Space Chase Zone (s_spacechase.wad)

[fickleheart]

Delicious shmuppy goodness. Play a level that's kind of like Space Chase from SRB1 in concept, but almost nothing like it in execution! That's all I really have to say about this level.

...Oh, I do have a few things to say! Each character you play as has different abilities. Sonic moves faster, Tails regenerates health slowly (but not Tailsbot!), and Knuckles has burst-fire. You should also try the level out as SRB1 Sonic.

Multiplayer isn't officially supported due to netgame syncing issues. You're free to -force a map change and try to play it, but you'll probably desync.

Otherwise, um... have fun! Also included is a replay of my best score attack (put it in replays/sonic-em-up/) if you'd like to pick up some strategies for score attack. And since I can't get it to display all of the score attack emblems properly, just know you get them at 25k, 50k, and 100k points. Getting all three unlocks a secret level, which is... hard. Yup.

If you'd like to use the scripts and enemies and stuff and create your own arrangements and bosses, I'm fine with that! Just give me credit.

 

[Puppyfaic]

This is way too fun. I especially like how Tails bot has an AI written for this! And it's not ENTIRELY stupid!
However... it doesn't seem to properly sync up online? People were reporting being at different HPs and having different lives than what the others were seeing.

 

[fickleheart]

However... it doesn't seem to properly sync up online? People were reporting being at different HPs and having different lives than what the others were seeing.

I really don't know what the online issues are. The only thing I can guess is maybe SRB2's netcode is less stable than I thought, and (since I've heard that the game checks sync by comparing player mobj positions) the resyncing code never gets called.

If/when I put out an update I'll try some experiments to fix it, and if I can't do anything I might just remove co-op support entirely. (I really don't want to do that, though... ugh.)

 

[PrismaticAngel]

Awesome. This is simply so much fun. How the heck did you pull this off with SRB2?

 

[Landan]

Awesome. This is simply so much fun. How the heck did you pull this off with SRB2?

With the wonders of LUA of course.

 

[Chimera]

... I now REALLY want a Sky Chase level in SRB2 vanilla :(

 

[TheDoctor]

... I now REALLY want a Sky Chase level in SRB2 vanilla :(

Which one, there are like 4 of them :| lol.

 

[Kfcnyancat]

LOLZ DATS HMS12311 in ur level he aint overpowered in dis level cuz ships cant be super!!!!!1111111111!!!!!

 

[Jellybones]

This is a great level you've got. It was tons of fun, and the boss was tough. I wish there were power-ups but this is already really good.

 

[Larz T]

Another person beats me to making one of my ideas I had on paper come true lol. Other than that, the script and the level really play out well and I really enjoyed playing this. It's fun to play this level and jam out to some Space Harrier music.

 

[The Zero Team]

Okay. This is interesting... but totally 100% completely impossible to beat. *Checks the Lua, searching for "bot", since it has custom bot things, notices the thing about the bot Tails not supposed to regenerate health... Plays as Tails instead of Sonic & Tails, and beats it, due to the health regeneration. Then as Knuckles, and also beats it, due to the auto-fire*

Seriously, though, this is absolutely amazing. Sonic may be faster than Tails and Knuckles, and can avoid Detons easier, but it's really hard as Sonic. Maybe make the Tails bot allowed to regenerate health? After all, the bot Tails does nothing other than flying in front of enemies and shooting at them while getting hit, so he doesn't stand too long...
Of course, I could do that myself, but I meant more for, well, everyone else having trouble, since they think the characters have equal abilities, and thus select Sonic & Tails to get a bot to help them.

Also, I found 2 bugs, which may or may not be fixable.

Player 2, whether it be the bot Tails or splitscreen, is always flying very slowly forward (right).
And in splitscreen, the screen is, well, split. Is it somehow possible to make splitscreen mode only split the screen outside the Space Chase map via Lua? After all, the player(s) will always be inside a whole view, so cutting off the top and bottom just to duplicate the view seems a little... dumb, since it makes enemies up and down invisible.

Edit: Noticed another bug. The Tails bot may decide to lock-on onto one of the bombers, and if said bomber has locked onto the Tails bot, the Tails bot will end up trying to fly upwards to the left infinitely to reach and kill the bomber, but there is that invisible wall/barrier blocking him, so he basically ends up slowly dying due to the "invincible" bomber.
Maybe you could make another list for enemies, but excluding the bomber, and make bots target that list instead, to avoid that thing?

 

[fickleheart]

*Checks the Lua

fak u cheatr

Player 2, whether it be the bot Tails or splitscreen, is always flying very slowly forward (right).

Interesting. I noticed that before while messing around with the bot, but I wasn't aware it applied in splitscreen too. That really shouldn't be happening, since all ships are handled the same, but I'll look into it.

And in splitscreen, the screen is, well, split. Is it somehow possible to make splitscreen mode only split the screen outside the Space Chase map via Lua? After all, the player(s) will always be inside a whole view, so cutting off the top and bottom just to duplicate the view seems a little... dumb, since it makes enemies up and down invisible.

I was about to respond with "of course it's impossible you idiot" but then I thought about it more and it might be possible to fake it. I'll probably look into some stuff.

blah blah tails bot blah blah character balance

I fixed up the character differences with regard less to balance and more to "each of these abilities will be useful to different people, and in different situations". That said, I do think Sonic is a bit underpowered compared to the others. I'm happy with Tails' health regen rate since you still have to avoid shots for it to be useful (and he's supposed to be easy mode anyway), but Knuckles' auto-fire is a tad overkill and I think I'll tone it down to more of a burst fire setting in an update. I really don't know how to fix Sonic yet, since making him any faster would only make it impossible to control him... Maybe if I implement power-ups, I'll give them a longer duration as Sonic. I dunno.

Tails bot is intentionally gimped because I don't want the player just picking Sonic & Tails and hiding behind the bot the whole time. Think of him as your Slippy. His getting stuck on Jetty bombers is something I'll probably look into, though, although I'm not going to do it by excluding them from the targeting system because that makes them so much less annoying to deal with and I'd like to keep that in.

LOLZ DATS HMS12311 in ur level he aint overpowered in dis level cuz ships cant be super!!!!!1111111111!!!!!

This is my favorite post in this thread

 

[Cirom]

And in splitscreen, the screen is, well, split. Is it somehow possible to make splitscreen mode only split the screen outside the Space Chase map via Lua? After all, the player(s) will always be inside a whole view, so cutting off the top and bottom just to duplicate the view seems a little... dumb, since it makes enemies up and down invisible.

IIRC, can't Player 2 just overtake Tails when in "Sonic & Tails" mode? Pretty sure that's part of the Vanilla game, too...

 

[Puppyfaic]

Why not try this instead:
Sonic: Moves faster, shoots faster, and his missiles move faster
Tails: Regenerates HP over time, has auto-fire, but a lower fire rate
Knuckles: Has a higher HP total, his missiles do more damage

This makes Sonic high risk, high reward as he isn't as durable as the other two but he has a better fire rate so he's more accurate.
Likewise Knuckles becomes the sort of tanky type, doing lots of damage and having more HP.
Tails is pretty much just e-z modo.

 

[fickleheart]

But all of the enemies die in one hit...

 

[Puppyfaic]

Eggman. Knuckles would have an easier time taking him down than the other two, or if custom levels add enemies that take more than one hit to kill.

 

[Grimmdays]

Excellent wad. So excellent, that I think it would serve as an actual boss in the game, maybe from Dark City to Grand Eggship or something, with a few changes maybe. Really great wad, keep up the good work!

 

[The Zero Team]

Tails bot is intentionally gimped because I don't want the player just picking Sonic & Tails and hiding behind the bot the whole time. Think of him as your Slippy. His getting stuck on Jetty bombers is something I'll probably look into, though, although I'm not going to do it by excluding them from the targeting system because that makes them so much less annoying to deal with and I'd like to keep that in.

Well, I did comment out the "or mo.master.bot" by the health regeneration, as well as make an "enemyListBot" with the bomber removed (and change bots to use that list, of course).
And you know what, even though I tried my very best at keeping the Tails bot alive (by shooting the enemies as much as I could myself), he died a little while before Egghead appeared (since he insisted on getting shot by enemies). Damn. But I finally beat it as Sonic, though, since it was a lot of help up until Egghead appeared.

I was about to respond with "of course it's impossible you idiot" but then I thought about it more and it might be possible to fake it. I'll probably look into some stuff.

I was actually expecting it to be completely impossible to alter the actual rendering mechanic without source code modifications, especially on a per-map basis (well, on a per-"does a certain Thing exist in this map" basis). I wish you luck.

Also, I for fun decided to edit the ship sprite a little, to make the whole green thing change colour, and it looks nice enough, if you're interested (which I doubt)?

Spoiler: And a balancing thing idea I have that might just work:

Give HMS123311 invulnerability, double speed, and infinite rapid-fire.
And maybe give Sonic some extra health, if possible. Like 1 extra life/ship or something. Just don't alter Tails or Knuckles, they're fine as they are, it's just too hard as Sonic, especially without the Tails bot, like in Record Attack or something.

Edit:

IIRC, can't Player 2 just overtake Tails when in "Sonic & Tails" mode? Pretty sure that's part of the Vanilla game, too...

Yes, but that leaves out health regeneration, and forces player 1 to be Sonic and player 2 to be Tails, instead of something like Tails+Knuckles or Tails+Tails. And also gives player 2 just 1 life instead of 3.

 

[clairebun]

Haha, this is great! Would love to see this expanded on.

Uhh, if I can make one complaint on the character balance though.... I played as Sonic first and thought he was okay. Then I played as Tails and was pretty sure he was the best, because the health regeneration is just so good long-term. Then I played as Knuckles and KNEW he was the best, because auto-fire walls everything besides a few swarms of jettysyns and Eggman himself.

To level the playing field, I would personally speed Sonic up just a little more and slightly tone down Knuckles' firing rate.

 

[QuoteTheBot]

This mod was amazing.
Though, It tends to lag, even in singleplayer.