A Guide to Ability Learning

is it possible to have 2 different swd techs that have different spells included? or does that involve major hex editing?

is it possible to have 2 different swd techs that have different spells included? or does that involve major hex editing?

Do you mean replace a swdTech with a spell or having a swdTech that is a combo of a physical attack/spell?

In both case it means ASM coding. This would been taken care of in C2. I had a quick look but I haven't found where the differents swdTech are build...The best way would be with the help of a debugger maybe so you could follow the code.

You can still edit the swdTechs in FF3usME, they are in the spell list and you can change/add many attributes and even add an elemental property as well as edit the animation. You could almost make it look like a spell I think.

You could also ask the people at Slick Productions. They are keepers of valuable knowledge and most of them knows a lot more stuff than us when it comes to these types of questions. They could guide you in the right direction but they won't serve you the answer on a silverplate...just saying...

yea.. basically 2 different ones... thanks again bro

I can't seem to get learn on recruitment to work for Terra's Magic even though I changed the values in both C0/A182 and C2/61B9. All of my other skills seem to work on recruitment, but not that one. In fact, It still gives Actor 00 Cure and Fire, even though 00 is only level 1 and is also learning SwdTech on recruit, but the other actor gets the new spells on level-up. Any idea what's happening?

*** Just checked, Celes' magic doesn't work on recruitment either, just SwdTech and Blitz. ***

I can't seem to get learn on recruitment to work for Terra's Magic even though I changed the values in both C0/A182 and C2/61B9. All of my other skills seem to work on recruitment, but not that one. In fact, It still gives Actor 00 Cure and Fire, even though 00 is only level 1 and is also learning SwdTech on recruit, but the other actor gets the new spells on level-up. Any idea what's happening?

*** Just checked, Celes' magic doesn't work on recruitment either, just SwdTech and Blitz. ***

I don't know what you mean by learned on recruitment but the offset you mention would only change who learn spells via a natural magic list. Technically changing the values at C0/A182 and C2/61B9 from 00 to 01 would transfer the ability to Locke. I haven't tested such a thing but I think the tutorial is good.

As for the spells, cure is learn on level 1 and fire on level 3 on Terra's list, so fire should not appear if you start the game at level 1, unless you lower the level via a RAM editor after the game started. Same thing goes for Celes with ice (level 1) and cure (level 4).

One important last thing, though I don't understand why because of a lack of code analysis but I'm not questioning the validity of the statement either:

WARNING: Each PC can only have ONE natural learning ability. So if you give Terra SwdTech, she can't have natural magic (you will have to assign it to someone else).

I don't know what you mean by learned on recruitment but the offset you mention would only change who learn spells via a natural magic list. Technically changing the values at C0/A182 and C2/61B9 from 00 to 01 would transfer the ability to Locke. I haven't tested such a thing but I think the tutorial is good.

As for the spells, cure is learn on level 1 and fire on level 3 on Terra's list, so fire should not appear if you start the game at level 1, unless you lower the level via a RAM editor after the game started. Same thing goes for Celes with ice (level 1) and cure (level 4).

I am rewriting the opening sequence with actor 0 at level 1 (-3 level on average), and actor 1 at level 3 (+0 level on average). Actor 0 is supposed to learn swdtech and actor 1 magic. When I start the game actor 0 has dispatch learned as well as fire and cure, then continues to learn swdtechs via level up, no more magic. Actor 1 knows nothing at the start of the game but learns Antidot at the appropriate level...

What I think is happening is that when the game starts, the branching portion is working correctly, looking at actor 0 for swdtech and actor 1 for magic. But when it comes time to write the spell into the learned spell list, the magic still writes to actor 0s spell list, hence why at level 1 he knows the magic for both level 1 and level 3. This aparently only happens with the magic learned when the character is created in-game as regular level up seems to work properly.

One important last thing, though I don't understand why because of a lack of code analysis but I'm not questioning the validity of the statement either:

WARNING: Each PC can only have ONE natural learning ability. So if you give Terra SwdTech, she can't have natural magic (you will have to assign it to someone else).

This is because you only reach the branch code once. The first time you meet a requirement you are sent to the learning code and without changing anything else, you can't get to the other learning codes. I suppose you could hypothetically put the branches in the order they appear in the code and instead of them returning out at the end branching to the next learn code you want the character to use. (Ex. Branch to terras level up magic then the end of that code branching to the swdtech code.)

Good analysis on both points. It should be added to the tutorial as it would clarify many things, at least it did for me.

Found it:

In the middle of the learning code for both Terra's and Celes' magic there are addresses for the learned magic list to write to:

Terra's:
C0/A1AC: 6E 1A ($1A6E)

Celes':
C0/A1CE: B2 1B ($1BB2)

These need to be changed in order for the correct actor to learn the correct magic when the character is created in-game.

Actor - Spell List
$00 - $1A6E
$01 - $1AA4
$02 - $1ADA
$03 - $1B10
$04 - $1B46
$05 - $1B7C
$06 - $1BB2
$07 - $1BE8
$08 - $1C1E
$09 - $1C54
$0A - $1C8A
$0B - $1CC0

Each is essentially $36 higher than the one before it. I haven't tested all of these addresses yet, but I know 00, 01, 02, and 06 work, I am assuming the convention stays the same throughout.

One neat little note: if you drop yourself somewhere in the middle of those values, your learned spells are going to be offset by the same amount. When I set Terra's magic to write to $1AA5, instead of learning Cure and Fire, actor 1 learned Cure 2 and Ice.

Changing Dance-learning:
C2/5EE5: AD 0A 30 LDA $300A
C2/5EE8: 30 16 BMI $5F00
C2/5EEA: AE E2 11 LDX $11E2 (get combat background)
C2/5EED: BF 5B 8E ED LDA $ED8E5B,X (get corresponding dance #)
Notice how this one isn't labeled? Yeah, this took forever to find. Change the bolded byte to whomever you want.

Is there a way to set Dance Learning by Level Up ONLY?  I wanted to give this ability to Locke, but I didn't want him to learn them via the Battle Maps.

Is there a way to set Dance Learning by Level Up ONLY?  I wanted to give this ability to Locke, but I didn't want him to learn them via the Battle Maps.

Yes. You would need to check if the character is Mog in the natural magic/swtech/blitz learning function ($C0A17F) then add some code somewhere where is free space where you would jump to if the character is mog. Basically it would work like natural magic but you have two tables of 8 entries, one for the levels where the dance are learned and one for the dances IDs. You first check mog's level, if it match to one of the levels in the table you load the corresponding dance and turn the corresponding bit of that dance ID in $7E1D4C (in a similar way to $C25EED). You'd also need to NOP $C25EE5-$C25EFA to not learn dances the normal way.