Basic guide to editing Misc01_start.pac, altering ring geo, referee etc. when modding arenas

November 10, 2018

I couldn't find a guide that detailed the parts of the misc01_start accurately so thought I'd start with this. Just to be clear it seems you have to edit both misc files to get this to work.

The first misc01_start.pac is in the root folder, the other is in the mods folder if you've added alt attires etc. Also big shout to @WhereTheFdidTheEgo who helped me with some other bits of arena locations.

Please note this works in conjunction with the misc04 - you will still have to edit that for certain assets, this is mainly for geo and slot use.

I'd added the old SNME arena over 205 live, but had a faff when messing with the correct assets and matching corners of the steel fence etc. So thought I'd share what I've found so far with those interested. Some of this appears in the arena guide but doesn't go into detail on the misc01_start I believe. I've not got a deep understanding of this but have found enough to do what I wanted to.

1.) Open the misc01_start file in a hex editor.

2.) Do a text search for 'STG' (capitals). This will bring up a list of all the arenas it starts with the entry A041 Smackdown Live, each subsequent entry relates to the arena numbers e.g. A141 - Raw 18, A241 - NXT '18 etc. etc. We are interetsed in Live 205 found via hex searching A341.

3.) When you find it should look like this:

Each arena entry should be a length of 7C.

4.) This is the bit where I struggled to find information so via a process of elimination I figured out the following:

I'm sure there are a number of modders that know a lot more about this, but with a process of trial and error that's what I came up with. As I said, I couldn't find the info anywhere so thought it might be useful.

5.) If you alter the above to these values: