so I've got x,y coordinates on a 16x16 grid, saving those is one byte

16 possible flowers, that's 4 bits

8 maturity stages, that's 3 bits

6 leaf types, that's 3 bits

and rarity, which is one bit

so assuming I can figure out how to split the info between bytes despite having byte-level peek/poke commands, that's 19 bits per flower, which means 107 flowers before I run out of save memory.

@InspectorCaracal if you don't save xy and plan it in a map instead you can fit each flower in 11 bits

@squirrel wait planning it in a map means like, you assign specific coordinates to specific address points? 🤔 *reads over everything again*

@InspectorCaracal nonono.

you start at 0,0 right

say i store a string like

0x00 15
(code for red flower)
0x00 2
(code for blue flower)

and assume your field is 16 wide

this means:

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ R
_ _ B _ _ _ _ _ _ (etc...)

@InspectorCaracal actually you can save more space if you:

make blank space only one byte by keeping it under 128

use two blank space bytes if it's >127 (for a blank space > 127, store 127, x - 127 etc)

that way, you know it's a count for blank spaces if the leftmost bit is 0, otherwise it's a flower byte

@squirrel *attempts to wrap my mind around this*

I'm not getting it. .-.

@InspectorCaracal

let's go over your flower data again:
16 possible Flowers, that's 4 bits
8 Maturity stages, that's 3 bits
6 Leaf types, that's 3 bits
and Rarity, which is one bit
so:
0b1FFFFMMM 0bLLLR0000
first bit is 1 to indicate there's flower data, followed by 11 bits of data

if the first bit is 0, which would coincidentally be a number lower than 128, we treat it as blank space, no flower is planted

so:

0b0010000 = 16 blank spaces

@InspectorCaracal
if we see that in the save data, that means, starting from the top left, we skip 16 field spaces, then treat next byte, etc

@InspectorCaracal
if <byte> < 128, jump <byte> space in field, starting top left, going left to right
if <byte> >= 128, decode flower data <byte>, <byte+1>

does that make sense?

@squirrel oooh!! Yes, I got it!

Is there any way to use the rest of the second byte for the next flower or something, or do I have to divide the data into in byte-sized chunks?