If her friend got made at her for damage to the calculator, that would absolutely stink

"I don't care if it saved your life, that cost me $100"

You might be interested in reading my 5th ASM lesson for more information.

http://ourl.ca/4673/88522

Just note that .org 40339 is the same as .org $9D93.   .org $9D95 and .org $9D93 can be interchanged with a few simple changes.

Back when I started designing Seek and Destroy, I stuck with only one race because I was concerned about the memory the calculator needed.  However, I am realizing just how much memory I am saving with the new techniques I have been incorporating into the game engine. 

So now, the only reason I don't add more races is because I can't think of anything.  S.A.D. requires that every unit has a strength and weakness, and never loses purpose even late in the game.  And of course, S.A.D. requires controlling a single unit rather than an army.  Thus, I cannot think about how to make a unique race with new properties that will allow this.  Also, I don't like the idea of races being identical in everything except looks and special abilities.

However, if someone has an idea for a new race for the game, I will take care of the necessary sprite work and ASM code.  If you come up with an idea, here's what I'm looking for (and this can be over time, not just all at once.  See below for details):

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1. A name, although first and foremost I will be looking for someone who comes up with an idea for the Tosonians
2. Sketches for buildings/ships.  There can be up to 9 ships and up to 16 buildings.  One building must be in the form of an Operation Center.
3. HP, Cost and abilities for the buildings
4. HP, Cost, Abilities, Damage, Range, Fuel Capacity, Gas Capacity, etc. for ships.  Remember that each unit should be important throughout the game.
5. Anything else that I can think of later

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I don't want to spend months like Blizzard does doing balance testing, so I will look to make sure that the race is somewhat balanced and just needs touching up--against itself, and against other races.

If you think you have something, just let me know, and I'll provide a topic you can post on for your race alone, so that you can show me ideas and I can give suggestions for balancing.  And if you have something, be sure to let me know--I can see S.A.D. having 3 or even 4 races if things work out.

As for the insane AI, one thing you could do when testing is set the emu at like 5, 10 or 25% speed to give you more time during actions, simulating an extremly pro player.

What a splendid idea!  I honestly did not think of that!  Thx, DJ! 

Probably both, but it will mostly be variables that are set.  By the way, the AI will not cheat, even an insane AI.

* Very Easy -- The AI will have a slow reaction time, often choose the wrong counter, and miss several shots when aiming for units. Doesn't scout. Almost as easy as a player who has never played any RTS before

* Easy--The AI will scout, but only to see what it can attack.  It doesn't really use this information to decide the best way to attack, but rather to see where everything is.  However, the AI will not make extremely stupid mistakes, like using a Raptor (without a Deflector shield) against 5 point defenses when a Tank is available.  A typical RTS player can beat an easy AI in at most 3 attempts.

* Medium -- Better reaction times, better reaction to what the AI scouts/sees, often will have a perfect counter, usually picks the right unit for the job in terms of attacking, doesn't miss its fire as much.  Although the AI will use upgrades in all difficulty levels, this is the level where the AI really starts to take advantage of them.  Really is average, but Koreans will be able to beat in few attempts

* Hard -- This is the level where the AI almost always has something planned based on what it sees from scouting, although it doesn't scout every single second.  (There are, of course, situations the AI will have to make an educated guess, as players will come up with strategies I won't think about )  However, it will still miss about 5% of shots and will occasionally pick a unit that isn't the best choice, though not the worst choice.

* Very Hard -- The AI takes very short breaks, if any, between building things. Scouts and looks over the map on a very consistent basis. Misses very few shots. Always picks the perfect counter, and the perfect unit. Constructs proper buildings according to the map.  If the AI has nothing important to build, it will pick a unit and spend its excess money on useful upgrades/sephrane.  An example is a Degruser with Photon Torpedoes or a Camoza with Cloak.

* Insane -- It's my goal (though difficult) that an Insane AI can only be beaten by hard-core players who spend about 2-3 hours a day playing this game. In fact, I'm hoping that it will be so difficult, I won't be able to go very far testing it because I will never do well against it.  I'll have to ask jsj795 to test it  

Good good good good

Aah ok

About the tutorial, I wonder if you planned to add a section on debugging (tips, tricks, such as making your program display some used values on the screen during program execution and other stuff)? This is one part that might be useful to some people

I've never work with debugging tools, so I wouldn't know anything about them.  However, I've made my own debugging tools, so I might be able to make a brief comment on something like that.  Chances are, if I know something valuable about debugging, people who read these lessons will realize what that "valuable something" is without me having to tell them.  It's a rather interesting psychological phenomonen.


LESSON 16 NEXT WEEK

I think you should say somewhere that IX and HL are always mutually exclusive. There is no instruction that can take HL and IX as its arguments.  (so you can't do add hl,ix)

Certainly, although so far, I haven't told the reader what IX is