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Fighter pilots needed in sector wars...


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I was playing sector 3 and I killed all 4 of the enemies and it said bonus ? I missed with 1 shot though . I just got my personal high score of 31,210 ... I think I still had a guy left but I ran out of fuel and my game ended . It seems like I kept getting secret bonuses on quite a few boards, especially sector 4 . Btw how many warps do you get and can you earn extra ones ?

Edited by AtariBrian
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The latest build seems to have broken the "sonar" sound during docking. Asteroids make no explosion sound when shot.

These were related. I was trying to remedy the 'crackling' sound heard during the enemy drone on the real thing. I've removed the changes.

 

Compared to how spot-on the rest of the sounds are, the enemy firing sound seems really "crunchy" and out of place. Listening to the arcade version, it seems like the enemy firing sound is supposed to kind of sound like the player firing sound in reverse.

Hmmm... I hear something different (I've been comparing to Version 3 of the arcade). I hear a different sound altogether than the player shot. I had thought I got fairly close with what I came up with...

 

Is there any way to get TIA to approximate the deep rumble sound during the asteroid phase?

I'll give that a shot and see what I can come up with. :)

 

Also, I noticed that the player can still fire after getting killed, while the explosion is playing. The arcade version doesn't allow that.

Fixed. I actually purposely put that in there, as I was watching the 'demo' on the arcade and noticed that the demo can still shoot while the death animation was happening. I now see that during an actual game, this is not the case.

 

 

I was playing sector 3 and I killed all 4 of the enemies and it said bonus ? I missed with 1 shot though . I just got my personal high score of 31,210 ...

Congrats on your high score :) I am now unable to get any secret bonuses that aren't supposed to be... If it happens to you again, please let me know which bonus it was and what squadron of sector 4 it was.

 

I think I still had a guy left but I ran out of fuel and my game ended . It seems like I kept getting secret bonuses on quite a few boards, especially sector 4 . Btw how many warps do you get and can you earn extra ones ?

Yep - once you run out of fuel, the game ends no matter how many ships you have in reserve. You get one warp per ship, or per sector.

 

Updated BIN here, but not an RC until I work on the Asteroid Rumble.

Thanks!

Bob

AstBlstr.A78

AstBlstr.bin

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Hmmm... I hear something different (I've been comparing to Version 3 of the arcade). I hear a different sound altogether than the player shot.

Nevermind, I loaded the MAME sounds up in an editor and my previous statement was completely wrong. They're both high-to-low transitions, with the enemy shot sound being higher-pitched than the player shot sound. It seems at the very least the 7800 version should use the same distortion setting for both effects.

sfx-enemy bullet.wav

sfx-player bullet.wav

Edited by ZylonBane
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I didn't capture them. As noted, they're just files from the MAME audio pack for Astro Blaster.

Ah...I thought when you posted, "I loaded the MAME sounds up in an editor" you were referring to playback of emulated sounds vs. playback of captured sound files.

 

Still, appreciate the post, ZB. :)

 

If anyone else is interested in some captured arcade sound files utilized by MAME, there is a nice list here: http://samples.mameworld.info/Current%20Samples.htm

 

Most of MAME's music/sound files are emulated. For those that have not been due to protection or other factors, MAME utilizes the above set of files during its emulation of that game. Sure enough, Astro Blaster is on the list; partial though, as some of the sound effects evidently have been emulated without the need of external files.

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A couple things I was wondering about TIA sound, not Astro Blaster specifically--

 

It seems most sound drivers only run during VBLANK, meaning sound can't update any faster than 60Hz, which in turn means that rapid sliding/oscillation effects just can't be done accurately. Would it be practical on the 7800 (or even possible) to have a driver that also updated in the middle of the screen, boosting the update rate to 120Hz?

 

The way the enemy and player shot sounds step on each other in Astro Blaster, got me thinking how it would sound if enemy shot sounds only played on even frames, and player shot sounds only played on odd frames. Has any 2600/7800 game ever tried this "arpeggio" approach, time-splitting a single channel to get two virtual interlaced channels? It would have a distinct sound, that's for sure.

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That's funny; I had tried updating virtual 'channels' every other frame some time ago, and the result was *not* pretty. I was just looking for my example, but it looks like I don't have it any more. :( It was kind of like sprite multiplexing on the 2600, but for audio instead.

 

Yes, you can update the sound driver more than once on a screen (with a DLI) but the more DLIs, the more CPU time it takes away from game logic for each frame. :(

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Yeah, I'd considered the CPU overhead. A sound driver could pre-compute the next values for the sound registers and stash this data somewhere, so the DLI only has to load, store, and return. With certain limitations in place (like only pitch changes, or only one channel allowed to be updated), the CPU hit from a scheme like this should be miniscule.

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Hi All!

 

Here is RC5:

 

- Made the player and enemy shots use the same distortion value, except at different pitches.

- Added the asteroid field rumble

 

AtariBrian - I checked sector 4, and couldn't get an issue when the secret bonus appeared undeservedly. Please let me know if you run into it again, which bonus it gave you, and which squadron it was within sector 4.

 

Thanks guys!

Bob

AstBlstr.A78

AstBlstr.bin

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This is the first new version I've been able to play in about a week. Not sure if this is a problem or not.

 

I had a massive fail and couldn't kill all the enemies on Easy Sector 3 Wave 1 before one of them got off the bottom of the screen. Then when it wrapped back around to the top, it was all four enemies again. Is it normal for the whole wave to respawn like that?

 

Since there have been a lot of sound touch ups since last time I played (the rumble during the asteroid field helps a lot), isn't there supposed to be a sound that plays while the fuel unloads for the bonus?

 

Edit: Quick note. During the end of Sector 2, the asteroid rumble didn't stop during the docking sequence, although it ended after docking was completed. This hasn't been happening regularly. When it did occur, I had died shortly before the end of the asteroid sequence. I had also been bouncing in and out of the emulator window (pausing the game) during play, so that might have had something to do with it too.

Edited by Gabriel
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Hey Gabriel:

 

Yes, the waves with 4 enemies respawn completely if you die, or miss any.

 

Don't know how I missed the sound when the fuel unloads. I'll add it.

 

I've put code in to make sure the Asteroid rumble sound stops no matter what after the stage is completed. So that shouldn't happen any more.

I'll post a bin once I get the 'fuel unload' sound in.

 

Thanks,

Bob

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This appears to be heading towards instant classic status as we've come to expect of you Bob, particularly because of your willingness to listen to feedback. You good sir are a genius. :) I can't remember if I've said so in this thread yet, but I'm in as always for a copy. Has Marc put together a box yet? :)

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This appears to be heading towards instant classic status as we've come to expect of you Bob, particularly because of your willingness to listen to feedback. You good sir are a genius. :) I can't remember if I've said so in this thread yet, but I'm in as always for a copy. Has Marc put together a box yet? :)

Yes.

http://atariage.com/forums/blog/375/entry-10728-astro-blaster-atari-7800/

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Don't know how I missed the sound when the fuel unloads. I'll add it.

I'd noticed that sound missing but assumed you'd left it out on purpose. What about the sound that plays between enemy waves?

 

About the shot noises, I was thinking you were going to make the enemy shots sound more like the player shot, instead of the other way around. I rather liked the old player shot sound, it didn't sound nearly as grating as the enemy shots. But, your call of course.

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:lol:

 

- Ok. I found out that the "squadron over" sound (i,e, the sound that plays between squadrons) is the same as the enemy shot sound with a stuttering repeat. Added.

- Put back the original player shot sound. It already was the highest frequency for that distortion, so I couldn't make the enemy shot sound the same distortion but higher. I did change the distortion from $07 to $01. Hopefully it sounds better.

- Fixed 'La prepare' :)

 

RC7 attached.

AstBlstr.A78

AstBlstr.bin

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