Documentation of all known Lada: The Ultimate Challenge tricks and glitches:
Manipulating the first bonus
The first bonus location and type is determined by luck at the time actual game is entered (start game).
RTC initial value does not affect luck. Instead, game throws random numbers when in menu, and thus the moment you enter the game does affect the luck, including the first bonus.
Manipulating subsequent bonuses
The next bonus is determined by luck the moment you pick the current bonus (TBD: when it is determined if you miss the current bonus?)
Manipulating luck
Apart of menus (which are useless in game, since you can't enter menu without aborting current game) all explosions (whether rocket or vehicle) also affect luck
[1].
Different types of vehicles have different number of explosions, so blowing up motorcycle affects luck differently from blowing up 18-wheeler. Furthermore, since rockets explode on impact to target, the number of rockets used for kill affects luck.
110% speed trick
When running at full throttle, the speed of the car oscillates between 792 and 980. However, releasing the accelerator freezes the oscillation. By freezing the oscillation at 980 speed, the speed will be about 110% of normal. This will continue until:
- You tap accelerator or decelerator
- You run out of road (note, those arrows are "out of road")
- You get destroyed
- You hit something head-on.
- Something runs into you[2].
Impact to something sideways (assuming you survive it) does not alter speed.
"Glitchshot"
Sometimes if you have machinegun firing (SPACE) and hit missile fire key (ENTER), you will fire both bullet and missile at once. The bullet will be faster so it will hit the target first. Useful for either doing extra hit point of damage or if there is some more durable vehicle behind vehicle shot down to 1HP. The reload time will be like missile.
Weapons
Note that weapon reloads are not independent. Until reload time expires, bullets and missiles can't be fired (ramming still works).
Machine gun
Each bullet hit does 1HP damage to target on hit. They are found in boxes of 50 bullets each and you start with 50. This weapon fires rapidly.
Missiles
These are actually rockets. Each does 10HP damage to target on hit. They are found in boxes of 5 missiles each. You don't have any missiles when you start. The fire is pretty slow.
Ramming
You can ram other vehicles, sending them into path of other vehicles (unlikely to destroy them unless the rammed vehicle is motorcycle) or into obstacles (this will kill them). This mode does not use ammo but you will take damage.
Sending vehicle to path of another can also be useful if that vehicle would cause lots of grief later (since the impact will stop the other vehicle and it takes some time for it to accelerate back into speed).
Note that all vehicles have the same mass, so even 18-wheelers can be rammed. Be careful when ramming vehicles that are moving horizontally, since these tend to send you drifting horizontally with high speed (easily sending you off the road).
Vehicles
Motorcycle
This thing has 1HP, comes from top and drives against rest of traffic. Single hit from bullet destroys it, but it is small target and difficult to hit. Ramming is only useful to block other vehicles, as these are too slow to be easily pushed to obstacles. Kill it with bullet, using rocket is waste of rockets.
Yellow car
This thing has 4HP and comes from top. It can be destroyed either by ramming, bullets or rockets (use rockets if there's little time or you want to manipulate luck).
Green car
This rare car has 6HP . It comes from bottom. Pretty nasty since your weapons can't fire backwards and as such you can't destroy it until it is on your side (or ahead of you). Ramming, rockets and bullets all work. The comments about different weapons on yellow car apply here too.
Red car
Pretty much the same as green car (also has 6HP), except this is actually common.
Tractor
This thing has 10HP, comes from top and is very slow. Too slow to be destroyed by ramming. Furthermore, at 980 speed, there is not enough time to fire the 10 bullets, even if you start at earliest frame possible. Thus these can pretty much only be destroyed by rockets.
Truck
Similar to tractor (with 10HP also), but a lot faster (still not as fast as you). The increased speed allows ramming this to its death or firing it with machine gun until it dies (rocket also is option if you don't have much time).
18-Wheeler
The most durable vehicle in the game, taking whooping 20HP, which allows it to survive one direct rocket hit. Comes from top. At full speed, there is not enough time to fire 20 bullets, so your options are 1 missile + 10 bullets or 2 missiles. Ramming also works.
Bonuses
Bullets
Gives you 50 bullets. Not that useful since you tend to have lots of bullets anyway.
Missiles
Gives you 5 missiles. Very useful.
Medikit
Repairs all damage to you. Might be useful sometimes if you have taken lots of damage.
Score
Gives you 50k points. Totally useless for speedruns.
Memory addresses
These are for one game with 16MiB (4096 pages) RAM. Presumably the offset to end of RAM is fixed.
| Address | Type | Purpose |
|---|
| FF5E40 | 32 bits little endian unsigned | Frame counter |
| FF255C | 32 bits little endian unsigned | RNG state |
| FF7A78 | 32 bits little endian signed | Vertical Speed (positive is down) |
| FF7A74 | 32 bits little endian signed | Horizontal speed (positive is right) |
| FF7A70 | 32 bits little endian unsigned | Distance left to end of track |
| FF7A6C | 32 bits little endian unsigned | Horizontal position |
[
1] Even if motorcycle explosion doesn't look like it is random in any way, it still uses random numbers.
[
2] Avoid this because even as collision to back momentarily boosts speed, it will fall to some lower value the next frame, causing you to lose time.