This submission is 3763 input frames faster than the previous submission for this game. Most of that is from ending input very early in the final race. If the race were played out, it would be 684 frames faster.
Race by Race comments:
Race 1
You want to get the turbo in the first helicopter drop to increase max speed from 170 to 180, then you just need to get gas upgrades. Note that landing on the truck is key here, you don't use gas while on it, and you would run out before the finish if you didn't. Note that the 2nd turbo gotten at the end does nothing in terms of time, no upgrade is advantageous there.
50 frames improved by manipulating the gas upgrades without slowing down
Race 2
Slick tires are picked as the upgrade, so getting a turbo does not help. So it is just a matter of getting gas upgrades. Note that getting a regular gas instead of a high gas is not enough gas, so it seems you have to end with 2 bars of gas
Race 3
Getting brock tires is necessary here. As such, you want to get the turbo as soon as possible. 236 frames improved here by getting gas while getting a turbo drop. This effectively reduces how much time is spent not having turbo.
Note that it would be faster to get turbo from the 1st helicopter drop but it seems to be impossible to get one there. Some drops have all the possible outcomes but this one is limited, even the helpers are impossible, which are very common normally.
There is an alternate strategy to avoid getting gas. You slow down during the 2nd helicopter drop instead of stopping to get gas. It manipulates a 3rd helicopter. You get gas from both and you no longer need a pit stop. However, it is slower overall by about 100 frames.
The invulnerability drop is just for swag.
_Bonus Race
This race is unavoidable, and you want to crash as soon as possible.
4 frames saved by not picking an upgrade since it does not affect the race and you lose it afterwards.
Race 4
354 frames saved here by slowing down on to make the 2nd helicopter drop not fall into the river. This allows me to get a gas upgrade and avoid a pit stop. It seems unfortunate to have to end the race with 4 bars of gas, but getting a low gas just barely misses the finish line.
Race 5
The early input here is just insane. First, you need slick tires and a turbo. While this does not help on max speed, it does affect resting (non-input speed) by bumping it from 80 to 99. This is enough speed that cares will not catch up from behind. Next is to manipulate luck to get a very nice rank early on and get as many cars to crash as possible. Next is to manipulate the final care before input end to not move over in front of you. Then a hi gas must be manipulated 2 helicopters later. At that point there is a magic x position of 96 that somehow avoid all obstacles, causes every car to spawn on obstacles, AND picks up the high gas upgrade to have enough gas to finish the race!
Note that it might seem like an invulnerability on the first helicopter would allow even earlier input but then your resting speed is only 80 and cars will catch up and if not kill you, then cause you to place to low to count.
Special thanks
- juef for his submission as well as finding some useful ram addresses, trying out various strategies and for lots of encouragement
- NEScardinality, who's speedrun made me aware of this game. (An NES game who's mechanics are largely unknown?? How could I resist)
Various notes
Important aspects to the game in no particular order
- You want as little gas as possible at the end of a race, each bar costs 20 frames on the tally screen
- Slick and Brock (typo in the game, should be block) tires are the only relevant upgrades. The engines do nothing, and the rain tires only affect oil slicks which are not a problem anyway.
- Getting slick tires increases max speed from 170 to 180 on every race except 3. Getting turbo also does this. Combining them, or getting 2 turbos gets you to 194 speed, but 194 isn't any faster for some reason
- You lose your upgrade after the bonus screen, so race 4 is with no upgrades
- If you run out of gas while invulnerable, you still die. How mean :(
- Gas seems to just be a function of distance, slowing down, or moving left and right do not affect gas usage
ThunderAxe31: Claiming for judging.
ThunderAxe31: Beating the second loop results in displaying the game ending screen. However, from what I could see in my tests, the second loop si completely redundant. Even the first stage of the second loop resulted exactly the same, despite the ability to select upgrades that aren't available at the beginning of the game. So it just makes sense to raise an exception and consider the first loop sufficient, just like the relative RTA community do.
This movie is very optimized. I tried to improve it in various way, but it's just solid. Accepting for Standard.
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