899 replies to this topic

[C-Dawg]

Solar, are those the corridors you had not completed when you updated the quest file?  

 

Did you save in between the corridors reopening?

 

Wait... with Taurus 7,9, it was closed, then you sat around and waited and it just opened again on the same screen?  Like, you didn't leave, just sit there and take off the frame rate limit and it'll open eventually?
 

 

Speaking technologically, from within the engine I mean, I wonder what would happen if instead of relying solely on an array of variables to keep track of which corridors are closed, it could also check to see if a series of rooms' secret states are triggered, after completing a particular corridor sets the secret state of an arbitrarily created empty room to true? If Global variables are reset with the changing of a version, would room secret states be reset like that? I'm unsure, but I'm inclined to say that they wouldn't reset as easily as global variables might.

 

 

I could do numerous things.  I could write combo data to a particular DMAP.  I could use prime factors stashed in a game counter.  Before I do that, I'd like to have some grasp of what the problem is, because nothing in my script is zeroing out that global array.  How insidious!!

Edited by C-Dawg, 09 February 2015 - 11:21 PM.

[newstarshipsmell]

So, I've been checking corridors. They keep opening on me. There are only a few that do though.

Pisces 3,3
Gemini 7,5
Aries 0,0
Leo 0,0
Taurus 7,9

I can go in and complete them, but they reopen after a while.

On the first pass today of looking, I was at the Taurus 7,9 one and it just opened after standing on the screen for a while. I have no explanation. It was the last one I checked then. Originally, I had only found Gemini 7,5 open. After this happened, all of the others I mentioned above opened. I'm not a programmer so I have no idea what could cause this.

Solar, are those the corridors you had not completed when you updated the quest file?  
 
Did you save in between the corridors reopening?
 
Wait... with Taurus 7,9, it was closed, then you sat around and waited and it just opened again on the same screen?  Like, you didn't leave, just sit there and take off the frame rate limit and it'll open eventually?
 
I could do numerous things.  I could write combo data to a particular DMAP.  I could use prime factors stashed in a game counter.  Before I do that, I'd like to have some grasp of what the problem is, because nothing in my script is zeroing out that global array.  How insidious!!

These are the same corridors I reported previously... Scorpio 0F, Aries 00, Pisces 33, Gemini 75, Leo 00, Taurus 79. Solairflaire, can you check Scorpio 0F as well? That's the only one in my list you didn't mention.

So it seems whatever the bug is, it's related to these specific corridors, and not the rest.

ETA: On my current game, with demo 426 from start to current place, I've only cleared Aries 00 and Pisces 33 from that list. I just warped back to both locations and the gates are closed/windows broken. Whether or not that means they'll remain closed remains to be seen. There may be some bug you reach/trigger later in the game that is prompting them to reopen. Or it may simply be related to swapping .qst files. I dunno.

/bug reports

Aquarius 54: Okay, I guess you tweaked Crabbor since last time? Now, he's unable to move through any blocks in his second mode. This means that a) if he starts rising in the corners, he'll hit one of the blocks right above him, and drop back down immediately on top of you, rather unfairly, and b) you can run to the corners as he's nearing the top, and he'll slide into one of the upper corners and become stuck there, for easy pickings.

Iron 1: Same as before, but I happened to notice that if you start shooting him with missiles before he gets a chance to start firing, you can time it so that each missile hits him right after he recovers from the previous damage, and so it's possible to keep him completely immobilized and easily take him out. It requires perfect timing though, so as soon as you screw it up, he'll be getting shots off at you; I fell back on my previous strategy of hopping over the missiles/fragments, but knocked half his health off beforehand.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 10 February 2015 - 12:30 AM.

[Solairflaire]

Solar, are those the corridors you had not completed when you updated the quest file?  

 

Did you save in between the corridors reopening?

 

Wait... with Taurus 7,9, it was closed, then you sat around and waited and it just opened again on the same screen?  Like, you didn't leave, just sit there and take off the frame rate limit and it'll open eventually?

 

Yesterday, I finished off the Zodiac Bosses and did all of the corridors. The corridors that had reopened when I updated versions are, Pisces 3,D (Stunner), Leo 5,F (Super Missiles), Scorpio 0,F (Wallet, I wanted to actually buy stuff), and Pisces 3,3 (This was to keep tabs on a known issue). Of those only Pisces 3,3 reopened for me. Scorpio 0,F is still closed.

 

I have not saved at all today or updated the quest file. I used no cheats to get to any of them. I do use Continue warping a lot though, so there might be something weird with that. I also only did the corridors after they reopened, but some of them just reopen on me so I can't continue. It seems to be random which ones open, but it's always at least one of the ones I mentioned before.

 

I didn't have the thing happen with Taurus 7,9 happen while rate limit was removed. It was closed and while I was standing on the edge of the screen there thinking about what I wanted to do it just opened. It couldn't have been more than 30 seconds. -- I can't get this to happen again, so it might have been some weird thing that happened.

 

I wish I could look over the code and help. I just don't know programming at all. Like Starship said, it could be that it's related to me having swapped .qst files before.

Edited by Solairflaire, 10 February 2015 - 12:30 AM.

[C-Dawg]

Well, I updated with a new version.  This one has variable Zodiac Weapon power based on sidearm upgrades, so I left the trainer room intact to see those.  I capped maximum damage at 90 for any weapon.  

 

Doors now work like they do in other games - press Up to enter.  

 

Corridor enemies now can spawn offscreen and enter.

 

These two suggestions were from people over at TGI Forums, non-ZC folk reacting to oddities they didn't like.

[newstarshipsmell]

I posted some more stuff over there; have a look.

Suggestion: If you'd prefer to not fuck with the Cancer gut route, but avoid having it act as a potential trap to some players (i.e. setting the continue/resume point to the Libra entrance and being unable to traverse the gut section backwards) you could modify the adjacent corners of rooms 5D-5E-6E (or 5D-4D-4E-5E) to add a hidden path that ends on a solid combo along the top row on the last room (or one of those expanding bubbles like in Capricorn) so it forms a one-way path the player can access to backtrack and circumvent the gut. Some players might still get "stuck" - at least then you could tell them "look around, there may be another way out" rather than "tough luck, try starting over?"

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 11 February 2015 - 02:35 AM.

[C-Dawg]

Uploaded new demo.  Biggest change is I re-did the Aquarius Zodiac Project boss.  Good luck with it, now.  He scales with your sidearm upgrades, getting meaner as you get more powerful.

 

Re: Cancer - Didnt I already fix it so you could climb back up the gut?

[newstarshipsmell]

On Demo 429.

Ready for some fond nostalgic memories of demo bugs from over a month ago?

Beginning Corridor Boss: Disappeared when I dropped his life meter to nothing (which disappeared with him.) However, instead of completely vanishing, like in the past, this time he was polite enough to leave a ghost behind firing shots at me. I don't think I blew up any of the side weakpoints before killing him. The ghost just sat there on the left side of the screen, so I blew up the friggin' turrets at least. I noclipped up hoping it would simply put me on the victory screen - apparently that one is the final corridor victory? I got my first, brief look at the Pandora, at least.
 

Re: Cancer - Didnt I already fix it so you could climb back up the gut?

Yes, it should be physically possible to go up, but the point was that Solairflaire was able to get down there way early, yes? And anyways, those gut bugs deal a large amount of damage - on previous playthroughs I frequently nearly died trying to return that way, as two of them are impossible to dodge in the reverse direction (I think) and this was after I was supposed to reach Libra, so I wasn't underpowered for it. I didn't mean "this is impossible" but that other players (especially with fewer upgrades) might become hopelessly trapped. I dunno. I gotta go play it. If this stupid first boss will die properly for me.

ETA: Haha, that's shitty that if you die on the first corridor with an empty energy meter, select CONTINUE, well, oops... RETRY! Also, thank God for all these random Missile refill drops. I'd probably run out of missiles otherwise. Well, I suppose I should quit this nonsense and start in on 430 now.

Haha, I was going to mention that door in Pisces 45 - but I see you already moved it. Honestly, I'm surprised that guy complained about wanting to press Up to enter doors, but didn't complain that you always exit somewhere-not-the-door... I can't wait until he reaches one of the rooms that spits you back out on the far side of a wall from the entrance door. I kind of feel like this change was purely cosmetic and not really necessary; Up-to-enter-door is certainly a common trope, but hardly universal. Cave Story and Blaster Master both used Down, I believe, and if I think real hard, I could probably come up with some other classics that used warp-on-contact doors. Since none of your level design uses doors to block off anything besides dead ends, the complaint about it impairing his movement struck me as odd. Now, I have to keep pushing Up all the time when I didn't have to before, which is rather annoying. On the upside, this also means you can forget that bug in Libra with the icy blocks sliding you right back into the door you just walked out of... so there is that in its favor. Maybe you should go ahead and move the warp arrivals on top of the doors. You'd have to make some further design choices with the handful that spit you back out on the far side of solid combos from the doors. Sadly, I've also discovered that you can no longer simply right-click the door tiles and follow the warps in ZQ. Is there some other easy way to do that?

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 11 February 2015 - 03:45 AM.

[Solairflaire]

About Cancer gut: Yes it's possible to get back out with just the high jump boots now. However, you'll be forced to use a Life Tank or two. The first and last blobs are impossible to avoid. The first one (when going in 4,5) will hit you if you try to hide in that little spot on the top right. The last one is unavoidable period. Even if you do have the double jump boots, it's possible to get there without enough health to survive the two required hits and someone could have no Life Tanks to refill after taking the first hit. That person would be stuck, unable to get out and finish the quest.

 

Bugs: I apparently forgot to mention some on the build before 429.

 

The splitting worm things in Cancer and the metal Worms in Aquarius and Leo drop clock items when killed.

 

Cancer 4,5: There is an invisible platform on the top right above the bubble stuff.

 

Virgo 4,F Shop: Shop box just disappears after buying.

Virgo 4,4 Boss: Killing this won't end the fight still. I was forced to F6 Continue and come back for the stomp boots.

Virgo Crabbors: They come back when you re enter the room forcing you to fight them again.

 

Libra 3,7 Shop: Shop box just disappears after buying.

 

Aries 3,E In Door: In the secret area is a room with no gravity. 2 screens right from entrance.

 

Capricorn 6,D: Going in door puts you in top left corner.

Capricorn 6,A: Door goes to blank screen.

Capricorn 4,5: Door Goes to blank screen. Also puts you over pit upon exit.

 

These are things in 429.

 

Aries 3,8: Getting to the door here before getting high jump boots is an F6 trap

 

Cancer 0,1: Boss appears in top left corner and is impossible to kill.

 

These doors I've found you can still just walk into and don't need to hold up:

Libra 1,2

Libra 2,5

Libra 5,5

Libra 7,8

Capricorn 4,8

Capricorn 3,0

Capricorn 1,8

Capricorn 0,C

Capricorn 4,C

 

Also, the new Engine boss didn't make an appearance. I entered the room and the engine was already blown up.

Edited by Solairflaire, 11 February 2015 - 03:14 AM.

[C-Dawg]

Beginning Corridor Boss: Disappeared when I dropped his life meter to nothing (which disappeared with him.) However, instead of completely vanishing, like in the past, this time he was polite enough to leave a ghost behind firing shots at me. I don't think I blew up any of the side weakpoints before killing him. The ghost just sat there on the left side of the screen, so I blew up the friggin' turrets at least. I noclipped up hoping it would simply put me on the victory screen - apparently that one is the final corridor victory? I got my first, brief look at the Pandora, at least.
 

 

Are you freaking kidding me...

 

That's it -- front of the line -- he's getting massive revamp tonight.  I can't find the bug, so I'll burn down the house and build a new one.  Back in a few.

[Solairflaire]

Some more bugs.

 

Leo 1,B: Going in door doesn't change music. Leaving restarts the music.

 

Pisces 7,5: The ? box doesn't contain anything.

Pisces 6,4 In Door: The secret path for the Dash 2 boots seems impossible to me.

 

Aquarius 7,9: You can Dash 2 through the right wall on the bottom and end up in a wall in 7,A.

 

Aries 5,0: No reference on switch.

 

These doors can still be walked into and not need up to enter:

 

Virgo:

1,5

6,A

4,F

0,7

2,A

0,D

3,9

2,C

1,2

3,0

2.3

4,1

7,3

6,6

3,6

7,F

 

Libra:

2,D

5,9

6,C

0,C

1,D

7,2

3,7

1,A

 

What's supposed to happen when one finishes all the corridors? Just so I know what to look for while trying to figure this out.

 

I was looking in ZQuest at the quest to see if I could maybe see how some of it works better. I noticed that the Taurus bosses don't carry their screen state over to their respective corridor entrances while all of the other ones do. Was that intentional? Also the Taurus 7,9 boss seems like it carries it's state over to the other Taurus boss, not the exit animation for it. I don't know how you have it all set up so this might be irrelevant. The spot I'm looking at in ZQuest is Map 16, Screens 6B and 6A.

[C-Dawg]

So I'm still trying to get the replacement Cruiser boss working, so no update tonight.

 

Re: What happens when Corridors done?  Iron shows up and joins you, telling you where to go next.

 

Re: What is going on with carryovers?  Well, I was having such trouble getting them to work that I scripted a solution for the corridors instead.  Now, Ive since learned what I was doing wrong with screen states, but the corridors should still work off the variable because thats how I tell when Ive completed them all.  If you open up and export the ZScript buffer, you will see there are only scant few scripts that even reference the Corridors_Completed array, so this should not be happening.

 

EDIT: I can explain this better.

 

So, initially, I could not get script-triggered secrets to carryover and stick.  Bosses were coming back, corridors were refusing to close, it was bad.  Initially I was doing this by having Enemy->Secret, Permanent flags set on the boss screen, and writing my boss code so that finishing the boss killed all enemies.  Then I'd let ZClassic handle the details.  Well, that wasn't working everywhere for whatever reason.  So I started having the scripts set Screen->TriggerSecrets(); but that wasn't working everywhere either.  Finally what I did is made an array boss_completed[] to hold binary numbers with each index corresponding to a boss.  When you finish off the boss, the code sets the appropriate index of the array to 1.  Then, on the screen before the boss, a script called boss_check runs and triggers secrets (preventing you from going to the boss) if the appropriate index is already 1.  This works. 

 

Now, I do something very similar for corridors.  There's an array that keeps track of which corridors are done.  I check it the same way to trigger secrets on the entrance screens.  However, here, the array serves another purpose -- it is how I can tell when the player finishes them all.  Remember, the corridors are not required to be finished in any particular order.  So when you arrive on the "transforming from fighter into humanoid" screen after each corridor boss, a little script sets the appropriate index of the corridor array to 1.  Then, there's a script at the entrance, "corridor_check" that should be triggering secrets when it sees the corridor is done.

 

Since all that, I've noticed that if I want carryover secrets to work, I need to put an additional command in the script that triggers secrets initially.  I can fix that going forward.  But. corridors need to work the way they do -- or I need to use some other in-game data structure like a map or something as a virtual array -- because I need to track when they're all done.

 

So, if you export the Script buffer, you can look for all of the places where the scripts even touch on the Corridor array.  There are only three -- one that sets corridors when done, one that checks to see if one is done, and one that clears them all at the beginning of the game.  As far as I can tell, they work, so I'm HOPING that the global array gets bent over and broken forever the moment you update the .qst file.

 

EDIT: New update posted, first boss now should NEVER fail to die, last few pages of bugs squashed.

Edited by C-Dawg, 13 February 2015 - 12:45 AM.

[Solairflaire]

The energy dynamo 3 is malfunctioning. It horribly nerfs energy regen instead of increasing it. Your energy regen with the lvl 1 dynamo is much higher. Don't know about the lvl 2 one. I don't think I ever bothered buying it.

 

I'm still experimenting with the corridors closing. It's not switching versions that does it though since I haven't done that this time. Though anytime corridors reopen I get something weird happening. It seems random what that weird thing is though. One time I had the the Aquarius Zodiac boss show up for a moment and then go away. One time I came out of the wrong corridor after beating one. One time I had a corridor enemy spawn in a place that it shouldn't have. Every time one of these things happened, the corridors I mentioned before reopened. There were a couple other weird things, but I didn't write them down. Occasionally, not all of those corridors open, but it seems really rare. I'm fairly certain that they happen when I reach 21 corridors though and not 22.

 

Also the Taurus 7,9 corridor is still spawning junk sprites that stay on screen. It seems like they're enemies that should be spawning at the time though. Or at least parts of them if they're those missile shooting spaceships.

 

I'm not sure if it's possible anymore. But, you should make it so that hiding on the edge of the screen won't get rid of the directed fireballs that enemies shoot. I know other quests have done that. I don't know how though. The pattern ones (which I'm assuming are scripted) go until they go off the screen so you can't hide from those.

 

Edit: Aquarius 0,6: The boss of the corridor doesn't get boss music. There was also no klaxon that went off to signal his arrival.

Edited by Solairflaire, 13 February 2015 - 07:55 AM.

[C-Dawg]

When you talk about weird things happening, do you mean that you see strange tiles when a boss explodes?  Or at some other time?

 

RE: Hiding on edge of screen

 

So enemy projectiles generated by the Zelda Classic engine die when they reach the edge of the screen.  The player can hide there.  I can fix this, but it means abandoning entirely any projectiles made by the engine.  This would be reasonable to do, in my opinion, only if I wanted to totally abandon LOZ enemies entirely and script EVERY enemy in the game from scratch.  That might be something I do, but not at the moment. 

 

It's not as bad as I'm making it sound, really.  With the ability to assign scripts to ffcs using other scripts, I can do a pretty good approximation of instantiating different enemy objects.  I could probably code up a master "enemy module" and then have inputs for tiles, movement patterns, projectiles, etc, all the way ZClassic does it already.  The tedious work would be placing the script in every single room, but it's not really difficult to do, just time consuming.

 

Come to think of it, this would also allow me to make the ice_beam script far more impressive.  Like, really mimic the way it worked in Metroid.

 

Thinking out loud here; what would a totally custom enemy_module look like?  Im envisioning something more efficient but less user friendly than Ghost.zh, where all I do is assign an FFC combo on the screen and plug in the inputs, and the code does everything else. Could I make a variety of enemies by passing them no more than 8 variables?  (That's all I'm allowed.)  It might actually be a good exercise.  Or perhaps I just hard code a bunch of enemy types, like I do with the Corridor enemies, and then have a master FFC that grabs and assigns FFCs to be the appropriate enemies.

Edited by C-Dawg, 13 February 2015 - 11:34 AM.

[newstarshipsmell]

Last time I checked (last or 2nd-to-last demo) the Life Tank 1+1=3 bug was still present. Is that on your to-do list still?

Also, hopefully I can play all the way through on one demo this weekend - I keep restarting on new demos without making it much farther than Cancer/Gemini, because I wanted to play through without swapping and see if those corridors still re-open on a single-demo-playthrough. I don't think that which corridors you've finished before swapping quest files has anything to do with the bug - since I had corridors reopening that I hadn't beaten when I did the last swap, and corridors I beat with previous demo(s) that remained closed.

RE: Screen edge
Not discouraging you from "fixing" it so stuff doesn't die like that, but it's probably only going to irritate the non-ZC crowd. Those of us who've played quests know it's a limitation of the engine, and not poor design on your part. For the most part, it's not really an issue. Obviously you can't employ it on any of the labyrinth bosses, since they all lock you inside the room, preventing you from reaching any safe edges. So it's really only problematic on corridors/corridor bosses, where you have access to the full screen. And I haven't sought to exploit it on all the bosses - it just stood out as an obvious strategy on the boss I complained about, due to how his movements/attacks are arranged. It's probably not as problematic on most of the other corridor bosses. I'll keep an eye on that this playthrough as well.

[C-Dawg]

Yeah, originally I fixed this problem by making the play area slightly smaller.  But someone -- you -- complained that this meant you couldn't shoot enemies or grab items on the far side of the screen.   Not that I blame you, I think it's a legit concern and it feels better with the screen big, but this has given rise to the problem we now face.

 

EDIT: Fixed the potion bug, thanks for reminding me.

 

Also fixed cutscenes up through Leo and redesigned the way the scenes are handled to avoid some hijinks I was using before with scrolling warps.  Safer now.

 

Fixed Energy Dynamos and Repair Modules.  Level 3 is no longer crappy, level 1 Repair is now better.

 

EDIT2: I believe I finally caught and fixed the corridor bug.  One of the Libra corridors was running "Corridor_Clear" instead of "Corridor_Check" which means it was resetting all of the corridors.  Finally!  It should all work now.  I hope.

Edited by C-Dawg, 15 February 2015 - 07:24 PM.