Editor, Active player (297)
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Player (68)
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
Bisqwit wrote:
http://bisqwit.iki.fi/kala/snap/solarbobman.gif (420 kB)
I don't know what to say. That is beautiful. Just beautiful. :D
Emulator Coder, Skilled player (1310)
Joined: 12/21/2004
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Bisqwit wrote:
http://bisqwit.iki.fi/kala/snap/solarbobman.gif (420 kB)
Those are neat to see. (But, Firefox must be doing something very wasteful of memory that its memory usage went over 400MB when I tried viewing that 420kb gif in it.)
Joined: 1/13/2006
Posts: 109
This compy couldn't handle that picture very well, either. I wonder why? I don't see how such a small pic could nearly freeze this thing.
Life is like a box of chocolates-when you want peanut butter, all you get is coconut.
Editor, Active player (297)
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Location: Arzareth
kolechovski wrote:
This compy couldn't handle that picture very well, either. I wonder why? I don't see how such a small pic could nearly freeze this thing.
Be sure to unscale the GIF if it displays it scaled. It'll run more smoothly then.
Player (68)
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
Movie is finished and submitted. http://tasvideos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3469
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
I have come to stir up interest in this game. I wasn't going to post here unless I had something substantial to show... but I think this is interesting enough to qualify. Here's my half-completed and generally shabby 100% playthrough. It has only one interesting part about 45 minutes in, which you can skip to directly using this savestate. Note that my fuel tank is nearly empty. God, I love this game. So, how much interest is there in a 100% TAS? Or warpless?
adelikat
He/Him
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player (3573)
Joined: 11/3/2004
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I find this to be an awesome game, but for a TAS it is rather dull. I think the current run drags on too much so a warpless/100% run would just be way too much boringness.
It's hard to look this good. My TAS projects
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
Yeah, looks like there's not much interest in it, either. Oh well.
Fihlvein
He/Him
Joined: 7/28/2004
Posts: 135
Location: Finland Realms
Well, I personally love this game and would find 100% run awesome. But then again, I owned this game and played it endlessly so I'm not the most neutral person to say if this was entertaining in general.
Player (68)
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
I also think a 100% run would just be more of the same, but I could be wrong. Feel free to improve the any% run, though, I think at least the first level can be optimized some more (I wasn't as familiar with the game then as when I did the later levels).
Player (68)
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
Any tips on how to find memory addresses that don't want to reveal themselves? I've been toying around with the idea of trying to improve this movie, but if I were to do that, I want to watch some memory addresses while "playing". Specifically X and Y velocity if possible, so I know whether the pod is moving at max speed. But I just can't seem to find any convenient addresses with the cheat search. I can easily find the Health value and ship's orientation, but the speedometer is hard to find. So these are the ones I could find (yes, I suck at cheat search): 00C7 - health 0374 - ship's orientation (direction) 02D9 - movement speed in the Y-plane (I *think*), but only seems to work at low speed (when reaching high speed it goes back to 0)
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
...Improvement? I'll try not to get my hopes up too high. ;) To help you in this (potential) endeavor, I've whipped up a Lua script to provide you velocity, fuel, and directional information in a human-readable fashion. The script is here. Please go to the FCEU thread to pick up the latest FCEU if you don't already have it. Let me know if there are any problems with the script, or if you want any other functionality.
Player (68)
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
Holy crap!!!! That is so helpful! Thanks so much! I was NOT expecting this. :) I'm not promising anything though, at the moment I'm just going to try to improve the first level and then go from there. The reason is because I re-watched the (current) movie recently and decided I wasn't happy with using the boosters more than absolutely necessary to gain max speed. So if I finish the movie, it probably won't be much faster, but it will look more elegant.
Player (68)
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
What the hell - I seem to have found a new super-secret warp no one ever found before, that takes you from level 1 and straight to level 7. The only problem is that now I 'll have to do 7, 13 and 12 without boosters! I have no idea how that could be done, but it should not be slower than doing the rest of level 1, all of level 2, plus going to the warp in level 3. (obsolete)://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1811389751/Solar%20Jetman%20-%20Hunt%20for%20the%20Golden%20Warpship%20%28U%29.fcm Here it is, at level 7 and 20238 frames ahead (5:37), but no boosters and no timebombs. Which is a shame because now it will be next to impossible to maneuver the craft. Still, it'll be interesting to see the remaining planets completed with something that is essentially a tin can in space. I'm not sure exactly how necessary the timebombs are, maybe I'll be able to just squeeze past these giant spaceships that they were used on in the current version. Note that the boosters do not increase your max speed, only your thrust, so it should still be possible to bounce around the levels without losing too much time. If it can be done without losing about 5 and a half minutes then this is will be faster. Edit: That was rubbish, actually, here's level 1 again, about 30 more frames shaved off, so now I'm 20264 frames ahead of the current movie. That warp is really finicky, sometimes it just decides not to appear and sometimes it does appear. Weird. http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/987780358/SJ-improvement.fcm
Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
Interesting! Level 12 has absurd gravity and is going to be very tough without boosters, but I can't imagine the total would end up slower. You'll probably have to kill most of the big ships in 7 because they completely block some passages. But there are two backup pods on the way, so you might be able to skip two of them by saccing pods.
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
Wow. I was surprised by how much faster level 1 looks in the new WIP. Congrats on the discovery, Blublu. :)
Player (68)
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/1847659554/SJ-improvement_WIP2.fcm New WIP, this one goes about a third through level 7. It was really hard to do with the incredibly lifeless default thrusters, but I think I did a pretty good job so far. I found the memory address "0x0458", which is used to track the hitpoints of those large ships (I call them bigguys), so I could begin blasting them as early as possible (while they're still off screen). I don't know exactly why, but at the first bigguy there's a place on each side you can ram into and bounce away unharmed. It looks like it's possible to squeeze past them, but it's not. There's some kind of force field. Oh well. I'm shooting as many enemies as I can not only because it looks good, but also because my plan is to buy a Nippon Sports Jetpod at the store, which costs 10 000 moneys. Where do I plan to get that much? Well, there's an orange crystal in this level which I will spin around to generate money, and there's the Cyberzone. Those two together will yield 8775, plus the 1000 you start with adding up to 9775. I gather the remaining 225 by shooting enemies, which is already done. I wonder, however, if there might be a way to make those powerup pods appear more often? The ones that give 28 moneys (3 for shooting them, 25 for the treasure inside). If so, it could theoretically be possible to raise 1000 more and buy double-strength thrusters as well for planet 13 (otherwise I would buy them only for the final planet). So if you have a magical way of making about 35 of these appear, please let me know. Maybe a memory address that can be easily manipulated or something. Also, any tips on how I could spin the crystal with default thrusters would be welcome. I might have to scrap that whole idea if it turns out to be impossible. But I think I'll be able to figure something out. Hopefully. It doesn't matter if I have to destroy the pod (again) along the way since there's a spare one just before the warp.
Joined: 10/3/2005
Posts: 1332
Blublu wrote:
So if you have a magical way of making about 35 of these appear, please let me know. Maybe a memory address that can be easily manipulated or something.
I've updated the script to display enemy hit points, on the assumption that being able to detect enemies as they spawn (rather than waiting for them to appear onscreen) would make it easier to manipulate them. There are more scientific ways of dealing with randomness, but I hope that'll be sufficient.
Also, any tips on how I could spin the crystal with default thrusters would be welcome.
I have one idea: get the shields in level 1 and use enemy bullets for momentum.
Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
You might be able to spin the crystals more easily using the orange repel gravity ball things, they'll buffet your pod around a great deal. There are some pretty close to the orange crystal. If the no-boosters thing proves impossible and you have to do level 2, you might still be able to use the crystal trick to get to 25000 by the end of 7 and buy the Italian pod. The warping through drop zones will speed up 13 and 12 by several minutes.
Player (68)
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Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
Yes, the Nippon pod won't really speed things up as much as one might expect, the Italian pod would save an extreme amount of time. Unfortunately though, there's really not enough money available, even if I collect ALL available treasures in level 1 and 7, it only adds up to 17641 (and that includes some extremely out-of-the-way crystals in level 7). If I collect all the treasures in level 13 as well, it only adds up to 23943. It would be possible to shoot enough enemies to get the Italian pod for the final level, but it would probably be faster to just go for level 2 with its more easily accessible massive amount of treasures. (two orange crystals and a huge big treasure chest). Plus you'd get boosters.... I might be interested in making a warpless run after this one. Unless someone else calls dibs on it.
Player (98)
Joined: 7/16/2005
Posts: 34
If it helps, you can get the secret cyberzone in level 1 for an additional 2000, and still catch the warp to 7. See here. It costs a little under a minute, but if that's the difference between having double strength thrusters and anti-gravity or not, it might be worth it.
Player (68)
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
Yes, I know about that cyberzone, and included it in my calculations. I think it wouldn't be worth the extra time, because double-strength thrusters don't increase your max speed (only acceleration) and anti-gravity is completely unnecessary in a TAS. Also, you can't buy anything before level 7 if you warp to it anyway. If I desperately needed the extra 1000 for better thrusters, I could collect one of the radioactives from level 7 for 750 and shoot more enemies for the rest. Edit: Cool. I got more money out of that crystal than I thought. So I can have double-strength thrusters as well as Nippon Sports Jet in the next level! Awesome!
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WIP please? :)
Player (68)
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Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjaví­k, Ísland
I was going to wait until I finished this planet, but since you ask so nicely :) http://dehacked.2y.net/microstorage.php/info/536294037/SJ-improvement-WIP2.fcm It doesn't look as optimized as I wanted, but keep in mind that the default thrusters are basically useless. The crystal doesn't make things any easier, too.