2015-01-29, 01:06 PM
Wow, I found the hit calculator on this game and it's a colossal fail. It looks like it was supposed to generate a random number from 1 to 100 then compare that against the calculated hit odds (ie the odds are calculated based on the two units AGI scores). Instead, the random number generator spits out a number that increases by 2 each action and goes back to 0 when it reaches 100.
That's why game goes through a constant cycle of all hits, and then all misses. For example, when the count gets between 71 and 100, all creatures with 70% or lower hit chance miss. I would say that makes the game pretty much broken. I'm amazed no one noticed.
About your question Tony, it's not quite as simple as scanning with a program. There are PSX developer's documentation that detail various functions. For example a couple of the random generator functions were called "rand" and "srand". Since a lot of games use those basic functions, you can sometimes get lucky and find a routine by searching for key parts of it in a hex editor, but it takes a good amount of know how.
Turns out this game doesn't use rand anyway. I tracked down the method detailed in the Brigandine tracing tutorial I attached earlier - find the AGI stat in a save state, set a breakpoint that halts when the stat is read. If anyone else wants to find the creature stats, they're stored very near the creature's name in plain text, so just search in a save state for the name.
That's why game goes through a constant cycle of all hits, and then all misses. For example, when the count gets between 71 and 100, all creatures with 70% or lower hit chance miss. I would say that makes the game pretty much broken. I'm amazed no one noticed.
About your question Tony, it's not quite as simple as scanning with a program. There are PSX developer's documentation that detail various functions. For example a couple of the random generator functions were called "rand" and "srand". Since a lot of games use those basic functions, you can sometimes get lucky and find a routine by searching for key parts of it in a hex editor, but it takes a good amount of know how.
Turns out this game doesn't use rand anyway. I tracked down the method detailed in the Brigandine tracing tutorial I attached earlier - find the AGI stat in a save state, set a breakpoint that halts when the stat is read. If anyone else wants to find the creature stats, they're stored very near the creature's name in plain text, so just search in a save state for the name.