General Hack Ideas

[FullOfFail]

I think Jathys was working on a spider-ball type thing for SM.

Yup, just found the video on youtube:
[spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKf8vHe4bWc[/spoiler]

[Quote58]

I just recently replayed metroid 2 on my psp, and it isn't all that long, if you know where you're going. If you don't, then it can take a very long time.
I think that if we were to get this running, we should add an area like the one you added to phazon 0.3. The one to which I'm referring is the new part branching off of the lower phazon mines.
About the sr-388 tileset, are you going to use the gba gfx? or are you going to remake the original?
And FullofFail, thanks for putting the video up, it's the one I was referring to before.

[Qactis]

I think Jathys was working on a spider-ball type thing for SM.

Yup, just found the video on youtube:
[spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKf8vHe4bWc[/spoiler]

This specific "spider-ball" is actually a plm powerup that reacts to "sticky BTS." When a BTS of a certain number is put up, samus can attach to it in morphball and roll along it. So as far as a M2 hack goes, it would be very tedious to put that BTS everywhere. Programming a spiderball that allows samus to attach to the surface she's touching (excluding enemies and probably PLMs), shouldn't be too hard.

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

another thing about the spider ball is that you have to press down when in morph ball mode to go into spider ball mode. as far as the added stages go i think the fans would like it best, if all the extra rooms and what not, were added at the end of the game. (something like having the escape from SR388 double the length of the game)

I just recently replayed metroid 2 on my psp, and it isn't all that long, if you know where you're going. If you don't, then it can take a very long time.
I think that if we were to get this running, we should add an area like the one you added to phazon 0.3. The one to which I'm referring is the new part branching off of the lower phazon mines.
About the sr-388 tileset, are you going to use the gba gfx? or are you going to remake the original?
And FullofFail, thanks for putting the video up, it's the one I was referring to before.

first i plan on make a new tile set based on the melted rock pattern in the GB. the gba stuff is just too easy to rip and edit. (and the look, is probably getting old for those play the gba metroids)

[Quote58]

I'm glad it wouldn't just be gba rips. I ripped a bunch of fusion stuff including some sr388, and I think you're right that it's getting old the way it is.

(something like having the escape from SR388 double the length of the game)

Wait, double the length of the game? That would be a huge.
How would the metroid count work? Scyzer did that kind of thing in her mini hacks, but I don't know how.

[Qactis]

Each time you kill a specific enemy (the metroids) it adds 1 to a ram bit and there's a routine somewhere else that checks that ram bit against x number, changing the states of the main hall when it reaches certain numbers.

[Quote58]

Okay, that makes sense.
Is it difficult to learn asm as compared to other programming languages?

[Crashtour99]

With assembly, once you get into it and start developing a real understanding of it, it's not that bad.  The hardest part is when you're starting out, which is why it's more difficult than other languages.

Main thing to remember when it comes to languages is that they are all compiled into assembly (the compiler translates the language statements/arguments into asm), so they're doing all the hard work for you.  The processor then translates the asm into binary to execute it. (essentially)  Also, each generation of processors uses a different type of asm, which is why code compiled for an x32 PC processor won't run on a Ricoh 65816 processor for a SNES.

That said, learning asm would be a great foundation if you plan on learning other languages as well.  They'll seem utterly simplistic in comparison.

[Quote58]

Thanks for the info. I had a friend who learned asm, but not for super metroid. He said it was really difficult to learn, even though he knew a bunch of other languages. I believe shadow34370 has some videos on it, so I'll start with that when I have time to learn it.
About the metroid 2 remake, should the gravity suit be included?

[Qactis]

www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/datasheets/Programmanual.pdf < programming manual for the 65816. It explains every single opcode (3 letter asm command) that processor uses and how to use them.

[JAM]

I just recently replayed metroid 2 on my psp, and it isn't all that long, if you know where you're going. If you don't, then it can take a very long time.
I think that if we were to get this running, we should add an area like the one you added to phazon 0.3. The one to which I'm referring is the new part branching off of the lower phazon mines.

Metroid 1 is not too long too if know what to do.

So, what if do 2 versions? Total conversion (with exactly the same map and items only from Metroid 2) and extended one (with new areas, new items, Super Missiles, Power Bombs etc.)

[Zero One]

Two versions are definitely a great idea, if you're willing to do both.

However, it'd probably require a drastic redesign no matter which one you do first. If you had to pick, I'd vote extended version, provided you can find a logical way to extend it.

[Quote58]

what about music? sm music doesn't fit into m2 very well.

[Qactis]

m2 doesn't have much music at all so i don't think that's a big issue

[SigSauer]

Hey, everybody. I've been reading around a little on the site, and thought I might post an idea I had. I can't hack or anything, but I figured I'd at least share my thoughts as thanks for some of the great hacks provided on the site. Like I said, I can't hack, anything design-wise that I know comes from Unreal Tournament and mapping on that, so forgive me if this doesn't seem very 'feasible'.

So, I thought about this the other day after playing through the end of Metroid Fusion. I was fighting the SA-X in the room before you change the BSL's course to crashland, and I thought "wouldn't it be something if I was fighting against another player in an arena like this?" I got to thinking about it, and after seeing a topic here about netplay in Super Metroid, I figured it might be possible, somehow. What I was thinking, was a side-scrolling versus mode taking place in a single room with various platforms and environmental features with powerups spawning here and there to help players win the match. The room I always think of when imagining an arena for this (I had it drawn up at one point, I'll make it again) is a version of the very first room in Metroid: Zero Mission; just before the Morph Ball. The 'arena' would be symmetric, feature paths for the Morph Ball, breakable blocks with hazards under them, and so forth. Like I said before, I can't hack ROMs, so I really don't have any idea how to go about this, but I hope I can share my ideas and be of use.

-Gameplay-

The objective of the game would be to simply kill the other players as many times as possible before a timer ran out, to start out with. Each player would be a differently-colored sprite of Samus (Hell, you might be able to even get away with making one player be a Space Pirate, one be a Fed. Trooper, one be Samus, and another be Dark Samus or something) to denote who's who.

-Environment-

Acid: Would work just like the acid in Super or ZM; finding Varia or Gravity would negate the effects of acid
Lava: Same as above, but with a stronger effect. Only Gravity would be able to nullify damage
Water: Slows the player's movement and lowers jump height; the Gravity Suit would prevent this
Phazon(?): Would have an even stronger effect than lava or acid, maybe a Phazon Suit would negate this?

Each player would start with the same basic abilities, and fight to gain others that appeared on the map to give them an advantage. Each player starts with 99 Energy. Starting abilities would be as follows:

Power Suit
Power Beam
Power Grip
Morph Ball

Each player would be able to find powerups that would change how their attacks work or how they defend against attacks and move around the map.

-Offense Abilities-

Charge Beam: The player can charge their beam for more damage and use the fake Screw Attack to damage people whilst charging and somersaulting
Spazer: Beam widens
Ice Beam: Each shot slightly slows whomever it hits, a charged shot will completely freeze the target; missiles on frozen players deal double damage
Long Beam: Beam Range doubles
Plasma Beam: Beam damage doubled, charged shots pierce targets and burn them for seconds afterwards (only pierces when charged for balance)
Wave Beam: Charged shots pass through objects (has to be charged for balance, might be too powerful anyway)
Missile: The player gets five missiles
Super Missile: The player gets one Super Missile
Bomb: The player can use Morph Ball Bombs (might be too powerful an ability to just start out with all of the time)
Power Bomb: The player gets one Power Bomb
Deathball: Akin to Prime 2 and Hunters; rolling into opponents damages them heavily
Screw Attack: Somersaulting deals heavy damage
Shinespark: It wouldn't make sense to use the speed booster in an arena setting, so the Shinespark would instantly charge thet player who grabs it, who can then jump and boost in the direction they point in, for heavy damage (drains health whilst flying though)
Hyper Beam: The ultimate beam powerup, rapid fire powerful, long range beams that pierce enemies (but not the stage), timed duration? ammo limit? drains health?

-Defense Abilities- These include suits. I figure it would be too complicated to have a player's sprite change mid-game, so a glow effect could be applied to characters with suits.

Varia: Damage reduced by 10%, acid nullified, player glows gold/orange
Gravity: Damage reduced by 20%, acid, lava, and water nullified, player glows purple/pink
Phazon: Damage reduced by 40%, acid, lava, and Phazon pools do not deal damage, beam powers up in a pool of Phazon
Invuln: Player does not take damage for a certain amount of time, glows white

-Various Abilities/pickups-

High Jump: The player jumps higher
Rapid Fire: The player can fire their weapon faster
Small Energy: Grants 10 En recovery
Large Energy: Grants 30 En recovery
E-Tank: Gives 100 En to whoever picks it up; energy will overfill past 100 (if you have 60 En, and you pick this up, you go up to 160 past the limit of 99)
Cloaking Device: The player becomes invisible (the player with cloaking can still see him/herself though, they're simply translucent on their end)
Scrambler: Instantly charges the player's beam, the person to get hit will have their 'visor' scrambled; their HUD will look 'broken', staticy, and just messed up. Purely to distort enemy vision.



Thanks for reading all of that, for anybody who did. I hope this can give some ideas to those who do hack, and thanks for the hacks that you all provide here. I'm having a blast with them (although I can't, and want to, get SM: Phazon to work). I had some 'maps' drawn up for this idea, and I'll have to post them sometime if there's any interest in something like this.

[Quote58]

Well SigSauer, this idea is certainly well thought out. Unfortunately it's also unrealistic. Black Falcon is working on a multiplayer project which uses net play but is quite limited. He (and all of us) hopes to bring samus vs samus into it by the end, but that's a long ways off. You have given me an idea or two however. I always loved the room where you fight the SA-X, and it would be quite possible to recreate that room for the multiplayer project. If this idea was for super metroid, then there are many many things we can't do (yet). If this was a fan project idea, then of course it'd be possible. 
In super metroid, it's possible to recreate any fusion or zero mission room. With some gfx ripping and room size changes.
Stuff we can't do in super metroid yet:

One player be a Space Pirate, one be a Fed. Trooper, one be Samus, and another be Dark Samus or something.
Power Grip
Long Beam
Deathball (maybe)
Invuln
Cloaking Device
Scrambler

Sorry about that. If you have suggestions for the multiplayer project, post in it's thread.
You say you can't get SM: Phazon to work? well just ask me or anyone else here and we can help.
Welcome to metroidconstruction  :^_^:

[SigSauer]

Well SigSauer, this idea is certainly well thought out. Unfortunately it's also unrealistic. Black Falcon is working on a multiplayer project which uses net play but is quite limited. He (and all of us) hopes to bring samus vs samus into it by the end, but that's a long ways off. You have given me an idea or two however. I always loved the room where you fight the SA-X, and it would be quite possible to recreate that room for the multiplayer project. If this idea was for super metroid, then there are many many things we can't do (yet). If this was a fan project idea, then of course it'd be possible. 
In super metroid, it's possible to recreate any fusion or zero mission room. With some gfx ripping and room size changes.
Stuff we can't do in super metroid yet:

One player be a Space Pirate, one be a Fed. Trooper, one be Samus, and another be Dark Samus or something.
Power Grip
Long Beam
Deathball (maybe)
Invuln
Cloaking Device
Scrambler

Sorry about that. If you have suggestions for the multiplayer project, post in it's thread.
You say you can't get SM: Phazon to work? well just ask me or anyone else here and we can help.
Welcome to metroidconstruction  :^_^:

Haha thanks for the welcome. I really would love for this project to be on the engine that Fusion and Zero Mission would be on, my mistake if I seemed like I sounded like I meant on the Super engine. I understand that a lot of things wouldn't be able to happen on that. You guys are the experts on this sort of thing, I just have a lot of multiplayer 'theory' (if you could call it that) and level design knowledge that I could bring to the table for such an experience. I for one was a HUGE fan of the multiplayer in Echoes and Hunters, and the SA-X fight is just intense, and I thought PvP could bring something incredible to Metroid. I figured the things like the different character sprites would be too-difficult to implement, but different-colored Samus's shouldn't be a problem, right?

Anyway, yeah, I always imagined something like this on the Fusion/ZM engine (at least I think they use their own modified Super engine, right?), but I figured it would be limited by the capabilities of the GBA emulators out there as far as netplay goes. Here's a concept of a 'Brinstar' map that I thought of:



Now, I don't have a very good 'key' set up, but I can explain what this is supposed to be. Imagine the start of the first Metroid, Zero Mission, or even the throwback part of Brinstar in Super. That's what this is supposed to be. Picture playing this on the Fusion/ZM engine as well. At the center of the map, you'll see a 3x1 block with arrows going in and out the ends; you can morph ball under that. A 1x1 block in the center of that has a Power Bomb block. If you were to get under there with a Power Bomb, you would fall into one of those boost cannons seen in areas like Kraid (in Zero Mission). You would then boost up into a block in the ceiling for a very strong powerup, like Invulnerability (if possible), Hyper Beam, or a major suit upgrade. Blocks with hashes through them are simply blocks that can be shot out or bombed out. On either the left or right of the center of the map are some blocks that can be destroyed and would have something like acid or some other hazard under them. Up in the corners you've got blocks that you can Power Grip onto, and might possibly have something small like Missiles in them if you were to Morph Ball up there.

This is what I would imaging a basic 'arena' would look like. Neutral powerups like stronger beams, suits, or power bombs/missiles would e located in the center, where players would have to fight over instead of wait in a corner for. Minor powerups like bombs, missiles, long beam, high jump, and so forth would be randomized. They would share spawn points, but missiles might be bombs next time around, or health, or long beam, etc.

Anyway, that's my two cents on how a map would function on something like this. What really gave me hope for something like this was seeing the Torizo statue versus Samus on netplay. I didn't really feel confident posting something like 'Arena Metroid' until after seeing that.

[Quote58]

Ah, well I think it's less likely for this to be made in fusion/zero mission. Sorry.
Again, Ideas are good. I too loved the multiplayer in echoes and hunters, however this would be incredibly difficult.
For one thing, fusion and zero mission don't have as much support or a large community like super does. Second, there hasn't been as much asm work done for them because, well actually I don't know a lot about their asm, but it's more complicated.
Also, beams being separated and changed and added is much more of a hassle.
If you want to know more about the fusion/zero mission engine and what it can do, Interdepth is the guy to ask. He made Double Helix, the editor for F and Z.
And about Phazon hack, if you've played other hacks before, then you must know how to patch a rom, so if it's not working, post in the thread dedicated to it.

[Qactis]

Deathball (maybe)
Invuln
Cloaking Device

Possible

Power Grip
Long Beam

Not possible

Scrambler

What's this do? Destroy her minimap?

[SigSauer]

What's this do? Destroy her minimap?

I hadn't even taken the minimap into account, being an arena setting, but I thought more of just distorting the HUD and screen for a few seconds. Again, I don't have the slightest idea how these kind of things actually work internally, I've just got ideas that I can throw out.

[Qactis]

Non-HUD distortion could be possible with FX1, but idk about the HUD itself

[SigSauer]

Hmmm... what about messing with the background layers, or textures or something... it could possibly just turn the layers off and make it difficult to judge where one was moving...

[Digital_Mantra]

You know what would be fucking cool?

Having your background have a flow like a rising/lowering liquid.
Imagine a slowing shifting waterline behind foreground stalagmite in a dank cavern corridor.
In the foreground, a slowly shifting muddier liquid.
Slowly drenching through this amazing corridor unless you have what it takes to avoid the sludge delay.
Hell yes.
Make it happen asm gods.

Also, fix my hack. Kraids room crashed....

[SigSauer]

You know what would be fucking cool?

Having your background have a flow like a rising/lowering liquid.{...}

That's what I was thinking, too! Getting hit with something like that would really mess up the background layers, making them warp, become distorted, and otherwise just hard to look at.

[JAM]

If someone with ASM skill will do an Other M styled hack it might be a good idea.

In other M you have infinite amount of Power Bombs, but it takes time to reload. So, what if use Power Bomb counter as reload timer in frames, starting from 999 (about 16.(6) seconds which is close to original) and delete numbers when ready? To make player understand that this is reloading, make numbers red.
And also, use blue numbers in the same area as charge counter.