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moonbase: MAME ROM Information.

History:

Moon Base [Upright model] (c) 1979 Nichibutsu.

A licensed sequel to the legendary "Space Invaders". Moon Base's gameplay is virtually identical to the original game, with the player once again moving a laser base back and forth along the bottom of the screen, shooting endless waves of aliens marching downwards towards the player. Once again flying saucers can be shot for extra points.

Some minor enhancements over the original include the wave number now being indicated on the player's laser bases, and the inclusion of the infamous 'color cellophane overlay', added to give the impression of coloured alien sprites.

- TECHNICAL -

Main CPU : 8080 (@ 2 Mhz)

Sound Chips : SN76477 (@ 2 Mhz)

Screen orientation : Vertical

Video resolution : 224 x 240 pixels

Screen refresh : 60.00 Hz

Palette colors : 8

Players : 2

Buttons : 3 (LEFT, RIGHT, FIRE)

- TRIVIA -

Original products:

Space Invaders Part II (Taito)

T.T Space Invaders Part II (Taito)

Licensed products:

Space Invaders Deluxe [Upright model] [No. 852] (Midway)

Space Invaders Deluxe [Cocktail model] [No. 870] (Midway)

Moon Base [Upright model] (Nichibutsu)

Moon Base [Cocktail Table model] (Nichibutsu)

- SCORING -

Large Invader : 10 points

Medium Invader : 20 points

Small Invader : 30 points

UFO : 50 to 300 points

Flashing UFO : 200 points

'Rainbow' Bonus : 500 or 1000 points

- TIPS AND TRICKS -

* When you start the game, your base will be in the bottom left corner of the screen, below the buildings. Your goal is to blast the invaders into dust. Keep in mind that once the invaders make it to either the right or left edge of the screen, they will drop down a row and head in the opposite direction. You should plan your strategy to prevent them from making it to an edge.

* A good strategy is to start blasting out the columns on the opposite edge of movement. If the invaders are moving right, then start blasting out the leftmost columns first. This way, their return trip is longer and you have more time to deal with them.

* Do not attempt to hit the invaders dead center. They fire their laser bombs from dead center and your shots will collide, wasting your shot and letting them move closer to an edge.

* Speaking of shots, you can only have one shot out at a time so make it count.

* Use your buildings to your advantage. ''Peek'' around buildings to get shots and blast a hole in the middle of your buildings to give you protection while you knock out columns of invaders. Keep in mind, this protection will only last about 2 columns before the invaders blow open a hole wide enough to destroy your base.

* Every other wave of invaders starts one row lower. Eventually, the waves will start one row above your buildings. Be prepared to do some fast shooting to keep them from getting any lower because once they reach your level, the game is over.

* When you are down to taking out the last invader on a wave, that invader will zip across the screen. The strange thing is that the invader travels faster going left to right then going right to left. Keep this in mind when trying to shoot it.

* The mystery saucer (or UFO) will appear at random times. If you have a good shot at it, try to hit it. Don't go out of your way, however, to go after it; it isn't worth the risk or time wasted.

* When you get a wave that has spaces in-between the invaders, be prepared for heavier fighting. These gaps are left to accommodate the ''new'' invaders that will appear. These new invaders appear when you hit one of the regular invaders and it splits.

* The blinking saucer can only be hit when it is solid. Time your shot right and you may be able to hit it.

* Another thing is if you are getting too successful at blasting the invaders, a Mystery Ship will show up and start to deposit more invaders for you to take out.

* The Hidden Message Trick. To get the hidden message, you must do the following :

1) When the demo starts, you need to press the following keys at the same time on the machine : LEFT, RIGHT, FIRE, 1 PLAYER START, 2 PLAYER START.

2) Continue to press these keys rapidly as fast as you can.

3) If you are successful, the message ('TAITO CORP.') will appear below the high score. The ''spelling error'' on "Space Invaders" is corrected.

* Shot Counting Trick : To get 300 every time you hit the mystery saucer. It is named the ''Furrer Trick'' named after Eric Furrer who perfected it. To do this trick, perform the following :

1) Once the new level begins, start counting the shots from your base.

2) When you have fired 22 shots, stop shooting and wait for the mystery saucer.

3) Use the 23rd shot to blast the mystery saucer.

4) After this, start counting shots again, this time count only to 14.

5) Use the 15th shot to hit the mystery saucer.

6) Continue using the 14 shot rule until the level is finished.

7) At the next wave, start with the 22 shot rule, then use the 14 shot rule to finish that wave.

8) Remember, all shots count regardless of hits or misses.

* Eric Furrer writes : The ''Shot Counting'' trick from "Space Invaders" works in Space Invaders Part II but the flashing mystery ship can throw you off. You can count 22 like in Space Invaders, but you must count 14 or 29 from the 300 to the next 300, even if you hit the flashing mystery ship. Also, in Space Invaders Part II, the mystery ship drops invaders, so he's harder to target. In Space Invaders Part II, I just do the first 22, and concentrate on leaving the left lower invader as the last invader to kill for the 1000pt fireworks bonus.

* Rainbow Trick : If the final aliens you kill are in the bottom 2 rows, you get a fireworks display and 500 bonus points. If it happens to be the bottom, left-most alien, you get fireworks and a 1000 point bonus.

* Extra Life : The machine will award you a bonus life during the intermission if you were able to wipe out the previous screen in 55 shots or less. Of course, this is very difficult to do. However, you can take advantage of the famous 8-bit rollover bug by firing OVER 255 shots, thereby rolling over the shot counter! Just make sure you can wipe out the remaining invaders in under 55 shots after you roll the counter over.

* Preset Mode : Space Invaders Part II provided a way the operator could enter his/her name each time the machine was turned on.

1) Turn preset mode ON in the DIP switch.

2) Insert one credit.

3) Depress one player select button 'Preset Mode' will be displayed on screen.

4) Depress one player select button again to increase score until previous high-score is beaten. Note : If you press the two player select button you can skip the starting level as well.

5) Depress Fire button to start game. After all bases have been destroyed the alphabet will be displayed on screen. A new name may now be entered.

6) Turn preset mode OFF in the DIP switch to re-establish game mode.

- SERIES -

1. Space Invaders (1978)

2. Moon Base (1980)

3. Return of the Invaders (1985)

4. Majestic Twelve - The Space Invaders Part IV (1990)

5. Space Invaders DX (1994)

6. Space Invaders '95 - The Attack of Lunar Loonies (1995)

- SOURCES -

Game's rom.

Machine's picture.

F.A.Q. by Kevin Butler A.K.A. War Doc

MAME Info:

0.30 [Lee Taylor]

0.08 [Nicola Salmoria, Michael Strutts]

Artwork available

Samples required (Invaders)

WIP:

- 0.145u5: Undo encryption in clone Space Invaders Part II (Brazil), reason to believe the scrambling was done post-dump since Haze found out the piranha(pacman hw) romdump on that same Taito do Brasil treasure romdisk to have exactly the same weird encryption on the same offset.

- 0.145u4: ROM pv01 in clone Space Invaders Part II (Brazil) wasn't a bad dump, just partially encrypted [hap].

- 0.145u1: Marcello Mancini added clone Space Invaders Part II (Brazil).

- 0.137u2: Jmurjr, D. Maeby, Charles MacDonald and The Dumping Union added clone Moon Base (set 2). Changed description of clone 'Moon Base' to 'Moon Base (set 1)'.

- 1st September 2009: Smitdogg - Thanks to jmurjr and D. Maeby we got what appears to be a Moon Base Deluxe PCB. The roms look like Moon Base roms except they are stamped "MD". At any rate we will unravel the mystery shortly.

- 0.131u4: Smitdogg and Dumping Union fixed BPROM names, added PCB location and documented the BPROM type for Moon Base.

- 9th July 2008: Mr. Do - Cleaned up the instruction card for Space Invaders Part II. Space Invaders Deluxe had a major makeover: Corrected colors on bezel. Added in missing detail on right side of bezel. Fixed bezel proportions. Added missing detail from big spaceship near top (due to layer order in AI file). Threw out the old crap backdrop. New backdrop has correct colors, based off of the original SI backdrop. New moon was vectored by Zorg a long time ago; colors fixed thanks to a donation by PokeMAME. Verified that the current overlay is correct, also thanks to PokeMAME.

- 0.123u1: RansAckeR added DIP locations for Space Invaders Part II (Taito). Added 'Rotate Images' dipswitch.

- 0.113u2: Changed 8080 CPU clock speed to 1996800 Hz, visible area to 224x260 and VSync to 59.541985 Hz in Space Invaders Part II (Taito) and clone Moon Base.

- 25th September 2006: Mr. Do - Added instruction cards for SI Part II cocktail, thanks to ThePinnyParlour.

- 0.108u4: Robert improved dipswitches in clone Space Invaders Part II.

- 0.81u9: Stefan Jokisch added colour proms and new cpu1 roms to clone Moon Base.

- 0.61: Changed palettesize from 32770 to 8 colors.

- 0.58: Changed palettesize from 8 to 32770 colors.

- 20th September 2001: William Kucharski fixed a Space Invaders Deluxe (clone) overlay problem.

- 0.37b3: Changed description of clone 'Space Invaders Part II (Midway)' to 'Space Invaders Deluxe'. Renamed (invdpt2m) to (invaddlx).

- 0.37b2: Added clone Moon Base (Nichibutsu 1979).

- 0.37b1: Added SN76477 sound (samples waves 0, 10 - 18.wav are no longer needed).

- 26th March 2000: Malcor dumped Moon Base by NICHIBUTSU.

- 0.36RC2: Zsolt Vasvari fixed colors in Space Invaders Part II. Added proms ($0, 400 - Color Maps Player 1/2). Changed palettesize from 7 to 8 colors.

- 6th March 2000: Zsolt Vasvari added new PROMs to Space Invaders Part II.

- 0.36b5: Renamed (invdelux) to (invdpt2m).

- 0.34b8: Changed description to 'Space Invaders Part II (Midway)'.

- 0.34b1: Changed description to 'Space Invaders Deluxe (Midway)'.

- 0.30: Lee Taylor added Space Invaders Part 2 (Taito). Changed description of Invaders Deluxe to 'Space Invaders Part II (Midway)'. Known issues: Space Invaders Part 2 doesn't turn red when you die. Changed 'Invaders Deluxe' to 'Space Invaders Part II (Midway)'.

- 0.23: Tormod Tjaberg provided several modifications to Invaders Deluxe driver which has now Hi-score Name saving feature (the only one Space Invaders Emulator doing so at the moment!). All Invaders have now Tilt too. Keys and dipswitch adjusted. REMEMBER TO DELETE PREVIOUS .DSW and .KEY FILES. Control: Arrows = Move around, CTRL = Fire, T = Activate Tilt and N = 'Reset the name of the person with the highest score to MIDWAY'. Preset mode: Space Invaders Deluxe provided a way the operator could enter his/her name each time the machine was turned on. HIGH SCORE AND NAME DISPLAY PROGRAM: 1. Turn preset mode ON in the DIP switch screen. 2. Insert one credit. 3. Depress one player select button 'Preset Mode' will be displayed on screen. 4. Depress one player select button again to increase score until previous high-score is beaten. Note: If you press the two player select button you can skip the starting level as well. 5. Depress fire button to start game. After all bases have been destroyed the alphabet will be displayed on screen. A new name may now be entered. 6. Turn preset mode OFF in the DIP switch screen to re-establish game mode.

- 0.09: Space Invaders now seems to work correctly. Deluxe version still doesn't work properly.

- 0.08: Nicola Salmoria added Invaders Deluxe (Midway 1980). Input port info was gleaned from examining the schematics of the Space Invaders Deluxe manual which Mitchell M. Rohde keeps at: http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~bovine/space_invaders/index.html

Other Emulators:

* AAE

* HiVE

* Laser

* Retrocade

* Sparcade

* Tickle

* VAntAGE

Recommended Games (Space Invaders):

Space Invaders

Space Invaders Part II

Return of the Invaders

Space Invaders DX

Super Space Invaders '91

Space Invaders '95 - Attack Of The Lunar Loonies

Space Invaders Anniversary

Space Invaders II

Space Stranger

Super Invader Attack

Invinco

Invinco / Deep Scan

Invinco / Head On 2

Rolling Crash / Moon Base

Space Attack

Space Attack / Head On

Space Fever

Space Fever High Splitter

Space Fighter Mark II

Space King 2

Beam Invader

Rotary Fighter

IPM Invader

Shuttle Invader

Attack Ufo

Space Intruder

Romset: 12 kb / 7 files / 8.46 zip

MAME XML Output:

<manufacturer>Nichibutsu (Taito license?)</manufacturer>

</input>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</dipswitch>

</configuration>

</game>

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