Ketsui Arrange

[AntiFritz]

They're both gay, but Type-B is gayer.

they are cutting the bonds of hell

With great determination

[Zorator]

add more suicide bullets, make the shot for both ships weaker, and make 5 cubez pop out of the air as long as i'm holding the lock on button and not even shooting nething

This made me chuckle.

I thought it was implied that the term "rank" refers to dynamic rank, difficulty that changes in-game. Ketsui has no rank but has selectable difficulties in the service menu. While we are on the subject, since I don't have Ketsui for 360, can anyone tell me if it has these higher difficulty settings from the arcade version?

[moozooh]

If I remember correctly you can adjust these settings when not playing on XBL, like in all other ports.

[MEDIEVAL_MIKU]

Make Ketsupachi from the Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label Arrange mode.

[stryc9]

Make Ketsupachi from the Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label Arrange mode.

You don't need to. The game has already been created for you and is available from the main menu on the Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label disc.

[Elixir]

Make Ketsupachi from the Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label Arrange mode.

How do you propose this happens?

[emphatic]

Make Ketsupachi from the Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label Arrange mode.

How do you propose this happens?

It's just made.

[CStarFlare]

you plant bees in the ground and nine months later pachi mode is born

[MEDIEVAL_MIKU]

Make Ketsupachi from the Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu Black Label Arrange mode.

How do you propose this happens?

I was intending an arrange mode in the gameplay style of Ketsupachi as opposed to a 1:1 remake but I realize I worded it vaguely. Let me also mention that I know that it'd be a harder hack to do since it would involve making new subroutines and whatnot but I think it'd be cool and impressive if it was done.

[moozooh]

Well, you definitely couldn't make the wording even more nondescript.

[BPzeBanshee]

Well I understood what he was saying. Not hard to read and use your head a little bit, guys.

[O. Van Bruce]

Just in case... is Trap15 already working on this?

[trap15]

No, I haven't gotten a chance to start yet. I'm not sure if I want to do Ketsui anymore though, since I wanted to change the scoring system substantially (personally, I hate point-blanking) but I realized that the stage design was very much based around it, so if I did substantially change the scoring system, I'd be screwed.
Anyways, keep pitching ideas, I'm watching this thread.

EDIT: Screw it, I'm doing Ketsui, and it's keeping point-blanking; I just need to make it fun (which I am going to).

[nZero]

So you're keeping point-blanking in?

In that case: no more lockshot, no more Tiger Schwert, no more Panzer Jager, no more chips.

Only... UO POKO CAT & DISCOMANS.

mewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewAPPROACHING THE TARGET OF ATTACK. YOUR MISSION STARTS NOW. ARE YOU READY?mewmewmewmew...

[Erppo]

You realize that the Omote loop system actually punishes point-blanking? You could look into that more.

[trap15]

Oh and two notes to those who care:
* There is a bug in original Ketsui that makes it so playing P2 is easier
* There is rank in Ketsui. It can be controlled by dying and not grabbing powerups.

[moozooh]

Please elaborate!

[AntiFritz]

So you're keeping point-blanking in?

In that case: no more lockshot, no more Tiger Schwert, no more Panzer Jager, no more chips.

Only... UO POKO CAT & DISCOMANS.

mewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewAPPROACHING THE TARGET OF ATTACK. YOUR MISSION STARTS NOW. ARE YOU READY?mewmewmewmew...

Oh god this.

[Illyrian]

Oh and two notes to those who care:
* There is a bug in original Ketsui that makes it so playing P2 is easier
* There is rank in Ketsui. It can be controlled by dying and not grabbing powerups.

Pleade explain the rank system if ou have specifics! Either way I know what I will be testing after work this evening!

[trap15]

Sure, I'll elaborate.

Rank is mostly a single counter that counts up over time and maxes out at $E0. However, your powerup level is added to this (if you are at power level $0 through $2, it is multiplied by 2, otherwise it's multiplied by 4). Therefore, dying lowers your rank because you lose power level, and you can keep rank a bit lower (albeit not really that much) by not grabbing powerups.

The counter speed is determined by the test menu setting for difficulty; very hard counts up pretty fast, easy counts up very slowly.

The bug is in the ranking system (particularly the powerup part). When playing as player 2, no matter what power level you are at, it is only multiplied by 2, rather than 4. However, if you are doing a 2 player game, when player 2's power level would no longer normally qualify for the 2x multiplier, instead of going to 4x, player 1's multiplier is doubled! Thus if player 1 had a 2x powerup rank multiplier, it's now 4x, and if he had 4x, it's now 8x.

I am of course going to be fixing that bug in Arrange, and I'm planning on fleshing out the rank system too.

[O. Van Bruce]

Does that mean that the rank on a player 1 normal run will be lower if you fix that bug?

Can you explain the rank system with an equation to make it simplier?

also... Can you replace the original soundtrack with the arrange music on Ketsuipachi?

[trap15]

It actually means rank on a normal player 2 run will be higher. Player 1 is unaffected by the bug, except when playing a game with 2 players.

An equation would look something like this:

Code: Select all

process(rankTimer) {
  timerValue++
}

p1PowerValue = p1Power * 2
if(p1Power > $2)
  p1PowerValue *= 2;

p2PowerValue = p2Power * 2
if(p2Power > $2)
  p1PowerValue *= 2;

if(p1PowerValue > p2PowerValue)
  powerValue = p1PowerValue
else
  powerValue = p2PowerValue

rank = timerValue + powerValue

if(loop1) {
  if(rank > $E0)
    rank = $E0
}else{
  rank = $E8
}

Oh also, as described in the above pseudocode (that I forgot to mention last post), when you're in second loop, rank is hard-wired to $E8. It still bothers to calculate everything, but the rank is manually set each time back to $E8. I also double-checked what I just wrote, so if you see something odd (namely the p1PowerValue *= 2 in the P2 section), that's how they actually do it.

EDIT: And no, it's not likely for me to be able to modify the sound much (I can probably modify the samples, but that'd be it).

[emphatic]

A most excellent observation!

[Cagar]

-

[CStarFlare]

What exactly does rank affect? I'm guessing bullet speed, but do patterns change or enemies have more health?

[trap15]

I can tell for sure it affects pattern density, I'm not sure about bullet speed and enemy health. It's not super-significant.

Also, another factor I forgot again, there's a constant for each level that is added to the final value as well So the full equation would be:

Code: Select all

process(rankTimer) {
  timerValue++
}

p1PowerValue = p1Power * 2
if(p1Power > $2)
  p1PowerValue *= 2;

p2PowerValue = p2Power * 2
if(p2Power > $2)
  p1PowerValue *= 2; // NOTE: ROFL

if(p1PowerValue > p2PowerValue)
  powerValue = p1PowerValue
else
  powerValue = p2PowerValue

rank = timerValue + powerValue + levelConstant

if(loop1) {
  if(rank > $E0)
    rank = $E0
}else{
  rank = $E8
}

[moozooh]

I guess it's similar to DDP and some other Cave games then, like Futari Maniac/God/Ultra, Galuda 1&2, etc. Basically there are two states you can see: no-miss rank and "you've died recently" rank, any other difficulty progression is automatic and thus largely unavoidable, so it doesn't matter.

To my knowledge, no Cave games aside from Ibara/PS (and probably MMP, but can't say for sure) have enemy health increase as a rank effect, otherwise it would have been noticed a long time ago.

I wonder, though, how large the rank difference between 1P and 2P is in vanilla Ketsui in absolute numbers?

[trap15]

The rank difference between the two at maximum power level is 16, which is actually fairly significant. It's 1/14th of maximum possible rank, if that puts it into perspective a bit better

[jepjepjep]

Great info trap15. Is this rank bug present in all of the revisions?

Also, do you know what causes the freeplay bug and music bug in the first revision?

[trap15]

As far as I know, it is; I don't see why it wouldn't be, I doubt they touched it before the last revision.

I don't know what causes most of the bugs (though I have my guesses for the st1 boss chip counter bug).

Anyways, I'm at a point now where I need user input and testing, so if you're interested, shoot me a PM and why you think you're a good choice for testing (pluses include: can reach 2nd loop, can max out chip counter. If you can get to ura loop, you're basically a sure thing).