Thanks again to Nightwulf, who has opened the door to fucking around with the RBI ROM. Using Nesticles very handy dump RAM feature, I have discovered something about pinch hitters:
In their first AB, pinch hitters get a boost of 64 power points (40 in hex). That is a big boost and explains why some pinch hitters (Joel Youngblood comes to mind) suck after their first at-bat...
To put that in perspective, 64 power points is the difference between Bob Boone and Jim Rice. Or Doug DeCinces and Reggie Jackson. Or Keith Hernandez and Darryl Strawberry....
This also means the most powerful hitter in the game is Mark McGwire in his first AB with a 238. Non All-Stars makes Armas the most powerful hitter in his first AB with a 214....
All I have to say is wow! This verifies what we have thought to be true for years!
How exactly did you discover this?
Ooh you're right! Good shit; I didn't even think to check this.
I smell a lot of FAQ-editing in your future ... hehe :)
Nightwulf
A lot of screwing around in nesticle/Ultraedit (windows) and FCE/ghex (linux). For this one, it was all about Nesticle's dump-RAM feature. A batter gets up, pause the game, and dump the ram. Open up ultraedit and check 0x600h - 0x630h. I completly discovered this one by accident, noticed Hendrick's hitting stats weren't matching up...
Lots of FAQ updating Nightwulf... I'll get there at some point...
Oh don't even mention ghex; I'll start to cry. I was completely windoze-free for over two years, but a combination of my linux hard drive crashing and my EQ addiction has landed me back in this hell of an OS. Gawd I miss Slack. :'(
I primarily use Nester for NES emulation, but I keep a few emulators around. Actually, Nesticle came in handy when I was creating the "arcade" ROM; I used it constantly to determine palette tables. For RAM viewing, I prefer Nester; you can open a window and view RAM in real-time as the ROM executes. Also, Nester has been ported to Dreamcast, which allows me to play my hacked ROMs and such on the TV. I highly~ recommend this port.
I honestly can't remember what hex editor I used to use when I was primarily a windoze user. For now tho, I've been using Hexpose. It's a very basic hex editor with few features, but it was written for the purpose of hacking game ROMs. What little it can do is geared 100% towards what I need it for.
Nightwulf
Most of my current ROM work has been on dee-nee.com itself - my Redhat 7.0 machine here at work. But I became much more efficient when I put an old win98 laptop next to me and doubled-up. Win9x is better for ROM hacking because Linux pretty much only has FCE Ultra as an emulator, and that uses SVGAlib (meaning via a virtual term)....
And ROM hacking is the first time I have actually started using RBI's Watch Mode. Let one game play while hacking on another. Especially when waiting for the pitcher to bat (before I discovered editing the first byte)...
I'll give Nester a shot, real time RAM dumps would be most solid!
Ya, I ran into the same problem with linux. As much as I love the OS, the emulation scene just doesn't support it like they do windoze.
Unfortunately, my love of linux also is limiting what I can do. I know nearly nothing about windoze programming. I learned a little Visual BASIC around the time version 4 was out, and I hated it. I can't believe people actually use that POS. Visual C++ was much better, but my C just isn't that good.
I could throw together a new RBI Manager-type program for linux, no prob. But other than myself and Gantry, I don't think anyone would have any use for it heh. I suppose I could write something text-based in Perl, but without an ncurses-equivalent library for windoze, it wouldn't be pretty.
Nightwulf
Writing a new and improved RBI Manager is in my future set of plans, especially since I have some real background knowledge. It has to be cross-platform, but not sure how I'll implement that. Perhaps I'll use the cross-platform qt toolset, who knows. I've never programmed anything outside of school assignments and scripting, so it'll pretty much be a learning exercise. Idea of features:
GPL or some open-source license.
Support both licensed and unlicensed ROM.
Arcade ROM support perhaps.
Real (non-ground-ball attribute) power adjustment
Opening screen and newspaper editing.
Figure out those last two pitcher entries.
Edit pitcher hitting stats.
More color options, like the field, walls, etc
Better interface
On and on... As to when I get it off the ground, who knows? Definitely not until the holiday madness and committments end. But if/when I do, I'm sure you'll be hearing from me...
Go Gantry!!!
I'm glad that there are people on this planet smart enough to improve our games, so people like myself can enjoy the comforts of life without the necessary brain cells to make the adjustments myself!!!