Submission #10398: Evan0512's NES Space Shuttle Project in 53:48.716

Space Shuttle Project is a 1991 NES game made by Absolute Entertainment. It is one of the few simulation games that were released on the NES. This game has six missions that carry four parts, with an ending message by George H.W. Bush after completing its sixth and final mission for completing Freedom, which never occurred in real life and had evolved into the International Space Station. This movie improves the previous run by 2482 frames (00:41.299), reducing its RTA time to 53:41.361.

At the start of the movie, I pressed the end button for a blank name field, which highlights the generated code and spaceship. I have to enter the correct code and spaceship, which was indicated in white because these codes and spaceships were rolled by one, and there is a stop button.

There were six missions, which were indicated as:

There were four parts to each mission:

First, I turned on the hydrogen and oxygen fuel switch, which activates the bumpers, and opened the orbiter hatch. By going up and down the elevator, there is a fixed time limit to get the number of people to get into the orbiter. In the second mission beyond, it is impossible to go up or down when the bumper clears from right to left; it should clear when it moves right. If the elevator touches the blue bumper, the elevator moves up or down from the impact, losing about 46 frames. The first stage only required one crew member, and the bumpers were moving about 512 frames per revolution. The bumpers get faster (the sixth mission moves 64 frames per revolution), and more crew members will enter the shuttle the later the missions are completed. The second mission requires three crew members, the third and fourth require five, and the fifth and sixth require six.

The launch requires input to the controller. If they missed the white part of the input or went outside of the area, then one HP is lost, and the part restarts. If this happens in the valve part, which requires the user to input the sequence, it loses one HP and moves on to the next part. The track part, from the third mission, takes 38 seconds to complete with a fixed white dot. I have to use the up and down buttons to align with the line. In the vernier part, I have to let the arrows cross the gap five times.

Note: parentheses mean which part was introduced in a mission. These parts move to track (3), roll, vernier (3), thrust, gimbal (4), valves (2), SRB separation, thrust, MECO, ET separation, DMS #1, and DMS #2.

In the first mission, I moved the satellite to the right side of the screen, and once it was set up, the astronaut automatically returned to the space shuttle. A test case was used to prevent a collision with debris, in which the satellite opened its panels and moved slowly. If it completely opens the panels, the stage is successful. I saved time by moving the satellite to the right, where the completion music was played for a shorter time when I pressed A to start the next stage.

In the second, fourth, and sixth missions, the focus was on constructing the space station called Freedom. I controlled the astronaut by moving the d-pad, and the physics caused the astronaut to slow down at a lower deceleration rate due to gravity. The second mission requires four solar panels (1 + 2 + 1), the fourth requires six (4 + 2), and the sixth requires eight (4 + 4), where the second mission takes the whole section, and the fourth and sixth missions add one section each, since the initial sections are complete. In the second mission, I took two deaths, the fourth used six, and the sixth used zero. Each death takes 00:12.163 (or 731 frames), including the oxygen bar filling up. In the sixth mission, there is a passageway that takes the astronaut from the end of the last section back to the start, then returns to the space shuttle to retrieve a solar panel. This saves some time by avoiding deaths, like about 1024 frames (00:17.039). In the fourth and sixth missions, I have to avoid getting crushed by a pink object, which respawns at the same location and loses a life.

In the third mission, I have to let the astronaut retrieve the satellite and repair it, then send it back to orbit. Since the mission starts at frame 63971, the satellite will appear after 00:10.217. When the astronaut exits the space shuttle to send it back to orbit, it automatically lets go of the satellite near the image of Earth. The astronaut then enters the shuttle to complete the stage.

In the fifth mission, I waited until the rock passed the shuttle because immediately letting the astronaut go may get hit by a rock and lose a life, so I waited for 32 frames. I rescued a stranded cosmonaut from the Soviet space station. Touch the station to move up, then return to the shuttle. The wings are solid, so I go around them.

When reentering, these parts go as follows: valves (2), doors, roll, yaw, vernier (3), thrust, yaw, roll, gimbal (4), pitch, align (2), brake, S-turn, brake, S-turn, TAEM, flare, align (2), gear, and brake.

Some parts of the reentry involve a user holding the d-pad button for several seconds.

Some parts of the run need improvement, such as entering the shuttle in the third and fifth missions, which require the user to slow down to avoid bumping into it and repeat this until the astronaut is completely inside. In the space station construction, we need to improve the path of the sixth mission, since the path requires the timing of a moving wall in the last part to open and close, and reduce the number of deaths to 0 to save time (like about 84 frames compared to the previous attempt).

In my first attempt to start a movie, I achieved a run time of 54:24.607, and optimizations from the first attempt that I made are to avoid pressing unlit buttons in the valves part of the launch and reentry, which saves some time. Before the valve part, I have to stop for several frames to manipulate RNG about which pattern is better to press all 6 buttons. In my second attempt, I saved 1117 frames (00:18.586) to 54:06.021, and the third attempt saved 1040 frames (00:17.305). Overall, the time saved between first and third attempts was 00:35.891.

In the sixth mission, having an astronaut refill the oxygen while the screen is scrolling increases the oxygen because the debris is moving while the character is not.

Note that there were flashing sequences in liftoff and reentry in each mission that lasted for 7 and 6-10.5 seconds, respectively.

nymx: Claiming for judging.

nymx: Well, I have seen enough to know that this submission is acceptable. With roughly 3 minutes over the WR, this run look highly optimized. Good job on the improvements.

Accepting over [4205] NES Space Shuttle Project by link_7777 in 54:30.01.

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