doctorclu Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 Does the Touch Tablet work the same as Koala Pads or Magic Draw Tablets? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted December 14, 2015 Share Posted December 14, 2015 Does the Touch Tablet work the same as Koala Pads or Magic Draw Tablets? Not sure about the "Magic Draw Tablets", but the "Touch Tablet" works like the "Koala Pad" but has (unfortunately) an inverted Y-axis - so they are not fully compatible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRedEye Posted December 15, 2015 Share Posted December 15, 2015 Hi Aric. Great game, and welcome to AtariAge! Now, let's get your Corvus working. It would be helpful if you could provide as much detail as possible about the drive, interface, and any software you may have for it (diagnostics, utilities, etc.). Any and all info (model #s, serial #s) is helpful. -K Edit: Also, please describe the action of the ready light. Hi all, just a heads up that we're pretty busy in the office right now and it's not a great time to work on the Corvus, but we're committed to helping as best we can. I'll go through these diagnostic steps when we set it back up, but I'll warn you now that we had Curt Vendel on the phone trying to help diagnose this, so I think all the standard troubleshooting has already been covered. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 Hi all, just a heads up that we're pretty busy in the office right now and it's not a great time to work on the Corvus, but we're committed to helping as best we can. I'll go through these diagnostic steps when we set it back up, but I'll warn you now that we had Curt Vendel on the phone trying to help diagnose this, so I think all the standard troubleshooting has already been covered. Good to know that Curt is on this. So we can safely assume you have an Atari 800, the interface, and the utility disk as well as the drive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 Well earlier it was mentioned by AJW that he didn't know if the joystick ports were working on the computer, so I wanted to suggest trying all steps but with another computer. See if the results are the same. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 I'm getting the hang of this game. Still not entirely sure what constitutes a "Surround" of a Starbase. It seems to be once a surround situation takes place the amount of time that the Starbase can hold out is based on the amount of Zylon ships still around it. A small squadron can still destroy a Starbase eventually it would seem. But fun game. I have switched my "Star Commander - Class 1" (from original Star Raiders) under my profile picture to my current Star Raiders 2 rank. Yeh this is fun. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 (edited) I survived a Warrior level! Yep, lost the Earth and all but one starbase, but I made it!! Oh and I found a way to land the ship on a planet. Simply run out of energy. (picture attached). I would say I crashed, but the ship was still in one piece and it was all too graceful for a crash. Edited December 16, 2015 by doctorclu 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted December 16, 2015 Share Posted December 16, 2015 DrC, you are seriously in to this game 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_Mo Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 (edited) Love it! I loaded it onto my XE and played it there. Realize it's unfinished, and there would be tweaks, but since I don't know what such a final version would be like, here's the feedback I'd give on this version if I were asked to review it: CONTROLS The reticle doesn't move fast enough, so chasing it around the screen is frustrating Steering in Hyperspace is needlessly difficult. It doesn't feel right. Steering over planets is much too twitchy. The banking is too severe, and the objects jump around too much I understand the desire to to do Up is Up and Down is Down because of the reticle, but it leads to some weirdness because an old school Star Raiders player expects it to behave one way, and, it doesn't. And then if you Invert the controls it feels sorta okay in space combat mode and wrong over planets. I think the moving reticle is somewhat at odds with the airplane type flying. Player ship should not come out of hyperspace at a speed different from that which you had before entering it. This forces the player to constantly reach for the keyboard to adjust if they don't prefer the default velocity The 3D illusion is currently ruined by the fact that the enemy ships pop in really big and do not diminish to specks at longer range. It makes the space feel very teeny rather than vast. The 3D ships are cool but what's lost is the smoothness of the original enemy ship movement Why is there no pause? Where did the Manual Target Selector go? The sector maps and zooms are cool, but they're slow, so you waste precious seconds waiting for images to scale up and down. Speaking of waiting, while the history is neat, it keeps the player from actually playing for quite a while. Furthermore, there seem to be no way to even abort out of the game during this, so if you accidentally started a game in the wrong difficultly, you can't jump back out to the main menu for a good 15 seconds Edited December 17, 2015 by Big_Mo 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 (edited) Loving Big Mo's summary. Have to check on some of those. I played a Warrior mission tonight and managed to save the Earth. Lost all the star bases, and had one Zylon attack squadron left. Sub Space Radio was out so took a bit to find the last group. And in the last fight with only a few enemy left ran out of energy. Hmmm... maybe I should have self destructed and took them out too? Oh well, a few scattered Zylons. Earth was saved. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=- That is one thing I am liking about this game. Rather than being one ship against a fleet, you do have another objective. The Starbases are not the objective. You have the Zylon worlds and Earth. The starbases can fight and divert the zylon forces while you hit the Zylon planets. And as we have seen when trying to attack the starbases, they are not defenseless. Edited December 17, 2015 by doctorclu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_Mo Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 I played it some more. A few additional observations. I let the Zylons get to Earth and they destroyed it after a time. Heck they destroyed the entire solar system! Weirdly, the game didn't end with that cataclysm! Hitting the Zylon cities/factories on the planet is best done by shooting them them they are specks in the distance. They're actually harder to hit the closer you get due to the jumpiness of the screen, especially when banking Starbases can survive one hit, blow up on the second. If you hit the base once, then put or or leave it in docking position, it fires on your with the message ZYLON SWINE! Zylons can enter the system you're in. That never happened in the original game! One problem with the controls is that the reticle doesn't recenter if you stop steering. This makes it hard to "stabllize" your ship and end up with the targeting dead-ahead. You literally can't recenter your reticle in the crosshairs without actually steering towards it. It oughta have auto recentered after X seconds of no input. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Well IF the source can be got off the drive its on and its in the sort of closeness to this version then I'm sure the 'tweakers' will get down to business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 I played it some more. A few additional observations. I let the Zylons get to Earth and they destroyed it after a time. Heck they destroyed the entire solar system! Weirdly, the game didn't end with that cataclysm! That part was nice. At that point you got to AVENGE the Earth! Hitting the Zylon cities/factories on the planet is best done by shooting them them they are specks in the distance. They're actually harder to hit the closer you get due to the jumpiness of the screen, especially when banking It is true. When you get closer you get a unending stream of flack that block your shot. I have never hit a base straight on at that point. I have hit some in the forward view if they were at a angle to the left or right. Those straight forward I switch on the targeting computer briefly, it switches to aft view, and I get them just before they disappear off in the distance behind me. Again, more hittable as a dot. Starbases can survive one hit, blow up on the second. If you hit the base once, then put or or leave it in docking position, it fires on your with the message ZYLON SWINE! Fascinating. Zylons can enter the system you're in. That never happened in the original game! I think the only time that did happen was if you at a Starbase when it blew up. But I like this touch. One problem with the controls is that the reticle doesn't recenter if you stop steering. This makes it hard to "stabllize" your ship and end up with the targeting dead-ahead. You literally can't recenter your reticle in the crosshairs without actually steering towards it. It oughta have auto recentered after X seconds of no input. Yeh a centering command would be good once you get where you're going. If you have ever played Star Wars arcade the control scheme is using that it appears. I think this might work better for lasers than it would for photons. However the only time you really get s good deadlock center is when you are arriving in a combat sector. You can kinda line it up and hit a few as you approach them. That is to say I noticed this too and like a said, a centering command, or to be able to navigate with locked crosshairs would be a nice option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 it seems I need to play the game finally on my 800... (not XL ). Any PAL/NTSC differences spotted? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 it seems I need to play the game finally on my 800... (not XL ). Any PAL/NTSC differences spotted? Only issue found so far on a PAL system, is the Damage Control screen is not showing in GTIA mode. Verified the behaviour in Altira. P.S. - There is a pause. Just hit the space bar. Any joystick movement will unpause the game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_Mo Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 P.S. - There is a pause. Just hit the space bar. Any joystick movement will unpause the game. Ah, it's not on the Control Summary. Thanks! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinroh Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 (edited) Finally had time to beat the novice mode today. Just love Star Raiders II! Edited December 18, 2015 by Jinroh 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_Mo Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 So far I've not been able to successfully play anything but Novice because I find the hyperspace steering so maddening I want to throw the controller across the room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 You ever play "Master of the Lamps?" Hyperspace controls a lot like the Flying Carpet scene. Also somewhat like the warp bonus level in the Atari Jaguar "Tempest 2000" game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Koi8zRtcvDs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_Mo Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 I know what it plays like. I just find it too touchy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_Mo Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 Okay, I played it some more. I do like it, but if the source code is found and it gets polished up there are still some things which I think need fixing. While I've gotten used the hang of the hyperspace steering thing, what makes me crazy about it is that the controls get reversed on the vertical axis! Throughout the game pushing up makes the ship climb ad down makes it dive, chasing the reticle. Here, there's no reticle, and now up is dive and down is climb! it forced you to flip vertical orientation for a few seconds each time you hyperspace, which is a game control no-no. The way the starbases get destroyed makes it much harder to save them. There's no clear feedback to tell you when you've saved one after it;s been surrounded, so it's difficult to know when it's safe to jump away and deal with some other looming threat. I'm also not fond of the game starting with bases being destroyed or starting with a situation where a base is about to be destroyed and you really have little chance of saving it. If the self destruct doesn't have a tactical use, it ought to. I really dislike the absence of the Manual Target selector. It makes it impossible to pick which of two targets you want to zero in on, especially when two of them are circling you. The more I play, the more I'm convinced that the moving reticle tied to steering has some compatibility issues with to a game like this, which is based on a free-steering 3D model. When in Tracking mode and pinging between fore and aft views the fact that the reticle leads the steering becomes really annoying. Say you're in fore view and you push the reticle to the right edge of the screen pursuing a ship. well, when the view flips to aft the reticle remains in the same place on the screen, so you're now turning away from the target and your guns are aimed at the opposite side of the screen from where the target you were steering towards will likely appear. If the reticle popped back to center at the view change, maybe it would be less bothersome, because you wouldn't have to swing it all the way back across the screen. It really needs to recenter automatically after you let go of the stick, period. There's a general twitchiness to everything that I am sure is related to the frame rate. The original Star Raiders is mostly glass-smooth so it's very frustrating to see things jump around. I also feel like I miss a lot because of it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 While I've gotten used the hang of the hyperspace steering thing, what makes me crazy about it is that the controls get reversed on the vertical axis! Throughout the game pushing up makes the ship climb ad down makes it dive, chasing the reticle. Here, there's no reticle, and now up is dive and down is climb! it forced you to flip vertical orientation for a few seconds each time you hyperspace, which is a game control no-no. Loving the observations you're writing, it is helping me understand what I'm seeing as well. Yes, Hyperspace is one of those you have to adapt to on the fly. What makes this even more fun is in the Warrior and Commander missions you start to get the black holes which I think can tug at you while in hyperspace. At least that is what I'm wondering. The way the starbases get destroyed makes it much harder to save them. There's no clear feedback to tell you when you've saved one after it;s been surrounded, so it's difficult to know when it's safe to jump away and deal with some other looming threat. I'm also not fond of the game starting with bases being destroyed or starting with a situation where a base is about to be destroyed and you really have little chance of saving it. Amen. The way it SEEMS to go is once a surround situation takes place the Starbase takes damage from all enemies that approach the starbase from that point on. I have lost Starbases after clearing all surrounding enemies, another single group shows up, hangs around the Starbase, and is later lost. :/ Now what makes this really interesting is it is really hard to lock in on a moving group when they are traveling through space. I'm hoping to master that aspect so I can intercept them before the Starbases. If the self destruct doesn't have a tactical use, it ought to. I've been meaning to play a novice mission and get down to the last group and self destruct to see if it takes out the other enemy craft. I really dislike the absence of the Manual Target selector. It makes it impossible to pick which of two targets you want to zero in on, especially when two of them are circling you. That would be good. Was there such a select in the original Star Raiders? The more I play, the more I'm convinced that the moving reticle tied to steering has some compatibility issues with to a game like this, which is based on a free-steering 3D model. When in Tracking mode and pinging between fore and aft views the fact that the reticle leads the steering becomes really annoying. Say you're in fore view and you push the reticle to the right edge of the screen pursuing a ship. well, when the view flips to aft the reticle remains in the same place on the screen, so you're now turning away from the target and your guns are aimed at the opposite side of the screen from where the target you were steering towards will likely appear. If the reticle popped back to center at the view change, maybe it would be less bothersome, because you wouldn't have to swing it all the way back across the screen. It really needs to recenter automatically after you let go of the stick, period. This was really well said and made me realize something: This game took a steering mechanism designed for a rails game (Star Wars Arcade) and applied it to a 3D environment. While it is workable it is crude at best. Maybe this is the only copy we get, and if so, this is workable. But if we do get to make improvements, and I really hope we can recover that code, I think a fixed cursor option would be awesome. actually what this game needs is what makes Star Raiders great: the ability to have a crew! Get one person on pilot controls (fixed center crosshairs). Another person on targeting (the moving cursor). And another person at the keyboard. (In Battlesphere for the Atari Jaguar they set it up so one person was the pilot and another could operate the gun with a moving cursor like I said above. Takes some teamwork but fun.) (Personally I always wanted a Star Raiders with networking to allow a central mission computer and other screens for other views (pilot, forward gunner, aft gunner). When you are just one person, have the option to lock the targeting cursor with the pilot crosshairs, much like the original Star Raiders set up. There's a general twitchiness to everything that I am sure is related to the frame rate. The original Star Raiders is mostly glass-smooth so it's very frustrating to see things jump around. I also feel like I miss a lot because of it. That part I attribute to a game not being as smooth as glass because it was not completely POLISHED. But the original Star Raiders really dragged you into the action. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoyx Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 While I've gotten used the hang of the hyperspace steering thing, what makes me crazy about it is that the controls get reversed on the vertical axis! Throughout the game pushing up makes the ship climb ad down makes it dive, chasing the reticle. Here, there's no reticle, and now up is dive and down is climb! it forced you to flip vertical orientation for a few seconds each time you hyperspace, which is a game control no-no. Someone earlier posted this... something worth trying... Press Shift-O for inverted control ... Shift-P: Touch tablet Shift-J: Left handed joystick 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big_Mo Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 (edited) Someone earlier posted this... something worth trying... Sure, but this shouldn't be the case in the first place, It's poor design to momentarily invert a control scheme. Edited December 18, 2015 by Big_Mo 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 Hey user feedback is good. The programmer is reading all this. IF they get the source code is found I'm sure there will be some adjustments by someone. In the meantime, you have a code for an alternate control scheme, and the game is good for the price. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.