When MR1 came out, I became a very popular girl among the powergamer friends who suddenly wanted to go through the game fast, but not so fast that it was pointless. Not because I'm a coder (I wasn't at the time, and I don't do straight hex now), but because I understood parameters and could do hex conversions without a pad and paper. :-J

One thing I determined very quickly about codes that affect stats, in pretty much any game, is that the coders aren't usually very precise about things; as long as what's on the screen is what they want, usually maxed, they don't worry too much about fallout. In practice, this means that usually, they find the appropriate bit of code, and fill it with F's. In games without a lot going on under the surface, that works fine.

Not so much in MR, but there's an easy fix; rather than needing to shark the monster, train it once in each area, etc., just correct the codes. Instead of leaving the last four digits (the quantity part) as FFFF, set them to whatever you actually want the stat to be. If you want a maxed stat, that's 3E7 for 999. No repairs required, the game doesn't notice a thing once you save and reset, and the monsters slate perfectly.

It also gives you the option of "boosting" monsters a bit if you're not in the mood to raise six generations to get to the monster you want- or perhaps repairing monsters that you _thought_ you had balanced right for combining, but you screwed up the math somewhere. Also good for when you only have one CD that gives you a certain breed, and it's pathetic stat-wise. Personally, I only "raise" monsters that I have gotten their stats legitimately from CD forward, running them through the S-class battles and so on, but it's really nice _not_ to have to spend four game years raising a peach-getter. Your Mileage May Vary.

If anyone is interested in this form of micromanagement, most calculators will display in hex, or you can just do it as sort of a 16 times-table. For benchmarks, these are the four-digit versions of common stat milestones.

999= 03E7
750= 02EE
500= 01F4
250= 00FA

Just thought that might be a useful contribution to the discussion about combinations of slating and sharking and so on. :-J

FF