Malban
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Hm.
That is not really the kind of difficulty I want to address.
On non beta carts this might not be a real problem, since you do not usually reset your settings.***SPOILER***
See – the whole “1 shot”-thing-collection “problem” vanishes – once you do the achievment “biggest loss”.
And that in combination with the EXTRA secret – you sort of completely disable one shots.Since both of these are not REALLY complicated to get (and you only need to do that ONCE) – I’m hard pressed to additionally make that part easier…
So that you don’t get bored – I have uploaded a 3rd binary “stepper.bin”.
This runs Vectorblade and after the title screen waits with a number displayed at different stages of the steps between title and desktop.Please tell me the last number you see (press always button 1 to continue).
Good old “printf()” debugging…
Also…
My personal ZIF socketed beta card is by now really worn out. Sometimes the chip does not sit all to tight.
Perhaps the most stupid thing – but just take the flash out and insert it again :-)…
I have also uploaded to the private directory a bin called “QuadBankTest.bin” – which just “tests” the bankswitching.
It starts in bank 3
button 1 – switch to bank 0
button 2 – switch to bank 1
button 3 – switch to bank 2
button 4 – switch to bank 3Perhaps you can try that one too.
The only crash I would expect from machine difference would be something about bankswitching…
Hi,
sorry I didn’t react earlier – actually i thought I’d get a post from WP when a User wrote a topic – I don’t so I just saw it when you emailed me.(from top)
1) Button calibration is on my todo list… no buzz machines are very “fast” to calibrate…2) Brightness
Haven’t experienced this “cant find a center” myself – guess I have to “pimp up” the low brightness a bit (will do from $3f to $4f for a start)3) Non working Buzz
Exactly:buzz lab Vectrex: game freezes after Vectorblade title screen, i.e. screen goes dark, sound freezes and single tone continues to play. Same behavior when pressing reset. Beta 9 screen is shown, then Vectoblade title screen comes up correctly, title music plays until end, then screen goes dark and sound freezes.
Definition:
– title screen – screen were VECTORBLADE is written and a ship comes and goes
– desktop – screen where you can go in different directions… and start a gameWhat should happen:
Title screen comes up – the title screen does NOT finish playing the music.
It displays the ship… the ship goes by and the screen is switched to the desktop (while in mid music).When does the Freeze occur?
– on the title screen before the ship comes?
– on the title screen after the ship comes – perhaps exactly at the “switch” to the desktop?
– on the desktop screen – when the music should restart?No – as to my knowledge NoBuzz machines should all react the same way.
I think some different components were used, probably what was cheapest at the time. The different components do usually not make a huge difference. The only “plausible” explanation I ‘might’ have right now…
I have here a machine which’s T1 Timer starts a couple of cycles later (2 cycles).
If there are machines where the cycles are even more OFF, than a bankswitch using the T1 timer interrupt “might” occur to late.
In the private beta directory: http://vectrex.malban.de/privatBeta is a beta, that has 2 nops inserted after the T1 timer for bankswitching… perhaps try that one.If that doesn’t help we have to think about some remote debugging 🙂
Thx for the tests!
Vectorblade_Beta9.bin – 21th Mai 2019
– fixed the different brightness levels in intro screen
– enabled “difficulty” select in “options” if you want to try
– 3 second wait in boss intro
– dunno there was something small, ive forgottenNo big update…
To higher levels:
– I think one or two of the shield levels might still be “buggy”. In that enemies may hide behind the shield and never come forth.
The only chance you than have is to nuke them with a superbomb. I have to look at that again.
—
Shield:
Invincible for a certain amount of time (Time extra…), “shield” arround the player is animatedArmor:
Not timed, protects the player from one shot only! Can be bought in the shop. “armor” around the player is not animatedScoop, Shield, Armor are mutual exclusive, the last activated “wins”.
—
Buying armor – should only count once, if money is reduced more than once, than this is a bug (noted)…
—
Level counting:
Boss levels do not count as levels. So there is level 74, than boss, than 75… at least that is what is supposed to happen :-).
—
Single shot shields.
Yea, that was a bug, which is now a feature 🙂
Also if you have scoopies – they can also fire past the shield on the left/right. But I think I’ll keep it as it is!
—
Icons…
Since I had to redo all icons due to different drawing routines, they ARE slightly bigger than when I made the statement you quoted .-)
—I am patiently waiting to see what “people” think of level 81…
(If too frustrated – hit pause and read the diary of Vec T. Rex.)For the protocoll, the bug I fixed yesterday was (probably) the “same” as the one that occurred in your video:
Yesterday the step were:
The player must have a 4 shot AND scoopies.
And the “main shot” (the middle one) must be “zero” (all shots used, so that only scoopies are left).
And the right scoopy must still have all four shots.
And it must be the FIRST shot on screen (the lowest shot).
THAN 3 registeres were not initialized correctly and a crash could occur…— :
The bug you showed probably was:
The player must have a 4 shot AND scoopies.
And the “main shot” (the middle one) must be “zero” (all shots used, so that only scoopies are left).
And the “right” (scoopy) must be “zero” (all shots used, so that only scoopies the left scoopy shot remains).
And the left scoopy must still have all four shots.
And it must be the FIRST shot on screen (the lowest shot).
THAN 3 registeres were not initialized correctly and a crash could occur…
(crash could also be jump to a different bank and make stupid things)Vectorblade_Beta8.bin – 21th Mai 2019
– bug fix with “wild vectors” found by VTK
– bug fix for intro… man stays on screen, intro bonus do not vary in brightness
– Bugs have double hitpoints on easy…Please have another try, new test version in:
http://vectrex.malban.de/privatBetaSince I have trouble replicating it…
Wow.
I am a bit “flabbergasted”… never seen this behaviour – that will be quite a bug hunt.I don’t think it is the vectrex. Notice, that the ship and the score are stable!
The stars, the shots, the enemies and the debris are destorted and dispositioned…It appears also, that the last 2-3 vectors of each object are drawn out of proportion.
It is also worth mentioning, that the player ship is drawn with the same scale and the same routines as the enemy ship.
This makes NO sense…
