This run does justice to one of the finest games ever. I think I've watched the first WIPs more times than actually played it. :)
One of my favorite runs here, period.
comicalflop wrote:
I'm not sure if it's 100% optimal, but pretty close.
Of course it isn't, a lot of time could be saved by using less laggy weapons, for example, or doing it in 1-p mode. But it wouldn't have made this run as entertaining, would it? This game allows for so much variety, not showing it in its full glory would be a crime. I'm glad it's been made as entertaining as possible.
Publishing edited TAS videos kind of nullifies all the effort put into convincing the public that the videos are indeed legit emulator captures, not edited ones. There's always the danger that some moron will post in some popular forum a link to the edited video and start badmouthing TASing using that video which "has clearly been edited to achieve an impossibly short time" as proof.
I guess he'll be still regarded as a moron in that case, since all those who know how the ingame timer works know that none of the frames where it runs have been cut out. :)
It's not an "official" publication, and link to the official one has been provided. No reasons for panic here, I believe.
Since it was not in your list of improvements I thought it would be worth mentioning, and if you wish to look into it I'll upload the smv, I think the improvement is in the second jump in the room after the missiles.
Indeed, I felt like I was losing a frame there but couldn't do anything about it. You rock, though, I didn't expect you to find improvements in my WIP this soon. :)
Can you define a bit more precise what the "end of the Torizo escape" is? I understand the walljump from the door to land on the main ground faster in the room with the many bats after Torizo.
I completely forgot that I could land earlier (on the second frame after the transition) in the next room and run off the ledge with around 3 px/f overall speed. It saved 5 frames the way hero did it.
Saturn wrote:
This is actually a pretty obvious refill that is a must take in any run, even in yours. Since you have to wait for the bombs to break your way through, there is more than enough time to get this refill without any time loss. And you will save some frames in any case from skiping another refill for that later. In runs that aim for Phantoon first, only a Missile refill makes sense here. It's very well possible to manipulate one, as I did it in my old WIP just fine. When you have to sacrifice 20 frames to get a Missile refill later you should definitely get it during the bombing there.
Well, I also have some other idea that might work for that particular room that might interfere with refilling depending on how I'll do it.
Another opportunity to refill is to slow down and lose 1-2 frames near the super missile pack and get a refill from the waver that I kill there.
Saturn wrote:
One last question, how is your progress by now? Already reached Kraid? :-P
Nope, the last thing I did was to start optimizing the 2nd room of Brinstar. I see numerous different ways to move through it, and have to test them all (saved 4 frames there compared to JXQ's run so far, but that's likely not the limit as I have only tested about half the opportunities).
Well this is not a fair comparison then. It's obvious and not hard at all to tie even a perfect optimized movie if you can compare to it every frame. Moozoohs WIPs automatically lose their impressiveness when a person realizes they are partly based on your own work, hero. Thats exactly the reason I keep my WIPs private. I think it's boring to copy things from each other, as we individuals can't show our own unique ideas that way. It sure is a good thing to improve the general SM standard especially when one of us has this unique moozooh-patience, but that way you spoil your uniqueness and hard work unnecessarily.
Well, for the sake of comparison, I should say that I had most of the diagonal room already done before hero actually restarted his work on any% (and thus gave me access to the new WIP), and he knew it as well. That being said, he improved the end of my Torizo escape, but since I was already way past that, I didn't bother to return and fix it. Unfortunately, it isn't possible to refill in the diagonal room in any different way and still be comparably fast, I say that because I've tested many different ways (including getting the last missiles already in Brinstar) with my current one being the fastest — I have no idea how to improve it, since at least one missile refill has to be gotten there, and it costs at least 22-23 frames regardless of the particular enemy you're planning to get it from.
After that room, there was not a single new strategy up until red Brinstar — all the same moves as in the older runs, just most are better optimized. This is also true for my WIP, since the only new trick that was used was acceleration storing, which saved approximately… two frames in the entire WIP. :D
The only thing I hadn't thought of before I saw it was refilling on the last Rio in the Dachora room. I included it mainly because it looked cool, but if I won't be able to have a missile refill from it (since I'm losing about 20 frames waiting for a refill two rooms later), or will find a way to make that room faster it would be interfering with, I will exclude this trick from v2. I realize it was hero who's come up with this method, and it serves a good purpose for his route, but nearly none for mine — and if I won't be able to find a good purpose, it will detract uniqueness from either of our runs for no reason, which is something I would like to avoid.
Saturn wrote:
For me it would be much more interesting to see what everybody of us can come up with by himself. Being forced to search for own strategies instead of copying them can also allow to find even more tricks that would be overlooked otherwise. Just my opinion.
I do understand what you mean by that, since both hero and I did that in the past and were shown how unfruitful it can be even by each other. It can't really be called a mistake, it's absolutely normal to be trying to find a reference in an uncharted territory and follow it. It only makes sense to do everything on your own only after you already know what is required in order to achieve maximum effect. So this time, whether we had each other's WIPs or not, we actually searched for the new tricks and their applications and found them regardless (granted that most of them were completely generic and didn't require any kind of special knowledge). I also thought of more of them after releasing my own WIP (as it usually happens; I'll update the list with these ideas soon), and discussed some improvements with hero for his run as well. So all in all, the comparison was fair.
Cpadolf wrote:
Does the elevators act differently depending on what frame you enter the elevator room?
Yes, they accept input only once per two frames or so, and this is highly annoying. But I actually lost a frame twice in this manner on the first two elevators, didn't I?.. Well, I'll look into it later, I guess.
I find Vector TD to be far superior.
And Xeno Tactic is inferior to both (it has less enemy variety, less tower variety, less other game elements, and is generally easier).
moozooh, I find it hard to believe these are test runs.
I call it a test run because I'm not sure that all my strategic choices are/will be correct, and also because I let a couple frames slip in some cases (which I then put up on my improvement page).
I'm going to make the full run on Snes9x 1.5 (I've seen Hero's WIP on it… it looks so much more beautiful), and strive for Rockman quality in it.
P.JBoy wrote:
Do you think it's worth putting up the acceleration storage trick on the SM tricks page?
Actually, I've been planning to add a new chapter about manipulating momentum, with a full momentum values table (since they are fixed and bound to the form Samus is traveling in). This trick, along with some others directly related to it, are to go there.
I also think about splitting SuperMetroidTricks into two pages, with the second called SuperMetroidTechData (which will contain primarily RAM tables, code snippets, timed events, enemy health, damage values, momentum values and patterns, and other numeric data).
This acceleration storage trick, is it the same thing I do in my ceres wip? The shudder step before entering the door? If that is what you guys are talking about, then yes I already knew about it.
The principle is the same, but the application differs somewhat. I use it to store more acceleration than what would have been possible otherwise, while in your Ceres WIP what you do is achievable using conventional means; hence why JXQ's subpixel stats are better in most of the rooms, while they theoretically shouldn't (which makes me believe there's much more to this trick than what you did there).
hero of the day wrote:
Anywho, great job moozooh. It looks alot like my current wip :)
Sure, we use the same route after all. :)
Btw, I would like to discuss a couple things regarding it with you, so come online soon.
Those are probably the fastest WIP's I've ever seen. I still think you should stop releasing any more WIP's, you know the more you release them the more people know about your run and the less surprising it's going to be when watching the final run. At least I'm seeing it this way, only a thought. :) The excitement would make people wait the run much more.
Thanks. So far they are, indeed, the fastest even I have ever seen. :D
And I do plan on stopping the public releases of the test run, but I'm not sure when. The next WIP should already give an idea on what route I am going to take (that is, being a spoiler), but I'm not yet sure how far I am willing to take it. If you have any opinion on that matter, I'm ready to hear it.
Tonski wrote:
I personally today used frame advance/2% speed for the first time in my life and got under the first super missile gates without mockball. It was quite nice to watch what I personally did. Some day this year I might start a serious TAS using that frame advance, as this recent semi-TAS of mine at www.youtube.com/TonskiTAS is only played at 24% speed or so.
Indeed, it's very pleasing to see your own work, especially if it is a yet unrivaled accomplishment. I enjoy watching these WIPs about as much as I enjoyed JXQ's 100% TAS 1.5 years ago, and I'll make sure to do better in v2. It's quite amusing to realize I've already gained 50 seconds over the run I'm improving, and I haven't even reached 4 minute mark yet… It has to be obsoleted, it's too outdated.
Btw, Cpadolf is making some good progress at TASing SM. Wanna compete with him?
In which situations could it be applied? I don't want it to become a loophole for accepting all kinds of "translations" that happen to hack the game in unknown ways.
Do it on per-approve basis as is currently done with uhh… everything else here.
Whoa Fractal, you really love this game enough to redo 1.5 hour run for 1.5 minute improvement? :o
I wish it was worth it from the viewer* standpoint, but I don't think it is.
(* — Except avid Pokemon fans, obviously.)
Even though I hadn't finished my reallife work yet, I decided to whip up a short WIP yesterday, granted is was already underway by that moment (I was near the end of the diagonal room). It's only about 99 seconds long, but it shows one of the highlights of the run and some usual crazy optimization stuff. :)
Enjoy: WIP #2: Bombs → Super Missiles.
So far it's ~21.1 sec faster than JXQ's 100% run and ~22.2 sec faster than Hero's any% v1 by the ingame timer.
Moments that might be interesting and other comments:
• I redid Torizo room door entry, hence why it is included in the WIP;
• 400—1000: guess what. :P Exit can be improved by 5 frames (Hero found a somewhat better strategy that helps in the next room);
• 2200—2400: quite probably the most optimal way to refill now that there's no refill-happy Torizo fight. For the record, I tried to kill both wavers with one missile and succeeded, but it was about half a second slower than the current method;
• 4800—4900: this door makes me feel a warm fuzziness of flawless accomplishment. The last shot was dopplered, I got absolutely perfect subpixel position (65535), and what's most important, I got to demonstrate my new secret way of increasing and storing acceleration (which will most likely help me set a new record for Ceres escape time when I get around to it);
• 5840: I wish I could reach that refill. Unfortunately, I moved too fast so the waver didn't have a chance of getting further to the left before I killed it.
Next WIP will likely show my route in Red Brinstar. I haven't decided if it will be the last public WIP yet, though.
[EDIT]
Alright, while we're at it, I decided to do some more today and continued the run to Red Brinstar. Not much by itself, but makes WIP 2 about as long as WIP 1.
Updated WIP: WIP #2.1: Bombs → Red Brinstar.
By its end, it's ~22.9 sec faster than Hero's v1. Comparison to JXQ's run is no longer applicable as we have different item set now.
Comments:
• 6550: Rio is frozen in place allowing for a lower jump. One of those obvious things everyone loves to overlook so much;
• 6700—6900: this strategy came from Hero of the day. Even though I might not need this refill until the next etank, I still decided to include it because it's awesome;
• 7750—7800: entering mockball at higher speed is slower than optimizing horizontal position in accordance to mockball's momentum variation pattern;
• 8500: this shot actually serves a purpose since for some reason I decided to shoot instead of doing an additional pump. I'll likely remove it in the final version.
[EDIT2]
Link fixed. >_>
Though I recommend the current published run to be eventually obsoleted by a 100% run.
Don't worry, the no-warp any% will indeed be rendered fully redundant after 100% is done (all the same levels done with lots more action + more levels done in this fashion), but until then, of course…
What do you mean by this? Currently the scale is ..., 25%, 50%, 100%, 200%, 400%, ... i.e. powers of 2. Do you mean there should be more choices? I don't particularly see the value of letting the user fine tune this.
Oh, sorry, I was a bit inattentive while examining that function. Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have a bit finer scale (with 75% and 150%, for example), but it isn't necessary. What is necessary, though, is graphical indication of the current speed, be it constant or temporary. Also, I find input display pretty unreadable on light background. Some form of shading or outline for it would be appreciated.
Btw, is it just me, or the status bar is totally empty? Isn't it supposed to… umm, show something? :P
Also, thanks for taking my comments seriously. I appreciate it when a tool is easy to use, it helps concentrating on the task instead of the tool itself.
Wow, two pleasant surprises in one video! Will It Blend is funny again, and iPhone has an extremely durable screen (sustained five or six strikes before breaking).
"iSmoke"… that's classic. xD
I have an idea.
Upthorn and Nitsuja have been making custom mods of Gens for various purposes (having something to do with Sonic for the most part, though that's unrelated). So why not include all the additions and modifications into the main package?
They may still be useful to other people, and will be always built in an up-to-date version of Gens, so there will be only one emulator to use for any purpose. You could make a separate menu ("Custom tools" or something like that) for accessing/toggling them. Is this feasible?
First of all, your turrets aren't powerful enough. One thing that is important about this game is that small amount of red turrets outperform almost any amount of purple, yellow and green turrets. Concentrate your upgrades on 2-3 turrets, so that while you upgrade one, the other(s) keep shooting.
The first two waves of aerial units can almost completely be destroyed by lv1 vulcans from one side and your upgraded plasma turrets from another. Shortly after the second aerial wave, build 3-4 DCAs horizontally spread through the center of the map and upgrade at least two of them to lv3 (yellow), and the rest to lv2, then continue investing in plasma upgrades. This way even those aerial units that come from the plasma-upgraded side will be eradicated before they reach DCAs, and the other side's will get finished easily.
