Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Here it is! Faster than my old version up to this point! My old movie took 500,000 frames just to start flying the airship. This new movie gets on the Blackjack, re-arranges my party, buys some Warp Stones, and starts flying in just barely under 500,000 frames. I think I gained time on my Number 128 fight, too, but I didn't measure it. The reason this movie is over a minute faster is because I didn't mess around with the Flan and I don't take the Break Blade.
SMV File:
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1470/07-29-06.smv
This URL is for a zip with 6 save states within the movie.
I'm sorry, I used YSI.
Since I'm documenting everything...
* It is barely faster to talk to Cid from his front rather than his left side. The automatic 2 steps that you have to take are slightly slower than taking them yourself.
* However it is 8 frames faster to step on the topmost trigger that makes Setzer appear. In this case, unlike the previous case with Cid, the forced steps that you have to take are faster.
* By leaving the subscreen 1 frame late (at 457176) I am able to get a pre-emptive attack with just one frame of delay! At first I hurried through the menu AFAP but then I didn't get any pre-emptives in the first 30 frames that I tried. Go figure.
* Close slots early trick: If you press 'A' to close the slot window exactly 1 frame before the 3rd reel stops moving then the window will close while the 3rd reel is misaligned. This has no effect besides saving me 1 frame. :)
Up next: a bunch of text boxes, then me running from a bunch of pre-emptive attacks, followed by a bunch more text boxes and finally the signifcantly more interesting Imperial Banquet.
Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Atma wrote:
The ending is still wicked lame since you pretty much just joker doom everything that gets in your way.
Nope! Doom gets hit by Vanish/Doom. And if you hate instant death, I'm actually going to do 44,000 points of damage to Goddess. The Guardian and Inferno both deserve Joker Doom, although the Guardian is a cool boss. As for my opinion of the tiers: go watch the end of the Chrono Trigger movie. Ugh. If I knew of a way around having to level Magus for 20 minutes, I'd do it. And if I knew of a better way to dispatch Lavos besides tape down the A button and go get a Coke, I'd do that too. (Beautiful run otherwise though. I just wish CT was more exploitable somehow.)
It would probably add about 15 minutes to my time if I were to use Offering+Fixed Dice for the Guardian, Inferno, Poltrgeist, and the tiers. I could theoretically use a Force Shld instead of an ill-gotten Paladin Shld too. I could then modify a copy of my finished run to use this strategy if there is demand for it. These movies are made for entertainment after all. But it really is just a waste of the clock for no good reason. It's not like I'm doing a LLG or a SCC. My goal is to reach the credits as fast as possible. If using the sketch glitch on the Chimera just a few pages back had panned out the way I wanted it to then I could've had a really fast time. :P Since this game has so many crazy fans I'm sure one of them will do a NMG+LLG TAS. (But they should also wait and see if the GBA version is more suitable!)
Bob A: No one will ever know if Kutan is faster in all situations. If I were to have Locke use a desperation move instead of a lightning rod against the TunnelArmr then Kutan would be looking pretty darn good. However, Kutan without Sabin in the WOR is both slow and difficult to play. You won't beat the Tentacles without either over-levelling or using magic-casting items. Kutan is a vegitable and you don't have have the chance to equip relics or espers on Edgar. So unless you start that battle by summoning Phantom from an item, you're dead. Then Edgar pretty much has to spend 10 minutes killing the Tentacles one by one with his Drill. Adding Sabin gives you a fighting chance. Adding a dozen Fire Rods or FlameShlds makes the battle reasonable. I think I can say though, the the total impact that Kutan has on my run is less than 3 minutes in either direction. I don't know which direction.
Wandering Road: 4 hours. I save boatloads of time by gunning straight for Kefka's Tower. Thanks to the Tentacles being such a pain, the sketch glitch more than pays for itself right there. And as I do the sketch glitch I can teach Sabin most of Vanish+Doom at no additional cost. That lets me skip one of Mog or Gau. Then, my Edgar strategy lets me skip the other. Normally, Mog is a sweet deal because he recovers his cost by saving you a few random encounters. However, Mog is only worth it if you need his Snare. He isn't worth just for the sake of stopping some encounters in the final dungeon.
Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1680/08-19-06.smv
I found a way to make the 4 minute 'timed' sequence interesting. :)
Each map transition causes 1-2 frames of lag, however, I cut the chocobo tighter at the mountain pass and enter Vector from the left side instead of the right. That saves me a whole step!
Erokky noted during his run that Leo can kill Kefka with 4 hits instead of 5 if Leo uses 4 Ice Rods. Not only is the Ice Rod animation shorter than Leo's X-Fight or Shock anyway, but you get to see Leo's magic-using animation which he's not supposed to have. :) (In the story of the game Leo refuses to use magic.) That's what the Back Guard is for. I can buy an Ice Rod with it.
By the game clock I'm no worse off than 2 minutes behind Erokky, which is fine for now. We weren't competing on time anyway. I have a little bit of 'borrowed time' from Kutan that'll hurt later in WOR. But since I'm using the sketch glitch and taking Sabin I'll be able to turn some of that borrowed time into earned time. Going straight from Daryll's Tomb to Kefka's Tower is going to look awesome in the video since no sane player would ever do that. :) My Falcon -> Input End will be faster than Erokky's published run. I'm still shooting for sub-4 which was my goal in my first post. It's easily possible if I start over but I'd rather finish this run first.
It's been 70 days, and I'm itching for news!
I'd gladly take an "I've been too busy to work on this", but any new information on the run and confirmation that you're still alive would be great!
Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA
:)
WIP into the middle of the Floating Continent
(The same movie from the Imperial Banquet)
Everything is going according to plan so far. Thamasa went quick and the FlameEater didn't even get one hit in. Leo's fight was improved by 4 Ice Rods, yay! Even though I used the same Ultros4 strategy as Erokky my version was faster since I didn't have to wait for Ultros to smack Setzer. (Erokky had Gau, and Gau doesn't have fight, so his third party member couldn't punch Setzer. In my run Relm punches Setzer to get the Muddle-Doom trick off faster.)
I wanted to post my WIP from AFTER the FC but manipulating the random encounters is being untypically strange right now. Remember, I need one of the two rare encounters next to finish learning Phantom (optimal), and then I need a Dragon encounter to do the glitch with. But for whatever reason the FC just doesn't want to give me what I want today. I just tried 50 battles, didn't see one Dragon, and they're supposed to be a 6/64 chance. Argh. I'll figure it out. (Or someone else will! I have to give Nitrodon, flagitious, and Erokky credit for their contributions: spell ordering, Muddle-Doom, and Ultros3, off the top of my head.)
I really, really, really, will finish this. I'm over 75% now. I was just distracted by some new games that came out. Now I'm back to working on this as normal and the part that I was dreading, the IAF, is over. :) It's all fun stuff left now!
Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Bob A wrote:
Yay!
Hmm... it looks like you purchase the ice rods suboptimally.
Uh-oh. What did I do wrong? Is it while I'm selling items? Because I decided at the last minute to spare the Wall Ring. And I'm positive that tapping the right button every other frame is faster than holding it when I'm trying to choose '8' rods.
I skip over two items while selling items: the Wall Ring and the Running Shoes. The Wall Ring is still playable maybe during the Tentacles. And I think it was worth the 3 frames not to sell it since I have the excess gold. The Running Shoes are saved because I need those for the IAF and FC. I don't think they save enough time to have made it worth going into that guy's basement to get them, but at least they weren't an obviously bad choice like the Wall Ring. And I've been using the shoes all along. If I ever do a second run I think it is actually worth it to take the pair that is located at the top of Zozo's tower in Terra's room. Good places for RS: IAF, Flame Eater for a sometimes faster 4th rod, 128, Cranes, Tentacles for immunity, and the tiers.
Back to the shop! :) I realize now that while I was rearranging my inventory during the Cranes, I should've pushed these items closer to the bottom (but still near the top) so that I wouldn't have to skip over them. Since it takes 3 frames to scroll past one item that means I lose 6 frames from having my inventory out of order. (Or, I lose 3, and then lose 3 more frames because of yet another late decision about the Wall Ring.) It might be possible that these frames weren't lost at all, since I won't have to scroll way down to equip them later? I'm afraid to put them too low on my list because the Sketch Glitch will wipe out some of my items. Either way, luck manipulation takes way more than 6 frames, so I don't regret it. Or do you see something else that is actually much more time? Thank you for watching!
Wow. Mirager AND RoyalShock on Kefka... the Crasshoppr fight... Locke the merchant, and general KUTAN the traitor!
One hit point for all! HAHAHA!
It's all the small embellishments that were missing from the published run that I like about this movie. You ran around during the pre-banquet countdown, checked in on Kefka, and used the toilet.
Good stuff all around.
The only concern I wanted to bring up was the usage of a potion in the Imperial Base. Sabin uses a potion on himself during battle, IIRC, but wouldn't it have been faster to use the potion in the menu before the battle?
I wouldn't know for sure because it's been so long, but can't you press up to select 11, and then go down to 8?
It only lets you do that if you have enough money to buy 11 (33000 GP), which I don't think he did.
Why is the item selling screen all messed up, by the way?
Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Dromiceius wrote:
The only concern I wanted to bring up was the usage of a potion in the Imperial Base. Sabin uses a potion on himself during battle, IIRC, but wouldn't it have been faster to use the potion in the menu before the battle?
Thank you for the compliments! I think I remember writing something about that battle, and I remember recording that one particular battle, but I'm starting to forget it. In my physical notebook I wrote: "The Gruntx2 Cadetx2 Kefka battle w/out Shadow was hard, BB absolutely required." Now that I think about it, I think I needed to manipulate the enemies in a certain way so that they'd kill themselves on my Black Belt. And since I had to manipulate multiple enemies I don't think I had many options. It's possible that I just forgot to heal before hand. Do I have RunningShoes on in that fight? If I do then using the Potion in-battle is faster, else going through several sub-menus later (or earlier) is faster.
The shop is the shop. :) I don't know why the shop screen behaves differently than every other item list in the game. The shop also has that bug where if you move between the buy and sell menus too fast (maybe press A+B together) you can freeze the game. Cool.
So... Floating Continent random encounters. On the 'WOB' side all enounters are taken from pack 112, which is a very special pack. On the 'WOR' side of the FC random encounters are taken from pack 419 (all Naughty formations.)
Pack 112 is the only 4-pack in the entire game that uses the "randomly add 3" flag on its members. This gives me the ability to choose who I fight! Normally when a random encounter happens my current position will be used to choose a 4-pack. Out of that 4-pack one of 4 formations will be choosen. I cannot manipulate this because it is dependant on the number of steps that I take in hostile territory. (Hence, Erokky and I get almost all the same fights despite the differences in our runs! Funny how that works out.) However, because the "randomly add 3" flag is set, a random number from 0..3 will be added to the formation number before I fight it. That part that makes me happy because I can use $00BE to choose which number gets added to my formation number! I'm especially happy because the FC is coincidentally the only part of the game where I need to encounter a certain random monster.
Pack 112 contains these formations: 177, 180, 183, and 185. The formations that I'm interested in are the following: 185 (1xDragon, my glitch formation); 187 (2xBehemoth, worth 6AP); and 188 (2xNinja, 1xWirey Dragon, also worth 6AP). The Dragon I can thankfully garuntee myself whenever my initial formation is 183 or 185. But the two formations that I need to learn Vanish require me to start with 185 before I can manipulate them. Remember, the initial formation number is determined by the number of steps I take between battles, which is essentially constant.
My plan was to flee until I had an opportunity for a 6AP formation. With any other 5AP formation I would learn Vanish and the rest of my sketch glitch spells on Setzer and Relm all simultaneously! Setzer and Relm would then remove their espers, Sabin would take Shoat, gain 20 AP, and learn Bio+Break. With those spells the sketch glitch becomes armed. Finally I would manipulate just one Dragon to do the glitch on.
But for some reason the game just hates me. I always get 180 as my base formation. I have yet to see a formation higher than 183. I don't know why. Every other time I've played this game, emulator or console, including my test runs, I've always had a variety of enemies. I don't know why the random number generator is being so non-random. I always thought that the four formations in a 4-pack were of even probability (25%) but maybe this is not the case? Even if one was 1/8 and one was 4/8 then I still shouldn't be seeing so much of one formation. Removing my Charm Bangle after the movie ended still caused me to fight three 180s in a row! So something is up and I need to figure out what it is.
Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Yeah, I figured something was up when Djibriel listed the probability of each formation. According to him (without luck manipulation) the odds of a Dragon are 5/64 and the odds of one of the two special 6AP formations are 1/64 each. So with luck manipulation my real odds are 6/16 for the Dragon and 1/16 for the two special formations.
Just for kicks I figured out what my next 18 battles would be:
183, 7(180), 177, 180, 183, 177, 177, 183, 3(177), 180
Then I tried again after removing my Charm Bangle:
183, 7(180), 177, 180, 180, 183, 177, 177, 183, 3(177), 180
So, it's actually not based on the number of steps* after all. By removing my Charm Bangle I actually caused one extra encounter besides taking many fewer steps to trigger these 19 encounters. (I want more steps between random encounters.) And the pattern actually resumed once that second 180 formation was over. At each step of my experiment I reloaded and walked in a different direction for two reasons. One: fighting a pair of Ninjas (180) doesn't tell me if I really have a 177 or a 180 so I need to re-manipulate that formation to something conclusive. And two: I was simultaneously testing if my x/y coordinate had any effect. (Nope.)
*Not the game's step count. I mean the number of random variables used on each step. So I guess the formation picker doesn't use the same random index as the random enounter chooser.
I also tried taking Shadow, hitting switches, and putting the Charm Bangle back on after taking it off. None of these things had any effect on whatever my index was. I'm going to try manipulating $7E1F6D next.
I also used Geiger's to copy the dissassembly from C00000-C0FFFF and C10000-C1FFFF to a text file. But then all I did was ctrl-F for '$11E0' and look for instructions that wrote a value to $7E11E0. I only found one match and it was a LDA, which I'm pretty sure means copy $7E11E0 into A, which is a read. So either the game stores the formation number in a dynamic address, which just happens to be $7E11E0 when the game runs, or I don't know how to use this debugger. (When I actually ran the game with breakpoints I was getting at least 3 writes to this memory address when a battle started on the FC.)
00/0000-1FFF points to the same RAM as 7E/0000-1FFF. The command at C0/C263 stores the formation number, and the routine starting at C2/30E8 deals with the randomness of the encounters on the FC among other things.
As for the extra 180 you fought, my best guess is that you forgot to write it down the first time. As far as I know, there is no way to change the order of formations.
Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Nitrodon wrote:
As far as I know, there is no way to change the order of formations.
Yup! Clerical error. Assassin just PMed me his dissassembly of C0/C496 and C0/C36C. The random numbers generated specifically for random encounter formations are a little different than the random numbers used in other places. First, you get all 256 numbers in the random number table in order. Then, on calls 257-512 to this function, you get the same 256 numbers in order plus 23. Hopefully no one ever gets into more than 512 random encounters between power cycles. :) $1FA2 contains the current index and $1FA3 contains the addition (23, 46, 69, ..., 253, 21, etc).
There are five things I can do to increment $1FA2 and change the formation:
* Get into a random battle on the overworld. +1
* Get into a random battle inside a dungeon. +1
* Get into a random battle on the veldt. +1
* Reset the game. +1
* Load a save file. +13
* (hidden sixth option: call C0/A4AB, which is also +1)
The good news is that there is a save point directly on my path, as in zero steps out of my way. I could probably also do multiple resets and then a load to get +15, +22, or +whatever I need. However, formation 183, which can be manipulated into a 185, appears as my 5th and 8th battle on the FC. It's a giant waste of 5 AP and approximately 30 seconds but I think I'd be better off winning my first 4 random encounters and doing the glitch right away. I'll try now.
EDIT: My first Dragon is 11 battles away. After 14 (doh!) my next is at 22. If I didn't have to kill 5 things instead of 4 to set the glitch up then a reset could've saved me some time. Obviously I'll take the CB off.
EDIT2: Complete WIP! The Dragon crashed again! Other than that the WOB-FC was perfect too. I took off the CB and got right up to the Atma Weapon with exactly enough battles to enounter the Dragon with no wasted steps. (Then I put my CB back on to save a Naughty later.) The Dragon appeared, I did the glitch, and then back to the black screen that changes resolutions rapidly. Ugh. I thought I had the cause of that figured out before. Does the Sketch Glitch not record properly in some cases or something? Or maybe this movie will play correctly if I watch it from scratch?
Would anyone happen to know the RAM address for the random encounter check? I understand that 7E1F6E is the step counter, however im trying to find the address that runs a check on this number. Occording to the alogrithms FAQ, the value at 7E1F6E is divised by 256 and then checked against another value that is randomly generated each step.
I've been able to find the value for the address that is randomly generated but cannot find its location. I've been using cheat engine to debug Snes9x itself, but to no avail.
int i;
for (i=0; i < 100; i++) // 100 is arbitrary rally
{
unsigned short bigaccum = S9xGetWord(0x7e1f6e,true);
bigaccum += S9xGetWord(0xc0c29f, true) * i; // I don't think this is the right address all the time
int b1 = bigaccum >> 8;
int b3 = S9xGetByte(0x001fa4,true);
int b4 = S9xGetByte(0xc0fd00 + S9xGetByte(0x001fa1,true)+i+1,true);
signed int b5 = (unsigned char)(b4+b3) - b1;
if (b5 < 0)
break;
}
if (i == 0)
strcat(data, "Uh-oh");
else
sprintf(data, "%d steps", i);
Here's the code for my "Encounter counter" plugin. It's not 100% accurate, in particular b4 should probably be zeroed every once in a while. But it does an adequare job in predicting random encoutners. Short demo AVI (32 seconds).
S9xGetWord reads a 16 bit number, S9xGetByte reads an 8 bit number at the given address. Ignore the 'true' parameter.
There are five things I can do to increment $1FA2 and change the formation:
* Get into a random battle on the overworld. +1
* Get into a random battle inside a dungeon. +1
* Get into a random battle on the veldt. +1
Joined: 11/17/2005
Posts: 278
Location: Massachusetts, USA
erokky wrote:
ie. GET INTO A RANDOM BATTLE ANYWHERE
That was a joke. :) In order to manipulate my next random encounter, I have to get into 8 random encounters. It's not a clever joke, don't think about it too hard.
DeHackEd - That's pretty cool and I like the video. But since you can't manipulate the number of steps between battles in any meaningful way I don't see how you could use it in a run. Or can you? Because I just walk, reach a fight, and if I don't get a pre-emptive first try then I go back and manipulate it. Theres no way to even save myself the trouble of one re-record by knowing when my next fight will be. And I'm obviously taking as few steps as possible on maps where random encounters can happen.
Just in case anyone missed it, I edited my post on the previous page last night to include a same-day WIP. The WIP gets right up to the Atma Weapon and does the Sketch Glitch on a Dragon. However, my WIP should cause S9Xw-improvement9 to barf even when watched from beginning to end on a 'warm' ROM. A few pages ago I was having this problem too. I'm going to try to find out now what causes the crash since it has worked before.
I've seen some weird behaviour which I cannot adequately explain, especially in the Narshe Mines when Terra makes her escape at the start of the game. I know the program isn't entirely correct, but it's too weird to be explained by the mistakes I know of.
Really I made it for my own advantage. The enemy HP display came out of your exact kill of that boss in Zozo, since I wanted to see it and thought it would be a good feature for the whole movie. The encounter counter came up later.
And as for its usefulness, it's probably best targetted at a viewer. How many of you knew this? (Taken from erokky's currently published run)
