No Safe Harbor

[Moehr]

No Safe Harbor:
thread for progress to completion of a contest entry hack for the Deep Blue Contest.

credits:
Patches:
JAM FF Events and Tubes
Scyzer Mapfix

ASM assistance:
Smiley
P.JBoy
Scyzer

Screenshots from contest version:
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]

In between missions, Samus encounters a Pirate team who have raided a Federation freighter. She intercepts the vessel and damages it enough to make it attempt a landing on Karybdas, a nearby water-world.

The goal is to find as many upgrades as possible and leave the ship before it capsizes. Once the ship is totally floaded, the docking bay will cease to function, and Samus will not be able to escape!

This is a puzzle hack. Length of the hack has been traded for replayability, since it will require a few short playthroughs to get the hang of. If you experiment a bit you will get the hang of it, and if you explore a bit, the solution(s) will be revealed in-game.



Are you lost?
[spoiler]Get off the freighter with any amount of items. The ship is smaller than it may seem at first glance. If you wander, you will soon find everything. But if you want clearer direction...
[spoiler]You will need to either clear all enemies in Command 01, or defeat the possessed Pipe within Aft Hold 18 first; either will permit you to take off from the Freighter upon re-entering your ship.[/spoiler][/spoiler]

Item Percentage is 100% unless I done goofed. 101% for now, cause I done goofed. How to get it:
[spoiler]You start with a battery, grapple beam and screw attack. There are 5 more batteries, 7 8 energy tanks, 10 Azure Lance Ammo cannisters, and 9 Fuel Cells, as well as Speed Booster, High Jump Boots and Charge Beam. Note - you get credit for Azure Lance ammo found as well as ammo not fired, 1% each. Fuel Cells only earn credit upon being placed on one of the Freighter's weak points.[/spoiler]

Can I save the animals?
[spoiler]Yes. Once you get the fuel cells, you can return to the brig to release your Etecoon ally.[/spoiler]

What's that weird counter, and about the damned water?
[spoiler]The counter is the current water depth in the ship; the counter runs from 500 to a little below 10 - once there, the freighter you are looting will capsize.
[spoiler]Shoot the pumps to temporarily lower the level. It will start rising again eventually!
[spoiler]Each time you shoot a pump, the water level will rise faster once the pumps fail again.
[spoiler]This means eventually you are doomed.[/spoiler][/spoiler][/spoiler][/spoiler]

Can I save?
[spoiler]Pretty sure once you regain access to the ship all should be well. Kill any enemies in most rooms to regain access to your ship...
[spoiler]But saving also saves the current speed and level of the flooding too ;D[/spoiler][/spoiler]

Why do my weapons suck?
[spoiler]Batteries increase range of the grapple beam. Additionally, the reserves you store in them are expended to increase beam firepower temporarily.
[spoiler]Also, once you get charge beam, an extended charge will fire a wave-beam style X-factor SBA, at a slight premium over the normal battery damage boost cost in reserve energy.[/spoiler][/spoiler]

Good luck! Once you get the hang of it, it should take less than 30 minutes. It is beatable in under 15, game time.



Contest version streams:
[spoiler]
basty the neko (multidarksamuses) (contest/blind)
Oneof99 (contest/blind)
Metroidnerd9001 (contest/blind)
SapphronXD (contest/speedrun-ish)
Ga Ran 101% TAS (contest/max)

[/spoiler]



Design decisions, to help steer feedback a bit
[spoiler]Game is about racing the clock, and the player deciding when things are too risky to continue and leaving at that time. Therefore a lot of things are designed to make a player assess risk/reward. Pressure is supposed to increase as player continues to press their luck towards 100%. As a result:

-screw attack is handed out early, as it gets less effective the more water is present. Therefore, no gravity suit.

-grapple is not extended at game start so players are likely to fall down the two vertical columns left and right of the 2nd room. Batteries at the bottom extend range, and players are likely to shoot the pumps, learning how those work. Also, it is meant to signal that players probably ought to experiment with this item. It is a solution to quite a few of the problems presented in the hack.

-pause is unavailable to players so they must keep moving. Message boxes provide a short opportunity to think if desired. Pause disabling also keeps players from converting reserves to auto, since manual reserves has been modified to make reserves work as a beam power enhancer.

-walls are grappleable til ship powers down. Walls need a grapple icon though since everyone missed this.

-red blocks are screw attack blocks; these are meant to pose no serious obstacle unless water has risen a lot. It is easier to use them as platforms under water with high jump acquired since you don't accidentally destroy them. Some of these need to be repositioned though since they can't be used well as intended due to proximity to room walls, or blocking a walljump to a landing opposite their position

-yellow squares are overloaded - used as enemy crumble blocks, monitor panels and acitvateable tiles. At the very least, all three of these types need their own visual.

-platform lifts move slowly to encourage player to use other means of moving around if possible, but also to provide an alternate means of moving about the ship once flooded if needed. They are meant to cause players to feel panicked and get sloppy, but it is generally better to use them than to walljump around and risk a fall!

-speedbooster is the key item of this hack, and to make it work, it's been edited to charge in an absurdly short distance. It doesn't damage enemies for balance reasons and also because some roomstates change once enemies in the room have been killed. A lot of the rooms have been set up so that shinesparks will cover a ton of distance with ease.

-maybe make the fish ignore Samus, since they are chiefly around to eat space pirates. Put them in closer proximity so they kill the pirates faster once they appear.
[/spoiler]



Notes/Todo
[spoiler]Streams posted are also serving to help me review and fix issues; if I missed a stream you posted, let me know! I'll add it here.

fix water level glitches - under/overflow RAM bytes/fx vanishing due to bad room fx3 control algorithm
fix map message glitch so players don't die if they mess around with pause screen
move map message display to specific computers at each end of ship, respawn so players can access at these locations
azure ray needs plasma-beam ability to go through multiple enemies
fix shot AI of shutters, rippers, kamers so that azure ray can destroy all types
consider grapple killing more than just the robotic enemies in one shot
make finished title screen
edit intro to include a better description of mission objectives
edit message boxes to be clearer about changes made to items
fix ending so planet explosion skips if less than 9 bombs are planted
fix ending totals - to 100%
adjust damage values for charged shots to make them deadlier
...once all of above works, consider redoing artwork depending on available time

add further edits based on feedback posted below
[/spoiler]

Please feel free to post feedback on the contest version, so I can spend some time cleaning this hack up a bit in an appropriate manner.

Attached is the current contest version of the hack, which is what will be getting the overhaul.

[altoiddealer]

This hack sounds really cool, I'm looking forward to playing it!

It also sounds like you intended to include a download link for the hack (?)

[Moehr]

Fixed, attached the contest version, which is the thing that needs further development as described above

[Blazingfury64]

This is pretty fun! Unfortuanately, it's pretty big and I realized pretty quickly that the map is unable to be opened due to it taking place on Ceres. Probably going to have to write down what each room is and what it contains. The water level mechanic is pretty unique as I never have seen anything like it before. Good luck with the contest!

[Moehr]

Glad you are enjoying it so far! The next update will include a functional map along with several other really important fixes.

Update: Hud map fixed, HUD now shows max grapple length and reserve-power, reserve-power is tethered to equipment slot 5 in lieu of X-ray so it can be turned off if desired.

[Moehr]

Worked on map a bit. For those of you who have played this, what elements aside from item locations would you like to have added to this map?

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Old room, but new map shows properly in minimap on HUD:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Also working on some tiles, so as to make it look less like randomly placed Ceres tiles and more like a coherent environment. With the new tiles along the edge of the room, I am hoping once they are animated with energy pulses while active that more players may try to grapple on to them :D

[spoiler][/spoiler]