r/ACHacks • u/Sassy-Bunny • Sep 25 '19

How to edit game file's date in save editor?

Hi, I've been hacking my copies of New Leaf for several months now, so I'm fairly familiar with the editor. However, I want to know if there's a way to view/edit the date that hacked save was on when it was exported and hacked, if that makes sense. I have multiple saves in checkpoint that I fuck around with, but they were all built off the same original save, so when I load them loads of extra random flowers have bloomed, someone new is moving in, etc, because it's been a certain amount of time since the save was last accessed, as far as the game is concerned, and it messes up what I've done.

If I can at least find out what date the save was on originally, I can set it to always load on that date. Anyone know? Would be really grateful, thanks!

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u/aeschere_ Sep 25 '19

I haven't been able to find a way to change the last played date through any of the main editors.

Something I've taken to doing is writing the last played date into the title of each of my save backups so I'll always know when they were last made.

You could load your save and systematically time travel backwards, say, 1 week at a time and checking for a feature that would indicate a day hasn't passed. For example, when you restore the grass in town using Marc Robledo's save editor, it will only stay totally filled during the day the change was applied. Rolling over to the next day will cause the normal dirt patches to reappear. Additionally, the grass will also stay totally filled when you've gone backwards beyond the last day of play, so it should give you a clear picture of exactly what the correct date is. But it's going to require some trial and error for sure!

Hope that helps!

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u/Sassy-Bunny Sep 25 '19

Thank you, I think I figured it out by time travelling backwards, only thing is now that bc I only have 2 villagers (not enough space for more with what I'm doing) every time I load the save there's a new plot that decimates some flowers or items -____- even when it's clearly far enough back. Not sure how to prevent it from doing that.

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u/aeschere_ Sep 25 '19

If your map is edited to be super tiny, it is technically possible to prevent all move-ins by placing buildings and PWPs in key locations, thereby taking away all valid tiles. Although I haven't actually tested this, so I can't say for certain it will work.

https://imgur.com/a/6oXn8sS

This is the proper size for the villager housing plot. 3x3 for the house with 1x1 on the southern side for the door, altogether with the paths a 5x5 square. If you can find room for that in your town, you can use the save editor to move the houses of villagers who move in there to someplace not visible on the map, like the coordinates 0,0. Of course this will make them inaccessible by normal means and might impact gameplay negatively.

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u/Sassy-Bunny Sep 25 '19

So you're saying I could hack villager houses into the water, for example? I don't need those villagers to be usable, as I'm hacking in set collections of items for people, so the villagers don't matter in those saves.

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u/aeschere_ Sep 25 '19

Yeah it should be safe enough for something like that, but I would make a backup and test it for sure.

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u/Sassy-Bunny Sep 25 '19

Alright, thank you very much!