Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
"46:45 - 46:48: You re-enter this vertical room and fall on the left side of the platforms, when you are entering a door on the right side of the screen. You don't manage shinespark speed for the next room, so there must be a hidden reason to spend time running across that floor. Enlighten me?"
A potential reason for landing further left on the ground in this case is to gain more running speed on ground (since he has Speedbooster, so the distance required to reach maximal running speed is a lot more space than without it) in order to keep this higher running speed, instead of using a lower accumulated running speed if one would land further to the right, and then in both cases keep (most of) this speed through the upcoming room (in this case via spacejumping and Springball-jumping).
Of course it depends on for how long one wants/has to keep the speed that one builds up on the ground, in order to optimize/minimize the required total time. The longer the section is through which one wants to carry a higher speed value, the more it makes sense to initially spend some more time to build up more speed. If he had not spent as much time building up running speed, then he would have had to traverse the whole next hallway with this lower speed (provided one would only consider this strategy of travelling through these rooms, i.e. neglecting alternate methods).
This concept of adapting the amount of running/movement speed for an upcoming part, depending on the initial time costs for doing so, is a rather fundamental and often appearing concept, I´d say.
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
From what I remember nymx saying is that it was faster to visit the tile anyways (on the way back), and it is allowed to visit it since it is inbounds.
Edit:
It might fit to explain the definition of "inbounds" the way the community uses it, especially because potential future TASes (I could imagine the 100% Items TAS and maybe an RBO TAS), if they make use of incredibly fast, so-called "SuperJumps" (not to be mistaken with the old name for Shinesparks) would have to deal with this definition aswell.
So there is four relevant memory addresses:
[Directly taken from the bottom of this resources page: http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/SNES/SuperMetroid.html ]
7E0AF6 2 bytes, unsigned Horizontal position
7E0AF8 2 bytes, unsigned Horizontal sub-pixel position
7E0AFA 2 bytes, unsigned Vertical position
7E0AFC 2 bytes, unsigned Vertical sub-pixel position
The range that each of those memory addresse´s value has is from 0 to (2^16) - 1 = 65536 - 1 (= 65535).
If the sub-pixel position´s value (in vertical and horizontal case) increases past 65535, then it will increase the corresponding pixel position´s value by 1 and keep the rest (modulo 65536), and analogous for an underflow downwards past the sub-pixel value 0.
So the sub-pixel values only really influence the "micro-structure", or transition-calculation between sub-pixels and pixels, one could say, but the behavior of the actual pixel position´s values determines the shape of the manifold (which in this case has torus structure).
If the (vertical or horizontal) pixel value overflows past 65535, it just loops back to 0, and vice versa, so this effect generates the torus shape (with same vertical extension as horizontal one, as one might note).
Every tile is a 16 pixels times 16 pixels object, every "scroll" / map square is a 16 blocks by 16 blocks area.
Now, when some room is entered, the game will directly load a certain n map squares times m map squares (for natural numbers n, m) large, rectangular area into this general space (which is exactly the area that one could see and edit in the editor called "Super Metroid Integrated Level Editor" / SMILE), but this area does not cover the full space of available pixel positions in the torus, and in the remaining region, tile remnants from previously entered rooms (or even just previously loaded rooms, as it is the case while watching the intro demos), aswell as other "garbage data" can be located, and the structure (as in what kind of block is located where, for all blocks in that region) of this region outside of what is loaded into the space depends on things like the order of previously entered rooms etc. .
So one major difference between the inbounds area and the Out of Bounds area is that the OoB area does (in general) not have a fixed form, but the inbounds area, since it is what the game currently loads into the space, is always the same [technically I would have to mention that this does not hold true anymore if the game´s code is changed via ACE].
An example of such "inbounds" area together with a large portion of the room´s OoB area is visualized in this picture here (by SUPERMETROIDFTP):
http://smethack.mydns.jp/?plugin=attach&refer=%B5%BB%B0%EC%CD%F7%2FNBMB%20%25%20Glitch%20run&openfile=maridia_plasma_beam_route_004.png
In general, the OoB region towards the right of the inbounds area is obtained by copying the inbounds area to the right, shifting it upwards 1 tile, and deleting the upper most row of blocks that otherwise due to the upwards shift would stick out at the top, and then this process is repeated.
More information would be gathered in here (by Kejardon): http://drewseph.zophar.net/Kejardon/OORTravel/FAQ.html
For branches that ban OoB, Samus´ body is not allowed to even partially enter or interact via collision-checks (like walljump-check, unmorph-check, and normal checks when bonking against an object) with the OoB area even just for a single frame (but projectiles may exit the inbounds area, as it is anyways often the case when Wave beam is used, so that wrap-around shots can be applied, but so far is also allowed for Grapple-shots which can even off-screen interact with tiles), except during non-loose (i.e. "normal") elevator rides and (door-)transitions, where it cannot be prevented that Samus exits the inbounds area.
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
"It's not something that is measured in-game, and on top of it, you've got a controversy around a tile that may or may not exist (which, by the way, invalidates all existing 100% map runs if the tile is determined to be a real thing)"
It is not true that the game does not keep track of every single map square´s state (if it was entered or not). Tewtal / total_ (for example) could prove you wrong on this one, if he would take the time to look up where this happens within the game´s code. But yes, it does not explicitly express this fact to the player (e.g. at the end of the game). Furthermore, the 1 black inbounds square, if one wants to count it or not (but for the 100% Map branch it is agreed upon to not count, since its behavior is the same as any out of bounds map square´s behavior and any other inbounds map square that can be reached otherwise that does not have a pink corresponding state assigned to it), is entered, so this particular potential invalidation arguement that you mentioned, Invariel, is null.
However, I have to admit that there are (even if the same route is kept) movement optimization mistakes throughout the run that some former Super Metroid TASers could aswell notice without much effort.
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Since this hasn´t been mentioned in here yet, the consequences of the recent Draygon Crystal Flash ammunition underflow include the existence of 4 more 13% branches (for NTSC and PAL). Explicitly, those are:
13%PB-PB
(This uses either an elevator CF or the Varia FlashSuit method in order to break the speed blocks in pre-Botwoon room, after arriving at the Everest room (not necessarily via Forgotten Highway) and using a suitless, FlashSuit producing SlopeSpark assisted by a Reserve Tank to chain knockback frames; followed by a Charge-less Botwoon fight with the kept ammunition compared to using a ceiling CF for pre-Botwoon room which would drain required ammunition. Then Botwoon´s E-Tank would be collected and the underflow would be executed at Draygon via powerbomb drop manipulation, which also provides a FlashSuit to escape pre-Draygon room and then all of Maridia. Afterwards, one would have the ammunition to finish off Ridley and Tourian.)
13%PB-Speed
(This would use 13%Speed-Charge strategies from the previous pages in the thread up to Draygon, and then underflow ammunition for Ridley and Tourian.)
13%PB-Ice
(In here, Ice suffices to get to Draygon, where FlashSuit to escape Maridia and an underflown ammunition count is obtained for Ridley and Tourian, again.)
13%PB-X-Ray
(In here, one could get knockback from a crab at the top of Mainstreet room while breaking out of a well-positioned spinjump into the transition to the Everest room in such a way that X-Mode can be started using the closing blue door-shell to land early enough when the knockback frames end, for the so-called JesusWalk past the Everest that Sniq found. For pre-Botwoon room, an R-Mode force-stand would be used to clip through the crumble block ceiling, and then one could skip Botwoon´s E-Tank using God-Mode to let the sand and speed blocks behave like air, or one could simply collect that E-Tank. And finally, one would underflow ammunition at Draygon for Ridley and Tourian.)
As core items, all those branches would have (Ball, Bombs, Varia, 3 Tanks, 2*M, 2*SM, 1*PB) to which the branch-defining (major) items are added, and it is to note that only in the 13%PB-X-Ray case, at least 1 R-Tank would be required.
As a sidenote, 13%PB-Gravity and 13%PB-Grapple do not work (even though both, Gravity and Grapple, can carry Samus past the Everest), because both options would need a ceiling CF for pre-Botwoon room which leaves Samus with insufficient ammunition for Botwoon, and even with a worm lured to the transition to Botwoon´s room in Gravity´s case, knockback is not good enough to get deep enough into the quickly spawning, grey shell to trigger the transition back to pre-Botwoon room using a walljump-check (if needed, multiple times) to farm.
The only 13% branch that exists without the underflow is the previous 13%Speed-Charge option (which is so far restricted to NTSC, since the Colosseum SpikeSpark is not confirmed for PAL).
Personally, I´d say TASes for all those branches should be made (and thus, the corresponding routing/strategizing and so on would need to be done), but considering the currently existing 2 14% branches published at TASVideos, it might be the best option to concentrate on TASes for 13%Speed-Charge (as it is the only branch that doesn´t use the underflow) aswell as the fastest branch among those that use the underflow, which (edit:) is probably the 13%PB-X-Ray branch.
So one could split low% (without OoB) into 2 branches, one with and the other without ammunition underflow being allowed.
Edit: Hereby, I invite everyone to Nymx´s 100% Map Completion TAS Release stream (for his reworked TAS) on twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/nymx_).
Time: Immediately following the Ocean Fly Marathon (Roughly 2PM to 2:30PM Eastern on May 1st).
And when I am already at it, here is the schedule for the Oceanfly Marathon:
http://oceanflymarathon.com/
I hope a lot of people will come together. ^_^ b
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
When the wind of change blows, some build walls, others build windmills.
It is already decided by those that plan and develope the future TASes that the new discoveries will be included without exceptions, if TASVideos will accept them or not. We established our own much more general Super Metroid TAS collection page anyways as a home for TASes independently of TASVideo´s opinion on whether they make sense or not:
http://deanyd.net/sm/index.php?title=Tool_Assisted_Speedruns
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
ais523, the route will probably be the following:
1. Early game as in any%, up to early SuperMissiles, including the Terminator-room E-Tank.
2. Brinstar R-Tank.
3. Charge.
4. Speedbooster (via hellrun).
5. Kraid and Varia-BlueSuit method.
6. early Red Brinstar powerbombs.
7. Phantoon, western and eastern Wrecked Ship SuperMissiles (skipping Moat-Missiles).
8. Forgotten Highway route to Maridia, including the top elevator to Maridia, the long vertical Maridian pipe, traversing the sandy rooms at the bottom of Maridia without losing BlueSuit, Green Gate Glitch, and all that in order to enter the room with the unbroken GlassTube to start a Gravitation-Jump at a higher point within the room.
9. Climbing up the walls in Fish-Tank room (i.e. pre-Turtle room), to get to mount Everest/Doom.
10. Executing a BlueSuit-assisted SlopeSpark diagonally upwards to the right to land on top of the mountain, leaving Samus with a FlashSuit.
11. Snail-climbing in Aqueduct/Snail-room to enter pre-Botwoon room where the FlashSuit´s shinespark is used to get past the speed-blocks.
12. Botwoon´s E-Tank.
13. Climbing up to Colosseum room for the "Colossus of Rhodes spark", i.e. the complicated spike-spark setup in Colosseum room to get another FlashSuit.
14. Draygon fight, with Samus being at the top right next to the door when Draygon dies, and escaping pre-Draygon room with the shinespark that is provided by the previously generated FlashSuit.
15. Escaping Maridia through the quick-sand in post-Botwoon room and beneath Aqueduct, past the lower Green Gate, towards Norfair.
16. Lavapit-route towards Ridley.
17. Taking some route towards Tourian, where Metroids will be killed using powerbombs (as in 14%Gravity-Speedbooster), and the Shinespark-Zebetite-skip will be used.
To my knowledge, Tewtal aka total is making a test playthrough though, which will help understanding the route.
Edit: We are not sure yet, if the route through Cacattack Alley and the vertical pipe is faster than going through the quicksand, after defeating Draygon. And we are not sure if the GreenBrinstar-, BlueBrinstar-, or RedBrinstar-route shall be taken on the way to Tourian after Ridley.
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Eye Of The Beholder, I was not refering to the past, and we strictly needed a BlueSuit (or at least some way to cancel invulnerability frames) there, since a FlashSuit in contrast to BlueSuit cannot be used to cancel invulnerability frames, which however can be achieved via moving with BlueSuit (or temporary BlueSuit or executing a (Pseudo-)ScrewAttack spinjump if it was not for the suitless underwater circumstances). So, the state of the art is that we currently have no way to circumvent entering Maridia from Wrecked Ship via Forgotten Highway.
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Today, the 13.01.2016, Sniq, Tewtal and me broke the 14% item-limit for TAS, for NTSC inbounds without major glitches.
The following two maneuvers make 13%Speedbooster a reality, which obsoletes both 14% (low%) branches, low%Speed and low%Ice, that are published at TASVideos (as soon as a proper 13% TAS exists):
Suitless Slopespark (using BlueSuit from the only known source available, Varia, to cancel invulnerability frames, in order to get a second set of invulnerability frames to have enough time to start the spark in the same frame as when the knockback frames run out):
http://puu.sh/mtmVI/014ba0fbca.mp4
Corresponding Snes9x rerecording 1.51 v.7 movie:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1980525759/Super%20Metroid%2013%25%20speedbooster.smv
Colosseum shinespark charge (for a FlashSuit via spike-spark) in 13%Speedbooster conditions (using temporary BlueSuit movement to keep the Boost Counter, a reserve-bombjump, a bounce-ball to continue running upon the first spike-contact, knockback-frames provided by the spikes to unmorph and increase the Boost Counter, Moonwalk, and the spike-spark method):
http://puu.sh/mu5GH/b01646d59f.mp4
Corresponding bk2 file:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/98929157894836224/136810285657751552/13_spikespark.bk2
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Ok, so I have more information on this SuperJump glitch after testing it to some extent:
1. It seems (note that this is not an exhaustively tested generalization, but an assumption/educated guess (since neither the slope nor the initializing damage-boost seems to be relevant)) that any kind of setup to obtain X-Mode (in particular the bunch of setups that Sniq found recently (via frozen enemy, or bright sand) unleashes/allows for a SuperJump after releasing X-Mode if a shinespark was used during X-Mode. At least I can though confirm that (in NTSC, pre-X-Ray room, SNES9X v.1.53) the unmorph setup at spikes (or the likes) to enter X-Mode aswell as a damage-boost setup on spikes to enter X-Mode; both of these allow the possibility of the SuperJump. Because of this, I will have to update my map of starting points for SuperJumps, preferably using different colours for different kinds of X-Mode setups. I assume most of the map will be coloured then.
2. The direction of the shinespark during X-Mode can be any direction (sideways horizontal, diagonally to the left or to the right, or vertically) and in all cases after releasing Dash (which ends the X-Mode), Samus will use the upwards component of the speed and continue moving that way in falling pose (since after releasing the X-Mode, one actually is in the falling state, i.e. a downback can directly be started after the X-Mode).(Note that the angle at which Samus moves suitless in water during a diagonal shinespark differs (in particular: is more steep) from the angle of the same shinespark if having Gravity turned on.)
3. When exiting X-Mode, all horizontal speed gets cut off (which is the reason why one will just simply be put to the current position at which one is during a horizontal shinespark in X-Mode when releasing X-Mode, i.e. horizontal or diagonal shinesparks will not help to move with extreme speeds horizontally), such that only vertical, from the shinespark in X-Mode stacked speed (and not momentum), is kept.
4. Regarding clips through block structures, it seems:
Forwards movement/no movement/shooting during a SuperJump < facing downwards/morphing during a SuperJump < turning around during a SuperJump.
Where "<" means that the movement option to the right of the symbol seems to allow clipping through blocks easier than the option to the left of it. The most crucial difference is located at the last inequality (i.e. turning around has/causes a massive effect/gain on the "clip-ability").
5. It also seems hard to (mid-flight) get rid of the upwards speed with which Samus travels during a SuperJump, unless losing it instantly by getting knockback or grappling at some Grapple-block/-enemy or killing an enemy via Grapple during the SuperJump, or maybe by starting a new normal jump and similar events.
6. If one after turning around during a SuperJump gets stuck in crouch pose in between some blocks (or within a tunnel of height 2 (i.e. 2 air blocks fit vertically in between ceiling and ground of the tunnel)), then in this pose, the upwards speed is stored and can be continued (again even through block structures) by morphing (which is only once an option), or (step-wise, depending on if there are walls further above aswell where one might get stuck in crouch pose another time) by turning around while an angle button is held (or interrupting such a turnaround by releasing the angle button during the animation). (The mechanic behind this seems to be the same as the mechanic used to store Hover-Jumps.)
7. If one is in X-Mode and shifts Samus sideways (by armpumping or walking), after normal movement in X-Mode, one can then still use a SuperJump (if still having shinespark-charge or a FlashSuit), so it does not need to be the first thing that is done during X-Mode.
8. (I forgot to mention this noteworthy part:) Due to the hopefully known X-Mode BlueSuit method, one of course obtains BlueSuit also in the SuperJump setup due to pose change of Samus into falling pose from the previous "moving shinespark" pose which skips the/a BlueSuit-cancelling event, i.e. the crash animation. Furthermore, note that for a few frames after exiting X-Mode during a SuperJump setup, Samus will be in a yellow blinking state (which turns to BlueSuit if waiting long enough) which technically behaves like a temporary FlashSuit (i.e. one can start a shinespark immediately provided one can execute a jump or exit the falling state midair, and does not need to crouch for it), whose duration depends on if the X-Mode was exited during a shinespark that already started to move (in this case the Yellow Suit´s duration is shorter) or if one exited X-Mode during the delay phase at the beginning of a started shinespark (the state in which one still can choose the direction towards which one wants to shinespark).
Edit: Here is a map that shows all (maybe some few places missed) squares containing spike-type blocks/objects (such as normal spike blocks, plant spikes, lower and upper part of eye doors, and the spikes in Kraid´s lair), that can be used to set up X-Mode close to the ground (and thus SuperJumps, since those places coincide), directly via the spike-knockback (without the help of frozen enemies to create platforms beneath spikes):
The bright blue parts indicate squares in which the room state does not matter, at the yellow squares, the room state does matter for SuperJump setups.
2. Edit: Sniq noticed, that when entering a transition during X-Mode, one can avoid the softlock afterwards if one already soon during the screen transition releases Dash, which now (after confirming it via tests) has the consequence, that in theory, one can enter a transition during a shinespark in X-Mode, then release Dash during this early enough, to start a SuperJump (provided a non-horizontal shinespark was used) immediately in the next room. Therefore, this might allow for more places of application for SuperJumps. (Also, if Samus has Draygon´s permanent gunk deceleration or the big Metroid´s deceleration, then the angle of diagonal shinesparks changes aswell, which might not be relevant if trying to go fast in a TAS, but at least if wanting to reach some place (at all or with higher stacked SuperJump speed).)
3. Edit: I corrected the map a little. It seems not only (non-plant-)spike blocks but also the outer parts of eye-doors cannot do contact damage if the Wrecked Ship is in its inactive state.
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Going down this path will lead to larger and larger glitches.
This might to some extent (but not necessarily) be the case, depending on what kind of new glitches can be constructed that are not just application of this given glitch.
Independent of this glitch being be allowed or not, such further glitches would firstly have to be figured out and then, likewise as this glitch, be discussed.
The published no-glitch runs do not display any visually corruption on screen.
Depending on what TASes are considered, this statement may be wrong or not, i.e. what I want to mention here is, that in a TAS by Cpadolf of the "Super Metroid Super Zero Mission" hack, which is published on TASVideos if I recall correctly, visual glitches occur (in a very similar manner) during the escape after the Draygon fight.
Furthermore, any visual issues can in principle be handled by screen capturing Samus like SUPERMETROIDFTP did to not have the messy vertical and horizontal strips of block layers on screen. Of course, one can then theoretically provide both videos, the original one with those graphics and one with corrected screen, so I doubt this constitutes a major problem here.
I estimate (using the below listed places for applications) that the applications of this glitch will most likely not take most of the precise movement out of a non-glitched TAS like the any% branch (especially considering that movement with such high speeds like during SuperJumps has to be at least comparably precise, I guess). There will still remain long parts without variations of this glitch being involved.
- - -
So far, it seems only straight up vertical movement is possible in such a setup as soon as exiting X-Mode (since the horizontal component of the diagonal shinespark during X-Mode seemingly does(/can?) not continue afterwards). So, provided only extreme upwards movement is available and that additionally, it is likely to be impossible to enter a (door-)transition during the shinespark while X-Mode is kept (which is possible) AND to release the X-Mode for a SuperJump in the connecting room (since X-Mode cannot be exited anymore if one enters a transition during it, i.e. Samus then is caged in a softlock-like state); in view of my map of potential starting points, instances of application may be among but will maybe not exceed the following list (mostly only considering different routes for the non-glitched any% branch):
(The following list can be derived by the procedure of considering horizontal shinesparks during X-Mode aswell as upwards SuperJumps while looking through the rooms in SMILE at the possible starting points. Note that I neglected the necessity of charging a shinespark or having BlueSuit/FlashSuit beforehand.)
Ceres: None
Crateria:
(1): On the way back in Terminator room (purple mushroom room containing an E-Tank), starting a vert./diag. SuperJump at the very left lower corner to potentially slide via wiggling somewhat among the ceiling with estimatedly small horizontal speed compared to running up this diagonal room, which therefore seems useless, and the way back is not used anyways.
(Also note, that slopes have no (shifting) effect on Samus during X-Mode, i.e., to my knowledge due to tests, one passes through them like air during X-Mode (and the same holds e.g. for items without a capsule), and thus, a horizontal spark during X-Mode will probably not allow Samus to slide along the ground (or sloped ceiling) until reaching the upper door to the right, and will instead cause the game to freeze as soon as trying to move towards a solid object such as frozen/solid enemies, door-shells, solid blocks, etc., which means that in my list, I excluded instances of horizontal X-Mode-Sparks in which a game crash seems unavoidable.)
(2): At the left bottom of Parlor room (room to the lower left of Landing Site), to maybe jet up through some blocks to reach its top some seconds earlier.
(3): In Landing Site during the escape using steam and slopes, to apply a horizontal shinespark during X-Mode and cancelling it next to the ship for fast movement aswell as skipping the shinespark´s crash animation. (Actually, now thinking of such crash-animation-cancelled X-Mode shinesparks, there might aswell be some more useful horizontal sparks in such manner.)
- - -
Now, to shorten the descriptions of methods in the following, different types of possible applications of the Slope-Spark will be abbreviated as
(i) vert./diag./hor. crash-less sparks during X-Mode (possibly also leaving Samus with BlueSuit depending on the situation)
(ii) via diag.(/maybe also, but not yet confirmed, vert.) X-Mode shineparks induced upwards SuperJumps (to possibly skip through block structures)
(iii) gaining BlueSuit in a quick manner without too much delay to use it later on
(iv) exiting the In-Screen area (i.e. going outside of the screen (note that the outside of the screen is generally a different situation than going Out of Bounds; for reference, see the Kraid-Quick-Kill or reverse Lower Norfair entry) ) to be able to move through enemies that cannot move off-screen and thus are not loaded into the room by the game currently, to avoid contact damage
(v) using fast movement via SuperJump that in contrast to shinesparks does not cost travelling energy
(vi) sequence breaking for early items
(vii) avoiding heat/lava/acid damage and/or damage by enemies while moving in X-Mode
At the moment, I will not look into the other types of uses that I could think of, that are not directly movement based, i.e. I neglected (iii), (iv), (v), (vi) and (vii) and (viii) in this list.
Edit: It is actually possible to start a SuperJump upon entering a new room during a shinespark in X-Mode, thus there is another general option:
(viii) vert./diag. shinespark in X-Mode into a transition (at which the X-Mode early during the transition then has to be released) in order to start a SuperJump in the next room
- - -
(4): Option (ii) at the bottom of the room to the left of the moat room, in order to travel upwards.
(5): Option (ii) at the center of the bottom of the western ocean of Wrecked Ship, using some fish in suitless conditions (for which Tewtal confirmed that both, X-Mode and SuperJump setup can work), not to clip into the door to Gravity (which is likely impossible) but to clip through the screen in which the orange geemer would be (or the mountain to its left) in another small room that uses the same structure as the ocean room.
(6): Hor. version of option (i) from the middle left to the right of the eastern ocean room, started at the right-most diagonally down-right-wards leading sloped structure (leaving Samus with a standard mid-air jump when exiting X-Mode the usual way during a jump pose); which would go towards forgotten highway and therefore is likely to be slow and might not be used unless for early Plasma, maybe. And the same from the right to the left using a fish on the way back.
(7): Option (ii) upwards (using a bug from the lower Kago) starting at the bottom of the room to the right of the eastern ocean room, on a way back within forgotten highway.
(8): Option (ii) diagonally rightwards starting at the lower left corner using a crab, on the way back in forgotten highway, in the room with the crabs beneath the room with the two Kagos.
Brinstar:
(9): Hor. version of option (i) in Dachora´s room to the left and to the right, using the Rio close to the left of the bomb-block cluster, or a Silver Skree, respectively, on the way to Tourian, which might be a bad route choice anyways, but maybe for the 100% branch.
Wrecked Ship:
(Option (ii) at the bottom of the right-most room using a falling projectile from a spark enemy to get quicker to the E-Tank, for the 100% branch.)
(Hor. version of option (i) at the right side in the attic (active room state) at the sloped stairs to the door, on the way to the left, for the 100% branch.)
(10): Option (ii) close to the bottom of the central shaft, using an Atomic, on the way to the attic (provided having FlashSuit and/or Speedbooster).
(Hor. version of option (i) aswell in the central shaft using an Atomic at the downleft-wards leading sloped ground right before the spike-platforms, to get the Missile there, for the 100% branch.)
Norfair:
(Hor. version of option (i) to the lower left starting at the bottom in the room with the gate poles near Ice (or the converse direction), for the 100% branch.)
(Option (ii) diagonally to the right next to the farming bugs on the way back from Crocomire´s area, in the room to the left of that mini-boss, for the 100% branch.)
(Option (ii) at the bottom of the long shaft in Crocomire´s lair, via blue ball enemy on the way back, for the 100% branch.)
(11): Hor. version of option (i) from the left to the right using a Nova in the first upper Norfair path hellrun room, which would beforehand require FlashSuit or Speedbooster anyways.
(Option (ii) at the bottom of the elevator room to Brinstar, using a falling Nova on the way back to Brinstar, for the 100% branch.)
(12): Option (ii) at the lower right corner using a projectile from a yellow pirate, in the huge acid room in Lower Norfair to get up to the right door.
(13): Option (ii) after Ridley, at the bottom (using a Kihunter) of the shaft room to the right of the huge acid room to get through some block structures.
(14): Hor. version of option (i) to the left in Ridley-Powerbombs room, on the way to Ridley, using knockback from a sidehopper (with a prepared FlashSuit).
(15): Option (ii) at the center (or bottom, in the case of the 100% branch) of the fireflea E-tank room to get up through block structures, again.
(Option (ii) upright-wards in the upper room to the left of the fireflea room using a projectile from a Dragon to get to the upper Missile, for the 100% branch.)
Maridia:
(16): SUPERMETROIDFTP´s sequence break.
(17): Option (ii) at the bottom of Mainstreet room using a crab to fly to the upper most door.
(18): Option (ii) at the lower left corner of Fishtank room (the room to the left of turtle room) using a fish on the way upwards.
(19): Hor. version of option (i) from the left to the right in Botwoon-E-Tank room, using a worm for knockback.
Tourian: None
- - -
On another note, since this glitch enables such high speeds, and thus, in the case this gets used, Samus´ body-box (at least partially) might enter Out of Bounds, it seems to be a good point in time to introduce the(/a) clear definition of the Inbounds area (as the complement of Out of Bounds) of all rooms (with their corresponding room states) that exist in the game:
In an inbounds branch, the only instances in which Samus is allowed to enter Out of Bounds is (the maybe only so far known instance) during non-loose elevator rides and (door-)transitions. Note that there are several cases of elevator rides in which Samus´ bodybox, in particular when riding an elevator downwards, fully (and/or partially) exits the (convex hull of the) rectangular shaped areas of rooms that are shown (and editable) in the SMILE editor, which are exactly also the parts of rooms that the game directly loads into the general space into which the game loads currently entered rooms (whereas areas that the current room does not use may have remnants of previously entered rooms aswell as other objects).
So, these rectangular areas define "Inbounds", one might though furthermore restrict non-glitched branches to not only stay inbounds but also "within the Map-Squares that correspond to individual rooms", i.e. not allowing Samus to move into (within the rectangular areas accessible but) unused squares even partially with Samus´ bodybox.
Some of those rectangular inbounds areas are provided (but without the grid for the Scroll Areas) at the Speedrunning Guide for Super Metroid, i.e. deanyd:
http://deanyd.net/sm/index.php?title=List_of_rooms
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
First of all, I made a map (via looking through the SMILE editor) of all (I might potentially though have missed a few spots) potential squares (for NTSC) in the map that contain places at which this "SuperJump" glitch (i.e. the Backwards Longjump of Super Metroid ;) ) could be activated, provided knockback at some kind of diagonal ground-type slope is needed:
The orange parts in there mean that certain room states are required for a slope being at the corresponding square (e.g. in the case of the attic in Wrecked Ship) or for a knockback-source being there, but the green squares show places where the room state does not matter. Also, in Ceres there would be one room two rooms that technically would allow the glitch to be started, but one usually will not have the required items there.
Then, the second thing I wanted to mention is, that, before people start throwing suggestions/ideas/opinions potentially "early"/unprepared into the discussion regarding this glitch being allowed (or not allowed) to be used in certain TAS branches, I would like that its full applicable potential is derived beforehand, aswell as the detailed restrictions/limitations that it has to be figured out, in the sense of requirements that need to be met. In other words, I would like to have the object of discussion and all its consequences to be revealed/clear enough, to then be enabled to discuss about a more known/familiar subject.
Edit: Considering that the applications of this SuperJump might be restricted to vertical upwards movements (since it could be that horizontal speed after a shinespark during X-Mode gets cancelled in such a setup), the instances in which a coloured square is located at the bottom of a long vertical room, in a situation in which one wants to travel upwards; those might be more relevant, I assume.
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
boct1584, yes of course this is known, at least by Sniq and Total, since this video by SUPERMETROIDFTP here was meant as further explanation on my Crystal Spark method (for which I and Dessyreqt made a video) that I discovered more than a year ago during my research on non-Morphingball Crystal Flash instances.
Regarding TASes, the issue with this is that it takes quite a lot of ammunition away, it needs some time for the Crystal Flash and one would mostly need to walk with BlueSuit to travel further, and thus it seems inferior to the FlashSuit techniques.
But it is nice to see that the guys over at GameFAQs regarding Super Metroid are at least not that many lightyears behind the state of the art. ;)
Edit: As a sidenote, might it be possible at Shaktool during the waiting phase in the 100% branch to set such a FlashSuit method with enemy-knockback and suitable block at the floor as stepping stone up (provided it would save time at all, which might be possible, since as far as I remember, a shinespark is used right after exiting Springball´s area)?(yes this is possible, after getting some pixels into the ground and damage-boosting, to land early).
2. Edit: Important sidenote: I just realized, that such a Slope-Spark at the western Maridian beach area to generate FlashSuit actually enables a new, 13th 14% category, namely 14%HighJump-Speed(PAL). In this category, one would with FlashSuit spark up the Everest, then with HighJump climb up to the beach for the Slope-Spark setup for a FlashSuit for pre-Botwoon room, then killing Draygon from above and escaping pre-Draygon room via suitless 1-Wall-Climb (which is so far the reason why it would be PAL-only). If we though find a way to get under such circumstances a FlashSuit produced in Colosseum room, or to set up a FlashSuit-producing spark at pre-Botwoon room using the previously generated FlashSuit, then it would be a 14% branch for NTSC aswell.(For PAL there are now 15 options.)
3. Edit: Extremely important remark: It seems that Samus in a TAS can via Slope-X-Mode and a following shinespark during X-Mode obtain extremely high speed values outside of the realm of any so far known speeds!
SUPERMETROIDFTP demonstrates that in this video:
Link to video
Furthermore, Tewtal looked somewhat into this (and I hope we will get some more information on this in the near future), and it seems that the speed with which Samus moves after X-Mode is released depends (proportionally?) on the frame-wise lenght of the shinespark during X-Mode. Tewtal said that he got up to 440 speed, i.e. moving 440 pixels per frame, and continueing with roughly this speed.
Further research on this matter definitely needs to be done!
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Cpadolf, provide us with the optimal distance-wise optimized patterns for NTSC and PAL, individually for all cases among (i) only adding to turn on Speedbooster suitably (maybe your previous results are already optimal though?), (ii) only adding the Moonwalk-start, or (iii) combining both.
So, I think there would now altogether 6 interesting TAS short charge limits exist.
Go, go, go! :D
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Okay, so I think I have heard indirectly from Taco via Sniq that for the original input sequence for the TAS super short charge, a brute force algorithm was used to find the shortest distance in which a shinespark can be charged via running on a platform.
(Provided this is true,) I assume that among these tests, the options that the algorithm went through were only those that are obtained by choosing for each relevant frame individually to press nothing or pressing Dash and/or Forwards (and/or Shot, since I am aware (due to crumble-block-bridge tests with remaining crumble-blocks after running past those with Speedbooster and then observing the pattern of remaining blocks) of the fact that the running pattern can depend on if one at least did shoot once or if one did not do so) (and/or pressing L or R, which would be very counterintuitive aswell as unlikely to help for minimizing the necessary distance, due to the known forwards-shift that those can cause, but well, at least they influence the running pattern somehow), but did maybe not involve the different motions given by turning Speedbooster on or leaving it off.
Furthermore, since it at that time potentially might not have been known that the current level/value of the Boost-Counter (by that, I refer to the counter which, I guess, can have values among 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 (when echoes will apear) ) is preserved as long as temporary BlueSuit movement restrictions are fulfilled, even if only the value 1, 2 or 3 but not yet echoes (that would correspond to the value 4) appear (*), it could have been that the brute force tests only optimized time/distance for the highest value that the Boost-Counter can obtain, but did not optimize individually for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd level.
(*): As an example, by what I said above, I mean:
If one, with Speedbooster turned on, runs to get to e.g. the first Boost-Counter level, then enters the angled crouch pose (as if having temporary BlueSuit), then this level is preserved as long as the usual temporary BlueSuit movement restrictions are fulfilled (and can be continued if one lands as ball on spikes and unmorphs appropriately, as it is known to be possible).
Is this brute force program that was used for this instance still somewhere available so that one can use it for further tests regarding the super short charge (or maybe other actions that involve only a rather small time interval aswell as only a small number of different buttons that would be relevant for the frames involved, like climbing walls with walljumps or whatever could come to mind)?
Generally, I would be interested in results (given probably by brute force tests) that optimize individually for the following things for both versions, NTSC and PAL, separately:
Optimizing for (i) minimal distance or (ii) minimal time (frame-wise or in-game-time-wise), when trying to either get the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th level for the Boost-Counter.
Further ideas for getting a shinespark charged within little space or time were if one could somehow abuse right+left (and testing both, to run to the left or to the right, since there might be an asymmetry aswell) and/or combine it with Moonwalk (even if it might then not be relevant for TASing anymore); or, in the case of Samus being with her back aligned to a wall next to a (long) platform, to instead of starting the short-charge input sequence out of the static standing pose but start it from different poses that Samus has when moonwalking with her back against said wall and switch from that to the forwards motion since the time at which the magic running pose occurs might depend on that, theoretically.
(Also, Sniq, you know there is an edit button to not have to double-post (although 1st, there usually is not that much action going on in this thread, so it does not break the flow of discussion and 2nd, I don´t know how strictly such things maybe or maybe not are handled on TASVideos)? Of course it is just a minor thing though. And yes, I am aware that if one (usually without changing settings) only edits a post, then it isn´t marked as such, e.g. as I did with my last post where I added the 14%PB-PB option that TAS has, which is not included in the graph.)
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
First of all, due to reasons as mentioned above multiple times already, the TAS improvement is worth a clear yes vote.
Some notes though on the issue/question about optimization with respect to in-game-time versus the least number of needed frames (i.e. real-time) to beat the game [provided I understood the definitions of both correctly]:
So, one probably important difference between optimizing the time that the game shows at the end of itself, compared to the actual number of frames that were needed to get there, is that the in-game-timer in contrast to counting the used frames
i) can be manipulated via ACE (arbitrary code execution), as mentioned at at least one of the previous any%glitched TASes, although application of ACE is [potentially depending on where to put the defining line between "major-glitched" and "non-major-glitched" categories] limited to glitched categories
ii) can be manipulated to stop during time periods in which the game is played with Samus having 00 Energy-Tank energy (note that there is the Reserve-Energy aswell, independent of that) via Pause Abuse, which Cpadolf mentioned for the lavapit part in the ACE TAS that went to Golden Torizo.
Thus, a TAS for either the 100%, RBO or any%non-major-glitched category, provided its goal would be to minimize/optimize in-game-time, would to my knowledge [probably] for large chunks of it consist of Pause Abuse (and gaining energy from time to time to survive events like riding an elevator e.g. using R-Tanks).
Of course though, I am aware that one way of "repairing" the issue that in-game-time optimization might (due to this rather new detail of the Pause Abuse quirk and its correlation with the in-game-timer) not be the way to go for a TAS, would be to forbid Pause Abuse in the definition of e.g. the any%non-glitched category, although there might be other ways to stop (or do other things to) the in-game-timer.
As Cpadolf mentioned, the entertainment value is also involved since it will likely depend on what type of measured time a TAS tries to optimize.
So (being aware that a video of an actual any%non-glitched TAS, if it would involve all frames, might be somewhat boring due to repetitively entering the menu and thus (probably) requiring many more frames in total, compared to a real-time oriented TAS of the same category), I am not against the idea of optimizing game-time if Pause Abuse was applied throught the game (although I would personally prefer minimizing the number of needed frames to beat the game, as a goal), but the only major reason for this would then be that a video that would only show the frames that count towards the in-game-timer is assumed to be funny, since I imagine such a TAS would "jump" from one place to another with Samus disappearing as soon as she reaches the 00 hp level and appearing somewhere else instantly, which could be amusing.
Last but not least, I would like to mention the option of optimizing TAS categories for Super Metroid using the (as it seems, technically superior) PAL version instead of NTSC. I know that both versions could in principle be considered being different games and that it is likely that essentially more information and useful material is provided/existing for the NTSC version in general, which makes the optimization process for NTSC (by far) more comfortable, I guess (and I think further technical reasons exist).
Nonetheless, although a video of a TAS that optimizes a category in PAL would probably be slower due to "artificial" 50hz-replay-reasons (i.e. the frames being shown with a lower frequency, such that it corresponds to the actual way the game would be seen when playing it), PAL could provide unseen strategies and new interesting solutions to obstacles in the game and it would highly likely be faster in terms of needed frames than an equally optimized TAS for NTSC (of the same category of course).
I am getting out of the threads context though. So, sorry about that.
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
I'm just wondering about the spiral-path. Is it just to pass the low part of the room just above the breakable pipe, using the air in the room above (like here)? If so, this is such a detour for one single portion of a room!
Edited:
Well yes, that is actually the exact reason why this "spiral-path" was used and at those times when I made those demonstration videos had to be used, to my knowledge.
Okay, maybe first I should give an overview of the 13 15 14%(PAL)categories. A nice way that I use to keep the structure of how those low% categories are related to each other in mind is by the following (now actually outdated) graph: ("PB" denotes 10 powerbombs instead of 5, i.e. 1 additional powerbomb pack)
.........Grapple..................
..............|........................
.........Speed-------------....
......../....|.....\..............|...
X-Ray--PB--Gravity......|...
........\....|.../................|...
...........Ice ---------------....
.............|.........................
......HighJump..................
Every edge of this graph corresponds to exactly one 14% branch and uses its neighbouring vertices as main items. All of those branches have some freedom with respect to the ammunition combination used (5M+15SM / 10M+10SM) and or the combination of tanks that are used (E-Tanks / R-Tanks), and all of those exist for PAL and NTSC (but for NTSC a 13% option exists now), except HighJump-Ice aswell as HighJump-Speed (which is not shown in the above graph) which is PAL-only even for TAS.
Now for this "spiral-path" issue:
For Gravity-Ice, Gravity-Speed, Gravity-PB aswell as for HighJump-Ice(PAL), X-Ice, Ice-PB, Speed-Ice and Highjump-Speed(PAL) it is clear that one can enter Maridia from below by breaking the glasstube and continuing to climb upwards (although it might be somewhat more complicated in the suitless cases that involve Ice), and yes, keylie, for some reason I took this long detour in my 14%Ice-PB demonstration video >_>
I quickly tested for 14%(PAL)Grapple-Speed, that after obtaining FlashSuit via Spike-Spark instead of using the Varia-BlueSuit method (which would not allow Samus to keep the ability to use a shinespark later if one starts running) one can gain enough speed when running towards the broken glasstube room (after breaking the tube) and gravitation-jump into this room, then morph and unmorph in order to be able to shoot upwards to open the upper blue-shell there without activating the free spark, and (e.g. via turnaround animation to wiggle past the opening shell while keeping upwards momentum) get to the bottom (but seemingly not higher up onto one of the platforms, at least in NTSC) of the Maridian Mainstreet room, and in principle, one can there wait for the single off-screen moving crab to crawl around the outer boundaries of the room and come back at the left side to then use a Grapple-Bombjump-Jump (i.e. this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEu4F_BnDsI ) there (which could not be done if Samus had BlueSuit) using this crab to start TAS-underwater-climbing up the left wall and continue as usual.
But then, after necessarily using the free spark for pre-Botwoon room, since there is was no opportunity to gain a BlueSuit in the area after climbing up the Everest in these conditions (which is still true), one would have to gain another FlashSuit (or BlueSuit), preferably in the large horizontal mocktroid room (where full-halfie in RTA runs is used, i.e. Colosseum) using the spikes above the water surface, which is so far an unsolved issue (which is so far true only for PAL).
Edit: Otherwise, one actually does not anymore need to use a BlueSuit and take the spiral-path in 14%Grapple-Speed, due to Tewtal´s Slope-Spark.
In 14%(PAL)X-Speed, in order to avoid the spiral-path, provided God-Mode can be obtained while having BlueSuit (which seems unlikely, and FlashSuit would be cancelled by X-Ray), there would be the option to get the Varia-BlueSuit, then do the (inbounds) God-Mode setup into the upper powerbomb room in Red Brinstar from the right using one of the crawling worms for the Red Brinstar GGG (that Sniqwc3 also confirmed even being humanly doable on console) to get directly into the Everest room to get past this room with a shinespark, without the need to climb up the previous rooms at all for (NTSC and) PAL.
If this is not an option, then, after entering Maridia from below, there would still be the option left to do inbounds X-Ray-Climb with BlueSuit starting in the door-shell of the lowest horizontally connecting door within the Mainstreet room.
In 14%X-PB, after obtaining FlashSuit (for example) in Wrecked Ship using R(eserve)-Mode, one could use the free shinespark for the Varia-BlueSuit (but is then not allowed to unpause the game for the following part, since that would cancel BlueSuit), and then one could enter Maridia from below using a gravitation-jump from inside the breaking glasstube and do inbounds X-Ray-Climb the same way as in the 14%X-Speed option.
Then there is the last remaining option, 14%(PAL)Speed-PB, and I don´t think this branch can avoid the spiral-path, actually (which is still true).
Important edit: Sniqwc3 confirmed that 14%PB-PB (for PAL and NTSC) is for TAS inbounds also doable now, namely by activating a Crystal Flash at the right frame with the right timing of starting to ride an elevator downwards to get FlashSuit!
Furthermore: 14%(PAL)X-Missile and 14%(PAL)X-SuperMissile are now possible using 2 R-Tanks and the only on the outer surface clock-wise moving crab in Everest room for direct God-Mode in Mainstreet room, then indirect G-Mode in Everest room, then luring the same crab to the left door, using X-Ray to exit G-Mode while aligning to the door-shell to get stuck in there for knockback using the crab to start X-Mode to walk past the mountain.
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Can you do a free spark off a free spark if you spike boost again?
Yes, sure one can, since one only needs to be able to start a delayed shinespark off such spike-type blocks in an appropriate manner (which also makes sense, since in the case of normally charging a shinespark and then using it for the spike-spark, one aswell only is in a state with active shinespark timer after already having lost echoes, or in different words, Samus does not have any additional crucial properties in the case of charging a shinespark, compared to having FlashSuit, in that regard).
And yes indeed, chaining setups for those spike-sparks together in such a way that the shinespark out of that Blue-Suit hovering state carries Samus to the desired place and to have then still one free shinespark left is one possible application of which one can think.
I thought of a possible Real Time application for it. The idea is you do it in cracoland and use it to get a spark for the x-ray room. Then in the X-Ray room you do it again to get a spark for the way back.
Well, this spike-spark method can be executed in real-time, that is true (e.g. after some experimenting, a viable method to do this, although it then still kept being rather inconsistent, seemed to be using a very quick sequence of 3 button inputs: Jump (about right at the time when Samus gets hit in ballform by a spike), then Up, and Jump (where Up already has to be released before Jump is pressed the second time); and all of that within the short period of frames that the skipe-knockback provides for a midair-jump). The Up input would be used to stand up from a midair-crouch, which might not be needed, but then the timing is probably different for starting the shinespark off a crouched pose.
So, for the 100% category (for human speedruns), after opening the blue-shell to the left in Crocomire´s room via wrap-around-shot near the E-Tank (which hits a copy of the door-shell at the out of bounds to the right side of the room where the left side of the room starts repeating that causes all those blue-shell copies to open, which one could e.g. see using some lua scripts, which is also the same for the gauntlet wrap-around-shot at landing site), humans would in theory have some time for attempts (depending on the energy after getting Crocomire´s E-Tank) at getting into the Blue-Suit hovering state above the ground, facing left and at the right height using the spike-wall such that when starting the midair-shinespark horizontally to the left as soon as the invisible wall to the left disappears, Samus manages to enter the door to get close to Crocomire´s powerbombs; one could lateron (with certain restrictions to not accidentially start a shinespark) enter the X-Ray hall (pre-X-Ray room) to have 1 try at the spike-spark setup again. And if executed correctly, the blue shinespark would take one to the left, leaving Samus with another free spark, which in theory could be used at the left side of the X-Ray hall either for a shinespark back of for another single try at that setup to get a shinespark to the right with Samus having a free spark again which maybe could be used afterwards at some place.
But I have no estimates on how useful such strategies actually could be for humans, especially considering that going for chained setups would be somewhat risky.
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
I am glad that Super Metroid TASer(s?) still appear to be present in here although I arrived at this place here so late (but well, looking into this game in detail and documentation of results of tests of ideas takes its time...) compared to the old times when more people were active. ^_^
Now, only CPadolf would have to manage getting active (or having time) for some teamwork at TAS improvements for the categories, and not only posting at Metroid 2002´s social board... (never mind)
I also wonder if he is (i) informed/up to date about the state of the art regarding recent developments and if he (ii) still is interested/motivated or even working in TASing projects or if he retired from doing so.
I am sure it would be possible to in an instant motivate at least some of the many active, experienced and competent people/speedrunners over at DeerTier for gathering strategies and ideas of all kinds. One just would have to have some promising TASing project(s) running where people find ways to contribute.
Kejardon could have been useful for looking into and explaining some of the new quirks aswell, but I think we have enough people to help out for that now. Also, kind of sad that SaturnTAS is not involved in Super Metroid anymore. I don´t know about Kriole´s and Taco´s activities though.
Does this grant the user one more additional spark?
Yes, it does. It is effectively the same state that Samus enters when the pose change that is forced upon Samus by getting grabbed by Draygon happens during a that way interrupted/exited Crystal Flash such that the Shinespark-Charge timer that runs parallel to the CF stops and does not arrive at 0, and thus allows Samus to shinespark at any time afterwards.
Is there a time constraint on the second spark?
Stability properties of the Shinespark-Suit that is obtained in the refered video can be found at the following pages. Note that both pages are not sufficiently updated though.
i) http://deanyd.net/sm/index.php?title=Yellow_Suit_Glitch
ii) http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3204.0.html [at my 4th post in there, in particular in chapter "K" of my not yet fully updated mechanics compendium]
Also, note that this second link here can be found on this very page of this thread above this post twice already, so it is not my fault for not providing (re-)sources and I do not want to fill this thread here by copying the new discoveries that were made in the last two years into this place aswell.
But in principle, the idea is to use TAS-short-charges at any kinds of places where this might ultimately (and not just locally) save time, then unmorph while touching a spike and executing a midair stationary jump to initiate a delayed shinespark (that can be started at any time and shall preferably by itself already allow Samus to move quickly towards the desired direction, but needs a certain delay in order to provide the FlashSuit´s activation), whose crash-animation will be exited with a Shinespark-Suit that shall then later be used without the need to obtain echoes and crouch the next time.
Such places might be at Kraid/Crocomire/Draygon/MotherBrain 1/X-Ray-hall/WS Bowling room/Colosseum (fullhalfie room)/Craterian Powerbomb room
[aswell as in general any places that provide space and spikes where one at some point anyways has to wait for certain events to be triggered]
For further informations, I would recommend looking into SUPERMETROIDFTP´s youtube channel ( https://www.youtube.com/user/SUPERMETROIDFTP/videos ), and to be more specific, e.g. this instance of the FlashSuit´s application near X-Ray (although there would be a lot more in general, depending on the given category): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCDGez_i4R0
There can also be an example of a potential application of my Varia-BlueSuit method via bomb-knockback be found (but in this case using the centered animation that is induced by collecting Gravity, instead):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9PcpiSPx8I
Also does it apply to enemies as well?
To my knowledge, plant spikes, the special type of spikes near Kraid, Draygon´s turrets or normal spike blocks (and maybe a few more objects that are not creatures as defined in SMILE, which is a useful editor and extremely handy for testing things quickly) need to be used for the knockback.
The reason for this is assumed to be the same as for the 0-distance spark (i.e. X-Mode, a state in which Samus can move rather freely while X-Raying, which is demonstrated in some of FTP´s videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqPlJ__Lm50 ) that also needs knockback by certain objects. I know that Kejardon wrote some information about this maybe in here or at the Metroid 2002 forum years ago, and I might be wrong, but I think hero of the day found that quirk that Kejardon then analysed (although he didn´t even find that one can get a BlueSuit out of that state...).
Edit: Regarding the 100% category, there would also be my rather old shaktool strategy as potential improvement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkN67MtFGq4
2nd edit: Actually, I think I should also mention that there now exist (even humanly) doable (inbounds) methods to break into LNF at its exit (which actually doesn´t even need ScrewAttack or Echoes) and to get from the left to the right past the Red Brinstar green gate even for NTSC and not only for PAL now (but only in a slow manner), which is presented by the Out of Bounds master himself, Sniqwc3: http://www.twitch.tv/sniqwc3/b/672892723 (4th edit: Seems like sniq did not highlight this broadcast :/)
In his highlights, one can also find a mass of glitched OoB stuff that he researched. There is really interesting stuff among those things: http://www.twitch.tv/sniqwc3/profile
3rd edit: I forgot to mention that the FlashSuit´s creation using this "spike-spark" potentially could aswell speed up the process of climbing up the Maridian Mountain room (Everest) suitless in the RBO category, since the current way of getting up there does not use a shinespark in that room/area.
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Edited:
So, it was somewhat clear for a while now that most of the longer Super Metroid (hack) TASes here on TASVideos are outdated, since new applicable discoveries were found. But at least now, even from my (yet?) non-speedrunner´s/non-TASer´s perspective, it is quite obvious that at least the SM TASes [except Low%Ice and the rather short "game end glitch" TAS by total, sniq, cpadolf] are (again) some steps away from being close to optimal. Just one major reason for this is the variety of instances in which the new Shinespark-Suit method can be applied in a quick manner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXm-Z_H-cq0
Another (though more specific) reason would be the applications of a certain mode of the game that can be obtained via specific setups, of which one of those allows to potentially change the RBO TAS-route:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHxK6J-fQ1M
Thus, essentially, some TAS categories of Super Metroid are free to be beaten by anyone now (note that, in order to prevent prejudice, I did not say that such a process would be "easy"). This last statement here is not to be interpreted as diminishment of the TASers´ and other peoples´ work/effort that has entered these and/or previous TASes, but rather that a new potential for noticable improvement exists.
Maybe I will look into the given TASes later and make a list of potential ideas/improvements for each of those. I would also like to optimize the TAS-routes for the remaining 13-2(+4)=11(+4) 14%(PAL)categories (X-Ray-Ice; HighJump-Ice-PAL; Ice-Speedbooster; Gravity-Powerbomb; Ice-Powerbomb; Speedbooster-Powerbomb; X-Ray-Powerbomb; X-Ray-Speebooster; Grapple-Speedbooster; Powerbomb-Powerbomb; HighJump-Speedbooster(PAL) (aswell as X-Missile; X-SuperMissile)), since if it turns out that TASes of some of those categories are more entertaining/exciting than the given SM 14% TASes on TASVideos of the old/well-known/less-sophisticated 14%Gravity-Ice/14%Gravity-Speedbooster categories, then such TASes of new Low% categories might replace the given ones [unless a 13% option w.r.t. the Low% category´s rule-set is found (which it is so far only for NTSC)].
[All this post is meant to achieve is to motivate people to work on improvements (new routes/strategies) for (the given) TASes.]
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Edited:
Regarding the low%(PAL)options for TAS, including IceBoots-PAL and IceBooster:
In here are playthroughs and tool-assisted demonstrations provided for 11 13 of the 13 15 options TAS has:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5If8zSOO37ZuXY4PmmnNxcvzRm5ak-X5
The exact reason for IceBoots being PAL-only can be seen at 12:20 in here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw0HpwJh6xM&list=PL5If8zSOO37ZuXY4PmmnNxcvzRm5ak-X5&index=7
The issue for NTSC at that point of escaping the pre-Draygon room is that on PAL all movements of Samus are faster compared to NTSC (but the environment is slower), including higher running speed and higher jumps of all kinds (I guess due to PAL running on 50hz, since then Samus would have her initial jumping speed for 1/50 of a second instead of 1/60 and maybe that enters some calculations in the game´s engine) which is also the reason why the Red Brinstar GGG, the Freeze-GGG and other movement-based maneuvers seem to be PAL-only.
So in PAL one can start such a spinjump on that platform under water and reach the upper wall at about the height of the watersurface to start the walljump-climbing, but on NTSC, the spinjump does not reach high enough to start these walljumps and to my research it seems to be impossible to climb even on PAL with HighJump suitless past a 1-block overhang via some kinds of walljumps while Samus´ distance to the wall is large enough such that the walljump-check still occurs and can actually be used for a walljump (in order to start a walljump right beneath the 1-block overhang to be able to walljump off that overhang-block itself and then climb further up).
So far, there are not many completed runs of this category done yet, but they can be found in the PAL section on DeerTier:
http://deertier.com/Leaderboard/LowPercentIceboots
Now for IceBooster (which is finally a category on DeerTier): The only visualization I can provide at the moment is my (first of its kind) single-segment 6 hours completion of the category, a twitch highlight (2 parts):
http://www.twitch.tv/eterniseddragon/profile
In this category one had to obtain BlueSuit via my new improved Varia-BlueSuit method that does not need X-Ray or Grapple anymore that caused existence of IceBooster (aswell as Grapple-Speedbooster for TAS):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43qqGNKmoHQ
And then, one has to climb up the mainstreet and mount everest room with just Ice-beam and get past colosseum room and almost kill Draygon, then let him carry up Samus to the platform next to the entrance door to kill Draygon from up there to then finally be able to use the BlueSuit in order to escape pre-Draygon room with a shinespark. The rest is done similarly to other low%categories, but this Maridian segment that needs to be done in 1 attempt (since BlueSuit will not be kept after dying and reloading the game e.g. in the snail-room savestation) makes it the so far hardest 14%category that is humanly doable.
More information can be found in the Super Metroid Speedrunning guide:
http://deanyd.net/sm/index.php?title=Main_Page
More general information about the vast progress/discoveries [e.g. lots of BlueSuit methods, shinespark-suit, R-Mode Force-Stand and applications, crystal flashes in various poses/scenarios, (multi-)mid-air-springballjumps (that can be used by TAS to do some kind of IBJ suitless underwater infinitely high), exploration analysis, analysis of several categories and item-tree-analysis, X-Mode, inbounds Botwoon-skip, grapple-bombjump-jump, bomb-grapplehang-teleportation, humanly doable HIBJ and DIBJ aswell as 1-wall-underwater walljump-climbing,...] made in the last year could be found in trick/glitch/sequence-break/detail visualizations on my channel or my metconst thread that I already posted above:
https://www.youtube.com/user/eternisedDragon7/videoshttp://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3204.0.html
On the other side, massive Out of Bounds and WrongWarp research has been done aswell, e.g. by Sniqq/Sniqwc3.
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Edited:
By the way, considering that now actually (at least) 11 13 different inbounds (non-major-glitched) options (neglecting sub-categories) for TAS to beat the game with just 14% exist, some of you Super Metroid TASers are pretty lucky that 13% is not a thing yet, because otherwise both Low% TASes (low%speedbooster and low%ice-beam) would be immediately obsolete :P ;)
(Well, rest in peace 14% branches for NTSC, since 13% has been found. At least they all remain for PAL (so far, until the next edit ;) ).)
The 1113 15 options tool-assisted-superplay has, to beat the game with 14% (only remaining for PAL) are given as follows:
5 (now actually 6, and yes that is still true) humanly doable options (so far) (the last one was a very recent discovery, and IceBoots is PAL-only even for TAS):
Gravity-Speedbooster; Gravity-Ice; X-Ray-Ice; IceBoots (HighJump-Ice); IceBooster (Ice-Speedbooster)
8 10 (so far) TAS-only options:
Gravity-Powerbomb; Ice-Powerbomb; Speedbooster-Powerbomb; X-Ray-Powerbomb; X-Ray-Speebooster; Grapple-Speedbooster; Powerbomb-Powerbomb; HighJump-Speedbooster(PAL) (aswell as 14%X-Missile; 14%X-SuperMissile).
So, by far not all 14%categories have corresponding TASes yet, but sadly it seems that none of these options can be reduced to 13% (in PAL´s case).
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Hmm, two things I wanted to mention in here...
1. I guess my strategy for Shaktool room (if one would optimize it)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkN67MtFGq4] could save some little time additionally, but I do not know how RNG would turn out and affect the run afterwards.
2. I think at the time when this great TAS was done, it was not known that the in-game-timer stops as long as Samus has 00 (E-Tank-)energy (which I think Cpadolf discovered during the any%glitched ACE run that used GT-Code) which could be combined with Pause Abuse during almost the whole run in order to shave a rather huge chunk of in-game-time off, I assume. But of course, I am aware that this would not be an entertaining run anymore if done that way and it would be much longer in real-time.
So, I was thinking that I at least wanted to find useful strategies and a suitable route for such a Pause Abuse TAS for the 100% category and the any%in-game-time category since I am interested in the theoretical/mathematical optimum, and maybe even make TASes for those (which would then probably very unoptimized I guess).
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
Joined: 10/29/2014
Posts: 176
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Purplehelmet, actually those blocks are two 16pixel*16pixel blocks with standard height and length of a solid block. If the height was 8pixels like the thin horizontal slopes in the Craterian climb room (or old Tourian escape shaft, respectively), one could shinespark through them if the shinespark is started at an appropriate height. In the case of pre-Wave room, a Ceiling-CF. with Grapple-shot afterwards [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktsGHEN8pxc] to get pushed upwards and the Reserve-Mode Force-Stand method
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_S75DqLOaw] (which uses the greyout-glitch) are (probably) the only obvious (at least they would be obvious for people who care about my stuff :P) potential options to get past those blocks next to the door to Wave from below.
Otherwise one usually would need either a frozen creature at an appropriate place, a crouch-jump started on ground about 2 block-heights below 1-block-thick platforms, or one would need to simulate having ground below a platform using infinite-Grapple-jumps and extend a crouch-jump via delayed shinespark [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISGuKG8FyXE].
If you want to know about ceiling-clips in general, you might also want to read Act(E1) or parts of Act(Y) in chapter Y of version 1 of my old compendium [http://pastebin.com/xs2zHG01].
collect, analyse, categorise.
"Mathematics - When tool-assisted skills are just not enough" ;)
Don't want to be taking up so much space adding to posts, but might be worth mentioning and letting others know for what games 1) already some TAS work has been done (ordered in decreasing amount, relative to a game completion) by me and 2) I am (in decreasing order) planning/considering to TAS them. Those would majorly be SNES games (if not, it will be indicated in the list) I'm focusing on.
1) Spanky's Quest; On the Ball/Cameltry; Musya; Super R-Type; Plok; Sutte Hakkun; The Wizard of Oz; Battletoads Doubledragon; Super Ghouls'n Ghosts; Firepower 2000; Brain Lord; Warios Woods; Super Turrican; The Humans.
2) Secret Command (SEGA); Star Force (NES); Hyperzone; Aladdin; R-Type 3; Power Blade 2 (NES); Super Turrican 2; First Samurai.
(last updated: 18.03.2018)
The bright blue parts indicate squares in which the room state does not matter, at the yellow squares, the room state does matter for SuperJump setups.
2. Edit: Sniq noticed, that when entering a transition during X-Mode, one can avoid the softlock afterwards if one already soon during the screen transition releases Dash, which now (after confirming it via tests) has the consequence, that in theory, one can enter a transition during a shinespark in X-Mode, then release Dash during this early enough, to start a SuperJump (provided a non-horizontal shinespark was used) immediately in the next room. Therefore, this might allow for more places of application for SuperJumps. (Also, if Samus has Draygon´s permanent gunk deceleration or the big Metroid´s deceleration, then the angle of diagonal shinesparks changes aswell, which might not be relevant if trying to go fast in a TAS, but at least if wanting to reach some place (at all or with higher stacked SuperJump speed).)
3. Edit: I corrected the map a little. It seems not only (non-plant-)spike blocks but also the outer parts of eye-doors cannot do contact damage if the Wrecked Ship is in its inactive state.
The orange parts in there mean that certain room states are required for a slope being at the corresponding square (e.g. in the case of the attic in Wrecked Ship) or for a knockback-source being there, but the green squares show places where the room state does not matter. Also, in Ceres there would be 
