Are you really limited to only 8 animations? You shouldn't be...if you exit out and go back, will it still not let you add anymore?
Here's SORT of an idea for a workaround...see if you follow me here.
Make a custom action type. Since your thruster doesn't need to do anything except be present and follow the player, it would say something like:
Code:
;; we'll use Y as the player index
;; while x is OUR index.
LDY player1_object ;
LDA Object_x_hi,y ;; player's x value
STA Object_x_hi,x ;; set it to my x value
LDA Object_y_hi,y ;; player's y value
STA Object_y_hi,x ;; set it to my x value
Now, if you run that with a SUPER short timer, or maybe with an animation timer that is quick that repeats that action, it should effectively trail the player.
The you have it destroy itself if a button is released, and have the player create it if a button is pressed.
So that's a simple way to make it always appear at the top left corner of the player (at his 0,0 point).
From there, you'll just have to start massaging the code with this sort of logic....
Code:
;; we'll use Y as the player index
;; while x is OUR index.
LDY player1_object ;
LDA Object_x_hi,y ;; player's x value
clc
ADC #$01 ;;; some number...this would add 1 to the player's position to store to the thruster horizontal position, for instance.
STA Object_x_hi,x ;; set it to my x value
LDA Object_y_hi,y ;; player's y value
clc
ADC #$05 ;; some number...this would add 5 to the player's position to store to the thrusters vertical position.
STA Object_y_hi,x ;; set it to my x value
And then you'd just have to append the code to make cases for each direction.
Code:
;; while x is OUR index.
LDY player1_object ;
LDA Object_movement,y ;; the player's movement
AND #%00000111 ;; the actual direction
CMP .... whatever direction you're looking for.....
BNE notThatDirection
;;;; it is that direction.
;;;set up the offset for that direction.
JMP toALabelBeyondThisCode
notThatDirection:
CMP ....a different direction.....
BNE notThatDirectionEither...
;;;it IS that second direction
;;; set up offset for THAT second direction
JMP toALabelBeyondThisCode
...
...
...
toALabelBeyondThisCode:
RTS
This is really crappily written just to start putting ideas in your head. For NOW this would be a way that should *kind of* work