FFX CONTROL CENTRE

The FFX Control Centre is the programme for character customisation. Using it, you can assign custom FX, animations and other options to your custom (or mod) characters in a syntax safe environment (no more mucking around in Python Files), and access the new character states at the flick of a switch.

Win98 Users!:Press the '98' button on the Control Centre to use the correct path to your custom data.

The 'Branding' Process

When you start up the Control Centre, it will do the following things (taking a few seconds typically):

• Find your FFvTTR Install directory from the registry, and perform a scan of all mod folders to see which ones are FFX enabled.
• Load all custom characters and 'brand' them so that FFX can recognise them when it runs. This basically records a unique ID into each custom character that can be read from the FFX game scripts.
• Scans all save games to detect recruited custom characters and their attributes.
• Read in the powers, characters and fx available on your system for customisation.

You're then ready to begin. All Characters appear in the character selector - customs start with an asterisk (*), such as klystron in the diagram above, builtin character don't have an asterisk and can be found by scrolling down.

Whenever a character is selected, the customisation slots for any FFX attributes they posses will appear in the attribute panel, with the necessary fields for customisation appearing - you can see klystron' slots just off-screen for RUSSIAN DOLL, followed by the genral slots that everyone has (eg Crystal Template).

The buttons at the right are:

• Import File/Export File: Import/Export the current hero's customisation info to a file; this is useful for distributing hero files with their FFX customisation, for example.
• Import File/Export All: Import/Export all heroes' customisations.
• Save: Saves your current heroe's customisation to ffxcustom.py.
• Save Game Synch: For Patriot City-type “Freeroam” Mods only: Switching between characters and loading a save game that takes place on a different map from the one you last played, might cause the game to crash. This allows you to fix the save game to prevent the crash. Usually, the FreeRoam system will simply display a message and ask you to load the save game again. Some combinations of maps however cause the game to crash (Possibly if you last played a small map and try to load a save game set on a larger map, like cityblock5 where the Freedom Fortress is located). Anyway, if this happens:
  • Start up FFX Control Centre
  • Select patcity as the mod in the Data Folder drop list
  • Press the Save Game Synch button, and choose the save game you were trying to load.
  • A message will apear like Map 'cityblock4' has been synched for the 'patcity' mod
  • Start up FFvTTR again and load the save game. It should all work now.
• Clean Options: For Patriot City-type “Freeroam” Mods only: The game crashes trying to go to the Rumble Room. This is due to the campaign data which determines which campaign levels are available in the Rumble Room being shared between all mods. To fix this, press the Clean Options button on the Control Center – this will rename the options file. You'll lose video and audio settings, but will be able to use the Rumble Room in Patriot City. Note: This might not be needed anymore if you have FFX 3.2 installed, as the startup plugin Python Path Priority Fix might solve that issue. (Unconfirmed.)

Finally, we have a bunch of dropdowns that can be used to modify the effects of some of the characters powers, e.g. klystrons settings show that any successful hex attacks he performs will actually magnetise the character. For convenience, the display pane at the bottom shows a brief description of the characters powers.

Most customisation slots will automatically fill with the available options - FX lists will fill with any entries from resource.dat beginning with the string 'effect_', commands fill with a preset list but give you the option of typing in your own, and so on.

The entries for each ATTRIBUTE are detailed with the description for that attribute. The selectable options common to some attributes are also described under that section, under Attribute Customisation.

The FFX RULES section shows various options that can be turned on or off, as explained under Optional Rules.

Common Issues in FFX 3.2

Two major issues with the current Control Centre have been discovered in the past few months. The new FFX team does not currently have the source code and cannot update it.

1. The Control Centre crashes when switching between mods

The most serious issue is that it will crash sometimes when switching mods. This typically happens when using the drop-down menu to select another mod which uses a different version of FFX.

If the mod the Control Centre loads at startup is the default FFX3, rename that folder to something else and rename the desired mod to FFX3 and make your changes before renaming everything back. If it loads up the first mod you have alphabetically, then add the number one before the desired mod folder's name, make you changes, and rename everything back. It's a pain, but it's all you can do.

2. I can't customize a specific attribute

That issue happens because we have reached the maximum number of attributes the Control Centre can handle! Some customizations have consequently been moved to the ffxcustom2.py, namely ABSORBER, BULK TELEPORTER, DRIVER, ENCHANTER (various grades), ENERGY TANKS, GHOSTLY, NARCOLEPTIIC, POWER ANALYSIS, SPEED PHASER and WEB SLINGER. These are either new attributes or ones you are less likely to need, hopefully. If you want to customize them, you'll have to edit ffxcustom2.py by hand; don't forget to make a backup first.