Pokemon Ranger Manaphy Egg reset flag?

[SwagKey]

I know this may seem redundant considering that we have save files ready to send it over, but they also contains save data already on it and I want to keep my progress on my actual cartridge.

Is there a flag in the save data that keeps track of whether the Manaphy egg was sent or not? I assume there is, for I want to find out if it's possible to roll it back in a hex editor to make the egg able to be sent again.

[Poke J]

If I remember correctly the original Pokemon Ranger only lets you send one Manaphy egg per game cart and is not tied to the actual save file itself.  I'd imagine that the sent or not sent flag would lie outside of the save file as well.  For the other two Ranger games I'm not sure how they keep track if the egg is sent or not.

[Invader TAK]

Only way I know to reset the flag is to use a DS homebrew program to completely wipe the save.

[SwagKey]

23 hours ago, Invader TAK said:

Only way I know to reset the flag is to use a DS homebrew program to completely wipe the save.

Aww, that's too bad. Guess it wasn't a save issue after all.

That's still a pretty stupid restriction to render your cart immediately dead after sending it. Cheating multiple Manaphys or not, outside of flashcarts and emulation, we're going to run out of fresh Pokemon Ranger carts eventually and the Manaphy eggs will go with it.

[theSLAYER]

If it's indeed a save flag, comparing a before and after save may help to locate the flag.
(Plus if DS homebrew wiping the save can fix the problem, then it's almost definitely something stored on the save)

I'm presently under the impression that it's a special flag on the save, that doesn't get overwritten, if you restart the game/save legitimately.
(it gets carried over to your new save)

[Invader TAK]

1 hour ago, theSLAYER said:

If it's indeed a save flag, comparing a before and after save may help to locate the flag.
(Plus if DS homebrew wiping the save can fix the problem, then it's almost definitely something stored on the save)

I'm presently under the impression that it's a special flag on the save, that doesn't get overwritten, if you restart the game/save legitimately.
 (it gets carried over to your new save)

Yeah that was my impression. Mega Man Zero 3 had something identical. It could send a special battle chip to Mega Man Battle Network 4, which was also once per cart. But like with Ranger, you can use a homebrew program to completely wipe the save so you could send more of that battle chip.

[theSLAYER]

5 hours ago, Invader TAK said:

Yeah that was my impression. Mega Man Zero 3 had something identical. It could send a special battle chip to Mega Man Battle Network 4, which was also once per cart. But like with Ranger, you can use a homebrew program to completely wipe the save so you could send more of that battle chip.

Yeah, it seems like the “reset game/restart game” feature probably blanks out everything but that special flag on the save. At least that’s the conclusion we came too, since homebrew deletion works.

If the save isn’t encrypted, and there’s a direct before sending egg AND direct after sending egg save for Ranger, I could take a look, see if anything jumps out in a hex editor.

though probably should check if they info isn’t documented anywhere on the web too

[PMArkive]

Here's some saves (egg sent, unsent (original), new games from both, and a fresh new save) (from digiex) that could be looked at. Interestingly, saves appear to duplicate the first 0x200 bytes at the beginning.

manaphy_egg_saves.7z

[theSLAYER]

3 hours ago, PMArkive said:

Here's some saves (egg sent, unsent (original), new games from both, and a fresh new save) (from digiex) that could be looked at. Interestingly, saves appear to duplicate the first 0x200 bytes at the beginning.

manaphy_egg_saves.7z

I don't know if those saves are direct before/after saves. If they aren't direct next to each other saves, comparing the status may be difficult. The saves probably duplicate as a save backup feature, in case first slot gets corrupted, load second slot. That feature is in every Pokemon gen since GBA, I think. (Tho the backup won't show in mains of gen 6 and 7, if I'm not mistaken)

In any case, if anyone has Ranger, can load up the unsent save, send an egg, an provide me the next save as a sent save, probably could take a look.
(@InsaneNutter are these saves direct before/after saves? If they are I'm screwed, there's too many differences at first glance)

[InsaneNutter]

For Pokemon Ranger Guardian Signs (from digiex) two saves exist. One includes the downloadable missions with no story data, so that might help.

The saves had been dumped with a gameshark / action replay, so I converted them to the standard .sav format so they can be wrote back to real game carts and used on emulators / flash cards.

That's about all I can tell you unfortunately, I never personally played through any of the ranger games.

Pokemon Ranger Guardian Signs - Deoxys, Manaphy Egg, Heatran & Shaymin Save.zip

[PMArkive]

7 hours ago, theSLAYER said:

I don't know if those saves are direct before/after saves. If they aren't direct next to each other saves, comparing the status may be difficult. The saves probably duplicate as a save backup feature, in case first slot gets corrupted, load second slot. That feature is in every Pokemon gen since GBA, I think. (Tho the backup won't show in mains of gen 6 and 7, if I'm not mistaken)

In any case, if anyone has Ranger, can load up the unsent save, send an egg, an provide me the next save as a sent save, probably could take a look.
(@InsaneNutter are these saves direct before/after saves? If they are I'm screwed, there's too many differences at first glance)

They are direct before/after saves that I made with the `and new game` saves done through till the first save point.

[theSLAYER]

24 minutes ago, PMArkive said:

They are direct before/after saves that I made with the `and new game` saves done through till the first save point.

Thanks for the info!
Damn, the first few differences of the saves already seems pretty complex.
If there's documentation regarding which portion of the save contains what, we probably could patch the parts together for testing. (Like how I initially used the franken-save methods to find out how the Wormhole mons were stored)

[BlackShark]

Ranger 1 saves are encrypted, you will have to crack that first.

[theSLAYER]

3 hours ago, BlackShark said:

Ranger 1 saves are encrypted, you will have to crack that first.

That makes sense. I recall you posted about getting help or something a while back.

I guess there’s no public documentation anywhere

[SwagKey]

As much as I don't want to bump this up, has any progress been made?

Seems like the major hurdle is cracking the save encryption before editing.