MiniDitka

Check out this post: http://www.tecmobowl.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=792 It's confusing, you need a hex editor, but it can be done.

I found out more stuff with the scheduling thing that makes things work pretty much flawlessly, allowing you to get as few or as many games per week in the schedule for it to work.... But it has to do with messing with those annoying pointers that nobody really understands. As I said earlier, I wanted to manipulate the schedule so it would have 14 games per week for 16 weeks, getting rid of the bye week. First of all, I set the easier-to-understand games per week code (0E=14, 0D=13, etc). to all OE's to for 16 weeks, leaving the 17th week at 00 to show that no games are played. Unfortunately, just changing these values only puts 14 games per week, but games are repeated because the pointers are all screwed up. So, After spending a couple hours figuring out what pointers were all about, I found the REAL pointers for the number of games per week. At offset 329A7 (The hex code starts out "CB 89 E7 89), there are 34 bytes, or two bytes per week. As i put above, CB 89 = Week 1, E7 89 = Week 2, etc. If you notice, since there are 14 games programmed in for Week 1, the difference between CB and E7 if you subtract them in Hex terms in 28....accounting for the 28 teams playing that week. If you want only 13 games that first week, Change the "E7" to "E5," showing where the pointer starts for Week 2's games. Since I wanted 14 games, or 28 teams a week, I just kept adding 28 to each byte until the end of the season. But, I found that the game won't let you leave a week blank (It freezes up on you if you try to advance beyond that empty week), so for me to play my 16 week schedule, I needed to have only 13 games in week 16, and 1 game in Week 17, which could be like the last Monday Night Football game of the year.... Yes, I know it's really complicated. So, to save the hard work of figuring out a regular 16 week schedule, I just did the pointers for you.... From 329A7: CB 89 E7 89 03 8A 1F 8A 3B 8A 57 8A 73 8A 8F 8A AB 8A C7 8A E3 8A FF 8A 1B 8B 37 8B 53 8B 6F 8B 89 8B And the games per week bytes at 329C9: 0E 0E 0E 0E 0E 0E 0E 0E 0E 0E 0E 0E 0E 0E 0E 0D 01 And this time, I checked out this info to see if it worked before posting....

We could still make pass plays that are drastically different just by changing formations, like taking a run and shoot formation and puting it in a T formation makes some pretty big changes, and vice versa. And SOme of those really weird plays where the TE'S and FB's are in weird spots, like the 3 wing the Eagles use and K gun, become completely different plays when put in different formations....it would be well worth our time to make an editor specifically for this.... And I've tried to design a real run and shoot offense, ones with alternate patterns, or two or three different variations of the same play. The play worked in the game, but unfortunately, My ideas for putting in a Run and Shoot/St Louis Rams type offense with multiple routes for each receiver won't work from a graphical point of view, because putting those tiles together are a BITCH. There needs to be an easier way. Perhaps if we show our programmer friend the wide number of plays that are possible, things such as a play that's play action yet runs a full quarterback run when the defense picks a certain play for something like that, will change his mind. And BTW, don't try doing a play action from a 4 WR set....the defense bum rushes you every time.

All right....so we know have practically EVERYTHING figured out.....Where's the brotha to make the play editor then???? Lazily awaiting while other people do all the dirty work, George W Bush

Well, I may not be very Bright, Rod, but that was my normal mode of action to figure things out, but I tried that a week ago with a rom corrupter i downloaded, and It doesn't modify a damn thing....How do those crazy things work???? Plotting against the windmills, Don Quixote

OK, I tried what I just explained and it does indeed work without screwing up the rest of the season's schedule.

Actually, there is a bit of an issue going on with the schedule thing....I THOUGHT I figured it out.....but alas, my Scientific Method is horribly awry, because last night, I started to do the 16 game schedule, and it got all screwed up, repeating games toward the middle of the season when Tecmo's original schedule had byes scheduled....so it turns out I lied to you people and the games per week thing is kind of hard coded, as far as ADDING new games is concerned. But to fix your college question, I THINK this will work..... For the first few weeks, there were originally 14 games scheduled. To have only one or two games scheduled, set the schedule pointer thingy to 01 or 02 or however many games you play....then fill in the other 11 or 12 games that week with FF's, and it shouldn't flash anymore.... Say you want two games in one week, and it should look like this: 01 02 03 04 FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF I'm pretty sure it would work. Just make it so that you are consistent with the number of games during the middle of season, or else it will repeat games multiple times over a few weeks. Just remember to fill in FF's for the remaining games of any week you shorten.....luckily, you can do most anything with week 17 because there's no week following it... I hope I'm making sense... Sincerely, The Absent-Minded Tecmo Scientist

Well, to explain this, I might as well go through the whole song and dance of schedule editing.... At byte 329C9, there begins values like 0E, 0D, 0C, etc. These are the pointers for the number of games each week. Unfortunately, you can't add weeks, but if you're so inclined for some reason, you can add games to that week (I at least did it with the value 0F). To make less weeks, all you do is put in 00 for the week so there are no games. For the teams, their bytes go from 00 (Buffalo) to 1b (Atlanta), in divisional order. There is a lot of blank "FF" area after the schedule part, so if you insert certain games and such, make sure that the FF's are equal to the number of games you add so the game doesn't get all out of whack.

Well, I'm weird and I use the tool of our Japanese friends, Famtasia. It shows everything, you hear everything, and it blurs the image a bit so it doesn't look all pixelated when you're close to your computer screen. But don't bother, because the save state just virtually saves a whole other ROM like 385k in size. But, it shouldn't be that hard to have multiple support, because the save state into created, at least with stats and stuff and the corresponding byte values, is virtually the same with every emu, is it not?

I don't know jack about C++, but what kind of stuff do you have in mind? I have some ideas which I've had wet dreams about contemplating, but here's what I've got... 1) Are you going to devise something that will extract the Tecmo stats from a save state? I tried figuring out how those things worked a while back (It's in an FAQ I worked on in TSB Heaven that I now realize is quite unitelligible), and it's a bitch to figure out. I think that's step 1. 2) Outside of ripping off Madden, how are you doing to devise the draft? The part of me that has a hardon for historical seasons thinks it would be really cool if you could somehow add something where you can access a file full of players that were actually drafted in any given year.....Such things would have to have an accurate rating with the players that show what they will turn into......Also, to satisfy that part of us that likes to stack the deck in our favor like we do when we beat Indy with San Francisco 211-0, it would be really cool if you could, say, load in info for the 1995 draft or something and have it sim a pretty accurate-to-life draft where Terrell Davis would still fall to the 6th round, making your team able to draft him in the 5th, and just watch the Super Bowls roll in, or have the option to leave this off and just have the AI draft Davis number 1... (BTW, I have a lot of draft into I could send you, if I could find it, if this interests you) Have you ever looked at something like Front Office Football or Football Mogul? They have a much better simulation AI than Madden could ever dream of. You should try to model it after that.... But whatever it is, I will try to help you do anything when it comes to crunching numbers on real life stuff.....just don't ask me to write software. Ah. Now I feel satisfied in multiplying your workload threefold.

Whenever I could ever find time from school or my large-breasted girlfriend (heehee), I've been interested in putting together as many historicaL seasons as possible. I had done a rehash of 1991, 90, and am almost done with 85 and 89, but they're still a bit faulty......so I have some questions of you wonderful chaps: 1) I was trying to do 1985 and make the Bears defense (I still make myself wet thinking about that team), so I made the sack totals really high because the 84 and 85 Bears had some of the highest sack totals ever, but the sim came out all screwed. Richard Dent had something like 28 sacks, and the rest of my DEs had good numbers, but my linebackers had nothing (Otis Wilson and Wilber Marshall were still badasses in the sack dept. that year). The same thing happened with my interceptions....it's like it was impossible for the game to spread out that good of numbers across an entire team. I had their sim codes set to 15 for offense and 15 for defense, obviously, and maybe this has something to do with it too. I remember thinking I had it figured out that you were only allowed something like 255 total added bytes of Sack numbers and 255 total bytes of ints, but that still didn't fix anything. Any ideas? 2) Has anybody figured out how to get the WRs to sim properly? There are some players that have real life stats like 50 catches and 1100 yards while some other guys have stuff like 90 catches and 800 yards....I think the PR and KR stats impact the Yards per catch numbers but it seems to be really hit and miss... Sometimes I will give a WR a receiving code of something low like a 3, but I put their KR stuff high because they're a good returner, and they end up leading the league in receiving....I sure as hell don't want someone stupid like Kelvin Martin leading the league in receiving every year over Jerry Rice. Any tips to get around that? 3) I remember reading somewhere on these boards that someone had a utility or something where they plug in a player's real life stats and it spits out some pretty good Tecmo ratings.....Who has that? 4) Also, where could a brutha go to figure out stuff like defensive stats like tackles and sacks and accurate player jersey numbers? Is there a site out there like that???? As far as everything else, I have it pretty much figured out. I've figured out how to create COMPLETELY accurate historical schedules, how to fiddle with the pointers that show how many games will be played each week, making it possible for a full 16 week schedule with no byes, just having everyone sit out the final week....which also works in creating 14-game, 26 team seasons (It pretty much lets us be able to make any season since the merger like the TSBIII 1970 season with the CNFL).....And then there's the whole play editing thing; that's taken care of.... I also need to figure out how to take Houston and Atlanta off the 4WR mode and stuff like that. As you could see, I'm quite anal about historicism.....damn me.

And BTW... Now that I've played my part and added something to wonderful community, does ANYBODY know how to change the actual formations, like changing Houston from 4WR to Pro Set or the changing the Bears from the Pro Set to a 3 receiver setup? I'm sick of those silly Tecmo bastards substituting in the wrong people when HOuston's fullback gets hurt..... ANYBODY????

Hey guys: Long time listener, first-time caller, and I figured out some further stuff on the play editing....It's kind of the same as the formation thing, but a bit different and opens up some good possibilities. When you hack on the plays, you see those 8 bytes alongside each play, and usually they're all the same....what those do is determine which play is selected in accordance to what the defense picks (If they pick Run 1, you end up running the play in that first byte, run 2 for the second, etc.) So it's possible that one actual "play" can actually be 8 different plays depending on which play the defense picks. What this means is that you could design a pretty killer playbook, consisting of BS'ed quarterback options (Like the Red Gun play Bruddog mentioned), and a REAL Run and shoot offense, since the real run and shoot offense consisted of receivers running different routes based on their reads of the defense. So you could pick one play out of the 4 receiver set and have your receivers run any number of routes. Oh, and by the way, this thing works so well that one "play" could actually be a run or a pass depending on what the defense picks. This would be cool for running plays, which are damn near impossible to beat when the defense picks your play, so if your run is in the RUN 1 spot, you can change it so your offense runs a pass play when the defense selects your play....that's kinda cool too. Also, as far as the formation thing...try putting a punt formation (Byte 01) with a pass play....it ends up being an honest to god fake punt, only the screen doesn't scroll with who you throw the ball to, but EVERYBODY is wide open with no pursuit by the defense...it has no practical use in a game but it's fun nonetheless. Here's what I came up with for what each byte does in the plays (cross reference this with the plays on the repository here so you can better understand it). Keep in mind, the way this code was programmed in, some plays have two or three variations with subtle differences (mostly different blocking assignments), so that's why there are certain plays listed two or three times: Runs 10=T FAKE SWEEP R 50=T FAKE SWEEP R (Alt Variation) 11=T POWER SWEEP 12=WTE OFFTACKLE R 13=ONESETBACK L 14=R AND S SWEEP L 52=R AND S SWEEP L (Alt) 51=R AND S SWEEP L (Alt 2) 53=FB OFFTACKLE R 16=FB OFFTACKLE R (Alt) 54=FB OPEN L 17=FB OPEN L (Alt) 55=TOSS SWEEP R 15=TOSS SWEEP R (Alt) 18=T POWER DIVE 19=FB OFFTACKLE L 56=FB OFFTACKLE L (Alt) 1A=R AND S DRAW 1B=PITCH L FAKE 01=ONEBACK SWEEP R 1C=ONEBACK SWEEP R (Alt) 00=ONEBACK SWEEP R (Alt2) 02=WEAKSIDE OPEN 1D=WEAKSIDE OPEN (ALT) 03=T OFFTACKLE R 1E=T OFFTACKLE R (ALT) 1F=T SWEEP STRONG 04=SHOTGUN DRAW 20=SHOTGUN DRAW (ALT) 05=R AND S SWEEP R 22=R AND S SWEEP R (ALT) 07=T CROSS RUN L 06=T CROSS RUN L (ALT) 21=T CROSS RUN L (ALT2) 08=SLOT OFFTACKLE 24=SLOT OFFTACKLE (ALT) 09=CROSS OFFTACKLE 26=CROSS OFFTACKLE (ALT) 0B=PITCH L OPEN 0A=PITCH L OPEN (ALT) 27=PITCH L OPEN (ALT2) 0C=WR REVERSE R 23=WR REVERSE R (ALT) OD=WR REVERSE L 25=WR REVERSE L (ALT) OE=R AND S QB RUN 2A=R AND S QB RUN (ALT) 2D=SHOTGUN SWEEP L OF=SHOTGUN SWEEP L (ALT) 2E=R AND S QB SNEAK 57=R AND S QB SNEAK (ALT) 29=ONESETBACK DIVE 28=PRO T DIVE 2B=FB POWER DIVE 58=SHOTGUN C DRAW 2C=SHOTGUN C DRAW (ALT) 59=REVERSE PITCH R 2F=REVERSE PITCH R (ALT) passes 30=PRO T WAGGLE L 31=R AND S FLARE 32=PRO T WAGGLE R 33=ROLLOUT R 34=ROLLOUT L 35=PLAY ACTION D 36=PRO T SCREEN 5A=PRO T SCREEN (ALT) 37=PLAY ACTION 38=PWR FAKE Z POST 39=WTE F-FLICKER 3A=SHOTGUN X CURL 5B=SHOTGUN X CURL (ALT) 3B=R AND S Z FLY 3C=PRO T FLARE D 3D=OFFSET FLARE E 3E=ONEBACK Z CROSS 3F=ONEBACK FLARE A 40=T FLEA FLICKER 41=PWR FAKE X FLY 42=SHOTGUN X DRIVE 43=R AND S 3WING 44=PLAYACTION Z IN 45=FLEA FLICKER 46=PRO T FLARE C 47=SHOTGUN 3 WING 48=SHOTGUN XY BOMB 49=R AND S Y UP 4A=X OUT AND FLY 4B=REV FAKE Z POST 4C-SLOT L Z DRIVE 4D=BACK X DEEP 4E=SHOTGUN Z S IN 4F=REDGUN Z SLANT And remember, you can run insert any variation of these bytes for each play, whether they be run or pass, and it will still work.... And BTW, don't bother putting any values higher than 5B or lower 10.....it just freezes the game . Now all we have to figure out how to do is be able to edit the silly Play graphics so it corresponds to the plays we create (It's probably like editing the large helmets I assume).