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Deconstructing Asteroids


Mr. Brow

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Asteroids_hittable+%25285%2529.png

 

I did an analysis and write-up on the arcade version of Asteroids that goes into the details of the game design and physics:  Asteroids: By the Numbers.

 

I'm curious what people think about it, especially veterans of the game who are intimately familiar with the mechanics.  I thought about going into collision probabilities and survival times against the aliens, but didn't know if there would be enough interest to warrant the time investment.  Note that the numbers in the article are estimates based on screen measurements and weren't extracted from the code.

 

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On 10/19/2019 at 9:03 AM, mr_me said:

How did you determine the five degree rotation increment?  It's a vector monitor so rotations and vectors for missiles are mathematically calculated.

I tried firing from as many orientations as possible while staying stationary.  From starting position, the bullets always followed a fixed set of trajectories that I measured to be separated by five degrees.  For example, when I tried hitting the “00” at the top of the screen from the starting position, the only trajectory that hit it was one passing through left side of the second 0.  

 

I thought about using the rendered orientation of the ship to measure the increment, but I found that it didn’t always match up well with the trajectory of the bullet.

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