Road Rash 2 ROM Editor (Genesis/Mega Drive)

[Tony H]

Working on a large update for an existing Road Rash 2 bike editor: https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1545/



Planned improvements/additions:

* Will now work on all 3 versions/ROMs.
* Adding tabs/pages for more content (Starting bike, CPU bikes, Misc stuff, and maybe more?).
* Option to create a new ROM when patching.
* Will allow higher acceleration values than before.
* Adjustment for how many gears in the transmission.
* May add adjustments for downshifting MPH in each gear.
* Adjustment for how fast you walk when you are off of your bike.
* Adjustment that determines how far away your bike goes from you when you crash.  If you keep it close to you, you can get back on your bike faster after crashing.
* Adjustable damage for different types of crashes.
* How much damage you cause to CPU racers when you hit or kick them.  Will probably make this so you can knock them down with one hit if you want.
* May add an adjustment for how far away CPU racers are from their bikes when they crash.  It's really funny to watch them chase after their bike, and the bike keeps moving away from them.  They will eventually catch up to their bike and get back on.
* Top speed adjustments for each of the computer controlled (CPU) racers.
* Top speed adjustments for the cops.
* Amount of slow down you get when your bike goes off of the track.
* Amount of money you start a new game with.
* Amount of money you get for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place finishes.
* Amount of money you get fined if you get busted by the cops.

If anyone has any suggestions for other additions/improvements, let me know.

[Tony H]

Editor update...

Since I'm rewriting nearly all of the code from scratch and because it will have a lot more content than I thought, I'm going to submit this as a new ROM editor instead of an updated version of the existing bike editor.

As of now, I've expanded it to four pages/tabs.  Found lots of new stuff since last time, and will mention them below.  Still making changes, so kind of messy:



This page (above) will let you edit the starting bike, as well as the music.  The values shown on this page are being loaded from the ROM, although the other three pages (below) aren't to that point yet.

I added an infinite nitro option since a few people wanted more nitro than the 14 that was allowed in the original bike editor.  If you have more than 14 nitro bursts on the screen, it starts to overflow and doesn't look very good, so I think the inf nitro option is a good way to go.

Have also added an option to change how many gears you have in your transmission.  This is mostly for experimenting.

The music options will let you decide which music you listen to on any of the tracks by entering the number of the music you want.  So for example, if your favorite music is from the Vermont track and you wanted to listen to it on all 5 tracks, you would just enter number 2 in all 5 tracks (or whatever tracks you wanted it on).  There is also an option to listen to the title screen music while racing if you'd like.



This page is just for the computer controlled bikes.  I'm struggling with the design for this page since there are just waaay too many things to edit with the CPU bikes.  The way it's shown right now seems like a good compromise, because it will add enough adjustment to keep the CPU riders interesting, but simple enough to make it easy to edit.  I thought about having one adjustment for all of the CPU bikes, but that would make them too predictable. Still might change it some more.  Have divided them into 3 groups, because the game uses 3 different groups for each level.  There's not enough room to do all 5 levels, so whatever changes you make will apply to all 5.  This should work out pretty good, since you will most likely be using the same bike throughout the entire game, although you can adjust your bike at any time if you need to.



This page is pretty self explanatory.  Anything to do with money is on this page.



This last page is for misc stuff and obviously has a lot of work left to do.  Some of the stuff is kind of notes to myself for ideas.

Some of the new things I found since last time that will probably get added:

* What weapons the cops have. They normally all have a club, but you can change it to the chain (which causes more damage than the club), or you can make it so they don't have any weapons.

* Color of your bike.  Not sure if I'm going to use this one yet.

* Can decide which weapon you start each race with.

* I like this one: An option to make all of the CPU bikes wait 30 seconds before they start the race.  This will give you a 30 second head start, but after 30 seconds, all of the CPU racers will take off and start racing.

* Option to make it so you always level-up after a race, and another to make it so you will always finish in 1st place.  Not sure if I'm going to use these yet.

* Add an extra gear to the transmission.  This one still has to be tested to see if it will work.  It might over-write some of the data the bike needs for other stuff, so will have to see if I can work around that.

* Added health recovery speed for the player and the CPU bikes.

* I think the rest of it was explained in the first post.


Have a few more ideas which I'll add later if I can get them figured out (CPU rider aggressiveness, etc).

[Nightwolf]

wow, thank you man  

[Colmines92]

* Color of your bike.  Not sure if I'm going to use this one yet.

Why not?

[Tony H]

Why not?

One of the tables I found in the ROM lets you change the color of the bikes for all of the CPU racers so they match the color of your bike, or make it so your bike matches their color.  In the very first race, your bike is red and all of the CPU bikes are green.  Using that table, the editor could make it so that your bike is the same color as all of the CPU bikes (green), it could make it so that any or all of the CPU bikes are the same color as your bike (red), or completely switch colors so your bike is green and the CPU bikes are red.  The only problem is it's only dealing with two colors (the color of your bike and the color of the CPU bikes) so not sure if it's worth adding to the editor.

There should be a different table in the ROM that determines the color of each bike in the game.  I haven't looked for it yet but if I find it, I will most likely use that in the editor.

P.S. Just remembered that using the table mentioned above, you can enter a specific value to make your bike have several different colors, which isn't normally available in the game.  That might be worth adding to the editor.

[Tony H]

Small update:

Found the tables for the rider and bike colors, so will add that to the editor.  Haven't tested it much yet, but should be able to choose any color of any bike in the game, even black (Wild Thing 2000 color).

Also found a nitro acceleration multiplier and how much extra top speed is added when using nitro, so will probably add those as well.

[Tony H]

Editor update:

There is a new Road Rash 2 Improvement hack here on RHDN that looks pretty cool: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7159/

The Road Rash 2 Improvement hack makes a lot of changes to the ROM, and it didn't work with the editor.  I wanted to include it, so made some changes and it now works with the editor.  As before, the editor still works on any of the 3 normal versions of the game.

Have finally figured out how to do the CPU bike page.  You will be able to edit the top speed (in 6th gear) for all of the CPU bikes and cops.  This allows you to make them faster our slower, and it won't change anything as far as how each rider behaves.  This should make it pretty easy to figure out.  I think there are a total of 12 different top speed adjustments for the entire game, but most of them are used by more than one CPU bike in each level.  As you move up in levels, they will start using faster bikes (which you can adjust).

The game also uses a different table that has stuff for each CPU rider and for each level which is part of the reason why the game is so unpredictable, as far as how the different riders act.  This table has things like which weapon (if any) they start with, how aggressive they are, etc.  This is a huge table and for now, I'm not going to include it in the editor, since it would be a massive amount of adjustments.  However, there will be a single option in the editor that will let you change which weapon (if any) the cops have, and this will make around 30 changes to that huge table so it will work on every cop in every level.  All of the cops normally have the club.

Another new addition to the CPU bike page will be a single adjustment that determines the temporary top speed of the 7 fastest CPU bikes for each race.  When you first start a race, there are 7 bikes at the starting line with you, and another 7 bikes that are up ahead out of view.  The 7 bikes that are up ahead are generally faster than the bikes at the starting line with you.  This new single adjustment will let you change the top speed of the 7 bikes up ahead, however the adjusted top speed will only last until you pass a bike, then that rider will start using his normal top speed.  This makes is easier to get out into first place if you use a lower value, but once you start passing those bikes, they will go back up to their normal full speed.  You can also make them faster with this adjustment if you want more of a challenge.

[Tony H]

Editor update:

The first 3 pages/tabs are 100% functional as far as being able to pull values from the ROM, and patch any changes back into the ROM.  4th page is about 50% finished.



Moved the bike color adjustment to this page (above).  There are 15 colors to choose from.  It shows the different colors as you either click the up/down arrows, or enter a number manually.  Also added options to double the amount of nitro acceleration and/or added top speed.  The nitro options (infinite, 2x acceleration, and 2x added top speed) will work on any bike that has nitro.  Can still change which music you listen to on this page, as well as the starting bike performance adjustments.



Made lots of changes to this page (above) to simplify things as far as adjusting how fast the CPU bikes/Cops are.  If you only want to slightly slow them down (or speed them up), you can just make changes to their top speed in 6th gear.  If you want to slow them down even more, you can reduce the number of gears in their transmissions.  I've included a separate adjustment for Wild Thing 2000, since that's a bike you can get with the controller cheat, and I think it is also used by some of the CPU bikes.

Have also added a CPU bug fix checkbox that is used to let you know if the CPU top speed bug for #6 has been fixed or not.  The bug is automatically fixed anytime you patch a ROM with the editor.  The bug causes any CPU rider that uses the #6 top speed value to have a much lower top speed (around 100 MPH) than what it's supposed to be (around 140 MPH).

There is also a single adjustment that lets you decide the top speed of the 7 fastest CPU bikes in every race.  When you start a new race, there are 7 bikes way out in front that you can's see at first.  This adjustment lets you decide how easy or hard they are to catch up to.  This adjustment will only last until you pass them, then each one will go back to their normal top speed.  I had a lot of fun playing around with this one.



Cleaned the money page up a bit.  Pretty self explanatory.



Major changes to this page, and is only about half way done.  Got rid of some of the original CPU bike ideas for this page in favor of CPU bike health adjustments for all CPU/Cop bikes.  If you want to make it easier to knock CPU/Cop riders of their bikes, just use lower values.  A value of zero will make it so they will get knocked off with a single hit from you.  Of course, if you want to make it harder to knock them off, use higher values.

The adjustment for player health is loaded at the very beginning of the game, so if you make adjustments to this, make sure you start a new game to see the effects (eg. it probably won't work on a saved game).

There is an option to adjust your walking speed when you're off your bike.  You can adjust this up to 250 MPH, and can race against the other bikes while running if you want.  If you want to try this, keep in mind that the cops will show up after 60 seconds when you're off your bike, so make sure to check the "Cops won't show up when walking" option.

The adjustment for how far you are from your bike when you crash can make a huge difference in the time it takes you to get back on your bike.

Added an option to prevent the Cops from busting you when they show up.  If you crash near them, they will not arrest you, so you can keep racing.  Also added an option to give your bike more or less protection from crashes.

You can also choose which weapon you start each race with, and which weapon the cops start with.


I tested the editor on the Road Rash 2 SRAM hack here at RHDN, and it works fine.  Also, if that Road Rash 2 Improvement hack gets updated again in the future, there is a very good chance it will still work with the editor, even if ROM addresses get moved around.  To the best of my knowledge, the editor will work on any version, any region, and any hack for Road Rash 2.

[BillyTime! Games]

Awesome work Tony! I've been meaning to make Addendum patches to add SRAM functionality to Ti's improvement patches.

I'll be sure to use your tool when testing said hacks to ensure future compatibility on my end.

[Tony H]

Awesome work Tony! I've been meaning to make Addendum patches to add SRAM functionality to Ti's improvement patches.

I'll be sure to use your tool when testing said hacks to ensure future compatibility on my end.

Thanks.  I made sure the editor worked with your SRAM patch, since that's a great addition to the game.

A quick way to tell if a Road Rash 2 ROM is compatible with the editor after you open it, is to check the very last adjustment on the last page to see if a value was loaded from the ROM.  As of now, that adjustment is "CPU bike health groups 5 thru 10 (CPU/Cops)".  That value should normally be 10 if it hasn't been edited yet.  If it's zero and you didn't adjust it to zero earlier, that means it couldn't find the pattern it was looking for and the ROM isn't 100% compatible with the editor.

It checks at 0x000180 to make sure it has the right serial number, and to determine if it's the US or Japanese ROM since there are lots of differences. It also checks at 0x00012C to determine if it's the Improvement hack, again, since there are lots of differences.  If the ROM doesn't match any of these checks, the editor won't open it.  Since your patch makes changes to the ROM header, I was careful to make sure your patch would still work.

[Tony H]

Submitted the editor and it's now on RHDN, but just found out that there are a couple problems that I need to fix.

There is a bug that prevents the editor from correctly patching the Japanese ROM, or the Road Rash 2 Improvement hack ROM.  I've already found the problem and fixed it, and will submit an update shortly.  If you're using either of the USA ROMs (REV00 or REV02) or the SRAM hack, the current editor (ver 1.0) editor works fine.

The other problem is with dollar amounts for prize money or starting money on the "Money Adjustment" page.  The game only uses dollar amounts in increments of $10, but you can manually enter dollar amounts in increments of $1 in the editor.  Example: If you enter a value of $1234, you will actually get $1230 in the game.  Will try to get that fixed as well with the update.

Here is the link for the current version (ver 1.0): https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1708/

As I mentioned, if you're using either of the USA ROMs or the SRAM hack ROM, version 1.0 should work fine.  If you're planning on using the Japanese ROM or the Improvement hack ROM, then you'll need to wait for the updated version.  Should have it ready today.


These are a few of the things that were updated with version 1.0 since my last post:

* Removed the "Double Nitro Acceleration" option.  Found out through testing that if you had everything maxed out (top speed set to 250 MPH, acceleration set to 100, double nitro top speed boost, and double nitro acceleration), your bike would intermittently come to a complete stop for a split second when accelerating, then speed back up.  I remember seeing this years ago when trying to go too fast in the game.  The double nitro top speed boost option is still there and if you use it with the highest top speed (250 MPH), I think your top speed when using nitro will be around 315 MPH.  You can fly for a long time if you crash at that speed. lol.

* Removed the option to change which weapon the Cops have.  Didn't work like I thought it would.  However, you can still change which weapon you have.

* Improved the "Straighter tracks" option so it works better than the one in the original RR2 bike editor.  I noticed that the original one caused some minor bumps in the track on Alaska.

* Lowered the maximum walking speed when off your bike to 200 MPH, since 250 was just too hard to control.  200 MPH is still hard to control when you're walking, but gets easier with practice.  It's really fun passing the other bikes while on foot. :-)

[Tony H]

The updated editor (version 1.0a) is finished: https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1708/

Fixed the patching bug and everything seems to work fine now.  Credit to Demonic722 for figuring out a solution on how to get the money values to display correctly when typed in.

[Tony H]

Updated editor to version 1.1: https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1708/

Added a few new options...

* Added an option to disable the bike color change.  The way the editor does the bike color change, is it patches the ROM so that any bike you have will be the color you selected in the editor.  This works fine, except there was no way to turn this feature off if you didn't want all of your bikes the same color.  You now have the option of leaving the bike colors just the way they are normally (ie. the editor doesn't make any changes to the ROM as far as bike colors).  You can use this option even if you made color changes with the previous version.

* Added an adjustment for how much gravity is in the game.  Someone had mentioned that when you have all of the bike performance options maxed out (top speed, acceleration, and nitro), the bike was in the air for a long time when you would go over jumps or bumps, and you have zero control over the bike when it's in the air.  You can increase the amount of gravity in the game to get your bike back on the ground right away after a big jump so you can have control again. 

You can also adjust it so the game has less gravity, which will make your bike jump higher.

* Also added a checkbox that lets you use lower values for gravity.  When this box isn't checked, you are limited on how low you can adjust your gravity.  I added this option because if your bike has a really high top speed (over 190 MPH), setting the gravity too low may cause the bike to stay at the top of the screen for a looong time after a big jump.  It is kind of fun to be up in the air for that long, but on a few occasions, the graphics became slightly glitched when you finally landed.  This checkbox gives you a message when you click on it so that you are aware that using gravity values that are too low might cause minor problems.  If your bike has a top speed of less than 190 MPH, it should be safe to use the lower gravity values.  The 190 MPH speed is just a rough guess, so you'll need to experiment with which gravity values to use.

[Tony H]

Updated editor to version 1.2: https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/1708/

Added 5 more bike colors to choose from.  The 5 new colors also change the color of your clothes, so it now shows you the color of the bike as you go through the numbers, and it tells you the color of the clothes.

Just for a full disclosure here, the normal values in the game for bike colors is supposed to be from 0 to 15 (for all the different bikes in the game).  Using values from 16 to 20 gives you 5 more colors to choose from, but it also changes a few other things: Color of your clothes, color of the text on your bike's dash, and a couple of them change the color of the cars/traffic.  So I look at these extra changes as "features".  lol.