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Q: "Text ID# Shift Mechanics" *SOLVED*

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Shademp:
I had long assumed that removing or adding new text entries into the FFVII fields would cause text to be triggered at the wrong instances, as I figured that the game's scenes will not adjust which Text ID# it calls for. I thought this was at the very heart as to why so many unused text entries exist; because deleting them would require fixing up all the text calls.

However some experimentation in Makou Reactor 1.4.1 has made me confused. The program only claims that problems will arise if I delete a text entry that is USED. Adding new text entries or deleting unused ones led to no objections, neither when I did it in Makou Reactor or tried out the effects in a modded game.

I can ask Myst6re if this "Text Call Adjustment" for scenes is something he added himself or not, but I'm also looking for general info and knowledge regarding Text ID# mechanics. Is the problem of shifted text identification numbers an underlying cause for the high amount of unused text found in video games...or is it not? =/

luksy:
All the id is is an offset into a table of 2 byte offsets, and the table itself is pointed to by an offset at the start of the field file.

The game has no way of knowing in advance what the id points to, or if it's even valid at all. Case in point, life and life2 set the field name to a bunch of gibberish (which is actually the start of an akao block) because somebody either forgot to remove the field name function (you can't access the menu anyway), or forgot to add a text entry for it.

Most of the unused text (like that in the various blin* fields) looks like either a debugging artifact given the repetition, or simple laziness.

Shademp:

--- Quote from: luksy on 2012-07-13 03:02:21 ---The game has no way of knowing in advance what the id points to, or if it's even valid at all.

--- End quote ---
I guess it all boils down to one simple question that I need answered:
Could the developers of FFVII have deleted all the unused text entries without having to adjust the Text ID# called for in the scenes of those fields?

On one hand it sounds to me like they did not delete the text entries so to avoid the Text ID# shift problem, on the other hand deleting unused text entries in Makou Reactor causes no trouble.
The answer to this question is important for the commentary in the next Unused Text article that I am about to publish.

luksy:

--- Quote ---Could the developers of FFVII have deleted all the unused text entries without having to adjust the Text ID# called for in the scenes of those fields?
--- End quote ---

As long as the offsets that are actually used in the text table are adjusted accordingly, it's safe to delete the unused text without modifying the ids in the script because they cannot possibly be called by the script.

Makou avoids the issue when deleting by adjusting the text IDs.

Shademp:
Do we have any way to know if the developers used software that adjusted the Text IDs accordingly, when text entries were deleted?

Or is it all speculation if they avoided deleting text entries (even unused ones) so to avoid having to adjust the called text entries manually, one by one?

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