Joined: 10/17/2007
Posts: 63
I was wondering... -You use unnecessarily long charging for Heat Man's weapon in Air Man, for example. Is there a reason for this? -Can Item-2 push you into ceilings? Seeing you can zip with stationary Item-1s, this should not be impossible, unless there's something I don't know about. That way, you could zip in some extra places without having to change your weapon, possibly resulting in extra savings where it would not because of the weapon switch. -Can the start of the third room of Clash Man be zipped? -Can the ceiling in Clash Man's entrance be zipped? Another possibility I thought of is to make Mega Man "lag warp" (referring the second movie that demonstrates the odd zip into air) into ceilings or other solid objects that cannot be normally zipped. Air Man is a bit more boring because of that long walk you had to make. It's probably a fair trade-off, though. Otherwise, looking good! Loved the Item-2 improvement.
Joined: 4/2/2008
Posts: 70
1) Not really but that's easy enough to hex edit later. I haven't yet bothered to count how many frames of charging you need, but it doesn't affect the speed at all so I'm going to leave it for later. 2) The normal TAS does this but it involves a spike ceiling, so I don't think so for the hard patch since you won't have enough invincibility time to clear the spikes. 3) I don't think so. I tried for almost an hour to get platforms in the right position but I couldn't figure out a way. Walls are too close together. 4) Partially but you lose time switching back to Item-1 for it. The lag warp relates to the falling platforms in the previous screen, so you could only do that in that one spot. I don't know yet if it's abusable for any speed gain or just a curiosity. Edit: 0xAC contains how many frames you've been holding a Proto Charge shot. Release the button when it reads at least 0x5F and you'll get a fully charged shot (it increments it before the button press is checked, I guess). So 96 frames. Oddly enough it goes all the way up to 0xFF and stops, despite there being no difference once you get to 0x5F.
Joined: 10/17/2007
Posts: 63
Actually, 2-4 are very related. I toyed around with the idea that you could zip Clash Man's entrance with Item-2, but I suppose it's not really possible to zip from a moving Item-2. Or is it? (With the few pixels' worth of treshold...) Technically, Item-2 would be even more convenient than Item-1 since it can push you under and then push into the ceiling. Assuming that it's even possible, that is. I haven't watched the normal TAS yet, but I guess I should. The lag warp may indeed relate closely on those two factors (lag & platforms). However, these conditions are met close to Heat Man's entrance, too. I don't know if the lone shell enemy is enough to trigger that, though, even in theory. One thing is for certain, though; the occurance of the glitch is not restricted on the falling platforms' height.
Joined: 9/26/2007
Posts: 55
Location: Michigan
Interesting discussion here, I wonder how glitched out this can get. Upon checking your DailyMotion videos I noticed something though, in Air Man's stage about 48 seconds in. You just make a tiny hop to fall off the bottom of the screen and scroll; I've watched just about every Mega Man TAS made and isn't it better to jump real high earlier since the longer you're in the air the faster you fall, so you might hit the scroll a frame or two quicker? Apologies beforehand if I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, but hey I'm really enjoying keeping up with your progress on this so thanks. =)
Joined: 4/2/2008
Posts: 70
I'm sure there's a million little tweaks like that that I need to make, I noticed a couple spots in Heat Man's stage where I could be more accurate and I think I could still shave a few frames off of the last section of Flash Man with better Item 2 placement. And if I could figure out how to do the cloud section with one less charge of Item 1, I could avoid a 22 frame delay just after the drop. As it is it's faster to do it that way to avoid weapon swapping and having to shoot the second can pillar, by about 78 frames. Actually, now that I think about it, if I lose less than 22 frames shooting and jumping through the first can pillar, I could do that instead... hmm... I'm gonna finish the rest of this first though (at least up to Wily's Castle), since so little of the rest of the game is decided by randomness (Heat Man and Air Man are the only boss fights, I'm reasonably sure) splicing stuff together later shouldn't be more than a hex edit here and there to adjust for subpixel positions.
Joined: 9/26/2007
Posts: 55
Location: Michigan
I'm not sure how the Item-2 accelerates but maybe you'd get more use out of having a slightly longer last run than those short ones into the gates. On a 99% unrelated note I wonder why there isn't a Rock Man 2 AIR Impossible Kaizo romhack out there.
Joined: 4/2/2008
Posts: 70
Funny you should mention the acceleration, I spent a little time figuring it out last night. It starts off at 1/16th pixel/frame, accelerates 1/32nd pixel/frame/frame, capping out at 2 pixels/frame (Mega Man walks at 22/16th pixel/frame, for reference). So it takes 62 frames for it to get to full speed, and consumes 'fuel' at 24 frames/bar. Obviously short trips are less useful, but since while standing on it your walking velocity is ADDED to the sled velocity (at least until you reach the front edge), even short trips save some time. The short trip after the sliver spitter (or whatever the hell those things are called) is useful if only as a platform, trying to simply jump over it will cause you pain.
cstrakm
He/Him
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Joined: 4/4/2008
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http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/293473250/RNChardC.fcm I played the Crashman's stage. My run is 2 seconds faster than UraniumAnchor's run.
Joined: 10/17/2007
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Very nice. I wonder if that could be used in other places... I never thought there'd be an exit in that direction.
Joined: 9/26/2007
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Location: Michigan
Wow cstrakm, great work tricking the scrolling like that. =)
Joined: 4/2/2008
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Wow, that's a nice find. I'll have to work that into the run later when I go back and tweak the stage, there's a couple other changes I need to make to it as well. Also solves the Item 1 'problem'. Seems to be the 'lag making an extra exit' bug. I'll have to think about other places you might be able to use that, though nothing comes to mind right this minute.
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Joined: 5/12/2005
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Here's the movie I made, for some reason my ROM checksum is different even I used Rockman 2 - Dr. Wily no Nazo (J).nes and latest patch from the IKA's site.. but everything seems to work out correctly so no worries :) EDIT1 I found out that it is faster to hit 2 times per one shot in a correct position in flashman fight. In this movie I used that method once because I didn't find a fast place where to abuse it anymore and didn't get any new ideas so I decide to link my movie here but I still think there is some improvements I haven't noticed yet. Heatman = 123 frames gained Airman = 87 frames gained Flashman = 94 frames gained Total = 304 frames gained Movie: Flashman beaten
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UraniumAnchor wrote:
Wow, that's a nice find. I'll have to work that into the run later when I go back and tweak the stage, there's a couple other changes I need to make to it as well. Also solves the Item 1 'problem'. Seems to be the 'lag making an extra exit' bug. I'll have to think about other places you might be able to use that, though nothing comes to mind right this minute.
It's also known as screenscrolling found by FinalFighter a long time ago. It is extremely rare in real Rockman 2 but in the no constancy there should more objects in the screen so you're going get equipped with higher success rate. Minimal requirement can be like 2xitem1 and 2 enemies to make it to happen (I spent over a year to do that in the Crashman stage myself) Here's the full list what causes it to happen (scroll a bit down):http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=325&start=700
Joined: 4/2/2008
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Did some work on this over the weekend. I'm not very satisfied with Bubble Man, mostly the fight itself is lagged to hell. Metal Man's stage could use some more precision and the fight is a bit slower to start up than I'd like. Workbench Bubble Man Metal Man
Joined: 10/17/2007
Posts: 63
Sorry if this has an obvious (negatory) answer, but why did you not use Item-1 at the start of (=entire first room) Bubble Man? I'm rather sure that zipping would not only be possible, but also recommended & fast. Unless you happen to die when you reach the corner of the room... Funny way to find Metal Man, though. :) Shinryuu: I see you pulled the classic stunt on Heat Man. Nice improvements, overall.
Joined: 4/2/2008
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I'm curious where you saw a zip spot that would have saved me more than about 4-5 blocks? The constant weapon switching would have killed any gain I had. :) Keep in mind you need more than just a corner to do a nice long zip in this game, you need something more like:
  |
  |
  +---+>>>>>>>>
  ^   |
  Z   +--------
There's a way to manipulate Bubble Man into not throwing any of his Spin Wheels which are the biggest cause of lag in that fight, so I'll definitely be redoing that section unless Shinryuu beats me to it. Edit: It IS possible to abuse invincibility time, but you only have a 4 frame window. This is the only zip spot I was able to find, but setting it up as demonstrated ends up losing you over 100 frames over simply walking through. Better manipulation of the enemies involved may prove this to still be a viable method. Bubble Man Zip This one is much more easily done in the Normal Patch and does save quite a bit of time.
Joined: 10/17/2007
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So you need to have a sort of inside corner to do a full zip, huh? Alright. I was under the impression that start button manipulates that, but it seems I was wrong about that. Anyway I was toying with the idea that instead of using Air Shooter, you'd just take an item from the start and went for it. Lag might hurt in that case, in the very least. I'll sleep on it and think about it again tomorrow.
Joined: 4/2/2008
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Workbench Quick Man There's some lag frames at the end of the Quick Man fight that I'd like to get rid of but I'm reasonably sure the stage itself is pretty optimized unless somebody finds another bug spot.
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UraniumAnchor wrote:
Edit: It IS possible to abuse invincibility time, but you only have a 4 frame window. This is the only zip spot I was able to find, but setting it up as demonstrated ends up losing you over 100 frames over simply walking through. Better manipulation of the enemies involved may prove this to still be a viable method. Bubble Man Zip
Which was indeed done in cstrakm's video. Shown here: http://www.nicovideo.jp/mylist/2867137 (FLV downloadable at Finalfighter's site if you haven't got a Nicovideo account: http://www.yuko2ch.net/rockman/rockmannccstrakm.flv ) Edit: Apparently no longer at Finalfighter's site.
Joined: 10/17/2007
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Second link produces 404 - not found.
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Nice, but that's the normal patch. :D Though I suppose it's debatable which one is more entertaining. I personally like the Hard patch better. Once I finish I'm sure you guys are going to stomp all over my time anyway, but I have other things I can work on that I started years ago and dropped for whatever reason. ;) Edit: Also I just noticed that's just the old one linked before. It's actually got quite a few spots where it can be improved, but yeah, for people who don't want to download the fcm, there you go.
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I did few experiments with this game, basically I should be a bit over 500 frames ahead after that screenscrolling in clashman stage but I wanted to leave it as a demonstration and to show how that scrolling can be done really fast. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/52868662/Shinryuu-rnc.fcm