Digging deeper into the data files

[Suule]

Well I've dug into the data files some time ago and did a bit of decoding of the things used there.

First of all: Command format

For example:

Melee:CM8SK4LV4BZ16TR25TA-5EX24PB70DM54AT1

CM - It seems to be 'how to handle an attack'.
Full command list:
CM1 - Block
CM2 - Invisibility (OH EW SAR)
CM3 - Launch Missle specified in PA parametr
CM4 - Physical damage
CM5 - Confuse
CM6 - Darkness (DES EW SAR)
CM7 - Spell Reflection (ZO BRO ROS)
CM8 - Physical damage
CM9 - Aura of Speed (OH IR ROS)
CM10 - Use Rope (Climb Down)
CM11 - Freeze life
CM12 - Aura of Dexterity (OH EW ROS)
CM13 - Aura of Wisdom (OH EW DAIN)
CM14 - Aura of Vitality (OH EW NETA)
CM15 - Aura of Strength (OH EW KU)
CM16 - Consume
CM32 - Launch associated projective (Bow/Sling)
CM33 - Spellshield (YA IR DAIN)
CM34 - Fireshield (FUL BRO NETA)
CM35 - Shield (YA IR)
CM36 - Healing
CM38 - Light (covers both FUL and FUL IR RA)
CM42 - Throw the active item
CM49 - Attack Minion (ZO EW KU)
CM50 - Guard Minion (ZO EW NETA)
CM54 - Teleport

SK - Skill number used. Skills from 0-3 are 'normal' visible skills (Fighter, Ninja, Priest, Wizard)
LV - minimal skill level for the command to appear
BZ - Stamina loss
TR - Fatigue ( the ammount of time before reusal of the weapon)
TA - Defence modifier
EX - Experience gained
PB - Hit Probality
DM - Damage done

Now spells:

{PAL}{DES}{EW}:CM3PA3ST150SK16LV4BZ24TR2TA-7EX25NC1SD253

The new parametrs here are:
PA - It seems to affect the projective launched. here's a table:
0 - Fireball
2 - Lightning
3 - Dispell
4 - Zo Spell
6 - Poison bolt
7 - Poison cloud
9 - Push spell
10 - Pull spell
NC - Charges used
ST - Spell strenght (Usually spell damage / duration for other spells)
SD - Unknown. Staves have this 253, Rouge staff has this 254, Bows have this 1.

Other paramets
AT - I'm not perfectly sure about this...
HN - Harm non-material - attack harms non-materials
RP - repeat (attack is dealt and is repeated x number of times)

Now: Undocumented features found in creatures.dat

It seems that most items have 'hidden features' of which none of the hint books/pages seem to mention about. Using Kentaro tools I managed to find this

It seems some weapons can influence the hidden skills. I've found this after I equiped Excsymyr and suddenly noticed that I could do a LUNGE attack with my rapier (I couldn't do it before). I've put the Excsymyr down and I couldn't. I later dug into the graphics.dat using Kentaro tools and found this:

Excsymyr has 'Value 23h' = 1.

Since 1Eh = Fighter main skill, and 20h = Priest main skill (taken from Fire Armour and SAR shield), then 21h = Wizard skill, and anything that comes after them is 'hidden skills'. So I started decoding them and this is what I've found:

Weapons
Kalan Gaunlet - Increases Hidden Ninja skill nr.2 by 2(According to the hint book it's the one responsible for bare hand fighting)
Excsymyr - Increases Hidden Fighter skill nr. 2 by 1(Responsible for 'Thrust'-attacks. Again hintbook comes in handy)
Blue Steele - Increases Hidden Fighter skill nr. 1 by 1 (Swing attacks)
Vorax - Increases Hidden Fighter skill nr. 1 AND has ?poison of strength 10?
Techmace - Increases Hidden Fighter skill nr. 3 by 1(Club attacks)
War Club - Increases Hidden Fighter skill nr. 3 by 1(Club attacks)
Poison dart - ?Poison strenght of 20? (Unsure)
Combat Staff - Fighter Skill +1
Staff of Neta - Increases Hidden Priest Skill 3 by 1( Influence - Calm, Fear, Freeze life)
Serpent Staff - Increases Hidden Wizard Skill 3 by 1( Earth spells )
Bainbloom - Incereases Hidden Wizard Skill 2 by 2( Air spells )
NumenStaff - Increases Hidden Wizard Skill 1 by 1( Fire spells )
Scarab - Increases Luck by 5

Clothing:
Fine Robe Top - Increases Hidden Wizard Skill 3 & 4 by 1
Fine Robe - Increases Hidden Wizard Skill 1 & 2 by 1 (It explains now why suddenly my spells started to get crappier when I changed it to Ra-Sar armour)
Bodice - Increases Hidden Priest Skill 3 by 1
Mithral hosen - +1 value 33h ??? (I think it modifies your load/speed, but I'll have to clarify that)
Brigandine - Increases Hidden Ninja Skill 1 by 1( Purpose unknown ??? )
Bandana - Increases Hidden Priest Skill 2 by 1( Healing & Potions )
Great Helm - Increases Hidden Priest Skill 3 by 1 (Ohhh! Scary helmet of doom!)
Mithral Mail & Huke - Each one increases luck by 5
RA-SAR Poleyn - Increases luck by 5

Misc:
Rune Charm - Increases luck by 4
Meteor Metal - Increases lucky by 4
Some food items seem to affect the skills (Palmapples and Spirit Caps). I still have to clarify that.

That's about all of my findings so far. GREAT thanks to Kentaro for the tools, and authors of the DM2 Hintbook and Steve Debnar for providing scans.

I still need to decode some of the features of the items... they seem to have 'flags' that seem to modify something... they're mysteries still unsolved like "Clan Chief Gem" that SEEMS to do something, but I dunno
what still... I hope the ammount of info I've gathered will help in replaying DM2.. again.

[beowuuf]

Wow, this is all incredible research! : )

[Suule]

That's just the tip of the iceberg. I still haven't found food/water values, the purpose of flags and such. Monster AI still has to be decoded... a lot of blank spaces I need to get de-coded before I'll put them in my clone.

I'm glad I managed to get this far. And with some of Puprle1's help I also managed to get additional info about object handling and how the map was done.

[Cloud]

Very good article!! Its good to know number of experiences gained from weapons, this article present fact, that different weapons give different exps.
It will be good to know what weapons are good for training.

[Tom Hatfield]

Wow. That's really convoluted. It amazes me that someone programmed this game, but it amazes me even more than someone else is decoding it!

[Suule]

I do it mostly to port that info into my clone. But discovering all this cleverly hidden fuctions give me such joy...

[kentaro-k.21]

hi.

just supplement:
SD seems to be sound number.

Staves have this 253, Rouge staff has this 254, Bows have this 1

in the editor, "01 00 00 Sound" entry can be found from entry list of weapon Bow. "SD1" is to refer it.
as well, the Rouge staff has 254. it refers "FE 00 00 Sound", however it is not found from entries in weapon "Rogue staff". it will cause no sound for action.

just fyi about command text: the improved command text edit ui is implemented such as screenshot.
lowest label "Check'em at: Digging deeper into the data files" is a link to follow this post.
the most effort is costed to draw icon. finally i felt it was longer than that coding time, because i'm not good at designing.

[Suule]

Hmrrr... this would make sense!

I still can't figure out the AT attribute... Only two items have it: Fury and Torch (Lit). Like it was connected with the 'fire' attribute...

[purple1]

Providing light, perhaps? The Illumulet provides light too, so maybe I'm wrong.

[Snej]

Good work.
I looked at the data provided by dm2ae 005 too and this is what I have to add:

CM5 Calm & Confuse
CM12 Aura of Wisdom
CM13 Aura of Dexterity

CM17 Grab Items (Parameter WH == 1 or 2)
CM44..48 Magic Maps
CM56..57 Debug Map

AT is used during an attack, so light seems not to be the right answer.
I could imagine that there is a chance to enflame something.

For weapons I found two more hidden skills:
Dagger (Ninja Fight skill +1)
Emerald Orb (Wizard Water skill +1)

Mithral Hosen affect speed as argued in the
Adventurers Guide http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/408 page 56

There are also some notes about the PalmApple ManaBlossom FairyCushion and SpiritCap stuff.

What makes me wonder is that the ManaBlossom seems to have some of the Illumulet attributes.

Finally a list of x0B values and my guesses:

00:Bitmask
... 00 01 ??? // Bota, Jicama, Tankard
... 00 02 Small Items ?
... 00 10 ???
... 00 20 Scroll
... 00 40 ???
... 08 00 One use only ?
... 10 00 ???
... 20 00 Magical (perhaps to show the item on the MagicMap)
... 40 00 Money
... 80 00 There are more than one picture for the inventory (usually then there is a x0B 06 value too)
01: Weight
02: Value
03: Food Value
04: Portability
05: ??? (Shooting)
06: determines which Inventar picture is shown or how to play the animation ?
08: Attack Strength
09: Throw Strength
0A: Accuracy
0B: Armor
0C: ??? (Shooting)
0D: Poison ? // Vorax, Poison Dart
12: HP
13: Stamina
14: Mana
15: Luck
16/17/18/19: Str Dex Wisd Vit
1A/1B: AntiMagic AntiFire
Skills
1E 22 23 24 25: Fighter Skill + hidden Fighter skills
1F 26 27 28 29: Ninja Skill + hidden Ninja Skills
20 2A 2B 2C 2D: Priest Skill + hidden Priest Skills
21 2E 2F 30 31: Wizard Skill + hidden Wizard Skills
32: Light ? //Illumulet, ManaBlossom
33: Speed
34: Water
35: ??? (something with magic)

btw. 07 0E 0F 10 11 1C 1D are missing, cause I didnt found them.

Maybe there is a talented progger who writes an easy editor for the graphics.dat, so that someone like me could create items with new stats and then use them into the game.

[beowuuf]

Manablossom lights up the area where it is found before being picked

[Snej]

^^ I´m not yet this far this time. (Got the original game working two days ago)
Only bought a ManaBlossom. And this one seemed to me to have no light effect.

AT: You can enflame the fireplace in the first room with a burning torch (or a fireball). Maybe with the Fury too. But this has nothing to do with an attack.

[beowuuf]

It only has a lighting effect where you find it...which would seem more to do with the wall object than the item itself actually....

[kentaro-k.21]

spec of 06:

flags. when the item animates. any combinations (mask=&HC000)

&H8000: Equip the item (e.g. Torch)
&H4000: Invoke command selection (e.g. Tech shield)

anim type. usage of pictures. one of followings (mask=&H0F00)

&H0000: Always invoke anim. (e.g. Vi Potion)
&H0200: Compass
&H0300: Charge rate. (e.g. Bota, Tunkard)
&H0500: Always invoke anim on random frame rate.
&H0600: Combo. Charge rate & invoke anim. (e.g. Torch)
All other is unknown usage.

Lower byte format. 8 bits are from MSB(Most significant bits) to LSB(least significant bits). (mask=&H00FF)

if animType is Combo(&H0600).

Code: Select all

AAAMMMMM

  AAA=frame count/anim. from 0 to 7
MMMMM=total frame count. from 0 to 31

if animType is not Combo(&H0600).

Code: Select all

----CCCC

----=not used
CCCC=frame count for loop. from 0 to 15

this spec would be difficult with no explanation. i'll post a sample figure for explain this in future.

[RPGmc72]

Items entry 06 00 00 determines how image animations will play. Value 4000 tell the item use the animation ONLY when open/use. 8000 tells the item to animate when equipped on Head/Chest/Knees/Feet. Last digit is for number of images to use (best is to be equal to the number of images your item has, in most cases if an item has 5 icons a value of 8005 means it will use the 5 icons). Some like Torch have 8010 (10 is 16 in decimal) and use 11 images, not sure why. Others use 8505 that is like (8000+500+5) not sure what 500 is for. I was trying to make an item animate always while equipped but if in hand - animate also during open/use but if you make it animate while equipped, no animation shows if used in hand. This is for an item that can be placed in hand for use and equipped as e.g helm (because you cant cast a spell from an item if not in hand). That may be too hard to find out and impractical time to research on that old game.