Targeting the... targeting code!

More progress today, and some further complications arise.

I've coded the 'targeting' function where the crosshairs flash red when hovering over a ground-based object, including the hidden sol towers.

Cross-hairs flashing red over a Sol Tower

Herein lies the complication; the Z80 code uses the shadow sprite RAM for coordinate comparison between the crosshairs and the ground-based objects. Similarly, the shadow sprite RAM is used in other 'collision-detection' routines, like collecting the bonus flag. The issue is, the shadow sprite registers are in OSD - in this case Neo Geo - format, and idealy only accessed in the OSD layer.

For now, I've ignored that fact and just written the code in the main CPU file. But of course ultimately it can't reside in this file because it's strictly a platform-independent core.

Moving it into the OSD layer is troublesome from a few angles, not least of which is efficiency (especially if I write accessor functions for sprite coordinates). And I can't move the whole routine as I also don't want any core game logic in the OSD layer.

On the 68K core though, the sprite coordinates stored in the object table are simply 16-bit values, scaled with respect to the Neo Geo register copies in shadow RAM (themselves shifted into high bits). It would therefore be no less efficient to compare sprite coordinates from the object table as opposed to the shadow registers. I'll sit on it for now, but I will probably go this way; deviating from the original code, but arguably only semantically.

Other progress comprises being able to collect the Bonus Flag, and score either 10,000 pts or an extra Solvalou, depending on the dipswitch setting. I have a build option for revealing the location of the Sol Towers. And finally, I've coded the shooting routines, but haven't debugged them yet. Shots are fired, but they don't behave as expected.

10,000 pts for collecting the Bonus Flag

Next is obviously debugging the shooting, and then I'll code the routines for bombing ground-based objects. They should be very similar to the targeting routines I did tonight. Then there will be a lengthy process of finishing all the handler routines for the ground-based objects.

One last aspect of the OSD layer I need to add is the 2x2 sprite hardware support. I have an idea of how that's going to work, but I will probably leave it for a while yet.