...about that Hyperspace function in ASTEROIDS (STEAM version)

[FU]

My experience has been 8/10 times when I use Hyperspace in ASTEROIDS my ship explodes as if it were hit by an asteroid even when none are close enough to cause that to happen.

Did the original Arcade game have this same failure rate of your ship exploding under the same circumstances? Is this a glitch?

I would think if your ship comes out of hyperspace and no asteroids are nearby you should be good to go without having your ship ever explode.

[Code Mystics]

It's a feature of the original game. It was always a gamble. Hyperspace technology was not reliable back in 1979. Kind of like holodecks in the 90s. Even in the mid-2000s the Battlestar Galactica couldn't jump spontaneously. It took them 33 minutes to calculate the jump parameters safely.

[FU]

heh...But the ship exploding after coming out of Hyperspace when nothing is around it...seems like a glitch and should not be happening.

[Code Mystics]

Well, we were being truthful with the first sentence (or two, actually). It's a feature of the original game.

It's not 8 in 10, though; you might've just been having an unlucky streak. Looking at the original ROM code, it appears the probability of a randomly fatal-without-collision "jump" is typically more like 30% of the time, though it varies with the number of asteroids on the screen.

It looks like the exact odds are: choose a random even number from 0-62, explode if random_number >= number_of_asteroids + 44. So, looks like hyperspace should never randomly explode if there are at least 19 asteroids on the screen. Anything less, and there's a chance. But that's just eyeballing the code.

Regardless, it's quite clear it was deliberately coded. You'll have to take that design decision up with Ed Logg (original programmer of 1979 Asteroids). :)

[FU]

Thanks for the confirmation. It's good to know this was in the original, which was my concern.
Being able to use hyperspace gives you a chance of escaping certain death you wouldn't have without it and is a great feature that makes the game so fun. So, if you happen to explode anyway even with nothing nearby, it was still a chance you may have lived.

I really like what was done with ASTEROIDS MILLENNIUM. You go into hyperspace and are invulnerable for 5 seconds and are able to move a cursor to anyplace on screen and then come out of hyperspace there. No chance of failure and exploding due to technical difficulty like in the original just for using it.