difference in wall growth rate?

Stuck at a level? Need help with R'n'D or anything R'n'D related? Post here!

Moderators: Flumminator, Zomis

filbo
Posts: 647
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:06 am

difference in wall growth rate?

Post by filbo »

levels/Emerald Mine Club/emc_emc_mine_1/54 seems impossible -- you're given many dynamites, but the holes they make in the growing walls heal just as fast as you can move -- it's impossible to make a hole you can actually traverse.

Is this a difference in the RnD EMC engine vs. original EMC?
emc_emc_mine_1-54.png
emc_emc_mine_1-54.png (26.25 KiB) Viewed 17179 times
User avatar
Holger
Site Admin
Posts: 4073
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2004 4:13 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: difference in wall growth rate?

Post by Holger »

This is a good question... it might indeed be a timing issue or something like that.

Have you tried to play this level with the original EMC engine (by playing that EMC disk in an Amiga emulator)?

You can find the original disk here: http://emeraldmines.net/default.asp?act ... ads&id=333

I wonder if this level is solvable with the original game engine, and if so, how the R'n'D EMC engine might differ...
filbo
Posts: 647
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:06 am

Re: difference in wall growth rate?

Post by filbo »

I haven't had an Amiga for a couple of decades, and have never fired up an emulator for it... so yeah, could probably try that, but many steps to get there.
filbo
Posts: 647
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:06 am

Re: difference in wall growth rate?

Post by filbo »

Well, now I've spent half an hour astonishing myself at how horribly bad fs-uae is...

When I first downloaded it (from ubuntu repo), I just ran it. It got into a weird state and trashed the fonts on mate-terminal as well as the whole window manager; which I haven't yet gotten out of. Had to ssh in from another machine to kill it.

Figured out how to build a config file, downloaded an AmigaOS 1.3 ROM with the right sha1sum, got it to boot up the EMC01 disk. Woo!

But, well, it looks nice but the only thing I could get the UI to do was go up and down between the first two lines. F12 brings up an utterly opaque fs-uae UI which lets me make various changes to input devices, the only result of which is that now the up/down arrows don't even move between the first two lines. Had to ssh in to kill it again since fs-uae, if it does have an 'exit' command, is even more obscure than vi times emacs.

Grump.
User avatar
Holger
Site Admin
Posts: 4073
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2004 4:13 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: difference in wall growth rate?

Post by Holger »

OMG, this really sounds horrible! I really did not want to throw you into such a nightmare! :-o

I have an older version of UAE working nearly perfectly fine on my Linux workstation -- it's an old version from the Ubuntu 12.04 repository that is called "E-UAE", if I remember right. I just installed it using "apt-get" and added my existing "~/.uaerc" config file and some Kickstart 1.3 ROM file. (The only thing I avoid to do is running it in fullscreen mode, as it scrambles my windows on the desktop -- I think it is still build with SDL 1.2 which changes the X server's physical video resolution the "hard way", while newer (SDL 2.0 based) versions probably use "desktop fullscreen" which simply scales the window to the current screen resolution, not touching the physical screen resolution, just like R'n'D does fullscreen mode since version 4.)

E-UAE has a nice user interface which easily lets you change everything that is needed... I heard that FS-UAE would be an improved successor to E-UAE, but what you wrote does not sound like this is really the case. Oh well... :-/

I will throw that EMC disk into E-UAE and have a look at it...
filbo
Posts: 647
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:06 am

Re: difference in wall growth rate?

Post by filbo »

I've never used UAE before so I have no such thing as 'my existing .uaerc'. The docs were not super helpful on getting started.

I had an A1000 the 1st or 2nd day of availability, and used it for years, then moved on; this was my 1st time ever using Amiga emulation.
User avatar
Holger
Site Admin
Posts: 4073
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2004 4:13 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: difference in wall growth rate?

Post by Holger »

I've never used UAE before so I have no such thing as 'my existing .uaerc'.
Oops, yes, this comment wasn't too helpful for you... I have no idea how I got my initial ".uaerc" file, but I think I just started the program for the first time, configured it using the GUI and saved the changes to the config file (which I then just copied over to any further instance of UAE).

It sounds that this FS-UAE does not have a working (or useful) GUI, or that it just refused to work for you... Does not sound like an improvement over E-UAE. Oh well... :-(
I had an A1000 the 1st or 2nd day of availability,
Wow, I wished I also had it that early when it came out in 1985, but I had to wait for the A500 in 1987 before I could afford it. After writing "Mirror Magic" (which was released as "Mindbender" in 1989), I was able to upgrade to an A2000. :-)
and used it for years, then moved on;
To the PC or to another Amiga model? Just curious... :-)
this was my 1st time ever using Amiga emulation.
... and a pretty bad start, apparently. :-(

I use UAE on Linux since it was usable (in the late 90's, I think) to be able to edit the R'n'D graphics in Deluxe Paint IV (which I still did on a real A2000 before, transferring every changed image from the Amiga to my Linux box over a null-modem cable using terminal software, so being able to stay in my Linux environment and still use Amiga graphics software was a big improvement).

Nowadays I mostly use UAE for testing original EMC disks and other Amiga disks (like "Deflektor" for the upcoming "Mirror Magic" engine), while I switched to "grafx2" for graphics editing some years ago. :)

BTW: Yesterday, I tried to run that "EMC Mine 1" level in UAE, but couldn't test it because of the "handicap" (being only able to play the very first level). Seems I have to extract the ADF disk image file, hack the handicap in the users file, repackage the ADF and then try again.. :-/
filbo
Posts: 647
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:06 am

Re: difference in wall growth rate?

Post by filbo »

A1000 was my 1st and last Amiga (eventually with a 120MB Seagate HD and 2MB 'RAMBO-ard' external memory!) After that I was working at SCO and had a series of x86 Xenix and Unix systems. Now mostly Ubuntu (kids have Chromebooks, couple of Macs, and some of the Ubuntu is actually Mint fwiw).

Open the ADF disk and just copy level 54 over level 0 :) It looked like there were 2 sets of level files in the hierarchy, so do that to both so you don't need to reason out which one it actually uses...
User avatar
Holger
Site Admin
Posts: 4073
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2004 4:13 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: difference in wall growth rate?

Post by Holger »

Open the ADF disk and just copy level 54 over level 0 :)
Ouch, of course that's indeed the most simple approach -- why didn't I think of it by myself?!?! :-o :-D

Just tried that, and had some "Input/Output error" problems when attempting to copy level 54 over level 0 on the mounted ADF file, resulting in the mount to change to read-only. :-o

But it worked to delete file "pla/0" and rename "pla/54" to "pla/0" -- apparently only modifying the AFFS file system's meta data (inode info) worked, while modifying real file data causes problems in the file system implementation. Strange...
It looked like there were 2 sets of level files in the hierarchy, so do that to both so you don't need to reason out which one it actually uses...
On my EMC disk, there are files in the "pla" directory (which are the level files) and files in the "his" directory (which are the high score files). But simply renaming "pla/54" to "pla/0" in fact did the job.

So I was now able to play this level with the original EMC engine in UAE. However, I don't see any way to remove the growing walls and pass them through the holes made by exploding dynamite before they close again!

So either there is a special trick to be used, or this level is not solvable. :-o
filbo
Posts: 647
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:06 am

Re: difference in wall growth rate?

Post by filbo »

Ah, if I'd looked inside the pla/* vs. his/* files I probably would have figured out they were 'high scores' :)

Um. I don't have that media handy right now: are his/* filled with anything interesting? In particular, does his/54 imply that they were able to solve it with their engine?

No tapes/*, are there...?
filbo
Posts: 647
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:06 am

Re: difference in wall growth rate?

Post by filbo »

So, I never went back to UAE and all that, but while playing a later level I discovered a simple trick which I carried back to this level: standing one away from the outer border of the level, place a dynamite to blow up the last 3 blocks of growing wall. While the fuse is burning, move to safe distance standing against the wall. Then you have enough time to run through the brief gap.

But this only works if there are 3 consecutive blocks of outer wall available; not if the growing walls are less than 3 blocks apart.

Using that and a 2nd small trick (blow holes in a horizontal wall above your head to drop emeralds through it) -- I am able to get within 7 emeralds of solving this level. But no closer.

Any ideas? Partial tape attached.
Attachments
emc_emc_mine_1-054.tape
emc_emc_mine_1 partial solution tape
(997 Bytes) Downloaded 459 times
User avatar
Holger
Site Admin
Posts: 4073
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2004 4:13 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: difference in wall growth rate?

Post by Holger »

Very good progression on this tricky level! :-)

Getting those emeralds using these two tricks seems simple enough! Now that I see it (and successfully tried it by myself), I cannot really understand why I never had this idea by myself! :-o :-D

I wonder if there is a similar simple trick for the remaining cases (growing walls being less than three blocks apart)! Cannot see such a trick for now, but then, I also did not see the trick described above, so maybe I just don't get it! :-o
User avatar
RAP
Posts: 317
Joined: Sat Jun 19, 2004 6:44 pm

Re: difference in wall growth rate?

Post by RAP »

Oh hey guys, yeah, I knew this trick on dynamiting the growing walls in a certain way that you can pass through it more or less, and was planning to make levels like this years ago. Yeah, it's solvable, for the purposes of solving the level faster, I used the tape system as a form of a save state. It's a pretty clever level in that you have to make certain growing walls grow to make the dynamite trick possible, which wasn't displayed in that partial tape unlike mine. Now that's ingenious! Here's the tape for the level I solved for you two:
054.tape
EMC Mine, level 54, definitely solvable; used quick saves on the tape to solve the level faster. The tape was made in version 4.0.0.0.
(1.23 KiB) Downloaded 494 times
User avatar
Holger
Site Admin
Posts: 4073
Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2004 4:13 pm
Location: Germany
Contact:

Re: difference in wall growth rate?

Post by Holger »

Hi Ryan, that's great! Same as before: Now that I see it... :-o :-D

Thanks a lot for helping out filbo and me with that tricky beast of a level! :-D
filbo
Posts: 647
Joined: Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:06 am

Re: difference in wall growth rate?

Post by filbo »

Cool, thanks!

That tape plays back with an older R&D binary, but not current 4.0.1.1. Last binary it works with is 4.0.0.2 built 2017-04-11; next one is 4.0.1.0 built 2017-09-16. Which narrows the problem down to about 42 commits :(
Post Reply