Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Discuss VO4, the latest in the series.
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Porcupine
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Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Post by Porcupine »

I found out that there are lots of hidden VR colors that can be accessed through save file editing! Things are looking very promising.

The color flag data for each VR is stored as 16-bits with a value of 7E 3F once every color has been unlocked.

0111111000111111

"1" means the corresponding color has been unlocked. The rightmost bit is for Realistic color, the next one over is Normal color, then it goes in order of Special 1, Special 2, Special 3, Special 4, unused, unused, unused, Shadow, Rare 1, Rare 2, Rare 3, Rare 4, Secret, unused.

You can unlock the Shadow VR color by setting the proper bit without reaching 101% Sync Ratio, if you like. Unfortunately, unlocking the unused colors doesn't give you normal access to them within the game.

But in separate regions of data, you can set the color of your active VR, or the colors of your various partner AI. Here for example, you would set the color byte to "00" for Realistic color, "09" for Shadow VR color, or "0E" for Secret color. By setting this byte directly you can access many unused colors, and they actually exist and look pretty good. You are able to play the game with the altered color as well as view it in the VR Viewer. I am guessing this would also work in multiplayer games and uploaded game clips.

Unfortunately you can't change the color of your VR normally to these colors within the game, as the game doesn't recognize them. If you open the menu to change your VR, the altered color will just be categorized as Normal, and if you change your color you won't be able to change back. In the VR Viewer, all altered colors are described as (null).
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Porcupine
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Post by Porcupine »

I will try to describe the extra colors. I use Fei-Yen as the body; probably the same color schemes would apply to any other VR.

Normal color (example): White legs and apron, pink head, red markings and chest stripes, yellow protrusions, white panties and visor, small red tangram insignia under neck

Color "06": Greenish-yellow legs and apron, olive head, greenish-yellow chest without stripes, tan protrusions, white panties and visor, red tangram insignia. Mostly monochromatic-looking color scheme, kind of sickly looking but cool.

Color "07": White legs and apron, yellow head and chest stripes, dark yellow markings, light orange protrusions, white panties and visor, red tangram insignia. Looks very good, kind of like Emotional Fei-Yen default color.

Color "08": Red-tinted white legs and apron, magenta head, red markings and chest stripes, magenta protrusions, white panties and visor, red tangram insignia

Color "0F": Orange legs and apron, light orange head, white markings and chest stripes, magenta protrusions, white panties and visor, green tangram insignia. Looks interesting, like passion fruit colors or something.

Color "10": Same as color "08"

Color "11": Same as Shadow VR color "09"

Color "12": Off-white legs and apron, bright red head, crimson red markings and chest stripes, purple protrusions, white panties and visor, red tangram insignia

Color "13": Off-white legs and apron, hot pink head and chest, no stripes, purplish-gray protrusions, white panties and visor, red tangram insignia. Awesome color scheme for Fei-Yen, will probably become my new default.

Color "14": Pink legs and apron, light orange head, white markings and chest stripes, dark orange protrusions, white panties and visor, red tangram insignia. Ugly.

Color "15": Same as Normal color

Color "16": Same as Normal color

Color "17": Same as Normal color

Color "18": Same as Normal color

Color "19": White legs and apron, lime green head, markings, and chest stripes, dark orange protrusions, white panties and visor, red tangram insignia. Not the same as Fei-Yen's Secret color, but slightly similar.
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Porcupine
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Post by Porcupine »

I made one attempt to get a new VR and it worked!!

Just as you can specify the color of your active VR or buddy AI, you also specify the base-model and sub-model of your VR. So it's quite possible we could specify Giant Jaguarandi or even VRs that don't exist normally, and right now this is looking very promising.

Fei-Yen is base-model "03" and her sub-models are "00" for VH, "01" for BH, "02" for PH, "03" for CH, "06" for VH+, "07" for BH+, and "08" for PH+.

So I turned one of my buddy AI into base-model "03" and sub-model "04" and I got a messed up VR with model name (null) in the AI editing menu. It looks like a Fei-Yen CH in its main menu pose except it has no weapons: it is missing the pan. When loading a battle it has no mini-picture and has model name [NO DATA]. In battle it seems to have the RW and CW of Fei-Yen BH but the LW (green firing aura and firing animation of CH's pan but shoots VH's projectile) and CC (invisible sword with pink aura) and win pose of Fei-Yen VH. I'll have to try it out for myself next.

Angelan has base-model "05" and her sub-models run from "00" to "05" as expected, without gaps unlike for Fei-Yen. I haven't tried editing her yet.
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Post by MentholMoose »

Sounds pretty cool. Does the save file have any sort of protections like a checksum?
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

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There is an ordinary CRC-32 checksum at memory location 00008 of the file. The full header is 16 bytes so the domain of the checksum runs from memory location 00010 to the end of the file.

I chose Fei-Yen sub-model "04" as my own VR for further investigation. Everything I observed previously turned out to be true (surprisingly) plus I can add the following. The movement properties of the VR generally come from Fei-Yen BH that I have noticed. BH has a lot of peculiar movement properties (some good, some bad) so this is important. With one exception, dash attacking with RW has rotation speed that came from Fei-Yen VH/PH, which is slightly slower than BH (who is average in the game) so that part is worse. Even though it's BH's RW, so that's weird. (It still rotates slightly more than Fei-Yen VH dash attack RW because BH's dash attack RW comes out a tiny bit slower). Also, CC CW is glitched and doesn't work at all; nothing comes out if you try it. And most of Fei-Yen's other CC attacks are glitched and have no hitbox but visually appear as an invisible pink blade using VH's animations. CC RTRW for example is a hand slap with no hitbox. Only plain CC LW and the butt attack CC RTLW work. Everything else including dash CC, jumping CC, or uppercut CC has the invisible pink blade but no hitbox. It also seems that Circle/Quick Step CC on this VR is glitched and moves twice as fast as normal so despite having only 2 CC attacks this VR can probably still compete in CC.

When going into Practice mode, and possibly Multiplayer, the menu says sub-model "04" is Fei-Yen VH but when the match loads, its the same blank picture and [NO DATA] as the name. And oddly, the player stats (Sync Ratio, Kills, Playtime) came from my Fei-Yen VH+ stats.

I tried Fei-Yen sub-model "05" on an AI buddy. It again appears as a Fei-Yen CH with no pan. But this one has the RW of VH, the CW of PH, and the LW seems to be Temjin's RW?! I'll have to try it myself next.

I also tried Fei-Yen sub-model "09" as an AI buddy. As I hoped, this one is actually a fully functional Fei-Yen CH+ (who doesn't actually exist) with no glitches whatsoever! The model looks right and the pan shows up. The only problem is that it is still not a real VR as far as the game is concerned, so it is always named (null) or [NO DATA] and it has no mini-picture icon when loading a match.
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

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Choosing Fei-Yen sub-model "05" for my own VR confirmed what I observed earlier. The LW is a messed-up version of Temjin 747A's RW. It refires slightly slower though, and only one shot comes out for crouching LW, jumping LW, or any dashing LW. RTLW works, so Fei-Yen gets a nice prediction laser. This LW is neat, but in practice not overpowered. The movement properties come from Fei-Yen VH for this sub-model. Except for dash attack LW which inherited a few obscure dash recovery/speed issues from Temjin. The CC is glitched in the same way as Fei-Yen sub-model "04" except that the Circle/Quick Step speed is normal. All other issues are the same as sub-model "04".

Unfortunately, sub-model "05" is glitchy and freezes the game randomly at the start of matches or when Fei-Yen becomes hyper. So I don't recommend using this one. I have never seen the game freeze for the computer though so it may be stable to use for a buddy AI. But even then, if the game doesn't freeze when Fei-Yen turns hyper then the LW becomes really messed up since it is not an original Fei-Yen move. When this happened to me my LW shots first became invisible and subsequently would not fire at all, with the red X blocking my left energy bar.

Fei-Yen sub-model "0A" is the exact same as sub-model "04" except using the body of Fei-Yen CH+ instead. Without the pan, as before.

Fei-Yen sub-model "0B" is the exact same as sub-model "05" except using the body of Fei-Yen CH+ instead. Without the pan, as before.

Fei-Yen sub-models "0C" through "0F" are the exact same. It's a new model, again! I think it would best be called a Default Fei-Yen that doesn't actually exist in the game. It's Fei-Yen VH except with the classic pea shooter RW of Fei-Yen PH. The body looks identical to Fei-Yen VH. There are no glitches aside from the VR having no name or icon; it's totally functional just like sub-model "09". In practical terms, Default Fei-Yen performs very similar to Fei-Yen CH (which is supposed to be a weak joke version of Fei-Yen, combining the weaker weapons between VH and PH, then changing the sword into the pan for reduced CC functionality). Default Fei-Yen's weapons are thus mostly identical to Fei-Yen CH except it has the sword for CC and can be considered less of a nerf. But it's still an underpowered VR, so other players probably won't have any complaints if they see it.
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Post by Porcupine »

Color "1A": White legs and apron, brownish gold head, orange markings and chest stripes, yellow protrusions, white panties and visor, red tangram insignia. It's Ronald McDonald colors.

Colors "1B" through "21": Same as Normal color

Color "22": Brown legs and apron, orange head, markings, and chest stripes, yellow protrusions, white panties and visor, red tangram insignia. This is a really nice color scheme. It's Halloween colors.

Colors "23" through "27": Same as Normal color

Colors "28" through "35": Same as Realistic color

What I find interesting is how appealing most of the unused color schemes look. They appear to be deliberately formulated by a real human; they can't be random bits of glitch data. But why are they in the code, why are there so many of them, and why are they assigned to seemingly random Color numbers?
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Porcupine
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Post by Porcupine »

Choosing Fei-Yen sub-model "09" for my own VR confirms that it is indeed a perfectly working Fei-Yen CH+ equivalent. I'm not sure but it might also have its own player stats (Sync Ratio, Kills, Playtime). It restarts from zero and doesn't seem to be linked to any other VR in the game, though I didn't check everyone.

Fei-Yen sub-models "10" through "12" are the prior Default/Original Fei-Yen variant. Sub-models "13" and "14" are also the same variant with an additional graphical glitch: in the main menu screen they are standing lower than they should be for some reason. But in games they are fine.

Fei-Yen sub-model "80" was strangely displayed as Specineff "Sin" in the AI selection menu. But when I try to select it, the game always freezes.

Fei-Yen sub-model "7F" and "FF" are displayed as (null) in the AI selection menu as is the usual case for these extra sub-models. However, they also freeze the game whenever I try to bring them out.

To finish up, I explored the final parameter of your VRs. It's boob size. For most characters it is always 0 and does nothing. For Fei-Yen, "0" means pp (small), "1" means mp (default), "2" means f (big), "3" means ff (huge). I think Angelan runs from "0" mp (default) to "2" ff. (Note: Angelan's boobs are visually one size smaller than Fei-Yen's).

Anyway, it turns out that for Fei-Yen, "4" gives you pp size but turns the chest and belt yellow. If the color scheme is striped, there will be yellow stripes. If the color scheme has no stripes then the chest turns solid yellow. "5" does the same thing but gives mp size, and so on for "6" and "7". When Fei-Yen turns emotional/hyper, the entire chest area disappears and is invisible. Chest sizes "8" and above just make the chest area disappear at all times. My theory is that chest sizes "4" through "7" are giving you the emotional chest. Bottom line, this data area didn't turn out to be too useful.

That may be it for extra Fei-Yen variants, and colors. I'll search for boss-type VRs next.
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

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I'm going through all the base IDs in the game now. Here's what they are, in base-model sub-model format.

00 00: Temjin 747A
01 00: Apharmd J Type A (not the default version but the second version, it's essentially a clone of Temjin 747A with Apharmd's body)
02 00: Raiden 512E1 (not the default version but the second version, it's the default Raiden but with the alternate double-barreled Temjin RW)
03 00: Fei-Yen with VH
04 00: Vox "Age" (the second Vox, there are tons)
05 00: Angelan "Love"
06 00: Bal b Cista (the second one, with legs)
07 00: Specineff "Sin"
08 00: Kagekiyo "Wind"
09 00: Myzr Delta
0A 00: Bal m Landa (second female one, with legs)
0B 00: Guarayakha
0B 01: Jaguarandi (the small one you can use in single player modes)
0C 00: Temjin 707J (the main one from the retro VOOT series of Temjin)
0D 00: Apharmd T Type F (the default one, like Apharmd S in VOOT)
0E 00: Bal b Cista (again, but with a previously seen main menu glitch where the VR stands lower than it should)
0F 00: Bal m Landa (again, but with a previously seen main menu glitch where the VR stands lower than it should)
10 00: Temjin 10/80 SP (the retro VOOM Temjin)
11 00: Ajim

Ajim works!! In the AI selection menu he is described as (null) like most of the unused/unavailable VR. But in the pre-battle menus his picture (which is red) and name Ajim shows up correctly. Though there is a slight glitch with the picture because his is intended for bosses. On the main menu screen he appears but is discombobulated, in pieces. In battle, Ajim is normal sized and appears next to you properly. Seat B DNA Ajim is green (RNA Guerlain is yellow and RNA Ajim is orange, though they all have green cystals). Ajim appears to be unable to move and can only shoot RW (slow blue diamonds) over and over. However, he has the near-invincibility of the CPU Ajim and RW is his best move. It has super homing and can even return for a second pass so it's like old Bal mines (which no longer exist for any normal VR in Force because they would be overpowered). In short, he is ultra-powerful. I demolish my enemies with him as my partner.

Sadly when a Mission ends, I get a black screen of death right when the game tries to go back to the main menu. The same thing happens after an Arcade run. So probably Ajim cannot be used in single player game modes to level up, get SS Mission ranks, etc. But he still works and it's super fun.

Ajim showed up and animated properly in the cutscene after we beat CPU Jaguarandi. Then when we got to CPU Ajim and Guerlain, my partner Ajim turned giant just like them. He was standing near the middle of the arena at the start of the match, like your partner normally would. In this match alone, my partner Ajim could fire his LW also, the less-useful balls. Or at least chose to. I will test Ajim for myself next. Next, when CPU Ajim and Guerlain lost their near-invincibility, so did my partner Ajim. Then he got obliterated by their lasers. For some reason he did not shoot lasers back, I guess he can't or maybe he needs Guerlain with him. But he didn't die when he got to zero health! I guess he has no death animation. So he just kept fighting on; nothing could be better haha. After we won, Ajim was invisible for the credits sequence and top ten ranking demonstration cutscene, though I could occasionally see his energies. Then black screen.

I went to One Match mode and fought a match with my partner Ajim, and after the match the game did not go to the black screen. So Ajim could work for multiplayer. Also, in any single player mode, you can always quit to the main menu just before you complete your Mission or whatever, and that will also prevent the black screen.

Base-model "0B" and sub-model "02" was listed as Jaguarandi in the AI selection menu, not (null) like usual. When I tried to bring him out, the game froze. I don't know if he froze because this is a non-existent VR like the ones I encountered before using Fei-Yen, or if he froze because maybe this is the giant Jaguarandi.
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Post by Porcupine »

I was able to use Ajim myself. He can move after all, and all his weapons work. He has inherited some movement properties from VOOT such as ultrafast, uncontrollable rotation. Other movement peculiarities are new to him. LW is indeed the balls, and CW is the single-shot dark red diamond. Ajim also has crouching, jumping, turbo, and dash attacks. Most dash attacks are basic single shots but there are some peculiar ones like backdash RW which sets a stationary diamond in place. TRW is the blackboard from VOOT, TLW is a strange projectile I've never seen before, and TCW is a spread laser. It's Ajim's lowest-damage laser; I can't do the bigger lasers that require Ajim and Guerlain to be fused together. Crouching turbo attacks (which usually don't exist in Force) make Ajim do a firing animation but no shot comes out.

In the VR selection waiting screens, Ajim shows up as Random, but when the battle loads his name and picture are Ajim, as said earlier. I don't know what VR he counts as for stats (Sync Ratio, etc) because the Ajim boss-picture blots out the stats, but he does have stats that I can see for one frame before it gets blotted out.

I discovered what causes the black screen of death in general. It happens after completing any mode with multiple battles, which means most Missions as well as plain Arcade mode. But you can use Ajim in One Match mode, as well as those few Missions where there is only one fight.

Base-model "11" and sub-model "01" gives another Ajim with only a slight difference. When a battle is loading he has no picture and his name is [NO DATA] like with typical unused VRs. So you can use this version if you prefer that. Base-model "11" and sub-model "02" is the same thing again. These extra Ajims still have the black screen of death problem.

Base-model "12" and sub-model "00" is Guerlain. She is the same as Ajim pretty much, with the same black screen problem.

Ajim and Guerlain don't have any extra colors. They will always be Normal color no matter what color you give to them. That's still 4 colors because each Seat has a different color. Seat A is blue color, with the usual green crystal.

12 00: Guerlain
13 00: Random (the true random select, it really works so now you can have an AI buddy whose model fluctuates)
14 00: invisible glitch VR
15 00: Target Ball (the mini-Tangrams for Training Mode which don't seem to be able to do much)
16 00: invisible, unhittable glitch VR
17 00: invisible glitch VR that also puts debug gibberish all over many menu screens
18 00: invisible glitch VR that also puts debug gibberish all over many menu screens
19 00: invisible glitch VR that puts debug gibberish all over menus, and also freezes the game when loading a match
1A 00: invisible glitch VR that puts debug gibberish all over menus, and also freezes the game when loading a match
1B 00: invisible glitch VR that puts debug gibberish all over menus, and also freezes the game when loading a match
1C 00: invisible glitch VR that puts debug gibberish all over menus, and also freezes the game when loading a match

The invisible glitch VRs can move but only sometimes as it is glitchy. When they shoot there is a noise but no projectile appears and it can't do damage.

Base-model "0B" and sub-models "03" through "11" are Guarayakha again. Just like the original except named (null) in the AI selection menus and [NO DATA] prior to matches. As well as glitch positioned lower than normal on the main menu. Just the usual thing we've seen before. Unfortunately this suggests that the freeze caused by sub-model "02" was indeed big Jaguarandi.
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Porcupine
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

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I tried forcibly changing the menu setting for my seat position to the 5th seat in the hopes of unlocking new visor colors, such as red which is seen only on the powered-up CPU Shadow VRs. Unfortunately it had no effect. The menu read YOU: in the spot where it would normally say SEAT B for example, hehe. But the VR appeared the same as Seat A color.

There are still some unmapped or unused portions of the savefile so it's possible there are all kinds of secrets in there, but even if that is true they will be hard to discover.

My semi-success with getting extra colors and VRs in Force prompted me to try to edit VOOT. I had previously thought there was no way that could work, as you do not select your VR in the main menu in VOOT like you do in Force. However, it occurred to me that the custom coloring side saves should also specify the model of your VR, and you could change that.

So it turns out that the VOOT main save and custom coloring saves all use the exact same header/checksum as Force, which is what I expected. Unfortunately, the VR model specified in the coloring saves is a rather high-level version so nothing truly useful can be done. For example there is only one value for Ajim, and not separate values for strong CPU Ajim vs weak human Ajim. The game chooses the appropriate one in real time. Similarly, I cannot specify Tangram stage Space-Model Fei-Yen (who has infinite LW gauge) or version 5.2 Fei-Yen. I was able to specify Bal-Baros and Bal-Keros, which lets you view and color their models through the in-game Customization. But when you take them into battle, the game changes them back into the right kind of Bal for the stage.

Finally, I was able to specify Bradtos, which does let you play as or against Bradtos in Training mode, or watch Bradtos fight in CPU vs CPU Watch mode. Unfortunately, Bradtos crashes the game in any other setting. He crashes Arcade mode because the game can't figure out how to produce his takeoff cutscene, and he crashes Multiplayer and System Link because the game can't figure out his Lobby thumbnail picture. He also crashes Customization mode. You can't color him anyway, he always comes out as regular color even though I had other colors specified in the coloring file.

I think I also was able to specify Tangram but he crashed the game no matter what because he needs space stage to work and you can't select space stage in Training mode.
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Post by DarkraiZero »

This is really interesting! Thank you for sharing! I wonder if there is any gameplay of Ajim being used in battle somewhere around.
OMG: Apharmd, Temjin, Bal-Bas-Bow
VOOT: Temjin, Bal-Bados
VO4: Specineff 13 The Sin
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Fredo
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Post by Fredo »

Playing as Bradtos ?! :shock:

Damn I would like to know how it looks like !
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VOOT: Raiden, Apharmd C, Apharmd B, Cypher, Temjin

French VO Pilot !
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Porcupine
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Post by Porcupine »

Here is a coloring file that has Bradtos in it. After downloading the file you will need to copy it to an Xbox 360 formatted USB memory stick, which will require special software which is easily found anywhere on the internet. Then either copy it to your Xbox 360 or load Bradtos straight off the stick.

CUSTOM000003 (60 KB)
https://mega.co.nz/#!fEJzHLBY!EvHVaTcEg ... V54aFw9ZkA

Someone let me know if this works, thanks.

Bradtos seems to have no LW so don't try to shoot it or you will freeze your Xbox 360.
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Porcupine
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Post by Porcupine »

We came up with a workaround to play as big Jaguarandi in some modes. He is super funny and is not as broken as Ajim and Guerlain. His butt is so big that it fills the whole screen and you can't see anything, but since Force has radar you can sort of fight off that. And on any stage where your starting position is at the edge of the map, big Jaguarandi will be stuck to the edge. Then if you jump, you will fall off the edge and tumble away into the sea or wilderness! But after that, if you move forward you will instantly teleport back onto the stage.

I studied Replay files to confirm that the red-visored Shadow VRs have the same ordinary base-model, sub-model, and color ID as yours. The red visor and increased damage levels originate from the Mission parameters. When you save a Replay the Mission ID is saved as well, and when I changed it the Shadow VRs lost their powers and their visor color changed to normal. So there's no hope for equipping the red visors, aside from making fake Replays. Oddly enough, I noticed that big Jaguarandi always has the red visor even though he isn't a Shadow VR, so at least we can have the red visor with him.

Finally, I isolated all the extra "normal" VRs in the game. There aren't nearly as many of them as I initially hoped. It turns out that for all VRs, once you reach sub-model "20" in hex, the game moves on to the next VR base-model. So Fei-Yen base-model "03" and sub-model "20" would become Vox "Age" and furthermore he won't actually work, the game will freeze if you try to bring him out. To find all the extra VRs you only have to search up to sub-model "1F" and you'll usually encounter the last sub-model for that VR earlier, which is always going to be a Default model analogous to what we saw with Fei-Yen. But for most VRs, the Default VR is not new in a practical way.

Aside from Fei-Yen, only the Temjin 747 series has multiple unused variants. Sub-model "04" gives a weaponless 747T (naked armor) but he can shoot 747F RW, 747A CW, and 747H LW. His speed is fast like 747T and he has the same tiny HP. All his CC works normally. Sub-model "05" is glitched and invisible. Sub-model "09" is essentially 747T/c except all his weapons are from 747A. I did not know this before but the real 747T has the 747H napalm as his LW, not the bomb. Sub-model "0A" is a weaponless 747T/c with 747F RW, 747A CW, and 747F LW. Sub-model "0B" is a weaponless 747T/c with the powerful 747H RW and LW, but seemingly no CW. I think sub-models "0C" and beyond are like 747A but some have graphical glitches like being just a floating head.

Any of the Apharmd J or T series can wear the Hatter hat by changing the chest size parameter from "0" to "1". There is also an unused Apharmd J Type M/c, and a Default Apharmd T whose RW I think came from one of the Apharmd J (this guy also has the main menu glitch where he's not standing in the right spot). The Type X stealth variants do not have a hidden /c commander variant.

Kagekiyo has a hidden, unused commander helmet variant, and each of the 5 Kagekiyo models has a variant with this helmet. But functionally I think they are the same as the normal Kagekiyos. These variants have minor graphical glitches as they all have the scabbard of Kagekiyo "Fire" and the win poses of Kagekiyo "Wind".

It turns out that only the unused colors "06", "07", and "08" apply to all VRs. They may look better on some than others. Color "08" is reddish and nasty on some VRs, but on other VRs grants more of an overall pinkish appearance. It's very nice on Angelan, or if you want a girly pink Temjin. Color "0F" varies with the base VR but there are some common themes. It's basically a second Secret color. For example, Apharmd J and Apharmd T have each others regular Secret color, swapped as their second Secret color, which can't be coincidence. Some VRs have shared second Secrets. Other VRs have a second Secret similar to their first schematically except in a different color base.

For higher numbers, there is greater variation among the VRs both in the colors, as well as which number values contain the new colors. But there are still some patterns. Some colors are once again shared by a couple VRs. Apharmd J and T have entirely the same colors in this region. And color "13" tends to be a nice color on most VRs. Like with Fei-Yen, it's a conservative variation of their trademark color for some, while it gives outlandish lime green and purple Devastator colors to Raiden and Myzr. I noticed other Transformers colors for those VRs as well. Bal has no added bonus colors in this region, which may be partially related to him having four sets of base model IDs.
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DarkraiZero
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Post by DarkraiZero »

When you get the chance, May you please share file with Ajim? Even a .zip with all of the different things would be great too but I imagine that would take a very long time to make all of those saves. Lol :lol:
OMG: Apharmd, Temjin, Bal-Bas-Bow
VOOT: Temjin, Bal-Bados
VO4: Specineff 13 The Sin
Vash
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Post by Vash »

this looks fun ill look in to it
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Porcupine
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Re: Extra colors and VRs hidden in the code?!

Post by Porcupine »

I haven't done much further experimenting, but I'll mention some of the few things that were discovered over the past one and a half years.

The increased speed of Circle/Quick Step CC on the unused Fei-Yen sub-model "04" also applies to the speed of its CC in general, namely the rate at which it moves towards the enemy. This bug also applies to the Kagekiyo commander variants except it is much faster on them, and is a powerful benefit. The Kagekiyos do not have messed up CC either, although according to Zaarock they all have the CC and firing animations of Kagekiyo "Wind" so it is best to use that variant to eliminate weird minor issues.

I described earlier how most glitch VRs are called (null) or [NO DATA] on various menus. If replays involving them are uploaded to the leaderboard, they are listed there as some other VR, which we eventually figured out is the next legitimate VR that comes after them. Also, the stats (Sync Ratio, Kills, Playtime) are from this next VR. So some unused Fei-Yens are called Fei-Yen VH+ while others will probably be called Vox "Age" and the commander Kagekiyos are all called Myzr Delta. Jaguarandi is called Temjin 707J. Meanwhile, Ajim/Guerlain/Target Ball cycle back to the beginning and are called Temjin 747A.

Extra color "0F" was confirmed by Japanese players to be the Secret color from the Arcade version of Force, at least for Kagekiyo. I had suspected this earlier but I've never been able to find pictures of the Secret colors from the Arcade version of Force to check. Still not sure what the other colors are. I think most were secretly created for fun by employees at Sega, but some others such as Fei-Yen color "22" are true bug colors. It seems that Fei-Yen color "22" is the Normal color of RNA Vox, and it uniquely puts debug gibberish over the screen when using the VR Viewer. This makes further sense when we consider that Vox comes after Fei-Yen in the VR base model ordering, but there is no explanation for why only that particular color of him was found inside Fei-Yen thus far.

The conditions for getting the black screen of death after completing Missions with Ajim or Guerlain are more complicated than previously thought. It only happens after certain Missions, and despite multiple hypotheses there is no general pattern for which ones freeze. Most of 1st Operation and 2nd Operation are fine. Arcade Operation is of more interest since those are ultra hard, and nearly impossible to get SS ranks in. Ajim and Guerlain only work with Arcade Operation 5, 8, 9, and 10. The final battle of Arcade Operation 8 is a mirror match, so if you want to beat it you have to use a regular VR as the leader, so that you can kill the enemy leader.

For Arcade Operation 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6, you can use big Jaguarandi with a couple of workarounds, though I was still unable to get an SS rank in Arcade Operation 2. You can also sort of use Ajim or Guerlain with a slightly different workaround. That leaves only Arcade Operation 7, in which you have to clear most of Arcade mode with a 1 vs 2 handicap. You'll either have to be extremely good, or use little Jaguarandi to get an SS rank in it.

In VOOT, it seems that Bradtos LW works after all but is just sort of unstable and firing it could cause your console to freeze. Still unable to use him in any meaningful game modes, however I discovered that you can edit your main VOOT save to write any Score Attack score and VR name you want, then upload it. So for the time being, there is a mediocre score of exactly 10000000 buried in the Score Attack leaderboard, listed as being achieved with Bradtos, which few people will ever notice. :3