Manic Jet Set Willy.

[jetsetdanny]

In the context of this discussion, I started wondering whether it's better to say "solar ray" or "solar beam". After reading a discussion about the difference between "ray" and "beam" here, I decided that "solar beam" will be better to describe what we see in "Solar Power Generator". 

I'd like to know how the native English speakers here feel about it 🙂 .

[jetsetdanny]

I have tried the following about 20 or 30 times:

- Rolling back my recording to the end of "Amoebatrons' Revenge";

- Waiting a moment (or two, or three) before jumping into the portal;

- Once in "Solar Power Generator", waiting motionlessly to see what happens when the solar beam hits the slow-moving red horizontal plane guardian (a few seconds into the game).

Every time I did it, the beam got deflected off the red plane.

I played the game to the problematic moment twice to see if perhaps the killer beam would not be there any more, but it was there all right.

I can't tell the value of the clock, so I don't know what it was every time I entered "Solar Power Generator". But since I tried so many times, with a random (short) wait at the end of "Amoebatrons' Revenge" before jumping into the portal, if it's just a matter of the clock having an either even or odd value, I don't think it's possible that I *never* happened to enter "Solar Power Generator" with a clock value that would allow for the beam *not* to be deflected. It should be pretty much a 50-50 chance, shouldn't it? (between the clock having an even or odd value), so it would be extremely improbable that I wouldn't happen to get the timing (clock value) right even once in 20 or 30 attempts.

Any ideas?

[Spider]

Different emulator maybe, I'm not sure if tis using 'FRAMES' to do anything. I'd suggest a different emulator if its practical to do this quickly though, unlikely but you never know! 🙂

 

10 hours ago, jetsetdanny said:

I'd like to know how the native English speakers here feel about it

I'm open to either terms. Problem you run into here is American 'English' vs British 'English' , 'torch' for instance has different meanings. Unsure on the majority of other countries that use this language as primary or secondary, fwiw one friend who uses English as a secondary language, her spelling is nearly always the American variant...

[Norman Sword]

 I changed a version to show the status of the clock bit. The routine draws a line across the screen showing clearly the status as the game progresses from room to room. Normally just going back and forth aimlessly between two rooms will give an even spread of odd and even ( as expected). However I have just done a mad burst of counting the status and have just managed to do 53 room changes and in every one the clock was odd. The chances of repeating that feat should be 1 in 9,000,000,000,000,000  
And continuing on, have managed a run of 23 even.  i in 8,388,608

The ticker is not based on interrupts, which is what frames on a zx spectrum is based on. When an interrupt occurs then the frame counter is increased. Handy to implement counters and delays. One of the first instructions in most variants of JSW and MM is DI <Disable Interrupts> so interrupts are not a variable used whilst playing the game. Matthew used FRAMES for the cheat input code. Which is useless on an emulated machine. The result should be nearly fixed when dropping the file onto an emulated machine and running it. Or running a full memory dump "snapshot" which will have captured the FRAMES variable.

The game ticker is counting the game loops. The duration for each loop is fixed by the amount of code executed.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Norman Sword
Missng ltters

[Norman Sword]

Rays and beams.
The solar power room has a beam of light. The beam of light being in normal and real world applications made from a collection of photons of light. Rays are normally a single photon and can be plotted and drawn to show their path.

In the world of Manic Miner the Beam of light can be treated as a ray of light because no part of the beam acts independently from any other part of the beam. (e.g. the beam/ray can not be split) The path of the beam is identical to the path of a ray of light. 

Which is why I swap terminologies freely within the context of Manic Miner.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Norman Sword
Clarification.

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for your comments.

I've tried entering "Solar Power Generator" at the right moment (by rolling back my recording to the previous cavern, waiting a little bit and then jumping into the portal) a significant number of times (maybe 20 or 30 again, I didn't count), but I can't get it right, the ray is always deflected.

Am I right in thinking that whenever I see this:

this means the ray gets deflected by the red airplane?

If I am right, then I can't get it right (no pun intended).

I am beginning to suspect that it's not really random...

I'll try some more tomorrow, but if I can't get it right in another, say, 50 attempts, I'll give up. After all, it's only a matter of losing some £ 30,000... 😉

[Spider]

One thought: Are you using an opened .rzx (ie not finalised)

You could perhaps save it as a .sna or .z80 then reload in a different emulator and not restart recording, merely save the snap at the cavern before just before completion. That might effect it. I think unclosed .rzx's do save snapshots as that's how they work and they are removed upon finalising it...

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks for the suggestion, however...

What I need is a complete, single RZX recording of the walkthrough. Yes, I'm using an opened RZX file and I can save it as a snapshot, but that wouldn't serve any purpose, as what I need is not an improved final result as such, but an improved final result in a continuous RZX recording.

What I could try - and I will - would be to continue recording this opened RZX file in a different emulator (of the ones that support the recording process). I'm not sure why this should help, but I'll give it a try 🙂 .

[Norman Sword]

Congratulations to all who have finished this.

Whilst I have managed every screen multiple times. I would not attempt to play, for any more than half an hour in one go. Which means I am no where near completing either part. I will play as far as testing out a group of rooms or a cavern group, but my mind will wander to other things and this causes me to stop playing. 

Edited January 14, 2022 by Norman Sword

[jetsetdanny]

Thanks, Norman Sword. It's been a pleasure playing the game 🙂 .

I haven't had the time to try the experiment mentioned in my previous post, but I will definitely do it over the weekend.