A TSB3 Holy Grail Has Been Found: The OF Starters Image

[amrush]

Just about fell over when I discovered this:


Offset 0000F199

Starting with Buffalo, these 30 bytes control which OF Starters image will load up for each team. There are several more 00 bytes after the SF byte, but I didn't test whether any of those control the Pro Bowl teams (which are both 2-Back).

00 loads the 2-Back
02 loads the 3-Wides
04 loads the 4-Wides

Listen up. There is no limit to the number of Pro Set teams, 1-Back teams or R&S Teams you can load. I've switched around the bytes for every team and the rom seems to run fine with any combo of formations... I've read elsewhere that the NES version doesn't afford that flexibility. Rest assured that this version does. Obviously, this version was coded with independent control over this (and hopefully, other) aspect(s) of the game.


Eureka, indeed




AM

[Rod Woodson]

Great find. The only thing I would think it would affect is free agency/trading. What happens if you set all team to not have a TE and then do free agency? Maybe I just can't remember and it just assumes that anyone in a certain slot is a rb, wr, te, etc.

I've read elsewhere that the NES version doesn't afford that flexibility.

NES version

[palmcd]

Next up Defensive starters from 4-3 to 3-4 defense

[amrush]

Follow-up to this discovery:

Changing a team's byte to 03 switches the default OF formation to 2TE. (In my rom this came in handy for only 1 team, the Raiders.) Lot of switching around of players in TSBM involved here to arrange what positional subs go where...

Changing a team's byte to 01 switches the default OF formation to I. This is pretty much an aesthetic-only change for most folks, since this default doesn't change the starters or backups.

I suppose changing a team's byte to 05 switches the default OF formation to Shotgun (4-Wides), but I didn't test it out...


AM

[amrush]

Here's an interesting tick in the ROM that I recently noted:


I ran through 6 weeks of a season with this change in the ROM, meaning I played every game in either COM v COM or COA v COM modes with all the teams set to the OFF formations for many of the teams changed around from the original ROM settings.

All the COM teams seemed to be able to sub out their offensive players that got injured during a game without incident, except for one team - the Raiders. Note that earlier in this thread I mentioned that Oakland was the only team I changed to a 2TE default formation.

I didn't pay close attention to all the quirks that occurred during Raider injuries, but here's a couple things I do remember:

- There were at least two Raider injuries to non-QB offensive players during the 6 games I 'played'. Every time such an injury happened, the game stopped in the OF Starters screen (this was in COM mode, not COA or MAN mode), and when I tried to sub the players myself the game would freeze up, forcing me to reset the ROM and restart the game...ugh.

- In Week 5, Stabler himself got injured. When the game went into the OF Starters screen, the game stopped again. I (again) attempted to make the change myself and put the cursor on Plunkett, but the players wouldn't switch after a couple of tries. So I hit 'B' to try to move the game forward, and the game exited the OF Starters screen and back into the normal post-injury gameplay screens. Guess who shows up on the field? Stabler! Even though he was classified as injured! The game finished up and the stats screen had Stabler as the only QB to have played, ie: the game finished up fine with no other weird ROM quirks. This is the first time I've ever encountered a player getting injured in Tecmo and going back out on the field; having the ROM not f*ck up after this happening makes it all the nuttier.


So be wary of this glitch when you switch a team to a 2TE default...

AM Rush


PS: Interesting to note that the Raiders passing ydg production after 6 weeks was ranked #3 in the league (they were #1 after Wk 4), and yet their W-L record was 0-6.

[amrush]

After repeated injury-replacement problems running the Raiders with a default 2TE formation, I've decided to switch them back to a default Pro formation.

This sucks in the sense that their default playbooks are 2TE formation-centric - which mirrors a 1-back OF Starters screen. But you really don't want the COM opponent replacing your injured TE with a 13 HPWR, right?

At least in the Pro set your injured TE gets replaced with a higher HP sub in the form of an RB.

One more thing to note about the 2TE default formation: even though the OF Starters screen shows the 2 TEs in the formation, when you open the attributes screen for the top TE, his position is labeled as a "Wide Receiver", which is consistent with how that player gets labeled in the 1-back default. The only weird impact that I can think of with this being the case is in the end-of-season All-Pro selections. In my ROMs case this is a pretty big consideration, because Todd Christensen is the best TE in my ROM.

So unless I switch him with the other TE that starts for the Raiders (Raymond Chester), Todd Christensen will never be an All-Pro TE...

Ugh...


AM Rush