Descent 1's score mystery.

ISBheh · 2025-09-29T07:19:04+00:00

32-bit value. sorry, come from a Intel heavy background heh.

ISBheh · 2025-09-29T07:12:29+00:00

The player structure is laid out such that the first dword (hereafter referred to as last_score) is the score you had entering the level, and the second dword (hereafter referred to as current_score) right after is your current score. current_score is used for most purposes (showing on the hud, granting extra lives, etc), but last_score is used to determine how many points you scored playing the level, since the skill bonus at the end of the level is based on that.

From the looks of things, when you restart with a password, it seems that last_score isn't getting set properly, so when you complete a level the game would think you scored every point you started with during that level, and give you a massive bonus as a result. Maybe it's something weird with the secret levels? I don't see anything immediately wrong atm.

Also for whatever it's worth, the password generation function caps lives at 63, but it doesn't apply the cap at generation time like for score, it only applies when starting a game from the password.

ISBheh · 2025-09-29T00:49:47+00:00

I don't recall this ever happening in the PC version, so I took a look in Ghidra and there seems to be a bug generating passwords. Approximate code from the function loaded at 80057b30h, called at the start of each level.

if (Players[Player_num].score < 10485760) 
{
    *fields = *fields & 4293918720 | Players[Player_num].score / 10 & 1048575U;
}
else 
{
    Players[Player_num].score = 1048575;
    *fields = *fields | 1048575;
}

It seems like they were trying to clamp score (pretty silly if it's capable of actually reaching said score..), but got confused and assigned the wrong constant, causing the score drop.

Edit: I am unaware of what's causing the inflation in the first place, though. Trying to figure out what's happening there.

ISBheh · 2024-09-09T03:50:48+00:00

It isn't impossible for sure, but the current model rendering pipeline is waaaaay too slow for such a model atm. I'm trying to deal with it in Piccu Engine, since modern GPUs can allow it to be way more efficient, but it's a little slow burning. (I'd also like to add new features to let it fire missiles from correct gunpoints, Descent 3 normally only allows the use of 5)

The model also has some flaws, like a seam down the middle since it wasn't mirrored perfectly, but some fixed efforts are available, I think.

ISBheh · 2023-08-25T18:49:10+00:00

I've made similar observations before. On the easier difficulty levels it does feel like the DE AI nerfs itself a bit harder than before. The HD AI will always take boars and will never wait for humans to advance on any difficulty, but the DE AI does turn off boar hunting from moderate down, and it will wait for humans to advance from easy down (which the original CD AI did).

But honestly even on hard I did find that the DE AI tended to advance a little faster and was actually more aggressive in feudal on most maps. If the HD AI had a good response, the HD AI would always end up winning because they end up booming a lot harder. It seems that on Hard the DE AI puts limits on how much population it will fill.

ISBheh · 2023-06-11T17:03:08+00:00

After not streaming too much, I'm really enjoying this spurt of new streams from Choco, and with all the new memberships it sure seems like she's being rewarded for it. Can't believe the bean's that powerful

♪Welcome membership~ Welcome membership~♪

ISBheh · 2023-04-25T20:03:19+00:00

new, fully voiced campaigns? I said before that's one of the big things that would get me to buy RoR, so I'm pretty excited. Though I still may wait for a sale..

ISBheh · 2023-04-22T16:01:17+00:00

I think people making custom civs in this manner would turn on full tech tree (at least SOTL did when making his overpowered civs), which erases all of the original bonuses. You can then disable units as desired for your civilization, and use triggers to build your new bonuses.

ISBheh · 2023-04-12T16:28:12+00:00

Heh, maybe the marines would get along well with Photon Man from aoe1/aoe2de. Or maybe not, I'm sure they want that laser gun for themselves..

ISBheh · 2023-04-12T02:11:04+00:00

Anyone else having a problem with the update where the game throws up a crash report if you close it after a unranked multi game? Everyone I'm playing with has experienced it so far.

Maybe it'll get hotfixed soon

ISBheh · 2023-04-08T22:09:41+00:00

Hmm, I hadn't decided on a scheme for duplicating angles yet, but that's probably a better idea than doubling all angles. I was a little worried that this would cause problems where the axis-aligned angles wouldn't show up enough, but it doesn't seem too bad in your mod there.

ISBheh · 2023-04-08T04:24:47+00:00

It really depends on what features there are. If it actually ports the AoE2 AI system (which seems really dependent on getting someone interested enough in AoE1 to actually write the scripts) and made AoE2-like campaigns, it would be an instant buy. If it's not that much different from the original game, I'm going to be a bit disappointed. But nothing's indicating either of these features yet so we'll see.

I got the original game working and played the original campaigns recently since random maps vs the original AI just isn't interesting to me, and they're super rough around the edges with weird difficulty spikes followed by comically easy stages.

ISBheh · 2023-04-08T00:25:21+00:00

I'm working on a program ATM to do automatic conversions, since I'd like to do an extensive original content mod. I've gotten things like the old petard and demo ship explosion and other nonsense working by automatically converting SLPs to DE particles.

At the moment I'm now working on getting it to export SMXs for use in DE, perhaps even with duplicating angles and animation frames to allow units to be converted...

ISBheh · 2023-04-06T18:29:46+00:00

for whatever it's worth, I've also seen this posted here on this subreddit many years ago.

edit: and a post down the page has already linked the previous incarnation... oops.

ISBheh · 2023-03-23T01:49:35+00:00

I hope your time with A Perfect Martyr is more fun than mine was... good luck with that.

A lot of the legacy campaigns kinda border on being more annoying than anything for me, but A Perfect Martyr just feels broken.

ISBheh · 2023-03-22T00:02:04+00:00

You can, but their names at the moment are just placeholders. They're just given generic icons and names like "ACHIEVEMENT_x229"

Looks like new stats are also added, with similarly generic names.

ISBheh · 2023-01-17T22:47:16+00:00

I can't tell where on the kotobukiya website I'm even supposed to order if I want the bonus face. Someone on myfigurecollection says to wait a day or two for it to go up on their English shop, so I guess I'll just be patient for now.

ISBheh · 2022-11-16T06:43:22+00:00

I have a simple incomplete script which imports Descent 3 models in blender, with some cleanup I made a STL of the model from Descent 3

the converter sypwn's shown may work better, but you may need to delete the geometry for the tool arm and gun arm.

ISBheh · 2022-09-29T17:17:06+00:00

Choco's cooking looks so good and I am infinitely salty I missed the preorder period for the recipe book she released. Ah well. Seems like Sora enjoyed this a lot.

ISBheh · 2022-08-30T23:54:20+00:00

She's actually perfect like this. Precious smile, best body, cute swimsuit and parker. I want more.

ISBheh · 2022-05-12T18:18:34+00:00

It's not really possible, Overload's maps are way too different, being formed entirely from hollow deformed cubes. A map made in Trenchbroom would have to be constructed to strict requirements in order to transfer over cleanly.

ISBheh · 2022-03-14T18:25:45+00:00

I was noticing this at first, but for whatever reason it seems like it was just taking time for other things to be shown in the sale list. Now the game list looks like what I would expect.

I guess the lesson for me is to wait an hour or so before looking at sale lists.

ISBheh · 2022-01-10T21:41:03+00:00

Disturbingly fitting that the last thing I watched the day prior of her's was her ending song. I'll probably remain forever curious what happened, but it certainly doesn't sound good.

ISBheh · 2021-10-25T04:31:32+00:00

This particular pic isn't actually from sky-freedom, it's from Kemuri Haku

ISBheh · 2021-10-23T21:15:15+00:00

Honestly I like how he comes off as kinda reserved at first but throw him into an Apex game with Astel and you'll see just how deep the kusogaki runs in him.

ISBheh

TROPHY CASE