Thomas Jentzsch Posted August 12, 2016 Author Share Posted August 12, 2016 (edited) The rings only repair when you kill the last segment of the outer ring (see manual, page 4). Then the middle ring is moved to the outer ring, the inner ring to the middle ring and a new inner ring is created. So keep at least one segment of the outer ring intact. Then you can create big holes in the inner and middle rings and kill the gun. BTW: The arcade version is even harder. Especially the difficulty ramp up is very fast and the game becomes extremely hard very soon. Edited August 12, 2016 by Thomas Jentzsch 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel76 Posted August 12, 2016 Share Posted August 12, 2016 Cool, will try again! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted August 12, 2016 Share Posted August 12, 2016 This is one of the hardest games I have ever played. At first I got so frustrated, that I wanted to throw the Atari through the window But then I watched some gameplay from the arcade version, and noticed the bouncing trick. I have gotten to the third castle, but that's as far as I get. As soon as I make a hole in the inner ring, and try to fly behind him, it either repairs itself, or I hit a missile Is there a way to keep the rings from repairing themselves, or am I just to damn slow? Kinda wish there was a VERY easy mode as well. Got my switches at B position, but it's still brutal Impressive game YEah it's tough as nails. Just getting past the first castle is rewarding. More often than not I become a sitting duck. A lot of times my shot defeating the Star Castle comes as it takes out my ship with a plasma ball. You do still advance to the next round even if you lose a ship taking out the Star Castle. Somebody told me the trick is to slid my ship sideways and take a shot as the window opens. The plasma ball will narrowly miss the ship if you are side-stepping, but easier said than done. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dphirschler Posted August 26, 2017 Share Posted August 26, 2017 I've played this in emulation many times. I just bought the cartridge. When I played the cart on my light sixer, instead of bounce off the rings, I blow up. Is this a difficulty setting I am unaware of? Darryl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted August 26, 2017 Author Share Posted August 26, 2017 Yes, RTFM! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dphirschler Posted August 26, 2017 Share Posted August 26, 2017 I've played this in emulation many times. I just bought the cartridge. When I played the cart on my light sixer, instead of bounce off the rings, I blow up. Is this a difficulty setting I am unaware of? Darryl It appears my six switcher is stuck on hard difficulty. Time to take it apart and get out the multi-meter. Darryl Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Konqrr Posted November 6, 2017 Share Posted November 6, 2017 I put the final beta 140 on my harmony and it won't start. I get a noise and scrolling gray/black bars. Something I'm doing wrong? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted November 6, 2017 Author Share Posted November 6, 2017 (edited) Please have look at my blog,152.cu should work. If not, make sure that your Harmony has at least BIOS v1.05. Edited November 6, 2017 by Thomas Jentzsch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chewy Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 does this work on harmony cart, i tried the latest rom and it didnt read it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chewy Posted November 26, 2018 Share Posted November 26, 2018 oh god i got it at 1st i renamed the bin to cu but then i put the actual cu file in and yes oh my god its so rad 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Humid Posted April 13, 2023 Share Posted April 13, 2023 (edited) Sorry, a bit of a spoiled question: Will this run on the Atari VCS Flaschback Portable? Or is there a reason I should not even try loading it on the SD-card? Thanx for any answer. upload.txt Edited April 13, 2023 by Bob Humid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted April 13, 2023 Author Share Posted April 13, 2023 The game might work, but the high score saving won't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TurboWesties Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 Has anyone else had trouble running this on the 7800GD? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigfriendly Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 (edited) I just played this for the 1st time. I haven't played the arcade game in probably 40+ years but this seems harder than the arcade version was. Still very cool game:) Edited March 3 by bigfriendly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 1 hour ago, TurboWesties said: Has anyone else had trouble running this on the 7800GD? @SainT can verify; however, it appears support for the scheme it leverages - FA2 - is not present. Per documentation for the FA2 scheme Star Castle utilizes: Quote This is an extended version of the CBS RAM Plus bankswitching scheme supported by the Harmony cartridge. There are six (or seven) 4K banks, accessible by read/write to $1FF5 - $1FFA (or $1FFB), and 256 bytes of RAM. The 256 bytes of RAM can be loaded/saved to Harmony cart flash by accessing $1FF4 (see ramReadWrite() for more information), which is emulated by storing in a file. RAM read port is $1100 - $11FF, write port is $1000 - $10FF. For 29K versions of the scheme, the first 1K is ARM code (implements actual bankswitching on the Harmony cart), which is completely ignored by the emulator. Also supported is a 32K variant. In any event, only data at 1K - 29K of the ROM is used. @author Chris D. Walton, Thomas Jentzsch The publicly available ROM shows as 28K. If Star Castle is indeed not using any ARM code, as it is not 29K, there may be a chance a future firmware update to the 7800GD may include support. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted March 3 Author Share Posted March 3 6 minutes ago, Trebor said: If Star Castle is indeed not using any ARM code, as it is not 29K, there may be a chance a future firmware update to the 7800GD may include support. Star Castle is written in 100% 6507 assembler. The ARM is only used for bankswitching and high scores saving/loading. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 4 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Star Castle is written in 100% 6507 assembler. The ARM is only used for bankswitching and high scores saving/loading. Thanks for confirming. Unfortunately, even with Star Castle only using the ARM for bankswitching and high score saving/loading, that may be the showstopper for 7800GD. However, @SainT would know for certain. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TurboWesties Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 2 minutes ago, Trebor said: Thanks for confirming. Unfortunately, even with Star Castle only using the ARM for bankswitching and high score saving/loading, that may be the showstopper for 7800GD. However, @SainT would know for certain. It looks like he’s going to look into it (fingers crossed) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SainT Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 Yep, was having a dig into this last night! It is using a mapper I don't support currently, but it isn't using any custom ARM code, so it could be supported. It's something I'd like to have a look at, but my biggest enemy at the moment is both FPGA and MCU memory space. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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