A question about Solaris

[John Russell Ernest]

Hi, my name's John and I'm new here. I have been a fan of the Atari 2600 since my childhood let's just say for the sake of argument I was playing Yars' Revenge and Space Invaders before I could talk. One of my favorite games of all time though has been Solaris, for several reasons of which I won't ramble on about unless you'd like to ask.

 

Anyway, I would like to pose a question that has troubled me for some time.

 

Is it theoretically possible to beat Solaris without the loss of human life? (i.e. no planets have been destroyed by the Zylons)

 

Quoting from one of two walkthroughs I've found on the game at http://www.gamefaqs....laris/faqs/8386:

 

"**Q11: Automatic Red Zone!! Nasty, nasty, NASTY!!! I've never managed to

make it through here. The south exit is where you want to go."

The other walkthrough I've found was here (http://skintigh.trip...ri/solaris.html):

 

"Here is the rest of the sequence and map to win. The sequence is the only way I know how to win, but it is kind of disturbing for an atari game... Maybe I played wrong... You'll see what I mean."

 

Yep, I know what you mean... and I have to ask the question, is it actually possible to beat Solaris while sparing innocent life, or does the game impose an inevitability of loss of human life by design?

 

To answer this question of course I would need to know more about the game's inner workings. It's a 16k rom I know that. I am new to 6502 assembly language programming and am starting to do some research any help would be appreciated as far as resources are concerned. I have done some X86 assembly in the past. My theory on approaching this answer is to decompile the code and look at the functions happening from the beginning of the game. I do know from playing the game many times I at least know the maps and starting positions of enemies are static, the movements of the enemies on the map are possibly static as well but I'm not entirely sure without looking at the code, seeing how timing occurs, etc, and essentially coming up with a number on how much time I need before each planet dies per quadrant, and which enemies to kill and which to avoid to calculate the optimal path.

 

If it is possible to beat the game without losing any planets, then the challenge is accepted. If not, well then I can at least appreciate it for what it is and have some closure on the matter. This would be a fun exercise in learning 6502 programming either way. So, what's the best decompiler to use? What have you found to be the best resources in learning 6502? etc.

Edited April 16, 2012 by John Russell Ernest

[+SpiceWare]

There's a partially commented disassembly available at MiniDig. It's at the bottom of the disassemblies page, in unfinished.zip

Edited April 16, 2012 by SpiceWare

[Bakasama]

Is it theoretically possible to beat Solaris without the loss of human life? (i.e. no planets have been destroyed by the Zylons)

 

I think it is. Although, my personal best was maybe nine allied planets saved.

 

I should also note that Solaris had some annoying bugs that could cost you a planet or two. For example, in the red sector with the allied planet on the upper right hand corner would sometimes get destroyed even you destroy all the fleets that threaten it. I mean I would destroy all the fleets, leave, come back a little later and find the planet gone and the sector's a red zone.

[John Russell Ernest]

There's a partially commented disassembly available at MiniDig. It's at the bottom of the disassemblies page, in unfinished.zip

 

Oh wow thank you very much! Even cooler that there's an actual qotile.net website in existence lol.

[John Russell Ernest]

Is it theoretically possible to beat Solaris without the loss of human life? (i.e. no planets have been destroyed by the Zylons)

 

I think it is. Although, my personal best was maybe nine allied planets saved.

 

I should also note that Solaris had some annoying bugs that could cost you a planet or two. For example, in the red sector with the allied planet on the upper right hand corner would sometimes get destroyed even you destroy all the fleets that threaten it. I mean I would destroy all the fleets, leave, come back a little later and find the planet gone and the sector's a red zone.

 

I've wondered for a long time if these are actually bugs in the game or if it's by design. Seems like all signs point to bugs though. If it IS possible to beat the game though with saving all the planets I'd have to say this is one of the most intriguing games I've ever played (and in 16k of ASM code at that) I'm glad to have come across it when I was a kid. I didn't get a chance to play it again until emulation came around so I've been playing it on and off through the years trying to beat it. They just don't make games this fun anymore with a pure mix of fast-paced strategy and raw action in a space shooter, it's all formulaic and industrialized these days to guide gamers on an easy path to win but that's a whole separate discussion. I've thought for a long time about doing a remake in a 3D engine as well but even that's kind of iffy because the real challenge actually comes from not being able to kill or see your enemy until it's right in your face which was obviously due to a hardware limitation at the time but it worked out favorably.

[Bakasama]

There was another bugged sector in the second part of the game. I recall it was a purple colored map and it had three minefields at the bottom of the map. In that one, I would destroy the fleets but not the minefields, leave to the right and save the planet there and comeback to the other map and the allied planet would be gone. As strange as this sounds, if I cleared the minefields as well as the fleets before I left the map, the planet is still there.

 

There is a tip I find useful, use a second joystick. That's because you can switch to the map while you're docked at a base, the game is paused. You can use this to save time and move faster.

[roland p]

Have you tried to contact its programmer, Doug Neubauer? He kindly replies at emails.

[Bakasama]

Here's two Solaris speedrun videos. While the player doesn't go to every sector, I suppose you can say he saves most of the the planets by finishing the game early.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JLdalkHLW0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXeH1Oo13L8

 

Since you like Solaris so much, you could try The Last Starfighter, the prototype version of Solaris.

Edited April 17, 2012 by Bakasama

[John Russell Ernest]

Have you tried to contact its programmer, Doug Neubauer? He kindly replies at emails.

 

I should definitely contact him.

[John Russell Ernest]

Here's two Solaris speedrun videos. While the player doesn't go to every sector, I suppose you can say he saves most of the the planets by finishing the game early.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JLdalkHLW0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXeH1Oo13L8

 

Since you like Solaris so much, you could try The Last Starfighter, the prototype version of Solaris.

 

I beat the game the other night following the map, I had to use some Save States so I want to go back and practice my skill to get through the game without the usage of Save States.

http://skintigh.tripod.com/atari/solaris.html

 

I also found out a little trick if it's not already known. You don't have to kill the Fed Planets in Q6 and Q12. Wait until an enemy ship attacks the planet, then save the planet. Once done you can pass through without having to destroy it. Be warned in Q13 if you use the same trick to destroy the 2 Zylon planets, you'll have to kill the Fed Planet on the way back. I don't have an answer for Q15 though, it appears as though it's already Red Zoned by the time you come into it. I don't know if this is intended by design and that's what I hope to find out.

[John Russell Ernest]

Well I sent an email to Doug a couple of days back but no response back, hopefully it didn't get lost in "email hell" lol.

Edited April 20, 2012 by John Russell Ernest

[John Russell Ernest]

Made an infographic for anyone who wants it.

 

[+Propane13]

I think this is a great question.

So, in total, which quadrants have the problem? Just Q15?

 

-John

[John Russell Ernest]

I think this is a great question.

So, in total, which quadrants have the problem? Just Q15?

 

-John

 

I just got an email back from Doug.

Unfortunately Q15 is an automatic red zone by design so there is no possibility of saving all planets.

You can actually skip having to kill the Fed Planet in Q12 by waiting until it's attacked and then passing through so for me it was all down to Q15.

So close but so far away.

Also he said Atari holds the copyright to the game so I'd have to ask them for permission, I don't see that happening in this lifetime.

I'd still love to finish learning 6502 and interpret the disassembly. I think the game is a marvel of creation for a 16kb rom (you don't see true coding skill like that these days) and I've always wanted to know 6502 for Atari/NES because I feel it will make me a better programmer plus I love to see how things work and have evolved over the years. People I see in the business world are very high level and have forgotten the mechanics of how computers actually work. Everything is all abstracted in APIs and design patterns and dependency injection frameworks, but that's a different discussion. In fact on a major banking project I just conquered the only way anyone on my team was going to get the job done was by me getting into Reflector Pro and reverse engineering the code to figure out what this crazy 3rd party CMS system was doing behind the scenes of its WCF (C# web service) layers.

 

Maybe down the road I could make a game that's abstractly similar in nature in Unity 3D or another engine but with the possibility of sparing all planets (I want to make this tough enough to be a near impossibility but still humanly possible), more quadrants, different enemies, side scrolling and first person parts, etc. I've thrown around a few ideas like having a timer that tells you how long until the next planet in sequence dies I could keep the map paths for enemies statically defined. I could go on a laundry list of things. Anyway, great to have some closure on this age old question anyway.

[Jan Hermanns]

...

So, what's the best decompiler to use? What have you found to be the best resources in learning 6502? etc.

 

I think the easiest way is to use the stella debugger. It disassembles automatically and you can set breakpoints and breakconditions.

[John Russell Ernest]

...

So, what's the best decompiler to use? What have you found to be the best resources in learning 6502? etc.

 

I think the easiest way is to use the stella debugger. It disassembles automatically and you can set breakpoints and breakconditions.

 

I'm going to give that a go too thanks for the tip.

[gilbahat]

Hi, my name's John and I'm new here. I have been a fan of the Atari 2600 since my childhood let's just say for the sake of argument I was playing Yars' Revenge and Space Invaders before I could talk. One of my favorite games of all time though has been Solaris, for several reasons of which I won't ramble on about unless you'd like to ask.

 

Anyway, I would like to pose a question that has troubled me for some time.

 

Is it theoretically possible to beat Solaris without the loss of human life? (i.e. no planets have been destroyed by the Zylons)

 

Quoting from one of two walkthroughs I've found on the game at http://www.gamefaqs....laris/faqs/8386:

 

"**Q11: Automatic Red Zone!! Nasty, nasty, NASTY!!! I've never managed to

make it through here. The south exit is where you want to go."

The other walkthrough I've found was here (http://skintigh.trip...ri/solaris.html):

 

"Here is the rest of the sequence and map to win. The sequence is the only way I know how to win, but it is kind of disturbing for an atari game... Maybe I played wrong... You'll see what I mean."

 

Yep, I know what you mean... and I have to ask the question, is it actually possible to beat Solaris while sparing innocent life, or does the game impose an inevitability of loss of human life by design?

 

aside from Q15, you can finish the game without having to kill any fed planet. as noted above, if you beat an enemy while it's attacking a fed planet, you can then pass through it. that's generally not considered cheating. however (and this probably is a bug/cheating), even if you beat an unrelated enemy, you can still pass through a fed planet (or a wormhole, or another enemy). this is demonstrated in my speed run above.

 

if you 'tunnel through' enemies and wormholes, you can finish the game without ever having been to Q15, so you could say that the fed planet there is saved

 

the reason the fed planet is destroyed is more of a misdesign than a bug. the only way to really save a fed planet is to clean the map entirely of enemies (not sure, perhaps planets don't count). this way, they stick forever. otherwise, they will be gone.

 

here's another funny solaris curio for you to try: on the first map, go to the sector right next to the mechanoids and engage it. there's nothing there alright. go back to the tactical map and wait for the jump timer to go down to about 7 or 6. then, leave the tactical map and go back to space view. double surprise

 

* the reason 'this' appeared in the first place is that the mechanoids are trying to move, and you're blocking their path.

* the reason 'this' behaves as it does is due to quadrant ranking. every quadrant has a hardness ranking - 1,2,3 or 5. in quadrants having corridors or zylon planets, this directly translates to the number of space cadets or corridor gates. 'this' doesn't actually exist in 1-ranked quadrants (of which there are only 2... Q1 and Q3)

[gilbahat]

just for kicks, I have tried to get into Q15 'the wrong way', hoping to thwart timing and get to rescue a fed planet. no go.

[+FujiSkunk]

If Q15 is a red sector from the get-go, you really haven't lost any feds, have you? Certainly none you could have otherwise saved. I'd say that still allows for a "perfect" game.

Edited May 22, 2012 by FujiSkunk

[gilbahat]

If you played 'the last starfighter' (the prototype precursor), a quadrant does not turn into a red zone if the fed planet is destroyed. this suggests (without looking at the code) that Q15 is designated to be such a quadrant.

 

unrelated but speaking of, there are also other interesting concepts in the prototype that never made it to the real game:

* a quadrant with invisible combat groups. they appear until you engage one.

* wormholes that can redirect you to arbitary locations (not just corners). there's a bug in the game where a wormhole redirects to itself, causing an endless loop.

* you can engage an enemy attacking a fed planet in-space or on ground

* minefields behave very differently (short mine sequence and then a standard battlegroup)

* zylon planets don't add lives

* finishing a quadrant adds 2 lives (still max 4 reserve)

* there are enemies inside corridors (it's a hard mess)

* no cobra ship battlegroups. they are, however, still present in the game as per their original designation from the manual.

 

speaking of enemies inside corridors, there is a way to recreate this in solaris per se.

[littleman jack]

Great thread. I need to get Solaris back in my VCS. Thanks for the map.

[Statichamster]

When I was a kid Solaris was one of my favourite games. I always wanted to find Solaris and finish it.... but I never did. I never even got to the one way gate in Sector 8.

 

I always come back to this through various emulators and I plan to finish it. I remember hand drawing my first one on graph paper. Now I have actual screen shots. I noticed that if you keep heading south they go in sequence....1,2,3,8,7,4 then back to 1; so I stacked these in a column. If I placed Sector 5 west of 1.. then 5 and six form their own column even though they are seperated by a great distance (6 is connected to 8 through its east gate). After you enter sector 9 those all form one huge column if you keep heading south...9, 16, 14, 12, 10, 13, 15, 11 then 9 again. So I put them into these 3 columns then marked the paired gates with small case letters.

 

My current map has no numbered sectors. I took the solution in this thread and simplified and paired the directions with the gate letter (in small case) to make it easier to follow. If you want to take a look at the map I will try and use to finish this game you're welcome to it . I included it in a PDF Solaris Map.pdf.

 

Wish me luck and thank you for all your help!!

[Statichamster]

Actually I find that I'm changing the solution....

 

In quadrant 5 I go S instead of N through the Corridor (1 Key). I engage the Kogalon Space Pirates but use the Second Player joystick to exit to the Galactic Scanner and I do not fight them. This keeps them in place. When the Attack Group attacks the Federation Planet run to defend it; after I clear the ground forces I get the 3 men off the Zylon Planet. Finally I wait for the Pirates i left alive to attack the Planet and then defend it again, passing out. This leaves the world intact and I still get the free man.

[Statichamster]

I've been playing A LOT and have only been able to get to the beginning of PART 2 of the solution. My original map has been expanded to a whole solution book that I do not intend to publish and have just made for fun. I'm still trying to edit the grammatical errors out of it but I thought I would provide it here before I finish it as it looks like completing this game could take a LONG time. I'd like to know what people think of it, if you download it and use it let me know.

Solaris Solution.pdf

[KevinMos3]

This is a little off topic, but I've always wondered what the label art might have looked like if they hadn't just recycled the Star Raiders art in black and white.