Any way to directly edit TCG saves?

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ShinigamiMachine
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Any way to directly edit TCG saves?

Post by ShinigamiMachine »

I am working on making a Tiny Chao Garden chao editor; however, the only way I have seen to edit things is through the VBA Memory Viewer. I know the data has to be stored in the save file though, so I was wondering if anybody knew/could help find the addresses for chao data. Any help is very much appreciated! :omochao:
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ChaoGardenBuster
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Re: Any way to directly edit TCG saves?

Post by ChaoGardenBuster »

I'll be happy to help :surprise:
First, here is some important chao addresses.


Stats
Spoiler:
Stat bar = 0300303A (each column is its own stat)

63= Full stat bar
64= Level up (leave this on, your chao constantly levels up)
00-64 00=Empty
Eggs
Spoiler:
Eggs = 03003019 (Eggs will only appear once re entering the garden)
00=Normal Egg
01=Gold Egg
02=Silver Egg
03=Ruby Egg
04=Sapphire Egg
05=Emerald Egg
06=Amethyst Egg
07=Aquamarine Egg
08=Garnet Egg
09=Onyx Egg
0A=Peridot Egg
0B=Topaz Egg
0C=Pearl Egg (Unused in tiny chao garden)
0D=Light Blue Egg??
0E=Sky Egg??
0F=Glitch Egg?? (Egg will appear a random mix of colors, when hatched chao will appear all black)
10=Unknown
FF=Nothing
Evolution
Spoiler:
Evolution = 03003031
00=Baby
01=Normal/Neutral
02=Normal/Hero
03=Normal/Dark
04=Swim/Neutral
05=Swim/Hero
06=Swim/Dark
07=Fly/Neutral
08=Fly/Hero
09=Fly/Dark
0A=Run/Neutral
0B=Run/Hero
0C=Run/Dark
0D=Power/Neutral
0E=Power/Hero
0F=Power/Dark
10=Chaos/Neutral
11=Chaos/Hero
12=Chaos/Dark
13=Unknown
Well I guess that's all I got so far I plan to update this more once I find more addresses. :darkwalk:

NOTE: These addresses are only for sonic advance 1. I will do more games soon.
ShinigamiMachine
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Re: Any way to directly edit TCG saves?

Post by ShinigamiMachine »

Genuinely sorry for necrobumping this, but what I was meaning to ask was where does the save file reflect these changes? As in, if I changed something about the chao via memory addresses, then saved the game, what would change in the actual save file. I already know most of the memory addresses.
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Jeffery Mewtamer
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Re: Any way to directly edit TCG saves?

Post by Jeffery Mewtamer »

The only documentation I've seen for Chao saves has been for some versions of the Adventure games. One thing you could try is to create a backup of an unedited save, load the original save, make some edits with the memory editor, and save, and then use a tool to compare the backup save with the altered save to see what changed. Granted, this might only give you one or a few addresses at a time, though its quite possible that there exist large chunks of data that are formatted the same in both memory and the save and just have different start points. For example, if all the stat data is together in memory, you alter the first stat, and compare the saves pre- and post-edit, it's quite possible the other stats are right after where the files differ from changing that 1 stat.

I know hexdiff can be used to do such comparisons from the Linux command line, but have no idea about such a tool for Windows or a Gui tool for Mac/Linux(chances are good hexdiff as a Mac version, but would still be a command line tool), though I would expect any halfway decent hex editor to have such a tool(or you could try searching the pre-edit save for the value of the unedited address and the post-edit file for the edited value and look for the occurence of each that have the same address in the save).

Hope this helps. Disclaimer: I have no hands-on experience with this, but this should work in theory.
ShinigamiMachine
Junior Chao
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Re: Any way to directly edit TCG saves?

Post by ShinigamiMachine »

I figured that's what I'd have to do, but I just wanted to check if any of it was known.
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