ms pac sue alternate AI?

corky

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i recently played a ms pac where sue seemed to behave differently than im used to. she was breaking off at a different point than usual during my grouping (especially on the orange/pretzel/apple boards), which made it quite a challenge since i had to adjust my grouping on the fly. is there a setting on the board (like the harder difficulty/shorter blue time jumper) that alters the ai of the ghosts? this is the first machine ive played where sue didnt want to behave.
 
i recently played a ms pac where sue seemed to behave differently than im used to. she was breaking off at a different point than usual during my grouping (especially on the orange/pretzel/apple boards), which made it quite a challenge since i had to adjust my grouping on the fly. is there a setting on the board (like the harder difficulty/shorter blue time jumper) that alters the ai of the ghosts? this is the first machine ive played where sue didnt want to behave.

There is no such setting. Is it an original Ms. Pac-man PCB?

Any video of what you are referring to?

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 
im sure its an original pcb; the serial number matches the cabinet. not sure if anything was done to it though. it had the short blue time jumper soldered (which was undone when my friend got the game). not sure if the chips are original, but ive never seen sue act like that on another machine. ill try to grab a video next time im at my friends place.
 
Finally got around to recording some of the strange behavior. What could cause this? Also, please disregard our shenanigans, as these were taken after a few drinks.





I also noticed pinky wasn't completely behaving either. On the Chase boards I would face the wall on the left side next to the hiding spot, and instead of pinky turning up (as she normally does), she came for me, a la blinky.
 
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Is there a mult-kit installed? I have a Mad-Pac 97 in 1 kit and my patterns never worked quite right on regular Pac-Man game.
 
Is there a mult-kit installed? I have a Mad-Pac 97 in 1 kit and my patterns never worked quite right on regular Pac-Man game.

nope, i believe its all original.

your patterns may not work if your board is using the atlantic city chip, which changes the timing of when the monsters leave the ghost house
 
Seems to me there is a jumper you can cut on Pac Man to make it more difficult. I wonder if that affects Ms Pac the same way. I have a link to that mod somewhere. Something about a mod so the operators wouldn't have their machines tied up so long.
 
Seems to me there is a jumper you can cut on Pac Man to make it more difficult. I wonder if that affects Ms Pac the same way. I have a link to that mod somewhere. Something about a mod so the operators wouldn't have their machines tied up so long.

it just affects the blue time i believe, not the ai. it was set on my friends board when he got it, but it was quickly undone.
 
it just affects the blue time i believe, not the ai. it was set on my friends board when he got it, but it was quickly undone.

Ok,

I'm not set up to play around with it, but I don't use the upper hold spot that often when I play. However on the Jr. maze you are right. Sue is not behaving normally.

But that isn't something that can be set on a PCB. It could be a problem with one of the rom chips.

You may want to run this past Jamey Pittman.
http://home.comcast.net/~jpittman2/pacman/pacmandossier.html

Edit: In reference to your second video, the pic below of the Jr. maze shows that when you're at "A" and Sue is at "B" or "C" she should go in the direction of the arrows if my memory is correct, but on that game she doesn't.

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 

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Ok,
Edit: In reference to your second video, the pic below of the Jr. maze shows that when you're at "A" and Sue is at "B" or "C" she should go in the direction of the arrows if my memory is correct, but on that game she doesn't.

on every other board ive played, she obeys the arrows. however on this one, she doesnt want to cooperate. ive never seen this behavior on any other ms. pac-man, so i figured id call in the expert to see if this kind of thing happens. thanks for the input, darren.

just curious, do you group sue on the fly on the junior boards? ive seen a couple of aarts inps where he groups sue on the chase and juniors without having to rely on any holds (for any extended periods); he does it all in stride. if so, pretty impressive. it always takes me a while to completely group all 4 monsters on the junior boards. id love to see you play sometime.
 
on every other board ive played, she obeys the arrows. however on this one, she doesnt want to cooperate. ive never seen this behavior on any other ms. pac-man, so i figured id call in the expert to see if this kind of thing happens. thanks for the input, darren.

just curious, do you group sue on the fly on the junior boards? ive seen a couple of aarts inps where he groups sue on the chase and juniors without having to rely on any holds (for any extended periods); he does it all in stride. if so, pretty impressive. it always takes me a while to completely group all 4 monsters on the junior boards. id love to see you play sometime.

Holds are not needed to group on any of the mazes.

I use the tunnels. Just not the way Aart does. (Though I use to do it his way when I first started grouping back in the early 80s).

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 
Holds are not needed to group on any of the mazes.

I use the tunnels. Just not the way Aart does. (Though I use to do it his way when I first started grouping back in the early 80s).

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

since you used to use tunnels the way aart does, but have since changed your style, do you think the way you group now is more efficient? i am in awe of aarts efficiency every time i watch his play. however, he is the only true ms pac master whose play ive seen, so id love to know how the other half dozen kill screen players approach grouping/clearing and what the similarities and differences are in each players technique.

over the past year or so (how long ive been playing), ive tried to adopt some of aarts techniques and incorporate them into my play. i have probably picked up around half of the moves in his bag of tricks and can group pretty efficiently on the chase boards, but the junior boards still take forever. after watching several videos, i am starting to grasp the concept of open field grouping (without holds), but the execution is just beyond my ability at this point. guess i need to do some more studying!
 
Subscribed. Anyone else want to share tips/tricks? This is my all time favorite game, and I'd love to talk strategy.

Is there anything specific you want to know? are you familiar with monster ai and hold positions? What is your high score? How many boards can you clear? Can you group? How many monsters do you typically miss on a 1 second board? Sorry for the barrage of questions; I'm just trying to see where your game currently is and what your weaknesses may be.

I am pretty well versed on the technical side of things, just need to incorporate it more into my play. I eat all monsters on the blue time boards and usually have around 290k by board 19. That being said, even though i can eat every ghost, I have yet to hit a killscreen.
 
Does anyone have a video explaining how to group on the chase boards? I'm currently stuck on these boards. When I try and group Blinky, Pinky and Inky up top, I typically have a tough time keeping them in the top part of the maze and not breaking off and going down. When I do get them grouped I still have never got the timing down to bring Sue with the group, so I start missing ghosts on the banana stage.

And for the record, I suck at the game still. I didn't play it but a handful of times back in the day(and I was 5 when it came out) and only learned to group in the past couple of months. My high score is only at 115,000 with death on board 7. I can make it to the junior boards if I ignore eating the ghosts past board 7, but I don't do that since I'm trying to learn grouping on the chase boards before going to the junior boards.
 
Aart's youtube channel is:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Jelle147
He has some video on grouping. The other way to see his gameplay requires using MAME and downloading some INP files of his (which basically captured his input to a file while he was playing, then the emulator runs using that file for input, and plays back his game) I love watching his gameplay...he seems to group the ghosts so effortlessly :D
 
i could describe how to group the chase boards, but it would more than likely take up enough room for a small novel. instead, check out this video from david race. watching this a few times basically taught me single handedly how to group on those boards. its for a 1 second board, so the methods here will work for all chase boards. i find this video much more straightforward than trying to decipher aarts technique, which incorporates a bunch of different moves on the fly.

i have since adopted a different strategy than the video for the upper right energizer on the chase boards. i group the 3 main monsters in the upper left and have sue circle around the backwards "L." when the 3 upper monsters turn left to go into the corral at the same time sue hits the bottom right corner, i go through the tunnel and hit the wall to my left. as soon as sue turns down, i head up and into the right hand corral from the upper left. i wait here until all monsters group up for easy chomping. ill include a video to show what im talking about.

david races 1 sec chase tutorial:



my upper right konging method (starts at 4:00):



let me know if you have any questions and ill answer them as best as i can
 
since you used to use tunnels the way aart does, but have since changed your style, do you think the way you group now is more efficient?

As for the Junior maze, some grouping methods are faster than others, and some are safer than others. I just got comfortable grouping my way which I felt was safer. Aart tends to clear a lot of the dots at the beginning of the maze while he is still grouping, so his clearing pattern is shorter.

Aart and I developed 100% of our own respective playing strategies on our own.

As for learning to group, the best way is to watch someone who can, because one really can't effectively explain all the nuances involved.

But keep practicing. No one has entered the kill-screen club on this game since well before the turn of the century. :D

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.
 
i could describe how to group the chase boards, but it would more than likely take up enough room for a small novel. instead, check out this video from david race. watching this a few times basically taught me single handedly how to group on those boards. its for a 1 second board, so the methods here will work for all chase boards. i find this video much more straightforward than trying to decipher aarts technique, which incorporates a bunch of different moves on the fly.

i have since adopted a different strategy than the video for the upper right energizer on the chase boards. i group the 3 main monsters in the upper left and have sue circle around the backwards "L." when the 3 upper monsters turn left to go into the corral at the same time sue hits the bottom right corner, i go through the tunnel and hit the wall to my left. as soon as sue turns down, i head up and into the right hand corral from the upper left. i wait here until all monsters group up for easy chomping. ill include a video to show what im talking about.

let me know if you have any questions and ill answer them as best as i can

Thanks for the links to the videos. I'll have to keep practicing, as these videos do help but played a few times tonight and found I'm still not very good at grouping the three ghosts on the chase boards yet. I'm going to have to rig up a switch in front since I have the coin box out at this time to rack advance to the chase boards. Most of the time I get in such a hurry to clear the first 5 boards I end up losing a life or missing a ghost at this point. I've found that once I no longer have all lives/points I usually lose concentration and die off quickly since I've played the first 5 boards so much.

As for the Junior maze, some grouping methods are faster than others, and some are safer than others. I just got comfortable grouping my way which I felt was safer. Aart tends to clear a lot of the dots at the beginning of the maze while he is still grouping, so his clearing pattern is shorter.

Aart and I developed 100% of our own respective playing strategies on our own.

As for learning to group, the best way is to watch someone who can, because one really can't effectively explain all the nuances involved.

But keep practicing. No one has entered the kill-screen club on this game since well before the turn of the century. :D

Darren Harris
Staten Island, New York.

I'm a long, long, long way from a kill screen, I just hope to get to 200k by the end of the year. Maybe sometime in the distant future if I actually can have enough patience to keep on practicing to grind it out one day. :)

I've watched a lot of grouping videos, and it looks so easy when watching someone else is doing it; but a hell lot harder when I try. At this point, I understand each ghosts AI fairly well but trying to think about it in real time is going to take a lot of practice. Inky by far gives me the most trouble when he's far from Blinky, but I think that' probably true for everyone.

In any case, thanks for the posts in this thread so far. I've been keeping a spreadsheet of my daily scores(when I play) and an occasional comment on what happened. I figure in a few months I'll post the file to show my progression so everyone can see how slow along I've come. :eek:
 
Darren,

Do you remember an MS Pac game that Don Hayes? had up at MARP some years ago(about 365K) he used a similar technique as in the Vids above, but a bit easier to follow, and faster?

The problem with the methods shown in the above vids is that if you don't understand what's happening, It's still bloody hard to execute a perfect eat.

Jr boards are even harder to group until you get the hang of them, they were for me anyway.





john

.
 
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