899 replies to this topic

[newstarshipsmell]

About the subscreen, you can use scripting to enable L/R buttons to switch quickly the weapons, even Ex1/Ex2 for the A button. I see that in another scripted quests.

Sure is.

Does it cycle through the items the same way it does on the subscreen? Because pressing L only cycles through the items on the same row as the current item (pressing R at the end of a row wraps to the beginning of the other row.)

And with two selectable buttons, well... I'd just find that confusing. Trying to switch weapons on the main screen with stuff trying to kill me seems inferior to switching to a subscreen where I can pick what I want, without getting attacked. I just find the second-long scroll in and out of the menu to be obnoxiously long.
Plus, I've already got F1, F6, F12, F11 and I mapped to buttons (with Joy2Key) so I've pretty much run out of buttons to assign things. Sure, I could clear them and reach for my keyboard... but it would be easier to just use the subscreen, but have it load faster.

Demo 451

Aquarius 2A: There's no enemies on this screen anymore.

Scorpio 24: One of the enemies on this screen (not sure which) dropped a Life Tank. Intentional random drop?

Aries 71: I would suggest perhaps making some of the destructible holes in the pillars 2 tiles high instead of one, so that you aren't required to chain three pixel-perfect jumps in a row to reach the upper-left ledge. This room only took me a few attempts on the last couple playthroughs, since the collision code revisions, but on this playthrough, it took me nearly fifty tries, and got really tedious. I'm practicing the jumps afterwards (took away my High Jump) both on my gamepad and keyboard, and not improving much/still mostly bouncing off the pillar above or walking off the edge without jumping, so I can only assume the pixel-precision required is as much due to chance as skill, and that I just got lucky on the previous playthroughs.

Is anyone else having this much trouble with this room, or am I just playing badly/with a bad controller/keyboard?

How does the player handle for others (compared to me?) Using my keyboard, and pecking the arrow keys as briefly as possible, my sprite usually inches left/right 1-2 pixels, usually 2. When I tap left/right on my D-pad, I move 3-5 pixels, usually 3 or 4. Is that my shitty gamepad's fault, or does the engine just handle less precisely with controller input vs. keyboard? I'm wondering if the engine just isn't getting my jump signals in time via the controller, and that's why I keep running off the edges when I'm trying to time it to jump at the corner. But I also tried practicing on this room with my keyboard, and I'm still falling most of the time.

[Air Luigi]

Then, I remember that this game used L to jump. But I suppose that Ex3/Ex4 could be usable for shortcuts purposes anyway.

 

You can still use the subscreen anyway, the shortcuts are better than nothing, I suppose xd I don't know how hard can be "tweaking" the subscreen.

Edited by Air Luigi, 09 March 2015 - 08:53 PM.

[ShadowTiger]

Mr. Starshipsmell et al, may I kindly direct you to this page here for an analysis of how the subscreen works. Not that you don't necessarily know; I have no idea what you know or not. But it's a bit bizarre in its construction, and it likely always will be considering how selection actually works. Ctrl-F for "Current Item - The" exactly as it appears within the quotation marks there.

Each item has an Up/Down/Left/Right space for a number which corresponds to the ID of the individual element on the subscreen. It begs the question, what if your items are arranged in a circle? What if you're missing an item that would cause the wrap-around in a rectangular item selection grid to go awry? What if one of the items' ID numbers isn't properly set in one of those up/down/left/right spaces? How would you track it down?

It's not an easy thing by any means, I'm afraid! It probably isn't as difficult as scripting an entirely new NPC type yourself, but I'd wager it's somewhat up there in difficulty.

So yes, while we do have L and R as useful buttons that are normally used for item selection, the four Ex buttons do nothing at this moment, it seems. Those would be such lovely candidates for switching items.

[newstarshipsmell]

Mr. Starshipsmell et al, may I kindly direct you to this page here for an analysis of how the subscreen works. Not that you don't necessarily know; I have no idea what you know or not. But it's a bit bizarre in its construction, and it likely always will be considering how selection actually works. Ctrl-F for "Current Item - The" exactly as it appears within the quotation marks there.

Each item has an Up/Down/Left/Right space for a number which corresponds to the ID of the individual element on the subscreen. It begs the question, what if your items are arranged in a circle? What if you're missing an item that would cause the wrap-around in a rectangular item selection grid to go awry? What if one of the items' ID numbers isn't properly set in one of those up/down/left/right spaces? How would you track it down?

It's not an easy thing by any means, I'm afraid! It probably isn't as difficult as scripting an entirely new NPC type yourself, but I'd wager it's somewhat up there in difficulty.

So yes, while we do have L and R as useful buttons that are normally used for item selection, the four Ex buttons do nothing at this moment, it seems. Those would be such lovely candidates for switching items.

Thanks for the link; I know very little about ZQ/ZC beyond what I've inferred playing in the latter and messing around a bit in the former, and things I've picked up reading threads here and there. I knew nothing about how the subscreen works, e.g. what the quest author can and cannot do with it. I asked C-Dawg to tweak it, back in January I think, and he tried, and found my suggestions just made it buggier than before, so I assumed he was running up against limitations of what he could do, and dropped it. It isn't mission critical, after all, if what we have works well enough.

And I agree - adding Ex1-4 as A and B item L/R toggles would be helpful. After all, if I don't want to use them, all I have to do is clear the assignments (so I don't inadvertently trigger them when pressing buttons I've remapped with J2K for something else.) Sadly, neither ZC nor J2K will accept right stick directions as "buttons" or I'd simply reassign the Ex buttons to it (and probably curse once in a while when it registers a diagonal and changes both at once.)

Non-ZC users will probably need this spelled out for them - since the Ex1-4 button configuration is on a separate menu from the other controller button configuration menu, vs. the keyboard configuration which combines them - and might end up confused without explicit instructions regarding it.
 

When I'm finally done, the goal here is to have a big ol' zip file with a shortcut that is the game icon and some subfolders for data, music, and the manual. The data folder would contain ZClassic and the quest file. The shortcut will, ideally, load up ZClassic with some blank save files for Zodiac already present. That should make it extremely user friendly.

Just a heads up - I experimented with preset saves like this just now. It seems the engine uses absolute paths to the .qst file locations, rather than relative to the zelda-w.exe file location. I unpacked 2.50.1 to \zc-2-50-1-win\Zelda Classic\ and copied the Zodiac demo to the \Zelda Classic\ folder, and another copy to \Zelda Classic\Quests\. I created three games and assigned one each to the original .qst file (in another folder), the copy in the main folder, and the copy in the Quests subfolder. I quit ZC, and cut/pasted the contents of \Zelda Classic\ into \zc-2-50-1-win\, deleted \Zelda Classic\, and launched ZC. The second and third games, linked to the .qst files in \Zelda Classic\ and \Zelda Classic\Quests\, that I moved up to \zc-2-50-1-win\ and \zc-2-50-1-win\Quests\, both generated missing quest file error messages when I attempted to play them, while the first one, linked to the original quest file, worked fine.

So I don't think it's possible to distribute it with preset game saves like you're suggesting, unless the player extracts the archive to an identical path/location as that which you used to create the game saves. Unless I'm showing my ignorance, and it's possible to use ZC command lines to preconfigure game saves and associated .qst file locations? Or perhaps you understood all this and were planning to ask for a hack around it?

[C-Dawg]

These are interesting ideas, and I'll add this data to list of stuff maybe to do.  A bit far down the road, though.

 

Anyway, it took ALL DAMN NIGHT but I got the freeze ray functioning happily with custom enemies.  Hitting one with the freeze ray will create an ice block regardless, but it will only freeze (and render the enemy helpless) if it has 20 HP or 50% of its max HP, whichever is less.

 

Now that I've finished the code, it'll be easy to move it along as I make more enemies.  Gemini tomorrow!

 

RE: Save files

 

Nope, I thought ZClassic looked for save files locally.  Well, that strategy won't work then.  I mean, I can still use the shortcut, I just can't pre-load save states.  I could send out a game with 1st.qst replaced with Zodiac, though, so that'd accomplish the same thing.  But this is months away still -- basically because I'm doing this custom enemy nonsense.

Edited by C-Dawg, 09 March 2015 - 11:46 PM.

[Gleeok]

For save files there's also a "-standalone" option. (I hope I got that right as I've never used it.) It was intended to launch zc directly into a single quest. Not sure if that's what you were after or not. I don't really know the details. I'm also not sure why absolute paths are still used. I'll have to look into it.

Also, the screen-scrolling speed issue isn't going to be a problem, but I'm just going to break backwards compatibility with 2.5 when I start adding in more engine options so I'm waiting until 2.5 gets branched at the same time open sourced.

Zodiac: The new screens look great. I don't have much time to play with it right now but I'll get to it.

[C-Dawg]

Gleeok, check it out.  If you haven't played since 2008, you're in for a treat.  I update every few days, and each time we're talking half a dozen new enemies / new functionality / etc.  The effect of these changes over a long period time should (hopefully) blow your socks off.

 

New update.  Custom enemies designed an implemented through the battle with Fanbot and first time into Leo.  Phew!  I'm about one-fourth or so of the way through implementing custom enemies to replace most TLOZ enemies.  Tomorrow: onward to Leo! Mechs and soilders ahoy.

[newstarshipsmell]

New update.  Custom enemies designed an implemented through the battle with Fanbot and first time into Leo.  Phew!  I'm about one-fourth or so of the way through implementing custom enemies to replace most TLOZ enemies.  Tomorrow: onward to Leo! Mechs and soilders ahoy.

Have you added any Chickionions yet?

[C-Dawg]

No, but that's a fun option as a throw back.  I don't think I will add them to the custom enemy roster, but they might be present in another, more secret form somewhere.  (Hint: Remember the optional ending in Super Metroid?)

[newstarshipsmell]

No, but that's a fun option as a throw back.  I don't think I will add them to the custom enemy roster, but they might be present in another, more secret form somewhere.  (Hint: Remember the optional ending in Super Metroid?)

You could hide a nest of eggs somewhere, and have repeated strikes with the Taurus Torch hatch them (or its charged shot, if appropriate. I haven't seen what it does yet.)

[C-Dawg]

Charged Taurus shot is a slow moving fireball that destroys icicles. It won't be hatching any eggs.

[newstarshipsmell]

Demo 452

Scorpio: It seems like the hopping custom enemies do not apply damage to you while you're inside the sandfalls. They do normally, and everything else seems to damage you inside them.

The red turtles are dropping Life Tanks randomly. Are you adding LTs as random drops to some enemies then? Or is this a bug?

[C-Dawg]

The larger and more powerful labyrinth enemies are set to drop a better item set, including a 1% chance of a tank.  I'm toying around with it.

 

When you say Red Turtles, are you talking about the floating enemies in the Aries Zone?  Those were not intended to have that itemset.  Also, are you finding the custom enemy hit points and damage to be too much, too little, or about right?

[newstarshipsmell]

The larger and more powerful labyrinth enemies are set to drop a better item set, including a 1% chance of a tank.  I'm toying around with it.
 
When you say Red Turtles, are you talking about the floating enemies in the Aries Zone?  Those were not intended to have that itemset.  Also, are you finding the custom enemy hit points and damage to be too much, too little, or about right?

No, I meant the spiked enemies in Scorpio, that jump and fly towards you on the same row.

The Scorpio cactii and Aries sideways-moving Metroidish enemies have tedious levels of HP. The rest seem good. I didn't play very far into Cancer last demo, and have started over (I started playing DoY in the same copy of ZC and then read the warning about using a solo copy for it, so I nuked the whole thing to avoid potentially reporting buggy behavior in Zodiac resulting from that...)

The hallway above the bomb guardian scales up in difficulty rather abruptly, and I die there a lot. Too many enemies and no way to dodge them enough and live, without a helping of luck. One problem with the new custom enemies is how some of them are movement-restricted by room layout, and random spawning sometimes puts them in inconvenient places. So it becomes easier to simply scroll the room back and forth until they spawn in an arrangement that's doable, which is kind of a non-fun way to play. Same thing happens in spots in Aries, when those sideways fliers spawn bunched up near where you enter - it's easier to simply backtrack and return until they spawn out of the way, or clear enough to pass them by. I was mulling over some sort of suggestion about refining the spawning code so they spread out more evenly, but I'm not sure how you'd code that, efficiently, at least. And those droppers in the two rooms right of the missile boss are still all spawning on top of each other, and in the same spot, in the newest demo. They don't do that anywhere else.

Remember that Aries entrance warp bug I mentioned? I'm able to reliably recreate it now:
Save in Aquarius, resume from AQ08.
Travel to AQ36, warp to AR77.
Warp from AR77 to AQ36.
AQ36 Aries entrance is now deactivated, and will not work until you F6/Continue from AQ36 (or Save/Retry and resume from AQ08.)

F6/Continue from AQ36.
Warp from AQ36 to AR77.
Warp from AR77 to AQ36.
AQ36 Aries entrance is now deactivated, and will not work until you F6/Continue from AQ36 (or Save/Retry and resume from AQ08.)

Save in Aries, resume from AR77.
Warp from AR77 to AQ36.
F6/Continue from AQ36.
Warp from AQ36 to AR77.
Warp from AR77 to AQ36.
AQ36 Aries entrance is now deactivated, and will not work until you F6/Continue from AQ36 (or Save/Retry and resume from AQ08/AR77.)

The above doesn't consider warping to another area of the Labyrinth and warping back, nor seeing if any similar bugs occur at any other Labyrinth area entrances - I don't have the High Jump yet so the only one I could reach without cheatwarping is the first Scorpio entrance. I was going to fool with this some more and see if it happens elsewhere, or warping to another area and back restores the Aries entrance, but... figured I may as well mention it now, if it's something easy to identify/fix on your end.
ETA: I have only seen this particular entrance bug like this in the past.

Edited by newstarshipsmell, 11 March 2015 - 09:30 PM.

[Air Luigi]

Random spawn is the easier and quicker way to place the enemies on ZC. But obviously, in a side view quest like this, random spawn doesn't work very well compared to over view... It's possible to use enemy flags to set the specific position of the enemies in every screen, but that would take a ton more of work. But I think that is the only way that Zodiac can feel totally polished in the end (at least, the most problematic screens could have a specific enemy position). 

Edited by Air Luigi, 11 March 2015 - 11:40 PM.