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NHL95 Step-by-Step


UltraMagnus

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Hello Fellow NHL95ers!!!

I'm making this post for anyone who has been inspired by all the hard work from the members across this site have done. This is my little way of giving back to help someone else along the way.

A huge thanks to @kingraph @smozoma @wboy @Jkline3 @Asher413 @slapshot67 and many others, who I've missed - I apologize in advance. I've included in the zip file with a step-by-step word document, and the programs I've used to create my material. Most of the material has been shared before from @kingraph mapping list of NHL95, @smozoma Ditherer program, @wboy NOSE program, and @Asher413 knowledge of schedules. Everything I think can help you along your own way of creating something new.

 

NHL95 Step-by-Step.zip

Edited by UltraMagnus
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I have a hack (or two or three) that I've wanted to do for forever and this will probably convince me to move it to 95 like I would prefer.

Just to make sure I understand right from the other thread, though, it's possible to rearrange the division alignments but season mode still has to have 26 teams?

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17 hours ago, UltraMagnus said:

As of right the season mode is limited to 26. But yes....realigned divisions and teams. Look at the NHL95 Reloaded. I have all the teams from the season playing only in their division 

Just in case @DeterminedApathy was asking in the other way, [and this actually applies to my interests as well] does "limited" refer to both more and less than 26?
I am curious as in theory, because of the way '95s season mode is set up, one might simply create a calendar that omits one or more teams? The initial issue that comes to mind however is how the standings/team/player stats will get handled for the removed teams.

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I did have less in mind, yes. Thanks for clarifying. It is good to ask about limits in both directions, but I'm guessing expanding would be trickier than reducing with what I think I understand of its structure so far.

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In theory, I can test the "less" teams. As they would still exist but wouldn't play any games, or get any stats. They would simply just nkt exist in the season. Even if you end season after today option. The teams that haven't played receive nothing and if they are in last with no stats or games played they would not be part of the playoffs. 

Let me test something and get back to you both @DeterminedApathyand @von Ozbourme I got a feeling less is very possible the more I think of it.

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While you are at it, I have a similar question...

Say I wanted to simulate a 3-division league (planning how I can get an EIHL rom working in 95). How do you think the game would handle an entire division left to zero games played? Would some get pulled into playoffs regardless?

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Okay, for all 3 of your requests or questions. I tested all 3...your all in luck.

@von Ozbourme Limited to 26. so "more" is not possible yet. Meaning Im working on trying to see if it is expandable like the rom is from 28 to 34 teams like @kingraph had done. But in terms of "less", it is doable. Limiting the teams is more to just remove those teams from the schedule. Even though they have a division for themselves and leaving them with "0" games.

@DeterminedApathy and @MonkeyHeadreducing the like for von Osbourne, it can be done. And having a 3 division league is feasible. Just the same application. Im doing some testing on the overall reduction of teams. 

Ill keep you all posted on progress.

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Alright, if I may @UltraMagnus , as a preeminent expert on NHL 95 around here, I am compelled to ask.
How the hell are the team overall ratings determined?

Long long story short, I've broken a lot of things in my experimentation, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to get that number to change. [which is kind of dumb as the game includes built in create-a-player and roster editing functions. I can have a team stacked with 90+ ringers vs an AHL squad and the team ratings still won't reflect that]
The step-by-step only shows the pointer, but changing that [even to just hide the number] doesn't seem to have any effect, too bad EARE just crashes if you try to open anything but a 94 ROM, and messing around with the team hex data like with NHLPA 93, doesn't seem to hold the key either. I'm right bloody stumped.

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17 hours ago, von Ozbourme said:

Alright, if I may @UltraMagnus , as a preeminent expert on NHL 95 around here, I am compelled to ask.
How the hell are the team overall ratings determined?

Long long story short, I've broken a lot of things in my experimentation, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to get that number to change. [which is kind of dumb as the game includes built in create-a-player and roster editing functions. I can have a team stacked with 90+ ringers vs an AHL squad and the team ratings still won't reflect that]
The step-by-step only shows the pointer, but changing that [even to just hide the number] doesn't seem to have any effect, too bad EARE just crashes if you try to open anything but a 94 ROM, and messing around with the team hex data like with NHLPA 93, doesn't seem to hold the key either. I'm right bloody stumped.

From my notes when I hacked 95, I have 

 

Offset: 0A06BA

offsets to TEAM OVERALL Ratings.  Each byte represents the overall rating
 

Check and see if that helps.  Again, this is me blowing the dust off my notes, I haven't checked, but this sounds right. lol.

 

EDIT:  CONFIRMED, this is the offset to the team ratings.  So the value at 0A06BA is 000A 06DC.  That's the pointer to the team overall offset.

Starting at 000A 06DC, the team overall values are in hex.  

It starts with 3A 4D, which is 58 and 77 (Anaheim and Boston's rating, continuing for all the teams...)

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On 2/7/2021 at 10:00 PM, kingraph said:

EDIT:  CONFIRMED, this is the offset to the team ratings.  So the value at 0A06BA is 000A 06DC.  That's the pointer to the team overall offset.

Starting at 000A 06DC, the team overall values are in hex.  

This is so weird. That was what I thought from your hex notes, but it wasn't working, until...
I tried editing a clean original 28 team ROM and in editing the first 28 pairs of digits it finally worked!
BUT, copy/pasta those hex values over to my IIHF 28 Team ROM... nothing. Still the old ratings.

But on a hunch I noted that there was enough data between those 56 numbers and the start of the pregame preamble and that they were divided by identical 6363 hex values. So I punched in a bunch of 1s to see what it might do [it was nothing] and pasted in my new numbers into the second section. Lo and behold that did it.
[Of course I copy paste my new data back into the original ROM and every team has a rating of 17, because 11 in hex, what the hell...]
No idea why it would do that  how that pointer got changed, as my ROM was based on the original one [haven't looked at the 34 team one yet] but I suppose as the developer adage goes; if it works, that's good enough.
image.png

Pro tip for any other interested parties: DO NOT touch the 6363s. It will break stuff.

Edited by von Ozbourme
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Just a follow up.
Turns out the 34 team ROM works the same for me [start at offset 0A06FA instead of 0A06DC]
Those six extra teams seem to be referencing something else, but that isn't dissimilar from the player photos and roster data.
Teams #31 and #34 are the only ones with really messed up ratings so I'm not overly concerned given the circumstances.

image.png

On a side note; After changing the ratings, I noticed that the season mode seems to take it's cues from somewhere else entirely. As evidenced by, well this...
image.png
24th ranked Estonia kicking ass in that division?! [Estonia is the team formerly known as Detroit]

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I don't believe I had

9 hours ago, von Ozbourme said:

Just a follow up.
Turns out the 34 team ROM works the same for me [start at offset 0A06FA instead of 0A06DC]
Those six extra teams seem to be referencing something else, but that isn't dissimilar from the player photos and roster data.
Teams #31 and #34 are the only ones with really messed up ratings so I'm not overly concerned given the circumstances

 

I never updated the overall ratings for the 34 team ROM (I should have, just never notice).  The right way to do this would be to find an empty location for 34 bytes to load the overall values, and then change the pointer at 0A06BA to the new location.  Pretty easy fix if anyone wanted to do this.

So right now teams 29-34 are using the 63 63 32 45 4C 46 values, which is actually a different part of the code and should not be changed.  

To your point, I don't think these overall team ratings are used for any team simulations.  I never looked into the season mode as I hit a wall and never got up :lol:

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15 hours ago, kingraph said:

I never updated the overall ratings for the 34 team ROM (I should have, just never notice).  The right way to do this would be to find an empty location for 34 bytes to load the overall values, and then change the pointer at 0A06BA to the new location.  Pretty easy fix if anyone wanted to do this.

I accept your challenge good sir.

 

On 2/7/2021 at 11:57 PM, MonkeyHead said:

I have noticed that if you watch 2 cpu players, the ratings pre match are different (and reflect edits better) to if a human player is involved. No idea how that comes about.

Actually I think I may have stumbled upon the reason for that. Following kingraph's notes the team rating are supposed to start at offset 0A06DC, but my game seems to want to use the set starting at offset 0A06FA. The pointer at 0A06BA directs to 0A06DC, but again my game is using the pointer at 0A06CA which, as it turns out, is 0A06FA. The numbers are slightly different starting at those two points, but they seem close enough that they could very well be a high/low range.

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Huh, actually that was pretty easy.

If anyone else is interested, all I did was:
1) go to 0A06BA and change 000A 06DC to 001D ADA0. [it was in a free area and seemed like a fun word]
2) go to 0A06CA and change 000A 06FA to 001D ADD0. [even funner]
3) go to 1DADA0 and enter in 34 pairs of random numbers. [You may wish to use a hex calculator to convert a dec number out of 99 to hex for some more specific numbers]
4) go to 1DADD0 and enter in 34 pairs of numbers that two or three values higher than the first set.
5) save as, and you're done.

I can post the updated ROM if anyone is interested. I will leave it to Ultramagnus if he deems it fit to add to his guide.

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