Topic by ALAKTORN

Posted: 4/11/2011 10:26 PM

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ALAKTORN

He/Him

Player (99)

Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy

0:51 shouldn't it be faster to jump from a higher place so you have more speed when falling to the red blocks? 1:29 the climbing wheel weapon thing isn't faster? one of the less entertaining levels imo

Posted: 4/11/2011 11:22 PM
(Edited: 4/12/2011 5:13 AM)

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kuja_killer

Player (48)

Joined: 3/2/2007
Posts: 123
Location: Lake Havasu, Arizona

huh wow, looks we all did the exact same things. Well not like messing around with weapons, just when to do the wheel's, rush jet's, etc. Except i never could manage to do the jump off the top block in the lightbulb battle before. And cancel rush coil on the spike pit part to get a normal jump instead of full jump, those the only 2 differences. But my sheep battle might be slightly faster than yours. I hit the 2nd ball quite a bit earlier than you did. http://www.a3share.com/members/1119/sheep1.PNG Although, the 3rd ball cant do 5 damage after that, only 4, so that's only just 1 single frame of time loss. I think i shot the 2 balls - backward-forward, ..not forward-backward oh yea figured, i did start with backward first when i looked over my tas from a couple months ago. not sure which method you chose. http://www.a3share.com/members/1119/sheep2.PNG ---------------------------------- this one is really interesting, because you do NOT have the solar weapon yet, it allows ya to do the jet-wheel about 2 or 3 frames earlier than normal, but only for that reason. Wow http://www.a3share.com/members/1119/wheel1.PNG

Posted: 4/12/2011 4:57 AM

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sameasusual

Joined: 5/19/2010
Posts: 259
Location: California

I'm enjoying these WIPs, diggidoyo! I also look forward to your Hard,NoDamage,BusterOnly,Pacifist run.

#3201

Posted: 4/12/2011 11:22 AM

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diggidoyo

Experienced player (580)

Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon

ALAKTORN wrote:

0:51 shouldn't it be faster to jump from a higher place so you have more speed when falling to the red blocks? 1:29 the climbing wheel weapon thing isn't faster?

0:51 - Yes, but the problem is the yellow blocks are placed in such a way that you can't fall straight down to the red ones. A small hop after the blue blocks dissapear is the fastest way to get to red. 1:29 - Suprisingly, its not. RAM watching y-speed would easily prove this, but I just used trial and error. The Wheel cutter takes a few extra frames to grab the far wall and take over your vertical acceleration, and it takes an extra frame to let go of it before transitioning to the next screen at the top of a ladder. Mega Man has a lot of initial vertical acceleration at the beginning of his jumps and these facts combined make rush faster than wheel for some of the ladder transtions.

kuja killer wrote:

Although, the 3rd ball cant do 5 damage after that, only 4

I saw your 2:00.93 finish time, so I knew you'd have some insight of this level. Jumping off the top block after Octobulb requires very frame precise jumping/falling movements since there's really only about a 1 frame window where you can get up to that height and jump. But it only saves a single frame. Having the wheel cutter out earlier and cancelling rush coil probably saved several more. As for the Sheep Man fight, dealing 5 damage with the third shot was the main reason for shooting to the left 10 frames after the battle began. This eliminated the single pixel of health he had left over after the fifth Rebound Striker shot. But I did a little testing with shooting to left on the first frame as you did. It looses a frame for being too far away for the first Blade Shot to hit right away, and then 5 more for having to switch back to Blade for the last shot, but it ultimately finishes 4 frames ahead. Nice find

Posted: 4/12/2011 4:38 PM

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RT-55J

Player (147)

Joined: 11/27/2004
Posts: 688
Location: WA State, USA

The rate at which you're pumping out these updates is staggering.

Nach wrote:

I also used to wake up every morning, open my curtains, and see the twin towers. And then one day, wasn't able to anymore, I'll never forget that.

Posted: 4/12/2011 6:45 PM

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diggidoyo

Experienced player (580)

Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon

Thanks RT-55J. As I progress, I'm learning more that makes the process quicker. The Wily Stages will be a different beast, though, since I have to plan weapon usage through all 5 levels. Alright, new information on Sheep Man. Good and Bad. First the bad: If I'm understanding your strategy correctly, kuja killer, you end the fight with a single point of damage from Blade, and this finishes the fight 4 frames earlier than my initial strategy. Well, unfortunately, those 4 frames are only beneficial during the Time Trial. Let me explain. I found out the ending sequence (where the finish music plays and Mega Man jumps to power-up) doesn't trigger until Mega Man is actually touching the ground. This is important for anyone else planning to run this game with another character (Mothrayas/AngerFist). But you also have to balance this with the fact that the sequence is longer the farther Mega Man is away from the center, because he still has to run to the center. Optimally, you want to end in the middle without jumping. But if you must jump, (you have a few frames after the last hit on the boss to make a jump before you're stuck to the ground) it needs to be as small as possible to make it to the center. Until now, this hasn't been an issue, but the fight with Sheep Man is a little more complicated because of the Rebound Striker adding damage when it hits a wall. This allows for a lot of different strategies. Kuja's strategy is 4 frames faster than my initial strategy, but it ends farther away from the center. With both strategies, I can still make a jump that lands exactly in the center, but Kuja's strategy requires a slightly larger jump that lands 8 frames after mine. This means the 4 frames saved during the fight, converts into 8 frames lost overall. And now for the good news, after more testing, I was able to follow the paths of the Rebound Strikers on a sub-pixel level, and found a way to fire to the left right away (as in Kuja's strategy), AND deal 5 damage with the third shot (as in my initial strat). This once again eliminates the need to finish the fight with Blade, and saves 5 frames on top of the 4 frames I already saved. And if that wasn't enough, with the new knowledge explained above in mind, I was able to bring Mega Man closer to the center before firing the last shot, saving another 7 frames. This brings the total improvements to 16 frames. Since they are all in the boss fight, I'm going to encode the new boss fight and upload it.

Posted: 4/12/2011 7:09 PM
(Edited: 4/14/2011 9:55 PM)

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kuja_killer

Player (48)

Joined: 3/2/2007
Posts: 123
Location: Lake Havasu, Arizona

oh yea i forgot about that whoops, 1 extra frame lost about getting the very first blade, just 1 pixel away from hitting him, really sucked. :( i do know it's important of course to get to the center of the room as much as possible on normal runs to make mm walk as little as possible. But no, i did not actually finish with blade, finished with the ball, had 4 HP left. cause i only did 2 damage with the blade instead of 3 at one point.

Posted: 4/12/2011 7:44 PM

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diggidoyo

Experienced player (580)

Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon

Ah ok. Still roughly what I thought you were doing. You've probably noticed this already, but using the Blade isn't exactly "free" damage. Although it can hit him while he's invincible, it renews his invincibility timer. It restarts once the most recent shot hits him. That's why I never use the second Blade shot on him. Let's me use the Rebound Striker for 4 damage again 3 frames sooner. In any event, the new strategy I use is still slightly faster. I'm dumping the replay now but it will take a while to get to that part (every time I check for desyncs or dump it has to start from the beginning). the dumped frames play at 60 FPS, but the program I'm using to combine the audio and video (Windows Live Movie Maker) degrades it to 30 FPS. What program do you use?

Posted: 4/12/2011 9:06 PM

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diggidoyo

Experienced player (580)

Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon

Alright, here it is. 16 frame improvement from my original battle. Link to video

Posted: 4/13/2011 11:23 AM

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Sir_VG

He/Him

Player (39)

Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower

diggidoyo wrote:

Ah ok. Still roughly what I thought you were doing. You've probably noticed this already, but using the Blade isn't exactly "free" damage. Although it can hit him while he's invincible, it renews his invincibility timer. It restarts once the most recent shot hits him. That's why I never use the second Blade shot on him. Let's me use the Rebound Striker for 4 damage again 3 frames sooner. In any event, the new strategy I use is still slightly faster. I'm dumping the replay now but it will take a while to get to that part (every time I check for desyncs or dump it has to start from the beginning). the dumped frames play at 60 FPS, but the program I'm using to combine the audio and video (Windows Live Movie Maker) degrades it to 30 FPS. What program do you use?

If you can, use VirtualDub to merge the video and audio. Otherwise, I think avisynth does it as well, but I'm considerably less familiar with it.

Taking over the world, one game at a time. Currently TASing: Nothing

Posted: 4/13/2011 1:01 PM

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ALAKTORN

He/Him

Player (99)

Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy

diggidoyo wrote:

Alright, here it is. 16 frame improvement from my original battle. Link to video

nice :)

Posted: 4/13/2011 1:15 PM

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kuja_killer

Player (48)

Joined: 3/2/2007
Posts: 123
Location: Lake Havasu, Arizona

yea i personally use the VirtuaDub program myself. load the AVI, under the sound tab there's this "audio from other source" click --- select the .WAV from dolphin then i gotta go to "compression" and make sure to set the compression to the right codec ( i always pick the Xvid codec ) ..then File --- Save as AVI. VERY Important that ya always set the compresison thing so that it doesn't ever spit out a 500 MB file. But well for me, i dont know why the audio is always lagging behind (it always did that in dolphin anyways in the WAV file, i dont know if it's because the default HLE audio is slower and laggy compared to LLE audio or whatever. I have no clue whatsoever. :( i still seriously wish the dev people would add audio automatically when you record an AVI directly from the emu, it's still NOT present in the latest dolphin revision...im afraid they aren't ever going to do it. Every other emulator in existence records audio and video both at the same time so you never need 2 seperate files, nes snes gameboy, genesis, n64....why not dolphin. *sad*

Posted: 4/15/2011 9:13 PM

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diggidoyo

Experienced player (580)

Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon

Here's a little Pump action. Link to video

Posted: 4/15/2011 10:59 PM

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scrimpeh

Editor, Skilled player (1405)

Joined: 3/31/2010
Posts: 2086

Hm, very interesting route choice. Have you checked to see that one's faster? Unassisted speedruns typically go down instead. Regardless, it was enjoyable as always.

Posted: 4/15/2011 11:34 PM

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diggidoyo

Experienced player (580)

Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon

Yes, the top route is faster by almost 2 seconds. But it requires rush jet to be effecient, which the unassisted speeruns have never had at this point. Also, the lower route is alot easier. But the problem with the lower route is the backward pushing water screen is entirely too long. The time gained in the forward pushing screens isn't enough to make up for the time lost. I've tried several ideas (jumping, rush jet, left+right, etc) to glitch past it, but nothing wor.

Posted: 4/17/2011 11:14 PM

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mag3b

Joined: 9/13/2008
Posts: 30

I appreciate all the precision shots in these WIPs. Especially when they're enemies that don't even need to be killed. I find that they're really adding to the entertainment value.

Posted: 4/18/2011 9:59 AM

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ALAKTORN

He/Him

Player (99)

Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy

at 0:52, is it possible to call Rush sooner and jump over to the top platform? (where that tube enemy is), then after that, either using another Rush or the wheel-climbing weapon, is it possible to go up to the next screen? or does that downward waterflow prevent you from such big jumps? anyway, another nice segment, did you lose frames when moonwalking?

Posted: 4/18/2011 10:08 AM

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diggidoyo

Experienced player (580)

Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon

Interesting theory. I'll try it out, but I'm pretty sure Mega Man needs to be on a ladder to trigger an upwards screen transition. And the purple blobs that the mets shoot in Pump Man's stage give Mega Man the same running properties as ice, so I don't lose any frames when moonwalking short distances.

Posted: 4/18/2011 12:00 PM

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ALAKTORN

He/Him

Player (99)

Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy

diggidoyo wrote:

Interesting theory. I'll try it out, but I'm pretty sure Mega Man needs to be on a ladder to trigger an upwards screen transition.

I don't know if it means anything but in Mega Man 9 water boss stage there are Y screen transitions without ladders, in the part where you go on top of floating bubbles worth a try, anyway

Posted: 4/18/2011 12:12 PM

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diggidoyo

Experienced player (580)

Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon

Yeah, that's the first thing I thought of when you mentioned it, too. The only problem is with that stage, you have to actually be standing on a bubble at the top (small or large) to trigger the screen change. Jumping or standing on rush jet doesn't change the screen and you simple go above the screen as normal. I'm pretty sure that's what's going to happen here, but as you said, its definately worth a try.

Posted: 4/21/2011 10:16 AM

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diggidoyo

Experienced player (580)

Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon

Myth busted. I can get up to that side with the Rush Coil, but Mega Man just travels above the screen when I try to use the wheel cutter or rush jet. Only way to initiate the screen change is to touch the top of the ladder. As for my current progress, I'm hoping to have Solar Man complete this weekend. For the past few stages (Strike Man, Sheep Man, and Pump Man) my overall time has been faster than the current records (RTA and TAS), but some of the screens are too simple and have no improvements. However, I'm excited to see Solar Man played back, because so far, I've been able to improve every screen. Right now, I'm at the part I've been dreading since the beginning. There's a laser flower enemy about 2/3's of the way through the level that sits in an area that makes it impossible to jump over. Since it's invunerable to all forms of damage while it's charging, all of the speedruns I've seen simply hop on Rush Jet, face backwards, and take the hit. So far I've found faster routes around/through everything without taking damage, so hopefully I can find a way past this part as well. Then I just have the Wily levels remaining.

Posted: 4/21/2011 10:23 AM

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ALAKTORN

He/Him

Player (99)

Joined: 10/19/2009
Posts: 2527
Location: Italy

can you make a screenshot of the screen with that enemy? maybe we could help

Posted: 4/21/2011 10:35 AM

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diggidoyo

Experienced player (580)

Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon

Sure. I'll post one up later today after work.

Posted: 4/21/2011 12:15 PM

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kuja_killer

Player (48)

Joined: 3/2/2007
Posts: 123
Location: Lake Havasu, Arizona

got it covered, this repersents the issue.

--------------- i've been really getting an urge to redo chill TAS again maybe... because i was doing some tests last night and got extra time on the screens with time bombs. Instead of using the wheel up the ladder on the 1st bomb screen, rush jet appears a tiny bit ahead, and same with the next bomb screen when jumping off the last ice block "after" the whole jet-fire-wheel stuff. So it's possible to get chill TAS down to 1:28:40, maybe even 1:28:38 or 36 out of pure luck

Posted: 4/21/2011 12:55 PM

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diggidoyo

Experienced player (580)

Joined: 1/27/2011
Posts: 427
Location: Oregon

Thanks kuja. Yeah that's the spot. My choices are to either take the hit as shown, or to shoot him at thr first frame he becomes vulnerable. I'll try both and go with whatever is faster (even by 1 frame). As for the Chill Man run, you're right, there's definately a few more frames to squeeze out. I'm surprised the wheel cutter is a frame or two slower, but the reason is simple. The wheel is useless until it is embedded into the far wall, while using the coil or jet can clear the corner on the first possible frame. When jumping on rush jet, there's a single frame spot on the top of his head where Mega Man can touch, but still fall on the next frame. You CAN jump on this frame, and you must use this spot to get most effiecency out of the Rush Jet. Good luck with you run. I think I'm done doing the Time Trials for now. Only interested in finishing what I started.