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 Post subject: An idea (may sound silly)
PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2003 1:26 pm 
Grizzled Veteran
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Joined: Mon Aug 12, 2002 8:06 pm
Posts: 116
The main problem with badlands is the unknown command set for the player.

My thought was, is it possible to 'Trojan' it, by maybe , for example, inserting a disc into such a player with frame display enabled, and sending the appropriate command to it.

I know it's not that simple, but surely someone out there can manage this

(My programming skills are limited to very basic C, so I don't think I can. Anyway, I have no player).


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Dec 12, 2003 9:54 pm 
DAPHNE Creator
DAPHNE Creator

Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2001 1:00 am
Posts: 2127
Location: Salt Lake City,Utah, USA
I don't think that the unknown command affects gameplay.

I think the real problem with badlands is the interrupt timing or the cpu core or something along those lines. And it's not really that big of a problem, it just causes all the scenes to overrun, but the game is definitely playable, in fact I've won the game :)

(one of the few that I have won)


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Dec 12, 2003 10:07 pm 
DAPHNE Team
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Joined: Thu Feb 08, 2001 1:00 am
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Location: Earth
I'm still in awe, Matt. Badlands is hard!


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sat Dec 13, 2003 8:45 pm 
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Yes, Badlands is tricky in terms of reactions etc.

The only problem I have is that shot lamp, should it really be on all the time, or just when the scene requires it.

Also, I was once told the unknown command does something to the playback speed to change the move windows, or randomise some gameplay component - is this actually true?


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2003 1:59 am 
DAPHNE Team
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Joined: Fri Jul 27, 2001 1:00 am
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I've only seen an original Badlands machine once (at CGE 2001), but I remember thinking at the time that it was broken, because the shot lamp was always on.

From the schematics and the behavior of the ROM as it accesses the shot lamp hardware, it seems pretty certain that this is the 'correct' behavior for the game.

All the shot lamp tells you is that you *can't* shoot again for a short period after each time you shoot.

I suspect they had the more logical purpose in mind of having it light when you are *supposed* to shoot, but this made the game too easy. It would also take the fun out of it -- you'd just be watching the lamp and 'twitch' when it flashed on, instead of watching the way cool Japanese western scenes on-screen. :)

As for the custom laserdisc player commands used by the game, I was told by Ruben (of LaserAce fame) that they are used for quickly skipping backward to repeat a section of a scene. This behavior has been implemented in Daphne, and I've seen it work during the flying axe and bat scenes.

However, there are still a few bytes sent to the player on startup and during the game that are not accounted for. They are most likely a non-issue for emulation (such as detecting if the custom ROM is installed, or verifying status), but they *might* perform some game-related timing feature that we haven't figured out yet. Therefore, the 'unsupported command' warning message is still displayed on startup.

-Warren.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Sun Dec 14, 2003 9:21 pm 
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Well, that makes sense - it does seem logical to light it up like that. Thanks.


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