Pitcher batting revisited

[nightwulf]

You people are seriously in trouble. Thanks to MarquisEXB's question about changing ERAs, I've got the "do something nerdly with RBI, since wtf else do you have to do" bug again.

For the ROM hackers: the following offsets are where pitcher batting data is stored. The same set of data is loaded for any pitcher.

Batting Average: B3C2 (00 default)
Home Runs: B3C8 (00 default)
Contact: B3CE (40 default)
Power(high): B3D4 (80 default)
Power(low): B3DB (02 default)
Speed: B3DF (78 default)

Edit: added BA and HR, for the hell of it

More to come I'm sure ...

Nightwulf

[MarquisEXB]

Nightwulf, if anyone can find the holy grail of RBI (the 2 unknown pitcher ratings), I believe you can do it!

Mike

[nightwulf]

Funny you should mention that.

Nothing worth running in the streets screaming yet, but I'm making progress ...

Nightwulf

[Briznock]

??
Does this tell us anything about pitcher homers.......
I mean if that is the power data loaded for a pitcher can you compare that to the data loaded for a regular batter and see if pitcher homers are even possible??

[Briznock]

SWEEEEEEETTTT
that previous post up there was my 100th

[nightwulf]

??
Does this tell us anything about pitcher homers.......
I mean if that is the power data loaded for a pitcher can you compare that to the data loaded for a regular batter and see if pitcher homers are even possible??

This has nothing to do with "pitcher homers" directly; we first found pitcher batting data like a year ago. This only deals with how to change that data, which I hadn't found until now.

While we're at it ...

Offset AED4 (40 default) is the bonus applied to a pinch hitter on their first at bat.

I'm just warming up. I can feel my inner nerd.

Nightwulf

[nightwulf]

Ok, the pitcher unknowns are giving me a headache. I need to step away from RBI before I throw the whole thing against the wall and go live with the amish.

There's only one thing I'm certain about regarding the unknowns: they have absolutely nothing to do with "human-controlled" pitchers. The only time either one is accessed is when a computer-controlled pitcher is on the mound.

For the nerds among us, run RBI in an emulator that allows you to view RAM in real-time (Nester being my choice), setup a "watch game," and watch 0695 (when the away team is batting) and 0685 (when the home team is batting). On some pitches, one of the unknowns is loaded into that location as soon as the pitcher releases the ball. Sometimes the first, sometimes the second, sometimes it remains unchanged. Once the ball is in play, the number stored at that location varies wildly. It looks like it's directly related to some gameplay aspect, but I'm just not seeing it.

Nightwulf

[MarquisEXB]

Ok, the pitcher unknowns are giving me a headache. I need to step away from RBI before I throw the whole thing against the wall and go live with the amish.

There's only one thing I'm certain about regarding the unknowns: they have absolutely nothing to do with "human-controlled" pitchers. The only time either one is accessed is when a computer-controlled pitcher is on the mound.

For the nerds among us, run RBI in an emulator that allows you to view RAM in real-time (Nester being my choice), setup a "watch game," and watch 0695 (when the away team is batting) and 0685 (when the home team is batting). On some pitches, one of the unknowns is loaded into that location as soon as the pitcher releases the ball. Sometimes the first, sometimes the second, sometimes it remains unchanged. Once the ball is in play, the number stored at that location varies wildly. It looks like it's directly related to some gameplay aspect, but I'm just not seeing it.

Nightwulf

Excellent! I'm going to venture a guess that these values are to tell the computer how to pitch with that pitcher. I think I have a previous post discussing what the values are. If I have time during lunch I will dig it up & maybe we can settle this once and for all.

It's great to know that the unknowns have nothing to do with PvP!

Mike

[BeefMaster]

Wow, Nightwulf, your inner nerd has done a heck of a job.  The discovery will make it much easier to figure out what the unknowns mean.  It can even be investigated somewhat without checking the hex, as now we know that playing after cranking the values one way or another won't help much - "Watch Game" is the way to go.

As for theories, I don't have much at the moment.  It seems to make sense that it would be instructions for the computer as to how to use that pitcher, but you mentioned that the value is loaded when the ball is released, and that would be too late for positioning and pitch speed, which are a pretty big part of pitching strategy.  It might be a computer "cheat" to make certain pitchers more effective than their stats allow - for example, maybe better pitchers give up fewer homers in 1-player games.

Is there some output somewhere for the result of the hit?  The new value in the location you mentioned might be a combination (product, sum, weird algorithm) of the unknown value and the result of the hit, perhaps producing a modified result of the hit output that depends on the pitcher.

[fknmclane]

Does Nightwulf wear a Nightwulf costume in his nerd cave while working on RBI?

[nightwulf]

Yeah, the change is made after the ball is released, so it's too late for pitch selection or positioning. I tried counting pitches to see if maybe there was a pattern (un1, none, none, un2, none.. something like that) and I couldn't see one. I tried writing down the type of pitch thrown and whether or not an unknown was accessed, but found no correlation.

In the program, one of the unknowns is loaded, then very quickly is written to 0695 (away pitcher) or 0685 (home pitcher), but I'm not entirely sure what that location is for either. Actually, the whole 0680-069F block is constantly changing when the compter is playing, but is left at zeros during a two-player game.

Best educated stab-in-the-dark? It's definitely something that only comes into play when a computer pitcher is on the mound, so something to do with computer AI would be my best guess.

Next step is to trace the program back to find out where and why the decision is made to load one of the unknowns.

Nightwulf

[sucka free]

[nightwulf]

You've lost it.

Nightwulf

[Gantry]

All good stuff nightwulf, I'll have to play with it shortly....

Any plans to incorporate this into the editor?

[sucka free]

You've lost it.

Nightwulf

I know you laughed when you saw it...

[nightwulf]

Fell out of my chair is closer to the truth.

Nightwulf

[sucka free]

by the way...did you ever get that e-mail i sent you about resizing a picture for me to use as an avatar?

[Glassjoe]

I know you laughed when you saw it...

unfortunately, that's what sucka says to his women, too.  

[fknmclane]

I think he got his name by saying to a girl:  "you won't sucka for free?!"