HSC18 Round 8 [NEW]: POLE POSITION

[RedThunder]

8 hours ago, Deteacher said:

8 lap Pro Challenge:  55,150!  Figured I'd work on that one for a bit.  If I can do well on this, it should help boost my scores on the easier races, right? 

Terrable idea Move along nothing to see here ?

[AtariSphinx]

 NTSC Atari/Datasoft

 

1 Lap Series

Malibu  26,300 (64"35)

Namco  22,500 (66"09)

Atari GP 27,800 (59"79)

 

2 Lap Series

Malibu 35,650

Namco 32,550

Atari GP 33,950

 

8 Lap Pro Challenge 

Atari GP 53,050 (Lap 4)

 

 

 

[+therealbountybob]

Had a first session I'm using Marius version on PAL...

 

1 Lap

M 26,200 60"55

N 24,550 52"23

A 26,100 60"79

Total 76,850

 

2 Lap

M 35,700 57"10

N 38,150 110"11

A 13,700 DNQ!

Total 89,550

 

all with at least one crash!

 

Will get some tables sorted tomorrow

[zylon]

On 4/28/2021 at 5:38 AM, therealbountybob said:

Things to look out for in >>>Pole Position>>>

Had the 211Mph bug(?) but I'm now thinking this may be a feature(!) - It happened after I'd overtaken two cars down the middle of the Final Straight - I felt that 'pull' on the car so am wondering if they coded in some sort of slip-stream feature to give you a turbo boost?

 

Managed to pull off an overtake on the inside kerb was very pleased with that. Reading the posts from last time PP was played here you can overtake on the outside kerb; if you're lucky!

 

PAL users be careful not to clock up too many seconds on the 8-lapper as the timer bug can come into play - can't remember how many seconds this is?!

 

The 3 courses are all the same? There's only the one corner that is really tricky so break or use a bit of inside kerb to slow yourslef down.

 

Change from Low to Hi gear (pull back on stick) at 105mph - can't remember who it was who crawled round the track at 105mph! might have been you littlemanjack and push forward to go into Low gear after crashing.

 

When you crash try taking out more than one car, or a car and a sign - is it possible to do 2 cars and a sign - might earn you a HSC bonus point

 

Marius Ver.' Pro Challenge eventually managed 5 laps without a crash then crossed the line only to encounter the dreaded timer bug (Will let Marius know!) think I had 98 seconds banked on previous lap so was over 100

 

The PAL versions bug happens if you have too much time - guess you'll have to slow down a bit! The Marius version is much tougher but looks like it's still possible to get over 99 seconds at the start of a lap (8 bits eh!)... work out how many seconds it gives you each lap (60?) and make sure you have less than 40 left when you cross the line each time (will check this next time I play)

it's the pedal on the right  **Not my actual score this round, just another egg to find**

Edited May 1, 2021 by zylon

[carlsson]

8 LAP Pro Challenge

Atari GP: 98150 pts, Lap 8  (Qual 26 sec => pos 3, 8 crashes)

 

I think this endurance test is where the real HSC action should be. Those 1 and 2 lap races can be fun too. This time I was about one curve and one straight away from finishing the race.

[carlsson]

Ok, so I ran two sets of the shorter races too. Apparently all the experience from the long race pays off in the shorter ones.

 

1 LAP Series
Malibu GP: 27750 pts, 052"79 (Qual 29 sec => pos 1, 0 crash)
Namco Speedway: 27400 pts, 055"00 (Qual 28 sec => pos 1, 0 crash)
Atari GP: 28000 pts, 053"10 (Qual 28 sec => pos 1, 0 crash)

Total: 83150 pts (+2150 pts from earlier attempt)

 

2 LAP Series
Malibu GP: 39200 pts, 102"34 (Qual 29 sec => pos 1, 0 crash)
Namco Speedway: 36150 pts, 116"88 (Qual 28 sec => pos 1, 1 crash)
Atari GP: 37800 pts, 112"98 (Qual 28 sec => pos 1, 1 crash)

Total: 113150 pts (+1500 pts from earlier attempt)

[RedThunder]

"Crash Compo"

 

My Car (Obvs) + Opponent + Sign

Edited May 2, 2021 by RedThunder

[RedThunder]

Lap2

M

40,400

N

41,550

A

41,500

 

104"78

 

123,450

[tompateus]

Playing original Pole position (I guess)

 

Lap 1

M 27900 p

N 21700 p

A 26800 p

 

Lap 2

M 39050 p

N 37300 p

A 33550 p

 

8 laps

A 99700 p

 

Total: 286000 p

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by tompateus

[+therealbountybob]

2 hours ago, tompateus said:

Playing original Pole position (I guess)

 

Lap 1

M 27900 p

N 21700 p

A 26800 p

 

Lap 2

M 39050 p

N 37300 p

A 33550 p

 

8 laps

A 99700 p

 

Total: 286000 p

[top players on PAL systems] IF possible play the Marius version but otherwise the original is ok - you will much more easily finish the race on the original version!

 

Marius Ver PAL

1 Lap

M 52"79 27,750

N 52"88 27,900

A 68"35 22,000

Total 77,650

 

2 Lap

M 110"13  37,500

N 109"55  34,450

A 102"02  36,750

Total 108,700

 

8 LAP

44,700

90,400 failed to finish race!!

 

[tompateus]

40 minutes ago, therealbountybob said:

[top players on PAL systems] IF possible play the Marius version but otherwise the original is ok - you will much more easily finish the race on the original 

 

I wish i could, but i'm sorry to say that i can't..

As i said before, my computor skills are less then poor and i have only internet in my android phone.

The only games that i can play is the game that i have in my sio2sd or my carts.

It's not a problem for me to pass this round if it's become unfair and i'm the only one that plays original PP

 

These are the PP that are avalebly for me:

[+therealbountybob]

20 minutes ago, tompateus said:

I wish i could, but i'm sorry to say that i can't..

As i said before, my computor skills are less then poor and i have only internet in my android phone.

The only games that i can play is the game that i have in my sio2sd or my carts.

It's not a problem for me to pass this round if it's become unfair and i'm the only one that plays original PP

 

These are the PP that are avalebly for me:

 

Sorry that's fine, I've updated the tables on the third post - the scoring adjustments should be about right but we can change them if needed. Once we have clear races from the top players we should have better comparisons

[MrTrust]

Switched to the ol' original cart because if I'm not going to use it in this situation, what's the point of having it at all?  I don't feel like I did any worse with it anyway.

 

1 Lap: 26,300 - 23,350 - 22,800

2 Lap: 37,000 - 33,050 - 32,650

8 Lap: 55,150

 

Clearly there is something going on with my 800XL's colors, which is what I'm going to blame not being able to finish the race on.

[carlsson]

27 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

Switched to the ol' original cart because if I'm not going to use it in this situation, what's the point of having it at all?

Is that NTSC or PAL? If you're playing on NTSC, I think the cartridge version is the same as the file version posted in the thread. Only in the case of PAL, the game has been made more difficult with reduced clock (and some bug fixes). As seen above, Tompateus plays the original PAL version for the moment being, which would not grant him the bonus offset given to those playing the more difficult Marius PAL version, but that is the only difference I know about.

[jdh]

 

Marius PAL

 

1 LAP

 

M - 27300 (55”23)

N - 20350 (67”55)

A - 22700 (64”10)

Total: 70350

 

 

[+therealbountybob]

On 4/28/2021 at 8:09 PM, Deteacher said:

I loaded up the PAL version from the multi-disk ATR that TRBB posted in the first link. 

 

Race start is only 70 seconds.  I played nearly a flawless qualifier lap and only got 3rd place.  Here's a screenshot:

 

Was that under emulation?

 

Going to play some Pole Position again later

[Deteacher]

5 hours ago, therealbountybob said:

Was that under emulation?

 

Going to play some Pole Position again later

Yes.  Altirra.

[graywest]

1 Lap Series

Malibu  26,450 (64"67)

Namco  23,100 (65"52)

Atari GP 24,400 (60"41)

 

2 Lap Series

Malibu 37,150 (120"83)

Namco 34,750 (121"02)

Atari GP 33,300 (126"45)

 

8 Lap Pro Challenge 

Atari GP 100,250 (Lap 7 - DNF)

 

I'm playing the NTSC version from the multi-disk image in the first post. Let me know if that's not right and I'll switch.

 

My dad was always the expert on this one - too bad he's no longer with us or I'm sure he'd want to join in and post a score. I remember him saying "Now you have to shift into high gear when you're between 70-80 mph! Okay, there's the black sign, slow down or you'll crash into the red sign on the curve!"

 

When I was young I usually played the practice run because I was no good at dodging the other cars. We also had a hacked version with no signs that I played a lot. If anyone knows where I can get a copy of that one, let me know. I haven't seen it floating around on the internet, but I always wanted to try it again for old times' sake.

Edited May 4, 2021 by graywest

[+therealbountybob]

UPDATED tables

 

I've not got access to my Atari this week so unless can fix up a PC joystick I will be hitting the tracks again next week. Keep the scores coming and I'll keep things up to date, when we have some perfect 8 lappers we can look at the need for any adjustment score for the Marius version.

[carlsson]

Hm... The bonuses for NTSC version and Marius PAL seem off, so we definitely need more scores on the 8 lap race.

 

1 lap: NTSC +250 pts/lap, Marius: +1117 pts/lap (3 races x 1 lap each)
2 laps: NTSC +208 pts/lap, Marius: +717 pts/lap
8 laps: NTSC +400 pts/lap, Marius: +0 pts/lap??

 

Apparently I'm counting the bonus as if one finished the race even if one crashed out in the middle of it. For the 1 and 2 lap variants, I would expect everyone manage to finish the races, for the 8 lap race it apparently is far tougher.

 

I tried to extrapolate bonuses per number of laps, mathematically it could look something like this:

 

Lap number      1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8
----------------------------------------------------
NTSC bonus    250  210  180  160  150  145  143  142 per lap
NTSC diff          -40  -30  -20  -10   -5   -2   -1

Marius bonus 1117  717  417  267  217  192  179  172 per lap
Marius diff       -400 -300 -150  -50  -25  -13   -7

 

assuming the initial offsets are reasonable, and that the difference is less for longer races. At first I worked with -400 -200 -100 -50 -25 -13 -7 but it would probably put the Marius bonus too high.

 

The difference between graywest's and my scores on the 8 lap race is 2100 pts. I started from 3rd position and only had one curve + final straight left. It doesn't say if he started from pole position (which would yield him 2600 pts more to begin with) but he had at least one lap to go. RedThunder also didn't say which starting position he had, which is kind of important when calculating the bonuses.

Edited May 5, 2021 by carlsson

[8BIT 1337]

OK, I've yet to make it through all 3 races in the '2 lap' challenge without running out of time, but I thought I'd post my 1 lap results (I played the Marius version if it matters):

64"88

66"63

69"36

 

I will hopefully find the time this weekend to put more serious time into this, but have to admit I've never been a fan of the game so my motivation is low.  Okay maybe that's not entirely true, I probably played it a lot when I first got it.  But now it drives me crazy that we can't just finish a lap in whatever length of time it takes us, we have to beat the timer (which is an arcade feature to earn quarters, not something needed on a console game).  

 

I guess for the most part I'm no longer a fan of the arcade ports.  Not that they're not good games, I just feel like today I can play the actual arcade versions if I want to.

[carlsson]

46 minutes ago, 8BIT 1337 said:

I played the Marius version if it matters

Is that in emulation of a PAL machine? From what I understand on the disk image the NTSC version is (should be?) the original one with some bugfix while the PAL version (with purple sky) has adjusted timers to compensate for it runs slower on PAL. I think if one was to play the Marus PAL version on NTSC, real or emulated, it would make it even harder. In e.g. Altirra it is just one click in the menu to switch between PAL and NTSC.

 

Edit: I just tested the Marius PAL version on emulated NTSC and as expected that one is super hard. Even after a nearly perfect qualifier lap, I could not position higher than #3 with 26 sec left, while a mediocre lap on PAL placed me #1 with 28 sec left. Thus for all NTSC players, make sure you're playing a version with light blue sky. Leave the purple skies to PAL mode, whether it is emulated or real hardware.

Edited May 5, 2021 by carlsson

[graywest]

EDIT: Scratch my 8 lap score, please.

 

I don't remember for sure, but now I'm thinking I was playing on Malibu, 8 laps. I'll have to redo that one and play on Atari GP.

 

Sorry!!

Edited May 6, 2021 by graywest

[+therealbountybob]

21 hours ago, carlsson said:

Is that in emulation of a PAL machine? From what I understand on the disk image the NTSC version is (should be?) the original one with some bugfix while the PAL version (with purple sky) has adjusted timers to compensate for it runs slower on PAL. I think if one was to play the Marus PAL version on NTSC, real or emulated, it would make it even harder. In e.g. Altirra it is just one click in the menu to switch between PAL and NTSC.

 

Edit: I just tested the Marius PAL version on emulated NTSC and as expected that one is super hard. Even after a nearly perfect qualifier lap, I could not position higher than #3 with 26 sec left, while a mediocre lap on PAL placed me #1 with 28 sec left. Thus for all NTSC players, make sure you're playing a version with light blue sky. Leave the purple skies to PAL mode, whether it is emulated or real hardware.

Thanks carlsson, yes NTSC players just use the regular Pole Position from Atari or Datasoft.

 

The score adjustments were only end of race, it would be too much complexity to work out per lap, will study your report in more detail later

[carlsson]

Yeah, my intention was only to do it at the end of the race but I extrapolated in case we would have a 1 Lap challenge, 2 Lap, 3 Lap, 4 Lap, 5 Lap, 6 Lap, 7 Lap and 8 Lap challenge. If time permits I'll play the original PP on my NTSC 800 and see how much better (?) I'm doing on that one. I'm not saying I'm the best (far from it) but if one and the same person plays both versions on respective hardware, using the same joystick it should give a good benchmark.