Robotron settings

[The TJT]

Williams games:

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WIP:

    * 0.95u3: Changed cpu1 roms addresses from $0-8000 to $10000-18000.

I wonder if this had an impact on Robotron being more easy now, being better emulation and closer to original arcade game difficulty. Maybe it's marathonable now at factory default.

Joust has been harder than arcade at later levels, imo. Also fact that Esa couldn't marathon Joust using old mame version shows something.

tried Robotron just now.

played up to 1.5 million and then killed off about 30 extra lives.

on old versions of MAME, I couldn't even break a million.

ohh yeah, it's fixed.

We need special rules for Robotron, unless we want it to be factory default and marathon game.

difficulty 10?
5 men only, diff 5?(TG tournament settings)
10 men only, diff5 ?
Giving extra men less frequent?

Imo such settings that a good player can get 1M+ would be optimal. 5 men only is not so good because even best player can't get to later levels + luck plays some factor with those settings, but on the other hand it's good that ii can be compared to TG settings...hmmm...If having 10men, diff 5, then you could count 5 men score too.

Thanks for your opinions and ideas,

Tommi

[zlk]

If special rules are adopted, it would be nice to keep one clone's rules at the default settings so a few marathon replays are made.

[The TJT]

After brief postal exchange with DBH and BBH, we decided that:
Robotron.zip should be played at diff=10, that should make the game slightly easier than using old mame version and old settings. This also means that old recordings can stay, cause you should be able to score higher with these new settings.
I hear breaking 1M is still tough!

Robotryo.zip will be played using default(marathon)settings.
Wolfmame must be used. Don't kill yourselves
-------


Any editor feel free to edit special rules for

Robotron :

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Settings:<br>
Extra man every = 25 000<br>
Turns per player = 3<br>
Difficulty of play = 10
<p>
To change settings: At "factory settings restored"...press F2, hold F1 and press F2 two times, change "difficulty of play" to 10, and press F2.
<br>
<a href="http://forums.marpirc.net/viewtopic.php?t=12237">discussion</a> 

Robotryo :

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Settings, default:<br>
Extra man every = 25 000<br>
Turns per player = 3<br>
Difficulty of play = 5
<p>
<a href="http://forums.marpirc.net/viewtopic.php?t=12237">discussion</a> 

[/color][/b]

Check here, thank you

[NotMan]

Sounds like a good idea to have one Mame default and one TG settings. Let's see if anybody could do it on easiest settings on Mame.

I rather see somebody try to rack up 10 million pts in Robotron. I have only seen three people have done it in arcade in early '80's and nobody hasn't done it in today's arcade on Ultracade or very rare full working Robotron machine if they exist in somewhere. BTW, the score does roll over after 10 millions pts and high score will say 9999999.

Later,

NotMan

[cliff]

Sounds like a good idea to have one Mame default and one TG settings.

That's what I would have voted for...if we still voted on stuff at MARP.

[dbh]

I rather see somebody try to rack up 10 million pts in Robotron. I have only seen three people have done it in arcade in early '80's and nobody hasn't done it in today's arcade on Ultracade or very rare full working Robotron machine if they exist in somewhere.

On default settings (diff. 5, free men 25K), 10M is not hard to do on the real machine. I've only played it on an Ultracade a few times but I've found that the joysticks are usually in rough shape which makes it hard to play. I've semi-marathoned difficulty 7 on my machine at home...15,000,000 exactly, two complete wave rollovers, and ended by killing off about 35 men.

BTW, the score does roll over after 10 millions pts and high score will say 9999999.

Nope, can't score 9999999...highest displayed score is 9,999,975. Abdner Asham did this at Funspot a few years back (not hard to do with controlled killing of Enforcer shots). However, if someone comes along and rolls it over, their score will go into first place no matter what the high was before. It's weird to see a #1 score of something like 400,000 and then the second place score being 9M+

[The TJT]

Sounds like a good idea to have one Mame default and one TG settings.

That's what I would have voted for...if we still voted on stuff at MARP.

You had over a week time to say it.
I PM'd Donald and Matt, since conversation here was dead.
They should be about the best active Marpers at Robotron. I'm not all handless either, kinda.
To namedrop one more authority here:
-Defender and Robotron designer Eugene Jarvis says:

I’m poor at Defender, but I’m a pretty good Robotron player. Anyone who’s serious about Robotron should be playing on difficulty level ten – with 25,000-per-extra-life setting.

- TG tournament settings (diff=5, men=5, no extras) makes very boring and frustrating play, you just start game over and over again. It's good for live arcade tournament as Funspot, but not perfect even for that.

-It makes game too much luck based

-We would have had to zero old scores, if used TG tourn. settings=bad

Now we have tough diff=10 parent and easy marathon clone, so grin and play!

[BBH]

I rather see somebody try to rack up 10 million pts in Robotron. I have only seen three people have done it in arcade in early '80's and nobody hasn't done it in today's arcade on Ultracade or very rare full working Robotron machine if they exist in somewhere. BTW, the score does roll over after 10 millions pts and high score will say 9999999.

I'll try to go for it after next week's GEGOTW. It's just a matter of setting aside a few hours on the weekend...

Doing it on an Ultracade would be very, very, very difficult of course since I believe the arcade cabinets out there are based on old versions of MAME with the incorrect emulation. (there is an Ultracade near me, but I only tried Robotron once and found it very uncomfortable, the two joysticks are far apart since it's in a Showcase 33 cabinet)

- TG tournament settings (diff=5, men=5, no extras) makes very boring and frustrating play, you just start game over and over again. It's good for live arcade tournament as Funspot, but not perfect even for that.

-It makes game too much luck based

Yeah, this is why I don't really care much for the 5 lives setting. There is WAY too much luck involved. Granted, luck is always going to be a factor when you limit the lives on a marathonable game, but in Robotron it's much more drastic. The brain waves become a big crap shoot, maybe you'll get a favorable enemy layout in which you can destroy many of them before their annoying bullets cover the screen... but most times it'll be a real struggle to get out if untouched. One might say that's what separates the really great players from the rest of the pack, but...

Wolfmame must be used. Don't kill yourselves :)

Whoa whoa whoa, I don't think we should be REQUIRING the use of WolfMAME for one specific game... as much as I'd like to see everyone using WolfMAME for MARP recordings, it's not going to happen lest there be another "Alpha blocking" situation. The emulation changes should be in regular MAME too, right?

(don't worry, I'm sure pretty much everyone here will continue to use WolfMAME for their recordings)

[BBH]

okay I uploaded something :)

[destructor]

You are crazy. 13mln

[NotMan]

NICE! 13 mil. Congrat to BBH for trying to reach the 10 million pts. Hey BBH! How long it takes you to reach 10 million pts? A friend of mine once told me that he racked up 22 million pts and it took him to get at least 8 hours to reach there. I'm not quite sure what the setting was back then. I think it could be bonus life at every 20k instead of 25k. I may be wrong.

No sign of 9999999. I must swear I have seen that on couple various robotron machines at early '80's at the high score table. I'm not quite sure whenever that occurred on after 10 million no later than 11 million or maybe it will possibly it will show after you reach 20 million or more on the high score table. I have done 9999999 on Joust machine couple times with Pterry trick, which it is banned on MARP.

Mame emulation is pretty close to same as arcade version as I could remember right... The robotron speed is almost accurate as I remember, the firepower is a little bit faster than arcade speed. The enemies after wave 31 should be a little bit faster than normal speed. Although, I may be wrong... The older version of Mame was that robotron speed/firepower was slower and the enemies move slighty faster than arcade speed.

Like I said BBH! Congrat for reaching over 10 million pts. Let hear what DBH have to say about this...

Later,

NotMan

[BBH]

NICE! 8O 13 mil. Congrat to BBH for trying to reach the 10 million pts. Hey BBH! How long it takes you to reach 10 million pts? A friend of mine once told me that he racked up 22 million pts and it took him to get at least 8 hours to reach there. I'm not quite sure what the setting was back then. I think it could be bonus life at every 20k instead of 25k. I may be wrong.

A little more than 2 hours I think, since I was averaging around 4.5 million an hour. So I probably could've hit 22 mil if I played for a couple more hours, but my right arm was getting sore :\

No sign of 9999999. I must swear I have seen that on couple various robotron machines at early '80's at the high score table. I'm not quite sure whenever that occurred on after 10 million no later than 11 million or maybe it will possibly it will show after you reach 20 million or more on the high score table. I have done 9999999 on Joust machine couple times with Pterry trick, which it is banned on MARP.

I'm pretty sure it won't happen at 20 million either, and I don't know of any versions that just say 9999999 on the high scores... maybe there's another version/bootleg out there that's undumped? I doubt it though.

Like I said BBH! Congrat for reaching over 10 million pts. Let hear what DBH have to say about this... :P

Oh I think it's still safe to say that Don is a better player than me (like that's much of a surprise) :P

[Robert Griffin]

...Robotron.zip should be played at diff=10...Robotryo.zip will be played using default(marathon)settings...

So does this mean that robotron.zip can be played at Diff=10 / Start=3 men / Free man=25k (marathon)

&

Diff=10 / Start=5 men / Free man=NONE (TG)?

[The TJT]

...Robotron.zip should be played at diff=10...Robotryo.zip will be played using default(marathon)settings...

So does this mean that robotron.zip can be played at Diff=10 / Start=3 men / Free man=25k (marathon)

&

Diff=10 / Start=5 men / Free man=NONE (TG)?

Well, not if we start splitting hairs, since rules are: http://marp.retrogames.com/index.cgi?mo ... t=robotron

...but if you play using 5 men rule, at diff=5(TG tournament settings)
=> I don't see anyone complaining about it, since you will get lesser score than using current Marp rules.
(I assume you want to submit to TG and Marp both)

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Marp: diff-10, every25k,3(robotron.zip]   
      diff-5, every25k,3(robotryo.zip)
 
TG: diff-5,every 25k,5(marathon)
    diff-5,none,5(tournament)

[Robert Griffin]

...Diff=10 / Start=5 men / Free man=NONE (TG)?

Well, not if we start splitting hairs, since rules are: http://marp.retrogames.com/index.cgi?mo ... t=robotron

...but if you play using 5 men rule, at diff=5(TG tournament settings)
=> I don't see anyone complaining about it, since you will get lesser score than using current Marp rules.)?

Sorry for being an idiot; I meant to put difficulty 5, not 10 for TG settings. I just wanted to verify it was Diff=5 + 5 men to start w/no extras for TG submissions, & Diff=10 / Start=3 men / Free man=25k for Marathon settings, and all with the same robotron.zip rom.

Thank you, and I'm sorry for all the confusion