TASVideos

Posted: 1/15/2018 3:50 PM

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DrD2k9

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Quibus wrote:

Did you consider to also TAS B.C. II: Grog's Revenge? It's available at least on MSX (and also Colecovision, these versions are indeed the same).

I think it's available on C64 as well.

Posted: 1/8/2018 10:15 PM

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DrD2k9

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Ferret Warlord wrote:

Which is a shame, because the idea of an amorphous pinball table is an interesting one with a lot of potential. And yet it turned out to be just a series of targets.

I wonder if it would be possible to build a table with a play-surface made from a thickish yet flexible material (silicone perhaps) that could then have multiple ramps/obstacles that would push up from underneath, constantly changing the playfield depending on goals met during play. This could even allow for a difficulty curve via the angle of ramps being variable and adjusted to be harder to hit for more advanced levels. EDIT: This variable table concept should be revisited in video game format regardless of whether a physical table could be created. (I really need to learn how to code.)

Posted: 1/6/2018 11:08 PM

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DrD2k9

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Evan0512 wrote:

Still, I was playing Super Mario Bros. 3. How to do that if I am done if Bowser was defeated?

In a normal game (that doesn't abuse glitches), the last action for SMB 3 is pressing up to enter the door after Bowser dies. That would be your last input. There shouldn't be any empty frames after that input.

Posted: 1/6/2018 4:12 PM

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DrD2k9

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First, I've updated the movie file and it syncs with my updated disk image. Here is the new movie file. Can someone with power please update the submission? Here's the file list from the updated disk image. Note that there is no CONFIG.PIN or HISCORE.PIN as the image made from a clean install before the game has been run.

|19900101000000|9e58938ea3594154b16c22621a39490d|4000|END.PIN|
|19900101000000|425fb4968cdbfe80d8967d2833584fee|38251|EP1.DAT|
|19900101000000|208c9ccb1059d309626c136e4e3e2b13|251787|EP1.EXE|
|19900101000000|eedbf3f2feb31190331f5556cb91bd2e|48397|EP10.DAT|
|19900101000000|84eff3663038835bc37c769403a6fa36|246683|EP10.EXE|
|19900101000000|89519874d46eaba3d7641831f5c62196|48069|EP11.DAT|
|19900101000000|79eadc4936112603c051b976943ebea4|224763|EP11.EXE|
|19900101000000|c067a6e515268c659996cc51b8f329e0|48024|EP12.DAT|
|19900101000000|e694142a4eb7b5a64fd1035ae0e9e3ec|235051|EP12.EXE|
|19900101000000|b6c3aafd0c19ca0b917d5ad416a24be3|48272|EP13.DAT|
|19900101000000|8795395973833ae3a7a64d6e4f87b167|217307|EP13.EXE|
|19900101000000|021d62f1138a257e88b11e011093d400|40874|EP2.DAT|
|19900101000000|a09c082cad66f4860f79c527ccd94aae|255691|EP2.EXE|
|19900101000000|787d77edc35b4d03630f9d8c6d34c08b|48281|EP3.DAT|
|19900101000000|d96f1ab76b77df8f365aef1e7b5d6d84|245259|EP3.EXE|
|19900101000000|366363b46d3841c6cd3e32d4fa8f81c6|52934|EP4.DAT|
|19900101000000|7b8d2d0b0a43408f0f3f070d4169a60a|250027|EP4.EXE|
|19900101000000|d44ee1aebdd2a9b35720442cca8df229|46280|EP5.DAT|
|19900101000000|a5b78cf5d0a9ccb5f93d26b823f38db2|226971|EP5.EXE|
|19900101000000|32734d7442f6a7dbc6e17be94d80cf15|35550|EP6.DAT|
|19900101000000|ca287393149c0309d9a979984fda976a|252683|EP6.EXE|
|19900101000000|e95a4fd1963baa2030ac06033b48294b|51557|EP7.DAT|
|19900101000000|febcd2dd9efc28fa1186c95f17f546e2|240571|EP7.EXE|
|19900101000000|299ff9dc26ca59cbedcdb2879e0440e0|54529|EP8.DAT|
|19900101000000|98ea6ba89c4b5222fa3db8d261e7c194|298763|EP8.EXE|
|19900101000000|9ee768477ba70f758a422602dd848b09|47049|EP9.DAT|
|19900101000000|9eaff9002fc3b3d62ce59df93252bd67|242315|EP9.EXE|
|19900101000000|6865731614c66532f8275f1ab466635f|283|FILE_ID.DIZ|
|19900101000000|c4e65232bfb43de8e66a4f25b4b2fcf2|12495|HELPME.DOC|
|19900101000000|4643b477d085584762b3334734a8f993|14448|HELPME.EXE|
|19900101000000|a41cc7b7bb673580e8a77804933ae2f6|20|ID1.DAT|
|19900101000000|8b7513d603d252f09ea3c930b75f8ae5|20|ID10.DAT|
|19900101000000|5ed2821aeb3c2b35cecc801b1cf4a04a|20|ID11.DAT|
|19900101000000|50809e018e13dcd42cb558c7167e19ec|20|ID12.DAT|
|19900101000000|281ceaaa9ff68d9cdf080506405915dd|20|ID13.DAT|
|19900101000000|6afdba56d1c802a84642a17bf1c83804|20|ID2.DAT|
|19900101000000|7cf3ee31660ab80d1f93dfdb66368c76|20|ID3.DAT|
|19900101000000|b7764ab41d01cdfac308193809b7ae11|20|ID4.DAT|
|19900101000000|8c926206b6be76f37173b748190c7d1f|20|ID5.DAT|
|19900101000000|d86d6bfa71a7abd1d51c6c5dcd80cb83|20|ID6.DAT|
|19900101000000|d838f84ee849e9f21806c991c46ac558|20|ID7.DAT|
|19900101000000|ad9e1b0632dfa8767d3aa9bd76cbd678|20|ID8.DAT|
|19900101000000|ea5f15db0a28bb8f401ff7858bb005d4|20|ID9.DAT|
|19900101000000|38d1ca811369e27bbf299b1f6aac489a|154397|INTRO.PIN|
|19900101000000|5f8c6fa6397eca6fcfa5b94fc3eb987d|7869|LICENSE.DOC|
|19900101000000|99a1dfdb11e9dd081c86872e124ae352|4680|MDRV000R.MUS|
|19900101000000|d13b96a236cb8abac9545fa4980e7f3e|504|MDRV001R.MUS|
|19900101000000|ff855d0991610172c3b0a5aba72ff261|498|MDRV002R.MUS|
|19900101000000|eba9cf8418e37ff7c6c1f8fe354119e6|4755|MDRV003R.MUS|
|19900101000000|4ae79791476535c3235662b9106e704c|9789|MDRV004R.MUS|
|19900101000000|d4d268b8f22c8aa0e2baabbe99e97eed|9087|MDRV005R.MUS|
|19900101000000|3d7fe17811e97b53a1ae08ed31a7e45c|6062|ORDER.DOC|
|19900101000000|9c677018b0b6931f42cb8f728ec59e08|20485|ORDER.EXE|
|19900101000000|b40ef7623e44de8dce1e2e1bfc4e5041|111586|ORDER.TFP|
|19900101000000|0625abd0be343eb52175e64d093b0caa|3862|ORDER_DE.DOC|
|19900101000000|6d8d7c1664cf18976768d3b838286102|5655|ORDER_UK.DOC|
|19900101000000|b4c0af6d6f70118450217123075d6feb|11620|PIN01.TFP|
|19900101000000|9b1691377319d7a11f35b51a72385c03|11566|PIN02.TFP|
|19900101000000|e8cc1e55f75ad91bf098c5b18c8227ea|10956|PIN03.TFP|
|19900101000000|7d43d276844d135b7bfbb761273de524|11808|PIN04.TFP|
|19900101000000|73e3ae79c8449cf0b6405e5064bbd4f9|10923|PIN05.TFP|
|19900101000000|428162bfcd804861a86938468c4483f7|11652|PIN06.TFP|
|19900101000000|7cdea57a324585739d969af8f70bc52f|12598|PIN07.TFP|
|19900101000000|3f12f8eccd3aa018a379336096a22077|10835|PIN08.TFP|
|19900101000000|4e45e12cc63904ec7bf12b002221b991|11890|PIN09.TFP|
|19900101000000|0106184c940c64270f2246a123d5393c|12080|PIN10.TFP|
|19900101000000|3d869faec5a541fe6fe809b8cb2c8e76|11853|PIN11.TFP|
|19900101000000|00f82266b3934898e28671cfff6ad2d3|11934|PIN12.TFP|
|19900101000000|c3dc127d573e01296b591ce3dbb713e1|11933|PIN13.TFP|
|19900101000000|f17190391afdbd8da1225595cccb0a39|37461|PINBALL.EXE|
|19900101000000|197c3f2486c28fe6f20de051940fd8c7|8807|REG.DAT|
|19900101000000|3a9e2e034b52d91e43abdccf43ab665c|105227|SETUP.EXE|
|19900101000000|685ceed3fb70e6286773a497a92f55b0|2908|SETUP.INT|
|19900101000000|ca8f63650bf10f931e12d9423c81756b|66945|SFX0.PIN|
|19900101000000|1e12da6f7ecdb1d97fd73e9a9238b01d|116478|SFX1.PIN|
|19900101000000|57ebac7f9f29b450b0956846c74d842e|111018|SFX10.PIN|
|19900101000000|24567fca00e223f1700ff78132316c93|93673|SFX11.PIN|
|19900101000000|b70eb52d914d9bf39d09e978a98d3f4c|97778|SFX12.PIN|
|19900101000000|4098a22c4f8d80550d7ad1f7cf782e59|92481|SFX13.PIN|
|19900101000000|ee6877dabf6b38cc85e1ce0c6e4d5c83|126325|SFX2.PIN|
|19900101000000|aabbfc5d55f911b6b0e486c34c3b79a4|57062|SFX3.PIN|
|19900101000000|0462e885484439d68521da3ce487b472|92798|SFX4.PIN|
|19900101000000|948648977972b2ebc8e5fcb4a760f552|21340|SFX5.PIN|
|19900101000000|4098a22c4f8d80550d7ad1f7cf782e59|92481|SFX6.PIN|
|19900101000000|9df4b61a810905c484d3cdeebfe2c854|133901|SFX7.PIN|
|19900101000000|c287bb9cc02c18416c4b60ce18bd1a98|132042|SFX8.PIN|
|19900101000000|d56621cd799adce077f09daf370a7c49|106545|SFX9.PIN|
|19900101000000|2591df28d8853cdb17674885ddf21ac9|115895|SONG0.PSM|
|19900101000000|7022c93f58988b1647bc225ed0b8f0aa|66896|SONG1.PSM|
|19900101000000|455b170cfa8352cda94792437ac1136a|124903|SONG10.PSM|
|19900101000000|27cb282509b3e2689100766d2c2647f7|144593|SONG11.PSM|
|19900101000000|4b4e2cfcfda4cd2424393bf6962199fb|114671|SONG12.PSM|
|19900101000000|39830ccceed7e5a42463ca8be530f115|63870|SONG13.PSM|
|19900101000000|bf2e253fa894afec7a1137ebaf2044cf|49374|SONG2.PSM|
|19900101000000|3bfa31f7f3b7979ad2ee466c344b8b65|178082|SONG3.PSM|
|19900101000000|463bf003be514c39b7cdd1b4d32e92f3|153871|SONG4.PSM|
|19900101000000|0d7c2eaf107f8f4c620390e47b882357|20018|SONG5.PSM|
|19900101000000|4c24d452791c53b87717c94a55353c15|145994|SONG6.PSM|
|19900101000000|83f3b85e2d5be0066759001fc3b5922f|120516|SONG7.PSM|
|19900101000000|3f95988349a0745bd16e62022d26f357|48923|SONG8.PSM|
|19900101000000|b1364fa6c2b92815acb561033f8d6685|86068|SONG9.PSM|
|19900101000000|4e88033d5b31b5df8d35c48a7213a74a|38|SOUNDCRD.INF|

fsvgm777 wrote:

By the way, the movie ends mid-gameplay. It probably would be better to suicide the remaining balls to at least reach a high score entry.

If the judge feels this is necessary for completeness (but the run is otherwise publishable), I will have them set the decision to 'delayed' and add the extra few inputs even though it will result in a slightly longer run.

Though I'm myself curious about the odd buzzing sound you're encountering. Could you upload an encode with the audio?

As c-square suggested, I'm going to try and dump the movie with a newer version of JPC-rr and see if I still get the audio weirdness. If I get a good audio dump, I'll update the video in the submission text. If I still get weird sound, I'll upload a video in the discussion for you. EDIT:New dump worked fine. I've updated the encode in the submission text.

Posted: 1/6/2018 3:17 PM

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DrD2k9

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fsvgm777 wrote:

But....yeah, the missing PIN13.TFP is an issue, as far as I'm concerned (pretty much akin to a "bad dump"). It is part of the game's files, after all.

Agreed. I will see what I can do about this. Not cancelling though. If I can correct this fairly easily before judging , I will upload a corrected movie file and hopefully everything will be good to go.

Posted: 1/5/2018 10:22 PM

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DrD2k9

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link_7777 wrote:

I'd say DrD2k9 deserves a nomination

Thanks for the nod, it's much appreciated. But I'm going to withdraw myself from this category. I'd argue that the work you put in on Golf alone, likely far outweighs the work I put into the two NES games I did this year. I started on Golf myself so I understand the tedium it would have required to do it all manually; as you were able to automate it to a degree, you accomplished it much faster and probably better than I could have. And you also had at least one moon-tier NES run. Thanks again, though.

Posted: 1/5/2018 10:08 PM

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DrD2k9

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fsvgm777 wrote:

Hrm...of the files that I have, CONFIG.PIN and HISCORE.PIN (clean file) are different and SETUP.INT doesn't exist at all. The former changes every time I change the in-game configuration (Fast/Slow PC, Music volume, SFX volume), AFAIK. Could you post a screenshot of the in-game configuration?

My in-game config should be the defaults as I didn't change any in-game settings.

I did test the game in DOSBOX prior to TASing to see if it would run with the included files (trying to eliminate all the extra GOG stuff). This could be why the config and high score files are altered. I'll check into testing if the inputs will sync on a new image from a clean install using the guaranteed unaltered files, but this may take some time. As far as SETUP.INT My game is the GOG version which is based on the CD version; that may make a difference. ~~It may not be necessary for the inputs either, I'll check on that too~~. EDIT: It Desynced without the SETUP.INT file. Still have to check on a clean install image.

Posted: 1/5/2018 6:29 PM

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DrD2k9

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I was also disappointed by the Enigma being the robot when I first found out years ago. When I was young, I expected a puzzle to be involved somewhere in the game play simply because of the name. But as can be seen here, that's unfortunately not the case.

Posted: 1/4/2018 6:29 PM

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DrD2k9

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Just a note: Desert Bus wasn't accepted.

Posted: 1/4/2018 4:58 PM

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DrD2k9

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grassini wrote:

duke nukem 3d is tasable?is it a windows or a dos game?

DOS

Posted: 1/4/2018 3:56 PM

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DrD2k9

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PLANET wrote:

Tho I'm kinda scared of the technical side of TASes, too.

Don't be. I had no idea what I was doing about a year and half ago. I second c-square's recommendation that you may want to try a different system before DOS simply because of the difficulty of using JPC-rr. In my opinion, any of the systems that BizHawk supports (i.e. NES, SNES, etc) would be a better option for learning TASing principles before moving into DOS (even though the available DOS library of unTASed games is quite large). And don't be afraid to use a game that's been TASed to death to learn with. You can try your own thing and compare it to very well known results that way, it'll help you learn. But don't let me discourage you! Get out there and get TASing!

c-square wrote:

...I recall you ran into the same problem with your first SQ1 submission as well.

Yea, and I don't remember what I did to fix it.

dwangoAC wrote:

First, I'd like to congratulate you for being brave enough to take on this game. The Android table was a complete pain to run, although at the time a lot of that had to do with the fact that I couldn't even remotely run it at a reasonable framerate. I can spot some of the exact same methods I was forced to use to manipulate ball position and I don't see any obviously sloppy play here. You're right that better routing may be possible but the instability of hex editing makes rerouting cumbersome....Keep these coming!

This was a pain to run also even with a relatively decent framerate. One simple reason (among a handful) was because the key-presses had to be held across a frame advance to be recognized as opposed to other DOS games I've worked on where they can be pressed and released before the frame advance and still be recognized. I may look into other of Epic Pinball's tables, but offhand I don't know of any that have as definitive endpoints as Enigma or Android.

Bobo the King wrote:

Huh, I didn't know we had an android TAS. It was published over seven years ago. Well that just makes my snarky comment at the top of this thread look extra douchy.

Had I not known about the Android TAS and saw this one pop up in the recent submissions, I probably would have had the same reaction. I also would have TASed it before this one as well had it not already been done, simply because it's the more well-known table. Interestingly, there is a 'Jill of the Jungle' table in the collection....interesting because of slamo's submission of one of the JOTJ platformers around the same time I submitted this.

Radiant wrote:

Although the resulting table doesn't look particularly flashy or particularly fun.

It's not a very exciting looking table to view, but it was probably the one I played most as a child. Something about its variability held an extra interest I guess. As far as flashiness, The ball changes color each time you lose one (as can be seen in the difference between the first and second ball of this run). I considered losing all but the last ball from the beginning simply to play with the last ball because it visually shares a similar oscillating color scheme as the background of the table, making it quite difficult to see while playing. But for the purpose of the TAS, I figured it wouldn't make much difference on entertainment value and would take extra time and inputs to get to that ball, so I didn't.

Posted: 1/3/2018 3:41 PM

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Dimon12321 wrote:

The most odd pinball I've ever seen. Voting Meh

Bobo the King wrote:

Android or GTFO.

I realize many of the other tables in the Epic Pinball collection besides Android weren't as well liked. But I had this when I was young and was never able to get through the four levels (without cheating in unlimited balls). That was my primary impetus to do this TAS. That and I needed a break from Space Quest.

Pokota wrote:

I didn't know this table had an ending.

I don't think any pinball games have a technical 'ending' where play is not allowed to continue. I do consider the Enigma arriving on this table as the point of no new content, and thus I claimed it as the ending for TAS purposes. I could have spent a bit more time and inputs to lose the remaining balls and get a game over screen, but those seemed to be pointless to me as the 'endgame cutscene' had already been viewed.

Posted: 1/1/2018 5:48 PM

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DrD2k9

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I recently proposed some new rules that were adopted regarding CPU frequency for DOS games using JPC-rr. Also some discussion that arose out of my work on C64 games this year led to a clarification of NTSC vs PAL rules for that system. Changes and additions do happen. In both of these cases, it took discussion regarding appropriateness as well as potential impact on the site.

Posted: 1/1/2018 1:21 AM

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DrD2k9

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c-square wrote:

Nice! You know, this has a shot at a Speedy TAS award. At least it should get a nomination.

We've been nominated for Speedy TAS! Hopefully someone will also nominate this run for Lucky TAS considering how much we all put into completely reverse engineering and the RNG mechanism for optimal use.

Posted: 12/31/2017 1:53 AM

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DrD2k9

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Nach wrote:

Therefore we have strict rules to discard software which isn't real games or too trivial to be taken seriously, or so messed up that some call it a game, but no serious TASer would.

What does it take to be considered a 'serious TASer'? Do they have to agree with you?

Alyosha wrote:

I think this rule should be changed to allow this run to be published.

Alyosha seems to think this game/software is TAS worthy....is Alyosha not a serious TASer? He does code the emulator we use to do many of the TASes on this site. Just because some of the more senior members of the site may not consider games such as this to be serious, other serious TASers may. I fear this discussion has offended individuals on both sides of the debate. I do hope none of the offense was intentional. EDIT: It has been brought to my attention that this post can be viewed as an aggressive attack on Nach. That was not my intent. I was merely trying to point out that his comment was making too big of an assumption regarding who qualifies as a serious TASer. The fact that some serious TASers (at least in my opinion) do consider this particular game TAS worthy, suggests to me that it may indeed be non-trivial enough to be accepted as a serious game; at least using Nach's logic that the vault rule is to reject games that serious TASers wouldn't consider valid. I personally am less sure where I stand on this debate than I was before I originally posted in this topic (my position was mostly neutral at the time). Mainly because I'm now more confused as to how a game is deemed serious or not. I'm quite sure that confusion is not limited to myself.

Posted: 12/30/2017 6:49 PM

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DrD2k9

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adelikat wrote:

Note that it is the degree of confusion that I'm specifically concerned as problematic. Not the fact that this specific run was rejected.

It's the confusion that is my primary concern as well, not this particular submission. This majority of this discussion could (and likely should) have taken place in its own topic, and it only happened here because this is where it started. The biggest problem with it happening here is the unfortunate likelihood that some of the generalized comments from both sides are being specifically (and inappropriately) attributed to this particular run; not being considered as a generalized concepts. I am probably as guilty of this error as anyone else.

Posted: 12/30/2017 5:47 PM

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DrD2k9

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Niamek wrote:

When a new movie is submitted that has a routing to do. Do you expect the author to have done extensive routing testing like tested every possible routes before taking the one they did? Or they can do some routing and take a route that "makes sense and that it looks fast"? In a summary, I would like to know what's the minimum of work behind a routing that is acceptable.

Let me start by saying I'm not a judge. Still, the minimum necessary work would probably be dependent on the game choice itself. Some games with multiple route options have a very limited number of route choices (NES Super Mario Bros.). Others may have hundreds of possibilities (NES Key Quest). To fully test every possibility for a given game may require an unreasonable degree of work to produce a valid TAS. Thus my personal approach is to test the handful of routes that seem as though they would be fastest and chose the best from those. A good resource to help determining the best route can be via finding a real-time speedrun (though these aren't always the fastest routes). As long as there aren't obvious routing improvements when compared to your resulting TAS, a judge will likely not reject it for routing reasons. It's not uncommon for already published runs to obsoleted by better routing.

Posted: 12/30/2017 4:01 PM

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DrD2k9

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FractalFusion wrote:

Does anything different happen if you try RTC times that aren't multiples of 1000?

No. As with my testing in SQ1, it took at least a change of 1000 to elicit a different RNG seed. EDIT: For clarification.... All values from 0-999 in the initial RTC yield the same RNG seed when it is first set.

Posted: 12/30/2017 2:13 AM
(Edited: 1/9/2018 7:03 PM)

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DrD2k9

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Ok I'm struggling to put together my RTC spreadsheet. The changes are more complicated than with SQ1, but I'm not sure why. ~~Here's a spreadsheet with the first 52 seeds. As you can see,~~ The difference between one seed and the next mostly follows a cycle, but there are some anomalies that I don't understand. This is making it much more difficult to complete the list of 65535 potential seeds as I did with SQ1. (There were anomalies there as well, but much easier to overcome.) If it helps, the first seed is set at game time 1448 ms. So in my mind, the time in milliseconds-from-midnight when the seed is set should be (the starting RTC time + 1448). EDIT: Updated Spreadsheet EDIT 2: I found some errors in the spreadsheet...starting from scratch on this one.

Posted: 12/29/2017 9:50 PM

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DrD2k9

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adelikat wrote:

At the end of the day, this is the point of a lot of Vault rules. There needs to be a minimum bar of "triviality". If we take a serious look at all the junko out in the wild, it is only logical that we have to set some kind of bar. But at what level? That needs to be decided. Even more problematic than where to draw the line, "triviality" is subjective. The intent of the vault is to be minimally subjective. As often as possible, vault/no vault should be minimally controversial and easy to put a consensus on. The point of rules that mention specific types of genres such as education are an attempt to minimize the subjectivity of a blanket "triviality" rule. Their goal is to be more concrete/less subjective as opposed to just a vague statement.

Excellent points. Firstly, thank you to all those commenting. As frustrating as this debate has been for many of you, it has exposed the perspectives of various members of the community. This entire topic then begs the question: Does the term 'educational' actually aid in determining a degree of triviality for a more concrete rule? It seems to have created more confusion than anything. Would the rule benefit from dropping the word 'educational' all together and just stick with 'non-serious' (Assuming that can be defined)?

Posted: 12/29/2017 3:42 PM

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DrD2k9

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  RNG    Action
 2048 -> Back up
26624 -> Punch
18432 -> Back up
43008 -> Back up
34816 -> Punch
59392 -> Back up
51200 -> Punch
10240 -> Punch
Note that every time a punch lands, it calls another random call for the damage.

This is beautiful. If we punch at the right time, we should alter the RNG seed for damage calculation and may be able to make him not punch at all (after the first punch). EDIT: Which random values yield what actions for the robot battle? ~~EDIT #2: Trying to use the lua script causes JPC-rr to freeze until I terminate the lua; then the emulator continues running. Ideas?~~ Never mind...got it to work (not that I know how i accomplished this)

Posted: 12/29/2017 3:38 PM

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DrD2k9

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c-square wrote:

Oh, and an interesting thing happens at the robot battle if you set the rng seed to 16384: It's a zero input win!

Unfortunately we can't use this unless we chose to kill Arnoid in the machine instead of the pods. (And that assumes there doesn't need RNG to get him to arrive there...i haven't checked) EDIT: Even if every other place RNG was used yielded the fastest options, I doubt it would make up for the extra time to use the machine to kill Arnoid.

EDIT: Also interestingly, it seems the space battle at the end has no random calls in it at all.

This I was already pretty confident of.

Posted: 12/28/2017 11:33 PM

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DrD2k9

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c-square wrote:

Looks like the 2048 set gives you two shots at a 2/2 combo (Terminator appears and delay of 2 seconds). You just need to then adjust your starting value to line up one of the combo.

I noticed that as well, I just haven't had a chance to play around with anything else yet. I've got to try and find where the first random is called and then adjust my RTC spreadsheet to see if I can even set a starting RTC to yield 2048. (or any of the other values which are also in the cycle) 26624 18432 43008 34816 59392 51200 10240 With the variety of options, it hopefully won't be very hard. I am also curious to see if it will still take a minimum of 1000 millisecond RTC change to produce a change in the RNG seed value, or if that was specific to the AGI system. Something that may be affected by RNG that I haven't had a chance to confirm yet is the timing of the buckets on the conveyor lift in the garbage freighter.

Posted: 12/28/2017 8:41 PM

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DrD2k9

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c-square wrote:

If the rng seed is 16384, the next seed will also be 16384 (and every seed after that). The rng seed generator also gets stuck on numbers 32768 and 49152. If any of these numbers is advantageous to you, it may be worth starting the game on one of these numbers, as you're guaranteed the seed will never change.

All of these are multiples of 16384. As such, dividing 16384/2 yields 8192. This seed results in a revolving seed of 2 numbers (8192 and 40960). 40960 is 8192 less than 49152. Adding 8192 to 16394 yields 24576 which also results in a revolving 2 value sequence of RNG seeds. Continuing this example: 4096 yields a revolving 4 value sequence 2048 yields a revolving 8 value sequence 1024 yields a revolving 16 value sequence and so on. Basically an even numbered seed is much more predictable and possibly more useful than an odd numbered seed.

Posted: 12/28/2017 8:26 PM

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DrD2k9

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c-square wrote:

Okay, I think I've found it. Memory addresses 273824 and 1322400 seem to follow the RNG pattern. Use this code to track the memory values:
wordOld = {}
searchList={273824,1322400}

while true do
	a, b = jpcrr.wait_event();
	if a == "lock" then
		if nowTick ~= jpcrr.clock_time() then
			nowTick=jpcrr.clock_time()
			for i,v in ipairs(searchList) do
				wordValue = jpcrr.read_word(v)
				if wordOld[v] == nil or wordOld[v] ~= wordValue then
					print("@" .. nowTick .. ": " .. v .. " -> " .. wordValue )
					wordOld[v]=wordValue
				end
			end
		end
		jpcrr.release_vga();
	end
end
Note, because the seed removed the +1 from the calculation, interesting things can happen at certain numbers. Specifically, if the rng seed is 16384, the next seed will also be 16384 (and every seed after that). The rng seed generator also gets stuck on numbers 32768 and 49152. If any of these numbers is advantageous to you, it may be worth starting the game on one of these numbers, as you're guaranteed the seed will never change. I'm particularly curious what the robot battle would look like with the random number generator stuck on one number that always means you hit for damage on every blow.

Awesome. I'll work with this as soon as I can and try to determine an ideal starting RTC. Unfortunately none of the unchanging RNG seeds yield Arnoid showing up for the Pods (unless my math is wrong).

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