How to change playoff teams (turns out it was really easy)

[dokilen]

So as some of you know I've been trying to adjust the playoff teams for the past month or so now. I've spent a lot of time (too much time) trying to figure out a way to edit the hex to use different teams in the playoffs with no success. So I went a different route and think I have a way that works. 

 

To start, let me cover my hex editing attempts so that if I am close perhaps some smarter guys here can pick up where I left off and figure it out. I use the nestopia emulator and when you run a season with that then you get a separate file saved in a folder named save. The file has a .sav extension and can be opened using a hex editor. The season information is saved in this file, including the team records and such. The teams are identified in the .sav file using hex numbers with Buffalo being 00 and going sequentially through Atlanta at 1B. So the task was identifying where the playoff teams are located. To edit the .sav file I used the HxD hex editor. When you have a look at the hex for the .sav you see that the 12 playoff teams are sitting in sequence from 7A2 to 7AD. But simply changing the number for one team to the number for another team in this sequence doesn't work - if you try to open the game the emulator simply turns the file into a backup file and starts the season over. So back to file I went and noticed that the playoff teams also appeared more or less in order, with a few 00 entries between them, from 776 through 792. So I tried changing the two instances of one team (for example, both instances of 02 for Miami to 03 for NE) to another team. Again, didn't work. Back in the .sav I noticed that the playoff teams also appear as a group from 75A through 76F. So I tried changing the three instances of the team, again with no luck. Apparently a different approach was needed.

 

Since it appeared the playoff structure was simply pointing to team positions, the game didn't care what team was sitting in what spot. So I figured if I changed the position of the teams in the game that the playoff structure would change in response. So I opened the .nes file using the General Manager for TSB (http://twofoos.org/content/gmtsb/) and simply dragged the teams to different positions. I saved the file and then opened it up in the emulator. Because the .sav file was drawing the teams from the POSITIONS they sat in inside the .nes file, the playoffs now reflected the new team. In other words, Buffalo made the playoffs, but when I switched the positions of Buffalo and NE in the team listing and opened the file in the emulator, the playoffs showed NE in the playoff spot Buffalo occupied. The team itself seems to be unaffected, as all of the players are still there and the playbook appears unchanged, and even the injuries are still there. 

 

This method works for what I need, and seems that it would work for most of what you other guys are doing. If you need 2 teams to switch so that one player gets player 1 position, simple flip the position of the two teams. The only catch is to make sure that you make a backup copy of your game so that everything will be back where it should be at the start of the next season.

 

What do you guys think?

Edited June 30, 2014 by dokilen

[Knobbe]

Seems like a nice little fix though somewhat limited in application.

Nice work.