Re: Stupid Battlezone tricks...

>Gosh I've been pulling for the linkable BZ idea for a long time now. Long
>ago on the Apple 2 someone devised a link (joyport) version of BZ that ran
>on 2 Apples so I imagine the idea is possible on the Atari hardware.

Probably quite do-able, albeit with some major code surgery. I'd think the
thing to do would be to take over the "enemy" tank data structures and logic
and use that for player two. Synchronization would be interesting though.
Probably have to designate one machine the "master" and use the second as a
"viewer" and remote controls for the master. Non-trivial project. ;-)

(Another curious thing would be to replace the first-person view with an
overhead view.)

Also, there's *lots* of unused RAM in Battlezone. You could probably make
the playfield "non-random" with some work.

>With all this interest perhaps the disassembled/documented code could be
>available & everyone have at it with their hacks?

I don't mind giving out what I have, although it's not really documented
except in the sections that I've been figuring out. Probably be better to
have Neil run it through his snazzy disassembler and get it into a state
where it can be re-assembled. Then just merge my comments in with it.

>The suggestion of the explodable blocks is a good one, would change the
>hide
>strategy a bit (especially if the enemy could explode them too).

I actually (accidentally) made it so you and the enemy can shoot *through*
the blocks last night. That was... Interesting.

>What about redrawing the tanks, would be cool to chase down some big
>panzers
>or something!

I'm afraid of the mathbox and/or shape data. ;-) I'm sure it's possible to
figure it out, I'm just not up to it. Someone else might want to.

>I'll also second Doug comment about building controls/hardware for the BT.

You're both nuts, you know that, no? ;-)

I like the "shield" idea. I was thinking I could toss up the monitor
convergence image (the diagonal cross-hatch) for the shield. ('ala Star
Trek). I was thinking some amount of shield with each tank, but you
wouldn't really know what was left until it ran out. (So you'd be pretty
sure you were OK for one or two hits, but anymore and you might run out of
shield energy.)

I think it might be tricky to replace much of the screen imagery (the
display-list is kinda funky with the realtime-calculated stuff).

Maybe Doug or somebody can comment on this: I was playing my "modified"
version last night and had a missile coming for me. I double-timed it over
to a block to hide. The missile jumped the block and went over me. I then
started a hard turn trying to flank the missile, but it looked like we were
locked in with similar turning rates-- the missile always stayed pretty-much
behind me while I turned, probably about 10-15 seconds. I finally got it
about to 9 o'clock on the radar, but then it took off and left the screen...
What would a missile "normally" do in that case?

Other "interesting" things I've been playing with:

* I found how to modify the "range" of the player's gun. Kind-of
interesting. You can trade off shorter range for higher firing rate.

* You can set the bullet speeds slow enough so the player tank can outrun
it's own shell. (You can't shoot yourself I found out.)

* It's pretty funny (for a minute or two) setting all bullet speeds to 25%
of normal-- like playing the "Matrix" version of Battlezone. About the only
way to kill an enemy tank it to go place the muzzle of your gun against the
side of the enemy...

I have a pretty good "enhanced" recipe going now:

1) faster turning rate
2) double forward speed
3) normal reverse
4) double-speed player shells
5) normal-speed enemy shells
6) slightly reduced player shell range (and slightly increased rate of fire)

At certain point thresholds (maybe 20K and 75K?) the player and enemy shell
speed increases, and then the player loses their 2:1 shot ratio.

Anyone want to try it out on a modified version of PC MAME with some
modified ROM images?

-Clay
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Received on Tue Oct 10 15:10:01 2000