Submission #2857: Rising_Tempest's SNES Operation Logic Bomb in 18:08.13

Submission text (aka how many fire puns can I make over a few pages of text)

(Suggested screenshot 58291)

This is my first snes TAS and man, is it a good one. Many of you may not be familiar with this obscure, but excellent, game, so, I believe some light reading is in order. I used snes9x 1.43 v9. This is probably important given how many versions of this emulator there are.

Operation Logic Bomb is a bird's eye view shooter, an easy way to describe it is as a cross between Contra and early Zelda titles. It's mostly linear, but there are the occasional forks in the road (you will eventually have to go both ways though). The neatest feature of this game is that by holding the shoulder buttons, you can force your player to face in one direction while moving in another (strafing). It can be a difficult game, due to the small amount of life and lives the player is given. As such, it can also be considered a survival game, to an extent.

The premise behind the game is, that you are cleansing a quantum physics/teleportation research lab of robots from virtual reality who escaped after an unknown accident took place. Story is presented in the game from various security monitors/remains of slain robots, showing you events that happened prior to your arrival. only two cutscenes can be skipped, and they are. Your progress is constantly barred by enemies from cyberspace who don't like you. Most enemies need to be killed to unlock doors, the most common exception to this is rooms with the VR generators (the generator goes down, and lo! so too do thine enemies.) Thus, this can be considered a pacifist run as I only kill enemies which are required to progress the game, which is 99.9% of them.

On the whole this is a solidly programmed game, there was only one real exploit I found, but maaaaan is it a biggie. Normally, each weapon has a set rate of fire (you hold B), but with TAS-wizardry weapons can be fired every other frame. Unfortunately, most enemies have a 4 frame invincibility period, but this rarely matters as you're usually fighting multiple enemies, and when you aren't, there's sneaky ways to do extra damage as a result of the firing rate oversight involving combining weapons. This is probably a good place to mention that enemies are also invincible until fully spawned, so if you see me ignoring enemies I should be making dead, this would be why.

Now, on to the tools of the trade!

Weapons

All weapons deal 1 damage per shot (exception - TDB Mine), and have a combined maximum of ten bullets on screen at any time. Rockets count as _two_ bullets.

Enemies in order of appearance(Unless noted, all enemies have a 4 frame invincibility period)

The Run

Alpha Sector

I blow some things up, then there's power, and bad guys. Of note are the turrets appearing in a square formation, this happens several other times. Splitting the shotgun between targets every other frame works best, for now. Then there's many red androids, and they all have shitty spawn points in this area (you can't walk on the black hexagonal distorted areas) but I make do. I push the boss toward the door while killing him.

Area 2 is ignored for now since I need the reflecting laser. I kill the first two slimes, since the next enemy spawn is far enough away to not lose time by shooting them to death. Better red android spawns in this area... the two trap rooms are some of my favorite parts of the run, particularly the first one. After disarming the second trap, i focus fire on the androids and let the slimes explode at me (3 damage per). You may notice I bounce some shots off the wall while the androids are spawning, this let me hit them twice per frame earlier in the combat instead of once. I do this again in a few other places where it's practical to do so. I dodge a bullet in the generator room (loss of 6 frames), but since my health is limited at 32, and suicide slimes do 3 damage per, this struck me as wise. There are better one damage/frame tradeoffs in the outdoor level anyway.

Chock full of kill-friendly spawns. A couple crazy rooms in here too. Also, those gold androids sure are dumb. Boss pushed towards teleporter... yep. Afterwards, Area 3 is briefly revisted, it's a hallway with some enemies. I kill them from the teleporter. I take the full 100 shots at this generator from a distance, as it lets me exit the room sooner then charging it with the shotgun.

The enemies I shoot offscreen were gold androids, if you're curious. The third room with 4 red androids and, afterward, 3 suicide slimes was a pain in the ass to optimize, but I like the way it turned out. I employ a similar strategy with the generator here as in the second half of area 3. Then, there's a flamethrower, plus your first (brief) glimpse of the Beta sector. God, I love the flamethrower. Then a brief area 2 stop with turrets, I fire some laser shots until I get close enough to burninate them. Mutilate some guards, disarm a trap, and then there's a GIANT ENEMY CRAB. Bursts of ten every-other frame fire proved to be optimal (and generally is, for all high HP enemies), and once again, can't dodge rockets/invincible until he spins his head at you. With regards to the rockets, it's best to stand slightly off center, so both projectiles from any given set hit you a frame apart (the player has a 3 frame invincibility time), saving 3 health.

This level is a nice change of atmosphere, and a fun playground for the flamethrower. I take a damage immediately, saving a fair chunk of frames. At the gold guys, I fire one shotgun burst to activate them early, then Cook them. The slime spawn here is beautiful, the only time killing five of them at once trumps having them kill you. The next set of hidden turrets was insane to optimize, after many, many attempts I only finally managed to kill them all before they hide on the last possible frame. Bugs are funny. Next set of turrets is too spread out to get in one go, so I make sure I'm far along the path as possible when they die. The next set required taking damage to get all four in one go, 2 damage was the best I managed here. By the way, this is a much more efficient tradeoff than having a slime suicide at me, 3 combined damage from turrets in this stage saved more frames than said suicide option. I take another damage at the next set of turrets, to avoid slowing down for rather a long time. The last group of turrets is way too far away to get without them hiding, unfortunately. And now, you never see those again. There's another screen of enemies I murder, then it's onto the next area.

Beta Sector

For the curious, the rocket launcher is hidden in a fake wall in the upperleft part of the map (need to destroy the generator first). Flamethrower is the primary weapon (get used to it), though other weapons are used briefly when appropriate.

This area only exists to get you the holographic projector, which is sadly needed to get the TDB mines. I let two enemies suicide at me right away, mainly to skip their death animation saving around 80 frames. I place the projector on the top left corner of the bridge to manipulate enemies into (slightly) better position... that whole room after the projector is a big mess of awful spawns. I contemplated using my last damage in the run on the group of five suicide guys, but wasn't able to make it work in any useful time-saving fashion. I was thankfully able to salvage the red android/turret spawn by reflecting the laser through a spawning enemy, putting it in range of the flamethrower, but the turrets are still annoyingly spaced out... I place another hologram before running at the generator so the red android wouldn't be in the way of the laser shots before I get in flamethrower range. Then, it's back through area 1 to the other teleporter...

Which takes me to area 3. This stage is basically a complete run and gun. At the end is the aforementioned place where you need the hologram. I then get the TDB Mine (stands for Tadaaaaa... BOOM if you were wondering).

Here's where the mines are needed to proceed (I skipped this teleporter previously when gathering the hologram). Some more run & gun. Beta sector doesn't mess around, apparently. The mines take too long to prime to be of use on the boss here, but the flamethrower is more than enough. I attack the boss from the side, where his hitbox is largest for best damage. I like my robots well done, you see.

Now you'll get to see just how ridiculous the mines actually are. I set a trap behind the first door, kills all the red androids off screen. I do this again for the next group of enemies. After the bridge, I was able to lay a mine immediately in such a way that it kills all four red androids here off-screen, but using the flamethrower was around ten frames faster (this is crucial for an upcoming spawn). Next there are three suicide slimes, again, no mine was used, this time because it caused problems with the next enemies' movements... I then have to place the hologram in a very specific place, go back and lay a mine, and then fire flames/lasers through the other tiny hole to take care of the bugs. THIS enemy formation was a gigantic pain in the ass to optimize. The one bug I need the laser for spawns way on the other side of the computer, so in the end I was fairly satisfied with the result here... kill generator, teleporter, then, I come face to face with the most terrifying robot I've ever seen anywhere. The mine annihilates this guy... I don't place it as soon as possible, because I need to be closer for the maximum damage overlap. A 62 damage mine is much nicer than a 20 damage one, afterall. Flamethrower doesn't work, so I primarily use the shotgun. Because of a large hitbox, i was able to damage him with all ten bullets on the frame he finishes spawning. I then tenderize him with the same weapon to the tune of around 42 HP then the mine goes off. Having my shots connect simultaneously with the mine was pretty tricky here. I lay another mine as soon as I can, hit him for another 11 damage, and then hide. I don't have enough health left to keep plugging away with the shotgun, and anyway the mine fries his remaining 60 hp in a matter of frames when it goes off. Oh, and I stopped firing the laser when i did because after than point I wasn't able to land enough hits to equal the last frame of damage from the mine (8), without being damaged myself, so it was a complete moot point. After, there's some bugs to fry, then enemies spawn all over the room. I bait the slime behind me into a mine, barbecue the group in the other upper corner and take my final damage ever in letting the last enemy suicide me. The movement to the gold guards ahead isn't optimal (diagonal movement is faster than stricti vertical) but I was able to hit them sooner this way, and thus have the door open sooner. Then, there's a boss- I lay a mine which I push him onto with the shotgun (flamethrower doesn't work.) I then choose the red pill, and enter the Matrix.

First platform is strict run & gun. Second platform, I make use of mines to an extent. The first spawn for the next platform won't trigger until you're halfway across, and two bugs spawn behind you. Hence, the mine I leave before crossing the bridge. This happens again on the very last platform. Otherwise, the level's basically a toaster oven to me. Then, there's the final boss. I take him to culinary school, and abuse how his green laser attack works to stand completely still during the second phase and not get damaged. Finally, I immolate the three generators powering the virtual world (two of them are destroyed post-input by a mine.)

And there you have it. This run was a lot of fun to make, even if it was mostly geometry and number monitoring. The weapons unique properties can make for some interesting solutions to enemy formations, and given that this isn't too long a run, it ought to make a good watch even for most of you who have never heard of this (awesome) game before.

Flygon: Added YouTube module and corrected submission header.

Rising_Tempest: Spiffication complete.

Truncated: Judging underway...

Truncated: Accepting! Nice style and rapid precision shooting. I liked how it was possible to quickly switch weapons to get a few extra hits in.

sgrunt: I'll tackle this one.