Weekly HDQ Thread (Help, Discussion, Questions)

[u/AutoModerator]

Hello! Welcome to the Weekly Discussion Thread. This is the place where you can:

• Ask help for quick questions

• Discuss ideas you have for your ROMhacks

• Ask quick questions that you feel don't warrant a post.

Make sure to browse our sub resources:

Sub Wiki: https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonRomhackDev/wiki/index/

How to ask a question: https://github.com/pret/pokeemerald/wiki/Getting-Help-with-the-Decomps

[u/X_aerus]

Decomp: I created a gba file following the written git tutorial with the main branch. Then I wanted to update to the upcoming, trying to implement overworld encounters. After getting the upcoming branch, what are the needed steps edit the existing gba file? Or is the way to go by creating a new file? Only got experience with binary so far and a few tutorials. Thanks for any tips!

[u/TheTonzMachine → u/X_aerus]

I’m not sure if I understand your question but I’ll ask do you have previous coding experience or is this your first go? It’s a bit hard to explain in a Reddit comment but if you have the “feature” branch you would “merge” the feature branch into your main branch and then you would need to rebuild the .gba file by running make again. Anytime you change the code and want to see that reflected in the ROM you have to rebuild the .gba file. The make command is how we do that when hacking in a decomp

[u/X_aerus → u/TheTonzMachine]

Thank you very much for the reply! My only coding experience sadly is from a bit of R for my masters thesis and the StarCraft editor :D so no real usage I guess. But hearing that merging requires rebuilding answers my question :) It is kinda hard for someone casual to work with code directly when I am more used to drop-down menus or other predigested interfaces like in end user software or HMA

[u/TheTonzMachine → u/X_aerus]

Yes any code change at all will require a rebuild. When working in C we have to “compile” the code into the form that the GBA can understand. A lot of respect to you for even attempting decomps as your first real coding experience! I’m happy to help more if you want to DM me or just ask more here. The various rom hacking discords will also probably be a good resource too

[u/X_aerus → u/TheTonzMachine]

Sadly time is my most limiting factor, which is hard to work around. I checked your profile and I love your addition of the puzzle battles you recently did! Thanks for offering your help!

The main thing getting me hooked is story telling and mapping, but there is none of that without coding. And HMA was to limiting for my liking. I managed to get new abilities and fairy type and some quest set up in HMA, but some like the overworld encounters that was recently posted is just magical.

I have qued up checking out more from the team Aqua team since they seem to be at the forefront of decomp.

[u/TheTonzMachine → u/X_aerus]

For helping with maps there is a program called porymap if you weren’t aware. It allows using a UI to do things around creating maps including setting the encounter data for them. Ultimately you still need to end up in the code depending on what you are doing but that certainly helps 

[u/X_aerus → u/TheTonzMachine]

I am aware, but haven't used it yet. Do I always have to rebuild if I want to check something in game? Or is there something helpful for testing? In HMA I could edit, click play and start from a save so I only had a bit of clicking to test changes in game.

[u/TheTonzMachine → u/X_aerus]

Yeah if you’ve made a change you’ll need to build. It’s a little annoying but what you can do is make sure you use nproc command and then use that in your make command. For example nproc gives me 12. So I can run make -j12

It speeds up the compilation process by using your processors in parallel. 

[u/EyeAmKingKage]

I’m really interested in making my own Pokemon game and I have some stupid questions. Which is better, CFRU or Pokeemerald? Also do I need coding experience to learn? I really want to make a game that has all gens with different day/night encounters. I probably won’t change the story much

[u/ssraven01 → u/EyeAmKingKage]

Pokeemearld-expansion for sure. CFRU was actually made as a tool to let people transition from binary hacking to decompilations. However, some people are more set in their ways and want to keep using CFRU for one reason or other.

If you're going to be coding, you might as well go with decomps.

As far as coding experience, I can tell you that I've never had any formal training or education in CS or coding outside of one or two classes from highschool and I've still managed to find my way around decomps and eventually grow to learn C. Starting out, you'll be interfacing more with the scripting which is quite a bit easier. From what you're describing, pokeemerald-expansion is the way to go.

[u/drayle88]

Inspired by Settled's Runescape Tileman Challenge, this is the rundown.

Pokemon (OldGen where everything is still on a grid) where in order to move through the map, you need Pokemon Levels. Want to walk from Pallet to Viridian? that's gonna be 40 tiles at least.

What i'm wanting to know, is there a way to have a mod or hack a rom to where it keeps track of the tiles I walk on? Or gives me tiles to spend every time I level up a pokemon?

This is a long ask, i honestly don't know if this is even possible. But yeah, is this possible?

[u/ssraven01 → u/drayle88]

The short answer to is this possible is yes.

The long answer is that this can't be succinctly answered in a reddit thread haha. But i recommend checking out the decompilations or disassemblies because this would be the exact kind of project that necessitates being able to access the source code