Submission #980: Baxter's NES Mega Man 5 in 33:04.05

Nintendo Entertainment System
baseline
FCEU 0.98.12
119043
60
75193
Unknown
Mega Man 5 (U).nes
Submitted by Baxter on 2/15/2006 8:50:02 PM
Submission Comments
  • FCEU 0.98.13 (nitsuja)
  • Doesn't use passwords
  • Abuses programming errors
  • Takes hit to save time
  • Aims for fastest time
This movie is 119043 frames long, which makes it 12354 frames (~3 minutes and 26 seconds) faster than the movie that's currently published.
The previous movie was made with famtasia, so a lot of time could be saved by better accuracy. It's far easier to get a better time with FCEU, although speedrunning itself takes probably more time with FCEU. I tested all routes I considered plausible to be the fastest, which probably saved the most time. Nearly every room in this movie is played with a different strategy compaired to the previous movie. Also a good amount of time was saved by newly found glitches and tricks (check them out at the forum: Forum/Topics/2511). Not all strategies at the forum could be used, since many appeared to be slower. I'll commment on the glitches I use at the level discriptions.
I'd like to thank:
  • AngerFist, for constantly giving me motivation to work on the movie and for checking my wips. The movie wouldn't be finished now if it wasn't for him.
  • Bisqwit, for taking a close look at my wips, and commenting on them.
  • FinalFighter, for the glitches and strategies he found.
  • Shinryuu, his wip made me start speedrunning this game, and was quite usefull for the first two stages.

Most noticable differences between Mega Man 5, and other NES Mega Man games
  • The screen scolls significantly faster. This gives a nice sense of speed to the movie. (these times measured below are the amount of frames you lose control over megaman)
    • Mega Man 1 vertical scrolling takes 128 frames
    • Mega Man 2 vertical scrolling takes 128 frames
    • Mega Man 3 vertical scrolling takes 80 frames
    • Mega Man 4 vertical scrolling takes 120 frames
    • Mega Man 5 vertical scrolling takes 60 frames
    • Mega Man 6 veritcal scrolling takes 120 frames
  • Enemies have probably the longest time of invulnerability (~9 frames). It seems the game is somewhat adepted to this, since most enemies only need 2 or 3 hits.
  • You can't charge while sliding. (don't know about Mega Man 4, but it's possible in Mega Man 6)
  • The ending tune after defeating a boss starts after a certain amount of frames, and is not triggered by the explosion being out of the screen.
  • Super arrow. It's the only movement weapon I know of that:
    • Is faster for moving horizontally, aswell as vertically.
    • Is a weapon itself (which comes in handy, since the weapon hp runs empty incredibly fast)

Notes


Starman

Room1 It's not visible, but I have to start charging my buster weapon pretty early in the room, since you can't charge while megaman is sliding. Also notice me walking a frame back, when going off the edge; jumping out of the slide normally is faster, but since there is a low gravity at this level, walking back a frame to cancel the slide is the fastest way to move down.
Room2 Because the enemies have a relative large time of invulnerability it’s faster to start a new slide after shooting. The next shot is usually made by walking back for a frame (to cancel the slide) and shoot again. The short wait for the enemy is faster than taking hit. The charged hit, which hits three enemies eliminates a lot of lag.
Room3 Shooting the enemies in the vertical shaft isn’t faster, but not slower either.
Room4 You’ll also notice I’m not collecting the beat-parts, which also saves a good amount of time. I move one frame backwards for shooting an enemy, so there is less lag.
Room5
Room6 It’s possible to charge your weapon in room5, but it won’t help you saving time in this room. You can’t shoot normal bullets when a charged shot is on-screen. Killing the last cannon of the room, right after climbing the ladder is also not faster, because of this.
Room7 Shooting the first big robot is faster than jumping over it. You have time to make a charged shot, and you’ll have to jump over the cannon and over the spikes anyway. Taking hit by a bullet and sliding over the spikes would be a few frames faster, but there is a large energy upgrade ahead, and avoiding it would cost more than the few frames saved by taking damage.
Room8 Here is the large energy upgrade. I kill one enemy more than needed, since it’s not slower.
Room9 I found a nice new strat for this room, that combines shooting enemies with a charged shot, shooting them with normal shots, and taking damage. There is an even cooler route, where megaman would slide over the spikes the entire time, taking damage from the enemies that pop up from the bottom of the screen, but unfortunately… this is slower. I start charging my weapon right after the last time I take damage.
Room10 I need to charge my weapon for the boss, so shooting him is no option, and taking damage isn’t either. Since I can’t charge during sliding, I charge up a bit during this jump.
Starman You can make the boss appear two frames faster, by pressing left, in the ‘window of opportunity’. I didn’t know this at this stage in the game (I did use it at all other bosses, where it saved time). However, not doing this for starman “didn’t lose me any time”, since I did some tests, and megaman does charge his weapon during there two frames. My weapon wasn’t fully charged yet, so even if I had done this, the frame of releasing my first shot would be the same anyway. I shoot a charged shot every 82 frames. You can start charging your weapon, right after releasing the shot, so the shots won’t hit periodically, but I do shoot periodically. The boss has 28 hp, so 9 charged shots, and 1 uncharged shot are needed. It’s best to shoot the uncharged shot from a large distance, relative to the distance you shoot your charged shot before from. This is to give the uncharged shot more travel time, which will give you the possibility of charging your next shot earlier. Also note that I shoot the boss pretty close to the corner. In Mega Man 5, the best spot to kill a boss is at the corner, for reducing lag. It doesn’t matter that the explosion is not out of the screen, since the animation of megaman getting powered up is triggered after a certain amount of time, and not by the explosion being out of the screen. At the end of the battle, I walk megaman to the middle of the room, this is done manually… so no time lost here.

Gravityman

Room1 I did some testing on it, and I came to the conclusion it was definitely not faster to use super arrow for the first part of the level. The reasons for this is that the rooms are very short, there are no stairs to climb, and “megaman can’t stand on the super arrow when gravity is reversed”.
Room2 It was pretty hard, getting the jump right where gravity is reversed the second time, without hitting the edge. Shooting the enemies is faster than jumping over them, even when a charged shot is needed for this. When gravity is reversed, the fastest way to handle it, is to jump the frame before megaman would be upside down. The last enemy of this room is shot by megaman running. Since the time of invulnerability is very big, sliding would be useless, since I would have reached the enemy before it died, and would have to wait right before it and shoot it… doing it this way was equally fast. Jumping over the last enemy would have been slower.
Room3 Taking damage, without falling down is new. It was pretty hard, but I’m really glad it worked; it looks way better this way.
Room4 Taking damage first time is unavoidable, shooting him would take way too long, and taking damage here is very fast, since you have to fall down anyway. I’m taking damage the second time in this room earlier than needed, so I don’t have any delay on jumping fast to get upside down.
Room5
Room6 Charged shot came in handy. This strat isn’t any slower than using super arrow, while super arrow would have taken away some super arrow hp (obviously).
Room7 Enter super arrow. It’s a great room for first time using the super arrow. Just standing on the super arrow costs 1 hp every 5 frames. This is A LOT. It also costs hp when sliding on the arrow, but it won’t cost any when jumping in the air. Since super arrow is so fast, the only possibility to jump, is jumping only one frame, when megaman is somewhere at the front of the arrow. After a jump, where megaman is jumping forward, he’ll be at the back of the arrow. To make another jump, megaman slides to the front, Which causes a funny, slide, jump, slide, jump etc. I actually stopped speedrunning this game for quite a while after this room, since it seemed to hard to me to optimize the usage of the super arrow, but finally I started working on it again, since doing it right would probably give a nice result.
Room8 Rooms like this is what I had feared for ;) Since you can only use the super arrow, when gravity isn’t reversed, I’m using this strat. Calculating and testing how many super arrow hp will be needed, and where to get powerups is very time taking. You can stand on a super arrow infinitely after the super arrow hp has run out, but not that you won’t be able to shoot any new arrows. Shooting an arrow costs 2 hp.
Room9 Nothing special, the weapon switch for the boss comes in handy for killing the enemy.
Room10
Gravityman It was suggested just now that entering the boss room might be faster. I tested it, and it was actually four frames faster than just sliding like I do in this run (It's a real pity, but I never expected my movie to be perfect. It's only four frames we are talking about here.). You are free to move when falling down, so I already activate a star crusher. When it’s activated, you can shoot it away anytime you want, even when the bosses health is still charging, which is what I’m doing. The boss follows a set pattern, so not much to manipulate here. You can’t hit the boss when he’s at the other side from the room, only when gravity is reversed. You can hit him during his first small jump, and you can’t hit him during his second. Strange for some reason, but true. Since the path of the boss isn’t manipulatable, I have to kill him near the centre.

Gyroman

Room1
Room2 Not much to do in this autoscroller… I make a few slides. I do gain height at the end with a super arrow, so I don’t have to do that in the next room. Room3 Taking some extra hp from enemies.
Room4 Extra powerup laying around comes in handy. Because I use a different strat than FinalFighter in the previous room, I need to charge one hp less in the next room, which saves me four frames.
Room5
Room6
Room7 This gives a nice example of using the super arrow after it’s depleted. It is a little harder to manipulate a powerup you’ll get from the arrow hitting a certain enemy, since you can’t really influence when it hits. It turned out very well in this case though.
Room8
Room9 Shooting right after the ladder, is faster than shooting from the ladder. You can’t cancel the shooting animation on the ladder, by jumping of from a frame or anything, so it takes quite long.
Room10 A very long autoscroller. I was a bit worried about it not being very entertaining, when I started this room, but it turned out ok. If you jump the frame you would have been squashed, megaman will be pushed through the floor. Megaman might have gone too wild in this room for some people, but it’s only one room ;) and I wouldn’t get the chance again very soon of jumping this rapidly in a row.
Room11 For the last part of this level, there were actually four plausible strategies. Switching to gravityhold, and not killing any enemies was one, but it didn’t turn out well. Getting a powerup with buster, and using super arrow was another; this was only slightly slower. Using buster was a few frames slower, and using star crusher turned out to be the fastest (by only a few frames). The ability to cancel out enemies bullets comes in handy here.
Room12
Gyroman This time, I am pressing left at the ‘window of opportunity’, saving two frames. The battle itself was very easy (probably the easiest one). I decided to do some jumping, which wasn’t very time taking, and turned out to fit in prefect, having the boss positioned in a corner, making a close call with the projectiles fired at megaman, and ending in the centre of the room (note that ending in the centre of the room isn’t necessary).

Chargeman

Room1 I’m taking a different order of robot masters than Kopernical did here. I don’t need Stonemans weapon for the boss, since you’d have to do a pausetrick, which is slower than using charged shots, and you don’t need Napalmmans weapon, since gyromans weapon is equally strong, and produces less lag. Using super arrow for this room, saves a good amount of time. Note that at the end of the room I use the bounced off super arrow to get to the ladder!
Room2 Using a super arrow to gain height for the next room.
Room3 This room is very laggy, but it cannot be helped. The glitch that is performed at the end of the level, can’t for some reason be performed at the end of this room (that is, no one succeeded at this yet).
Room4 I’m saving a good deal of time here since I’m using gyromans weapon, instead of napalmmans weapon. Using gyromans weapon is weird, since if you press up or down, the projectile will move up or down. This is why I shoot most of the projective from a short distance, or I wouldn’t be able to slide (since for sliding, you need to press down). This Room is in my opinion a very good example of a very speedy room, even without the use of super arrow (using super arrow would not have been faster for this room, except for the end, where I do use it to climb the stairs).
Room5
Room6 I make two jumps on the super arrow, so the screen scrolls a little slower at that point, which will create a little less lag. This is not a technique that really works at other rooms for some reason, since you do need to run (or slide) to the front of the arrow again. I get off the super arrow before the end of the room, in order to perform a glitch. The glitch enables megaman to make the screen scroll, instead of fade out, which is faster by itself, and is faster for room7. About the glitch: I wanted to test if using charged shots on chargeman was faster than using stonemans weapon on him. I was playing the chargeman level normally, at 100% speed, when I discovered the glitch. Unfortunately, I was not recording, but I did have a save where the screen was already scrolling. I wasn’t able to reproduce the glitch, and I couldn’t see what I did before the jump (since I didn’t record it). This is why I asked Bisqwit if he was able to reproduce it. Also when Bisqbot tried, the glitch wasn’t reproduced yet, so Bisqwit asked FinalFighter. It appeared that FinalFighter had found out this glitch aswell, independently of me… and didn’t know of a consistent way of doing it either. After a while FinalFighter did find what caused the glitch to work. The key to performing this glitch was taking damage, and pressing right while megaman was being damaged. There are a lot of things that will make the glitch fail even after taking damage, so my movements after being damaged might seem strange sometimes. I wasn’t allowed to shoot the enemy I was being damaged by right away. You may not make the screen scroll to the left. I wasn’t allowed to slide until the screen stopped scrolling, and some other stuff. Because of these restrictions, I shot the enemies and there projectiles with normal shots to avoid lag. It was better than a charged shot.
Room7 Because of the glitch, I can access the gate really fast (first frame of being able to move). I walk left, because it’s not losing any time, and it’s not possible to do it, without losing time, at other places this way.
Chargeman Like already mentioned; charged shots are faster for chargeman than stonemans weapon. Another great feature of the glitch is not only the possibility to charge my weapon before the battle, but also fire it at the first frame of the battle. This is possible because I fall down into the room, and am positioned farther to the right. If you enter the room, stand at the left side, and shoot at the first frame, the bullet will bounce off, since chargeman will have begun doing his charge attack. Also notice the fact chargeman doesn’t do his rage attack, where he turns all red. You would have been unable to hit him for some time, if he did this attack. The uncharged bullet is shot from a distance again.

Waveman

Room1 Chargekick is able to slide through the water, and the spiked balls, so I switch weapons to it. At the first frame I'm able to switch back weapons, I do so to get less lag.
Room2 Hitting the edge in this room cannot be avoided; a weapon switch doesn't give you an extra momentum, like it does in Megaman 1 and 2.
Room3 At the start at the room, you'll see me wait a little at the ground, before jumping. This is done to save a little arrow hp, and no time is lost by it. Notice that this is one of the only super arrows, I'm actually able to exit from the front side. This is only possible when being very close to the ceiling. The last part of this room was pretty hard, since I had to keep a certain amount of arrow hp left, and this level doesn't have any enemies you could get refills from.
Room4 It's also possible to travel up on small bubbles, but you have to land on the bubble at a certain frame, right before it leaves the screen. Since I have to wait anyway, untill the bubble reaches the top of the room, I walk to the right, instead of sliding.
Room5 The main goal in this room is not falling down, while using as less as possible arrow hp, and traveling on the small bubble again, instead of the big bubble.
Room6
Room7 Nice new glitch found here by FinalFighter. Might have discovered it aswell, but I hadn't reached this level yet when it was posted. If you stand on the super arrow, or on the ground, close enough to the boat you will lose control and megaman will enter it. If you slide, right before this spot, you will lose control later. Making two super arrows connect, sliding over them, and jumping at the last frame possible, will enable you to get to the next screen before you lose control.
Room8 This trick enables you to walk over the water, instead of having to ride the boat. This has some advantages. For one, this terrible long autoscroller will be a lot more entertaining. All enemies on the water can only be hit by the buster weapon (the octopuss also) so I'm switching to that. You will notice that shots to the right will travel a lot slower than normally, and shots to the left will travel a lot faster. This enables something quite funny, that will probably he hard to notice, without knowing. You are actually able to shoot a normal bullet to the right, charge your weapon, and let go of the B button, before the first shot has left the screen. This unique, for as far as I know, since it's only possible at these autoscrolling rooms, with the glitch. You can see it, since the music of megaman being charged it still playing, but megaman hasn't fired a charged shot and is in his normal state (uncharged). It might be hard to notice, since I'm jumping rapidly at this point. You will note that I jump alot in this room, and not run or slide at all. This is since it gives instant lag, since there is alot of movement in the screen, at the front, aswell as the background. Fortunately, you are able to move horozontally by moving during a jump. The jumping fishes will always cause a frame of lag, if megaman is also on the screen. Luckily megaman is able to move to the far left or right of the screen which will make megaman both invisible as invincible. This prevents all lag from the fishes.
Room9 The octopus is also a little easier to handle, with megaman walking around. I am able to attack with a charged shot for the first hit. The other hits were also good connected. This battle gives a good idea about the time of invulnerability of enemies in this game. There is a small time, where the octo moves to high, and to low to hit him. I take damage when he is to low, and shoot him backwards when killing him. It is actually possible to not go onscreen at all, between the two rooms, but this would be slightly slower.
Room10 Because of the many enemies, I am going to invisible/invincible mode right at the start of the room. I tried to make it as interesting as possible, with some hits intentionally missed, and some shots that impact after a very long while.
Room11 I also save a good amount of time in this room. Normally, you wouldn't have any control over megaman at this room, and the boat would go to the shore, and megaman walks out of the screen. With the glitch, I was able to slide this room.
Room12
Waveman I switch to the chargekick a little later, to manipulate the spot where the water fountain forms. These fountains can't be passed without getting hit by chargekick. Waveman follows a set pattern of: creating water, shooting harpoon, making either a small or a big jump. In this movie, you'll only see him do small jumps, since I can't hit him with chargekick when he's up in the air. With two small jumps, the time I'm unable to hit him is minimized. At the end of the battle, I deplete my chargekick hp.

Crystalman

Room1 Super arrow through this room... I keep 5 hp left at the end of the room. Since I don't make a weapon switch, and you simply can't exit a super arrow from the front, I jump off the arrow at the back.
Room2 Standing on super arrow to go over the enemies was a few frames slower, so I kill them.
Room3 Nice long room to use super arrow. Super arrow hadn't been used before in this room, but it appeared to be no problem at all with the falling crystals.
Room4 Good thing Eddie came by to give me an upgrade :P Comes in very handy, since I don't need to switch weapons, and I didn't have any hp left to kill an enemy with.
Room5 Using super arrow for the first part of this room. Have to make a switch here. Gyromans weapon kills the skull enemies with one hit. I kill the first enemy to avoid lag. I have to make a few frame pause for the next enemy, but it's way faster than taking damage.
Room6 Normally, the moving platform is triggered to move when megaman stands on it, but you can also make it move by walking very close to it, so I'm doing this, before getting on. Walking on the moving platform is faster than sliding on it.
Room7 Killing the enemies from below goes well with the gyro attack. The frame I collect the powerup coincides with a single frame I'm walking back for shooting the super arrow. I need to keep 3 super arrow hp at the end of this room, so I need to jump of the super arrow a little before the end of this room.
Room8 You can chose two routes in this room. Going over the platform, and dropping before the platform is possible, but jumping down before it is slightly faster (when timing after the next room... you'd be able to make a long drop down, when going over the platform, but it's slightly slower).
Room9
Room10 Again two routes are possible at this room. The lower route is very laggy, since the mice are moving very fast. Killing them is a good option. I had to think off a fast way to kill them and move around over the top. I'm pleased with the strategy I found for it. I'm also able to obtain an M box here. Didn't know whether if I'd use it later on, but collecting it was the fastest way. It turned out very usefull at the first Protoman level. An M box refills all health, and all weapon hp. Unfortunately, if refills one weapon after the other. The super arrowing the last part of this room proved more difficult than it seemed, since I had to save one hp, which was hard somehow without losing frames.
Room11
Room12
Room13 Placing the arrow right under the ceiling here is the fastest, and looks cool, since it looks like megaman is standing inside the arrow.
Room14
Room15 Gyromans weapon is the best weapon against these big robots, and it's actually faster to kill him than to slide under him (you'd need to wait for a short while for him to jump, and he can already be killed before he jumps).
Crystalman He always attacks with four seperate crystal balls at the start, that would cause a great amount of lag. Fortunately, when getting damaged by them, they disappear... so the lag can be avoided.

Napalmman

Room1 I make a very short slide at the start of the room, so I have to use the super arrow for a slightly shorter distance and I can preserve just enough hp for what I'm planning the rest of the level. Using the buster weapon would also be a good option, but it's slightly slower. It was also pretty tricky going below the last tiger, without getting hit.
Room2
Room3 It's possible to do the through-the-wall glitch in this room (movie of this is at the Mega Man 5 topic at the forum, but it's a lot slower than the normal strategy for this room. A lot has to be preset for the through-the-wall glitch.
Room4 Shooting the crystals early has slightly less lag, since the drills will be shorter on screen.
Room5
Room6
Room7 I place the super arrow just low enough to get underneath the rock wall near the end of the room, and just high enough to still hit the enemy at the end. Megaman is positioned too high when standing on the arrow for the bombs to detonate, so the super arrow would hit the first bomb. This can be avoided by walking to the front of the arrow. Megaman will make a falling movement and the bomb will go down. This is also done at the end of the room, in order to hit the last bomb of the screen. If I would be standing below the rock platform this last bomb would also detonate, which is why I slide a bit to the left and right, so the last bomb won't sink in. Getting a refill from this bomb is alot faster than taking it from the Eddie in the next room, since you would have to take damage from the chopper otherwise, which would take longer.
Room8
Room9 Leaving the super arrow at the front side, which is possible due to the weapon switch. There are a few options for which weapon to switch to, but gravity hold was the fastest, since it avoids a lot of lag in one of the rooms up ahead. It even saves more frames than selecting the crystal weapon with a weapon switch less.
Room10 I need to hit the enemy four times for him to turn upside down, so I walk a bit at the start at the room (would have been waiting right infront of the enemy otherwise... walking is just as fast). Taking damage is slower.
Room11 The last part of this room has some major lag, which is avoided by the gravity hold. Shooting the projectiles wouldn't be an option, since they split into four, creating even more lag.
Room12
Room13 The enemies that rise up cannot really be killed; they have even more hp that the bosses in this game :) I shoot the other enemies from the left of these rising enemies, which is possible, since the crystalballs form at the right of these enemies. There are small waits at the last part of this room, but this is way faster than taking damage.
Napalmman The crystal bolls don't do 4 damage, like you would expect, but only 3... so I have to hit napalmman ten times. I take damage to make napalmman jump back in the corner, taking damage by the bomb and the explosiona are all done lagless, and without losing time. Also note that napalmman only uses this one attack. I make sure I'm too far away for him to do his other attack, which would cause a little lag.

Stoneman

Room1 I make a slide at the beginning of the room, so I have to travel a slightly smaller distance in order to save a little super arrow hp. I'm placing my first super arrow backwards, which prevents a little lag. It was suggested to me that it might save a little time if this was done in other places aswell. This would be possible indeed, but there aren't that much places where it could have been done in the movie, and if it could be done, and actually saved time, it would be a number of frames only.
Room2 This is the room where the through-the-wall glitch was first shown. Unfortunately it doesn't save any time here, since you have to wait untill the bats shoot. However, there is a small glitch included in this room. You should watch the jump up the ladder frame by frame, to know what I mean. At 100% speed, you will notice something odd about the jump, but won't really see what happens.
Room3 Jumping off the third arrow might seem a little strange, since there is some lag, but this lag is causes by the enemy at the left shooting his three bullets, which is unavoidable since you have to get passed him.
Room4
Room5 I found some nice strategy to keep on the arrow, without hp, and still leave it with new hp. It requered a second arrow, which kills in this case a projectile, giving me a powerup. This technique is used twice in this room.
Room6
Room7 There is no fast way to get a refill at this room, so I'm switching weapons at the end of the room. Might have been a better stylic choice if I had switches weapons at the beginning of the next room...
Room8 The first enemy is killed to keep it from exploding (lag). In my upward motion, I get a powerup from the second enemy. In Mega Man 1 and 2, this wouldn't have been possible; you'd fall down. In Mega Man 5 this motion is stored.
Room9 Walking to the front of the arrow would have caused lag, and wouldn't be any good eitherway, since I have to get a refill, and I would get hit by the enemy (have to jump off anyway).
Room10
Room11 I'm really proud off this strategy. Both arrows don't hit enemies for the first part of the room, and kill both enemies at the second part, giving me a refill. A lot of refills are needed for this level :P
Room12
Room13 Walking to the front off the arrow would have caused lag, which is why I refrain from doing so. I also don't exit my arrow at the fartherst place possible in the room, since this would have triggered the enemy up ahead to fire, which would lose time later. Napalm bomb was used to slide beneath one of the smaller enemies, which is quite funny (not new though, since Kopernical did this aswell).
Stoneman This boss has many attacks that make him invulnerable for a while. There was a lot off work needed to luck manipulate him in a way, so he would only do his low jump. At the end of the battle, there are a few frames where he's not damaged. This is because I needed to be at a certain distance from him to make him continue jumping the way he did. It was way faster this way than letting him do his normal routine.
(Notes for the 8 robot masters are complete, notes for the protoman levels, and the wily levels will not follow...)
Enjoy the movie,
Baxter

Bisqwit: Adding to my publication-pending list.
Last Edited by on 1/1/2022 6:13 PM
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