KarlosTKG now on GitHub

[Karlos]

My expectations are that the 256 limit is likely encoded onto some otherwise statically sized buffers. If you look in the bss declarations there are probably lots of magic sizes that are derived from the limit.

[abu_the_monkey]

a wee vid of what happens.

[ Show youtube player ]

[Karlos]

For the avoidance of doubt, I have seen the zones light up for no reason in the original T17 game as well as in my mod. Something somehwere ends up reading data from the wrong address. I assume it's reading zero values due to the way zone brightness works (zero is the brightest).

[Karlos]

Holy shit, this actually worked.

I planned to add some secret "shrine" spaces to the people that made it all possible, starting with...

[abu_the_monkey]

Amazeballs!

[Karlos]

Is it the Clithercube or is it Cuberoe ?

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by Karlos

For the avoidance of doubt, I have seen the zones light up for no reason in the original T17 game as well as in my mod. Something somehwere ends up reading data from the wrong address. I assume it's reading zero values due to the way zone brightness works (zero is the brightest).

true,

the bit from 1.40 till the end is more interesting as the lighting is affected by the map being displayed only on zones over 256 and the odd line to the middle of nowhere.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

true,

the bit from 1.40 till the end is more interesting as the lighting is affected by the map being displayed only on zones over 256 and the odd line to the middle of nowhere.

It is worth noting that some "lists" the game uses are -1 ID terminated arrays that are a fixed length (and you can imagine 256 might be a limit) to begin with. More than likely, one of these gets overrun and the -1 termination doesn't a appear until we have walked right off the end.

Other things I would be looking out for are dbra type loops that assume a 256 maximum iteration count.

[Karlos]

Pushed all the things to the misc/redesign branch.

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by Karlos

It is worth noting that some "lists" the game uses are -1 ID terminated arrays that are a fixed length (and you can imagine 256 might be a limit) to begin with. More than likely, one of these gets overrun and the -1 termination doesn't a appear until we have walked right off the end.

Other things I would be looking out for are dbra type loops that assume a 256 maximum iteration count.

nothing jumped out and slapped me in the face (I have however spent most of this year working with AMOS so, it may well be obvious)

after disabling the code where all the points in the level are rotated for the map and using just the subset of points, all works fine as far as I can tell

(bar the map which becomes an interesting mess but does show what PVS and clipping are doing, in a fashion)

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by Karlos

Pushed all the things to the misc/redesign branch.

I don't know what I did different, but I did eventually make it to the "shrine"

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

I don't know what I did different, but I did eventually make it to the "shrine"

That's good. I was starting to wonder if it was too well hidden. I wonder if the QR works on AGA/CRT?

I thought it shouldn't deviate graphically too far from the original game which is why the textures are mostly the originals (or variations that I made). I did try to use the original technolights for the ... whatever it is that is levitating the cube but it just didn't look right. The background blinking lights are just for a flash of colour. Too grey otherwise.

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by Karlos

That's good. I was starting to wonder if it was too well hidden. I wonder if the QR works on AGA/CRT?

on a commodore 1084 I would think so, maybe not so much on a CRT TV through an RF modulator but you never know

[abu_the_monkey]

Originally Posted by Karlos

I thought it shouldn't deviate graphically too far from the original game which is why the textures are mostly the originals (or variations that I made). I did try to use the original technolights for the ... whatever it is that is levitating the cube but it just didn't look right. The background blinking lights are just for a flash of colour. Too grey otherwise.

It looks great

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

It looks great

Thanks! I wonder if it should require locating all the other secrets. I thought about making the plasma gun a lock, or making it the key for the first bit, rather than the switch. I dunno, I'm not sure on the difficulty. I also thought about having a reward like an overpowered weapon, like the bouncer, but with limited ammo available it shouldn't make the game too easy

[abu_the_monkey]

So, had a play with the engine code today and it would seem that the tables for CompactMap, BigMap and CurrentPointBrights in tables.bss are causing the issues with the automap and lighting in zones beyond the original 256 zone limit.

Lvl_CompactMap_vl:		ds.l	257
Lvl_BigMap_vl:			ds.l	256*10

PointBrightsPtr_l:		ds.l	1
CurrentPointBrights_vl:	ds.l	2*256*10

in a not very scientific way I changed them to

Lvl_CompactMap_vl:		ds.l	513
Lvl_BigMap_vl:			ds.l	512*10

PointBrightsPtr_l:		ds.l	1
CurrentPointBrights_vl:	ds.l	2*512*10

seems to have fixed the automap and lighting (not thoroughly tested)

other than consuming more memory what else might this affect?

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by abu_the_monkey

So, had a play with the engine code today and it would seem that the tables for CompactMap, BigMap and CurrentPointBrights in tables.bss are causing the issues with the automap and lighting in zones beyond the original 256 zone limit.

Lvl_CompactMap_vl:		ds.l	257
Lvl_BigMap_vl:			ds.l	256*10

PointBrightsPtr_l:		ds.l	1
CurrentPointBrights_vl:	ds.l	2*256*10

in a not very scientific way I changed them to

Lvl_CompactMap_vl:		ds.l	513
Lvl_BigMap_vl:			ds.l	512*10

PointBrightsPtr_l:		ds.l	1
CurrentPointBrights_vl:	ds.l	2*512*10

seems to have fixed the automap and lighting (not thoroughly tested)

other than consuming more memory what else might this affect?

Performance, I expect, but only for maps that have they much geometry. It might be a good idea to increase the total points count again if we seriously intend to do this.

Maybe we should have this discussion in the engine thread.

[abu_the_monkey]

Yes, that would make more sense

[Karlos]

Now that there is the beginning of an achievements mechanism I thought it would be fun to think of a few

So far we have:

First Blood (kill your first enemy)
Beast Bashin' (kill 10 red beasts)
Alien Bleed (kill 50 red beasts)
Endangered Species (kill 100 red beasts)
Xenocide (kill 200 red beasts) => +200HP +200 HP cap

Action Replay (improve a single level best time)
Optimiser (5 improvements to level best times)
Perfectionist (improve any single level best time, 5 times)

I am thinking Perfectionist could lead to a permanent increase in player maximum speed.

Things I am thinking of:

Clear Skies (kill 10 flying things)
No Fly Zone (kill 20 flying things)
Death From Below (kill 50 flying things)

Warranty Void (kill 10 robotic enemies)
Raze Of The Robots (kill 50 robotic enemies)
Demise Of The Machines (kill 100 robotic enemies)

Red Menace (kill 10 red enemies, beasts not inc)
Red's Dead, Baby (kill 20 red enemies...)
Dead Red Redemption (kill 50 red enemies...)

[Karlos]

We don't currently have a mechanism to know what killed an alien specifically or what initiated the thing that caused it. Quake has the concept of entity ownership for this, so a projectile fired by the player or a monster is owned by them. This allows the game logic to know how something died and who caused it by chasing the pointer.

I think that this needs adding because it would allow us to know how effective the player is with a particular weapon. It would also allow us to know when an alien is killed by other aliens exploding too close to them.