the player you control is more dependent on you hitting the A button, rather than the players max speed rating.

But moving the rating really high up can clearly show you the difference. There is a limit, though. The value can go up to FF and they'll be ridiculously fast. They'll sack the QB just about every time. But once they get into the open field and into full speed, if they're too fast, when they make contact with somebody, they'll disintegrate. So far, it looks like anything 40 or above can cause them to disappear. I've haven't yet lost anybody in the 30s.

Enjoy

BBuser

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The place to edit team uniform colors begins at address 10350. That line is for Indianapolis. Miami begins at 10360, Cleveland at 10370, etc. Indy's line breaks down like this:

0F 30 36 11 0F 30 15 11 0F 19 12 30

The first four bytes are four white players. The second four are for black players. The third four are for the field. You can use the TSB Manager to get the hex values for each color. If you go to where you edit team colors you get a 4 x 16 chart. The four rows represent the first digit, beginning with 0. The 16 columns represent the second digit, also start with 0. So Dark Gray is 00, Green is 0A, White is 30, Black 8 is 3F.

The green numbers are for the team's helmets & pants. The blue numbers are for the team's jerseys. The red numbers are for the players' skin color. 36 is used for all white players. Black players have 15, 05, or 0F depending on the team. The violet numbers are for the team's end zone. This is generally just a variation on one of the uniform colors, but not exactly the same, or else players would partially disappear. The other numbers are constant for all teams. 0F is black, the first two times this appears in each team line does not seem to affect anything. The third 0F is for the black parts of the field. The 19 is green, the color of the field. The 30 is the white part of the field.

Another place you might want to edit is the data for the touchdown screen, where the players jump & high-five each other. This begins at address 12510 and each team has one line, beginning with Indy. Their line looks like this:

30 11 0F 30 21 11 0F 36 21 11

The green numbers are again for the players' helmets. The first two blue numbers are for the players' jerseys. The third occurrence seems to be one of the colors in the background crowd. All the other numbers are constant for all teams.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So... are you telling me that since there are 2 green numbers, that one is for the helmet, the other is for the pants, and that you can come up with a team that say.... has a purple helmet and black pants?

Unfortunately, no. There's four values assigned to each player. On each team line, the first four values on the line are for white players, the second four are for black players. The first one (0F) is not used. The second is the value for the helmet, pants, shoes and wristbands. The third value is the skin color. The fourth value is the jersey, socks and stripe on pants.

With the Indy example, the first 30 is the white parts of the white players, the second 30 is the white parts of the black players. If you used different numbers, the white players would have one type of uniform, the black players a different type. And that's just weird looking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hey iyiiki, do you have any idea as to how the letters in the endzone are stored as hex values?

I know that each letter is made up of pieces shared by the other letters, but I havent had any luck locating the hex values...

J-Diddy wrote: where in mn are you GRG

minneapolis

Link to comment
Share on other sites

do you have any idea as to how the letters in the endzone are stored as hex values?

I've done a little bit of work on this. I did find where the code for this is, but it is a somewhat scrambled. I've figured out most of how the pieces fit together, but there is still some work to do regarding the order that things are in.

I'll do some more work on it this weekend and try to put together something that's not too hard to understand.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do the teams all use the same number of tiles for their logos? It looks like they piece together the end zone logos from about 20 tiles so it'd be easier to make a logo editor if they all are the same size.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I did some more work with the endzones and there's no easy way to give each team it's own unique endzone. I'm not completely through working on it, but here's what I've found so far.

It looks like the code for the endzone tiles begins around address 11454 and runs through address 11C29. Things are stored in groups of 17 bytes. Each group begins with either 55 or FF. It looks like groups beginning with 55 are for the right endzone, FF groups are for the left endzone.

So that leaves 16 bytes in each group. Each byte represents 1 tile. The tiles that are used are at addresses in the 30xx0 range. (In Tile Layer Pro, offset 30010. So a B9 byte is address 30B90. The same tiles are also at addresses beginning 31, 32, and 33.) Each group of 16 gives you a 4x4 square. The tiles are laid out left to right, top to bottom.

The letters in the endzone are 8 tiles high (left to right on the screen) and span 9 tiles across (top to bottom). So each team needs 6 4x4 squares to define its endzone. But each team does not have 6 lines solely for the, some squares are reused. So the data that makes the M for Miami is also used for Minnesota, Dallas and Denver share the D, etc. So it would be difficult to change teams around and still get things to match up.

If we found the code that defines what lines each team uses, then it would be possible to change things around to give each team their own letters. But even this would take a good bit of planning because unless you know how to add data into the rom, it looks like you have to reuse some squares due to space restrictions.

In the meantime, I'm putting together something that will put the letters NFL in all of the endzones. I'll post a link to that rom when it's ready. If anyone wants to know more specifics, let me know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

good god. did i ever pick a good day to start reading these forums.

excellent work you guys.

and i am also a fellow minnesotan. i am from grand rapids. i hope you guys know where that is, because if you dont, ill have to club you over the head caveman style. where are you from in MN, mr. diddy?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i ran an "experiment" on the "extra" attribute for the qb.

two test were run. the game was in coach mode. the opponent was the vikings. the ball was at the denver 40 yd line. the offensive play selected was pass #1. the defensive play selected was run #2. this was repeated 60 times per test. the independent variable is the "extra" attribute for a qb, whether it is a 3 or an 8.

when the attribute was at 3, elway ran the ball from the pocket only 5 times out of 60, or a mere 8%. when the attribute was at 8, elway ran the ball 19 out of 60 times, or 32%.

if anything, this concludes that the "extra" attribute and elway having a 3 in that category either makes no difference on in fact makes him run less, as odd as it sounds for the people who hypothesized the opposite.

there is some error though. the ball was not the same EXACT spot on the field. also, in the second test, i observed that elway indeed tended to run more when doleman ran to the top of the screen, where it did not matter much in the first test. this could have corrupted the test in some way, but it is unlikely.

any comments or people who have ran their own tests/experiments with the attribute and would like to share their results would be appreicated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Try the values 0 and 15 as that would be the range of values that can go there. I guess it's the quesiton of what Elway does that's different. I figured it would be a scrambling attribute just because he's got the max speed and what not to pull it off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a rom with the NFL endzones at this website. Sorry it took so long to put it out. It didn't take long to do. It was done a while ago, I just forgot to put it up before I got distracted by other things.

There is one little problem with it, though. In the original game, in LA's endzone they have an area in their logo that is empty. (The upper right section of the L.) For some reason, the code for this section is all 00's instead of 02's, which are used for blank spaces in other cases. What this means is that the game doesn't even bother to read in any data for that section. So even if you put data in to replace the 00's, nothing is changed. Here are screen shots of a normal endzone and LA's endzone.

It looks like we'd have to find the pointers to what data each team uses to fix that. Or if anyone else has an idea for something else to put in each endzone that wouldn't be affected by the blank spot, I could put something else out.

Also I made rom's with the playoff teams from the past two years. They're at the same site as above. The defenses are a little faster than in the original game, but it's still not too difficult a play.

I did these before the Emuare editor came out. I haven't really looked into that yet, so I don't know if it supports anything more than the simple text and player ratings in the game. In these roms, the team names on the Touchdown screen and the Newspaper screen after each are correct, which I don't know if the editor supports. I not 100% sure that all the graphics are all right. Let me know if you see any glitches or have any other thoughts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
The third occurrence seems to be one of the colors in the background crowd. All the other numbers are constant for all teams.

The third number is the color of the "smack", and part of the jersey that appears when the players high five each other.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does anyone know which addresses affect the invisible team? I'd like to edit the uniforms so you can actually see them, and maybe even give them a play book. Since they are all gray they are probably somewhere in the zillions of 00's, but any help would be appreciated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...