Ultimate Mega Buster

[wingin]

When I editing saving files of PC version, I found that if I change the byte at 0x00002104(in fact, is one of buster part bytes) in the file to 0x50, one surprising buster part will be present - called "Giant Horn", though it is a normal item actually. Equipped such a part will make the buster Extremely powerful, almost all pirate machines and small reaverbots can be destroyed with ONLY one hit, while boss reaverbots need more hits.
Besides, bullets of such buster is strange - might be huge bullets, invisible bullets or square texture bullets. It depends on what other parts you equipped.

And this is one effect:

[Lumigado]

Interesting... I don't think I recognize the texture of the "effect" in that picture. Think there is any other items like this?

[Kyle]

I'm a little surprised that Chiz hasn't chimed in yet. It could be a debug or one of those special test-weapons. Developers usually use 'em to quickly bug test their games without getting overly bogged down by the combat system.

[Avegodro]

That texture looks sorta familiar, I just can't place where you see it in the game. 

[Lumigado]

Maybe it's the texture of the walls when you first enter the Kattelox Ruins, near the elevator?

[Mikéy]

I think that texture is what emulators resort to when graphics plugins don't allow them to show the real texture. I think I saw that texture once while playing around with the Shining Laser and Shield Arm in Megaman 64.

Imagine trying to shoot or shield yourself with invisible textures too. Not easy; virtually impossible. Definitely impractical.

[Avegodro]

Mar 5, 2015 14:31:23 GMT -5 Mikéy said:

I think that texture is what emulators resort to when graphics plugins don't allow them to show the real texture. I think I saw that texture once while playing around with the Shining Laser and Shield Arm in Megaman 64.

Imagine trying to shoot or shield yourself with invisible textures too. Not easy; virtually impossible. Definitely impractical.

Yeah pretty sure Mikey nailed it on the head, it's just a glitch texture of sorts. 

[satoh]

"That texture" is not a texture at all. It is the result you get when you try to load some other kind of file as an image. Which the game can do. It doesn't care about filenames and such. 99% likely that the game loads data from a RAM address based on some math it does with the buster parts. Since you equipped something other than a buster part, the resulting address was not one that it had image data loaded into, and as a result, you get rainbow vomit.

The same thing is happening with the item stats. Because it expects a number at a specific place to be a buster part stat, and you loaded some other item, it reads whatever is in that item's data, which might be something like a bit of text or whatever, which translated into a number (again the game sees everything as numbers, even letters) can be quite large.

As I recall, buster part strength can go as high as 127 in the PSX version (0x7F 7F 7F 7F being maxed all stats) however, numbers above a certain point cause very strange errors. For example, you can set these bytes to 0x80 or higher but the game tries to read them as negatives... because signed bytes... why not... its not a total waste of extra processing power at all. nosirree. Ahem.
Anyway, if you set speed to 0xFF for example, the buster shots will actually creep slowly backward (-1)
if you use FF for power, as I recall, the buster shots will actually hurt Trigger if they touch him. Not a big deal for normal speed shots, but slow speeds and negative speeds can get you killed.
Funniest settings I found as I recall, were 0x80 power (-127) and 0xFE (-2) speed. Just enough to make Triggers shots immediately hit him for massive damage, and follow his knockback for a second go, creating a suicide beam.

One shot is assured death.
You might want to look into cheat engine or RAM corrupters for future random toying of this sort. Its faster than save hacking, if you're technically minded.

[wingin]

Apr 2, 2015 1:35:31 GMT -5 satoh said:

"That texture" is not a texture at all. It is the result you get when you try to load some other kind of file as an image. Which the game can do. It doesn't care about filenames and such. 99% likely that the game loads data from a RAM address based on some math it does with the buster parts. Since you equipped something other than a buster part, the resulting address was not one that it had image data loaded into, and as a result, you get rainbow vomit.

The same thing is happening with the item stats. Because it expects a number at a specific place to be a buster part stat, and you loaded some other item, it reads whatever is in that item's data, which might be something like a bit of text or whatever, which translated into a number (again the game sees everything as numbers, even letters) can be quite large.

As I recall, buster part strength can go as high as 127 in the PSX version (0x7F 7F 7F 7F being maxed all stats) however, numbers above a certain point cause very strange errors. For example, you can set these bytes to 0x80 or higher but the game tries to read them as negatives... because signed bytes... why not... its not a total waste of extra processing power at all. nosirree. Ahem.
Anyway, if you set speed to 0xFF for example, the buster shots will actually creep slowly backward (-1)
if you use FF for power, as I recall, the buster shots will actually hurt Trigger if they touch him. Not a big deal for normal speed shots, but slow speeds and negative speeds can get you killed.
Funniest settings I found as I recall, were 0x80 power (-127) and 0xFE (-2) speed. Just enough to make Triggers shots immediately hit him for massive damage, and follow his knockback for a second go, creating a suicide beam.

One shot is assured death.
You might want to look into cheat engine or RAM corrupters for future random toying of this sort. Its faster than save hacking, if you're technically minded.

So, I haven't study about changing stats directly, but I found that if I put "Old Shield" and some other parts on, Megaman's bullet would be still and not able to shoot more than maximum number until disappeared.

[satoh]

Yeah, I've experienced that one. Its really funny to watch your 3 shots sitting there for a really long time doing nothing.