Dark Serge Replacement?

[anth79mac]

I've been playing around with Cross on my emulator, playing with various gameshark codes, but I haven't been able to find what I really wanted.

There's a code that changes swallow lynx into scythe lynx, but it's not really good--Lynx cowers like he does the only time you fight as him with the scythe, right after using the Dragon's Tear in Ft. Draconia.

But anyway, I was hoping someone around here is more knowledgable than those at codebreakers, as they seemed to have quit doing things with the game long ago.

I was wondering if anyone knows how to replace swallow lynx with Dark Serge?  DS should have all the animations for casting, fighting, dodging, dying, etc, as you fight him at least once.

[FaustWolf]

justin3009 is our resident expert on the gameshark front with Chrono Cross. There may be separate codes for defining the texture, model, and weapon to use if I'm understanding his recent findings in this thread correctly. Whether there are separate codes or just one, I can ferret through the Chrono Cross file structure wiki and give anyone willing to try some values that might just produce Dark Serge.

If gamesharking doesn't work, it's always been my intention to create a Serge > Dark Serge hack. To do so will require finding the pointers that tell the game engine where models are stored and changing those pointers. The pointers, in turn, most likely lie within LZSS-compressed files on the game CD. Until we find these most juicy pointers, our results can get no better than this.

[anth79mac]

Well I wish I knew how all this crap worked.  I tried messing around with the scythe lynx code I mentioned (it's perfect except that he cowers).  I found the model code for Lynx, but there's no list of all the 'monster' characters anywhere (it lists the main characters, but all the monster codes aren't listed).  I tried just trial and erroring them in, but without the textures, it's pointless.  Even if I found the Dark Serge model, he'd be textured like Lynx and it wouldn't work out.

Oh well, you guys were my last hope for a nice Lynx replacement, I'll just have to deal with smelly old swallow lynx during those parts of the game.

[FaustWolf]

Are you using this code from CMGSCCC?

ULTIMATE LYNX
3006EBF5 0031
D006EBC0 0001
300DB0A5 0033
8006EC32 0099
8006EC4C 0097
8006EC5C 0098
3006EBC9 0010

If you wouldn't mind satisfying my curiosity, could you replace the "33" with "CD" and tell us what happens? Maybe post a screenie as well?

[justin3009]

^-- it crashes.

[justin3009]

Double Post!  Guess who =]  D9 = Dark Serge

[anth79mac]

Is D9 also his texture file, or is that too much to hope for?  Come to think of it, I don't even know which of those lines ARE texture lines.

[justin3009]

Chrono Cross Serge-Lynx with Scythe

3006EBF5 0031 - Status Screen/Field Image Modification
D006EBC0 0001 - (Altering this value completely changes him back to whoever??)
300DB0A5 0033 - Battle Field Image Modification
8006EC32 0099 - Element Level 1 Modification
8006EC4C 0097 - Element Level 2 Modification
8006EC5C 0098 - Element Level 3 Modification
3006EBC9 0010 - Weapon Trail Modification

[anth79mac]

Chrono Cross Serge-Lynx with Scythe

3006EBF5 0031 - Status Screen/Field Image Modification
D006EBC0 0001 - (Altering this value completely changes him back to whoever??)
300DB0A5 0033 - Battle Field Image Modification
8006EC32 0099 - Element Level 1 Modification
8006EC4C 0097 - Element Level 2 Modification
8006EC5C 0098 - Element Level 3 Modification
3006EBC9 0010 - Weapon Trail Modification

That's the original Codebreaker's Scythe Lynx code isn't it?  So if we changed the third line to D9 from 33, that would give us the Dark Serge model?  How do you clear up the texture so it's not Lynx's?

[justin3009]

That's what i'm not sure about...

[FaustWolf]

Darn, wonder why it's not "CD." The values seem to be aligned for the player characters, but become misaligned for enemies. I'll have to think about this. It seems to use Lynx's texture for some reason.

[anth79mac]

I wonder...you found the hex for Dark Serge very fast, do you happen to know what hex the enemy Lynx is?  There are at least two, in Viper Manor and Fort Drag.  He would make a much better model for scythe lynx than the current one.  And no texture problem (you'd think).

[justin3009]

The reason why it's using Lynx it's because I'm serge lynx.  It uses the model on whoever character you're modifying.  And I'm not sure what one Lynx is.  I'll go exploring a bit more.

[FaustWolf]

That's actually a great idea -- since all the enemy characters seem to have Lynx's texture the way the code is set up, let's just use the superior Lynx model, which actually has the same texture mapped onto it. If we can figure out why Dark Serge is "D9" and not "CD," we should be able to pinpoint enemy Lynx.

anth79mac, I will give you the formula I used to get "CD" for Dark Serge for the time being. First off, look at this wiki detailing the battle models in game CD order.

The formula to use is: [Texture # - 3055] / 3 = [desired value in decimal]

Let's break that down with an example. Serge-Scythe/Lynx's model and weapon data are stored in file numbers 3208 ~ 3210 on the first game CD. His texture is file #3208. 3208 - 3055 = 153. Divided by 3, that's 51. Convert that into hexadecimal (that's the number system Gameshark uses) and you get 33, commonly represented in hex as 0x33. Hex to dec and vice versa conversions are very easy to do on Windows Calculator if you're on a Windows system. Thus, the code uses the value "33" for hobbled-over Lynx.

justin, I guess I need to ask at this point whether you were testing this code on Disc 1 or Disc 2. The enemy models may be stored in a different order on Disc 2.

[justin3009]

Disc 1, and I can't find regular Lynx Model...They're the same models though, just different bone affixes.

Edit: Strange...you're right, they are held differently in disc 2.  Either that or my savestate is bad.