Star Raiders hack wanted...

[SoundGammon]

Love Star Raiders, but not crazy about the "shields" overlay so I have an idea for a hack.

 

No color change on the screen when shields are up, but another way to show the shields are on, after all you don't want to be in the heat of a battle and then wonder if the shields are on.

 

Change to display color of the panel on the bottom from blue to grey for shields off, blue when shields are on, flash yellow when damaged, red for destroyed, black, well you figure it out!

 

And the coolest part would be is the screen flashes when you take a hit, shields on of course, and it would be really cool if it would show some "cracking" on the screen when the shields start to take some damage!

 

Would also like a 8-bit hack...

[ATARI7800fan]

That sounds like a awesome idea.

[+Cafeman]

Great idea! It'd be cool to hack the ships, or even the grid screen, into wilder colors too. Or even different shapes for the ships. There are probably simple bitmaps in memory, as long as you didn't make them any larger it'd work. Hope somebody does this. Does anyone have an even semi-documented disassembly of Star Raiders?

[slampam]

A8/5200 Star Raiders (shield-02-color).zipstar raiders: "grey for shields off, blue when shields are on"

 

A5200 16k - bottom panel color=90 hex (new color=02)

2630: 99 4B 0D C8 C8 C8 C8 C0 A0 90 DA 60 E6 76 A2 (90)

 

A5200 16k - screen shields color=A0 hex (new color=00)

2650: 72 D0 1F A4 7D F0 17 A0 (A0) 2C 94 09 10 0B 70 07

 

A5200 16k - bottom panel change color when shields turn on=26 hex (new color=90)

2660: AD 0A E8 C9 C8 90 07 A0 00 98 D0 02 A2 (26) 84 81

 

A8-xex - bottom panel color=90 hex (new color=02)

3430: C8 C8 C0 A0 90 DA 60 E6 76 A2 (90) A5 76 10 09 AC

 

A8-xex - screen shields color=A0 hex (new color=00)

3450: F0 17 A0 (A0) 2C 94 09 10 0B 70 07 AD 0A D2 C9 C8

 

A8-xex - bottom panel change color when shields turn on=26 hex (new color=90)

3460: 90 07 A0 00 98 D0 02 A2 (26) 84 81 86 FB A2 02 BD

 

Possible Problem with this hack: Shields won't flicker when damaged, and the Control Panel Display won't turn yellow.

[SoundGammon]

Tried it, looks great! But...no shields! I turned the shields on, panel blue and steered into a meteor and I was destroyed! Tried both ways to see and was destroyed. Can you fix? Again, thanks for the hack!

[slampam]

Oops! Shields don't work in (00) space. Must be at least (01) in color. Control Panel blinks when Shields are damaged but only when shields are turned off: strange.

I remember Star Raiders with bad vibes on the 2600 - even thru out a sealed VCS box. Could never find anything to target. But now I see that I didn't understand the controls. Fun!

Star Raiders (shield2-02).zip

[+Allan]

I tried this on a real 5200 and the Atari800MacX emulator. Both crash after title screen.

 

Allan

[slampam]

Works in KAT-4.1/jum52-10-win32/VSS-V0.82/Rainbow-95-1.36/atariwinplus-3.1/atari800-2.2.1-winsdl

Not surprised Real Hardware won't work - very quick & dirty hack.

Shot in the dark: XL compliant rom & 5200 @ 32k.

Star Raiders (shield2-02)(32K).zip

[+Allan]

That did it. Thanks.

 

Allan