Patch: Restored Ability Names (Update)

@DrakeyC
Unfortunately, it is not a totally clean replacement. At the very least, you will have some now-unused data sitting in free space, and the normally all-caps menu items will still be mixed case as in v1.x. There also appear to be a few bytes related to the field dialog script that are not as expected. Lastly, any additional data you may have in the expanded portion of the ROM will be overwritten.

That said, I just did some brief testing and it seems to play okay. FF3usME does not report any corruption with the script editor. So, you might be able to get away with it.

Another option is to create your own upgrade IPS patch with LunarIPS -- set the "ORIGINAL UNMODIFIED" file to a ROM with R.A.N. v1.6 freshly applied, and set the "NEW MODIFIED" file to a ROM with R.A.N. v2.0 freshly applied. You should then be able to use that new IPS file to cleanly upgrade a project that is based on R.A.N v1.6 to v2.0.

Attached one such upgrade for the Multi-Steal compatible version, "full" variant, non-headered.

Roger, thanks, I'll give it a shot. Don't have time today but can try tomorrow and will get back to you then

Still maintaining this hack -- updated to version 2.1.

What's new:

• Fixed misaligned "KO" label in the field menu status screen
  
• Updated for compatibility with Madsiur's Mastered Esper Icon hack v1.1 (still need to use the "-ran" variant)
  
• Removed support for compatibility with Imzogelmo's Multi-Steal-Fix (Use Multi-Steal-Fix Simplified Edition instead.)
  

Admission: I wrapped up most of the work for this update a couple weeks ago, and then promptly forgot whether I had finished everything or not.
A brief review of the changes & testing has turned over no major problems, so...I'm calling it good for now!

Happy All Hallows' Day.

It occurred to me suddenly - why is it that the Magitek ability names are retained in their vanilla location and just made longer? I noticed their longer names in the list in the F bank I had moved the expanded ability names to. Trying to simply redirect the C1 bank pointer didn't work, so obviously there were problems you can into trying to do this, and I ran into problems but am not quite sure how to put them into words. So I'm wondering why you didn't do it, and perhaps I can troubleshoot for you?

It occurred to me suddenly - why is it that the Magitek ability names are retained in their vanilla location and just made longer? I noticed their longer names in the list in the F bank I had moved the expanded ability names to. Trying to simply redirect the C1 bank pointer didn't work, so obviously there were problems you can into trying to do this, and I ran into problems but am not quite sure how to put them into words. So I'm wondering why you didn't do it, and perhaps I can troubleshoot for you?

The new list in the F2 bank is used for the attack message that appears at the top of the screen.
It is rendered with the large variable width font, where the only real limiting factor is the width of the rendered text.
RAN allots 16 characters per entry. ("Magitek Missile", for example, has 15 characters.)

The pointer in the C1 bank (C1/650A), which points to the vanilla location, is for the menu.
The menu is only wide enough to fit 13 small-font tiles per side, so it can't use the F2 list.
We have to use new custom tiles in order to squeeze "Magitek Missile" into 13 tiles.

So, due to the font differences, it is necessary to maintain two lists of Magitek ability names.

If the menu's small font were variable-width rather than tile-based, it would have been possible to use just one expanded list.
Hope that clarifies!

I get that, but as-is the Magitek attacks aside from Magitek Missile (which you've accommodated as you explained) all use 13 characters max anyway, with Healing Force using exactly 13.

If I'm understanding you correctly, your preference would be to have just one list, with a special-case redirect for the alternate Magitek Missile entry?
That would be less redundant, which would be nice.
It's doable but would require intrusive ad-hoc code which, IMO, is not worth it.
Also, an advantage of the current implementation is extensibility. Hackers can now customize the other Magitek abilities using oversized names without any further code change.

That said, the documentation definitely has room for improvement. There is little indication that the vanilla list is still being used at all.

If I'm understanding you correctly, your preference would be to have just one list, with a special-case redirect for the alternate Magitek Missile entry?
That would be less redundant, which would be nice.

Exactly. Though there wouldn't be a need for a special case redirect, as you've done before, could use custom characters to condense it a bit. Or could fall back on "Tek Missile" or even "Magic Missile".

It's doable but would require intrusive ad-hoc code which, IMO, is not worth it.
Also, an advantage of the current implementation is extensibility. Hackers can now customize the other Magitek abilities using oversized names without any further code change.

Also fair and true on both counts. For someone to use this patch then try longer Magitek names and discover they don't work, that would suck.

That said, the documentation definitely has room for improvement. There is little indication that the vanilla list is still being used at all.

Yeah, that confused me a bit. And specifying that there's a reason for two listings of their names would be important for hackers too, else they wonder why the abilities have different names between the menu and the attack window.

---

EDIT - In something helpful, iirc RAN has the word "Gil" pressed up against the amount in the "Got X Gil" text when winning a battle, yes? There's an unused text string that can be repurposed for this line and allow the space. At D1/F239 there's an unused string that reads "<variable> was crushed", unsure what it was gonna be for but it is unused. You can type out the gil string there and then redirect the message pointer, in vanilla it's at C2/5F95, but in my mod WIP it was at C2/5F8E, likely due to RAN and/or the Bugfix Comp moving it. Anywho, it looks like this; 

Code:

C2/5F95: A9 26        LDA #$26
C2/5F97: 20 D4 5F     JSR $5FD4      (buffer and display "Got [amount] GP" message)

Change the pointer to A9 1E and it'll load the "was crushed" string instead.