[OrionSR]

Well, collect might mean different things, any of which might qualify, or maybe specific requirements for some vehicles.

Saved in a garage would count as collected by most standards. For vehicles that are too large for garages, like the Dumper, collected might mean bringing to LS, clearing the stars, and taking a screenshot. Unfortunately, I don't think any of the LS garages are large enough to hold the Rustler or Hydra, so I'm not sure how to present this challenge.

[rubregg]

QUOTE (OrionSR @ Oct 23 2007, 02:13)

Saved in a garage would count as collected by most standards.  For vehicles that are too large for garages, like the Dumper, collected might mean bringing to LS, clearing the stars, and taking a screenshot.

Sounds good.

QUOTE (OrionSR)

Unfortunately, I don't think any of the LS garages are large enough to hold the Rustler or Hydra, so I'm not sure how to present this challenge.

Yes, that's a bit of a problem. Not too many airborne bribes around LS either, are there? The only idea I'd have on the spot would be make some garage big enough, but I think we've already discussed and dismissed that for good reasons. Maybe collection challenges only for vehicles?

[OrionSR]

Challenges

• 4 Star Pimping
• 4 Star Taxi OrionSR r21
• 4 Wheel Vigilante (Montgomery HPV is now a LS Cop Car)
• FBI Truck Vigilante rubregg r20
• SWAT Vigilante

Vehicle Collection

• Collect Early Rhino OrionSR r21
• Collect Early Hydra OrionSR r21
• Collect Early Rustler
• Collect Early Mod Vehicles
• Collect Early Sea Sparrow OrionSR r21
• Collect Early Turismo
• Collect Early Hustler
• Collect Flint Monster

This list has been slightly updated. I'm trying to knock off a few challenges just to see how practical they are.

This post has been edited by OrionSR on Saturday, Oct 27 2007, 17:12

[rubregg]

Cool. I tried to get the Bloodring Banger from SF Stadium over during my last turn - but it's underwater abilities really suck (can't take slopes) so that didn't work.

[OrionSR]

When I collected the early Banger, I used the Flint Intersection jump. It just has enough speed to make the jump, but has a lot of problems with the landing and tends to roll or slide down the hill.

BTW, I keep trying 4 Star Taxi, but haven't been having much luck. Last attempt was 24 in a row before CJ got busted waiting for the passenger to enter the car.

This post has been edited by OrionSR on Friday, Oct 26 2007, 16:27

[GTA Phreak]

I'm familiar with the Flint Intersection jump comming from Los Santos, - but I've got no idea how to make it in the other direction.

It should however not be a problem to recover a Banger if you undrown it in one of the spots along the Flint coast (there's a good spot just past the bend north between the 2 buildings marked on the map), - the seabed is almost perfectly flat all the way to Santa Maria beach. The only thing I've had problems landing there is a Towtruck with a vehicle on tow.

As for aerial bribes: 1 along the dirttrack near Fern ridge, 1 raised over the road in Las Colinas another on top of the bridge in the Docks and finish off by landing on Ganton Rwy 00 (aka drainage ditch) and pick the last on foot.
Those should be reasonably doable with the smaller airplanes.
But I'd recommend simply landing on Santa Maria beach, - enter the safehouse and change your hat

[OrionSR]

QUOTE (GTA Phreak @ Oct 26 2007, 09:47)

I'm familiar with the Flint Intersection jump comming from Los Santos, - but I've got no idea how to make it in the other direction.

That's only because we haven't been able to talk you into trying the Skipping Palomino Rally. Rubregg has a few screenshots of this jump in both directions on his Palomino Map posted on the 1st page. <SP Jump 25> The landing zone, and speed required, makes this a particularly difficult jump with cars. Most of the time CJ ends up getting wet. However, I have managed to collect a Bullet, Banger, and Bandito using this jump.

This post has been edited by OrionSR on Friday, Oct 26 2007, 17:35

[OrionSR]

I finally managed to complete the 4 Star Taxi challenge in SF using the BP/FP Cabbie. I decided to be overly cautious on damage and painted whenever possible. This made it difficult to build any kind of a time buffer. I don't think there was ever a time when I had more than 5 minutes on the clock, even at the start of a long fare, but I never got below a minute after the 1st level or two. I was able to get into the 4 star mission zone and pound out the fares, but the need to repair damage and time restraints still made the whole mission pretty much a white knuckle affair.

Starvation was another concern starting at 37 fares. I had CJ puffed up on pizza just before starting the mission, so he had a bit of fat to work with and didn't start burning any muscle.

Unlike the Broadway during Pimping, the Cabbie doesn't seem to be able to get flats during the Taxi mission. Tire damage immunity isn't one of the properties that can be saved in a garage, so I suspect this is a feature of the Taxi mission script. There were just too many close encounters with roadblocks for the Cabbie to have gotten away clean each time.

[zmoonchild]

Based on Orion’s personal challenge to me, I tried the 'Katie Jumps' Challenge. I got 11 completed in about 6:08; she bailed just as I started the 11th jump, so technically I got maybe 10½.
I will be trying it again

I did want to comment on the Minigun Run. I had already done that prior to reading it here.
I have gotten over 10,000 + rounds for both the Minigun and the Combat Shotgun in a single run; and I’ve done it more than once. In fact, it’s in my ‘Ultimate Starter Game’ that I plug in my signature.
It gets kind of boring after a while, but I did develop a technique where I ride around the Julius Thruway at about an average of 6 minutes per round (to allow the weapons to respawn). I also collect the regular Shotgun that’s under the ramp near the Northwest corner of the Thruway (at the Pilson Intersection), then alternate with the Combat Shotgun to collect ammo a little faster.
I also collect the SMG that's behind (inside) the Come-A-Lot during my run.
And I’ve collected and stored the Sea Sparrow quite a few times.

I do have a suggestion about starting a Vigilante Challenge that’s similar to one on the first post; however, my idea was to take an unmodified game and pick a starting point, like the Verdant Bluffs Safehouse.
The game would be prior to any story missions, so everyone doing the challenge would be able to do whatever they want (without cheats) to get to the highest Vigilante level, without doing ANY story missions.
The highest I’ve gotten is Level 41, and I could have kept on going except I simply ran out of ammo for my minigun. My health and vehicle were all in good shape, and I had no Wanted Levels when I got to that level, so I feel that I could have gone on a lot longer.
I did it on a Police Motorcycle.

Anyway, I haven’t had a chance to read through all of this post yet, so I hope that nothing I’ve said has already been mentioned.

This post has been edited by zmoonchild on Saturday, Oct 27 2007, 22:54

[OrionSR]

Well done ZoomZoom, and thanks for taking up the challenge. I figured you'd be all over the gold standard fairly quickly. BTW, in the current rounds of the chain game, we left all the SF jumps alone, and the two new jumps in downtown are not suppose to be possible with Katie as a passenger. You might want to check them out, Phreak knocked them out last time, and no one else is really into the jumps.

The Mini-gun Run is really intended as an introductory 4 Star challenge. The prospect of collecting this special weapon is often one of the primary motivations for people to explore restricted territory, so we just formalized the challenge a little.

Collecting the Sea Sparrow isn't that much of a challenge on the current round since there is one available at the Boat School. I finally found an unrestricted route through the bay (cross over or close behind the ship) so braving the wanted level isn't even necessary. The only reason I collected it on this round was to leave a feature clue.

I like your HPV Vigilante idea. Should we craft a specific save for the challenge? I don't mind using trainers, scripting, or save file editing to enable the features we desire. For instance, should CJ have max health or 150 armor for the challenge. How much ammo should be supplied (running out won't be a problem if that's what we want). Special weapon pickups can be supplied. I can place vehicles where we want. We can load at the special load spots of Fern Hillside or Blueberry Acres, but that indicates my preference for starting in the Badlands. Maybe Mulholland would be a more central location. How about bike or weapon skill? I've recently started attempting vigilante with 0 bike skill, but I'm not sure if that should be part of the challenge. SMG skill doesn't seem to be necessary. Should the HPV have any immunities? I would lean against it. Would it be better if we got rid of the gangs?

BTW, my personal best Vigilante with a Cop Bike was done on the 100% save of the original chain game. CJ had max skills, armor, health, and unlimmited ammo. All I used as the SMG and a normal HPV I jacked for the mission. I was trying to beat someone's Rhino score of level 50, so I kept retrying until I finally managed level 55, then ran away to save. I would suspect that this challenge would be much easier in a pre-mission game since most of my problems occur when the targets are spawning at the Bayside Marina or Back'O'Beyond.

[rubregg]

QUOTE (GTA Phreak @ Oct 26 2007, 18:47)

It should however not be a problem to recover a Banger if you undrown it in one of the spots along the Flint coast...

Thanks, Phreak. I haven't been exploring the Flint seabed yet, guess I'll do that soon fyi, I tried the Fallen Tree glitch spot. Not a good place for the Banger

@OrionSR
Well done on the 4star Taxis, congrats

@Zoom
Yay, a new name on the Medals List - good to see you're trying out Katie Jumps, very well done so far. Guess gold (at least) is only a question of time here...

@Vigilante Challenge
Whatever the vehicle, if a save is crafted I'd strongly suggest restricting the Minigun Ammo. To sum up for Zoom, with enough Minigun ammo you reach a point somewhere around level 30 or 40 where you can go on forever. ...or as long as your ammo lasts.

I've never really kept count of used minigun ammo though. Maybe we can give 500 or 1000 ammo and level 40 has to be reached with that?

What about not having miniguns at all? Level 20 using only remote explosives?

[OrionSR]

I just noticed something, but I'm not sure of the best place to document the discovery, so I suppose I'll just post a note here.

I was checking out ZoomZoom's extra challenging save that loaded in restricted LV. I was just goofing around and decided to take a flight to LS. When the plane finally landed and let CJ out, I was surprised to notice the the plane trip cleared the wanted level. I did a quick check, and the air ticket booths are out of order until after The Green Sabre, but still, it's a pretty easy way to return from restricted LV later in the game.

[rubregg]

QUOTE (OrionSR @ Oct 28 2007, 22:56)

I was just goofing around and decided to take a flight to LS.

By that you mean buying a ticket and flying by ariline/cut scene? I think I've only ever done that once (in a non 4star context). Hope I can try that out tomorrow...

[OrionSR]

QUOTE (rubregg @ Oct 28 2007, 14:07)

QUOTE (OrionSR @ Oct 28 2007, 22:56) I was just goofing around and decided to take a flight to LS. By that you mean buying a ticket and flying by ariline/cut scene? I think I've only ever done that once (in a non 4star context). Hope I can try that out tomorrow...

Yeah, sorry. I suppose I should have been more clear. There's a yellow marker at each airport: buy a ticket, (skip to the end of the flight), wait forever until the airliner finally stops, and CJ ends up at the yellow marker at the LS airport (Badlands is open but SF was still restricted) without the 4 star wanted level he earned from entering/loading at restricted LV.

I was checking out these markers recently because they look the same, but are much different than the enex connections that are used for doors and lifts. Recently someone filed in some details on Block 27: Entrance markers of the Wiki for save files, and when I decoded the coordinates they pointed to the airline ticket booths. So anyway, the ticket booths had my attention because anything I can edit in the save file might make an interesting feature in a future round, but so far I can't figure any way to modify this block in an interesting way.

[pdescobar]

You can screw around with the color and position of the visible marker in the save file, but you can't do anything about the behaviour of the ticket booths or flights; that's all scripted. And those flights will completely clear any wanted level, even 6 stars.

[OrionSR]

QUOTE (pdescobar @ Oct 28 2007, 17:32)

You can screw around with the color and position of the visible marker in the save file, but you can't do anything about the behaviour of the ticket booths or flights; that's all scripted. And those flights will completely clear any wanted level, even 6 stars.

Yeah, that's what I figured. My hope was to somehow find a link between the Entrance Markers in Block 27 and those burglary enex connections that sometimes appear at the end of Block 25, but it doesn't look like it's going to work out.

[OrionSR]

I'm out of practice, so it took me quite a few tries to even finish, but I finally got my Pro-lap acheivement.



BTW, I really like the alternate camera angle the garage uses on this save. It provides much better vision of the traffic and peds at the start, and a little more camera control for the finishing screenshot. Also, this would solve the problem of vehicle positioning and that really weird camera zoom/flip we were fighting with. Usually I change the camera type in the IPL when the save is created, but I suspect I can flip the bit to make this modification with a hex edit.

This post has been edited by OrionSR on Monday, Oct 29 2007, 07:57

[rubregg]

QUOTE (OrionSR @ Oct 29 2007, 09:10)

BTW, I really like the alternate camera angle the garage uses on this save. It provides much better vision of the traffic and peds at the start, and a little more camera control for the finishing screenshot. Also, this would solve the problem of vehicle positioning and that really weird camera zoom/flip we were fighting with. Usually I change the camera type in the IPL when the save is created, but I suspect I can flip the bit to make this modification with a hex edit.

Congrats on the Pro-Lap!! Cool. ...I haven't even tried out the camera angle used in the cg save, but I'm quite tempted to give the Pro-Lap a try too, while I'm at it. I've actually never even tried taking a hooker along...

...but like I said in the chain game topic, I gave the Silver Bullet a serious try and with a lot of luck finally made it, yayy The last jump for the finishing screenshot actually finished off the Bullet, so err, I hope it still counts, not being one of the Creek Jumps and all...



Edit:
Hell yes, the camera angle for the Palomino Garage in the chain game save is *so* much better than the original one. Would be cool if we could get that into our rally saves.

Tried Pro-Lap - close, but no cigar




This post has been edited by rubregg on Monday, Oct 29 2007, 18:46

[OrionSR]

QUOTE (rubregg @ Oct 29 2007, 11:09)

Edit: Hell yes, the camera angle for the Palomino Garage in the chain game save is *so* much better than the original one. Would be cool if we could get that into our rally saves.

Do you want the modification just for Badland Endurance, or also for Skipping Palomino?
Never mind, try these out.

<Badlands Endurance - Alt Garage Camera>
<Skipping Palomino - Alt Garage Camera>

Is there anyone interested in documentation for activating and changing the garage camera in the save file? The garage block has only been partially decoded, and the bits I'm flipping are in the 2nd of the 3 unknown flag bytes at the beginning of the record.

bit 0x02, inactive flag: 6A is locked, 68 is unlocked
bit 0x20, camera follows player - grge door type 5 (4-7?): 48 is normal (Johnson), 68 for El Corona (if active)

Other notes:

bit 0x01, set on Loco Low Co, and Transfender in LS
bit 0x04, used on LS PnSs with shared name (sprLAe)
bit 0x08, set on everything except Airstrip Hangar, SF impound, and AT-400 Hangar

bit 0x10, up and in door: used on Carlton Heights (7A or 78 - type 7) and Wu Zi Mu's type 3 garage
bit 0x40, always set except for PnS and Bomb shops*

*PnS and Bomb shops have the 0x01 bit set in the 1st flag byte, otherwise this is always 00.
The 3rd "flag" byte was always 0x13 on the save I examined. This detail is limited to a single save.

This post has been edited by OrionSR on Tuesday, Oct 30 2007, 00:27

[rubregg]

QUOTE (OrionSR @ Oct 29 2007, 21:52)

Is there anyone interested in documentation for activating and changing the garage camera in the save file? The garage block has only been partially decoded, and the bits I'm flipping are in the 2nd of the 3 unknown flag bytes at the beginning of the record.

Yes, I'm interested, thanks for the info, and good you did Skipping Palomino too.

Had a first look at the garage block, don't completely understand all you wrote, but figured out enough to change the camera for the Katie Jumps file too. Try this one out, it seems to work here and I so much prefer this camera behaviour:

<Katie Jumps - Alt Garage Camera>

Now a question or ten:

QUOTE

bit 0x02, inactive flag: 6A is locked, 68 is unlocked

I get this; 2nd bit, counting from least significant bit = 1

QUOTE

bit 0x20, camera follows player - grge door type 5 (4-7?): 48 is normal (Johnson), 68 for El Corona (if active)

Don't get this; don't we flip the 6th bit here, getting from hex 48 to 68, so shouldn't this be bit 0x06? (newb question, I guess...)

QUOTE

The 3rd "flag" byte was always 0x13 on the save I examined. This detail is limited to a single save.

FYI, I had a look at a couple of saves; that byte seemed to be the same for each garage within every save, but had a different value in all the different files I looked at. Found values of 0x13, 17, 23, 28.

Finally I'm a bit confused about this: in garage structure, do the sections for each garage have an 'end' marker, or is the end simply defined by number of bytes in the code? I was looking for an 'end' marker, found sometimes 0x7C and sometimes 0x7D, so I was wondering if it actually was an 'end' marker, or just the last byte for each garage.