Are you thinking about BURNING as a possibility?
-Weapon crits; Could any of these be useful? The big game-breaker would be keeping KING sword. But there are other weapons that can deliver crits in limited cases. Not enough money for most of them though.
-Does COUNTER work if the hit kills you? Could be useful for several fights.
-There is a HYPER cannon in the skyscraper that kills just about anything instantly. It might be too far out of the way to be profitable though.
-Use equipment to boost stats? The GIANT gauntlet and GETA shoes are each worth +10 Strength. You can buy GIANT gauntlet in world 3 hidden town and GETA shoes in world 4 Northeast down.
-There's also a GIANT gauntlet in world 3 jail but it would require walking a bit out of jail. Using teleport here forces you to go through some of the tower and get your bike again, so fighting it out through here could be profitable.
-Confusion, paralysis or sleep? Also probably out due to finances. Also all the bosses are immune to these since they are all the same element as death. There do seem to be some high-level monster abilities that can confuse without elemental limitations though.
If you could get a monster with the stone version of GAZE you could use it on SEI-RYU.
These are what I expect after mild testing. Tell me if it's wrong.
The random number addresses tend to "wander". If C300 is zero, the following six addresses could also be zero, or perhaps they all happen to be one. Maybe the first half is zero and the later half is one. When you generated those tables, it's possible we thought that C30E was always a fixed value away from C30B after a reset.
I have a small function for generating a range of numbers. It might match the game's way of handling an arbitrary range, or it might be off by some amount. I do not know, but it does a good enough job at approximating that I can't detect errors myself.
I think this function fits well with the Ability Uses Shuffler, the numbers at the top of this post would match this function with a D of 3, and a small amount of trying them out led me to link the effects with the results I've been getting. If it's not true, I'm sure further tests will prove me wrong.
I think that WHIPping could have another advantage. If you have WHIPs at BYAK-KO then could you beat him without STONE? That would save the trip to the hidden sky village, so it could save time even if it takes a lot of turns.
This does not take into account the fact that in place of shopping for bSTONE, we're instead shopping for a WHIP, which will take time on its own.
Keep in mind we will have no good damage option. BYAK-KO has 1000 HP to kill, and without bSTONE, we have no other insta-kills, unless we can summon up a MEDUSA monster on our side, but using a non-mandatory battle for that eats up more precious time. The whip should be dealing trivial or no damage, and we might be dealing 150~250 damage per turn starting with round 2.
I want to say the WHIP will never take place of bSTONE. It's 20 seconds to the bSTONE and back. An extra round takes roughly 5 seconds, give or take, judging from the SEI-RYU battle. How long to the nearest shop with a WHIP or E-WHIP and back?
I really am tempted to dismiss this without a single test. If there's further push for some sort of whip, I will check, though.
Other than these two battles, I don't see anything else that clogs up the route at the moment.
C30B|Ab1|Ab2|Ab3|Ab4
----+---+---+---+---
86 | - | + | + | -
93 | - | + | - | +
166| - | /2| + | /2
243| - | + | - | + C30B|Ab1|Ab2|Ab3|Ab4
----+---+---+---+---
86 | 53| 76|182| 40
93 | 64|197|124|166
166| 42| 44| 22|247
243| 75|193| 80|138 60,153,152,141, 20,225, 79,149,108,169,183, 29,187, 14,159,218,
156,185, 7, 82,116,254,239, 74,204,201,168,194, 91, 17,192, 69,
252,217,167,205,212,222,112,213,211,233, 8, 93, 4, 49, 32,154,
163,249,184, 18,203,190, 47, 10,115,246,151,130,100, 81,127,133,
67,230, 24,242,107,158,207,234, 19,214,200,157,196,113,224, 90,
28,198,135, 45, 11,126,144, 53, 76,182, 40, 66,219,145, 64,197,
124,166,216,178, 84, 94, 15,172,170,150,119,221,123,177, 95, 26,
220,134, 56,109,180, 62,175,117,243,118,232, 2, 27,209,255,250,
195,102,103,114,235, 30,176,106,147, 86, 72,226, 68,241, 96, 37,
99, 70,248,173,139, 1, 16,181, 51, 54, 87, 61,164,238, 63,186,
3, 38, 88, 50, 43, 33,143, 42, 44, 22,247,162,251,206,223,101,
92, 6, 71,237, 52, 65,208,245,140, 9,104,125,155,174,128,122,
188, 25,231, 13,148, 97, 48, 21,236, 41, 55, 98, 59,142, 31,165,
227, 57,120,210,244,129,111,202,179, 73,215,189, 36,110,191, 58,
131, 89, 39, 77,171,161,240, 85, 83,105,136, 34,132, 78,160,229,
35,121,199,146, 75,193, 80,138, 12,137, 23,253,228, 46, 0, 50x3C,0x99,0x98,0x8D,0x14,0xE1,0x4F,0x95,0x6C,0xA9,0xB7,0x1D,0xBB,0x0E,0x9F,0xDA,
0x9C,0xB9,0x07,0x52,0x74,0xFE,0xEF,0x4A,0xCC,0xC9,0xA8,0xC2,0x5B,0x11,0xC0,0x45,
0xFC,0xD9,0xA7,0xCD,0xD4,0xDE,0x70,0xD5,0xD3,0xE9,0x08,0x5D,0x04,0x31,0x20,0x9A,
0xA3,0xF9,0xB8,0x12,0xCB,0xBE,0x2F,0x0A,0x73,0xF6,0x97,0x82,0x64,0x51,0x7F,0x85,
0x43,0xE6,0x18,0xF2,0x6B,0x9E,0xCF,0xEA,0x13,0xD6,0xC8,0x9D,0xC4,0x71,0xE0,0x5A,
0x1C,0xC6,0x87,0x2D,0x0B,0x7E,0x90,0x35,0x4C,0xB6,0x28,0x42,0xDB,0x91,0x40,0xC5,
0x7C,0xA6,0xD8,0xB2,0x54,0x5E,0x0F,0xAC,0xAA,0x96,0x77,0xDD,0x7B,0xB1,0x5F,0x1A,
0xDC,0x86,0x38,0x6D,0xB4,0x3E,0xAF,0x75,0xF3,0x76,0xE8,0x02,0x1B,0xD1,0xFF,0xFA,
0xC3,0x66,0x67,0x72,0xEB,0x1E,0xB0,0x6A,0x93,0x56,0x48,0xE2,0x44,0xF1,0x60,0x25,
0x63,0x46,0xF8,0xAD,0x8B,0x01,0x10,0xB5,0x33,0x36,0x57,0x3D,0xA4,0xEE,0x3F,0xBA,
0x03,0x26,0x58,0x32,0x2B,0x21,0x8F,0x2A,0x2C,0x16,0xF7,0xA2,0xFB,0xCE,0xDF,0x65,
0x5C,0x06,0x47,0xED,0x34,0x41,0xD0,0xF5,0x8C,0x09,0x68,0x7D,0x9B,0xAE,0x80,0x7A,
0xBC,0x19,0xE7,0x0D,0x94,0x61,0x30,0x15,0xEC,0x29,0x37,0x62,0x3B,0x8E,0x1F,0xA5,
0xE3,0x39,0x78,0xD2,0xF4,0x81,0x6F,0xCA,0xB3,0x49,0xD7,0xBD,0x24,0x6E,0xBF,0x3A,
0x83,0x59,0x27,0x4D,0xAB,0xA1,0xF0,0x55,0x53,0x69,0x88,0x22,0x84,0x4E,0xA0,0xE5,
0x23,0x79,0xC7,0x92,0x4B,0xC1,0x50,0x8A,0x0C,0x89,0x17,0xFD,0xE4,0x2E,0x00,0x05I use this page for my monster needs.
No. oCHANGE. No stoning. No death. Only SAW.
No. We need 95 Mana for GAZE or bSTONE to work first thing. We'll need extra rounds otherwise.
26, at the lowest. Achievable in four battles with a starting Mana of 6.
On a side note, here's the list of bonuses with C30B == 0xF2 on the route to P-BLAST, if you want to consider a second P-BLAST
Actually, I'm starting to think P-BLAST is optional -- Manipulate the duet of monsters prior to STEWARD to be only 1 SKELETON and introduce it to stabby pain. A different plan for the monster trio doesn't use mutli-target anyway. But this might add an extra round to SEI-RYU, which can be hazardous.
This does free up manipulation for other things, but what do we need then?
Agreed. Looks like things are starting to fall in place, but testing needs to be done.
A few seconds, at most. The toughest piece of manipulation doesn't seem to need more than 10 seconds, and this doesn't seem to be a tough bit of manipulation, at a glance.
That's the question I would like an answer to. We might want to ask KINGSWRD if he wants to assist in an answer. Wondering how the turn order will work out, but if we can force an instant death of one of our own members just before we release our own GAZE, this would be good.
I took the test run, waited until it reached SEI-RYU, then I hacked in POWER, equipped the BATTLE sword, and gave it a good swing at the boss after the boosted strength. 230 damage.
Human + STRONG + SAW. We still have a problem at MACHINE (not enough Def for SAW to work right away from reset), but ASHURA would certainly go more smoothly, and possibly GEN-BU2, depending on resets. We just need 11 STRONGs for a Human M, two trips to the item shop dialogue.
Are you thinking we drop the Mana gains of our main Mutant in favor of SAWing all later bosses instead of bSTONE at some of them?
Awesome, glad I could be helpful. I did a test run a long time ago and used POWER on SEI-RYU. But I hadn't analyzed the game nearly as well as you guys.
The possibility of using less STONE sounds promising because it's quite a bit out of the way in World 3. It isn't very far out of the way in world 4, in the northeast town. Unfortunately there don't seem to be a lot of other options available for BYAK-KO since he's immune to death and you don't have SAW.
This game is definitely more complex than Final Fantasy for a TAS. But it's more because there simply aren't many worthwhile and easily-obtainable abilities. In this game you can easily acquire several instant death moves and there are many ways to pump up your party without spending much time. But in either case luck manipulation takes a lot of work.
Sounds like I should have posted before to keep you guys motivated.
Anyway, having done it myself I know that a TAS on an RPG is a lot of work.
The key is to stay organized; keep lots of notes and spreadsheets. As a team may be a good idea to keep some shared notes on Google Docs. Adelikat likes Google Code for this but I'm not familiar with it. The resources page is good too. The chart of fights is a really good idea, you should expand to track any method that you would consider and maybe what stats you'd need and how long the fight would take.
To me it seems like a flow that avoids more fights should be faster. It looks like once you get the abilities you need and some mana on one char there shouldn't be much more reason to fight.
Have you considered using POWER+battle sword on SEI-RYU? You wouldn't need to use up your P-BLAST shots.
Also, what about a human SAW user with stats pumped from STRONG and AGILITY potions? Not sure how that would compare to grooming a mutant through battle.
About the initial party, I was thinking there might be trouble killing off a few in World I if they're consistently too fast to let an enemy get a turn. The difference between M and F is that great, and since it is only important right in the first world, should we make a few tests?
My GAZE, P-BLAST, and TELEPOR plan indicates that it isn't anywhere close to impossible to do, while still wasting no steps out of the main path. Well, actually, the GAZE, P-BLAST, and TELEPOR route takes some incredible amount of luck at the TELEPOR manipulation, since you need one address to be one value and another to be something else, and in this particular case, is a very rare happening. But possible.
P-BLAST versus ASIGARU might simply be because it was faster than stabbing said foe dead. I can't remember.
Not sure what changes should be done here, really. Offense from them were practically nonexistent. But I'm starting to think a QUAKE-toting spare MUTANT would be handy.
Not that it matters too much, as if we had nothing that has uses in slot 1, the game will skip over that slot when shuffling our uses around.
Wrong idea.
I haven't considered that possibility. Stopping ASHURA's actions of doom has appeal, but I'm not sure if 52 Agl. is going to go first.
The fact I checked every single RNG value and not a single one allowed us to learn this ability.
For the secondary target-all killer, I'm thinking monster. Here's the list of things that hit all with damage:
You forget things.
POWER is of no real help. Anything that could use a good SAWing dies in one or two rounds anyway.
address C30B == 0x52 gets us QUAKE 3 "steps" down the line, while 0x53 is only 2 "steps". There's even a Mana+5 7 or 6 "steps", so we can pull that boost out from another battle without an intervening reset, assuming we use a 3 or 4 mutant party. There's potential here.
Assemble party of four Mutants. The primary character needs to be MUTANT F, thanks to things like higher starting Agl. and the ever yummy SABER. The other three may be either gender, but I'm thinking 2 M and one F here.
Get GAZE (death), P-BLAST, and TELEPOR, in that order, by the time we defeat P-FROG bandit.
My notes indicate an optimal first reset time is 6 steps out into the overworld.
Possibly get replacement characters at this time.
Let's see... 5 GAZEs and 2 P-BLASTs means we can get another 35 Mana on our way to SEI-RYU.
If we did bring a BEETLE, we might want to fight an ATOMCRAB to change up the RNG for the well-anticipated SAW.
The turn order when we use spells doesn't depend on our Agility, but Mana instead. Or so it seems.
P-BLAST the trio of monsters. Though, one won't be enough...
Detour for Book of STONE in the hidden town.
Go straight to the key items. Do not pass GO, do not collect 200 G. Or any optional item.
We might want to avoid resetting since EVIL EYE so the RNG is good for our otherwise incompetent 54~59 Str.
We got a BAND from So-Cho.
I really think walking there is fastest. Naturally, we should time it.
More tower stuff. Probably no TELEPOR this time, I guess.
The NPC we talked to earlier doesn't exist anymore. Hence, isn't messing with our door. If we had talked to the NPC now, we must leave the area and reenter to get Tower2 working properly.
ASHURA dies to SAW. This battle may be troublesome... We might need a spare meatshield, considering my lack of any Agility and whipping won't do any good. Either that, or buff the Mutant M's Str. to 75, but that requires extra battles.
We differ on stat growth. You say we should get Str., Agl., and Mana on the same Mutant. I say we get Mana on the starter and pick up a boyfriend for this mutant and let him handle the Strength needs for us.
We differ in some battle plans. Odd, you don't have bSTONE considered. I do believe we'll need it. See my test run on the writings in action!
We differ in the use of EYEDROPs. ... I didn't need it in my test run, anyway. Silly detail, I guess.
Do we want a second character to blast things with?
Right now, I'm somewhat burnt out for this run. I need you to lead the way for the moment. Even if all you do is ask "So... What's the plan?" That's all I need, as far as I believe. This gives me a direction to reach for, something that an outside force wants from me. A destination in which I feel I can get to and tell you, "here it is."
With a four mutant party, you need four battles to get TELEPOR. Presumably, you want 3 random battles and finish by using the P-FROG bandit battle. The 0x59 TELEPOR needs 64 steps, while the 0xEB TELEPOR needs only 58 steps when involving the forest encounter at step 0x00. Not too bad, eh?
The [0]= thing I do in lua is just saying "put this object into index 0". It's not saying "allow this thing to be put in index 0", but rather declaring that the object must be placed there. Some table-related built-in functions of lua does not handle this well, for whatever reason, but we shouldn't need to worry about them in this case.
I took a look at the random encounter groups. The thresholds appear to be 0x04, 0x08, 0x10, 0x20, 0x40, and 0x80. A value in the range 0~3 gets one rare group, the range 4~7 gets another rare group, and so forth.
My Master Table is actually "off by 1", with how I'm using it.
I'll be taking a look at your script.
movie.rerecordcounting(false)
local state1 = savestate.create()
local state2 = savestate.create()
local Aglvals={8,56,130,221,233}
local Strvals={62,113,191,210,213,236}
local Manvals={6,23,28,31,43,61,88,100,137,138,142,162,203}
local Runvals={14,24,32,33,34,47,125,148,170,171}
local Abilvals={89,234,242}
local goodvals={56,130,221,23,137,203,62,113,191,32}
local okayvals={8,233,210,213,236,6,28,31,43,61,88,100,138,142,162,33,170}
local badvals={14,24,34,47,125,148,171}
local AglTable={}
local StrTable={}
local ManTable={}
local RunTable={}
local AbilTable={}
local RNGTable={}
local FTI = 1
-- Modeled after Matlab's "any" function. Returns "true" if any element of "vector" matches "value".
local function any(vector,value)
match=false
for i=1, #vector do
match=(match or vector[i]==value)
end
return match
end
savestate.save(state1)
while #RNGTable<3 do
emu.frameadvance()
savestate.save(state2)
frame = emu.framecount()
for k = 1, 8 do
joypad.set(1, {A = 1, B = 1, select = 1, start = 1})
emu.frameadvance()
end
local rng = memory.readbyte(0xC30B)
local canrun=memory.readbyte(0xC323)
-- Agl
if any(Aglvals,rng) then
RNGTable[FTI] = rng
AglTable[FTI] = frame%1000
StrTable[FTI] = " "
ManTable[FTI] = " "
RunTable[FTI] = " "
AbilTable[FTI] = " "
FTI = FTI + 1
end
-- Mana
if any(Manvals,rng) then
RNGTable[FTI] = rng
ManTable[FTI] = frame%1000
AglTable[FTI] = " "
StrTable[FTI] = " "
RunTable[FTI] = " "
AbilTable[FTI] = " "
FTI = FTI + 1
end
-- Str
if any(Strvals,rng) then
RNGTable[FTI] = rng
StrTable[FTI] = frame%1000
ManTable[FTI] = " "
AglTable[FTI] = " "
RunTable[FTI] = " "
AbilTable[FTI] = " "
FTI = FTI + 1
end
-- Running
-- (Note the use of "canrun" instead of "rng".)
if any(Runvals,canrun) then
RNGTable[FTI] = canrun
RunTable[FTI] = frame%1000
ManTable[FTI] = " "
AglTable[FTI] = " "
StrTable[FTI] = " "
AbilTable[FTI] = " "
FTI = FTI + 1
end
-- Abilities
if any(Abilvals,rng) then
RNGTable[FTI] = rng
AbilTable[FTI] = frame%1000
RunTable[FTI] = " "
ManTable[FTI] = " "
AglTable[FTI] = " "
StrTable[FTI] = " "
FTI = FTI + 1
end
savestate.load(state2)
end
savestate.load(state1)
gui.text(5,1,"RNG")
gui.text(30,1,"Agl")
gui.text(55,1,"Str")
gui.text(80,1,"Mana")
gui.text(105,1,"Run")
gui.text(130,1,"Abil")
for i = 1, #RNGTable do
if any(goodvals,RNGTable[i]) then
color = "green"
elseif any(okayvals,RNGTable[i]) then
color = "yellow"
elseif any(badvals,RNGTable[i]) then
color = "red"
else
color = "white"
end
gui.text(5, 9*i + 1, RNGTable[i],color)
gui.text(30, 9*i + 1, AglTable[i],color)
gui.text(55, 9*i + 1, StrTable[i],color)
gui.text(80, 9*i + 1, ManTable[i],color)
gui.text(105, 9*i + 1, RunTable[i],color)
gui.text(130, 9*i + 1, AbilTable[i],color)
end
emu.pause()14,36,36,33, 5,53,19,35,25,40,43, 7,44, 3,37,51,
37,43, 2,19,27,60,56,17,48,47,39,46,21, 4,45,16,
59,51,39,48,50,52,26,50,50,55, 2,22, 1,12, 8,36,
38,58,43, 4,48,45,11, 2,27,58,36,31,24,19,30,31,
16,54, 6,57,25,37,49,55, 5,50,47,37,46,27,53,21,
7,47,32,11, 3,30,34,13,18,43, 9,16,51,34,15,46,
29,39,51,42,20,22, 4,40,40,35,28,52,29,42,22, 6,
52,32,13,26,42,15,41,28,57,28,54, 1, 6,49,60,59,
46,24,24,27,55, 7,41,25,35,20,17,53,16,57,23, 9,
23,17,58,41,33, 0, 4,43,12,13,21,14,39,56,15,44,
1, 9,21,12,10, 8,34,10,10, 5,58,38,59,48,52,24,
22, 2,17,56,12,15,49,58,33, 2,24,29,36,41,30,29,
44, 6,54, 3,35,23,11, 5,55,10,13,23,14,33, 7,39,
53,13,28,49,57,30,26,47,42,17,51,44, 9,26,45,14,
31,21, 9,18,40,38,56,20,20,25,32, 8,31,18,38,54,
8,28,47,34,18,45,19,32, 3,32, 6,59,54,11, 0, 1I want to see if it'll even work out.
Four might be a bit much.
You lose the slot for a potential monster that I so adore.
Once dead, they can't eat up any more turns, can they?
If it's going to be a "finalized" run, let me get a chance at optimizing it.
I think I see better how the RNG works.
Bin |Run?|NPC dir|Bonus|Ability
-------+----+-------+-----+-------
0-34| N | S | XX | __
35-42| N | S | HP | __
43-68| N | N | HP | __
69-98| N | N | Mn | __
99-116| N | N | Ag | __
117-126| N | N | St | __
127| Y | N | St | __
128-134| Y | W | St | __
135-142| Y | W | Df | __
143-146| Y | W | YY | __
147-212| Y | W | __ | __
213-228| Y | E | __ | __
229-255| Y | E | __ | YY
I just want to say that I'm enjoying reading about you two tearing this game apart, even though I've never played it myself (only ever played FFL3). Good luck with the run(s)!
Rather than manipulate the stuffing out of the luck, I'll waste all the time in the world to get the exact luck! I want to see if it'll even work out. Expect extremely long resets if I decide to release such a movie.
I notice some unusual similarities in a few of our charts
Anyway, I'll keep trying. I've actually been lazy these past few days, and I wouldn't say a thousand rerecords during that time is a lot.
I'm finding it rough to manipulate 0xC30B into becoming exactly 0xF2. In a timely manner, anyway.
However, slightly more processing must take place when adding up these digits, since they don't flow so neatly in the more familiar language of binary our computers so love.
I wouldn't suggest using items we can't actually buy, but if you can somehow get the cash, then by all means, go ahead and try it.
Another address for you, by the way:
The analysis you guys are doing is awesome.
I could be really wrong about an idea I have, but if defending a physical attack (Say, BYAKKO's SWORD) is a problem, couldn't you just pick up a shield from somewhere? I'm sure you could manipulate a full block.